Haiti Help

The earthquake in Haiti happened almost two months ago. This tragedy was heart-breaking for everyone... I think we have all felt helpless. My sweet husband has most definitely felt that heart-break because he served his mission in Haiti. He truly loves the Haitian people and has many dear friends who still live there. One of those dear friends is Fritzner, a former mission companion. He and his sweet wife Carole run an orphanage in Haiti with 24 kids. After the devistating quake, they were taking care of 85 kids. Their struggle is impossible for us to understand... it is heartbreaking and yet they are full of hope and optimism. We have wondered on a daily basis what we can do to help.Here is where my sweet 7 year old steps in. A couple of days after the earthquake, Dallin watched the news with us. He saw the devistation, the death, the sadness, and he sweetly felt for their pain. With tears in his eyes, he looked at me and asked "what do I do?". I told him to think about it. As I tucked him into bed later on that night, his response was that he wanted to raise money for Fritzner's orphanage. The next week, he had made flyers, put out a bucket in his elementary school, and money envelopes at his previously attended preschool. The fundraising went on for a couple of weeks and in the end, my kind-hearted son raised almost $900. He has inspired me to be better.
Here is the letter that Dallin wrote to help raise funds at both schools:

Helping Hands for Haiti

The earthquake that happened last week in Haiti makes me sad.

I was watching the news with my parents, and I decided that I wanted to help.

My Dad served a 2 year mission in Haiti, has many good friends there and will be going there soon to help translate and rebuild his friend’s orphanage.

Fritzner and Carole’s orphanage used to have 24 kids and now has 85 because of the earthquake... they need our help and I KNOW we can help.

I went into my room, grabbed my piggy bank and decided to donate my money to these kids… I hope you will do the same.

It will make your heart feel good.

My Dad will take the money we earn with him to Haiti and give it to the orphans… from our hands to theirs.

Thank you, Dallin Waldron – NVES 1^st grader

At Friday morning lineup, Dallin was recognized in front of the whole school for his efforts. Peter thanked the kids for their donations and shared some phrases of gratitude in Haitian-Creole. Dallin smiled ear to ear. They were given the bucket filled with money (as well as some sweet notes).
Peter and I will be heading to Haiti in April. What a joy it will be to hand the money that was donated by the hands of children in Southern California to the hands of the sweet orphan children in Haiti.

Love Letter

Here are the cute lollipop flowers Claire made for her friends
for Valentines Day...

Happy (belated) Valentines Day!
Love, Claire

Cavaness Cousins

A couple of weeks into January, we met up with my darling cousin Annette and her just as darling family at Disneyland. We had such a great time! They are such a positive, uplifting and full-of-life family (great people to be with at Disneyland!). They have 3 kids the same ages and genders as ours... as one might imagine, they all had SO much fun talking, playing and riding rides together... I really wish they lived closer (Germany is way too far away).
Unfortunately, I didn't take very many pictures, but I did capture the girls. Claire and Eva held hands while jibber-jabbering in the lines. They were insta-friends. Emma (another cousin there to help) was also a joy to be with. I didn't get any pictures of the boys because they took off. Joe escaped with Dallin and Diego to go on the big boy rides... Dallin's dream. He was SO happy that he didn't have to ride Winnie the Pooh at all that day.

It was a great escape for all of us and I hope the Cavaness family comes to visit again soon!

Allegiance Anchor

Here is how Dallin became famous yesterday
(at least at his elementary school):

They had a lot of technical difficulties, cut Dallin off in the middle of the pledge at one point, didn't have sound another time and then they finally got the system to work. I was amazed at his poise after all of that.

Here is Dallin waiting for the technical difficulties to be fixed...

The background story of how he was chosen to lead the pledges goes like this: "Abraham Lincoln" came and spoke at Dallin's school last week. Dallin's teacher noticed that her class was getting fidgety... all except for Dallin. She says he was enthralled. In fact, Dallin came home and told me how amazing Abraham was (I later found out that he was quite boring). Apparently Dallin has a love of American history (the other day, he told me that he desperately wanted to go to Philadelphia. I thought it was so he could go to a 76ers game, but he quickly informed me it was so he could see the Liberty Bell. He is also dreaming of Washington D.C.).

SO... Dallin's teacher auditioned a few kids in the class to do the Pledge of Allegiance and he was chosen because of his deep interest and love of history. How grateful I am for teachers who notice what kids are good at and love, and then help foster and build upon it. It was a good morning for Dallin.

Spencer Second

This little boy is simply heaven... a little bit of crazy heaven.
We are all infatuated with what he will do or say next.
He is so cute, so unpredictable, and yet so predictable all in the same breath.
It's hard to remember life before him
(although I'm sure I wasn't running as much).
Ah, our Tiny Bug... quickly becoming not-so-tiny.
Love him.(and yes, he is very protective of his ball)

Dallin Date

One of my favorite events of the year happened a couple of weekends ago... the mother/son dance at Dallin's school. I love going out with Dallin. I don't know if it's because he is my first-born and we had quite a bit of time together... just me and him, but we have a special bond.
I LOVE him.

Here is how we spent this most fabulous date night together (all Dallin's choosing):
1- busted out our Rock Band t-shirts (the dance was a Rock n Roll theme this year)
2- showed off some of our mad "guitar" skills in the backyard to get our rock blood pumping3- hopped into our rockmobile (okay, Dad's car)
4- headed to Claim Jumper for some delicious dinner (Dallin info update... this is his new favorite restaurant)5- went to the dance
6- got our picture taken (which I'll have to post later)
7- got our groove on
8- ditched the dance a little early
9- went to the Chaparral High School basketball game to see Tucker play (a priest/buddy from our ward who Dallin has been dying to watch)10- finished the night off with some dessert fondue at the Melting PotYep, we fit all of that into about 4 hours. It was a wonderful whirlwind of a date and we were both fabulously giddy from our adventures together. Rock on Dallin.

Memorable Marathon

Growing up I had a bucket list, if you will. Things that I knew I wanted to do in my lifetime. Things such as: finish college, get married, have my heart fixed, have children, visit Europe, go skydiving, experience New York, etc. etc. etc. I have been able to cross a lot of these things off. The weird part, however, is that I am crossing off some of the "what never needs to happen to me in this lifetime" list such as swim with sharks or run a 1/2 marathon (both of which I have done in the past 4 months). I guess I am crossing things off, right?!

If you wish to learn more about our shark adventure, visit our Tahiti blog posts from November 2009. As for the 1/2 marathon, I don't even know where to begin. Well actually, it started at LA Fitness over a year ago. I have been going to the gym 3x a week for over a year now with a few of my girlfriends. It is so great to have their support. One day, we decided to finish our workout with a run. The word "run" to me ranked right up there with "pouring salt water into an open wound", or "drinking mud". It was a 'hate' of mine. I attribute this hate to my childhood when I had to go to Seattle Children's Hospital to have treadmill tests done (I had a heart condition). They would hook me up, put the treadmill on the steepest incline and make me run... run up that incline at an impossible speed. I would hold on for dear life and hate every second of those tests. The treadmill was my enemy, my fear.So now, 15 years later I was standing on that treadmill sweating like a pig and we hadn't even started the machine. I was full of fear. We ran together and I hated it. I did it, but I hated it.

The next day, I decided to go back and face my fear head on... just me and that stupid treadmill. I told myself that I was going to run a 5K that day, no excuses. Just run. I ran... all 3.1 miles. It literally took everything out of me. I did it and it felt good (not the running, the part afterwords).

I then knew I had to blow this fear out of the water. I jogged here and there until a couple of months ago, my friend Amy decided to take me with her on a Saturday morning run. We ran 10 stinking miles! It was out of control. I was dead and alive all at the same time. I felt like a new woman empowered with some super-human abilities. We ran another 10 miles the next Saturday. Another Saturday we ran 10 again at 6 in the morning. Who am I? It was last Saturday morning that I ran 13.1 miles. Another "never want to do" part of my list that I crossed off.

Now that I've gone on and on, here is how the Diamond Valley Lake 1/2 marathon on Saturday went down...

I ran it with Peter, his buddy Ryan and my friend/trainer Amy. We sat in Ryan's truck in the parking lot of Diamond Valley Lake that morning at 8:56 am knowing full well the marathon started at 9 am. The problem was, we didn't want to get out of the car because it was freezing, the wind was blowing like crazy and it was raining.

We finally sucked it up just in time to race to the race. We were off... and I wanted to die. Within a matter of seconds, I was soaked, muddy and out of breath. The whole race was on dirt (which normally would be great for the knees, but was horrible because it had turned to mud and puddles). We spent the entire 13.1 miles soaked, dodging and trudging through mud puddles.(Okay, it wasn't as bad as this photo, but pretty darn close)

The wind was out of control and at one point, we were running up this hill (which was enough for me to cry) and the wind was fiercely pushing against us. I have never experienced such physical opposition. I cried, but the tears flew off of my face.

At a different point in the race, we ran across a bridge over a dam. It was the only paved/unmuddy part of the journey and it lasted for only 5 minutes. We thought this would be a relief, until the wind literally blew us sideways. We could hear other runners saying "what are we doing?!" Just as I was figuring out how to run sideways, it began to hail. I used my hand as a shield, but it didn't help. We were still running sideways getting pelted by hail. What did I do to deserve such torment? As if running a 1/2 marathon wasn't enough? We trudged on.

So here are my complaints about the race:
it was muddy, wet, and completely miserable at moments
-my pants were falling off (because they were so wet)
-my iPod stopped working at mile 3 (just me and my thoughts is a little scary)
-the wind ate at the endurance I had trained so hard for
-at one point I had a rock in my shoe that I didn't want to stop for (but did)
-it took us longer to finish than we had hoped (2 1/2 hours)
-my final complaint would be that there was no one there. Usually there are lots of people running and waiting at the finish line and this time there was the photographer, the lady handing out the lame dog tags they called medals, and a few other workers braving the weather.

Here are the parts of the race I loved:
-Amy's husband and kids did greet us at the finish line in the rain
-when I actually took the time to look up and not worry about the mud puddles- the hills and the lake were gorgeous... like a scene from Ireland-around mile 5, the rain halted for a few moments and we witnessed the most incredible rainbow EVER!
-I was able to run in these horrible conditions next to my sweet husband (it was a metaphor of our life... muddy, but doing it together)
-it was a sweet reward to run with Amy (it was both of our first 1/2 marathons)
-WE FINISHED IT!!!In your face Seattle Children's Hospital treadmill.

Gangsta Guy

I was scrolling through our photos this morning and came across some "old" videos of the kids. I eventually had Dallin and Claire sitting on my lap as we laughed and enjoyed the past together. I decided to sprinkle these videos throughout our blog every once in awhile... for the grandparents enjoyment (and ours). Here is a random, funny Dallin video from years ago:

Gangsta Dallin (with Jen)

BYU Basketball

We had such a fun night last night. The BYU basketball team was in town playing the SDSU Aztecs... we had to go since Dallin is such a huge basketball fan. We got a babysitter for Claire and Spencer while Peter and I drove with Dallin down to San Diego. We had a fun game of 21 questions and learned more about the BYU players courtesy of a BYU basketball iPhone app! Dallin was uber-knowledgable by the time we arrived.

When we walked through the arena doors, we found it jam-packed with tons of people wearing black and red (and a pretty decent showing wearing BYU blue). We also saw these dudes...a bunch of SDSU punks pretending to be missionaries. I just don't understand the frog and the banana. They must have heard some really wrong information about our church :).The game was close the entire time and there was so much adrenaline pumping in that arena... from the fans, to the players, to the coaches, it was awesome.

The last minute of the game we were only ahead by 1 point. The whole place was on their feet going nuts. I loved seeing Dallin so happy, soaking it all in. He is most definitely a huge basketball fan. To top our exciting night off, BYU ended up winning and we walked out of that arena with huge smiles on our faces. A direct Dallin quote as we walked out: "this was the best day of my life". Nothing better than seeing your kids happy. GO BYU!!!

Bye Binky

What is it about a piece of plastic with an attached rubber nipple that has my children so addicted. I totally understand addictions to chocolate or sleep, but to a binky... I'm not so sure.

Dallin had his binky until he was 4 years old. We essentially got rid of his before Claire was born, but when she came and had an addiction just as great as his, she ended up sharing her "stash" of binkys with her brother. I would look over to find baby Claire screaming next to Dallin who had a pink binky in his mouth.

We finally took all of his old binkys, put them in a large envelope and sent them to Santa Claus. We found out that Santa cares about binky remission and the next morning, he brought Dallin a fun train set and left it on the front porch. One binky addiction down. Here's the proof of the addiction:

Now it's Claire's turn for remission and it has been successful. We started out telling her that she could only have her binky at night, then got rid of them cold-turkey. She doesn't go to sleep as quickly and often complains of "bubbles" in her mouth that desperately need the binky, but bubbles and sleep deprivation aside, the binkys are gone. One less thing to forget while I'm out. One less $4 purchase at Target. One less thing to search for in the middle of the night.

Farewell Avent binkys...
So what did Claire choose as her prize for being such a big girl? She chose a baby... without a binky.

And a final shout out to my little Spencer who has refused the binky from day 1... thank you Spencer for saving me time, money and future remission headaches.

Church Changes

It's a new year which means new changes for our Sundays. We now start church at 2:30... not too sure how this will fly with the kiddos. I love that we will have all morning to spend together cooking and coloring, but sitting in a pew all by myself in the late afternoon with three tired kids isn't sounding like a thrill. Patience is still one of my new year's resolutions (it has been for 7 years now).

Onto fun changes, Dallin has moved up from Jr Primary into Sr Primary... how in the world did this happen? How is it that he is in the "baptism prep" class? When did my baby learn how to spell accountability and actually know what it means? Time flies.
Speaking of which, my baby girl... she's a Sunbeam. She is actually the oldest Sunbeam ever (she missed the deadline last year by a few hours having a January 1st birthday). I now have 2 kids in primary and in a blink of an eye, I'll be driving them all to mutual.To top it all off, Spencer is almost in nursery... can I get a hallelujah! We have been attending nursery together for the past 2 months already (I call us illegal nursery immigrants) so the kid is already accustomed to the routine and loves being in there. I just have to wait until it's official and we get our nursery "citizenship" (ahem, March 21, ahem).

If anyone has a remedy to help time go slower, fill me in... it is literally flying by.

"Four" Festivities

Although saying "I'm 3 1/2" was so fun, Claire eventually turned the big 4 on New Years Day. Over Christmas break, we had her "family party" filled with a Big Top Cupcake (that she decorated), lots of Little Mermaid presents and great friends and family.

For her "friend party", she invited 3 of her bestest friends (Katelyn, Aubree and Indy). They put on their favorite princess dress, went to Build-a-Bear, made their own friend,

gave that friend a bath,

chose a cute name outfit for it and then proudly carried their new buddy throughout the mall.

We designed our own cupcakes at a darling cupcake store (think Subway, but for cupcakes), sang Happy Birthday to Claire,

snarfed our cupcakes,

opened presents,

rode on the horsies, and said our birthday goodbyes.

It was a perfect party for a new little 4 year old girl (and and easy one for her mom). Happy Birthday sweet Claire... don't worry, you'll be
4 1/2 before you know it!