Fall Pictures

My little man is all ready for High School!

Gotta love the bus coming to the front door...

7th grade, here she comes!

Ready for third grade



All ready to be a big first-grader




Lindsey- Jr. Cheer



Just ran 26.2 miles and still smilin'!

Tim and kids at the marathon

UDSF Buddy Walk

Picking pumpkins

at the pumpkin patch

in Paragonah



Say....Pumpkins!



Hay ride action shot

The hay ride was a blast, even though it actually involved no hay. Less itchy that way.

Fall 2010

I figured if I called this "Fall", I could get caught up, especially with the first day of school pictures from two months ago! This year Taylor started High School and is a Freshman at Cedar High. He seems to love it and has transitioned really well. Ashlee is in 7th grade and continues to do great. She has a 4.0 so far this year. Lindsey is in 4th grade, loves her teacher, Mr. Shirley, and is also doing really well. Breanna is in 1st grade and has adjusted well to going to school all day. She loves her teacher, Mrs. Robb, and continues to do well also. Tim is still teaching 4th grade at Iron Springs, and he is having a good year. He is really enjoying his class this year. I had the opportunity to move from Fiddlers to South Elementary, where Breanna and Lindsey go to school. It's a long story of how it worked out, and the Lord's hand was definitely in it. I LOVE, LOVE being at the girls' school, being close to home, and the people I work with. I get to be in charge of 17 Kindergartners for an hour everyday, and it's honestly my favorite part of the new job. I also teach reading groups to 4th and 5th graders, and I'm starting to enjoy that more as I learn the program that we use better.

In September we attended a football game at Cedar High where Lindsey got to cheer for the first quarter. She had practiced all week with the High School cheerleaders and about 50 other girls as part of the Jr. Cheer program. She did great and had a lot of fun. It was a really exciting game to attend as well, since it went into double overtime! Unfortunately, we lost by a field goal.

At the beginning of October we enjoyed General Conference, and watched Tim finish yet another St. George marathon. There was record heat this year, so it was really tough for all of the runners. He is amazing!  Last weekend we also enjoyed the Utah Down Syndrome Foundation's Buddy Walk. We went to the park where they had a big blow-up slide and bounce houses, games, face painting, and lunch, plus, of course, the "Buddy Walk" around the park. It was all free and lots of fun. Our neighbors, the Stuckis, came as well. We appreciate their love and support!

This past weekend has been Harvest Holiday. We were all out of school Thursday and Friday, and will also be off tomorrow (Monday). We've had fun relaxing and getting some stuff done around the house. On Friday we went to St. George and saw "Nanny McPhee Returns" at the dollar theater. Yesterday we had a great time at the pumpkin patch in Paragonah, picking out pumpkins and taking a hay ride.

Fishing

The week before school started and again last weekend we went fishing. Both times all 3 girls caught a fish each! Taylor didn't want anything to do with it the first time (he preferred throwing rocks in the water down the shore...), but this past weekend he discovered the joy of casting and reeling it in as fast as he could so that he could cast again.

Navajo Lake

The Kids' Fishing Pond up Cedar Canyon

Summertime!!

Okay, so I'm finally blogging again. I always wait too long and then my posts are huge, so bear with me. I need to get better at keeping up.

The summer has been great. We started it by going up north the weekend after school got out. We spent some time with Tim's side of the family as we celebrated our nephew's high school graduation. We also had a family reunion with my side of the family to say goodbye to my mom. She entered the MTC on May 31st. She's serving as an employment specialist in Vancouver, Canada. Then on my Birthday we went to Lagoon with my sister Kristine and her family and my sister Camille. It was a blast. What a great day!

The following weekend Tim, Ashlee, Taylor and I had a great time at our ward's Youth Conference. We went to a cabin in Pine Valley and enjoyed great food and fun activities. Tim and I don't currently work with the youth, but we went so that Taylor could go. Tim worked really hard helping will all of the amazing dutch oven food. I was a leader of one of the groups. We were "Moroni's Army". We had challenges against the three other groups, and we all wrote and performed skits about our Book of Mormon hero. It was a great couple of days. Lindsey and Breanna had fun playing with their cousins while we were gone.

We've gone to Zion National Park several times this summer. We hiked the River Walk, Weeping Rock, and Emerald Pools. No matter how many times we go, I'm always completely blown away by the amazing beauty of the red canyon walls. We've enjoyed cookouts up Cedar Canyon as well. We feel very blessed to live with so much beauty around us.

Tim was able to hike The Narrows in Zion Canyon. He went with my brother-in-law Brad and two of his boys and a few others from their ward (it was a scout hike). It was a two-day hike through a river. He had fun and took some amazingly beautiful pictures.

Ashlee attended her first Girl's Camp this summer. She had a blast. It was hard to have her gone for four days. She's growing up way too fast!

At the end of June my new little great-niece was born. (Wow. That makes me sound really, really OLD!) My niece Shaelynn and her husband Jason had their first baby. They named her Kyrie Noel. She is absolutely adorable and we can't get enough of her! Good thing she lives down the street and is in our ward!

Ashlee attended summer band for about a month after school got out. She plays the clarinet. Their concert at the end was amazing. Hard to believe they are Middle School students! She got to march in the 4th and 24th of July parades with the band. Breanna and Lindsey were in the 24th of July parade as well. They were dressed as pioneers and rode on our ward's "handcart" float. They had a lot of fun.

We've had a few visitors this summer as well. Tim's parents came from Nebraska in May. They stayed for several days. We had a great time visiting with them, and of course we took them to Zion National Park and then had dinner at the In and Out in St. George. Last month Tim's brother stopped by for an hour or so on his way home from business in St. George. It was fun get to visit with him for a little bit. Then one morning we got a surprise phone call from Ashlee's kindergarten teacher who was in our ward in Blythe. She was in town and wanted to stop by and say hi. It was so fun to see her for the first time in 4 years and to catch up on how our friends are doing in Blythe. This weekend we also had my friend Michal and her sister Sarajan here. They came down to see plays at the Shakespeare festival. It was fun to visit with them here and there in between their plays. Michal will be coming back next weekend as well. We're going to see the play "Pride and Prejudice" as well as a performance of Broadway songs by some of the Shakespeare Festival actors. She's generously taking me as a belated birthday gift. I can hardly wait!

The rest of the summer was spent mostly here at home, enjoying our time together as a family. We went to some of the PTA-sponsored movies, enjoyed free movies in the park, went to the Green Show for the Shakespeare festival, played at the new little lake here in town, went to Discovery park, and had barbeques with the neighbors and my sister's family. The kids also played with friends and had a few sleepovers with their cousins. They saved up their money and the pooled it together to buy the new Harry Potter Lego game for the WII. They've had a great time playing it the last few weeks.

Last night the kids convinced Tim and I to play "sardines". We turned off the lights in the house and wore glow-in-the-dark bracelets Michal had given the kids. One person would hide and then the rest of us would try to find him or her. Once we found the hidden person we would hide with them until everyone was all hiding together. The last one to find everyone would be "it" for the next round. There was a major lightening storm going on outside, which made it more interesting and maybe a little more scary. We searched in teams of 2 for the most part so the younger ones wouldn't be scared. (I have to admit I preferred the team method as well!) It was a lot of fun. Then we sat out on the front porch and watched Mother Nature's light show. It was pretty amazing. Even Taylor sat there with us and watched it, which is a miracle because thunder and lightning usually scare him.

So, there is the summer in a nutshell. I can't believe how fast it flew by! Now with very mixed feelings we are getting ready for school to start in just a week and a half.

Summertime Pictures

Lagoon

Zion National Park

Tim hiking The Narrows

Cedar Canyon


Youth Conference

Tim and his friend Byron at the Ragnar Wasatch Back Relay race. Their team ran 190 miles, from Logan to Park City.

February 2010

I'm going to get better about updating my blog! I think I assume it has to be a huge project to post something, but I know I could just make it short and sweet. (Then again, this is ME we are talking about....)

The last few weeks have been busy, but good. My friend Michal came for a visit President's Day weekend. We spent a fun-filled day in St. George touring houses for the parade of homes. Then on Monday Tim and I took the kids to St. George and took turns going through some of the homes Michal and I didn't get to. It was a fun day, and Tim and the girls got to see a couple of humongous homes.

Later that week Tim's brother Ken was here on business. He had stayed a night with us. It was great to see him.

Other than that, we've just stayed busy with work, school, Ashlee's basketball games, and my Relief Society meetings. I was called as 1st councelor in the Relief Society presidency a month or so ago. It's been very humbling so far! My biggest goal is just to get to know the names of the women in our ward. I've been in Primary almost the whole time we've lived here, so I'm mostly only familiar with those who have young kids. I'm working on it, though.

I'll have to add some pictures later. Right now the laundry and dishes are unfortunately calling!

Tender Mercies

This isn't going to be easy, but I've got to blog my feelings about recent events now for several reasons. First, because the experiences are fresh and I don't want to forget how the Lord has watched over us. Second, because talking about difficult things helps me to heal, and writing about them has the same healing affects. Third, because if I have to look at the picture and post about the ultrasound everytime I open my blog it's going to kill me, but I don't want to erase it either because it's part of our family's history. So here goes..

This past Friday morning, on New Year's Day, Tim woke up with a desire to go up north to visit his siblings and their families for the weekend. Being a Langford, I have an inbred ability to pick up and go on a trip on short notice, having run off to California for family vacations on numerous occasions at a moment's notice. :) So, we spent the morning packing and headed up to Tami and Darren's house in Lehi. We spent Friday afternoon and evening hanging out with family and eating way too much yummy food.

Saturday morning at 4 I woke up and notice I was bleeding a little bit. Having had two previous miscarriages, I completely flipped out. I spent the day ocillating between weak hope, grief, devastation, fear, comfort from the Holy Ghost, and back to grief and fear again. By that night I was certain I was losing this baby. I was completely devastated. Taylor had also started having intense stomach flu symptoms, vomitting every 15 minutes or so. This was more than I could bear, and thank heavens for our wonderful angel Aunt Tami who took care of him. I was lying on the bed with him, but if he woke up to vomit and Tami wasn't there, he'd look at me and ask, "Where Tami?" then start calling, "Aunt Tami, Aunt Tami!" She would of course drop everything to run up and help him. What a huge blessing and help to me!

The next morning around 4 the cramping got really intense and I ran to the bathroom and bled and bled like I've never bled before. By some miracle Tim heard me calling his name from the bathroom upstairs all the way in the basement where he was sleeping. The only explanation for this is that the Spirit woke him up. It's a good thing, too, because fairly soon after he got there I started feeling like I was going to pass out. I'll skip the gory details, but he got me to the hospital and my blood pressure was scary low-- the triage nurse said it was the lowest she'd seen. So that was another blessing-- because we were at Tami's we were able to leave the kids sleeping and in her care while Darren showed us the way to the American Fork hospital. And Darren was absolutely AMAZING through all this! I suggested he drive his own car and we'd follow him. I thought he'd get us there and rush home, as far away from the incredibly gross bleeding woman as fast as he could, like any man would. But, he didn't. He helped Tim get me inside, he stayed outside my room the whole time I was in the ER, he helped Tim give me a priesthood blessing, he stayed with Tim in the waiting room during my emergency d and c, and he even (this one still astounds me...) helped Tim clean up the mess I'd left when they got back to his house. Wow. And Tami was of course wonderful, too, taking care of the kids and then Tim when he got the stomach flu and them me when I got back to their house that night. She ended up with the flu the next day (poor Tami!). What a saint. And Tim's brother Ken had come over to help give me a blessing at 5 a.m. the morning I'd started bleeding, then he and his wife Nancy went and got a bunch of groceries for our puking, tired family Monday morning, completely going above and beyond the grocery list! My in-laws are all amazing and I love them so much!!

I also felt the prayers and support of my side of the family. My mom had called my siblings and asked them to fast for me Sunday morning. I absolutely felt the strength of those prayers!! While I was in the hospital all day Sunday, by myself after the surgery because Tim was sick, I felt so much peace and comfort. It was amazing!! I actually didn't feel alone at all, and I never usually like being by myself, but I was so exhausted that this turned out to be a blessing as well. I had lost so much blood that I had to have a transfusion. I was given 2 units of blood. I'm also very grateful to whoever donated that blood! It's taken about 2 weeks (I started this blog shortly after the ordeal, but didn't finish it until now....), but I'm finally getting my strength back and feeling so much better. It's amazing how much iron is essential for our bodies to function! I'm almost out of anemia-land and hope I never have to go back there again!

I've found through the experiences of my other miscarriages as well as the experience of my dad passing away that when we are first in a major crisis, the Holy Ghost steps in (if we let him) and sustains us. I think if I didn't have that comfort I would lose my mind. I've also found, however, that the level of comfort lessens a bit with time, if that makes sense. In some ways the loss of this baby is more difficult to deal with now than it was a few weeks ago. Not that the comfort is completely gone or anything-- it's there when I seek it. But my heart is broken. It's healing, but it's broken, and I suppose I need to let myself feel that and give myself time to heal. I'm also full of hope, because they found that I have a gene mutation that could be causing blood clots in my uterus and therefore miscarriages. So, next time I'm pregnant I can take medications that may be able to prevent this from happening again. But I'm also scared. I don't know if I can take this kind of heartbreak yet again. If I knew it would get this baby here, though, I'd do and go through anything! I guess this is where faith, prayer, and a whole lot of trust in the Lord come in. We'll have to fast and pray to know His will, and then go forward with faith.