On May 8^th Stewart and I learned some exciting news! We are Pregnant! Wahoo!!!!! It only took us four and a half years.  We are both so excited and can’t wait to share our happy news with everyone. Right now I am about 7 weeks along and feeling great and according to Stewart the baby is due about January 5^th. I knew something was up about 7 days after I missed my monthly and told Stewart I suspected I was pregnant. I asked him if I should take a test and he said I should wait but…. I just had to know so I took the test right before bed and it came back positive!  This whole month Stewart has been working nights at the hospital so I called him up and told the good news.  We expressed our shock and excitement and then together while on the phone we both knelt in our individual locations and offered up a word of prayer thanking our Father in Heaven of this wonderful gift. We feel so blessed and I can’t wait to share our news with Sophie who has been praying for a sister or brother for a few months now. We won’t tell her for w few more weeks still even though I really REALLY want to.

On the tenth of May we celebrated Mother’s day. Sophie and Stewart bought me some nice flowers and a colorful card that was actually a Birthday card that Stewart crossed out the words Birthday on and wrote in Mother’s Day. I felt so loved by them, I am grateful I get to be the wife and mother of Stewart and Sophie; they are two of the most important people in my life. As a gag gift Stewart brought me home a very large arrangement of funeral flowers that were left over from a funeral of a member of our ward. He had to go into church one evening for membership clerk duties and when he returned he had this very big arrangement of flowers with him, he told me it was a belated Mother’s Day gift. The arrangement was big enough I put them on the floor in front of our fireplace, and there they sat until I had to toss them out. My only regret is that I did not take any pictures of my flowers given to me, but they were beautiful.

Sophie had her first ever dance recital this past Friday (May 15^th) she did such a great job. I thought maybe she would be scared on the big stage with all those strange people watching her… nope; she did her thing and enjoyed every moment of it. I am so glad we decided to put her in dance last year, it has been good for her and she seems to be a natural dancer. It will be interesting to see if this is something she will choose to continue with as she gets older. Stewart had to be away for a chief conference this weekend in Seattle, WA so he was unable to come. Because of that I asked a good friend of mine to come and video it for me, that way I could watch it in person without having to worry about videoing it and still get a video for Stewart to see when he gets home today. She did a great job and it will be a video we will cherish for many years to come I am sure. 

Whenever Sophie and I are on a walk and Sophie sees a dandelion she will pick it and give it to me. Each time she gives me one she tells me it means she loves me. She calls them Dandies. It melts my heart each time. LOVE!

Sophie has been talking about learning to ride a bike with peddles for some time now. Stewart and I decided it would be a good investment so I started looking around at different yard sale websites until I found one we could afford and that looked like it would last a while. We found this little beauty for ten dollars on craigslist.

Sophie is smitten with it and calls it her Princess Dora bike. So far she is doing great learning to ride it. It took her a while but she has finally learned that she can’t put the brakes on and expect to keep going, since then she has been unstoppable. We are proud of her and all she is accomplishing these days. 

Here are a few more pictures of her washing her bike and then a video of her riding it.

Easter was swallowed up in the festivities of our birthdays this year, but here are a few pictures of Sophie’s Easter dress my mom sent her. She is absolutely beautiful if you ask me.

Do we have a birthday here? Yes we have a birthday here! April is birthday month in our home, Stewart and I both have birthdays this month and then there is Sophie who has her half birthday this month as well. We don’t really celebrate half birthdays but since Stewart and I are celebrating we include her by wishing her a happy half birthday. So needless to say our family started the month of April out in party mode.  We both had great birthdays and were spoiled with many birthday wishes, cards and a few gifts. We are very grateful for the love we felt from all our friends and families on our special days.

Stewart got a new razor head from me, a star chart from Sophie and a box of ensure because he asked for me to buy some for him and I wrapped it up for him to be funny. 

Stewart and Sophie made me some nice cards and got me a new hand mixer, since my last one broke around Christmas. My sisters sent me some essential oils and the book Unbroken for Stewart and me to read together. 

I have a group of dear girl friends in Cheyenne that I do a lot of activities with. So in honor of my birthday I invited all of my friends over and had a waffle party with them the day before my birthday. I made waffles and had some strawberries with whip cream; I also made two different kinds of syrup (buttermilk and Maple) to share. My friends were invited to bring a side dish to share but it was not a requirement. We had a great time! The kids ate and then played and us moms ate and socialized up until it was lunchtime. It was probably one of my favorite things I did to celebrate my birthday.

Stewart had the weekend after his birthday (which was also Conference weekend and Easter Sunday) off so we invited some of our friends from church to come over after the last session of conference for cake and ice cream. We decided to combine our cake into one, Stewart chose raspberry and I chose lemon, so our cake was a raspberry lemon cake and it turned out amazing! Good combination.  After cake Stewart decided that we needed to play some games with our guests, so we played a few rounds of signs and categories.  I thought he was crazy for bringing up the idea of playing games but in the end I think we all had a good time.  After our friends left we cleaned up and went to bed… Stewart had to work early the next morning and I was just plain tired, that’s what happens when you age. 

Our birthday cake, and us blowing out the candles (we opted to only put 12 candles on the cake as to not make a mess of the cake with wax). 

Where to begin… Last week Sophie and I Traveled to Idaho to spend time with all our families that had spring break while Stewart stayed behind and worked. We left on Thursday, March 19^th with the plan to spend about 5 days with my parents on the farm and then to travel to Eastern Idaho and spend 3 days with the Norths. Sadly our plan was changed when Sophie and I got into a car accident while driving to Idaho.

It was a scary ordeal for both of us but luckily we both were not seriously hurt and walked away with only a totaled car and a few bumps. While driving on I-15 just north of Ogden but south of Brigham City, Utah traffic had slowed due to a car accident. We passed a police car with his lights flashing warning people to slow down. I slowed down took my cruise control off while in the left lane. Sophie who was in the back seat asked me something so I turned my head to answer her and took my eyes off the road for a few seconds. When I looked back at the road it was too late. The flat bed semi truck in front of me had slowed and I did not have time enough to stop our car before rear-ending him at about 45 to 50 miles per hour. I did have my breaks on full before we hit, so it did slow us down some before we made contact, but it was not enough to help us avoid the whole ordeal.  This all happened about 2 or 2:30pm.

Once we hit my steering wheel airbag deployed and the front end was all mangled up but no glass was broken, thankfully. Sophie let out a scream and then started to cry. I immediately got out of the car and opened up the back door where I unbuckled Sophie and pulled her out. She and I stood on the side of the road and I let her just cry. A police officer came and moved our car and then after getting my license and car info had another officer take us off the freeway to the next exit where an ambulance met us to check out Sophie making sure she was ok. I had a second degree burn on my right hand from the airbag going off but nothing more than that, in fact I did not let the ambulance team look at it because it was something I could deal with later. After that the team that helped us offered to have us come and stay at the fire station in Brigham City while I figured out how to get to my parents home 4 hours away.  Those that took care of us were very kind and bought Sophie some Ice Cream and gave her a new stuffed bear. She was treated like a princess even got to watch cartoons on the big screen.  They were a big blessing to me as I needed to focus my attention on the problem at hand.

The wrecker came by the fire station; I was able to unload all the stuff I would need for Sophie and I before he took it to Honeyville where it would sit until I could figure out the mess I made. In the end I got a $150.00 ticket for following to close and a mess to try and untangle. My dad contacted our friends Joel and Larraine Hoyt who live in Logan, UT to see if one of them could come and get us and take us to Burley to meet up with my Mom and sister Katie who would then taxi us back to Bruneau. Lorraine was able to come and took me to meet my Mom and sister. We did not get to my parents home in Bruneau, ID until late that night probably 9 or 10pm.

I thought Sophie would have been scared to get back into a car but instead she was a trooper and got back in her car seat like a champ. She never once seemed worried while we traveled to Idaho. At one point she told me I could cry and she would be brave for me. She also did get teary eyed over the thought of losing our beloved car Grinda Inda, a 2006 Honda Pilot, and said oh poor Grinda poor poor Grinda. We both LOVED that car.

I was beside myself the whole time we were in Bruneau, trying to sort through the details of what needed to be done and how we were going to get back to Cheyenne. Stewart and I struggled with difference of opinions and trying to work things out long distance over a phone was not helpful, we offten ended phone calls frustrated with each other.   It was hard I am not going to lie. Our first problem was the fact that neither Stewart nor I thought to upgrade our insurance policy from liability to full coverage on the Pilot when we got it in August of 2014. So when I wrecked it we lost our car and all the money we had put into it. So now we needed to go and purchase a new car. I am sincerely grateful for my mom and dad who instead of told me how dumb I was to do that let me cry and then offered to help us by financing a new car for us. My dad went right to work looking for us a new (used) car and came away with finding a 2006 Honda Pilot in the exact same color as Grinda with 25 thousand miles less on it. So on Tuesday, my Dad and I went to Orem, UT and bought us a car that Sophie has lovingly named Grinda.

I decided that it was time for us to travel back to Cheyenne a week later, and cancel my plans to visit East Idaho and our family there. I wanted to get back to Stewart and to work out differences and share our feelings with each other in person. I needed to be near him. So with my parents blessing and a lot of prayers Sophie and I traveled back to Cheyenne on Thursday, March 26. I was nervous and worried that I would not be able to drive without a panic attack. But I managed and Sophie was understanding when I told her I could not help her so we did not get into another accident. We were both glad to get back to Cheyenne safely and have no plans to travel without Stewart anytime soon.

I know it will take us a long time to crawl out of this hole I made but we can do it. I have had a week now to reflect on all that has happened and to look for the blessings that occurred during this whole ordeal. First I could have rear ended another car and caused some serious harm to those inside, how thankful I am that no one was hurt but the car. Second I am amazed at how fast we were able to replace the car. Third I came away with an impression of haste, once I hit the semi in front of me I was no longer able to call the insurance company and adjust my policy to full coverage. Likewise once our time on this earth has expired I can’t go back and make up for my lack of scripture study, prayers, or worthiness. I am also realized that I am not alone. For a while now I have felt like God did not hear my prayers and did not care about my circumstances, I came away from this experience with a sound assurance that Heavenly Father is aware and answered my prayer to keep us safe and he helped me put thing back in order after the accident. I know I have a loving Father in Heaven, I also have loving parents who let me cry when I needed to, told me it would be ok, and then helped me sort things out. I hope I can one day be a blessing to someone else like they are to me. 

these are the only pictures i manged to take while in Idaho, we are truly lucky we both walked away with no serious injuries.

And here is a picture of the burn on my hand, this is about 4 days after the incident. Gross huh? but it is healing up nicely and I do not think there well be much of a scar.