Does anyone have any peanut butter for this?

I have to say that I have the most adorable child. Well all of them are adorable, but Marc got quote of the day at dinner. We were having a gourmet dinner of grilled cheese and oranges and Marcus says, "Does anyone have any peanut butter for this?" and he started to giggle. It was so funny.
Unfortunately, he hasn't learned how to go out on a high note because he proceeded to ask for pee pee as well. It is so much fun to see how our kid's sense of humor develop. My boys are seem to dwell a lot on potty humor and violence, but sometimes they hit it right.
Kevin and the boys got going on the Pinewood Derby cars today. Jeremy's is red and Marcus's(since they don't have to follow the rules) will be turquoise and little strips of steel. They spent time filing down axles and wheels and spray painting the bodies. Life is good when you feel like you have accomplished things when you have worked on Pinewood Derby cars, done some laundry and gotten 20 bags of tumbleweeds to the city dumpster and you feel like you have a productive day.
My parents and brother LaMont left this morning. They were in town for Jonathan's graduation. He has gotten his master's in mechanical engineering. I went to the convocation on Friday. It was great, but I felt like I wanted to go back to school. I know it would be different trying to fit in studying time with the kids and getting babysitters, but I think I would love it as well. If I only knew what major to do. Oh well, for today I will design wedding invitations and writing books and having lovely lazy days with my family.
Abundance to all,
Becky

Preparation and Doing

I have been pondering preparation that last little while. I have been trying to get prepared for a summer schedule that doesn't include tons of free time for hours of playing on the computer or the Wii. I have been trying to get prepared in case of emergencies by getting my food storage, water storage and emergency supplies together and ready. I am preparing menus and shopping lists so I am prepared to make dinner at 4pm and not scrambling for ingredients. I am trying to prepare myself to be a good mother, wife and person by practicing the habits I think will lead me to a happy life. I have been so busy preparing that I haven't been DOING enough doing with other things in my life. I would much rather make a list of the fun things that we are going to do as a family and put off doing the taxes.
So is my preparing my doing? I know I have been neglecting the odd thing (you don't get in that much trouble if you don't pay taxes...right? It's not like I am not going to do them. They just might get submitted on April 15.)
Last night I was preparing for what I wanted to teach my children spiritually. I would like to spend the week focusing on having an attitude of gratitude. My 9 and 5 year old boys have been saying increasingly more silly prayers. My 5 year old has been thankful for the Wii, games, computer games and new Wii game with alarming frequency and while I think we should be grateful for the things we have (because who doesn't appreciate things?), I think we should be focusing our appreciation in additional ways. So last night I found a bunch of quotes for us to discuss and a couple of stories that we can explore to help develop an attitude of gratitude. I want them to be prepared to be grateful even when things aren't going great to be grateful for what they do have. I think one of my favorite quotes was this one:

Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful. - Buddha

So that is the goal for the week to help increase all of our attitudes of gratitude. I have decided to add two keys to my 8 keys of excellence. (Bobbi DePorter's 8 keys) I am adding Attitude of Gratitude and Look for God in all things. I hope I am prepared :) and if not I am grateful for the journey. Have a great day of thanks.

I have MS- WHAT THE H@#!?

So, it has been a very interesting week. It has been strange and wonderful and scary and even a little fun. I have been having numbness and tingling in my lower body for about 6 weeks now. It took me about 4 weeks to get to the doctor and after ruling out bulging discs and MS and tumors in my brain after the 1st set of MRIs I went back for some more last Friday. They did my neck and middle back this time and found an MS lesion in my spinal cord. So I went to the doctor on Monday thinking that MS was ruled out and nope I guess you can get it in your spinal cord as well. So, it was a little shocking. I have a sister in law that has MS. Her MS is fairly far gone, she spends alot of time in bed and she is in tons of pain all of the time. By the way, I haven't had to deal with pain. Discomfort, yes, but not pain so I am so grateful for that.
So blessing #6738 for the day, my doctor is a rock star. She said, Okay is there a friend or family member who can take care of your kids tomorrow so we can get your baseline test done tomorrow so I can get you started on treatments? Blessing #6741 (I am sure that a couple blessings slipped through there while I was trying not to cry and trying to take this in.) So I called one of my best friends, Michelle, and asked her if she could take my kids so I could go get a spinal tap in the morning- do ECGs (they send electrical currents down your nerves to check how fast your nerves are responding- COOL Huh?) and do muscle testing. Then at 4pm I got to start the first steroid treatment. I was trying not to cry, but I was having a hard time not crying when I was trying to ask her if she could take my kids. She told me later that she was talking to her husband and it must be bad because she said that I was crying and I don't cry that much (if she only knew) So, we got everything set up and by the way. My doctor is so great. She wanted me to get the treatments started right away and she wanted a clinic that was open on Saturday so I could do the treatments for 5 days starting on Tuesday. There weren't any IV treatment centers open on Saturday so we are going to go for 4 days and see where that leaves me. I am assuming we are going to get together and do more tests next week to see how the steroid treatments go. The treatment centers weren't being as helpful as my doctor wanted so she got on the phone and started asking for supervisors and got me into the treatments for the next day. She rocks.
We get everything set up and I am just kind of numb literally and figuratively and I need to go to the lab next door and get blood drawn for the 3rd time to finished the gluclose testing. (I don't have diabetes- YIPPEE!!!! ) done, but first I head to bathroom so I can have a break down in the relative privacy of the bathroom stall. I wasn't able to cry for very long because there was a horribly strong nasty floral air freshner. It was horrible I could only stand it for a few minutes. So I put cold paper towel on my face and that helped a tiny bit, but my eyes were bright blue like they get when I cry and my face was all splotchy, but I went to get my blood drawn for the last time and got into the car. I called Kevin right when I got to the car, because I needed to talk t0 him. I probably should have waited until he got home, but I really needed to talk to him. So, he was a little shocked as well. I was crying on the way home.
I drove home and when right to Michelle's house because she had had my kids for a few hours and I figured that was enough, but I couldn't find her. I went over to Elise's house thinking that Michelle would be over there, but she wasn't. Elise asked if I was OK because it looked like I was crying. So I told her and she got really upset, and that was a good and bad thing (blessing 7,397 for the day). She was talking about how things were so hard and what a tragedy it was and I thought - no it isn't. I told her that about 10% of people with MS don't have a huge problem with it and I have decided that I am within that 10%. It's going to be OK. When I was driving home I was thinking about what I need to be learning from this. What do I need to be understanding about the world and my family and life through this experience. In General Conference one comment from Henry B Eyring was, "The disciple that accepts a trial as a way to grow..." I am going to have to look that one up because I didn't get the whole quote, but it was good.
Anyway, I went to pick up Marcus from school and came back to Jen's house to see if she was there. She had gotten the slip and slide out for all of the kids and was having fun) I sent my kids to go get in their swimsuits and went to go get Anna at Michelle's. I told her and it was much easier the 3rd(Jen) and 4th (Michelle) time.
Okay I am going to visualize falling asleep and being grateful for being asleep and then I can get a little more sleep before I have to get up to get Jeremy ready for school. This has been exhausting to get this all out of my head. I think I need to go back and write everything so that it makes more sense. I was even thinking that this would be a great way for me to write a book. I could share all the preparation that I realize I have been going through over the last few months to prepare for me for this event. It has been miraculous all of the blessings that have been heaped on my family. I wish Kevin were in the same place as me. I think he would be a little more calm about the whole thing if he had a similar perspective, but time can help him with that. We all move at our own speeds. He will understand. You just never know what blessings are going to come from a trial. I have been marveling at the blessings of my friends, family and everything. It is so amazing that we have so many blessings and Heavenly Father if just ready to keep on giving all the time. Everything is in abundance-as much as we can enjoy.
Tomorrow I will have to share about all of the blessings of that day of tests and treatments. It was amazing.
Smile, Laugh and Be Happy
Becky

Wind in the trees

I am sitting in bed with the laptop. I am listening to the wind in the trees. It is strange that the wind doesn't seem to be coming into the house-it is just blowing past my window. I can imagine it blowing through the neighbor's aspen trees.
It has been a great day today. We had someone come and look at our house today. They really liked it, but we will see what will come of it. They wanted to move either before July or after they have their new baby. They were really cute. I think they would fit in really well. They have one little blonde boy and another little boy on the way.
I wonder how long it has been since we submitted that offer on the Hoskin's house. I will have to check my email and see. I think i am going to try to do an open house on Saturday for the house and we will see if we can get more people in to see how great our house is. I am falling asleep as I type. Time to go to bed.---
Smile Laugh lots and Be Happy.