I am still in awe that 2018 is just weeks away from being over. So friends are you ready for a year-end wrap up? (PS I am sorry to have two blogs so close together) Usually around this time of year I like to sit down and ponder the year, what's happened, how it's changed me, and what I plan on doing in the upcoming year. At the beginning of each year I set goals like most people and I look forward to how I can try to reach them.
2018. What a year and really where do I start? Everyone cycles through life with mostly happy years and memories, however I know I am not the only one to say that there are hard moments shuffled between those good times. This past year has had so many wonderful moments, but an equal amount of hard times. This year has pushed me to my limits in ways I didn't know I couldn't handle by myself. I cried a lot this year. I was hurt, I was broken, I was stretched in many different ways, I was torn apart. It seemed that "all bad things come in three" came around a lot more than I anticipated. As I sat back and let all of those emotions flood my memory, it made me sad that I didn't try to be better and fix my attitude. If I were to describe 2018 in one word it would be: growth. I could write a rather long list of all the things that hurt me, tore me apart, or broke me, but those are just "things" and in the long run, unimportant.
2018 taught me so many lessons, some I thought I had even learned from before. The reason why I chose the word growth to describe this past year is because that is exactly what I did. I grew. My mind was able to grow to be calmer. My ability to be patient grew by 1000%. My ability to understand and sympathize was enhanced. The act of forgiveness (of forgiving and being forgiven) helped peace grow in my life. My ability to love others, despite their circumstances grew 10-fold. My confidence shot through the roof. Standing up for myself grew taller than it ever has. My heart, despite being broken, grew back together larger than before. My strength grew. Most importantly my faith in myself, my family, and in my beliefs grew to record heights.
Here are some highlights of this past year:
January: WE MOVED INTO OUR HOUSE! Technically it was February but January 27, 2018 was the day we moved into our very first home. By February 1st because I am crazy and hate having clutter, all of the boxes were unpacked and stored away by February 1st. Even pictures were up on the walls. It has been so much fun getting adjusted and settled into our house. We have done so much, and have so much to do. It is our home and even though it hasn't been very long, we have made many, cherished memories.
February: Spencer went on his first business trip of the year where when he had to spend extra hours scrubbing his computer. I took that literally and thought he had to take soap and water to his computer. He still teases me about that, so do our families. Evie was really getting into baby food at this time, but still LOVED nursing.
March: We went to our first Real Salt Lake soccer game of the season. Evie came and she loved it when she was awake. She slept for a solid hour with headphones on, I still remember all of the people around us saying how good she was with the loud, cheering crowd. Evie found her love for books and her face lit up whenever we would look at them together. We celebrated her being SIX months old.
April: Evie's first Easter was so fun. She surprised us by learning to sit up and start to become independent. She enjoyed playing with more toys and was even sleeping pretty good! She also started to tell the best stories (even though she has always babbled) around 7 months she would get really animated with her stories. We drove up to Logan to meet our Leo for the very first time. Even though initially we had our eye on a female dog. Two weeks later we still wanted a female. It wasn't until the middle of May that we decided on Leo. Evie and I went to the Jordan River Temple open house... beautiful.
May: May 11th, Spencer picked me up from work and we drove up to Logan. We were for sure going to pick Lilly the female we had our eyes on for almost a month. Then Leo (they had named him Oliver) stole our hearts and we knew he was supposed to come home with us. May 28th we picked him up and brought him home. We also got started on our very long backyard renovation. Luckily Evie loved being outside so that helped. My Father-in-law also spent several hours of his time helping Spencer with things I had no idea how to do. May 31st, I left Myriad Genetic Laboratories (of almost 4 years) to be a stay at home mom and started getting ready (again) to go to graduate school.
June: We planted our trees (which took so much digging, stupid rocky ground). We spent several nights outside doing one thing or another to our yard. Our niece Brooklynn made the choice to get baptized and what a wonderful day that was! We even had family pictures taken this month. It was crazy to keep both Evie and Leo focused on the camera. Evie started crawling, slowly, but she was doing it.
July: Our 4th of July was eventful and hot. We had a great BBQ with the Shiveley's. Unfortunately, Spencer's childhood dog got hurt and was sent to doggy heaven the next day. Spencer will never admit how sad he was to anyone but me. It was actually quite heartbreaking. Evie and I ventured out to the Breakfast Museum in Salt Lake. It was short but fun! My nephews and I got really good at building forts. Evie started crawling really fast up the stairs. She was even feeding herself treats at this age.
August: As the days grew hotter we didn't work on our backyard as much as we should have. However we still went to soccer games and baked in the sun. We were able to fit Evie's hair into piggy tales and it was the cutest thing ever. At this age she would sit and look at books for a long time, speed crawl everywhere, and drink out of a sippy cup. This month we actually almost got rid of Leo on three different occasions. I started school again. Woof, it was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I took only one night class and it was still hard managing time for everything else. I celebrated 15 years of having Type 1 diabetes. Spencer had a special project at work and was able to "detect aliens" (that's what we told our nephew, who still believes we talk to them) with a neat satellite. We had a big Kevern reunion, it was fun to see most of my cousins and celebrate my Grandpa turning 91.
September: We finished (mostly) our backyard. We placed stone in, built our fireplace, and put in bark around our trees. Next year we will put a boarder around the fire pit stone. We just got too busy to do so this year. Our Evie turned ONE!!! She had the cutest tropical Birthday and demolished her cupcake. She loves food and at this point would eat literally everything we gave her. She started to walk only with assistance, but pushed chairs and toys around like she owned the place. We took Evie to her first swimming pool, she loved most of it, but hated getting splashed, especially when it went in her mouth. Spencer and I, along with some friends, ran the dirty dash. It was pretty easy, except we all inhaled so much smoke from all of the fires. A few family members, a few friends, and my small little family did JDRF's One walk and it was perfect weather for the walk.
October: Evie found a new love for baby dolls and stuffed animals. She started feeding them, rocking them, and shushing them. She started to walk more, but really preferred to crawl over everything. This month was actually hard because for 3 weeks of it, I was really sick with pancreatitis. So the little things we did to have fun were in our house, except to celebrate our anniversary at the RSL game. We did venture out to Cornbelly's and Evie had so much fun, her face going down the big yellow slide will always be my favorite. We also booked a vacation for an upcoming winter month. For Halloween, we dressed up as a Pizza delivery boy, a piece of pizza, and a Coke Zero Vanilla. I had so much fun making our costumes this year. Poor Leo got his manhood taken from him, and was petrified of the cone.
November: I started a "I'm grateful for you" challenge and it was so rewarding. For 30 days, I wrote thank you cards for 30 different people. I never knew how much it would help me, but it really did. I was so surprised by how those letters were sent and arrived at special times for those who received them. I was so humbled by this challenge and hope I can do this every year. Our Thanksgiving was busy, but delightful. It was fun to see my Kevern side and my Ballard side of the family this year. Evie started saying so many words, I counted the other day and she is up to about 25 or so words where she knows the meaning and can say the word. We are still working on her name, but she can say "V-V" and spell it with help up to L, but she says the "Y" really well. The little one hit food regressions and stopped eating so great. She discovered her love for coloring, and eating crayons at the same time.
December: We finished our at home-gym. It literally took all year to finish, but it is so awesome! Evie loves to play dress up and will always find a "necklace" to wear, whether it's my underwear, or tights, or an actual necklace. She is a tornado when she plays and will empty every drawer, cupboard in sight, and our pantry. She is walking pretty well, but still needs encouraging. She can take about 20 steps before she's over it. Now she is scooting on just her knees, so I believe walking, just walking, will be around the corner. She is so fun and busy, but I love her and her energy. We threw our annual Shiveley Ugly sweater party with a few friends and family. We did a "Eat, Drink, and be Merry" theme with a soda tasting challenge game. We all laughed and ate way too much food. We are so excited for E to have Christmas this year as she gets excited over little things now. Watching the holiday through her eyes has been so rewarding. Kids really do get more fun as they age. At the beginning of the month we went to the Festival of Trees, amazing!
Anyway, here is our year review. We had many hills to climb, but together, Spencer and I carried each other and came out much stronger. We laughed until our bellies hurt at our kids (Leo and Evie). We cried when we got hurt. We held on tight some days. We were a little loosey-goosey some other days. Most importantly, we grew together. If I could have it my way, I would choose not to repeat 2018 because of all of the hard things thrown at us. I chose not to get into the sad, mundane challenges we faced because there is already so much negativity in the world. Writing this post made me realize we have so much to be grateful for and even though this year was a slap in the face, we wouldn't have had it any other way. We are so excited for 2019. We have two big vacations to look forward to, more school, promotions to experience, my sister will be having twins, Evie will continue to grow and put a smile on our faces, and we will enjoy every summer night by our fire pit. How was your year? What did you do? I hope you can find joy in all things, even though they were or are hard. I love you and want you to know I think about all of you everyday.
Go forth and ring in 2019 with good tidings and great cheer!
2018. What a year and really where do I start? Everyone cycles through life with mostly happy years and memories, however I know I am not the only one to say that there are hard moments shuffled between those good times. This past year has had so many wonderful moments, but an equal amount of hard times. This year has pushed me to my limits in ways I didn't know I couldn't handle by myself. I cried a lot this year. I was hurt, I was broken, I was stretched in many different ways, I was torn apart. It seemed that "all bad things come in three" came around a lot more than I anticipated. As I sat back and let all of those emotions flood my memory, it made me sad that I didn't try to be better and fix my attitude. If I were to describe 2018 in one word it would be: growth. I could write a rather long list of all the things that hurt me, tore me apart, or broke me, but those are just "things" and in the long run, unimportant.
2018 taught me so many lessons, some I thought I had even learned from before. The reason why I chose the word growth to describe this past year is because that is exactly what I did. I grew. My mind was able to grow to be calmer. My ability to be patient grew by 1000%. My ability to understand and sympathize was enhanced. The act of forgiveness (of forgiving and being forgiven) helped peace grow in my life. My ability to love others, despite their circumstances grew 10-fold. My confidence shot through the roof. Standing up for myself grew taller than it ever has. My heart, despite being broken, grew back together larger than before. My strength grew. Most importantly my faith in myself, my family, and in my beliefs grew to record heights.
Here are some highlights of this past year:
January: WE MOVED INTO OUR HOUSE! Technically it was February but January 27, 2018 was the day we moved into our very first home. By February 1st because I am crazy and hate having clutter, all of the boxes were unpacked and stored away by February 1st. Even pictures were up on the walls. It has been so much fun getting adjusted and settled into our house. We have done so much, and have so much to do. It is our home and even though it hasn't been very long, we have made many, cherished memories.
February: Spencer went on his first business trip of the year where when he had to spend extra hours scrubbing his computer. I took that literally and thought he had to take soap and water to his computer. He still teases me about that, so do our families. Evie was really getting into baby food at this time, but still LOVED nursing.
March: We went to our first Real Salt Lake soccer game of the season. Evie came and she loved it when she was awake. She slept for a solid hour with headphones on, I still remember all of the people around us saying how good she was with the loud, cheering crowd. Evie found her love for books and her face lit up whenever we would look at them together. We celebrated her being SIX months old.
April: Evie's first Easter was so fun. She surprised us by learning to sit up and start to become independent. She enjoyed playing with more toys and was even sleeping pretty good! She also started to tell the best stories (even though she has always babbled) around 7 months she would get really animated with her stories. We drove up to Logan to meet our Leo for the very first time. Even though initially we had our eye on a female dog. Two weeks later we still wanted a female. It wasn't until the middle of May that we decided on Leo. Evie and I went to the Jordan River Temple open house... beautiful.
May: May 11th, Spencer picked me up from work and we drove up to Logan. We were for sure going to pick Lilly the female we had our eyes on for almost a month. Then Leo (they had named him Oliver) stole our hearts and we knew he was supposed to come home with us. May 28th we picked him up and brought him home. We also got started on our very long backyard renovation. Luckily Evie loved being outside so that helped. My Father-in-law also spent several hours of his time helping Spencer with things I had no idea how to do. May 31st, I left Myriad Genetic Laboratories (of almost 4 years) to be a stay at home mom and started getting ready (again) to go to graduate school.
(I can't get over E's chub in this picture, May 11th)
June: We planted our trees (which took so much digging, stupid rocky ground). We spent several nights outside doing one thing or another to our yard. Our niece Brooklynn made the choice to get baptized and what a wonderful day that was! We even had family pictures taken this month. It was crazy to keep both Evie and Leo focused on the camera. Evie started crawling, slowly, but she was doing it.
July: Our 4th of July was eventful and hot. We had a great BBQ with the Shiveley's. Unfortunately, Spencer's childhood dog got hurt and was sent to doggy heaven the next day. Spencer will never admit how sad he was to anyone but me. It was actually quite heartbreaking. Evie and I ventured out to the Breakfast Museum in Salt Lake. It was short but fun! My nephews and I got really good at building forts. Evie started crawling really fast up the stairs. She was even feeding herself treats at this age.
August: As the days grew hotter we didn't work on our backyard as much as we should have. However we still went to soccer games and baked in the sun. We were able to fit Evie's hair into piggy tales and it was the cutest thing ever. At this age she would sit and look at books for a long time, speed crawl everywhere, and drink out of a sippy cup. This month we actually almost got rid of Leo on three different occasions. I started school again. Woof, it was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I took only one night class and it was still hard managing time for everything else. I celebrated 15 years of having Type 1 diabetes. Spencer had a special project at work and was able to "detect aliens" (that's what we told our nephew, who still believes we talk to them) with a neat satellite. We had a big Kevern reunion, it was fun to see most of my cousins and celebrate my Grandpa turning 91.
September: We finished (mostly) our backyard. We placed stone in, built our fireplace, and put in bark around our trees. Next year we will put a boarder around the fire pit stone. We just got too busy to do so this year. Our Evie turned ONE!!! She had the cutest tropical Birthday and demolished her cupcake. She loves food and at this point would eat literally everything we gave her. She started to walk only with assistance, but pushed chairs and toys around like she owned the place. We took Evie to her first swimming pool, she loved most of it, but hated getting splashed, especially when it went in her mouth. Spencer and I, along with some friends, ran the dirty dash. It was pretty easy, except we all inhaled so much smoke from all of the fires. A few family members, a few friends, and my small little family did JDRF's One walk and it was perfect weather for the walk.
October: Evie found a new love for baby dolls and stuffed animals. She started feeding them, rocking them, and shushing them. She started to walk more, but really preferred to crawl over everything. This month was actually hard because for 3 weeks of it, I was really sick with pancreatitis. So the little things we did to have fun were in our house, except to celebrate our anniversary at the RSL game. We did venture out to Cornbelly's and Evie had so much fun, her face going down the big yellow slide will always be my favorite. We also booked a vacation for an upcoming winter month. For Halloween, we dressed up as a Pizza delivery boy, a piece of pizza, and a Coke Zero Vanilla. I had so much fun making our costumes this year. Poor Leo got his manhood taken from him, and was petrified of the cone.
(Last RSL game of the regular season)
November: I started a "I'm grateful for you" challenge and it was so rewarding. For 30 days, I wrote thank you cards for 30 different people. I never knew how much it would help me, but it really did. I was so surprised by how those letters were sent and arrived at special times for those who received them. I was so humbled by this challenge and hope I can do this every year. Our Thanksgiving was busy, but delightful. It was fun to see my Kevern side and my Ballard side of the family this year. Evie started saying so many words, I counted the other day and she is up to about 25 or so words where she knows the meaning and can say the word. We are still working on her name, but she can say "V-V" and spell it with help up to L, but she says the "Y" really well. The little one hit food regressions and stopped eating so great. She discovered her love for coloring, and eating crayons at the same time.
December: We finished our at home-gym. It literally took all year to finish, but it is so awesome! Evie loves to play dress up and will always find a "necklace" to wear, whether it's my underwear, or tights, or an actual necklace. She is a tornado when she plays and will empty every drawer, cupboard in sight, and our pantry. She is walking pretty well, but still needs encouraging. She can take about 20 steps before she's over it. Now she is scooting on just her knees, so I believe walking, just walking, will be around the corner. She is so fun and busy, but I love her and her energy. We threw our annual Shiveley Ugly sweater party with a few friends and family. We did a "Eat, Drink, and be Merry" theme with a soda tasting challenge game. We all laughed and ate way too much food. We are so excited for E to have Christmas this year as she gets excited over little things now. Watching the holiday through her eyes has been so rewarding. Kids really do get more fun as they age. At the beginning of the month we went to the Festival of Trees, amazing!
Anyway, here is our year review. We had many hills to climb, but together, Spencer and I carried each other and came out much stronger. We laughed until our bellies hurt at our kids (Leo and Evie). We cried when we got hurt. We held on tight some days. We were a little loosey-goosey some other days. Most importantly, we grew together. If I could have it my way, I would choose not to repeat 2018 because of all of the hard things thrown at us. I chose not to get into the sad, mundane challenges we faced because there is already so much negativity in the world. Writing this post made me realize we have so much to be grateful for and even though this year was a slap in the face, we wouldn't have had it any other way. We are so excited for 2019. We have two big vacations to look forward to, more school, promotions to experience, my sister will be having twins, Evie will continue to grow and put a smile on our faces, and we will enjoy every summer night by our fire pit. How was your year? What did you do? I hope you can find joy in all things, even though they were or are hard. I love you and want you to know I think about all of you everyday.
Go forth and ring in 2019 with good tidings and great cheer!
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