fourth
9/22/2011
| Author:
jefferies
Yes, I am just now posting for the 4th of July...haha! Someday I'll get caught up!
Sauvie Island Foot Traffic Flat Half Marathon:
I decided really early...like in November that I was going to train for this half marathon to help me loose the baby weight from two pregnancies. And my training went really well...until the last month when we suddenly decided to move and we were kind of obligated to take a trip to Utah for my sister's wedding right before the race. So...I only got to run 10 miles a couple of times about a month before the race, and I felt it. It was a tough 13.1 miles (don't discount that last .1 mile...it is hard!). I did not loose all the weight I had planned on before the race and actually I gained a few pounds from the travel and wedding. :-/ Frustration! Ah...but at least I finished the race AND I ran the whole way. And at least the weather cooperated...no rain and not too hot. But I wish I could be running the race now that I've lost all the weight I had planned on.
Left: before the race (remind me NOT to wear my race number on my stomach again...I think I knew not to do that at one point in time)
Middle: the race pace group I was trying to follow: 10 minute/mile. I did pretty good for a few miles, but by mile 8 I knew I didn't have a prayer.
Right: after the race with my finisher's medallion
Apres-race: I was exhausted and could hardly move for the rest of the day...but we wanted to share a memorable holiday with the kids, so we took a drive and ended up having a picnic at the park for dinner and watching the fireworks over the river as we camped out on our sleeping bags.
bottom left: we stopped and took a picture with Tow Mater
I am SO pleased to announce:
Mr. & Mrs. Carlos and Heather Haehle-Carrasco!
{actually I have to admit that I'm not sure what last name Heather is using...bad sister, huh?}
BEAUTIFUL day for a beautiful wedding!
the 4 sisters!
The Reception was INCREDIBLE...and SO much fun! I have never danced to a mariachi band AND danced to Michael Jackson's Thriller with a group of wedding goers all in one night!
with my cousin's youngest daughter--cutie pie!
Mariachi surprise!
The whole clan, including my mom's husbands kids and grandkids! So much fun!
Carlos' wonderful family...it was SUCH a pleasure to get to know them!
June 22-29, 2011
In the duration of the summer, we ended up going to Utah twice! Lucky us! This first trip was mainly to attend my younger sister's wedding, but I'm going to do a separate post about the wedding...just so it isn't too big!
One the way down, we had a little bit of extra time (because we ended up sleeping in the car in Southern Idaho the night before...yeah, that's how we roll) so we stopped for a quick visit to see what this Smith & Edwards was that we pass all the time. Hmm... The boys thought the tank in the front was pretty cool.
Later that day we had a bridal shower for my sister Miss Heather:
Left: mom and sister Annika, Right: Heather holding Oliver
Some pictures from the shower!
My sister's in-laws came for the wedding all the way from Cancun, Mexico! They had us play a fun little guess game, and if you did not answer correctly you got lipsticked on the face.
I got to do the lipsticking! Bwahaha!
The next day we had an awesome time at Lagoon with my family and Carlos' family:
my kids REALLY loved the ride WICKED!
{that picture on the top right is Joshua's hair after riding wicked!}
It was SO MUCH FUN! We rode it over and over, taking turns with the baby. Lucky for us, if you have a kid under 52 inches, you get to pretty much skip the line. Thank you Toby!
At first the boys were too scared to ride it, but with a little bribery they decided to try it...and they were SO glad they did!
We managed to catch Brent's cousin's wedding:
Christian and Amelia: what an awesome couple!
And we got to visit our little sissy:
Here is Elsa's brand new, new and improved headstone...remember the
last one was so hard to read? They made us a new one for no extra charge. That was nice of them, since we'll be coming here a lot through our whole lives.
Every time we go, we take turns picking out flowers for her grave. This time Brent picked pick carnations. So beautiful!
Here are the boys sitting on her grave. Joshua gave his "sad face". We all miss our sissy.
Then we visited a few friends who reside in the same cemetery:
Elsa's angel baby friend Lexi
My dad...we didn't have flowers for him, so we offered a Trader Joes "Joe-Joe" cookie from our snackage. I think he would've loved Trader Joes.
And finally we saw my grandparents and my cousin, who also left her family too soon. We offered them some pine cones!
We had a party with our lovely Jefferies extended family:
We got to have a picnic at the park with some of our best friends who moved to Utah from Oregon last year:
The Fox family! We were all very happy to see them!
We had our annual friend swimming party at the Sadler's house {with a few of Brent's family thrown in there for extra fun!}:
The guys
the girls
{sorry about the funkiness of the panoramic picture Steph!}
the cute baby
Brent's early morning run up Corner Canyon to Ghost Falls:
Left: looking down the trail to the Draper Temple,
Right: Ghost Falls...can you believe that's in Utah, in running distance from Brent's parents' house?
First of all, I want to say THANK YOU SO MUCH to friends, family and strangers who have been touched by Elsa and MamaBaby Haiti and have shared love and money to this great cause! My goal was $500, and we raised $355! I'm going to throw a corny cliche at you now: reach for the stars and you'll end up with the moon! I'm very happy that we could contribute so much money to such a worthy cause. And feel free to make another donation any time you please :-) ...or now that you are an official MBH donator, you should buy some
official apparel! As for me, I am going to keep donating a little every month until I reach my goal of $500.
But now for the moment everyone has been waiting for!
{I picked names out of a bowl because not everyone replied to the same blog entry,which is not a problem because it was a little confusing!}
The winner of the photography mini session with TM Custom Portraits:
Emily J.
The winners of a Sweet Meadowlark baby blanket:
Betsy B.
Kylie G.
and I decided to give one more away because I am feeling so blessed by all of you:
Kristina Z.
Please send me a message within 48 hours with your contact information to claim your prize!
Blessings to you all! XXOO
Today...or yesterday, as it is now WAY past my bedtime...marks the passage of two years since our adored angel Elsa was born. I have so much to say...I don't even know how to organize it all.
These past few months, I have been feeling well. Really well, and have found what feels like a "good" place in my feelings toward Elsa and life in general. I *finally* figured out a way to stop feeling jealous of everyone with little girls! That was a HUGE step toward feeling good. I can't even explain how I let go of that twinge of jealousy...but my heart needed it. And I was also able to let go of my pride a bit and see that Elsa's death (and every time I feel sad or jealous) is a chastisement for my little self from God. I listened to
this talk in our church's General Conference over and over {I tend to do that...I take one or two favorite talks and listen to them until they sink in SO well...} "As Many as I Love, I Rebuke and Chasten". First of all, isn't it SO good to know that God loves me? No doubt! My very favorite part of this talk is when Elder Christofferson tells the story of President Hugh B. Brown and his current bush. He had a bush that was overgrown and not bearing any fruit, and so he cut the bush way down because he knew that would help the bush to grow fruit the way it was intended. And he imagine the bush saying:
“How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. … And now you have cut me down. Every plant in the garden will look down on me. … How could you do this to me? I thought you were the gardener here.”
President Brown replied, “Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. I didn’t intend you to be a fruit tree or a shade tree. I want you to be a currant bush, and someday, little currant bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down.’”
{Incidentally, it is SO true that bushes and trees produce more fruit when they are cut down. I have learned this for myself these past few years as I have been striving to grow fruit myself!}
As soon as I could truly submit to this chastening, I can't describe the feeling of peace that I experienced, and the load that was lifted from my shoulders. And every time I start to feel sad, I remember this...and immediately my burden is lifted. I have heard the scripture in Matthew 11 many times:
28) Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (29) Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. (30) For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
But now I think I have finally experienced my burdens having been made light. {I'm sure I have before, but it wasn't as noticeable since the burden wasn't as heavy.}
I also love this talk by Elder Nelson with all of my heart. My favorite part (the part I had to keep replaying over and over) is when he says:
"Unfailing faith is fortified through prayer. Your heartfelt pleadings are important to Him. Think of the intense and impassioned prayers of the Prophet Joseph Smith during his dreadful days of incarceration in Liberty Jail. The Lord responded by changing the Prophet’s perspective. He said, “Know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.”
If we pray with an eternal perspective, we need not wonder if our most tearful and heartfelt pleadings are heard. This promise from the Lord is recorded in section 98 of the Doctrine and Covenants:
“Your prayers have entered into the ears of the Lord … and are recorded with this seal and testament—the Lord hath sworn and decreed that they shall be granted.
“Therefore, he giveth this promise unto you, with an immutable covenant that they shall be fulfilled; and all things wherewith you have been afflicted shall work together for your good, and to my name’s glory, saith the Lord.”
The Lord chose His strongest words to reassure us! Seal! Testament! Sworn! Decreed! Immutable covenant! Brothers and sisters, believe Him! God will heed your sincere and heartfelt prayers, and your faith will be strengthened."
So I've been good lately. Really good. I'm enjoying my life SO much! And I have felt very happy with the idea of raising money for MamaBaby Haiti in memorandum of Elsa's beautiful life. And I was very excited to have a girly, pink tea party to celebrate her life {despite my 6 year old's protests against anything "too girly"}. And our tea party was a success! It was lovely.
Elsa's Garden
kids
Our special guests
Lara=sister Tara=like a sister
peppermint tea with cream and sugar!
These are our butterflies that we were going to release into Elsa's garden...
meadowlark stepping stone for garden
finished stepping stone (just needs to dry) and cute baby coming to help!
.......
And then I spent some time alone...I read some notes from all the well wishers (thank you)...
and one note struck me in particular. From my dear friend Rachel (who lost her sweet Matthew a few years back):
"I know that you are being timewarped back to that day as we speak, and I know it's tough but so important too."
And that's when I knew I needed to be alone so I could think about everything that was happening every beautiful moment 2 years ago. And then I cried. And I'm crying still. I miss my daughter SO much. I want her back. I LOVE her!! My body trembles to think of the emotional and physical pain that I have been through in the last two years. But it is ok...it is all ok. Seasons of pain come before seasons of joy. One thing I always remember when I'm in the midst of a most difficult or crushing challenge:
What is unbearable now will change. What is effortless now will change. Change is dependably constant. Have faith in change.
{I got that quote from this beautiful site.}
And when I feel like I just can't breathe anymore from the gaping hole in my heart, I remember that the holy spirit is my breath.
And I remember these words of Joseph Smith:
“A question may be asked—‘Will mothers have their children in eternity?’ Yes! Yes! Mothers, you shall have your children; for they shall have eternal life, for their debt is paid.”
“Children … must rise just as they died; we can there hail our lovely infants with the same glory—the same loveliness in the celestial glory.”
President Joseph F. Smith, the sixth President of the Church, reported: “Joseph Smith taught the doctrine that the infant child that was laid away in death would come up in the resurrection as a child; and, pointing to the mother of a lifeless child, he said to her: ‘You will have the joy, the pleasure and satisfaction of nurturing this child, after its resurrection, until it reaches the full stature of its spirit.’ …
And
“This world is a very wicked world; and it … grows more wicked and corrupt. … The Lord takes many away, even in infancy, that they may escape the envy of man, and the sorrows and evils of this present world; they were too pure, too lovely, to live on earth; therefore, if rightly considered, instead of mourning we have reason to rejoice as they are delivered from evil, and we shall soon have them again. …
“… The only difference between the old and young dying is, one lives longer in heaven and eternal light and glory than the other, and is freed a little sooner from this miserable, wicked world. Notwithstanding all this glory, we for a moment lose sight of it, and mourn the loss, but we do not mourn as those without hope.”
Elsa~too pure, too lovely for this earth
<3
