Patience Is A Virtue

I've always been told that patience is a virtue and I always respond that it's a virtue I haven't been blessed with. I am waiting right now to hear if I'm going to be embarking on a new and wonderful adventure and I'm so anxious. It's something I'm super excited about it, but I don't want to broadcast what it is until it's a for sure thing. Heidi, you're the only person who reads my blog who knows what I'm talking about, so pretty much anything I've talked to you about in the last week is hush hush until I hear more, ha ha.

The sad thing is that this possible adventure is my big news for the week. Other than this coming Sunday is fast Sunday and our stake has asked us to fast for rain. So if you're willing to fast for the Edmonton area to get some MUCH needed rain, we'd really appreciate it.

Oh, wait a minute, I have some news. I'M GOING TO UTAH!!! I won't say the reason yet, cause it has to do with my adventure, but we're going there for the last week in July. FINALLY!

My Thoughts For Today

I love caffeine free diet Pepsi. Not because I love pumping my body full of aspartame (it actually gives me a headache really quickly lots of the time), but because it's the only thing I'm willing to drink (other than water and herbal tea) that doesn't have calories. John and I started using Lose It again on Thursday. If you don't know what it is, it's an application that helps you count your calories on the iPhone or iPod Touch. We love it. It helped John lose like 30 lbs last summer, and I lost a fair bit as well. Then my disorder kicked in and I went on meds that made me gain 25 lbs in a month and now I have to lose it all again. Oh well, could be worse, right? I'm just so grateful that I found a treatment for my disorder that works, is perfectly safe to take even during pregnancy, and doesn't make me gain any weight at all. It has next to no side effects, it's wonderful! It's been working great for me for 2 months now.

The weather has been great here and so we spent a fair bit of time outside last week. Caleb loved it. On Saturday I went to our Stake Activity Day. For those of you who aren't members of the same church as me, Activity Days is a program for girls ages 8-11. We meet twice a month and work on goals from their Faith in God program. I am the leader of this group in my ward (along with my assistant leader). Our theme on Saturday was Fit For The Kingdom. We learned about spiritual health, physical health and nutrition. It was lots of fun. I even learned (very roughly) how to do the Hoedown Throwdown dance from the Hannah Montana movie.

Saturday night Caleb kept asking us if Ty could sleep in his room, so we figured we'd give it a try. Caleb did great and didn't hurt Ty even once, but Ty had the mother of all hissy fits because he didn't have a sippy cup of milk. Okay, I do NOT believe in nighttime bottles. I never did it with Caleb. However, Ty spent a lot of time at my in-laws in the past 7 months, and picked up the habit there. So now we're trying to break him of it. It's NOT fun. I let him have water in his sippy cup now, but the dude is seriously addicted to milk and screams his head off at the water. Fun fun!

Right now with Activity Days I have to prepare a lesson on hygeine and one on "My Body is a Temple", which will include nutrition, language, dress & appearance and physical activity. According to the Government of Canada, kids the ages of 6-14 need AT LEAST 30 minutes of physical activity every day and they are really pushing the cut down on TV, video games and computer time. I totally agree with this. I have our TV on way too much, I totally know that. I watch less than 2 hours per day, myself. However, Caleb does watch it a lot. It's hard when you live in Canada during the winter and have no drivers license. I'm so glad it's warm now and Caleb can play in the backyard lots.

So here's my thought for the day. Caleb doesn't play video games yet. He occassionally is allowed to play a Fisher Price ABC game on the computer (like once every 2 weeks or so), but that's it. We have a Wii and both feel that Caleb is too young to play it yet. However, I believe that once Caleb is old enough to use the Wii responsibly that he will have to earn his time on the Wii by doing chores around the house. And he will have to have his homework done first, as well. Also, we don't play video games on Sunday. So tell me, am I being to strict about video games in our house? I don't want my kid addicted to a controller or a keyboard. I want them to appreciate more wholesome activities. What do you think?

My Week With Four Kids

Having my nieces here last week was lots of fun. They share my love of the Disney channel, so I don't have to feel weird watching shows like Wizards of Waverly Place, Hannah Montana, Suite Life on Deck and Sonny With a Chance. Caleb likes these shows too, so it's a good compromise for us instead of my TV being stuck on Treehouse. We usually keep the TV on for background noise. Anyways, one day my nieces and I had a war with plastic balls (the kind you find in ball pits). It was so much fun. We must have spent at least an hour doing that. On Friday, John took the day off and we took the boys and the girls to West Edmonton Mall. We went to the Disney store, the Apple Store, we saw some fish and some sea lions and the ship. We played mini golf and went for lunch at The Old Spaghetti Factory. We also made a quick stop at the British imports store for my favourite chocolate bars, Galaxy Ripples. I was going to actually put up pictures on here for once, but my computer is not cooperating, so if you have me on Facebook, I will post them on there. If you don't have me on Facebook, add me and just send a message that you read my blog.

Our nephews came up and joined us on Friday night. We did a spring eggs hunt with all of the grandkids that evening and then came back to our place and played some Lego Rock Band. Some of us girls also played a card game called Set and a dice game called Farkle. It was a fun night. When we awoke in the morning one of our nieces had gotten sick during the night, so John went to work cleaning that up. Poor guy, it must suck to have a wife with a weak stomach. We went to the baptism that day and I gave my talk. Caleb joined me up there and was trying to give my talk for me.

That evening we did a family dinner at my SIL's house. When we got back home, Ty got sick all over the place. His first time being sick and he did it 5 times that night, the poor little guy. So we knew then that we weren't making it to church the next day. Sunday morning, Caleb got sick and John and I weren't in great shape either. Yesterday morning John got up and asked me how I was doing. The next thing we knew, Caleb was getting sick all of over our bedroom floor, so John was home again yesterday. In addition to my kids and the niece who was sick at my house, we've also had 2 other nephews and 1 other niece be sick in the last few days, plus one of my SILs. Not so much fun. Here's hoping that today will be a healthy day in the Bly home.

General Conference and Easter

Okay, so I'm assuming everyone has now had their chance to read the story about when I was pregnant with L and her adoption. If not, go and read my last post. I just want to say that it's the first time I've ever told the whole story at once. It was pretty hard to get through at some points, but I'm really glad that I did.

So this weekend we just had was General Conference weekend as well as Easter weekend. How many of you have the story to do with your kids about Easter and you have stuff hidden in the plastic eggs that go along with the story? We have one and I did the story with Caleb twice, once on Saturday and once on Sunday. Ty was just interested in taking off with the eggs. I think Caleb finally understood after a while a whole 1 sentence. "Bad men wanted to hurt Jesus" Next year he'll get more out of it, though.

Conference was great. We missed the first session because Shaw was having difficulties and wasn't able to broadcast it, and since John was sleeping in our room (where the computer is), I decided to get some stuff ready for the family dinner instead. I loved the 3 sessions that I watched, though. Especially Elder Holland's talk. I think he's an amazing speaker and he is so bold, it's great. The talks that spoke to me the most were Elder Donald L Hallstrom's from Sunday Morning and Elder James B Martino's from Sunday Afternoon. They both talked about how to face our trials. I'm pretty sure you all know that since the last General Conference I've been through a rough battle with my bipolar, so these talks really helped to inspire me to deal with the challenges of bipolar in a different way. Which talks did you like the best or get the most out of?

We had a family dinner on Saturday with my dad, my brother and my brother's girlfriend. It was great. My brother had marinated the steaks and they were amazing:) And he made our mum's recipe for potato salad, which is increadible. I made devilled eggs and caesar salad. Everyone but me had carrot cake for dessert. I tried a bite, but I'm still not a big fan of it. Ty practically inhaled it, though.

Also, on Friday morning Caleb and Ty got to find their Kinder Eggs outside. We do our candy stuff on Friday because 1)we don't want candy to overshadow the message of Easter on Sunday and 2)we don't want our kids hopped up on sugar on Sunday. This plan seems to work well for us.

Well, that's about all for now, I guess. My nieces are getting in this evening and spending the week with us, so that will be fun. Also, one of our nieces is getting baptized on Saturday. I am giving the talk on baptism. I'm pretty nervous, but I'm so honoured that she asked me. Have a great week:)