First Hair Cut ...

I gave Harrison his first hair cut today. Okay so it was like 50 hairs. he just had some hairs on the back that were getting long so I trimmed them up a bit. Still I wanted to note it here since this will be a source for his baby book.

Normally, I save cuttings from the first haircut. I didn't today. It was just so little hair. But the whole time I was snipping, I was thinking about how little hair Camille had and her first haircut in the hospital as we prepared for her death. That little lock of hair is a treasure to me now. I was amazed my sister in law Marleen was even able to get the nearly one inch curl that she did off her nearly bald head.

Today as I cut Harrison's hair I kept telling myself there would be lots more haircuts for him. I wouldn't need to save these little strands. He is getting to that high anxiety stage of life for me. He turns one in 10 days now. He has been sick and I worry.

How can my baby be turning one already? He is such a sweet little, snuggly boy. Everyone just adores him. Even Noble, who I expected to have more jealousy, just loves Harrison. He just wants Harrison to get big and play with him faster.

Harrison has found the famous cup drawer and begun exploring it. He doesn't really climb in so much. The girls like to put him in there so he can play like Camille did but since that is not so great for the drawer we try to discourage that. He prefers to just empty its contents and chew on some of them along the way.

Harrison has also been taking his first steps. Well it is more like falling to me or his dad with his feet moving at this point, but it he gets one or two steps in there before gets to us. He is rather adept at going up and down stairs. I still don't let him do that much, but I am always surprised at how well he does when I take the time to sit with him while he learns his stair skills.

He is a rather picky eater. He is bothered by certain textures. He really likes those pouches with the baby food in them. They are my new secret weapon to getting veggies in him. I was amazed that he ate a Cutie clementine that I cut up really small today. Other than that his favorites are any cereal Dad is eating, oatmeal, bananas, Life cereal, macaroni and cheese, tomatoes, yogurt, bits of string cheese, and smoothies.

He takes 1 - 2 naps a day. Usually his first nap is around 10:30. Then he wakes up around 11:30-12:00 when I put Noble down. He will do down again around 2 or 3 when Noble wakes up. I have a very short window in the morning to go do anything before the naps times begin.

Sorry for the mundane details. Its just that I wish I could remember all these things about Camille. Her accident hard wiped my brain in some ways and if I hadn't written these things down I would not have remembered them. Luckily I had written all her habits down for my parents and in laws for the weekend they took care of her just 2 weeks before she died.

And now I have some of it written down for my treasure of a boy so I won't ever forget him at one.

A Lasting Change ... the Update

One the posts I wrote just after Camille passed away was entitled A Lasting Change. I wrote it about some of the good changes I had seen come from the tragedy that befell our family. One of those was the change in my family. I became a new mother that day Camille died. There were lots of hard and painful and just downright terrible changes that happened to me that day. But there were also some new and wonderful changes that took place.

Lately, I have really had my eyes opened to how "lasting" these changes in me have been. Given the perspective of 3.5 years and birthing two more children into our home, I have seen these changes put to the test and over time and trial, I have discovered that at least some of these good changes are, for me, permanent.

The other day a friend and I were talking about kids and mothering. Half joking, she said something like, "when is it supposed to get to the point where you really enjoy it?" We are both in the little kid stage. This can be a really hard stage of motherhood. I get that. But I answered her question with one word. "NOW!" Whenever now is for you, that is when you should start enjoying it.

I explained that before Camille passed away I was just in survival mode with the 4 kids under age 6. I was just "getting through it" till the youngest two could play together more and make my job as Mom less physically demanding. I was just starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel of that hard first year of essentially 2 babies when Camille died.

"You have to enjoy the now because sometimes that is all you get." That is one change that Camille's death made permanent in me. I enjoy the now. Even when my kids are driving me nuts, I still enjoy the now. I may get frustrated or overwhelmed at times. But I constantly have a joy in my soul that I get to be a mother. It is a constant undercurrent in my life now that dramatically shapes my mothering.

Hand in hand with that is how much more positive I am about my job as a mother. I do not look at my role with as much pessimism. When people ask me about how I like being a mother, my first thoughts are all positive. I don't think about how hard it is or the lack of sleep or the whining, and tantrums and redundancy or the daily training. I think of how much I love my children and how lucky I am to have such amazing people in my family. I think of how honored I am to be their mother and all the cute things they say and their shiningly wonderful qualities.

I am thankful for these changes. They are vastly improving my mothering experience. I am grateful that there has been such a personally wonderful and lasting good that has come about as a result of an otherwise terrible tragedy.

What I've Been Up To: Reaching Out

We are well into our first week of March and I have been happily surprised by how little the screens have been on. That month goal has accomplished its purpose I think.

We have been recuperating from a nasty respiratory bug that has been making the rounds through our family. Today is the first day I haven't taken a decongestant. I have been very drowsy from the sinus pressure and drugs and therefore, absent from my blogging. I don't know what I would do without my angel of a mother coming to tend me when Jon was out of town and my kids and I were all sick. She got the bug too in the end. She says she is expendable and it is ok for her to get sick because she doesn't have to take care of kids all day. She is wrong. I need her too much. I am glad she is getting better now too.

It was a lovely sunny day today with temperatures in the mid seventies. The kids and I spent the after school hours playing out in front of the house. I love those times. I love when my neighbors come out and we get a chance to visit while the kids play. I have great neighbors. What a blessing they are!

Other than that, I have been getting up to speed on my new responsibilities at church. We had big changes recently and I got a new job working in the women's organization as a counselor over education. It has been fun working with the other women in the presidency and getting to know the ladies at church better.

One thing I am going to try to do in an effort to "reach out" more to the women in the ward is to try to be more mindful of them and to send out little notes to them when I am thinking of them. I sent one today. It felt good to write my sincere feelings down to a woman I admire and yet don't speak to very often.

I used to work with her ... back when Camille was with us and through her accident and for 3 months after. Then the boundaries to our ward changed and we were in different wards. A couple years later we were back in the same ward again after more boundary changes but we haven't been working together again like we used to. So today I thought of her and how much I enjoyed working with her back then. So I sat down and wrote her a note to tell her I loved her.

It felt good. I want to do that more. I do not always come across as warmly as I want to. I am a doer. I like to get my list checked off. Often times I am so focused on getting things done (important things) that I am not able to express the warm and loving feelings that are in my heart for the people I pass or see along the way. I really do have deep feelings of love and appreciation and admiration for people. I think many people I know would be surprised to know how much love I feel for them. I hope my little card writing campaign will help me express those feelings more fully and brighten a day here and there of someone who needs to know they are loved that day.

Results from the No Screen Month Test

As it is the last day of February and our family's experiment of no screens, I want to share the observations we have made throughout the testing phase.

I secretly dreaded this month because I like my TV shows. Also I felt like there were going to be lots of meltdown times when I would just really NEED Little Bear to help me cope. I was very surprised at how much easier this month has been than I thought it would be. I only really felt like I needed Little Bear once! I mean ONCE!

I didn't turn him on so I guess I really didn't NEED him. It just would have been easier than dealing with the tantrum. But being as I am a mom I guess I should be dealing with the child having the tantrum, not the TV dealing with it. This goes back to my last post about not doing things the easiest way. Sometimes, we learn more and get better outcomes when we do things the harder less efficient way. But I digress...

So this week I have been asking the kids, "I know that this no screen month has been boring at times, especially on the weekends when none of your friends can play. But I want to know if you have seen any good things that have come out of it?"

Here are some of their responses: Our home is more calm. I got to know my little brothers better because I spent more time with them. There is more peace in our home. I feel more love in our home. We had less fighting. Mom put us to bed more. Mom yelled less. We spent more time together.

My response was that there is a significant peace in our home with the quiet on no screen and no mom yelling to turn off screen or having to repeat directions several times because someone was too absorbed in a screen to pay attention. I also noticed more time spent as a family. More Dad and kid interaction, more Mom and kid interaction and more siblings playing together.

Jon noticed a shift in our children as they seemed less affected by the "Hollywood" propaganda machine.

All these are very wonderful outcomes and the far surpass my expectations of this experiment. Really I can't even say how much more powerfully I feel a sense of peace and order in our home.

Nevertheless, the weekends have been hard with no TV. So we are going to try to keep the good stuff and ease up to alleviate the bad part of boring weekends. We will see how this balance goes. For now we are going to start doing "No Screens Monday - Thursday and then allow screens after school on Friday and all day Saturday. Sundays we allow screens but only to watch or view church related programing (LDS.org), which means we hardly ever have TV on and the kids play some games from HERE.

Now we of course will make some exceptions now and then. Like this last weekend when I was so sick I couldn't get out of bed and my husband was out of town. I turned the TV on for Noble so I could lay down and sleep while the baby slept. Certain circumstances call for an exception. The trick is keeping the "exceptions" to a minimum to keep the strength of the rule.

I hope we will still see that peace and calm and love in our home like we have this month. If not we may have to revisit a new solution. It will be harder for me than for the kids really. I am the one home all day with one kid napping and one kid to entertain. It would be easier to just watch TV. But life isn't about going the easy route I am learning.

Next month is "no getting angry" month. I feel much more able to tackle that after such a good February. I just have to fine tune a few times when my instructions to kids have gone unheeded after several repeats. Deep Breaths here I come.

Deep Thought

I have had a deep thought percolating in my mind of late. I thought I would share it. It is along the same lines as the idea that "life is more about the journey than the destination." I have been realizing that life is less about what the beauty and wonder of our creations here on earth and more about us learning to become creators.

We do wonderful things here on earth. We create art, we create clean spaces, we create children and families and relationships and work projects and inventions and a million other little things. We like to make these things look beautiful and strive for some degree of "perfection" in these things we create.

But the reality is that often the things we create or are creating are no where close to "perfect." The house is often messy and the relationships can be messy too sometimes. Even when we feel we get something just the way we want it, life can suddenly turn it upside down and "mess it up."

By nature, I am a woman who looks for the straightest line between two points. The one point is where I am and the other is where I want to be. I am a doer. I want to check it off my list and I want it to stay checked. :) I want to drive the shortest, and fastest way to the store or the school. I want to order my life so that it works at maximum efficiency.

So this realization that has been coming to me has really shaken my paradigm. I am seeing that sometimes it is better for me to get up and walk upstairs to get something up there I need rather than ask my husband to bring it down with him when he comes. Why? Because I get the exercise of climbing the stairs and strengthening my muscles.

I am seeing that the purpose of picking up the toys may not be about getting the house clean but it may be about making me a better worker. Perhaps it is better to cook whatever I eat because the work of it will make me stronger and healthier than doing the easy thing or eating out or picking up fast food.

It has made me think about the Karate Kid movie (the original) where Mr. Miagi makes the kid do all those random chores. Maybe he didn't really need his fence painted or his car washed. The whole point was to build the kids muscles in the right movements.

It is okay if my kids are not perfect. They are in training. It is okay if I am not perfect. I am also in training. I succeed when I keep training. There is no "finish" to this work. I am in school. I am learning - often one mistake at a time.

I don't have to create perfection. I just have to grow and learn as I create.

This thought has made my house cleaning and cooking and mothering seem so much more purposeful and hopeful and positive. I hope it helps anyone else out there as much as it has helped me. Anyone get thoughts to add to this?

Best Valentine's Day Ever

Yes. That is right. Today has been my favorite Valentine's Day ever. First off, it being a Tuesday and all I really had no expectations for the day. I mean I had to do my big cook for my dinner group and Jon had work so ...

Then last night my sweet hubby came out of his office with a bow on his head and a piece of paper taped to his chest. The paper had a poem written on it telling me that his Valentine's gift to me was a day with him home with me all day.

I read it and a big smile spread across my face. "You mean no going to work? No working from home? No doing any accounting or checking up on things by phone? A whole day where you are all mine???" I asked. He nodded and said he had told everyone at work not to bug him. :)

You see usually when Jon doesn't have to work, he has other things he wants to do. But today he did whatever I wanted to do. It was the best day ever. First we woke up together early and made a special Valentine's day breakfast for the girls. I made a Dutch baby and cut out pieces of it with a heart shaped cookie cutter. He went with me to take the kids to school.

Then he watched the boys while I attempted to make treats for some friends. It didn't work out like I had hoped so I threw it away. Next we went to Ethel M's chocolate factory and picked out a big box of chocolates together. Yummm! Then we went to lunch together at Heidi's Deli. It was great. He has been telling me about it for weeks and I finally got to go with him. We stopped by the grocery store to pick up some ingredients for "plan B" treats for friends. He drove the boys around in the car cart. I never get that one because it so cumbersome. He made it go all over the place and the boys loved it.

We came back home to give the boys a nap and Jon worked out while I made my "plan B" treats - Oreo Truffles - a sure fire hit. We played some scrabble and when the boys woke up and the girls came home he watched the boys while I cooked some Filet Mignon and Top Sirloin steaks and fingerling potatoes and a green salad.

Now we have cleaned up and bathed and bedded the boys and it is time to go hot tubbing with the girls before bedtime. :) Not too out of the ordinary of a day, except being with my Jonathan makes my regular boring day so much better. I just REALLY love spending time with my honey. Hope your Valentine's day was as great as mine.

A Blog Post by Annie

Annie wanted to start her own blog today. I started a private one for her and she wrote her first post. I thought maybe you all would enjoy reading it so I am re posting it here. Her blog is called "My Awesome Childhood," and considering who is living it, I have no doubt it will be "awesome." Here is Annie's blog, in her own words:

One day my mom and dad gave a talk in church on the same day. I am going to talk about my mom's talk. My mom went first. She talked about how we can do things that we really don't want to do. She said we should do it because we should love the person that asked us to do it. She said that when someone asks her to do something that she really doesn't want to do, she thinks about the Savior because He did something that He didn't want to do, but He did it anyway because He loved us. So she would think about that and she would do that thing that they asked her to do as long as she knew the Lord wanted her to do it.

She also talked about losing her baby daughter was an experience for her because many other people had been through the same thing. She also said that their were two roads. One road was where there were people who were angry at the Lord and bitter for having him making their babies die. The other road had people who weren't angry at the Lord and who were humble and going to church and didn't complain about it because they knew that the Lord needed their babies in heaven for some reason. 

She talked about her grandmother who was as strong as an ox. She had 4 girls and 2 boys. She would always say that to my mom. Then my mom had 4 girls and 2 boys. It made my mom grow closer to her grandmother because she had experienced what her grandmother had experienced. What she is saying is that when we suffer, we are growing closer to the Lord because we are doing the same thing that our Savior did. 

Everybody said that they loved my mom's talk. I loved it the most because I am her number one fan. I look up to my mom because she does great things. She chooses the right.  But if my mother goes astray, I am likely to just follow the prophet. But I am pretty sure my mom's not going to go astray. But if she does, well I'm not following you anymore, mom! But I hope she doesn't, because I love my mother.

Refinishing Furniture

My friend Catherine came over the other day to help me learn how to refinish furniture. I have always admired how she just jumps in and does things. She isn't afraid to get into a project even if her boys are with her. She is a doer. I love that about her.

She gave me the courage and push to get this project done that I have been putting on the back burner for over a year. She brought her boys over and our boys played while we turned this old outdated bureau:

 (You can't see it in this picture but it was chipping and peeling on the top.)

Into THIS:

I think it looks amazing and am so excited about how doable it was. I mean it was a little crazy with our boys all wanting to help and I was glad there were two of us so we could take turns tending the boys when they needed entertaining, but still ... 4 hours and a can of paint and primer and WhaLaa! I love how it looks with the black frames on the wall above. 

Now I have another dresser I want to paint white and antique afterwards. With the courage and knowledge Catherine gave me I think I can do it by myself!  Thanks Catherine! 

No Screens -- so far

We have been very good about not using screens for entertainment so far this month. It has been an interesting family experiment. I am interested to see how much lower our electric bill will be :). I have found that not having screens on has had both positive and negative effects on me so far. But I am going to stick with it the rest of the month to see if the pros outweigh the cons in the end.

On the pro side, I have gotten more done than I normally would. I have felt a greater peace in our home. I have found myself cleaning more often (thought to look at my house right this minute you would think I was lying on that one.) I read the news more so I am better informed on current events. I have been in bed MUCH earlier (though not asleep till about the same time.) My kids have had much more interaction with their Dad. They have been playing lots of chess.

On the con side, I have been eating more when I have been bored (not good.) I have had a few times when I have felt overwhelmed and really could have used a bit of Little Bear to settle the kids down so I could regroup. I have found I still need some "down time." I have been playing Sodoku.

I guess we will see how the rest of the month goes.

Magical Motherhood Moments

As the last day of January is upon us, it is time to prepare for my February goal--no screens. I have to admit that this is likely to be harder for me than anyone else in my family. But I know it will be good for all of us and I am looking forward to the challenge.

I hope that being in front of screens so much less will make more magical motherhood moments happen, or at least help me see them better. I had one this morning as I dropped the girls off at school. After the doors closed I heard Noble say, "I wanna go to school with my girlie friends."

He calls his sisters his "girlies." So when they come home it is, "My Girlies! My Girlies are home!" Or yesterday we were playing outside and a neighbor walked by. Noble went up to her and said. "I'm Noble. These are my girlies. (pointing to where the girls were playing with a friend. then pointing to the friend--) Well not that one. But those ones. That is my Ina girlie, my Annie girlie, and my Lauren girlie." Noble has his own little harem.

Or another one came the other day as Lauren got creative with some diapers. She decided to have a diaper party. Here was the result:

Diapers hats and pants for everyone. What fun!

But one of my very favorite moments I captured on my phone with great stealth the other day. It was just one of those quiet moments where the kids were playing so nicely together. I absolutely love seeing my children play well together. I see it often with the older girls. It is thrilling to see the start of it with the little boys.

Noble and Harrison (and Lauren) got lots of trains for Christmas. The whole family has been having fun making new configurations of tracks.

Lastly, someone left this family's blog in my comments a few days ago. I went over and read this mother's "Anatomy of a Car Crash" series. It echoed so many things I have thought or written. I will be praying for her and her family. I hope you will join me in that. Might be nice to go leave them a comment or a donation too.

Workshop

Thank you to whomever it was out there praying for me today. I made it through both presentations without my mascara running. :) I did get emotional in parts but not so much so that I couldn't speak. I think the workshops went well overall. I hope so at least. I hope those in attendance felt inspired to write their own stories and use blogs to help them do that.

One thing I did that helped me keep my composure was to have the audience silently read a "post" I wrote specifically for the workshop that gave a summary of the life of my blog. I figured that reading silently gave them a true view of how it feels to know me from my blog. They could feel what my readers feel by reading. Plus it saved me from having to tell them about Camille's accident while trying to maintain my composure.

I thought maybe some of you may be interested in reading the post I wrote for the workshop. So here it is. Thanks again for the prayers!

The story of Stephanie Waite’s blog “A Daily Scoop” in Summary

I began my blog in April of 2008. In the first weeks of my blogging I wrote a post about each of my four little girls. My life was happy and my future looked bright. I had just moved into a new, permanent home big enough for us to grow into. I was in the midst of home decorating and backyard designing.

My youngest daughter Camille was about to turn one and her sisters were 2, 5 and 6. It had been a hard year having essentially two babies to look after. But I was finally starting to see some of the benefits and joy of having kids close in age as my two youngest were beginning to play together more. My girls were all beautiful, happy and healthy. Life was just wonderful and I was ready to write all about it.

Little did I know how drastically a Friday afternoon in June would change my life and my blog forever….

It was his face that told me. Walking down that long third floor corridor, adrenaline still coursing through my veins, I saw him at the far end. He was pacing, helplessly. Then he turned my direction. And I saw his face.

            Until that point, the only news I had heard from my husband was in a quick phone call, “They got her heart beating and she is taking spontaneous breaths on her own!” He had phoned from the ambulance carrying our youngest daughter to the hospital. I was still at home. I was the one who had found her in the brand new spa. I was not allowed to go with her, the police said. I had to stay and answer questions.

            But I had found hope in this one report my husband Jonathan had found time to phone in to me. Breathing on her own was good. A beating heart was good. That meant she was still with us. She was alive. There was still hope. She would be okay.

            Jonathan’s face told me a different story. His was not a face of hope or faith. His was the face of loss, great, unendurable loss. His was a face of agony.

Family quickly gathered around us as we waited and watched and prayed. I had recently started a blog and my sister logged on and put up a post requesting prayers on behalf of my 14 month old Camille. We needed a miracle. We needed prayers of faith.

The prognosis was very poor for our little girl. Doctors told us the best-case scenario was a long term vegetative state. As the hours passed, even that seemed unlikely. Camille’s organs were failing.

Through a grueling process of time and pleading and acceptance and prayer, Jonathan and I came to understand the Lord’s will for our daughter. We saw the miracle that we would be seeing would not be one to improve our daughter’s health. We shifted out prayers to plead for a miracle in our hearts. We pleaded for strength to accept this heavy heartache.

Meanwhile, word of our plight spread and hundreds of people went to our blog to leave comments of support and prayers. I updated our blog to indicate our decision to remove life support and ask people to pray for us: that we might have the strength to keep breathing when our daughter stopped.

The hundreds of people reading along with our plight and praying and supporting us turned to thousands. I felt a great strength come from the thousands of prayers being lifted up to heaven on our behalf. They were prayers from friends old and new, family near and far, and strangers of all different faiths from many varied countries.

Our daughter passed away on June 15, 2008, 48 hours after I found her. And my blog became a tool for me to update those concerned about me, to process my pain and keep a grip on eternal perspective. And so I wrote. I wrote everyday. I wrote the words I could not say. I put my heart, broken, humbled, and yet still believing out onto the Internet. I wrote my pain, the lessons I was learning, and my testimony.

And people read what I wrote. Some found their own pain reflected in my writing. My words expressed what they couldn’t. Some learned right along with me. They came to read the inspiration I had gleaned from my trial. And they read my testimony and beliefs along the way. And the miracles we all prayed for eventually came.

I have seen and felt the miraculous healing of broken and shattered hearts, hopes, and spirits. I have seen the miracle of repentance and growth of testimony. I have seen the miracle of one little angel spreading her influence across the world through the simple writings of her grieving mother.

The tides of grief still ebb and flow but the good days far out number the bad. I am grateful for that. I am grateful for the peace the truths of the gospel bring. I am grateful for Jesus Christ and his redeeming sacrifice. In Him there is hope. I am grateful for temple covenants that bind me to my family forever. I am grateful that I will never have to worry about Camille staying true to the Faith. I am grateful to have one child sealed up in heaven and guaranteed to be mine as long as I live worthy of her.

I am grateful for the miracle that I can still be grateful. 

Public Crying

So I have been preparing for this workshop I am giving on Saturday. In it I am going to try to read one of my old posts ... out loud. It is the "Inside the Heart" post. It isn't one of my saddest posts. It just illustrates something I want to point out really well. The problem is the whole public sobbing thing.

I still can't read most of my old posts or many of the comments any of you left in those early days without the flood of all that emotion rushing right over me. I can talk about Camille without crying--just not for very long or too in-depth.

I have never heard Stephanie Nielson speak. Have any of you? I mean I guess I have seen her on TV speak but not in person. She seems to hold it together pretty well when she talks about her plane crash and subsequent trials. I am not sure I will be able to do that.

I know I totally lost it the last time I spoke publicly about Camille. I had to stop speaking for what seemed like a full minute or two. I don't mind having emotion in my voice but I really prefer not to get to that level of emotion where my voice goes all high and squeaking and it is difficult to understand what I am saying. You know?

You know the funny thing is that I feel like I did better at the funeral than I do now. Maybe it is because back then I was crying about it all the time so it was a more even flow. Now when I talk about Camille, it is usually after a long time of not having talked about her and the emotion has been storing up in there somewhere.

I am always a little nervous to touch on a subject related to Camille in a public setting. The lessons in church when I bring her up are a little more nerve racking than normal. But those I know will be short points or brief comments in a larger otherwise less emotional subject.

By contrast, this workshop on Saturday, talking about blogging - well my world of blogging is pretty inseparably intertwined with my baby girl. She is the driving force of why I have blogged so faithfully and why anyone outside my family reads my blog.

I just hope I am able to hold it together for most of the two 40 minute workshops I present. Is that too much to ask?

Walking Down Memory Lane

I am speaking at a women's conference across town this Saturday. I will be doing a 40 minute workshop on the positive use of social media. 40 minutes is a long time. Since I will not be going into the technical "how to" part of the subject, I have been looking to fill out the "inspire people to want to use social media in a positive way" side of my own experience.

In so doing I have been reading many of my old posts. I also decided to look for some of the comments that illustrated how this blog has impacted others. 11556 Comments. That is how many total comments I have been looking over. That is the total for the entire 3 years and 9 months I have had this blog going. I have previously read every one of them. But as I have reread some, I have come to realize how hazy my mind was in the early days of my grief.

There are comments from people I didn't remember commenting. I didn't know they knew or I guess I just didn't remember they knew. I have been struck once again by how far reaching a story like mine can travel. It runs down cracks and reaches old forgotten loved ones and new and undiscovered friends.

Raw grief has a way of changing relationships. It destroys some. It creates some. And many it just fundamentally shifts. It has been interesting reading back and seeing some of the early comments from people I didn't not know before all this and who are now some of my closest friends.

Doing all this reading has left tracks of tears down my cheeks as I remember just what was lost on June 13, 2008 and also what I have lost since then. I knew it would happen. I knew that ... "heaven in my home" feeling would not always be so tangible. I knew the day would come when I would get mad at my kids again. But I didn't want it to.

Reading my old posts and many of the comments makes me want to recapture that. I mean, I still do have a greater appreciation for my children than I did before. I absolutely do love and cherish them even when they are naughty or I am having to do one of the dirty jobs of motherhood (diapers, vomit, nasal treasures). It isn't like it was before. But it also isn't the "heaven is right here" feeling I had in the weeks of my raw grief.

I want that back, minus all the searing pain that accompanied it. But then I guess that is one of the main benefits for me personally of having this blog. I can read back and remember. As I do, I can feel it again. And I can recommit to keep it here, now.

I Like Bread and Butter

I took all the kids to breakfast at Bread and Butter this morning. I had a amazing braised short rib and egg sandwich. It was one of the cork board specials. Harrison shared it with me. The meat was so melt in your mouth that even he could eat some.

I also got one of the raspberry donuts to try. It was big. I only expected to take a bite. Yeah. Then I took a bite. Let's just say there wasn't much sharing going on with that donut. I love raspberry and the raspberry filling was the perfect degree of sweet.

Seriously, Chris Herrin is a magic man. I am feeling so fully satisfied by my delicious breakfast I just had to blog about it and tell everyone that I love Bread and Butter!

Donuts

One of Annie's Christmas wishes was for donuts. So Sabrina gave her a donut recipe book and a donut cutter. Last week we busted it out and made some baked raised donuts. They were delicious. I thought I would share the recipe since it was fairly simple.

These are best eaten while still hot.

Baked Raised Donuts:

1 egg
1/4 cup super fine sugar
1 cup whole milk, heated to 115 degrees F
1 T active dry yeast
1 t salt
2 t vanilla extract
2 1/2 -3 1/2 cups flour divided plus more for kneading
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, cut into 1 inch cubes

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the eggs and sugar on medium speed till blended (about a minute). Add the milk yeast salt and vanilla and stir to blend. With the machine on low speed, add 2 cups of flour about 1/2 a cup at a time and beat till the dough is thick and pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

Switch to the dough hook. With the machine on medium speed add the butter one piece at a time. Beat until no large chunks of butter are left in the bottom of the bowl (3-5 mins). Reduce speed to low and add additional flour until the dough gathers around the hook and cleans the sides of the bowl. It will be soft and moist but not overly sticky.

Turn the dough out onto a flour surface and knead the dough gently till it no longer sticks to your hands. Lightly grease a large mixing bowl. Transfer the dough to the bowl and turn to coat. Cover with a damp tea towel and let rise till doubled in volume (about an hour.)

Punch down the dough and roll to half an in inch thick. Use a doughnut or cookie cutter to cut out 3 inch diameter rounds with 1 inch diameter holes.

Preheat the over to 400 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place the donuts at least an inch apart on the baking sheet. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm spot till nearly doubled (about 20 mins).

Bake till donuts are light golden brown (5-8 mins) being careful not to over bake them. Immediately brush with butter and sugar or glaze (sugar coated was best). Eat while still warm.

 We had this little bowl full of donut holes. They were SOOO good.

 Just moments later see how much emptier the bowl is?

 I barely got a photo of them before they were gone. I coated them in butter and tossed them in a paper bag with some ultra fine sugar. Seriously these were heavenly little bites.

 Here are our donuts baking in the oven.

 Here are the spoils. We made some glazed - though I thought the glaze was a bit too sugary.

And we did some chocolate. But Sabrina, who took the photos, says they were too chocolatey. Is that even possible? I used dark chocolate powder to make the glaze. Probably why she didn't like it. Well they all got eaten in a matter of hours too.

Let me know what you think if you try these. It makes for a fairly easy and very fun family activity to make them together. Maybe a good FHE activity?

Blessings and Anxiety

I have had a sense of foreboding today. I am not sure why. Sometimes I just feel this unsettled anxiety in the pit of my stomach that makes me a bit nauseas and reminds me of the feeling of the floor being pulled out from under me. It is a recognition of the genuinely fragility of so many routine parts of my life.

I sat in a bath as the hot water filled the tub. I thought about my bathroom and looked at it through the eyes of someone like rich and famous. It is a fairly standard bathroom. We have made no upgrades. It isn't the "spa like" luxury you might find in other homes. It pales in comparison to so many other bathrooms I have seen. It is nothing special.

Then I shifted my paradigm. I sat in that oversized tub and felt the hot water creep up around me. How privileged am I? I am sitting in this overly large comfortable tub. I have running water that comes into it with the turn of a lever -- and the water is hot. I wonder what percent of the worlds population has running water. I wonder of those how many have hot water. I wonder of those how many have tubs. Then I wonder how many of those tubs with hot running water are deep enough to cover an adult with water. I guess there are a very small percentage of the world's population who are so lucky.

At the same time, this foreboding feeling underscores how easily any given blessing can be erased from my life. It stirs my stomach and steals my appetite.

Jonathan and I went to the temple tonight. There I was reminded once again of the ultimate failsafe to this anxiety. In all the worst case scenarios my mind can imagine, somethings stay constant and ultimately bring me peace. No matter what happens or what trials I must face, Jesus is still the Christ. He will still be my Savior. My faith in Him and His gospel will still be sure. That is all that really matters. As long as I am good in my relationship with Him, the rest of this life is just an obstacle course designed to provide me opportunities to become more like Him.

iPad Giveaway! Utah readers take note!

Hello my Utah readers. Remember when I posted about our Phoenix LaptopXchange grand opening when they gave away an iPad? (By the way, the woman who won the drawing happened to be a recently divorced woman who wasn't going to be able to give her kids any kind a Christmas. Seems that iPad answered someones prayer.)

Well it is Utah's turn now. A new LaptopXchange just opened in Salt Lake City. They will be doing a "Grand Opening Event" on January 28th where they will give away an iPad. Go check them out and let me know what you think of the SLC store. Make it your first stop for all your mobile computing needs. It will save you money!

Here is the store's location, hours, and phone number for details on the giveaway:
Salt Lake City, UT
2236 So. 1300 E. Suite D3A

Salt Lake City, UT 84106

Hours:

Monday - Friday: 10:00am - 7:00pm

Saturday: 10:00am - 6:00pm

Sunday: Closed

Phone: 801-467-4500

New Friends

Remember last year when my Dad picked up a bunch of Chinese men at Walmart and became their Mormon taxi driver? See this post HERE. Well the CES conference was last week again and the Chinese guys were back in town for it. Jonathan and I went with my Dad to meet them for Chinese food on Thursday. We used an application on Jonathan's phone to translate for us as we don't speak Chinese and they speak limited English.

It was fun. They brought us some lovely gifts from China--tea and a lovely tea set, a beautiful fan and a cool drawing pad that erases when you push a button. Two of them, YY and Cao, had a free day after the conference ended and before they flew back to China so my dad picked them up from their hotel took them to see the Hoover Dam and then we met up with them at Bread and Butter to give them a great American meal.

YY is the one next to Lauren and Cao is by Sabrina.

I ordered one of almost everything on the menu. Their favorite item was the ham and cheese on pretzel roll. :) My favorite too. What can I say? These guys have great taste. Someday I need to get to China to visit them in the city across the river from Hong Kong.

But for now, Jon and I are dreaming and scheming to go to the UK and Denmark this fall. We want to see where our families originate. Any readers out there want to give me some must sees in those areas? I kinda want to drive from London to Denmark. I know it is like a 14 hour drive but I haven't ever been to Belgium or Holland and I would love to spend a day or two seeing the countryside there. Am I crazy? Jon thinks so. He wants to fly or take a train. Anyone been there and done it? Suggestions?

5th Grade Essay Contest

Every year American Mother's Inc. sponsors a national essay contest for 5th graders. I am heading up the effort to collect essays from the wonderful 5th graders from the great state of Nevada. Do you live in Nevada? Do you have a 5th grader? If so, listen up ... or read on.

The topic of the essay is "What my Mother Means to me." 150 words about Mom. What could be sweeter? If you want your child to enter this essay contest, the full rules are found HERE. Email me for my address if you want to submit your child's essay at stephaniewaite at gmail dot com.

The difficulty I have run into in trying to get this essay contest going here is that public schools are preparing for their writing proficiency exams. Somehow this essay contest seems to be ... low priority for the schools. But I have a 5th grader. I want her to write this essay. :) I think it is important for children to reflect on all their mothers do for them.

If you also would like to have your child to have this "opportunity for reflection," whether they are in 5th grade or not :), check out the details and have your child sit down to write his or her 150 words. You may find great treasure in what they write.

Entries need to be to me by Feb. 10th and will be judged by an independent education professional. Prizes will be awarded to both state and national winners.

Super Best Friends

Last night I was giving Noble a bath and Harrison, who had already had a bath yesterday, was crawling around the bathroom. Well, Noble was mostly just playing in the bath. He would make a big splash and Harrison, who had pulled himself up to stand next to the tub, would laugh and scream in delight. Harrison was up on tip toes.

I wish I had an internal video camera. I sat there watching in pure mother delight. My sweet baby and little boy, enjoying each other to the fullest, made my heart so full. These two boys love each other so much. I know they will be such good friends.

Then my mind turned to a conversation I had earlier that day with my sister in law. We were talking about our kids and she asked if my girls had best friends. I gave her the reply that Sabrina recently gave me when I asked her. "Annie is Sabrina's super best friend and Sabrina is Annie's Super best friend. They tell each other EVERYTHING. Even things they won't tell me."

Then my heart got that old familiar stab of pain from the plan going terribly wrong. Who is going to be Lauren's super best friend? Can I possibly fill that spot as her mother without throwing off the delicate balance of showing all my children equal love? Will she feel that missing or am I just feeling it for her? They are old and never ending questions.

I see Camille so often in my little Harrison as he grows. His joys are doubly fulfilling for me; his sorrows doubly painful to me. I miss her. I watch her Waite cousins, one girl 4 months younger and one girl 4 months older than Camille would have been. I see them holding hands, their friendship growing. I miss her being with them. They should have another member of their crew.

Then again maybe my little missing one can be more of a "super best friend" to all of us-- Lauren, her cousins, me -- just the way things are. She will always listen and never be angry or jealous or mean. She is close when we are sad and her silent presence is a comfort. Maybe one day, when we meet again, we will find she shared in all our joys, laughed with us in our jokes, delighted in our triumphs and was a more constant and close friend as an angel than she ever could be here on Earth. Maybe she is now more able than ever to be the "super bestest" friend ever.