Time to ramble on...like usual

We took the missionaries to dinner tonight, since there's nowhere for them to eat in our apartment (only the kids fit at the counter), and while we were eating, they were telling us about a family that's new in our ward. The husband has been an inactive member, and his wife just got baptized. The missionaries said they brought this family to church a while back when Hyrum gave a talk in church, and when they met with that family the next day, they said Hyrum's talk really affected them and his talk was a turning point in their life, and after that they started coming to church and the wife got baptized. I'm not trying to brag, and Hyrum will probably be embarrassed that I'm even mentioning this (actually, it's literally almost impossible to embarrass Hyrum), but I just thought it was a nice thing to mention in my journaling to read in years to come, because even though he dreaded his talk and wasn't looking forward to preparing for it and wished he could get out of it, he really gave a nice talk, it was worth giving, and someone's life was changed for the better by it. The subject he was given was consequences, especially in relation to temple marriage.

While thinking about that subject, I just have to mention how grateful I am that I'm sealed to Hyrum for eternity. I knew that I would never marry anyone out of the temple and I knew I wanted to know a guy at least a year before I married him. Hyrum wanted a temple marriage too. So we dated for a long time, respectively. We met on April 25, 1999, and got married Dec 30, 2000. I'll never have any regret that we chose to date longer and still get married in the temple. Hyrum has been the best thing to happen to me in my life and I can't imagine being parted from him after this earth life is over. He was so understanding of my need for more time while we were dating, and though he wasn't always patient, he didn't give up on me.

Our courtship was turbulent and filled with stressful times, and we weren't always the nicest people in the world to each other (I was, after all, waiting for a missionary to return while I dated Hyrum, which was understandably hard on both of us), but one thing that was consistent was that no matter how many times we broke up and for whatever reason (usually my unwillingness to ditch the missionary completely), we never could go more than a few days without talking to one another, and since we were best friends, we instantly ended up a couple again. After our final break up where I moved to Oregon and he moved to Wyoming, my missionary returned a changed man (for the worse) and I was easily able to push the remains of him out of my heart only to realize that I'd let the man I was definitely supposed to marry slip through my fingers. I thought Hyrum would never take me back now that I was able to clearly see that I was always meant to be with him. I did the forbidden and called him, only to have him answer coldly and abruptly, but by the end of our phone call, we knew we were going to get married for sure, and it was only a matter of him proposing. It's obvious what happened after that, but I'm proud of Hyrum for having the strength to stick with such a fickle girl for so long and not settle for less than taking me to the temple. Now, nearly 8 years later, we have 3 great kids with another arriving in 3 months, and an eternity to enjoy each other's company.
(This is Hyrum and I just under 2 months before I got pregnant with Talea.)


Speaking of kids, Kiersa started talking all of a sudden! Yes, it's baby babble, but I swear she's saying things on purpose. I never count that my kids are walking, talking, potty trained, etc unless they're meaning to do that thing and are doing it consistently, but I swear that Kiersa is meaning what she's saying. My other kids never did this so early. Yesterday, Hyrum was holding her and when she'd look at him, he'd say "hi" and she'd repeat it. She did it over and over. She says Mama when looking at me, and Dada when looking at Hyrum and Baba to her bottle, so I'll assume she means it by now. She also made the "muah" sound several times with Hyrum when he kissed her. She did all this repeatedly, and I was kicking myself for having forgotten the camera at the office so I could get video of it (my video camera came back from England broken). Also, Kiersa was "couch surfing" at work yesterday. Well, she was holding onto the stools and walking from one to the next, so it was more like stool surfing, but that just sounds like a bad bowel movement, so I'll call it couch surfing still. I can't believe she's doing this because she just started crawling for heaven's sake! She wants to walk so bad and gets so excited watching the other kids run and play, so maybe even though she took forever to crawl, she just might walk as soon as the others did (9-10 months). We'll see.

My mom swears Kiersa looks just like I did at her age, and after looking at my 6 month-old picture (which is the earliest picture taken of me), I have to say Kiersa looks the most like me of all my kids...

Though I was chubbier and was told I looked like the Michelin man. I think this picture I found online more accurately describes my chub. I still have the fat roll scars on my arms and legs to prove it.