Proudly Presenting "C-DUB"

Good old Courtney tagged me; so here it goes.....: )

What is his name? Chad William, also known as c-dub, c-walk, donk, and c-weed : )

How long have you been married? coming up on three years here in may.....good night, that went fast....but honestly it feels like we've been together all our lives. (we love it)

How long did you date? Well, honestly from our first date to our wedding day was about 4 and 1/2 years, but there were definitely some episodes of non "dating" along the way, at least one long episode anyway.

How old is he? 24

Who eats more? I am definitely the one who is always hungry and I also definitely eat a lot later at night than he does, but sorry Chad, I still think you take the cake on this one...no pun intended.

Who said I love you first? Definitely him....you're talking to the most non committal girl here. Chad went from being my best friend to my fiance merely because I couldn't commit to that boyfriend stage. I definitely loved him, I think I just said it in more round about ways.

Who is smarter? I have to work and study really hard, but I love learning anything and everything, whereas Chad is a lot more naturally smart (and a lot smarter than he thinks he is, by the way)

Whose temper is worse? Honestly, for the most part we are two pretty mellow fellows, we can both get frustrated at times, but it takes a lot for us to get there.

Who does laundry? Ever since we've had to do our laundry at our complexes coin operated machines, both of us totally slack off in the laundry department. But we usually do it together.

Who does the dishes? Yet again, another tag team effort.

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? We like to switch things up every now and then, but I often find myself sleeping closest to the door, hence, closest to emyri.

Who pays the bills? Chad mostly pays the bills, Vandi mostly worries about the bills.

Who cooks dinner? Whoever's home first around dinner time, but honestly, Chad's the much better cook. I am working on my kitchen skills, however. Yet, I find it's my lack of desire that mostly interferes.

Who drives when you are together? It's this weird phenomenon, but Chad is almost guaranteed to be the driver when we're together.

Whose parents do you see the most? Hmm....probably mine, but just a teeny bit more.

Who proposed? Chad did; on a mountain top in a snow storm: )

Who has more friends? We both have friends and love our friends, but Chad is by far better at keeping in touch with them. He is constantly calling them up and talking to them. I on the other hand find myself often thinking about my friends and hoping their doing great, but rarely actually talking to them. (something I'm working on) The good thing is though that most of our friends are both of our friends anyway, or at least his friends are married to my friends kind of a thing: )

Who has more siblings? biologically, I do, step-half sibiling-ologically he does; I have four brothers, Chad has a real brother and sister, three step sisters, and one half brother.

Who wears the pants in the family? Considering Chad and I typically prefers wearing shorts, I guess that means Emyri wears the pants. She's hard core like that: )

Pretty much all I can say is that I love Chad's guts. He is the craziest, cuddliest, most hilarious, loving, patient, and humble best friend I have ever had : ) I can't quite explain why he loves me so much, but there is never a doubt in my heart or mind that he does. With Chad around, there is never a dull moment...and I wouldn't have it any other way: )

My Heart 2 Heart with Emy

I think I had my first real life conversation with my emyri tonight. I know we've talked to each other billions of times before, which most likely consisted of me talking at her or to her, but tonight I sat her in my lap and face to face we talked and really communicated and I both loved and hung on to every last minute of it. It started out when she started to cry once she realized her daddy was gone for the night. We sat down and talked about how that made her feel and what she missed most about her dad. It just kind of snowballed into a full on chat about the time when her cousins bonked heads and started crying and how grandma held Bailey until she stopped crying. We covered how Jaxton slept on our couch this last weekend and how funny it was when he pretended to fall off of it when he woke up. She brought up the time when Kaylee came up to go swimming with us and we played ring around the rosies in the water together, oh and we also played "sharks". She remembered that after we swam we had to be quiet (shhh), because baby Olly was sleeping. I could almost see when a new memory or thought would enter her little mind and then the conversation would shift to something else she thought was hilarious or that she wanted to talk about. We even ended up talking about Abinadi in the Book of Mormon and how the "tigers" sitting next to King Noah in the picture had their mouths wide open. As I watched her use her words, sound effects, facial expressions, and movements to tell me all about what she was thinking, I was amazed at how well she actually can process things, remember, feel, and communicate, and also shocked to realize how often I probably pass what she's really trying to tell me about what she's thinking by. I loved being on her level tonight. I loved listening to all she had to say. It makes me wonder just how much more she would say if she had the means of communicating it. One of my greatest goals in life is to be a mom that listens and a mom that talks with her kids in a way that they want to, can, and love to talk back. I was grateful for the reminder that that starts now, even with a one and a half year old. Those kind of precious moments, like the ones I had with her tonight, are the kind that make my life so meaningful. Isn't it the best!

Weak Sauce Post I Know

I know I haven't posted in forever....and I feel really bad about it....and as you will already be able to infer upon reading the title of this here blurb, this post is going to be no compensation. Oh well, in this small amount of time I do have I will attempt to catch you up on the recent happenings in our little world.

School is going well....our schedules are at times monstrous, but I'm sure you all know exactly how it is: ) My internship is awesome. It actually has me considering becoming trained and certified in doing forensic interviews with children who have been sexually abused (something I don't think I ever would have considered had I not been able to work with and observe my incredible supervisor, who by the way is awesome at what she does). I've heard things and read things that I never thought I would in my life time, but I'm so glad I get to be a part of helping kids get out of the situations that life often places them in. I also get to teach in home parenting, and am currently working with a lot of teen moms and single moms, which I love. People are amazing. My internship also has my heart hurting some moments when I think about how much I'm having to be away from baby girl. I hate that she has to be baby sat so much. I feel bad for my wonderful babysitters (especially since we don't have much to offer them $ wise), and I feel bad for little girl who has just recently begun crying when we leave her at the sitters now. I honestly have to keep telling myself that even though there are moments of doubt when doing this incredibly time consuming internship feels like it can't possible be the right thing for me to be doing, that in fact it is right and I (we) just have to keep moving forward and make the most out of it. Honestly, it's not that bad.....I just miss my Chad and Memers.


I baby sat my neighbor's two little boys this weekend, who are in fact two very cute little boys. But after a night of chasing them around trying to wipe their really runny noses (which was in all honesty making me pretty queezy), lifting them out of emyri's crib upon finding they'd somehow climbed in and were jumping their little hearts out....time and time again, and rushing the oldest one to the toilet upon finding he'd had a coughing fit and thrown up his recently consumed granola bars all over emyri's toy chair...

*I pause here in the list of happening to insert that while the oldest boy was continuing to throw up in the toilet while I stood over him, his little brother was right by my side pretending to throw up as well. He kept copying his brother's hurling sounds and saying "I threwd up, I threwd up". Emyri who has never witnessed an actual "throwing up" in her life so far was also crowding in as close as she could to see the action. Needless to say it was mayhem.

(list continued)...We ended the night with the oldest boy, (yes the one who had only moments earlier thrown up) ramming his tiny head into the corner of our entertainment center leaving a huge purple and white dent, that was just itching to bleed uncontrollably. At least it wasn't full bore bleeding, I told myself as I got him a wet washcloth to hold on the wound. And poor emyri was pretty much traumatized by the end of the night (heck, I was pretty much traumatized by the end of the night) but she was so worried about Jesse getting hurt that she just kept crying and crying and wouldn't let me put her down. So I felt terrible by the time their parents came to pick them up. "You're never going to want you're boys to come over again" I found myself saying as they carried their boys out the door.

Oh well, so I'm not the best baby sitter. I'm ok with that. So weak sauce post turned into a long weak sauce post, but hopefully you still found some enjoyment out of it. Just in case you didn't, I leave you with this fun little video emyri and I found the other day. Goo Goo Dolls + Elmo; who couldn't enjoy that!