Working for Christmas

So this year for Christmas I am at work! My extended family all got together at my Grandma and Grandpa Faber's house for Christmas Eve dinner. Todd and Lila and I all went up early to visit before I would have to leave, and I headed to work just as everyone else was arriving. That part was sad. It was also a little awkward that I got to start eating before Anna's family and Lauren and Shelly who also came early to play with me (thanks guys!) But I didn't care because I was eating delicious sticky fingers from Wingers! And delicious company potatoes (AKA funeral potatoes) and Lion House Rolls. MMMMMMMMMM. Thanks Grandma. Soo good.

So I was on my way to work, sad that I was missing all the fun and a little worried about the snow I was driving in, when the traffic got really slow at the point of the mountain. This didn't worry me too much, there is always congestion there. But then I noticed a lot of cars moving into the right lanes and figured there was actually an accident. When I got up to the site, I saw several cars pulled to the side, and I think about three that looked like they were affected by the crash. But there were about 7 guys pushing one car off the side of the road with a frightened looking girl at the wheel. The front tire was smashed and completely flat, along with the front of the car. It made me feel good to see so many people that had stopped in the middle of their Christmas Eve plans to help out until the clean-up-crew could arrive. Snow was falling so much my rearview mirror was starting to be obstructed by the collected slush. Nice guys pushing cars in the snow= warm fuzzies. I wish I had a camera at that moment to catch all those nice boys helping out.

Tonight as a special Christmas bonus for my patients I have tried really hard to offer oral care. I have helped three of my four brush their teeth. Some of you are probably thinking "duh" and some thinking "gross" at the thought that I might not offer it, but it is something that usually gets overlooked around here. There are life-saving treatments going on, we don't care about brushing your teeth!! (I do actually care, but your blood pressure tanking just takes precedence!) Also, it really falls under the techs job to do such things, so sometimes when I am busy I just chalk it up to being their responsibility. But deep down I know that EVERYTHING is the nurses responsibility. So tonight I made a special effort to make sure everyone's teeth got brushed. And I still have one left but that patient is in dialysis and going home when he's done so he will probably brush his teeth at home. And this turned into a much longer explanation than I anticipated. So Merry Christmas patients! I at least feel very lucky that even though I have to work instead of stay home with my family, I get to be here helping people.

Our New Tradition

Yay! We started a new holiday tradition in our home. We need more of those. Only a few days after Thanksgiving we picked up our tree. Our new tradition is to eat made-from-scratch cookies and made-from-scratch hot cocoa while we decorate. Thanks to Todd who used the scratch to make our delicious treats!

P.S. Don't you love Lila's smile? Any time she sees something that looks like a camera she sticks her face in it and gives a big "CHEESE!!!!"

Random Lila

Happy Snow

Sometimes snow can be cold and miserable. But today, it was warm and happy! (I do, of course, mean warm in the sense that it was comforting, not at a high temperature). Lila played in the snow for the first time today. She was nervous at first, but in the end did not want to come inside. It was adorable! We have some snow pants that are too big for her so we pulled out some old soccer socks to help keep snow from falling in her shoes. I love her!

Vote!

I hope everyone is going to vote on Tuesday! In order to make sure we got a chance, Todd and I voted early. If you did too, then yay! and good for you! If not, please take the time, even if it ends up being a long time.

We are so lucky and so blessed to live in this country. I feel so grateful that I have the opportunity to vote. Even if my one ballot is basically inconsequential, it means a lot to me. There are so many people in the world who are literally dictated to, and have no chance for a leader change if things get bad. We have the opportunity every four years to choose our leader.  Granted, there are many flaws with the way we do things, and it really stinks when you can't wholeheartedly support one of the candidates, but compared to what our situation could be, I am happy to call this place home.

I'm an American!

Shunting

When something traumatic happens to your body, for instance, hypothermia, your body tries to compensate. In the case of hypothermia it shunts blood away from your extremities to try to keep your more vital body parts going. Hence frostbite mostly in fingers and toes. And I suppose sometimes your nose too.

Well, when you have a period of life where you have a million things going on, sometimes you have to shunt your attention away from things that really are important, just not as important as some other things. Despite the total control school and work has over my life, things have been really good. I try to take advantage of the time I have with Lila, and Todd and I do occasionally get some time together. But knowing it should only be like this one semester, I have been able to be more excited about the accomplishments we are working toward, and the near-future when I can be with Lila almost full-time.

Does anyone remember that pile of papers I had planned to go through around Christmastime? Well guess what was in it? The pretty little sticker that goes on the back of your car to show you've paid the government that ridiculous amount just to keep driving it. So yesterday while Todd was driving, I'm sure you can guess where this is going. The thing is, that sticker was in a pile that also includes the proof that we registered, and our proof of current car insurance. So this stop took a lot longer than it was supposed to.

Luckily the cop was able to look up our registration, but for some reason he couldn't find our insurance. But he let Todd go, and how we have to take our proof of insurance to the city building in no less than 5 but no more than 14 days. Ha ha I would do it today if I could to get it out of the way!

When Todd told me I just laughed. I guess I'm just lucky more stuff like this hasn't been happening!

Are you surprised we got that sticker on only about an hour after the incident?

Hopefully this is our only little frostbite....

Elmo

Lila's newest excitement. The first show she's ever really wanted to watch. She has become a Sesame Street Junkie. Sometimes she will specifically ask to watch TV out of the blue. I've tried putting on other shows, but she only likes Sesame Street. And she mostly likes Elmo. I used to wonder why Elmo seemed to be the most popular when it came to toys and such- I guess this is why! The kids just love him. Mr "Eh-mo" is just too much fun I guess. It has gotten me to be able to brush her teeth without fighting her, just because she is so excited to brush her teeth with Elmo. So as Todd and I were talking the other day about what to get Lila for Christmas, we had decided on a play kitchen for her. We found one at Costco that should be good that's about $120. Todd made a comment about that being the only thing he got, and I said that we also had to get her a tickle-me-Elmo.

I went to work the next night, and when I came home in the morning noticed a big box on the counter. I turned on the light and found a box of an Elmo toy. When I asked Todd about it the next day he said that he was just so excited at the thought of getting her an Elmo toy that he couldn't wait until Christmas. Plus he didn't know how she would be feeling about Elmo in 3 months. Ha ha what a good dad.

Well, She loves him. She has liked toys before, cuddled, hugged, kissed, and clung to them. But she takes care of Elmo. She shares her sippy cup with him, she uses sign language for him to tell me he's hungry, blows his nose, reads to him, even told me he was poopy. She's such a good mom already.

Getting the Toothpaste (Don't worry, she hasn't figured out yet how to actually squeeze it out)

Brush those teeth!

The Elmo Toothbrush

Story time

Time to change a poopy diaper

Affected by the Camera

Lila is so dang cute. I have been trying lately to capture all the cute things she does, but she always stops and says "cheese!" then tries to get her face as close to the camera as she can. Although it tends to thwart my plans, I just love it! So adorable. So the other day Todd was working out but I was too tired to work out and deal with Lila hanging off me so we were just watching. And she started doing pushups with him! I tried to record her doing them but when she would see the camera she started doing other weird things. So here is a little video, she does one pushup at the beginning and a few more in the middle. The rest is just her goofing off. I guess she will be a buff toddler.

Stats

What have you heard about stats? All I have ever heard is that it is hard and confusing. Even other people who love algebra (like me!) say that they hate stats. That it isn't really math or at least the math isn't fun.

Well I love it. So there. It could be the fact that I am both doing really really well in my class and feeling like I am learning information. I have learned a lot of things I didn't know, combined them with a bunch of stuff I do already know (we are doing a lot of graphs and calculations in excel, and I am really good working with spreadsheets so it allows me to focus on the actual statistics stuff)- and has been fun along the way. I will admit it wasn't quite as fun up until last week when we finally started pulling out equations. I never thought the whole first months worth of class wouldn't have any math in it! But when we started doing the numbers I got a happy, warm feeling inside.

It has been over 7 years since my last math class. Math, I missed you!

My First Win.

Hey mom- have I ever won anything? I can't think of a time. The closest thing is at our Senior all nighter I won one of the over 300 prizes they gave out. But it was a lame gift card to a spa that wasn't really enough to get anything done and I've never been a spa goer anyway. And pretty much everyone got something so I think of it more of a party favor.

I did get an honorable mention in one of my grade school reflections contests, and given my lack of winningness I was pretty excited about that. And I got 2nd place in the ASL competition I went to one year, I was pretty proud of that but also very disappointed I didn't win. I didn't win any scholarships out of high school or get voted for any of the yearbooks "best"s or " most likely to"s. Although I always thought it would be fun and exciting to actually win something, I have accepted the fact that I am just average.

Intermountain is set up in regions, and the region I work in consists of 3 hospitals. Our region puts out a weekly newsletter that I browse though most weeks. This summer they had a picture contest of places people were visiting over the summer. Even though I wasn't working, I would look at the newsletter just to see the winning pictures. Then when Todd and I got to Alaska, I went to work. I told Todd I wanted to win this contest, and Alaska was just the place to do it. So we got snap happy. Pretty much all the winning pictures were just of landscapes, so I might have slacked a little on pictures of people and the boat, but we did get some pretty amazing shots.

Only a 2 weeks before the end of the contest I finally got around to sending in my pictures. I didn't know how many I was allowed, so I sent in 4, hoping I wouldn't get disqualified for multiple entries. I figured when I didn't win I would send in a few more. That next week as I browsed the newsletter I purposefully went slow and didn't rush to find the pictures, which are usually in between the middle and the end. I suppressed getting excited because I know so well the let-down feeling. For some reason this week the picture contest was on the very last page. As I scrolled down, it was the strangest feeling ever. Almost unreal. I thought I had been transported to some new world or something.

Sorry if the picture is cut off. Click on it to make it bigger and see the whole thing

Not only did I win, I actually won FIRST PRIZE!! Everyone I told was disappointed when I told them the prize was a mere pair of movie tickets, I think my excitement made them think I must have gotten something more awesomer. I actually haven't even gotten around to picking up the tickets yet, I just think it's cool that I won!

Funny story, Todd actually took this picture and put it in our list of ones we liked well enough to submit. When I saw it on his list I asked him if he was sure, because I didn't really like it that much. As I looked at it more it did grow on me, and we actually blew it up to frame and put up in our guest room. I picked it because it went the best with my favorite picture and they complemented each other well. So I must give most of the credit to Todd, who both took the shot and inspired me to submit it.

However, given my history, I must still count it as a win for me. (Todd was good at sports, he's won lots of times). Love you babe!

A Lame Teacher Doles out a Pop Test

So on Monday in Pathophysiology our teacher told us he was thinking about moving up our test from the next Monday to that Saturday (A testing center test, so I assumed there would be 3 days to take it). Then on Wednesday he announced that the test would run from Thursday to Tuesday and we needed to have read the next chapters by that Monday for class. I was so annoyed. I had been so good and diligent about my studying and was ready to take the test Monday. Then he said he was moving it to Saturday, no big deal, but this was no good. Now I would have to take the test on Thursday Friday or Saturday so I wouldn't have to pay the late fee and would be able to get ready for class Monday.

Well, I wanted to take the test Saturday but my babysitter fell through and Todd had clinical all day so I sadly had to wait. So I decided to spend my time starting in on the material for Monday. Then I could spend Tuesday morning studying for the test and take it in the afternoon. Well, I worked on Saturday and Sunday night, and again my babysitter fell through for Monday morning when Todd had school, so I stayed up all morning trying to take care of Lila, passed out for about 2 hours, then went to school.

Well, during the break we had in Patho I walked around out in the hall to help keep myself awake. Then at the end of class I thought I would ask someone else, just to verify, if the test would still be available in the testing center on Tuesday. Do you want to know what she said? She said NO. That during the break a student told the teacher she called the testing center and they told her the test only went through Monday. And he said then you better take it today.

But then he didn't announce this to the class?!? I was so mad. I heard another student complaining about it after class, and he was saying stuff like "well what did you do this weekend?" And I wanted to punch him in the face. If he wanted us to take a test over the weekend, he should have made the test only available during the weekend. If you give people options you can't always assume that they are just lazy or procrastinating. For instance, the mom who is working full-time and has been diligently studying for your test.

So I went over the to testing center- having been awake for (basically) more than 24 hours and unprepared for the test. Then the test itself was also awful. It didn't have enough questions to cover the material, so every one wrong counted for a lot of your grade and huge chunks of material studied wasn't even tested. And he had a lot of those questions that included one small random fact that if you didn't memorize it you couldn't get the question right.

I didn't fail but I could have done a lot better. I officially hate pathophysiology.

The Final Touch

So Todd and I have done a lot of work to our house. I think no matter what there will always be projects we want to do to improve it (it is over 30 years old, and some things are still pretty outdated). But since we moved in there has been one critical piece missing from our home. And now we have it! It is the first time since I moved out of my parent's house after high school that I have had my beautiful baby in a place so easily accessible. I thought with my busy schedule I would never have time to play, but luckily Lila loves it! Once I was playing a bit while she ate in her high chair and for about half an hour after she finished eating she kept on asking me for more whenever I finished a song. It was awesome. So I just take some of my Lila time and use it to do something with Lila and play on my harp. Oh, and Lila likes to sit on the bottom. Sometimes that is her book reading place. She has a weird thing for finding short ledges she can sit on. Anyway, adorable.

busy, tired, sleep deprived

Well, this semester is going just as I imagined it. Every time I get home I just get ready to pick up and leave again. Get home from school, get ready to go to work. Get up after work, get ready to go to school. Or a family activity or a mandatory work training. And soon, to the testing center. Or to church. And in a few weeks we'll even have a Saturday practice for the primary program (yes, we have primary callings!). I finally caved and set up as many of my bills online with autopay as I could. I used to spend so much time paying bills and going through papers. I guess Christmas Break will be paper-sorting time. I still need to set up our mortgage, and I'll always have to pay our HOA and regular credit card by hand (don't worry, we spend the money then pay the whole thing off each month MOM). Our bishop actually asked me how we were doing in general, then asked how we were doing financially. I told him we were fine, and even though we might have to dip into our savings after our low-income summer he said in shock "you have savings?!" I guess we are a rare finding in our ward. Maybe time to increase our fast offerings.

But all that is besides the point! I don't get enough sleep and when Todd and I sit down to make our weekly schedules we often can't find time to do the grocery shopping. We like to do it together, but we may have to bite the bullet here soon and whoever can fit it in will have to do it themselves. But we have been successful in working out for an hour 6 days a week! Going back to our weekly planning- that is the only way we've been able to do that. We decided its important for us and so we are going to stick to it! At night instead of winding down and watching TV with Todd I usually spend 3 hours studying after Lila goes to bed, then crash myself. I used to take naps with Lila when I got tired, but now its basically the only time I can study!

There are only 2 reasons I feel that I might still be sane at this point. The first is that I knew all this was coming and decided ahead of time that I would not freak out. In the past if I didn't get my sleep I knew I would be tired and have a hard time functioning, so I would freak out. My sleep was a high priority. But I have put mind over matter and allowed sleep to drop a bit on the priority list. I sneak in extra when I can, but I know it won't always work out the way I want it. It's all about attitude!

The second, and much more important thing is that Todd has become househusband! He has taken on almost all the housework, and gets mad at me when I do some things for him. He may not know it, but it has made my sanity possible. Before if there were dishes in the sink my brain would be racing about how I would have time to do them while Lila pulled them out of the dishwasher as soon as I put them in and I also have to get ready for school and finish this assignment and get the mail and oh yeah there are toys out downstairs and I really should sweep the floor and man that shelf needs organizing and I need to pick up my clothes off the bedroom floor and soon I was overwhelmed with the magnitude of everything because I really felt I was responsible for everything. Now I can just pick up after myself and know that the rest of the mess (Todd's mess, some of Lila's messes and the family mess) will be taken care of at some point. He doesn't do things the same way I would do them, or in the same order, but the fact he has taken on this responsibility is probably the only reason reason #1 is working.

Thanks Todd.

Itri Family Pictures

When we had all the Itri's out here for Kyle's homecoming we did some family pictures. We chose purple as the color for everyone to wear. Some people were a little nervous about the color at first (a bunch of macho guys wearing purple!?) But it turned out GREAT. Everyone looked smashing! Also, as everyone who has kids or siblings knows, it was quite an experience with the kiddos.

18 months

Lila turned 18 months old this month! Here are some things about her:

people called her a giant at church after being gone all summer. mastered the word "no." loves chocolate. tries to say chocolate, but it comes out as a jumble of different ways to splice "shhh" and "ch" together. very girlie. likes putting on clothes. her favorite shoes are her church shoes with rhinestones. likes dolls. gives lots of kisses. uses sign language to ask for "help" and "more" all the time. knows two comes after one. starting to recognize pictures of Jesus. usually wants to feed herself unless she's too tired or can't feed herself fast enough. Verbal vocabulary includes (but is not limited to): no, mom, dad, ball, Jesus, cheese, temple, chocolate, more, two, pizza, night-night, poo poo, pee pee, pasta, banana. Sign language vocabulary includes (but is not limited to): more, help, please, eat, milk, outside, upstairs, apple, play, grandma, home, bath, swimming, fish, ocean, shoes, socks, banana. Knows her hair, nose, eyes, and toes. Recognized that woof, quack and roar are animal sounds, but doesn't really associate them with the right animals. Likes most kid foods including mac and cheese (we call it "cheesey pasta"), PB&J, chicken nuggets, pizza and pasta with red sauce. Has also been known to love eating eggrolls, pot stickers, non-spicy indian curry, blueberries, and other weird food I can't think of right now. Still loves being outside, and especially loves swinging at the park. Tends to like women more than men. Cries when mommy takes her away from either of her grandma's. Cries when mommy goes to work at night. Has a pretty good schedule of going to bed at 9 and taking a nap at noon. Loves blankets but isn't particular (soft, knitted, towel, dad's old shirt, her pajamas). Says "poo poo!" when we smell her bum. Loves to wipe things down with baby wipes or towels. Loves to sing. Usually so quiet in the car we think she is sleeping, but rarely is. Responds well to time-outs. Tests her boundaries- that's how she gets time-outs. Grabs from other kids. Doesn't like to share. Still loves her giant moose. Walks into nursery and doesn't look back- even the first day. Hair is long enough for pigtails. Starting to pay a little attention when I read to her. Likes playing with other kids and sometimes gets lonely when she's home with only us adults. Good at coloring and so far has always found a piece of paper to color on, although she does still end up with pen/marker on herself. Loves to have mommy carry her around the house and tell her who the people are in all the pictures. Of all her cousins, she can repeat the name of Reese back very clearly while the rest are more jibberish. Says cheese when we take out the camera. Uses our cell phones, calculators, and the (small, flat) video camera to carry on conversations with herself. Isn't entertained by TV. Starting to prefer regular cups over sippy cups, but always makes a mess. Loves pushing her stroller around. Met uncle Kyle for the first time. Gets jealous of the computer if mommy or daddy is working on it while she is with them. Likes to help mommy. Loves taking baths except for the cleaning off part, and especially the shampoo and rinse part. Her favorite toy is chapstick and first puts it on her lips a few times, then sticks her finger in and tries to eat it. Has taken 4 airplane rides and driven across the country. Is mostly a smiley, happy, cooperative, helpful, wonderful little girl, and grows every day.

On her actual 18 month day:

Some other recent pictures: