I feel so blessed and indebted to the Lord to have found my husband. He is such a good person through and through. What you see on the outside is what you see on the inside. He is happy and accepting to the very core. No cover-ups, no pretending.
Of course he has his imperfections and trials like anybody else, but he is humble and honest about them, and works hard to overcome them.
Here is just a little story that made me realize again how much I love him.
Yesterday Drew texted me asking me if it was okay to stay after work to help his co-worker jump her car. I didn't think anything of it, but figured I would just talk to him about it after he got done with work... I later realized that I had a hair appointment at 7:30. Drew gets off work at 6:30 ish, so I needed him to come straight home to watch Marlee so I could make it to Provo in time.
I called Drew at 6:30 to tell him this, and later when he was clear of that employee, he let out a sigh of relief. He really wanted to help her, but told me that he had prayed earlier asking Heavenly Father for something to come up so that he didn't have to be put in an awkward position and be alone with this girl. He didn't have a valid reason to not help her, and he didn't feel comfortable lying. So he felt stuck. My call to him about my hair appointment was an answer to his prayers... (Probably the only time in his life he was so happy to see me spending that amount of money.)
He told me how uncomfortable it would make him feel to give her a ride home, then be alone with her while jumping her car. He told me it was not a matter of temptation, but because he wanted to avoid the appearance of evil. He made a rule when we were first married that he would not put himself in a position where he was one-on-one with another woman (excluding relatives, or reasons for church callings and work), and he has tried his best to stick to that promise.
I know this may seem simple and insignificant to many, but it is HUGE to me. It is by the little things that big things come to pass, and by the little things that shows how seriously one holds to his or her values. I know that if we are both careful about the little things, we will be able to have an enduring trust that will last throughout the eternities.
I love teaching dance. I love the satisfaction I feel when something I have created is enjoyed and loved by others. I love being able to influence lives young and old by gaining a friendship through dance. And I love the feeling of being squished in the middle of a massive group hug... this wasn't an easy decision.
But do you know what I love even more? I love being a mom. I love waking up each morning to a child that relies on me so much, for everything. That needs me, her mommy, to feed her, change her, love her and protect her. I love that my husband and I can be the greatest influence for good in her life; to help her grow to her fullest potential, spiritually, mentally, and physically. I love those slobbery kisses, sticky spit-up stains, and her new silly two-toothed smile. I love her little cackle of a laugh, and am trying to love her loud wailing cry.
Working is a personal decision between each couple and the Lord. I know there may be a time where I have to work to help with finances, but not until Drew and I have done everything in my power for me to stay at home. I'm glad Drew feels this same way; we would both rather be poor. I am willing to work when needed, but I know my greatest calling is in the home.
There is a time and a season for all things. And now is my time to be a mom.
Mimi and Papa Hansen came to Utah last week! The girls played as the boys went to work; it was so much fun!! We went out to dinner, talked, and laughed at the pranks I pulled on Drew. I think Papa Hansen might be the baby whisperer... he has a magical way of putting babies into trances. We were sad to see them go, especially Mar Mar, she kept snuggling Mimi before she left. But not for long, we're headin' down to AZ this weekend! WOO WOO!!!
Mar Mar finally rolled onto her belly for the first time!!! It happened during the Saturday session of Conference. I couldn't believe my eyes I was so excited! Now if she wants to get something, she can slowly roll herself on over to whatever she's got her eye on. And she's been sitting by her self for a good 5 seconds at least. My little string bean is movin' up in the world!!
Drew went to priesthood with his Gramps, and Marlee and I hung out with Grams Hansen. It was so good to spend time alone with her. She is just the sweetest little lady. Her laugh is so contagious, and instantly brings a smile to anyone in the room.
I absolutely loved this Conference, so many inspiring things were said, and it went by too quickly. My parents invited some people over from the branch to watch it with us; they are such great examples of reaching out and serving others... It is truly amazing to me to see the change that the Gospel brings into people's lives.
I loved the discussion we had afterwards about standing as an example, and cleaving to the gospel principles and commandments.
This year was my best April Fools yet!! The Grand Finale of all Finales! I was so anxious for April Fools to come this year because I had found a new bag of tricks I couldn't wait to pull on Drew.
Drew actually pranked me first this year. He called me on his lunch break and told me that one or two of his employees was quitting, and since we had already been talking about it, he decided to jump on the band wagon. He totally got me, besides the fact that he said "April Fools" 5 seconds later.
Right after he pulled that prank on me, I told him we had fraud on our account, and that there was no money left in that account. Totally worked, only for a few seconds though, then he caught on.
Drew left back for work, and my tricky games had begun! I had a list of pranks I needed to accomplish in one short day, so I ran from thing to thing while Marlee was sleeping.
1. First things first, I put Vaseline under the door knobs so that when he opened the door he would get all greased up.
2. I had a new prank up my sleeve and put bubble wrap under the toilets instead of the ol' saran wrap trick.
The way to tell a good prankster is if the prankster can actually prank himself. The theory is that you prank so well and so discreetly that you forget you even pulled the prank in the first place. This exact thing happened with prank #1 and #2. Not only did I prank myself, but I pranked myself about 3 times! I kept forgetting about the vaseline under the knobs and got greased each time I went to pull my next prank. I also had to pee so bad that I sat down on the toilet seat and was startled at the 'snap' from the toilet lid.
3. I first put food coloring in Drew's toothbrush, but it was so obvious that I decided to switch plans. I resorted to salt.
4. I glued the end of the toilet paper down so that after Drew got Vaseline on his hand, he wouldn't be able to get the tp to wipe it off. He kept trying to find the end, got frustrated, and asked me to help him because he couldn't figure out what was going on. HAHA! He saw my huge grin, and busted up laughing.
5. I read on pinterest that you can put chicken boullion cubes in the shower head, so that your victim will smell like a chicken. I saw beef granules in the pantry, and knew I had struck gold.
6. To make it even better, I painted the soap with clear nail polish so that he wouldn't be able to lather the beef smell off of him.
I know these last 2 pranks sounds mean, but I thought that he would notice something was wrong when the water smelled like roast. Apparently not. When I double checked the shower, the water came out brown. Not when Drew took a shower... I asked him about it later, and understandably he was upset because his nose was stuffed and he couldn't smell anything.
7. I hid all Drew's black church/work socks. The only socks left were his long white Nike socks, and his short white ankle socks.
8. I put tape underneath the computer mouse. Drew tried to use the computer to study, thought it was frozen, and restarted it again. He was about to restart it again, but then saw the cursor move the slightest bit on the screen, and realized he had been pranked again.
9. Last the best of all the game. I actually sewed Drew to the bed!! HAHAHA I never dreamed that it would work the way that it did. ANd the best part is that I got it all on film!!
After I finished my stitchery, I debated on what would be the best way to let Drew figure out what I had done. I debated letting him sleep through the night, but realized he'd probably try to turn over mid-night, wake-up from being stuck, and be super creeped out... It sounded like a pretty good plan to me. Then I realized I had to film his reaction; that was going to be the best part of this whole thing. So I decided to do what any prankster would do... set his alarm, and WAKE HIM UP!!
I'll admit the alarm I chose did sound like creepy clown music (as he said in the video). It went off sooner than I was planning, so I had to book it into the bedroom to film his priceless reaction.:)
Here are some pics I took of my fancy craft work... The camera was so loud, and it didn't even phase him.
I still have no idea how he slept through all of this. I was full-on tugging on his shirt and pant legs with the needle. There was a few times where I almost lost it and burst out laughing. The best part is that he didn't even flinch the whole time, just snored on, straight through. His ability to sleep through anything was more than any prankster could ask for, but it also concerned me... if someone breaks in, I'll have to be the one to defend us!!
Mar Mar's 6 month check-up was last week. She's still just a long little squirt:) She's in the 80th percentile for height, 30th for head size, and a whopping 25th percentile for weight.
My goal has been to get some chub on her bones (I love chubby babies); I even tried slipping some extra rice cereal in her milk. But her 2 month old cousin, Cooper, has already passed her up in leg size... poor girl. We're hoping by her 9 month check-up she'll be one of the Heavy weights:)
Mar Mar at 6 months
She's started making a lot more noise lately, but with her tongue like she's trying to blow bubbles.
Marlee loves eating people's faces, and pretty much anything she sees... she's not picky!
She has been so prissy lately. She's been rolling her wrists, it's the cutest little thing. She does it mostly when she's bored. I love it, she's so girly!
She's got one tooth already... and ANOTHER ONE ON THE WAY! It's gonna break through the surface any day now.
She started eating rice cereal somewhere around 5 months, and is now starting to eat some vegetables and fruits.
She LOVES little kids!! They make her squeal and giggle.
You can usually find her with her feet in her mouth, or digging at her eyes. Haha just kidding she only digs at her eyes when she's tired, but it's pretty intense. Trying to put shoes on her is a lost cause lately, it's only a matter of seconds before she either gnaws or kicks them off, and pops her toes in her mouth.
She's super content just being on her back. She rolls a little, mostly just from her stomach to get right back onto her back.
She's started giggling a while back! Oh I love it! She loves the 'I'm gonna getchya game," and pretty much anything with a high squeaky voice.
Has been doing low guttural grunts during Sacrament meeting lately for some reason
Drew and I love reading to Marlee. We lay on our backs with her in the middle, and put the book up in the air so we can all see it. She gets so excited, that she lets out little giggles, and slaps her arms to her side like a little penguin.
Another thing I love is how bashful Mar Mar gets when her daddy talks to her. She turns her head and stares at the side of her carseat, bats her eyes, and gives a shy little smile.
The first thought that came to my head when I walked in this place is that it smelled like sweaty little kids. Olivia and (I think) Patrick said the same exact thing. It's the Egbert nose. I don't have the extreme case of it like the rest of my family does, but I do have a pretty good snuffer. Anyway back to the story...
On President's day I got a call from Patrick about 20 minutes before they were headed to Jungle Jim's, asking me if I wanted to join the party. Of course I did! I used to love that place when I was a kid, (except when I threw up from going on the tea cups too many times in a row) so why wouldn't I love it now being much bigger and braver than I was then?
Let me tell you something, it hasn't changed one bit! Not even the carpet! They have the same ol' rickety rides that they did when I was a youngin'. Not sure if that's a good thing, but man did we have a blast! And the best thing about it all, it was a big free for all! Rules were if you could walk you could ride, and that's about it! Except the one time I got kicked off the swings after stuffing my booty into the chair...
Growing up my biggest fear was to go blind, so it always made going to the Eye doctor a huge dramatic/emotional ordeal. I'm kind of paranoid when it comes to my eyes, and I've always been super touchy with the whole eye subject. It's funny because it seems like whenever I went to my Eye appointments someone could always be counted on to make some sort of joke about me going blind, or how bad my eyes were, and it always ended up with me bursting into tears.
I remember one time we were ordering my glasses and the lady at Costco Optical kept declaring that she couldn't believe how bad my eyes were, and that my lenses in my glasses were going to be so thick that they would look like coke bottle lenses. My mom of course knew how sensitive I was, and trying to prevent an emotional break down, tried to get the lady to stop talking. It didn't work and I instantly burst into tears.
The story
A few months after I had Marlee, I noticed my vision had gotten worse. I had heard that the hormones from pregnancy could change your eye prescription temporarily, but since I already had a super high prescription and we now had eye insurance, I decided to go get my eyes checked out anyway.
I went to a place in South Jordan called Progressive Eye Care, and Doctor Broadhead noticed that my eye pressure was really high - especially for my age. He had me come back to his office, sometimes a few days in a row and up to 4 times a week, to check my pressure at different times of the day. He ran test after test on me just to make sure he was getting the right results. Sometimes my pressure was on the higher end of average, and sometimes it was above and beyond that. Once it was almost to 40!
Dr. Broadhead talked to me about putting me on eye drops to help lower the pressure. He wanted to take aggressive action since I am so young to be having such high pressures and signs of Glaucoma. He wanted to put me on an eye drop called Travatan Z, but told me I would have to stop nursing because there was a chance it could be carried to Marlee through my breastmilk.
This completely devastated me. Not only because I thought my worst nightmare (going blind) was coming true, but also I had planned on nursing Marlee for a year, and she was younger than 3 months old at the time. Not even close to what I had wanted to do. When he first told me the news, sadness, doubt, and fear overcame me. I know Satan started playing on my emotions because thoughts started flooding in to my mind about me going blind,like not being able to see my kids or grandkids, etc. I prayed for help and tried to kick those thoughts out and fight back the tears as the Doctor was talking to me about my eyes, but they just started streaming out uncontrollably. I was so embarrassed. I think I made him feel awkward, so I tried to explain to him that I am just an emotional person... Ha, I think that just made him feel more awkward
Prayer played a huge part in this whole process. I prayed each night for my eyes, and know that I had a lot of love, support, and prayers from family members in my behalf. I prayed in my car after each doctors visit because I saw so many different ways in how the lord had blessed me.
On one of my many visits to get my pressure checked, Dr. Broadhead had me come in specially on a Saturday when Progressive Eye Care was closed. He was on a work trip, but had his tech come to the office and take my pressure because he was so concerned about me. A few days earlier he had put me on a low dose of eye drops called Timolol maleate so that I could have some time to prepare to stop nursing, because he didn't think the Timolol would work that well. As the tech checked my pressure, I was so nervous that I had to keep reminding myself to breathe. It turns out my pressure had lowered significantly! The tech was so shocked that she checked it a few times, then called the doctor. He couldn't believe how well my eyes absorbed/reacted to the drops.
Immediately after I ran to my car and started praying with tears streaming down my face. I knew that this was a huge blessing from the Lord, and that he was aware of me and my fears. I felt so much comfort and peace, but also was so embarrassed for how I had reacted to my trial. This same feeling was reinforced later that day when I watched a Mormon Message about a girl who had had much harder trials then I did, and spent her life serving others. I felt so guilty for the 'natural man' reaction that I had had.
Dr. Broadhead ended up referring me to a Glaucoma specialist that he had worked with, and eventually I went to an Opthamologist just to be sure. They both ran what seemed like an hundred tests on me, and came to the same conclusion. I am so myopic (near-sighted) that my eye ball shape is really long, which makes all of the features look distorted. The doctors said it is hard to tell if the distorted features are signs of Glaucoma or just because of my Myopia.
I am on a strong eye drop prescription to lower my eye pressure, but I found out that I can nurse while taking the drops. This was another huge blessing to me! The decision to breastfeed Marlee was something that was so important to me. This blessing that he blessed me with was just another example to me that the Lord is aware of us and desires to bless us. I know that the Lord cares about us, and desires to bless us if it is his will. I know that this trial was specially 'pin-pointed' to me because of the lack of faith I have had with my eyes in the past. This was a trial that was so personal; it really hit home. I know the Lord was trying to teach me to have faith in him, and to turn my will over to him. To trust in him that He know what is best not only for me, but for each one of us, even if it means we have to face some of our biggest fears.
