All about my honey....

1. What is his name? Nicholas Abraham
2. How long have you been married? 12 years (13 in April)
3. How long did you date? 6 months
4. Who eats more sweets? No question about it...Me. Nick is not a big sugar fan. He does like ice cream, but that is about all he really likes.
5. Who said I love you first? He did and it took a week before I could say it back. The first time is so hard!
6. Who is taller? Nick
7. Who can sing better? Definitely Nick
8. Who is smarter? Nick is smarter, yet I am always right. Go figure.
9. Who does the laundry? Me. Our deal used to be that I would sort, wash and dry and he would fold and put away. That doesn't seem to be the case anymore. However, if I am folding and he comes in the room, he is very good to help me.
10. Who pays the bills? I do
11. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Looking at it, he does. If we are in it, then I am on the right side.
12. Who mows the lawn? Both, but if I mow, he is always the one to edge it.
13. Who cooks dinner? Kind of both. I hate cooking and I rarely have it started (or even figured out what we are having) before he gets home from work. We usually do it together.
14. Who drives? Ususally Nick, but on trips we will take turns (but he does it more).
15. Who is more stubborn? Me for sure. I'm kind of a brat.
16. Who kissed who first? It takes 2 to smooch, but I think he is the one who initiated it and wow--what a kiss!
17. Who asked who out first? He asked me and the first time I had to say no, but we went out a few days later.
18. Who proposed? Nick did after 10 days --and again--the first time I had to say no. Actually I told him that I couldn't say yes, but I couldn't say no and he told me "Never mind, I'll ask again later. On our two month anniversary of dating, he did the official proposal and this time I said "yes yes yes you big dork " or something like that.
19. Who is more sensitive? Me for sure. Sometime I wonder if that boy has emotion.
20. Who has more siblings? He does. There are 10 living children, 2 that died as babies and 1 half sister that I think he has only met once.
21. Who wears the pants? We each have a leg in. I think that we are pretty equal except I throw the bigger fits when needed.

I'll tag Paige and whoever else wants to do it.

Penance

Forgive me blog readers for I have procrastinated. It has been over a month since my last blog entry....

Apparently a bunch of you are getting sick of reading about how blessed I am. I will now try and tell you all the crappy things in my life. Just kidding, but it has been a most crazy month which is my excuse for not writing sooner. In my last entry, I mentioned a few of the things that had happened lately (we put our cat to sleep, our friends baby died, Nick's dad was having major bypass surgery). Since then we have had more fun. Nick's brother moved back in with us, Sam got RSV and a double ear infection, Seth had an ear infection as well and had breathing issues so I was doing breathing treatments for both boys. The worst part was on a Saturday morning a couple of weeks ago when we realized Bo was not doing well at all and we had to put him down that afternoon. It was so hard for me. He was such a great dog and I still miss him a ton. I am also realizing what a good helper he was in the kitchen. He was so good at washing the dishes!! I'm joking (he actually left a lot of spots). Okay, I promise to all of you who have already (or who had entertained the idea) of eating at my house, my pets do not clean my dishes. But I do find that I am sweeping up around the high chair constantly. At first I kept thinking to myself, why is all of this crap on the floor? Then I realize that it is because Bo is no longer here to keep things cleaned up. He was a great addition to our family and will be sorely missed!

This is shortly before we took Bo in. I don't know if you can tell, but he had lost so much weight and his hip bones were just sticking out. I still get emotional when I look at pictures from this day.
Our last family picture. Can you tell I have been crying already?

Okay, enough of that. I guess we decided that our life wasn't crazy enough, so in the midst of all of this we decided it was the perfect time to build a house. There is a new development across the field from us and we have been watching a particular lot in there for almost a year. They finally lowered the price and we decided to act on it. We made an offer and it is contingent on us selling our house by April 1st. Not a whole lot of time, and the market really sucks right now but we are giving it a shot. It is a rambler in a cul-de-sac which is all we want. Simple dreams really. We have had a few lookers, but no offers yet. Part of me wants it to happen, but I really like our house payment now and we know that we have great neighbors. So we will see.

It seemed like things were calming down until I started having some problems with my tooth. I went to the dentist today (whom I LOVE) and it turns out that my root canal that I had done a couple of years ago has a little pocket of infection at the tip of the root. So my dentist gave me some amoxicillian in hopes that it will take care of the infection and if not, then I will have to go back in next week and have the root canal re-done. Oh, and did I mention that I just cancelled my dental insurance since I haven't had any problems for years and figured it would be cheaper to just pay for my check-ups and cleanings.

In fun news, this Friday, we are celebrating the 18th annual Pancake Tuesday. It will be huge if everyone (or even half) of all that we invited show up. Just in our ward alone we invited over 50 families plus family and friends that used to attend when we lived up here before. We are doing it at the church to give us plenty of room. It will be our first time doing a big production since we have moved up here, so I'm not sure what to expect. It should be fun anyway.

In family news, Sam has finally got some teeth. His bottom two came in a little while ago, and his first top one has finally broken through. He can finally go down the stairs if you get him started. If you don't help him, he just sits there and whines. Seth learned how to do down stairs really early, so this has thrown me for a loop. I mean, he is almost a year old--just two weeks away.

Sam loves the cats and will chase them around and then tackle and lay on them.

Seth is doing great. That boy cracks me up with his comments. Not to get too personal, but the other day George (Nick's brother) was in the bathroom and Seth asked if he could go in. When George said no, Seth asked if he was going poop. When the answer came back in the affermative, Seth gave a very enthusiastic "GREAT". Can you tell he gets a lot of praise when he goes poop on the toilet?? He is doing great with the potty training. It was just a matter of him deciding that he wanted to do it. Now if I can just get him to want to go to Primary. It is a struggle every week with crying fits and last week he was hitting me as I was trying to take him in. He does fine after being in there for about 10 minutes, but at the first it is a major crisis. His new favorite word is bud and he calls everyone bud (except when we were in the grocery store last week and he said to some passing stranger--"Hello idiot").

This is what happens when Seth picks out his own clothes. He did a great job of making sure everything he picked was green. Maybe we can save this outfit for St. Patricks Day....

I haven't been to good at taking pictures lately, but I'll see if I can find some new ones....but at least there is finally a new post. By the way Sarah, why did you tag me with the one I did not too long ago that you had so much fun mocking me with??? I will do the other one instead.

I'm so thankful for all my blessings.

I've been reminded a lot in the last couple of days how blessed I am and how precious life is. We have seen how quickly your life can be turned upside down and what is truly important. On Thursday, some good friends of ours had a baby. They knew ahead of time of the complications that the baby had and that the prognosis was not very good. When he was born, it seemed like things were going better than expected and that even though things could change quickly, it appeared he would be able to beat the odds. Today the doctors found bleeding on the brain and knew they would not be able to do more for him and the decision was made to take him off life support. I can't imagine how they must be feeling right now. My heart aches for them and the pain they are suffering.

Another good friend just had her (almost) 4yr old nephew diagnosed with Leukemia. Nick and I were talking about how devastated we would be if we got the news one of our children had cancer. Thinking about all of this made me appreciate my boys so much more tonight. I just left the dishes and the rest of the kitchen in a mess and spent the night playing with them. It was good for all of us to just play basketball and read and tickle and laugh and play sleeping beauty and the handsome prince and just appreciate that they are healthy and happy. I hope I will be less likely to complain when they are so active.

On Saturday night we received a call that Nick's dad had a heart attack. When we went and saw him at the hospital, it seemed like it had been a pretty minor one and he would be going home the next day after a few tests. Well today we found out that 5 of his arteries are 90 percent blocked and he will be having major bypass surgery tomorrow.

These last few days have really made me take stock of everything good in my life. I am so blessed!!

A little piece of heaven

For Christmas, Nick gave me a set of fleece sheets. If you like cozy warm beds, I highly recommend getting some. It's like being wrapped up in a combination of hot chocolate, a fireplace, a new sweatshirt, slippers, a new robe...all things comforting!

Not much to look at but she sure could kiss!

We've had a hard couple of days. Last Thursday, we had to put our cat Callie to sleep. We could tell that she was not doing super great--she was even more skinny than normal, but she seemed to be doing okay. Then last Wednesday she just seemed to crash and it was like her body was shutting down. We finally decided it was time to take her in. Even though we knew it was time, it was still so hard. We have had her for about 12 years and she was such a sweet cat--even though most people didn't even know we had her--she was very timid and would hide if anyone was here. I will sure miss her sitting on my lap every night as I stay up way too late playing on the computer.

She loved to lick hair (not so much mine since it was too long)

And when she wanted to lick you, she would stand up and grab you!

Coaching pays off!

A couple of nights ago, Sam made my day when he started saying "mama mama mama" I know he has no idea that he is saying my name, but it still tickles me pink!! I've always heard that kids usually say Dad first, but both of my boys said my name first. I feel loved!

My first New Years resolution shot to hell!!

So yeah, I was really going to try and do a better job of updating the blog more frequently. But we are still in Jan, so there is still hope for a better year!

The holidays were great. We spent almost a week in Parowan which was very relaxing, but not restful by any means. We ended up staying up way too late each night playing games or talking with family. It was great having my brother Kyle and sisters Paige and Chalise there. We were also able to spend some time with friends, but it is never enough time! I think that I am now ready to cut the apron strings a little and we will start celebrating Christmas at our home (it will be the 1st time away from Parowan). I just think I want to start our own family traditions. But I have a whole year to prepare for that moment right???

New Years Eve was a lot of fun. We spent it with 4 other families in our ward and just had a bunch of yummy food and played some games. The best part was bringing the boys home early with a couple of the older kids so we could go back and play. Love the child free time!!!

Things are going alright here. Sam finally got his first tooth on New Years Day and his 2nd is ready to break through any day now. Both boys have been sick for awhile with the runny nose, cough, sneeze thing....oh yeah, they are ornery too!

Nick got a promotion at work and is now heading up a new service at the bank which is sometimes referred to as Premire Banking. Basically he is in charge of taking care of the top customers the bank has. He has been promoted faster than anyone in his department. EVER. I'm so proud of my honey!!

Here are some pictures of the highlights of the last month!

Sam having his first chat with Santa. Notice Sam's long hair?? Let me tell you about the conversation that happened at our house that night after the kids were in bed.....

Nick: "Oh Michelle, you are so observant"

Me: "What, did you get your hair cut today?"

Nick: "No, I didn't"

Me: "Did you cut Sam's hair tonight?" (I had been visiting teaching)

Nick: "Yes, and you didn't even notice, so you can't give me a hard time about not noticing things".

*****Slience******

Me: "So you cut my babies hair for the first time without me. Did you take any pictures?"

Nick: "No"

Me: "Did you save any hair?"

Nick: "Umm....no"

Me: Hmmmm (which was NOT said in a happy tone of voice)

Nick: "I'm so sorry, it is still in the garbage, let me go look for you. I know I can find some under the spaghetti that you threw out. I just know I can find some, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry..." grovel grovel :-)

Nick has now learned that you NEVER do any of the firsts without me present with the camera!

Seth decorating his first Gingerbread house.

Giving the Wise Men a ride on the ferris wheel. I'm sure it was a first for them.

We acted out the Nativity scene on Christmas Eve. I was Mary and Sam was a little lamb (we had to improvise with a couple of the costumes....)

Nick was Joseph and my nephew Kimball was baby Jesus.

Seth was a shepherd and my niece Myra was the angel. She loves playing dress-up with all of our old dance costumes and she was so excited to be the angel.

The kids with their new pajamas on Christmas Eve.

Seth was so excited about his new "Big Thomas".

Sam actually had fun unwrapping a few presents.

Our little Jedi Seth-Wan-Kanobi

My gals!!! When I lived in Cedar we had a tradition of making Chinese food on New Years Eve and since we wouldn't be there this year, we had to do it a little early. Great times!

Can you tell who likes Nutella? And really, who doesn't?