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Eagle Mountain, Utah, United States
My name is Lauren, and I live in the bubble. I am wife to Marshall, the biggest BYU fan in the world; and mother to Carly, our big girl, and Wes, our wild man, and Calvin, our new addition. I graduated BYU with a degree in Social Work, and I went forth to serve at LDS Family Services. I like scrapbooking and going out to eat at nice restaurants. I am fascinated by new cleaning products at the grocery store, so I have to shop in wide circles around the perimeter to avoid the temptation to buy. I love chocolate.

Friday, April 24, 2009

5 Years Ago

5 years ago today, Marshall and I were kneeling across the alter of the Los Angeles Temple making the eternal sealing covenants of marriage.

When we were first married, we would mark each month's anniversary, saying things like "oh my gosh! I can't believe we have been married 3 months!!!! It seems like we just got married yesterday!" People, upon hearing about our "big" anniversary keep asking if it has gone by fast... if it still just feels like we got married yesterday. And you know what? it doesn't anymore. Is that weird?

I know it sounds bad, but now it feels like we have been married forever. Like I can't consider or clearly remember a time before we were married. My marriage to Marshall is my existence, my whole experience in life. We are no longer 2 individuals trying to figure each other out, trying to figure out how to make our partnership work. Now marriage is like having a right arm. We both know how to use it and having it is second nature. I think this is a good thing. There are things that I certainly miss about that exciting honeymoon period of marriage. But the deepened partnership we have now is definitely preferred. It has taken a lot of work, pain, tears, sacrifice, and forgiveness to get here. And I know we still have a long way to go. But our marriage today is...older...than it was. Like watching a child grow. Our marriage is smarter, not as naive, and better at handling the surprises and challenges of life. I think this is what one calls progress! I am proud of the progress we have made.

In honor of some of the lessons learned, and those still to come, I will post some quotes on marriage that I love. I found these in the May 2009 Reader's Digest.

"I used to believe hat marriage would diminish me, reduce my options. That you had to be someone less to live with with someone else, when, of course, you have to be someone more." -Candace Bergen

"Marriage is our last, best chance to grow up." -Joseph Barth

"When a husband brings his wife flowers for no reason, there's a reason." -Molly McGee

"For two people in a marriage to live together day after day is unquestionably the one miracle the Vatican has overlooked." -Bill Cosby

"The formula for a happy marriage? It's the same as the one for living in California: When you find a fault, don't dwell on it." -Jay Trachman

"Men always want to be a woman's first love... Women have a more subtle instinct... What they like is to be a man's last romance." -Oscar Wilde

"A happy marriage is the union of two forgivers." -Ruth Bell Graham

"Only two things are necessary to keep one's wife happy. One is to let her think she is having her own way; the other, to let her have it." -Lyndon B. Johnson

"A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person." -Mignon McLaughlin

And my favorite:
"I married the first man I ever kissed. When I tell this to my children, they just about throw up." -Barbara Bush
(for those of you who are unfamiliar, Marshall was the first man I ever kissed.)

So here's to the last 5 years of marriage. And here's to the next 5. I know we will just get better at being each other's eternal partner! We are far from perfect, but I sure am glad that Heavenly Father, in His wisdom, has given us the opportunity to use a whole Eternity to get it right! So lastly, here's to Eternity!

I love you, Marsh.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Lately

What has been going on lately? Here's my abbreviated list:

1. Carly is in her "big girl bed" full time.
At first it was a battle to get her to stay in it. But now she is doing great. But being in a toddler bed has had its interesting effects on Carly.


She has developed a fear of the dark that she never showed before. She won't fall asleep unless the door to her room is open. Often I'll close it once she is asleep, and the next morning when Marshall gets home from work, her door is wide open again. So she gets up in the middle of the night, opens the door, and goes back to sleep.

She also falls out of bed. Her bed has rails, but she is a very active sleeper. Somehow she manages on many nights to end up on the floor. Poor kid.

2. We've settled on a name for our new little edition. He is officially going to be Wesley Wallace. Like there was ever a real question of if I'd let Marshall name him William Wallace.

3. One of our cars was stolen. A few weeks ago. It was taken right out of our parking lot. We didn't even realize it was missing for 4 days. Marshall had those days off of work, so he didn't need to drive it, and therefore didn't notice it was gone. So we are currently in a rental while we wait and hope the police find it. I doubt they will. After 30 days, our insurance will settle our claim, so that is looking like what will end up happening.

4. We welcomed our first niece! Kiernan gave birth to a beautiful baby girl that she named Kalen Andrews Mayes on April 7th. She is just gorgeous, but out of respect for Kiernan, I won't post any pictures.

5. Easter came and was wonderful! Carly was actually old enough to care this year, so we did Easter baskets and an egg hunt- the whole deal. My mom made Carly this ADORABLE Easter dress. She is so talented.




And here is a video of the egg hunt for the grandparents who missed it and care to watch.
(video to be added when I can find my cable...sorry)

6. Twilight- I finally finished the books! I have been meaning to read all of them for a long time, but never got the chance. I finally got the books from Star a few weeks ago, and spent basically all of my free time lost in Forks with the Cullens and Quilettes. They were great, and I'm glad I finally finished them. But I must say, they sure got racier in theme as they progressed. I was kinda surprised. Not sure that I'd recommend them to young tweens and teens like I would have after having just read the first book.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Carly poopy hands

So I have been in a blogger's funk. That's no secret. And the more time that passes, the worse it gets because I have more and more stories that I feel I NEED to blog. Gaahhh! Procrastination! So I'm sorry if I blog a bunch in a row right now.

I'm going to start with my most recent story. By popular (husband) request. I think he knew that I needed to blog and has been showering my blogging skills with praise and saying that he missed reading them. And he insisted I blog this story.

Potty training with Carly has been....slow.

Is it just too early?
Is she just stubborn?
Are we just too lazy to be consistent?
All of the above?

She has pottied in the actual potty 4 or 5 times. But usually only when I catch her right before or mid-act and put her on the potty. Usually though, she'll sit on the potty and cry until I let her off, and then immediately go in her diaper.

Or the floor.

Yes, the floor.

She has started to really enjoy "nudities," Marshall's name for Carly's frequent bouts of streaking though our house. Any time she can get that diaper off, she will. For the most part, if we can get a pair of pants on, she will leave the diaper alone.

Until Saturday.

I borrowed a carpet steamer from a friend and was determined to completely clean my disgusting carpets. They were gross not just from Carly's nudities, but also just generally in the high traffic areas. The kind of gross that you don't realize is gross until you spot clean a stain and are left with a dinner plate sized circle of off-white amidst a sea of beige.

I started by moving all of the furniture into the kitchen. Carly loved this and took full advantage of being able to get up onto the counters. I was just happy to have her off the carpets and out from underfoot for a while. I went to check in on her after a few minutes of silence and found her sitting on the glider with the cookie jar in her lap. She had taken out all of the Oreos, pulled them apart, licked off all of the cream filling, and discarded the chocolate cookie halves onto the floor. She seemed quite content with herself.

I decided she'd be better contained in her room. It was nap time anyway. I put her in there, and figured she fell asleep because she was so quiet.

A couple hours later I had finished the carpets, moved the furniture back, and collapsed on the couch out of sheer exhaustion. Women who are 27 weeks pregnant shouldn't move furniture or bend to empty 10+ tanks of brown water.
Carly was still quiet. Too quiet?

I went to her room to check if she was actually napping. I was greeted at the door by a smiling Carly, with 2 handfuls of poop. She reached up to offer me her finds, proudly, declaring "poo-poos mommy!"

So potty training is still slow. I am probably not done with the carpet steam cleaner just yet. And I get to check one of those mommy rights-of-passage off my list.

And hopefully I can be a better blogger.

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