Girls Camp!!

I just got back from girls camp and I must say that all my expectations for girls camp were completely surpassed! It was the most amazing week! My testimony grew so much more and was validated by the experiences that I had. When we arrived Tuesday we set up camp and then just spent time with our level girls. We also did a confidence course and the waterfront. It was such a beautiful day! That night we roasted smores and talked around the campfire. I ended up eating to many smores and that resulting in me having a night terror. I thought an ax murdered had entered our cabin and was coming towards me. I let out a bloody murder type scream (waking everyone in my cabin up). I started to crawl towards the window to try to escape. I started to cry because I thought my life was coming to an end! Tracy and Megan shined their flashlights on me trying to figure out what was going on. Meanwhile, the girls upstairs had no clue what was going on. Kamee was screaming WHAT IS GOING ON!?! She felt the need to pull out her pocket knife. Tracy was screaming my name trying to get me to wake up. I finally came to and realized it was all a nightmare. I was sweating so bad and breathing heavy, I felt so embarrassed I started to cry again. I apologized to everyone and then the cabin went silent again. I laid there trying to calm my racing mind down and decided to say a prayer to comfort me enough to fall back asleep. I remember wishing that Devin was there to hold me. It took me about an hour to get back to sleep but I definitely learned my lesson not to eat sweets before bed! Wednesday we prepared to go on our hike. We originally weren't planning on going with priesthood leaders because we weren't aware that we had to have one with us. President Peyton I guess felt inspired to come and talk to us because he came and told us that we needed to have a priesthood holder with us. We started out on our hike and got to the sound of music pasture. I handed out letters from home to all the girls and they all dispersed to a personal spot to have personal time. Megan Carter went up the hill a ways and sat on a log. I heard say my name panicked, I asked her what was wrong. She said I just sat on a beehive. She had been stung. With me being deathly allergic to bee's I was scared for the worst case scenario. We were on a mountain with no hospital closer than 30 min. She said she was alright and I looked at the wound and it looked normal. Then, she said her throat was going numb so I panicked and found the priesthood holders and asked if they could give her a blessing. They said absolutely! After the blessing Rand Erickson and I took Megan back down to camp to try and find the nurse. Emily Scoffield had some Benadryl so we gave her two. We figured that would help until we got to the hospital. She ended up calming down a lot by the time we reached the hospital. The doctors did say that she had an acute allergic reaction so she will need to carry benadryl with her. Afterward we stopped at TeCe's and got shakes!! Yum!!

Sealing

It happened! Devin and I are finally sealed to each other and our little ones. Yesterday June 15th 2013 was the best day of my life. It all started when Dev told me he was ready to see the missionaries. I was stoked to hear that, we were still inactive in the church but I really wanted to be more involved with it. We started taking the missionary discussions and Dev just wasn't feeling it. I was really struggling with this because I wanted him to get baptized so bad!! I decided to take out my patriarchal blessing and read thru it. It mentioned that I will have a celestial marriage if I do my part. If I turn to the lord in prayer and scripture study then I will have the great blessing of having an eternal family. I was amazed to read that paragraph, all along I was waiting for Devin to change and to want to be baptized but Heavenly Father was waiting on me to do my part. I started reading my scriptures and talking to him daily in prayer. Devin started asking more questions to the missionaries and decided that he was ready to get baptized. After that happen I was completely in shock and felt so dumb for not doing this a lot sooner. The minute I decided to change is when my whole life changed! Dev got baptized by his grandpa Cox May 26th 2012 and was confirmed May 27th 2012. It was a really special day his grandpa cried when he was baptizing him, you could tell that it meant a lot to him. I was emotional the whole day too! A year later June 15th 2013 we got sealed in the Mount Timpanogas temple. This day was the best day of my life to date! I woke up around 4:30 to get ready to go over to my friend Keri's house so she could do my hair. I got home and picked up Dev and we headed to the temple. When we arrived we checked in at the desk with our temple recommends :) we then continued on this beautiful journey. I went into the changing room and put on a robe to do the initiatory, that was very surreal. Everything about the initiatory was symbolic it definitely wasn't modernized at all. I am not sure what I was expecting but it kind of felt like I was joining a cult lol. I will definitely have to go back and see if I can get a little more out of it lol. After the initiatory I got changed into my beautiful temple dress and went into the endowment room. It was pretty long and we watched a movie about Adam and Eve. Every time I would think about seeing my kids I would start to break down because the reality of being sealed to them was just over powering. We finished the endowment and was then able to move to the sealing room. We had friends and family waiting for us, it was incredible. I got in there and was doing just fine until I sat down and took it all in. I completely lost it. The spirit was so strong and I couldn't believe that I was in that room doing a sealing, doing my own sealing. My kids were going to arrive any minute and we would become and eternal family. I looked over at my dad and I could tell that he was just so proud of me. The feeling of making your parents proud is one of the greatest feelings in the world. I knelt across the alter holding Devin's hand and he just looked so happy. It was so incredible to see him so happy to be with me for eternity. If that doesn't make you feel secure in your marriage then I don't know what will lol. It was now time for our kids to come in, I was worried that they wouldn't recognize us in our little get ups :) Kyle came in and yelled DADDY! He was so excited to see him! I started to cry again seeing how beautiful Kiera looked and how innocent she is. She was about to become mine forever! My kids are my world and until this day I was terrified that I wouldn't be able to be with them forever! We all are now sealed together for time and ALL eternity! We stood in a line and all those that attended the sealing came thru and gave us a hug and congratulated us, they all knew how important this day was to us. They were all rooting for Dev and I and it happened! We took pictures afterwards, Trina (Devin's mom)was completely bitter about the whole thing. She just glared at me and wouldn't even hug me. She must think that I handcuffed Devin and dragged him to the sealing or something... I hope she gets over it because I will be apart of her life for a very very long time. Anyway, we had a lunch after the sealing at our ward building. Everyone that was invited didn't show up probably because the wait between the sealing and the luncheon was quite awhile but that is ok. Someone very special to be did come (The Prescott's) I hadn't seen Jayden since he was 2 years old and he is now 4 1/2! He is such a well mannered little boy. He is being raised by wonderful parents and I can tell that he just adores them and they him. He is a good boy and I am so grateful that I made the decision that I did. When he got out of the car he was a little confused as to who I was. He has a picture of me but pictures always look different than the real person. I asked him if it was ok if I gave him a hug,he wrapped his arms around me and told me that he loved me! I told him that I loved him too and that I missed him. We all went inside and mingled with everyone. I was putting some things away and Jayden came up to me again and told me that he loved me! I just said thank you bud, I love you too and am so happy that you are happy. I also told him that he is such a good little boy and I was so excited to see him! It is such an amazing feeling to know that one of the hardest times in my life turned out to be the greatest blessing. Eric and Heather are such great people! My love for them is unexplainable. I don't feel sadness anymore, in fact after the sealing I felt complete peace towards everything that happened in my past. For years I felt a heaviness in my heart for the decisions that I have made the passed 10 years. It was like all those heavy feelings were washed away after the sealing. I felt friendship and love towards Eric, Heather, and Jayden. I didn't ask to see him the past few years because I felt I would break down when I saw Jayden and I didn't want to make him feel uncomfortable. I didn't want him to remember me as being a mess. I had a feeling to invite them to the luncheon and now I know why. When I saw them I wasn't nervous, sad, or any negative feeling. I felt joy, love, compassion, happiness just all good feelings that I have wanted to feel the passed 4 1/2 years. The sealing power is the most spiritual experience I will ever have! I will remember this day and the day I was sealed to my parents forever. I just felt so close to heaven and finally felt worthy of my Heavenly Father's love for me. This church is true, this gospel is real. I can physically feel the spirit around me and the warmth in my soul. I am so grateful to have found the truth. I am grateful for the blessing of the atonement and for my savior Jesus Christ without his amazing sacrifice I wouldn't be where I am today feeling the way that I do. I love my Heavenly Father and my Savior Jesus Christ and I do have a personal relationship with both of them. I am grateful for eternal families and that I now have mine sealed to me. This church is amazing!!!

Kiera's birth story

I know it has been 6 1/2 years since I had Kiera but I wanted her to have a copy of her birth story. I am writing it here so I will never lose it. Her story is very interesting because I didn't actually know that I was pregnant with her until I was 5 months along. I was a runner in High school so it was rare that I even had a period. I noticed that I started getting (fat) I was running everyday, working out, rock climbing, biking etc... but the weight just wasn't coming off. When I hit about 5 months I noticed my belly was now more round than it was rolls so it then hit me that I could be pregnant. I ran to the store and got a pregnancy test and I didn't even have to wait the full 3 minutes it was clearly positive. It was almost 6 months by the time I got into to see Dr. Jones. It was really cool though because I got to find out what I was having with an ultra sound my first visit :) My pregnancy was so easy as some would say because I didn't experience any morning sickness and if I did I didn't think it was that. Devin and I moved to Lehi into a cute little apartment I only had about a month and a half left at this point. We got her baby room all ready and just waited patiently for her arrival. My due date was Aug. 3rd I didn't start having contractions until Aug. 6th when Devin and I decided to go on a walk to try and get labor started. We didn't get to far on our walk when I started feeling the contractions. We headed back to the apartment and I decided to take a shower then Dev and I played chess. The contractions were about 7 minutes apart exactly so when I would go to make a move on the chess board I would have to say wait a minute.... *contraction... Ok it was kind of funny. The contractions then started coming about every 4 minutes so we decided to go into the hospital to get checked. They decided to let me stay and I started to call everyone to let them know that she was coming. The contractions weren't as bad as I thought they were going to be. I do have a high tolerance for pain though so I was in labor for about 9 hours before I decided to get the epidural. They started me on pitocin and she came about 3 hours later. I pushed about 6 times and she was here! I couldn't feel a thing which was rough the doctor was telling me to push but I didn't know what I was pushing lol. I got to hold her in my arms for about 10 seconds then they had to rush her a way. She had really low blood sugar levels it scared me to death because they didn't tell me what was happening. In the mean time the placenta had deattached from my uterin wall so the doctor had to manually remove it. That was the worst pain that I had ever experienced in my life. I would rather go through labor ten more times than have that pain. Dev was there with me the whole time just holding my hand. I was gripping him so hard so he didn't really have a choice to leave me. I had Kiera at 1:27 pm I didn't get to see her until 8:00 that night. It was awful :( She was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. She came out so clean and so pure. She was just the greatest blessing I could have ever asked for. I was just in awe of what Dev and I had created. She ended up having to stay at the American Fork hospital for 3 days after I was discharged because of her blood sugar. I would go there every morning and try and feed her but she didn't want to latch on. I am assuming that is because I didn't get to feed her right after I had her. We finally got to take her home and it was just wonderful being home as a family. She latched on when we got home and I was able to feed her then. She was so such a good baby she slept through the night after 1 week of being home. I thought motherhood was so easy and just so wonderful. I was in love with this precious little girl.

Kyle's birth story

I know its been almost 2 years since I had Kyle but I wanted a record of his birth story. I thought that he might want to read it someday. His due date was June 13th I went in May 30th because I felt like my water may have ruptured because I was a little wet. The doctor checked me and it wasn't my water so they sent me home. I was scheduled to be induced June 7th but I was trying to go into labor before then. My water has never broke on its own so I wasn't expecting it to this time either. June 6th I got everything ready for him to come. Dev and I went to walmart to get some nursing bras and some other items I knew I would need. I had a hard time sleeping that night because I was just to anxious to meet my little boy. Finally the alarm clock went off at 6:00 am and I got up and showered and ate breakfast. We got a phone call around 6:30 am to head over to the hospital to get induced. It took about 2 hours for them to start me on pitocin so we were just sitting around talking and waiting. My dad showed up around 9:00 and I was on pitocin by that time. The contractions really started kicking in around 10:00 am. I remember my hips just hurting so bad so I asked for an epidural. The anesthesiologist came in and asked me to turn over on my side, which I thought was weird because with my other two labors I was sitting up and hunched over. I was really nervous that he wouldn't be able to see my spine and I was just shaking a little bit because I didn't want him to screw up and paralyze me. It went in and it did numb me but where my pain really was the epidural didn't even touch it(My hips). So I wish I would have just gone natural with Kyle because I still felt the contractions really bad in my hips. The next two hours after the epidural were really painful and I was so irritable with Devin. I just wanted to see my little boy the nurses came in and checked me and I was dilated to 9 centimeters around 1:15 so they called the doctor. He came in and my little guy was ready to join us I pushed 4 times and the doctor pulled him out. He had the cutest cry I have ever heard he sounded like a rooster :)His blood sugar was really low and he was blue a little bit so they had to take him for a little while to work on him. Devin never left his side he was such a proud daddy! I was shaking really bad so I ate some food to get my blood sugar up and to get my strength back. They moved me into a recovery room and then everyone came to visit at one time it seemed. We had Grams, Trina, Chrissy, Kailee, Coltin, My dad, Julie, My mom. It seemed like everyone just wanted to show up at the same time. I wasn't feeling well because I was still on pitocin so I was still in a lot of pain. I finally had some peace and quiet with my little man he was perfect! Just a beautiful baby I felt so much joy and couldn't wait to take him home. His blood sugar finally came up to where it needed to be so we were able to take him home. He breast fed like a champ he didn't have a hard time latching on at all which was nice. The first 3 months he was colicky and had acid reflux so Dev and I didn't get any sleep. It was exhausting but after he got passed all that he was just the perfect sleeper and the perfect baby. We are so blessed to have him in our lives. He makes us laugh everyday and is just a character! I love my life!