I will LIVE! for Better or Worse?

Life these pass three weeks, since Ian has been gone, have been a little more difficult than I was hoping for. Sorry I haven't written for a bit.

Worse….
I have been having a lot more flare up.
I have needed my walker more often than I'd like to admit to. 
I haven't been as calm with my kids as I'd like.
I can't remember…anything. I have alarms go off and I'm confused why (until I read the notes.)
I was late dropping off my kids to school one day.
I haven't planted my garden yet.
I haven't even gotten my garden ready.
I could keep going...

Better...
I am still able to get up and go every day.
I can still get around.
I love my kids… my kids know I love them.
I have the technology, and ability to use it, to help me with my brain fog. i.e. alarms on my iPad 
I make sure my kids get to school and back home safely everyday.
I have the ability to plant a garden and will do so. So it didn't happen this last week.

For some reason most human beings, ecspeacially women, have a mind set to look at the worse list of their lives and dwell on it. Why is that? Why can't we look at the worse list see what didn't happen and move on to the better list and see ALL that was DONE.
If we are always looking at the worse list then are minds are filled with it. Which leads to our minds continually thinking about the worst and so our lives continue to produce 'worse'. We start to live in the worse and can't see the better, eventually burying us.

I will continue to look at the worse and the better. I will rise with the better and not let the worst get me down. I will learn from both lists though. I refuse to give up. I will continue on, even if it is with my walker. We are going to continue to try and get outside at least twice a day. Yes one time might be me getting a 'stinky' to the outside trash, but I am going to get outside. I am going to keep living. I might have a disease but the disease doesn't have me. 

I hope, no I know that someday my children will be able to look back at their childhood and see that there were bump and detours but we played, learned and enjoyed every moment. They are going to be able to say "My mom LIVED."

I AM A MOTHER!

I AM A MOTHER!

A little bit ago I was at a lower point and thinking to myself. My mom has four children; a Director of sales, a Doctor, a State Trooper, and me: a mom. I'm not anything, I don't have any big accomplishments to my name. What have I done with my life and my name? I got a degree, but am doing nothing with it. I'm just a mom, and there is nothing that I can ever do to change that now. I started to cry then a familiar warm tingling like feeling filled my soul, and I heard very clearly "I trust you." "Love them like I love them and you."

I get to spend every day with my children, all my brothers have to leave and go to work. Yes they have great jobs and are supporting their families. In my biased opinion though. I have the best, hardest, and highest paying job of all them. I am responsible for teaching and rearing my children. I get to see the first step, and hear their first words, I cry with them, I cry for them, I see them struggle and get to help, sometimes helping is letting them struggle too. All those milestones and hardships I get to share and enjoy with them. My children know I love them and will ALWAYS be there for them. I get to have the magic of kissing a 'owwie' better. Even when my three year old says to me "I don't like you" and I say "I still love you." and he responds "I know mom, you always will." It's those little, sometimes hard things, that remind me its worth it. I am their mom, and the Lord had entrusted me with them. I will never retire! I will always be known as A MOM!

I cherish being a mom and it is all worth it

I am magnificent, and even in the most challenging days I will rely on my Heavenly Father for the blessings that he sees fit to bless me with and to witness. 

i_am_a_mother_cz.jpg Ocean Beach, San Francisco, Mothers Day, 2009. Crystal Theresa Zapanta Photography.

A little bit about me

"You don't realize how strong you are until being strong is all you have…  being brave doesn't mean that I'm not afraid, being brave is just acting in faith."

This is not what or where I expected my life to be.  Don't get me wrong I love my life, my kids, and my husband.  Yet there was so much that I want to accomplish by 27.  So here is a little about life to start this first post as a new blogger.

I was 23, a single mother of 16 month old twins, and had only been divorced for 8 months, when I met Ian. 

Ian was set to not marry till he was 33, the age when his youngest sibling is to graduate High School. 

I had just went through a divorce, had twins looking to me for everything, and was trying to get through school fast(taking 15-21 credits each semester.) I had no intentions of even looking for a boyfriend.

Thankfully the Lord knows the future. 

We met through mutual friends late in December, New Years Eve we were at the same party and hung out. (it was the first and last time we hung out past midnight until we were married.) On Jan 18, 2009 we were officially calling each other girlfriend and boyfriend. Except for 3 days due do his work, we dated everyday for a minimum of 5 hours till he left on April 28th for Basic training. (if you call taking care of young twins, staying in to watch the news, do my homework, and hang out till midnight dating :D )

A talk from his dad, me nudging and saying that I truly wanted to marry only him and that no-one else mattered, and weather I had a ring or not I was going to wait for him, we were engaged on April 20th. From the day he left for training (April 28, 2009) till he was back home (February 12, 2010) we wrote everyday. (Excluding 12 days; 5 on my part, 3 on his, during his basic graduation because we were together, and a weekend I flew to AZ to see him during a four day weekend. )

There were ups and downs that continued to bring us closer together, and confirm to our hearts that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives and eternity with the other. Ian lost both his grandpa's. (They were both great men and I am glad I got to meet them before they passed.) My dad was in a very serious accident that he should have died from. AIT was pushed back. I graduated college. Heather had surgery, I had surgery. I hit a deer (in Ian's car no less), and more littler minor things.

We were married for time and all eternity on February 20, 2010 in the Logan Utah Temple. We went on a 15 day cruise to Mexico for your honeymoon. Some say that was to long time, but we had those days to be us. When we got home we were a family of 4; there wasn't 9 months of prep, just our 18 days (we drove to the port in Cali and back). 

We had a wonderful almost four months together before Ian deployed to Iraq for a year. We tried to talk everyday over Skype. Just before he deployed we announced we were pregnant.  Conrad Charles was born on Feb 1st as Ian watched via Skype. 

Ian's 2 weeks of R&R was in April, Conrad was almost 3 months old when they met in person for the first time. It was a busy very fun 2 weeks. Ian's brother Ben got married, to Brittany, the day after Ian got home in South Jordan, UT. Ian adopted Scott and Heather. Conrad's baby blessing was right after the best thing that happened those two weeks though. Scott and Heather were sealed to Ian and I.

Ian returned home for good in June, and started school at USU in August of 2011.

We let the world know that we were expecting our fourth, May of 2012. We didn't find out the gender until the birth, which was very hard for some people :) 
Another BOY :) Hunter Ernest was born Oct 7th. The first birth of all our children Ian had physically attended. Conrad and Hunter are 20 months apart.

I knew something was wrong the day after Hunter was born. It wasn't that I didn't want to get out of bed it was that I couldn't get out of bed. After many months of a minimum of one doctor appointment a week, many blessings, lots and lots of tests, and even more tears and prayers.
I was diagnosed with Mixed Connective Tissue Disease and Fibromyalgia. I was told later that the stress of Hunters birth (a doctor stopped my labor for days, when I should have been allowed to continue) was most likely the 'trigger' or 'stresser' that caused these dormant, life changing diagnosis's to flare and become presant. It will be a life long thing, but I have found different lifestyle changes and medicines/prescriptions that have been able to help immensely. 

My amazing husband is kind and patient and willing to stand and learn right along with me. (Well sometimes he is the only one standing) Reminding me gently that "today is better than a week ago" when we are trying a different medicine and it is taking longer than I want. Or I just plain have a set back and then we start the count over. My kids have learned that letting mom sleep in, even 10 minutes, makes a big difference somehow. Oh my kids, I love them. They have went through so much too. They give me the strength and a reason to continue to press forward somedays. On those not so great days that I can't even handle clothes touching me. I crave for their soft little hands in mine, or  their tight excited bone jarring hugs. They have learned though, just like me, that it will send me high in the sky on the pain scale. So on the 'no touch' days we just smile and laugh without touching. Its hard but … "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able…" 1 Corinthians 10:13 

So no this isn't where I saw myself at 27, telling my kids that its a no touch day today, or passing out because I'm in so much pain over putting on my sock, or just going almost crazy ecstatic over the sale of my new rollator (thats the fancy name for a walker). I would like to say I'd trade it all in, but I can't, because I know that God knows I can handle it. So I will. I will fight for every step somedays and I will run with my kids on other. God has allowed me this trial and just like so many others I will stand strong as the winds try to move me. Because when he allows us trials, he gives us opportunities to see miracles and learn compassion.


"Rejoice in the Lord always… let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. and the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts…" Philippians 4:4-7

“Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body. But rather, to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up,totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming .... WOW what a ride.” –Mark Frost