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Looking at a fire truck

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A few months ago my youngest son had a febrile seizure caused by a high fever.
It was a very scary moment as I was on the phone with the 911 operator and telling him each time our son would take a breath. After he was done seizing, my husband put him on the floor, on his side, as the paramedics were just seconds away. It was a scary moment to see him on the floor, not moving because he was completely exhausted, but we knew he was breathing and fine.
The fire truck arrived and the most wonderful paramedics came out and took great care of him.
Two other paramedics were in the other room talking with our other two children and distracting them.

I saw this truck in our neighborhood a few weeks ago.

My youngest was in stable condition and we were transported to a Children’s hospital by ambulance. It was a bumpy experience traveling in the ambulance. I wished that I had some gum to chew on as I was starting to feel nauseous as I was a few months pregnant.

He ended up being fine and we were able to go home that evening. He was more alert on the drive back and was excited to stop and get some McDonald’s on the way home. He was so hungry.


However, I realized that this experience has made me feel anxious anytime I see a firetruck. It just brings me back to that emotional day.
Today we went to a fair and they had a firetruck there that the kids could go in. Before my kids could, we heard that they had a call. So they had to get out. They were disappointed, but I reminded them of their brother’s experience and that the fireman had to go help people that are sick and hurt. It made me choke up inside as I remembered what had happened to our son, but grateful for those amazing firemen and paramedics that are there to help.

Life is a dinosaur

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Life is like this dinosaur. Sometimes we may feel small in this world and feel like others don’t notice us, ignore us, and charge right past us like we don’t exist. But we can either go through life with our head down and sad that we feel like this or we can be like my daughter in this picture and look right out our big obstacle and face it with our eyes wide open. It is definitely not easy to do that and sometimes we need help from others to help pick us up and carry us when we feel small.

My big dinosaur or trial right now is not being happy. Not happy with where we live and tired of how hard it is to make friends sometimes. Most people here have their little groups with those that they are comfortable with and to be honest it gets a little annoying. Also just tired of feeling ignored by others. I sometimes wonder maybe there is something wrong with me that makes others not like me and tonight I said to myself, “Who cares? I am who I am.” I shouldn’t care what others think.

But what can I do to help me become happier? I am stuck here. We aren’t moving anytime soon so how can I be happier?
I have to remind myself that Jesus wants us to be happy. He didn’t create us to be sad. So I am going to try and find three things every day until the end of the month of things that have made me happy.

Today I was happy because my kids were playing nice with one another.
I was also happy because I had cake to come home to and I was happy that I got groceries today.

Oldest Son

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I shared a few months ago about one of two scary incidents since being a mother.

The second incident involved my oldest son once again. I was eight months pregnant with our daughter. My husband had left for the grocery store and my son was walking around the home with a cookie rack. He loved going through the cupboards and taking out pots and pans.
We were playing a game and he was walking away from me, still holding onto the cookie rack. He fell just right that the cookie rack cut him on his forehead. He was bleeding a lot. I tried to find a rag to put pressure on his cut. The blood was dripping fast.

I called my husband, but he was still driving to the store and so I had to leave a message. Luckily we were literally right next to the hospital. It was a two-minute walk to the hospital. I quickly grabbed my wallet and ran to the ER.
This was at the beginning of Covid so people were more on edge. I got stopped by one of the hospital employees and was asked a few screening questions. I was annoyed with him as he didn’t seem to be concerned that I was holding a toddler with a bloody towel. We were finally able to go in and were seen pretty quickly. He didn’t need stitches but needed some special glue and they put on a bandaid.

My husband arrived while we were still in the waiting room, but he was not allowed to come in. But it gave me comfort knowing that he was outside waiting for us.
We finally were able to go home. It was close to his bedtime, but we let him stay up a little bit longer as we just cuddled with him on our bed.

Rain on our Wedding Day!

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Our wedding anniversary was a couple of days ago. I still remember little pieces about our wedding day.

I remember that it rained a lot! My sister told me that I probably should buy some umbrellas and that was such a smart idea. I woke up early so that my sister could work on my hair and then we made our way to a park so that we could take some couple pictures before the wedding. My brother-in-law was nice enough to take them. It was pouring rain and cold, but luckily my wedding dress had long sleeves so it wasn’t too cold.
I remember smiling and laughing a lot. It was crazy that I was going to get married that day to such a wonderful guy. He sure knows how to make me smile.

Then we went up to the temple where we were to get married at. It was good that we went together this time because the day before when we were supposed to meet at the temple, he was late! I may or may not have been a little worried that maybe he got cold feet and went back to Canada. Just kidding!
Everything about that day was perfect. We were so happy that our families could be there to witness such a beautiful day.

I am so lucky that I found my true love. From the first day that we met in person, we have had such a close bond. When he came down those escalators at the airport the first time he came to see me and we gave each other a hug, it was like we always knew each other. We skyped a lot and got to know each other well. We asked each other lots of questions and had great conversations so when we actually met in person it did not feel awkward at all.

I’d like to think that the rain on our wedding day was a reminder to us. That we are going to have hard times in life and we might wonder if the “rain” is ever going to end. It will end and then we might get a break and then it will start up again. But that “rain” or in other words, hard times, won’t last forever. The sun will eventually come out to warm us up and give us hope.

Happy New Year

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Happy New Year!
We celebrated New Year’s Eve playing little games with our kids. We played the game where you have an oreo on your face and you have to try to move it down your face to your mouth without touching it. Our oldest son said “Look Mommy! I am moving it,” as he moved it down to his mouth using his hands. We also called a few family members to wish them a Happy New Year. Our kids were loving to show them toys that they got for Christmas.

We had a dance party and then at 8 pm (our fake midnight) we let them bang pots with spoons. I enjoyed playing games with them. It was fun to see how excited their faces got with each game that we played.

Fun fact- I don’t think my husband and I have ever stayed up until midnight the entire time we have been married. We both need our sleep. Maybe if I wasn’t waking up already during the night to feed my one-year-old then maybe I could stay up until midnight.

I am excited about the new year. We are going to start the new year by going on an exciting trip… with all three kids… on a plane. It will be an adventure, but we are preparing for it. It should be good.

Christmas Mouse

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“‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.” Except for our Christmas mouse.
Since Christmas is just around the corner I thought it would be fun to tell a story about the mouse that would not die.

We had our first child born end of October. A couple of weeks after he was born I was sitting in the living room at night. My husband was fast asleep in bed. I was trying to nurse our baby back to sleep. All of a sudden I saw the shadow of a mouse race across our living room. Of course, I freaked out and tried calling my husband from the other room. But he was fast asleep. I quickly ran to the room, waking him up with the news. We couldn’t find the mouse but knew that he probably would be back.

Fast forward maybe a week after that, I was walking at night into the kitchen when I felt and saw the mouse against my feet. I was scared out of my mind to walk anywhere no matter the time of day.
Christmas morning came and we were all sitting on the couch. All of a sudden the mouse came from under our couch and raced across our floor and disappeared into the kitchen. We would set traps out with cheese and peanut butter, but this mouse was very sneaky and could get the treats without getting caught.

Finally one day we heard the trap go off and went to go see it. The mouse got caught, but just barely!
I will never forget our Christmas mouse. I also wonder if that is why our son loves Mickey Mouse so much.

Do You Remember How To Be A Kid?

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My opinion is that to be a parent, you must remember how to be a kid.
We have had problems with our kids and temper tantrums within the last few months. It usually ends with them in their room for a timeout and my husband and myself are frustrated beyond all means.
In the last few weeks, I have realized that part of their problem is probably just needing extra attention and love. Sometimes I want to do other things like cleaning the house, baking something, or just taking a moment for myself. But I believe that the most important thing that parents can try and do is play and hang out with their kids as much as they can.

For the last few weeks, I have been trying hard to remember how to be a kid again. I have loved to play pretend stories with them with their toys, coloring, and even play hide and go seek. It’s fun to see how excited they get when I find them even if I find them hiding in the same spot again. The other day we were on a hunt to find the dinosaur’s family. Today I went to the “doctor” and got a check-up and all I needed was a bandaid.

My son always asks if I can play with him. Even though I may be busy I will take a few minutes and play with him because I know that will make his day and will help build a closer bond with him.

I forgot for a moment what it was like to be a kid. Kids are learning and growing. They need nurturing along with having fun. I have learned that in order to give the best to my kids I need to focus my priorities more on them. And to not worry about those other things at home. Those things can wait for a little bit. I have also found that I am becoming more patient with them as well.

My Stroller Was Meant To Get Stuck

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I had a hard morning this week. My oldest had a huge meltdown before we were supposed to go on a walk. He was not calming down so we went back into the living room. By this time I didn’t want to do much but just stay on the floor, but I knew it was important to get some fresh air.
We tried again to get ready for a walk, but this time my daughter was having a meltdown because her coat was too tight, even though it wasn’t. She took it off two times before I told her that she wouldn’t be able to have a cheese stick on the walk if she didn’t wear a coat.

We live in Manitoba. It gets cold in the winter, so it is important to get all the winter gear out when October hits. However, anyone that has children knows that it is hard to have kids keep on hats especially. I keep hats in the stroller for those that choose not to wear them, but I am not going to fight them to put them on. If they get cold they will ask for it. My youngest has a hard time, but I put him in his snow suit and a jacket and had blankets on him on the walk.

We were finally able to go out. I was so happy that we finally were able to go out. As we were walking I could hear someone walking in back of me. I wanted to be nice so I pulled to the side expecting her to go on her way. However, she stopped and asked if they had hats and continued to say that it was cold. I thought to myself “How dare this woman say that? She has no idea the struggle I had just dealt with to get out of the house.” I told her in an annoyed voice that maybe she would like to put hats on my kids. I continued to say to her that it is hard to keep hats on kids. She didn’t even acknowledge the positives that my kids had coats and shoes on. I was so annoyed and frustrated with her. As I continued to walk I just thought of how much I hate where we live and I don’t think I will ever be at peace with where we live. I hate the cold, the snow, the fact that I feel judged by people here, I don’t like the health care system here, the streets are small and a nuisance to drive on… the list just goes on and on.

As I was walking and complaining to myself, all of a sudden I was going up a little hill on the sidewalk and my stroller got stuck. I couldn’t figure out why it was stuck. There didn’t seem to be a reason why it should be. All of a sudden a guy ran across the street to help me. It was very nice of him and was very surprising. I am not sure where he came from, but as I thought about it later I think my stroller was meant to get stuck. So that I could have a positive in my day and be reminded of the good in people.

Heavenly Father always has my back and wants me to be happy. I feel like that little moment was his way to help me not to hold a grudge and to help me see the positive in that day. I still have my feelings about where we live and I think it will take a lot of work for me to be ok with where we live. It will take baby steps, but I was also reminded to not judge people because you don’t know what they are or have been dealing with and to also be kind to others.

Third Child

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Our youngest son is going to be one in a few days. Like everyone, he has a story. He was our surprise baby.


We were not thinking about having a third child. Our middle child was a challenging baby. She would not sleep by herself for almost the first year that she was born. We tried letting her cry it out, but that didn’t work. The girl has some strong lungs. It didn’t help that we moved provinces three months after she was born. So moving threw off routines and she was just a stubborn baby. So it was difficult, to say the least.

When we found out that we were expecting we were excited, but also a little stressed. All our kids were going to be 18 months apart and our older two were still in diapers.
So our goal was to get our kids out of diapers by the time baby was born. It didn’t work that way but didn’t take long after the baby was born to get our oldest out of diapers, so that was good.

We hoped and prayed that our third baby would be kind to us. We hoped that he would be a good calm baby. We knew that having two toddlers and a baby would be challenging for us.
We also didn’t know what gender our third would be. Since he was our surprise baby we thought why not have it be a surprise gender. My husband thought it would be a girl, but in my heart, I knew that it was going to be a boy and I was right.

Prayers were answered and he has been our calmest baby. He slept well as an infant, despite his loud siblings. He is my sweet boy who may not like cuddles, but he loves affection in other ways and one on one time. He does things when he wants to and on his own time and that is one thing that I love most about him.
When I was in labor with him I thought that he would come fast like his sister. However, as I walked around the hospital the first time that we went during the night to see if that would help get things moving and progressing, I felt that he was just not ready yet to come down to earth and that I was going to have to wait just a little bit more. But not to worry, he would come when he was ready.

We also know a few babies his age that are already walking and at first, it bothered me that our son is not walking yet, but then I remind myself that our son has other great qualities that these babies don’t have yet. Plus he has one of the cutest smiles on the earth; I might be a little biased.
I can’t imagine life without him. He has such a happy demeanor about him and he knows how to make me laugh.

The Cat Knew

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I worked with dogs and cats for a few years. Oh, the stories I can tell you about dog fights, dog bites, and crazy cats. I use to always think cats were so sweet and cuddly. Some are and some just want their space. Working with dogs and cats I learned that I was more of a dog person.

One thing that I learned from my job was animals can be sweet, but always be cautious of them. You never know what is going to set them off. I would never pet a dog that I didn’t know. I am always on guard especially when out for a walk with my kids and I see a dog that isn’t on a leash. The owner may say that their nice, but you are a new person to them so they may not be comfortable with you.

I had an experience a few weeks ago while walking with my older son. Two stray dogs were walking in my neighborhood. My son loved to see them, but I could tell that they were scared and not wanting anyone to come by them. Sure enough, the bigger dog started barking. Hearing the sound of his bark I could tell he was scared and not happy to see us.
I didn’t want to put us in danger so I turned around.

Fast forward to this morning. I was on a walk with all three of our kids. Our daughter tripped and fell. She started to cry. I tried picking her up, but she didn’t want that. I told her that she could sit in the wagon and she didn’t want to do that either. I told her, “I don’t know what to do to help you then.” As I started continuing to walk a cat ran up to her. I was a little unsure and didn’t want my kids to pet the cat, but the cat just went up to her and rolled around by her feet. They loved seeing the cat and she immediately stopped crying. I’m sure the cat sensed that something was wrong and wanted to help and I was very grateful at that moment that it did.

I am grateful for the experiences that I have had, the good and the bad, working with dogs and cats. They have taught me a lot.