one month in Oregon

It's crazy it's already been a month. I don't feel like this is my home necessarily but I'm fairly comfortable here.
We have gone to lots of different parks to see what ones we like, there are better parks here then Utah I think.
We've found our favorite Wal-Mart and favorite winco. And love the big library!
We haven't made tons of friends yet but that okay. We did have a babysitter and so we had a date night which was much needed and the boys did fairly well.
I'm adjusting fairly well, Isaac is struggling the most, which makes since its hard to understand and even if I had prepared him better he would of still had a hard time. He still asks to go home or go to grandma's house and doesn't understand that stuff is far away. But he will get used to it eventually.
Isaac is learning lots and lots every day, I love it! He said his first prayer with help last night, he is growing up and I love it. He says hi to "friends" at the park lol it's cute. He struggles in nursery still but oh well we will get there.
Jackson is talkative without saying actual words and gestures and points to things. He walks tons and is silly and learning new things all the time. In a little over a month he will be 1, so exciting! Also he squeals a lot and rawrs. And night feedings are gone and just now he is starting to sleep through the night....yay, now my body needs to let me sleep through the night.
We got asked to talk on the 11th so I've been having dreams and nightmares about that while I prepare what to say lol mostly nightmares about how my boys are going to behave.
We have our first ward get together for chili and pie this Saturday so that should be fun seeing people outside of church.
I made a list and we are doing better at scripture study together with the kids, just doing the kid version for now. My personal prayers and church reading, and nightly prayers and fhe on Mondays. Need to work on morning prayers and keeping this a good routine.
We love video chatting with family sometimes it helps Isaac and sometimes it makes it worse, just never know lol
Without getting to go to Sunday school or relief society and sometimes missing most of sacrament it's been hard church wise but I try to read the lessons.
Electronic wise...still a work in progress. I'm better but trying to get Isaac to stop asking to play games on the tablet or watch a show is hard but everything he does is educational.
Jackson a few days ago got the remote handed it to daddy and looked at the tv "um turn it on please" lol this kid is too smart for a 10 month old.
Oh and some sweetness, Isaac has been good at saying I love you in his own cute way, yesterday out of no where he said love you Jackson, it was so sweet. Especially since they don't get along very often.
I'm hoping for us to do some nature hiking soon but we have a few busy Saturday's coming up and don't have a hiking back pack thing for Jackson (I don't want to lug his heaviness and wiggliness around and up and down hills lol since most hikes aren't stroller friendly. If we go I will take pretty Fall pictures don't worry
Thanks to internet we can still stay pretty connected with family and friends from far away which I love
P.s. i'm pretty sure our neighbors dislike us just as much as we may sometimes dislike them....apartment problems

My journey back to Him: Step 1

I’m not sure how exactly to write this so I’m going to be write and hope I didn’t miss anything and hope it’s not all over the place =]  

I think we all have things we want to change about ourselves either physically or spiritually or mentally but admitting we want to and actually taking action is two completely different things.

I’m a pretty lazy person, not completely lazy because with kids I really can’t be but I will admit that I am lazy to some extent.

Also this brings up where there are times when you do take action and start changing but for whatever reason things come up and your progress starts falling and your back to where you were before.

Actually starting is the hardest part, it’s easy to just stay in the comfortable even if it’s not healthy or the best place you can be. We just convince ourselves changing is too hard so I’m just going to stay here for a little while longer and years later your still there, not progressing at all.

My point is when we decided we were going to pick up and move to another state where I had no family and no friends, and a place I had never been to before, it got me thinking. I was really excited for the adventure and of course really scared but I started thinking well maybe now I can change. Not fully knowing the changes I thought I should make I just felt that I probably should change somethings now that I’ve been given this fresh start.

Since moving here these past two weeks my eyes have been opened to a few changes I needed to make. It became this list all from different categories. I’m sitting here knowing I need to change, not that I’m unhappy but knowing I could be happier and it would be better for me in the long run but also really wanting to stay lazy (physically, spiritually, mentally) because it’s just too hard.

Now being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints even though we moved away from friends and family we aren’t fully alone because we’ve got these other members of the church to go to and get to know and learn from and ask for help from. That is really comforting but still a little scary because I’m not one to just go up and talk to people.

Anyways this past Sunday I went to church by myself because the boys were sick but we felt at least one of us should go and get to know more people. I’m really glad I did because I think it gave me a few more things to add to my list and gave me a little bit more of a push to get up and make the changes I needed to make. Now I may have long list of things to change BUT I realize I can’t do them all at once because that’s what makes it harder to complete the list, feeling overwhelmed.

 

The number one on my list I’ve decided to tackle first is in the spiritual department.

I’ve never been a terrible member of the church, I’ve made mistakes like everyone and learned from them. But when I came to this ward I felt a little inadequate because everyone seemed SO spiritual (not saying my past wards weren’t spiritual or the people I know aren’t, it just showed it to me in a different way or my eyes were more open to see it then usual), partly because I only knew them on Sunday. It made me realize that I’ve been doing the: go to church, serve others, don’t drink, and don’t swear….etc. I’ve realized I’ve just been coasting, no huge inclines and no huge downfalls, just resting at this pace, settling. My first thought was how can people be this spiritual? I’ve had my spiritual moments but not very many, when I looked back at journal entries I remember the spiritual moments and how I felt but it had been awhile.

 It’s hard for me to admit this for several reasons. 1. It makes me feel like I’m a bad person even though tons of us out there probably are just coasting through life. 2. I don’t like feeling exposed and whenever I cry in front of someone or I’m telling my faults, that’s exposing myself and I feel naked and I don’t like that. Afterwards you always seem to feel better but during the process it’s not that fun.

A few days ago I thought one way to start this journey of being more spiritual among other ideas is to read the book “21 days closer to Christ” by: Emily Freeman, again. Now you can read a chapter a day or take your time. I decided that once I felt like I accomplished whatever that day/step/chapter required that I would move on.

The first day’s invitation is: come. Basically he asks at the end what fills your nets and distracts you from coming and seeing/hearing Christ. I realized one of my big ones is electronics: phone, facebook, tv, movies, Instagram….etc. I knew I had this problem but just haven’t done much about it. Anyways so here goes to less tv/ phone time and more time focusing even more on my kids, my husband, Christ, and our home.

“As members of the church, we are charged to not let our resolve dribble out and our commitment to follow the Savior evaporate. We must be firm as a rock in living the gospel.” –Robet D. Hales

In spare moments I’ve decided to read a few more inspirational type books as well, so one we have that I’ve never read it called “Return” By: Robert D. Hales

I think I picked a good one so far!

I will blog more after I feel I’ve learned something important to share, or I’ve completely most of the step, and when I start a new change on my list.

Your more than welcome to suggest good spiritual books you’ve read, preferably LDS ones but if it isn’t I will still look into it.

Within two days I have noticed a slight difference, and enjoyed more one on one time with my kids and I think they’ve really enjoyed that. =] Have a fantastic weekend!

Goodbye & Hello

Here we are in Oregon...
We've said quite a few goodbyes to family and friends before we left. It wasn't too hard because we weren't leaving yet so it felt like it wasn't really happening but then the day of it wasn't so easy to say bye to my dad. Byes are not so fun even if you know you will see them again. I've never been very far away from my parents. The longest was 5 hours away at college in Idaho.
Everything went slowly then really quickly. Thankfully my father in law helped us with the move and my mom came along to help with the kids and unpacking.
I wouldn't have survived the drive with the boys by myself so glad my mom was there to help. We did pretty good though. We made it to baker city Oregon and rested up for the next days drive. We arrived Wednesday at 2:30 and the truck almost all unloaded. So we started the fun of unpacking. We got unpacked in about two days. Would of taken longer if I didn't have my mom helping out. Then we explored our new home town. There are a lot of fun things and somethings are different.
We love the park that's 5 mins away and next to it is a carousel ride so yay
Our ward is a pretty good size and they all seem nice. It's still going to take some time to make new friends and get use to everything. It's weird not really knowing anyone, and scary.
It helps having the kids keep me busy, they have struggled though. We dropped grandma off to the airport yesterday and once we did Isaac started asking where's grandma, it broke my heart but she can't stay forever with us. It will take time for him to stop asking for his normal visitors but we will skype or do hangouts to keep in touch. Isaac is sleeping pretty well and Jackson is still adjusting but is also teething so we are taking one step at a time and mommy takes naps sometimes too. I'm LOVING the terrible twos...not! Moving sure didn't help that. He pushes a lot of buttons. But we have an awesome library and has cool storytime.
Moving from a home to an apartment isn't fun because of dogs barking and noisy neighbors but it's not terrible. And I always worry my kids crying will keep a neighbor up too.
So goodbyes are never fun but hellos can be exciting....welcome to our new adventure living in oregon. Here's to a fresh start!
(Side note in about two years or less we will buy a house)