Women...

I had the unfortunate opportunity to attend the funral of the mom of one of my closest friends this past Thursday. As funerals usually do, it got me to thinking. I didn't htink of what I wanted said at my funeral, or wonder who would be there. Instead, I wondered about the woman that lay before us and the extraordinary life she lead. She wasn't rich, famous or a great adventurer, but she was an amazing woman. She was one of the best examples of faith, love, motherhood, friendship, charity, service, hard work, laughter and joy that I have known. Not only was she an example of these things, but she raised her daughter (and seven other children) to be as well. Since I met her daughter back in high school, both women have been a source of comfort, strength and inspiration to me. I, along with countless others, was always welcomed into their home and treated with an abundance of kindness. I have shared laughter and tears with both mother and daughter throughout the years. This great woman raised a daughter whose faith and testimony have helped restore my own, who has loved me unconditionally, helped me through the darkest times of my life and celebrated the happiest times with me. As I sat listening to the service for this great lady, my thoughts turned to the many women I have been blessed to look to in my life. I have an amaing mother. She is one of my best friends. I know I can tell her anything and she will still love me. She has dropped everything, driven through the night and spent money she didn't really have to spend to be by my side when I needed her. She is such an example to me of what a mother ought to be. I have been SO blessed to have such amazing friends. When my life was flipped upsidedown, they were there for me. I know I can always turn to them and look to them for an example. I have great sisters and a fantastic, close-knit extended family. How lucky I am to be a part of such a great family. How blessed. I am so greatful to all of these great women and I pray that I can be worthy to stand among them. I can only hope to offer them a small portion of what they have given to me. To all of you, thank you. Its not enough, but on paper (or screen!) I can give no more.

Where did November go?

Apparently, I lost a month somewhere. Has anyone seen November anywhere? It must be lost because I don't remember it coming or going really! Life around the Gilbert house has been crazy busy over the last while. So many things have happened, here are a few of the most noteable...

1. We bought a car. I love it!! I don't love the payments, but its going to help our credit so we're not having to pay a zillion dollars in interest on our house! Yippee!

2. James found out he has to get lasik surgery. Of course, he found this out AFTER we drained our savings for the aforementioned car. Oh well. He'll be getting the surgery in the early part of next year.

3. I quit my job at the school to stay home full time and get my clothing line up and running. I'll keep you posted as it develops, but keep your eyes out for my new maternity line debuting early next year!!

4. I have taken on a million different sewing jobs. Its amazing, really. I had ads up forever about my custom sewing and alteration business, hoping I wouldn't have to go back to work. No results, so back to work I went. Then, I decide to do the clothing line full time, and suddenly I'm swamped with orders and alterations! Its a good thing I love to sew!

5. I have been called as a primary teacher. We'll see how long it lasts. Last time, I taught two lessons and then they changed me to pianist. I don't know what age or anything I'll be teaching b/c I don't actually start until January.

6. TJ... well, what can I say, he keeps me busy, but he also keeps me smiling. Yesterday, he almost made me pee my pants I was laughing so hard. He started walking around the furniture 5 or 6 weeks ago and now he thinks hes ready to try it on his own. (He's not!) He was holding on to one of the tables, turned around, leaned on the table, looked up at me, smiled and launched himself forward! He flopped right on his face. At first, he looked startled. Then, he looked up at me and went into hysteric fits of giggling!! It was the cutest thing I've ever seen!

This was at Trevor and Cheri's place. TJ LOVED the singing snowman!!

7. Ok, I saved the best for last!!! Things are FINALLY finished with cancelling my temple sealing and our little family is going to be sealed on December 22!!!!!!!!!! If you could see me right now, you would see smiles like crazy!! It has taken almost three years, but it is finally here!! Hip hip HOORAY!!!

Ok, now I'm off to continue preparing for the festivities at hand! (Man I am a nerd!!) I will talk to you all much sooner than last time!!

Quick Update

Well, here is a quick update on our life. James is home this week, so we are busy busy. But, its great because I love having him here. TJ is doing great and growing like a weed. He got his two front bottom teeth in the past week, so it has been a very cranky week. James and I just bought a new car. We are going to Calgary to pick it up on Saturday, so I will have pictures soon. Sadly, Damien has had to leave us. He became overly protective of me and wouldn't let James anywhere near me. So, we had to call his previous owner to come and pick him up. I gave my two weeks notice yesterday. I loved my job, but was just too stressed out. I really feel like I should stay home and be with TJ and get my sewing business going. It is going well, I've been hired to work on a few major jobs and have some designing stuff in the works. I'm not going to go into too much detail about that now though, because I don't have a lot of detail!! I'm still working on figuring out how to turn the pictures from Rhonda into jpgs, so if any one has any advice, please feel free to pass it on!! Well, gotta run, TJ is keeping me busy!!!

Happy Halloween!

So, TJ's first halloween was a hit! He even trick-or-treated a little bit. Ok, only at Great-grandma Whitehead's and Aunt Annette's, but he was cute and happy all the same. My little munchkin had a growth spurt over the past few days, though, because when I tried his costume on two days before Halloween, it fit. Yesterday, his legs couldn't stretch out! The little stinker! I had originally planned to make myself a monkey costume, but time ran out! Oh well, my little banana was cute all on his own!!

HELP!!

Ok, so I've been trying do upload my family photos for EVER now and it is not working. Apparently, its just with the family pics I got from Rhonda, because as you can see, I can post other pics! Did I do something wrong when I loaded them? I just put the disc in and saved them. Thats all I ever do, really! It just sits there in the "your images are being uploaded to blogger" window FOREVER!!! Either that or it says the webpage is unavailable. PLEASE, if any of you smart people can give me suggestions that would be fantastic. Please bear in mind that I know almost nothing about computers, so keep it simple!! Thanks a million!!

Well, on to pictures I am able to post, this our newest member of the family! His name is Damien (not the name that I would have chosen), and he is super cute!! He is big, but oh so gentle! He is great with babies and other pets and LOVES to be petted! He is microchipped, tattooed and could be registered if we wanted to pay the money (we're not going to). He is an American Staffordshire Terrier and I LOVE him!! The best part was that he was free!! He belonged to a family in Calgary who had him for the first three years of his life, but they decided he needed room to roam, so they offered him to a home that would give him the love he deserved. Those of you who know my hubby know how much he loves animals, so I was going to buy him a puppy for Christmas. Then we found the ad about Damien and I saved $800. I couldn't be happier. Ok, well, maybe if Damien was half his size I could be happier, but you can't have everything!!

We had a few momentus occasions this past weekend. On Saturday, the thirteenth, my Dad turned 50 and TJ turned 6 months! Dad didn't want to do too much, so we are going to go to Missoula next Sat. to take him to Craker Barrel, his all time favorite restraunt. Other than that, not much was done for his b-day. Here is TJ's six month pic! I love it!!!!!

And here are few other recent pics I love...

All smiles while we waited for Grandma at the Dr.

Movie night with Mommy...After climbing in the laundry hamper, (aka. the new playpen (j/k))...After climbing in the bag at Auntie Manda's feet...And, crawlaking, which is a word meaning crawling on you hand and feet, rather than knees. He was on both feet until I turned the camera on, then he turned to see what I was doing.

Happy Turkey Day

Holly macaroni, its been forever since I wrote!! Crazy how time flies. I can't say I have a good excuse, but I have been busy. In the past few weeks, TJ and I have both battled the flu (I think we are now winning the battle!!), I started a new job as an EA in the elementary school, we are working on renos at mom and dad's, I've done a lot of scrapbooking, we've made two offers on the same house (both fell through), I've looked at about a half a dozen houses, we've decided now is not the time to buy a house (furrowed brow...) and we've just been generally busy. Oh, and TJ has perfected the scoot, so I have no time to sit.


Hmmm, looking at it in that little paragraph, it doesn't look like I've done that much. Oh well, it felt like I was really busy!! I think its the whole being back to work thing. I'm really not that crazy about work, but I'm sure it will get better. I really like the kid I work with. He has severe autism and hes not verbal, but he knows what he wants! I work with him Monday thru Thursday mornings and we go swimming two of those four days, which is totally fun! Then, on Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, myself and another girl are in charge of a play therapy group. We just started planning last week, but it sounds like it should be fun.





Ok, so I've done some scrapping and have some really cool layouts that I'd love to post, but I'm not sure how, so if any of you know how, let me know! I'm SO not technically adept. Fortunately, I do know how to post pictures!! I got the pictures from Rhonda and they are FABULOUS!!! Don't worry, I won't post all 80+ of them, but here are a few of my favs!

Ok, so the computer hates me. I'll try again later to post some pics. In the mean time, here are my top five things I'm thankful for today...

1. Family - James, TJ, Mom, Dad, the whole group. I love them so much and they love me. I know that no matter what, they will aways be there for me.

2. My Heavenly Father and my Savior - What can I say other than I would not be without them.

3. Friends - I have the best friends in the world. In most cases, my friends are just as close or closer than my family.

4. The Ability to Learn New Things - I love to learn and love that I live where I can learn whatever I want and wherever I want!

5. The Temple - The peace and insight that the temple offers is unable to be matched anywhere else and I love it.

Ok, I could come up with a ton more, but TJ is crying and needs his mommy, which is one more thing I'm thankful for.

I'm So Glad When Daddy Comes Home?...

Ok, let me start out by saying I love my husband and I love when he is home. However, the week he is home is the busiest and most frustrating week of my month. Not only are we running around trying to get a billion different appointments, we are trying to see all the people we can see and maybe squeeze in some time just for us. Add to that the fact that the "new daddy" has really only had under two months of parenting experience, I can get quite frustrated. I usually end up saying at least one or two things I later regret and have to apologize for and I'm generally grumpy for an entire day for no particular reason. I cannot wait until the next two years are finished. I mean, I can, but really I can't. I just have to keep reminding myself of what we will accomplish in the next two years. Unfortunately, I'm not the most patient person in the world. Sigh. Oh well, what can you do.

We do have fun when James is home, though. TJ loves his daddy. In fact, when James is home, TJ usually cries when daddy leaves the room. James is really great with TJ, even if he is afraid to put diaper cream on him because it would mean having to touch his bum. Really, for how much of a tough guy my hubby pretends to be, hes quite a wimp. Its quite hilarious to watch, actually! Here are a couple pics of TJ and Daddy from this past week when James was home.

TJ LOVES Daddy's hats. He plays peek-a-boo with them all the time.

They also take naps together quite frequently!

I decided that before James got home this past week, I wanted to repaint the family room and get the new floor down. Unfortunately, TJ was not let in on the plan and he decided to be EXTREMELY cranky and a giant mama's boy for the days I had planned on workings. Consequetly, not everything got done, but it will this weekend. Here are a few "working" pics. I'll post some finished product shots when we're done.

I don't always mud and tape in my good clothes, I was just touching up a few spots before we went out for the night!Jessica and Amanda "helping". Ok, they actually were pretty helpful. We were up painting until 4 am. We also had my Aunt Cheryl's 40th birthday party on the 8th. Here are a few of my favorite pics. For more, you can check out our family blog, http://www.bpwhitehead.blogspot.com/.

Grandma Whitehead and TJ, her first (and only so far) great-grandson.

The birthday cake, compliments of yours truly. (Insert blatant publicity plug. I do birthdays, weddings, you name it!)And, some fun with balloons. Hey, at 1:30am, there's just no telling what people will do with a balloon!