December Part One!

Longest post ever.

Just warning.

With that said, December Part One begins! 

   We started our month with a fantastic trip to Utah. I took the three kids by myself (CRAZY) and we partied hard with my fab family. We went to Temple Square, visited friends and family, but mostly just hung out at Grandma's. This picture was taken at our annual "firm" party. My dad's old firm had a huge Christmas party every year, but now that he's not with that firm, we had to make the magic happen ourselves. I think the food we made was even better than Little America's... and the Santa was WAY better... and a lot less creepy...

It SNOWS. On the last day we were there, a few snowflakes graced us with their presence. Of course, to my girls, this was a BLIZZARD. Abby was so excited and she danced her heart out in that snow. Pictures courtesy of Maryn Jenkins. :)

  Just a few short days after we returned, our Grandma and Grandpa Larsen got to come visit from Alabama!! We were so excited!! We don't get to see them very often. They just live too darn far away. So we were super lucky that they got to come see us. We took them first to Microsoft for a tour of the campus, lunch, and free beverages. 

Claire, Grandpa, Abby, Grandma, and drool-face

 Microsoft had this random Christmas setting all ready for us to take a picture. We gladly took advantage. :)

Notice the before and after of the girls.

Christmas #2: My girls have already had two Christmases, with the third obviously coming tomorrow. They're the luckiest little girls ever.

Cathy, Jesse has seriously worn this shirt, like, every day since he opened it. No lie. It makes him look super hot though, so I don't mind. ;)

Grandma Larsen is a pro and made these ADORABLE Christmas dresses and matching jackets for my girls!! She also made the cutest vest ever for Ben, but I forgot to take a picture of it. I will do so asap. Check out these dresses though!! Aren't they amazing?! So stinkin' cute. 

 This is me looking super cool.  

NOT.

This is me attempting to look cool at the Northwest Railway Museum. We went on the Santa Train again this year! It's so magical. :) The kids totally love it. The train is decorated and the conductors sing Christmas songs and the kids get to meet Santa. Coolest train ever. 

My girls weren't too fond of the train whistle... blowing... whatever it's called. 

We passed this tree while on the train. I thought it was awesome. Check out the moss!

This could have been an amazing picture... if it wasn't blurry. Just pretend like it's not blurry and the metal trains made an amazing effect. 

Shockingly, Ben didn't cry with Santa. And this Santa was super awesome. He was way sweet with the girls. The girls got a toothbrush as a toy... weird... I guess even Santa is being affected by the economy? 

We had the best time with Grandma and Grandpa. We're so excited to visit Alabama again in May! It's been WAY too long. Thank you for coming to visit us!! We love love you!

And merry Christmas to all y'all! Go to bed. According to the MSN Santa Tracker, he's in Missouri.

LOVE YOU!

A not so typical day

I took Ben into his cardiology appointment this afternoon. My friend across the street was a complete doll and offered to take the girls for me. I was happy to drop them off and Ben and I drove away for his appointment. It was to be a typical appointment. I anticipated the much squirming and squawking through Ben’s echocardiogram. We played peek-a-boo, I ate his toes and then I let him eat my necklace. Anything to keep him relatively happy. He survived his 30 minute echo like a champ and we walked back to the patient rooms to wait for the cardiologist evaluation. We snacked on an almond poppy seed muffin together and pulled silly faces at the camera to send to Jesse. Everything was a typical day.

And then the cardiologist came in. She was her usual wonderful, happy self. I had no reason to suspect anything was amiss. I tried to listen to what she was saying, but Ben was out of patience by this point and was throwing a fit. I assumed she was saying the normal, “We’ll keep watching it, but he’s fine.” I couldn’t hear her words, but I could tell her facial expression had changed. She knew I wasn’t listening. The concerned look in her eyes is what finally snapped me back into focus. I realized today wasn’t the normal.  I watched her eyebrows furrow and then I finally found it in me to ask, “Wait, what is it that we need to do?”

“We need to fix the hole now,” she said. “It’s just not closing and if we don’t fix it soon, then he will go into heart failure.”

Oh.

“So like medicine? Some kind of wire through his groin?” I naively asked.

“No. We will need to do open heart surgery to patch his hole.”

And then my own heart fell through the floor.  I flashbacked to the first time the on-call pediatrician at the hospital said, “Oh my, Ben has a murmur.”  It was his last check before we could take him home from the hospital. I remember feeling annoyed, and realizing that this was going to be a real trial.  I did my best to nod and say “Yes, okay, that’s fine” through the rest of today’s discussions. I felt eerily calm.  At one point I wondered if she thought I didn’t care. I wasn’t freaking out. I think I was in shock. The whole time Ben moved around, gave me kisses, yelled a lot and let me know it was time to go home. We said thank you to the doctor and left. I made it out the door and down the hall. I pushed the elevator button, and I just couldn’t hold it back anymore. I started to cry. I was so glad no one was in the elevator. I cried down the elevator, out to the car and most of the way home. At one point, I tried to call Jesse. I was able to tell him that Ben needs open heart surgery before I was hyperventilating and I had to pull off the phone and road.

Ben isn’t sick. He’s not dying. But they need to saw open his little chest and operate on his HEART. That scares the living daylights out of me.  He has a VSD, ventricular septal defect. It is a hole in the ventricular septum, the wall dividing the left and right ventricles of the heart.  Ben’s is a rather large hole and it isn’t closing, like some do. There’s too much blood flowing through it.  His heart is working too hard pumping the extra blood and it’s enlarging his heart. Fortunately, the blood hasn’t made it to his lungs—yet. And so, we operate.

I have moments when I’m strong. I know he’ll be okay. I’m grateful for modern technology that has found this hole and I’m grateful for the surgeons who will (hopefully) successfully repair it. I’m excited for Ben to finally put on some weight. I’m hoping he’ll grow like a giant after. But often I find myself wanting to cry. I don’t want them to cut him open. I don’t want to see him in the hospital. I don’t want to see my baby in pain. I don’t want him to struggle during his recovery. I don’t want the threat of something going wrong. I just want him to crawl about my floor and scream at me as he pounds his wooden train into the floor. I want to only worry about what pajamas he’s wearing and whether his diaper will hold all that poop in the morning. I don’t want to worry about his heart.

But I am. And now every time I feel it race, I’ll be scared. Scared to let him cry, scared to let him eat sugar, scared of anything that will make his heart pound even harder. He now has a thrill, the doc says. His chest vibrates with each pump of his heart. That’s how hard it’s trying to pump. Poor thing. And yet he’s still the happiest baby in the world. The sweetest boy ever. I could hold him and kiss his cheeks all day.

I held him a little longer tonight as I put him to bed. He really is a sweetheart. He snuggles into me and soon I see his heavy eyes close. It was a long day for him. I just held him tightly and told him that everything will be fine. Because it will be. In the meantime, I share this pleading for a few extra prayers.

Sweetest boy ever. I have other pictures of him, but I'm too tired to find them tonight. The only energy I have left tonight is to turn on the tv and eat a gourmet cupcake from Brilliantly Creative friend.
Everything will be fine. 

Carrying the Banner.

From now on, we trust no one but the Newsies.

(Admit it, he's adorable.)

A post for me

Feel free to read, or not read, this post. It's purely for myself. I needed to record it, but I don't want to take the time to write it by hand in my journal. Technology has made me lazy. ;)

Tonight I was preparing my lesson for Young Women's tomorrow. The lesson is on Personal Record keeping. I had a great time pulling out old books, journals, letters, baby calendars, etc. It was a riot to read past journal entries, Jesse's letters from his mission, and to look at my grandmother's book. 

And then I opened up my old red journal. I only have two journals I've ever filled. My red one. And my white one.

I started my red journal on a Saturday in December 1993. It didn't occur to me back then to specify which Saturday. It just says Saturday. I have wonderful entries about my "favrite" things and how Sarah is first best, Stephen is second best, and Seth is last best. I was shocked when I hit April 1994 though, and in smudged pencil are the blaring words "Most kids don't like me." Underneath is a relatively updated sidenote:
"Lauren at 12 years old: Here is the reason people STILL don't like me: I am a negative freak who everyone hates. Completely."
In November 1994, it reads, "I don't have any freinds now because their mean to me."
January 1995, "I don't have many friends now. I used to have lots."
Unfortunately the pattern continues through the rest of the book... and into my white journal.

It totally broke my heart to read those entries. I've never been "diagnosed" with depression, but I've known for years that it's my constant demon. It just shattered my heart to read that when I was merely seven years old, I was already being attacked by it.

Since I was seven years old, the synapses in my brain have told me that I cannot be loved. That I am nothing of worth or value to myself or others. People are not genuinely interested in me. I have struggled my whole life to make and keep friendships because my brain cannot comprehend that friends are real, that friends really care and love.
I can't tell you how many friendships from high school and college that I regret letting fall apart. I would find a wonderful person. Someone I loved. And then the demons would come in. My mind would fill with doubt and awful self-criticism and that friend would be gone.

I still do this. I have days where my I still can't believe that Jesse chose to be married to me. To ME. Or that I have sweet girls to have play dates and girls nights with. It is absolutely shocking and novel to my mind that these people might actually care about ME. Silly, right?

The point of this post was not to focus on the bad. I promise. I merely was helping myself recognize that the crazy existed long before I realized. But I cannot let the crazy win.

So tonight, I am proud of myself.
I have three hilarious and happy children.
I am beautiful.
I love that I can play the piano.
I am learning to study again. To teach myself new things.
I love that I painted furniture. I can't wait to do more.
I love that I'm learning to take pictures of my children.
I enjoy silly science fiction and fantasy novels like Divergent, Hunger Games, The Infernal Devices, Uglies, etc.
I weigh less than I did in high school.
I am loud, and awesomely dramatic at times.
I come from an incredibly smart and amazing family.
I LOVE my extended family. Sometimes I wish we were all small in grandpa's buggy again.
I have had incredibly spiritual personal experiences--the kind I just can't share but that have solidified my knowledge that the gospel is true.
I am married to the most caring, loving, and forgiving person in the world. 


I need to be proud of myself. Not in a boastful way--but in an I'm awesome and need to realize it--sort of way. Too often we're ashamed to be proud of ourselves because it seems or sounds like arrogance. Well that the silliest thing ever. Heavenly Father wants us to be proud of ourselves. We should never feel the need to apologize for ourselves or undermine something we are or have done. Maybe I'm the only one who does this.

Tonight, I like myself. It is definitely a step in the right direction towards loving myself.  I only wish my seven-year-old self had known how cool I was.

On the first warm day in May

We had an incredible first warm day in May. Seriously, incredible. We played outside in the sandbox all morning and then played on the swings. In between there, we sat on our picnic blanket drinking cherry slurpees and just soaking up the sun. It felt AMAZING... We took our dinner outside too. I just couldn't help it! I didn't want to be inside EVER! After dinner, I asked Jesse to help me move the couch outside for some pictures. He didn't even hesitate. Love my husband. :) So we took some pictures fast of the girls. We tried so hard to get Ben in there. My goal was to get a picture of the three kids together... but Ben would not have it. He was so upset. We'll try again later. So this is what we got last night! It was way fun. Abby told me we could take pictures all of the time if I'd just bring out the couch more often. Hahaha... 

This one (above) is my favorite. My calm collected husband... and my three crazy children. It's a pretty good picture of what life is always like at our home. He's always the level-headed anchor, and the rest of us are running about yelling, screaming, making messes, etc.

Oh Ben! You can smile! Thanks cute boy. :)

Happy birthday Claire!

We had a birthday, shout HOORAY!

Our big girl turned TWO on Saturday! Woot woot!

And we had a wonderfully exhausting day. So, just in case you forgot the many faces of Claire, here you go!

Claire LOVED opening her presents! She squealed "Oh my goodness! What is it?" through the whole present opening process. Her favorite present was an Elmo Potty book and Elmo underwear. She's been wearing the underwear over her pants. Guess we'd better start the potty training!

Curious George has been her constant companion since she opened him. He's the first toy Claire has insisted sleep in her bed. She also received a Rapunzel doll from me, but she could care less about it. Her 5-year-old sister was more than happy to adopt her though.

After breakfast, we went to the indoor play area at Bellevue Square. We haven't been in forever and I knew Claire would love it. And she totally did. We picked up McDonalds for lunch and then went up to the play area to let Abby and Claire go crazy.

Abigail helped me make the cake during Claire's nap. We made a yellow cake with white frosting! We had a good time making it, didn't we Abby? Our family has the tradition to put toy figurines on top as a decoration. This year's toys were a set of Tinkerbell fairies. I think there's a picture in here somewhere...

When Claire woke up, we had balloons, streamers, paper lanterns, and bright pink presents out to decorate the kitchen. I could hear the girls at 6:30a.m. squealing with delight. Abby yelled, "Claire, it's your birthday!" Claire responded, "it's my birthday!" And then she came running into my room. "Mom, it's my birthday! Come see! Get up! Come see!" It melted my heart a little.

Claire and her BFF

So, while Claire and Ben napped, the plan was for Jesse to go get a bbq grill from Home Depot. We bought hamburgers and hot dogs and were totally prepared to have an awesome night on the grill. Well, Home Depot ruined our plans. Their forklift was broken so they couldn't get the grill down. I was totally annoyed. Fortunately, Brilliantly Creative friend texted me just minutes after the bad news asking if we wanted to bbq that night. HECK YES we did! So we hauled all our bbq goods and Claire's cake down to her house to finish off the wonderful birthday evening. They had just put up their new swing set that day too so the kids were in HEAVEN. It was awesome. :)

I am so uber jealous of the fort. And the kids LOVED it! Abby and J were having a blast.

Happy birthday, Claire!! We love you!

She had to have a little help from her sister. Good thing big sisters are so helpful.

CAKE.

Claire's dream come true: swings....

Proof that I was there. I promise. And Benny. Jesse was there too... but he managed to escape the camera...

We absolutely love our Bear. She's every bit as hilarious as Abby and so very bright. She really does talk so well. The other day I found her doing dialogue for her toys for the first time. Melted my heart. I love Claire's pudgy soft baby skin. I love that she will cuddle with me after her naps. I love that she gives me hugs. I love to hear her count to twenty. I love to hear her play with Abigail. I love her millions of silly faces. I love her obsession with balloons. I love her little voice. I love that she's two.