Crazy People

What kind of people like to get up insanely early in the morning and dance for hours?
Me!
This weekend there was a ballroom competition, the Alpine Classic, at Spanish Fork HS. Friday evening I competed in two class events- the gold American waltz and the gold/gold bar foxtrot. My partner (Chad Nelson) and I ended up getting second in both events- which is pretty good since I haven't been to gold bar standard OR gold American for about three weeks!
And now for the funny story of this morning:
Preface: The first time my partner and I have been able to get together was Tuesday. We threw together what we could remember of last semester's gold bar rumba and made up part of a samba. Thursday we got together again and finished our samba.
We met at the comp at 7 this morning- (the event began at 8.) Well, we WOULD have if I hadn't have been delayed looking for my shoes and the camera- which I never found. I ended up getting there at fifteen 'till and I am sure my partner, whose name is Tyler Butler, was freaking out- but he seemed pretty calm. He is a pretty laid-back guy- and a VERY cheesy and good dancer- the perfect combination for an outstanding partner! I threw my costume on and we ran through our routines and before we knew it we were lining up for the novice latin competition.

We said before we went on that IF we made one call-back we would be overjoyed! Just one is all we asked.

There were thirty eight couples competing so we were divided into three heats.
SO, the first dance is the samba and I am totally retarded and cannot for the life of me remember what is coming next- but I fake it with a smile! Tyler was fantastic! He remembered everything. I am totally the weakest link right now.
The other two heats went and then we were back on for the rumba-which actually went really well.

We anxiously wait for results to be posted- just one callback, please!

AND we made it! YEA!! Now we can relax and just have fun because we met our goal! Now there are twenty-four couples.
The quarter-final went really REALLY well- I remembered most of our samba and the rumba went really well once again.

Somehow we made it to the semi-finals- now only twelve couples are left.
This one- not so good. We started our samba on a weird count because the music had an intro with a measure of four so we had to stop and get back on the correct phrasing. Oops! The rest was more like the first round for me, full of brain-skipping moments.
The rumba was much better. . . in the beginning. . . at the end of our routine I do this back-attitude flick that extends to the front. Unfortunately, this time as I passed my foot to the front, the heel of my shoe got itself tangled in my fishnets. I attempted to just yank it out but the yanking motion and the fact that Tyler didn't realize I was stuck and was leading the continuation of the motion, (which is a turn) not to mention my momentum, carried me to the embrace of the floor. That's right- I fell down. Not even gracefully! It was hilarious.
I guess since we had already gone so much further than we had expected, it just didn't matter. I fell down in front of a room full of people and I didn't care. Ah, the gloriousness of overachieving expectations!

So, that's the story.
There are a lot of crazy people in Utah- and I am one of them.
Oh yes, those are pictures of just me at home because I couldn't find the camera this morning. Do not worry, I will definitely get pictures at the next competition we do!

Oh yes, and my dress ROCKS. I call it the Mermaid dress- you can figure out why for yourselves.

If you want to hear the story. . . .

While at my parents' house at Christmas, I became very suspicious. I was nauseated, nothing tasted right, and I had no desire to eat fudge. I had the creeping thought that perhaps I was pregnant.
The first day of Spring semester I decided that it was time to take the test and the two red lines told us that we were indeed pregnant.
I was a little shook up at first- we hadn't planned on having a baby until I graduated. A baby would put a big monkey wrench in our plans! After a moment of panic I felt peace. Yes, it wasn't what we had planned - it was better.
So we made our new plans. I dropped some classes that I thought would be too stressful on a pregnant body and exchanged them for more prego-friendly ones. I ate food regularly. Patrick started making me a lunch every day. Knowing that I was not going to be full time in school in the fall changed my perspective on life. Things that seemed so important a semester ago were not that prevalent in my priorities anymore. I was happy. Well, as happy as a hormonally-crazed pregnant woman can be.
The Monday before Valentines Day I made an appointment with my midwife because I had started spotting Sunday night. It really freaked me out because I have never had any spotting with my previous pregnancies. Patrick gave me a blessing. It said that I shouldn't blame myself for anything that happens and that whether it was now or later, I would get to raise this baby. Patrick came with me to the appointment. My midwife looked for the baby's heartbeat with the sonogram and thought she had found it but couldn't pin it down. SO she got out their dinosaur ultrasound and tried to find it- again saying that she thought she had seen it but this machine is so old- and sent us to their new ultrasound. The technician measured various parts of my anatomy and then turned to the baby. She found and measured one and then moved to another one. I was so excited- twins! I have always wanted twins. In fact, it was my evil plan to have twins next- I thought it was amazing and I said so out loud to Patrick. The technician doing the ultrasound said yes there are two- but unfortunately neither one has a heartbeat.
I don't know what I felt at that moment because there was too much to feel. All I could do is cry. The midwife asked me questions about what I wanted to do. Your babies are dead- how should we dispose of their remains? I couldn't answer her beyond saying I don't know. When we got home it started to snow furiously. The weather and I were in complete agreement- the heavens were weeping just like me.
Tuesday came and though I did not attend classes, I felt compelled to go to a required dance lab the attendance of which is a huge chunk of my grade. Yes, my drive to maintain my GPA was stronger than my fragile mental and physical condition. Hindsight has 20/20 vision and I know now that I should have stayed home. I started miscarrying in that room full of happy dancing people. I drove home somehow and spent the next few hours in a lot of pain. The midwife said that a miscarriage was "a few hours of cramping and bleeding"- HAH! What I experienced was almost exactly like giving birth- but without the happy ending. Cramping is not true- I had contractions just like the ones that pushed Isaac, Eve, and Esther into the world. Every contraction was a stab to my heart.
Now it has been two weeks. I hate all pregnant women and babies.
I don't care so much about my GPA. I was gone a lot from class and I dropped two classes that were stressing me out way too much- and if I get B's in the others, I won't hate myself too much.
I know this whole post seems a bit cynical and maybe it is but there are bright spots. The monkies have been a great comfort to me. They, thankfully, didn't know I was pregnant and were asleep during the miscarriage. They just know that Mommy is sick and they snuggle me. The fact that they exist is very comforting to me. The blessing that Patrick gave me that day also said that my body is a good place for babies to grow. I can only guess from this that it just wasn't my babies' time to come to earth. I don't know why but I am not despairing. It is hard and I cry a few times a day and, as I mentioned above, I hate the sight of pregnant women and babies, but I know I am ok. Or I will be eventually.
Patrick, too has been a great comfort. He feels very helpless to help but his presence and his solidarity help a lot.
If he put his pictures out- he shaved his head. I have always said that I would buzz my hair off when I have my fourth child. I was going to do it this summer some time so it would be grown in nicely in the fall. Technically, I never would have had four- I would have skipped straight to five- but his hair shaving was a nice comic relief and tangible sign of his love.
Patrick thinks I am morbid but I decided that I wanted the pictures of the babies from the ultrasound so I had the midwife made copies and they gave them to me today at my "follow-up" appointment. They checked my iron levels and I am ok physically. Yea.
So, here they are. According to the measurements, they died at 8 weeks and one day.
I don't know if they are girls or boys or one of each. Either way, I'll be very happy to see them again.

Ode to Eve

All of our kids are unique and different. Isaac is our resident Inventor/Mad Scientist. Eve is our artistic cuddler. Esther is our climbing monkey with the sense of humor.

This blog is about Eve. (the other kids will just have to be jealous.)
Eve is one of the sweetest little girls. Even though she is a scrawny little thing, her heart is really big. Since day one, she has always loved to snuggle. One of her favorite things to do is to cuddle and "pet mom's hair."
She LOVES animals: Cats, dogs, pink unicorns. They're all good.
She draws constantly. Her teaches say that she is the best drawer in her class. (which is true) Her pictures usually have a theme centered around a princess or unicorn.If she isn't drawing, she's asleep.

Eve used to be our little veggie eater. Then, one day, she decided that she didn't like cooked carrots. That situation has degraded to not eating anything. It's ok to be a picky eater if you got the weight to spare, but Eve would be blown away by a mouse sneezing.
She is very adamant about wearing dresses and skirts to school.

Eve is the girl who will make her bed just perfect before she sleeps in it. We love her.

But for some reason, Lady Bugs freak her out.

Valentine Lovin'

All our lovin' we will send to you!

This Valentine's Day I wanted to take some cute pictures and send them off to you all. Unfortunately, life got in the way of my beautifully-laid plans and now you get to see the pictures exclusively on the blog! Hooray! It's like a special offer- online only!


I am so grateful for all of you loved ones out there. This has been a pretty crappy week and I want you all to know that your prayers and love are very much appreciated.


So, without further babbling, here they are:
I title this shoot,

Three Monkies and a Pink Sheet

Christmas!

Christmas was a month ago. . . some people aren't very good at timely blogging. . . ahem- anyhow, I though some few pictures from the even were needed, despite their tardiness.
SO, in a kind of random order ( I still have no clue how to arrange these in the order I want) here you are: Christmas in a nutshell as seen through our camera. There are actually a lot more pictures but we didn't take them since our camera was MIA a few days before and during Christmas. If you want more, check out my mother's blog. SO, here ya go:

First off, a synopsis of our trip: We drove to my parents' house in WA around the 17th of December and spent about three weeks there. We left Provo during a blizzard- go figure- and the crossing of Oregon was also spent with snow billowing around us, though most of that was kicked up by semis driving in front of us. We made it there, about 17 hours after we started out- oh yes, we were all ready to exit the vehicle!


Here is Isaac, a few days after Christmas, reading his new book from G&G Darby. It's the "Dangerous Book for Boys" and he is still reading it. It's basically a smorgasbord of random "manly"-themed entries- sort of like an encyclopedia.
Esther and Eve with thier new and very freaky dolls from Grandma Darby. We are all both really entertained by those dolls and a little frightened.


Eve and Esther with thier second wave of Christmas after a box arrived from G&G Darby. (This picture should have been first in this series)

The fate of gingerbread houses. We all made one- it was a lot of fun! After Christmas, Grandma Ekstrom told Eve she could eat the houses- and here she is.

About the second day we were in WA we went sledding. These pictures are the monkies getting ready to go.




This is a picture of us starting out the journey. The children have their apples, their blankies, and their entertainment!

Patrick is not apprehensive at all at the thought of driving in a blizzard.