Lessons From a Life Well Lived

This past week my mind has been full of thoughts and ideas. All of these thoughts and ideas have been spinning around in there and I wanted to write them down. In my head, they will all come out in a beautifully written inspirational message. This is what I imagine, the reality will probably be much different, but I will try anyway. This past week was a difficult one for my family, my Grandpa Bogus passed away. While this was no great tragedy, he was 87 and had lived an amazing life, he is gone from us now and that does cause some pain. Pain, and reflection. I consider myself very lucky to have had my Grandpa in my life for this long. The only Grandparent James has ever know is his maternal Grandmother and she lived in England and he was only able to see her a few times as a child. My Grandparents live in Provo and I was able to spend lots of time with them. They had always been there for me, and as I got older, it seemed like they just might live forever. So my Grandpa's passing brought to light the fact that, no, they won't live forever. The thought ran through my head that I would imagine many people have when someone dies: if I had known the last time I saw him was the last time I would ever see him, it would have been different. I am so grateful to still have my Grandma, and being able to spend time with her during all this was very special. Thursday night was the viewing for my Grandpa. It was nice to be able to see so many Aunts, Uncles, and cousins, some that I haven't seen in a long time, but most I do see and talk to often. This was another great blessing that came from this. I realized how lucky I am to have so many Aunts and Uncles and cousins in my life. We grew up together and when we all get together as adults we tell all the same stories of our childhood and laugh and laugh. I love it. My cousins have spouses and children, and I am so lucky that they are a part my life too. At the viewing I made my way over to where my Grandma was sitting and knelt down next to her so I could talk to her. She leaned in and spoke right into my ear. I'm not sure what I expected her to say, something about my Grandpa I guess, but that's not what she said. She reminded my of some health issues that my Dad, her son, is having. She told me I need to make sure that I talk to my Dad about it and make sure he is taking care of himself. The thought struck me so hard, that at her husbands viewing she was not talking about him, or even herself, but about her son. Even at 87 years old with her son in his 60's, she was still a mother, concerned about his health. As a mother this meant so much to me and when I really thought about it I realized that I will be the same way. No matter how old your children are, they are yours and you will love them and care for them no matter the circumstance.
My brother, some of my cousins, and I were pallbearers for the funeral on Friday. I was really happy to have a part in the funeral and this job created an amazing opportunity for us. After the funeral service all the pallbearers rode with my Grandma to the cemetery so we would be ready to carry the casket to the burial sight. During the drive my Grandma told us all stories of my Grandpa and of our parents when they were young. Stories that I hadn't heard before, one was this: When my Grandpa was a boy his family lived in Carbon County, during the summers he and his sister would stay with a friend for a week or so in the next town over. My Grandpa and his sister, Clarice, would walk, following the train tracks, the whole way to theirs friends home. My Grandpa was in charge of carrying the suitcase full of the clothes they would need for the week. Grandpa would dawdle along and his sister would end up going on ahead of him. When they reached their destination it was discovered that none of Clarice's clothes were in the suitcase, Grandpa had taken them out one by one and discarded them along the tracks, but left his clothes alone. The drive to the cemetery took us past BYU campus and Grandma told us that Grandpa, an electrician, had been in charge of all the electrical work for several of the buildings on campus. Grandma also told us of slippery sliding in her back yard. My Grandparents yard has this amazing hill that is perfect for the slip -n-slide. As kids, my cousins and brother and I spent many summers sliding down that hill on huge sheets of plastic our dad's would get for us. Apparently, us grand-kids didn't invent that activity, our parents had been doing long before. Grandma said she about 40 years old and was out on the slippery slide with her kids. She told us that her neighbor was looking out her bedroom window at my Grandma sliding down the hill with her kids and asked her husband what he thought of a grown women slippery sliding. He said it looked like fun and she replied, "go get my suit". Grandma said that now as she looks back on that experience, 40 seemed so very young. I thought about my own life as a mother, I am closer to 40 than I am to 20 and I hope at that age I am still getting down and playing with my kids. The drive to the cemetery also took us right past Grandma and Grandpas house. There is a park right across the street from their house and as we passed Grandma said, "For years the only thing up that flag pole was my boys. I don't know how they did it, but everyone of them managed to shimmy themselves up to the top." Being in the car with my brother, cousins, and Grandma, seems like such a huge gift. Something so special that I got to experience. I will remember that forever, and I am so thankful I was there.
Last of all, this experience has renewed my gratitude for my faith. I am so grateful for the things I know to be true, I know where my Grandfather is and how happy he must be. I know I will see him again. I am so grateful for the spirit that guides me in this life, that comforts me in times of sorrow. I love my family, every single one of them and I am grateful for the lessons I have been able to learn this week. I hope to become an old granny, telling my grand kids awesome stories and seeing the life I have lived spread out before me.

Avery's 3rd Birthday!

Avery just turned three! She is our crazy, unpredictable, sweet little gor! "Gor" is how Avery pronounces girl, we're working on it. I loved Avery's birthday celebration, very low key. Unlike Savanna, Avery didn't really even know that it was her birthday, therefore she had not come up with a thousand ideas of what to do. All day long she kept saying "I can't believe it's my birthday". Three is a good age! We stayed home and made individual pizzas, had cake and ice cream and presents. Avery is our girly girl and was very happy to get a new Barbie doll, but she was also super excited for the Hot Wheels James got her too. My youngest child is three, that is so crazy to me! We are enjoying this stage of life where we have kids and no babies, but sometimes I want them to stay little forever. Avery is the only one that says yes when I ask her to stay little for me.  I'm sure that explains a lot of the "spoiled brat" behavior that comes out of her sometimes, but she is my baby and I might just try to keep it that way, for a little while anyway. I love that gor!

Lucky Number 7!

Seven years ago I became a mother for the first time. This sweet baby girl changed my life forever, I love her so much! She is a very smart and creative girl. She is such a good big sister and so helpful to me and the kids. This last month all my kids have been so sick and Savanna missed several days of school. Even though I was sad she was sick, I really liked having her home. She and I have a special bond I think, she was my only child for a bit and that time was so special for us. She is growing up and changing that's for sure, but she is still my baby girl. For Savanna's 7th birthday we kind of had a repeat of last year. We had family over for cake and ice cream and then we went bowling! Savanna wanted cupcakes this year so after school we came home and the kids and I decorated them. The whole family had fun bowling and this year Avery won. I can't believe I have a 7 year old, crazy! Happy Birthday Savanna!

Decorating cupcakes

Seven year old smile with a missing tooth

Savanna's cupcake

Small Victories

This year I had dreams of starting the new year with an amazing blog post about all the amazing things I was going to do this year, including updating the blog more often. I really want to expand the topics of my posts, not just travel logs of what my family has been doing. But, ehh, who knows what will happen right? Maybe I will achieve those things, maybe not, but all I can do is try.
                                     Some of the things I want to do are:
Take more pictures. I was recently going through all my downloaded pictures for a Christmas gift and I noticed that there were several months where I didn't take even one picture. That's sad. I am going to try to be better at taking pictures of my growing children.

Get Avery potty trained (again). We started back in April and she did ok but then had some constipation issues that led to a complete fear of the potty and was back in pull-ups for awhile. This time I am going about it very slowly and trying to be patient with her. She's so cute.

Be more patient and calm. Obviously children pick-up on how their parents act and I am generally an impatient/not calm individual. My sweet Savanna is my mini-me. We look and act very much the same, I can't get mad at her for being the spitting image of my crazy, worried, un-calm, impatient self. But I also can't live with her being like that either. So, I have to change my ways and hopefully that will transfer over to her and she will stop waking up in the middle of the night stressing about when she is going to get a new bedspread. 

In addition to these things I want to be more positive, live in the moment kind of thing and celebrate small victories. Even if I don't accomplish all I set out to do in one day, I'm sure I can find at least one thing to count as a victory. Today was an off sort of day. First of all this winter is killing me! 10 degrees in the middle of the day is too cold! Then I was dealing with issues with people who pay us a small amount of money each month to live in our house then expect me to make sure that they never experience a moment of discomfort. Sheesh, there was an earwig in my sink this morning but I didn't call my mortgage company to come get it for me! Anyway, then I almost started crying in the middle of the grocery store because my kids were fighting and running around, there was a HUGE line at the pharmacy and Avery peed her pants. When we finally got out to the car I discovered some forgotten yogurt that was hiding under Miles' coat and didn't get paid for. I was so tempted to just throw the yogurt in my car get the heck out of there but... that would be wrong. So I headed back inside to pay for the yogurt. Not stealing yogurt was today's small victory.

Merry Christmas!

What a wonderful time the Christmas season was this year! For some reason James and I were on the ball and had everything bought and mostly wrapped before December 1st! Good thing too because for most of the month we were sick! Colds and flu have been passing from kid to kid to mom to dad and all around again. Just today Avery seemed to be getting better, but Miles was starting to cough as I tucked him into bed. Even with all the bugs we managed to have a great season. I had a goal for each Monday in December to focus on Christ, his birth and teachings. The first Monday we told the story of Christ's birth and did a living nativity. It was the first time we have done that, a friend of mine said her family does it every year and I just loved the idea. Savanna was Mary, Miles was Joseph, and Avery was one of the Three Kings, giving a golden cup for her gift. The next day Miles said that it was the best family home evening ever!

 

My family, the Bogus's had a Christmas dinner at my Uncle Tom and Aunt Brooke's house in Salt Lake. It was really nice to spend time with my extended family and see all my cousins. The kids were really good and had fun with my cousins kid's. Heidi, Emily and I took the traditional holiday picture. Back when were were four and five years old we had this picture taken of us at my grandmas house, it was either Thanksgiving or Christmas, I'm not sure, but every time we have gotten together during the holidays as adults, my Aunt has tried to recreate the picture. This year we tried making the same faces as in the original.

2005, extremely pregnant with Savanna!

2010, Emily pregnant with Lainey, she is a much cuter pregnant lady!

2012, no pregnant ladies!

This year we also continued the new tradition we started last year of decorating sugar cookies with Grandma to give to Santa. Grandpa also came this year to help. We had so much fun! The kids, especially Savanna, were so creative in their decorating. Avery was so cute, she would spend so much time spreading the icing, putting on the sprinkles and chocolate chips, then she licked it all off and started on another one!

On Christmas Eve day my mom and brother came over and we gave them their presents and the kids got presents from them too. That night we stayed home (another new tradition that I am loving!) and had a big feast. I seriously made so much food, not sure why, there's only five of us! We set everything up buffet style in the family room and ate while we watched A Christmas Story. My favorite movie! Christmas morning came very early at our house and James had put something special in the kid's stockings. They each got a part to build a mysterious project in the basement. After they opened their stockings we went downstairs to build it.

The project ended up being a platform for the kids to set up their Defiant 4x4 track on! James discovered his new favorite toy this year and everyone has been having fun setting up new tracks and playing with it together. After building the platform we went back upstairs and opened presents. The kids are at such a fun age, every time they opened something they screamed "It's what I always wanted!" so cute! Around noon we went to James' parents house for another round of presents and Christmas dinner. The kids had fun playing with their cousins and running around eating candy. We came home and put the kids to bed at 6:45. They were beyond exhausted, and so were James and I. We were excited to have some alone time to relax and watch TV, but James fell asleep half was through one episode of Bored to Death, so we just went to bed.

This year Christmas time seemed to fly by, the day after I kept thinking of all the things I had wanted to do with the kids and just didn't have time for. I was letting myself get a little sad and let down, but then a I remembered all the fun we did have and I know my kids are building good memories of their childhood Christmases. I am so grateful to be a mom and to have a wonderful husband who makes our life possible. I am also grateful for my Savior and being able to spend this time of year with the one's I love most! 

Giving Thanks for Family

This year for Thanksgiving the whole Bayless clan was together. Andy and Melissa came up from Blanding, Heather came up from Mesa, and Jordan, Amanda, and their boys came all the way from PA. It was decided that we should take advantage of all of us being in one state at the same time and get family pictures taken. Andy and Melissa arranged everything and presented the pictures to us for our Christmas present! So nice! It has been about a year and half since we had our family pictures so it was nice to update, and the last time we had pictures with the entire family Savanna was a just a baby! There have been two weddings and lots more babies born since then so it was definitely time for a new one.

The whole family!

My loves.

Cousins!

We spent the week of Thanksgiving spending time together. Monday night we had a family dinner at Taco Amigo then went up to Cabela's to shop and let the kids run around and see the animals. Tuesday we went to The Living Planet Aquarium. Miles loved it! He just kept running laps around the place. Miles and his cousin Ben became really good friends and explored the aquarium together. On Wednesday Jordan and Amanda and their boys, Sam, Ben, and Grant, came over to play at our house. The cousins all got along great and played for a long time. My kids really fell in love with little Grant. He is the cutest little kid and Savanna, Miles and Avery loved making him laugh. The morning of Thanksgiving James took his brothers and oldest nephew, Jonathan to Little Moab. They drove the Jeep around and went shooting. They had so much fun that they were a little late getting back for dinner. James called me on his way back and said he was sorry they were late but that they had had such a great brotherly bonding time. They all came back with stories of adventure and lots of pictures. I was so glad that they got to have that time together.

 We had Thanksgiving dinner at James's parents house and spent the day there, playing games, eating, and socializing. The kids had an especially good time. They were all excited to be together. When it was time to go home we had to say good bye to Jordan and Amanda because they were going back home the next day. Miles was beside himself. He loves Ben so much and could not help shedding a few tears (he was also extremely exhausted). Ben kept it together though, he told Miles that he had to go home because he had to go to school and clean his room. He told him he will probably come back when he finishes sixth grade, funny kid. We all had such a great time that week. It was really nice to see family and spend time together. I am grateful to have married into such a great family, they all feel like brothers and sisters to me and I am so glad my kids get to grow up with cousins to play with. This Thanksgiving I am thankful for family!

Halloween!

Just a quick post to document this years Halloween! The kids went really easy on me this year and chose costumes that were easy peasy. Savanna the Witch: tights, hat, and her purple dress her Nana made her for Uncle Josh's wedding. Miles the Pirate: hat, sword, cut up fluffy pants, old church shirt, vest and belt from DI. Avery the Princess: crown, wand, and princess dress-up we already had. We made homemade root beer and went trick-or-treating. It was super fun! Also, why can I never get a picture where all three are smiling and not making strange faces?