Happiness

This is where I post some of my writing and you read it, edit it, comment on it, etc. Chapter One (of what I have no idea, it just sounded like a good place to start.): The Twins Things started out relatively normal in our married life. We met, were engaged and married within 6 months. We had our first baby 13 months later. Then came the twins. Nothing was the same again. Upon finding out that we were expecting twins I was elated. Twins! I had always wanted twins! Until I realized they might not be girls! They just might not be fraternal like my twin sister and I. I frantically asked the technician at our first ultrasound at 20 weeks. 'What are they?" It's a funny question, I know! But, I needed to know. She said "This one is a boy." Oh. I thought. O.K. There's still a chance one of them is a girl! "What's the other one?" I hurriedly asked. "Well, we have to see how this one is doing first." Heart, legs, ears: they were ...

Here are some pictures from our Christmas! Enjoy! The kids- having just woken up from a long winter's nap (note their new Christmas jammies! Yay $5 shipping from Old Navy!) Our tree- with all kinds of goodies beneath. No, we don't have eight people in our family! We added two for Ellen and Jason, who had brought their own stockings and used those that night. Elizabeth opening her stocking. My poor camera had problems and that's about all the pictures we got. Plus they were blurry! I'm hoping for a new camera by next Christmas or next new baby- whichever comes next! Coolpix by Nikon, if anyone wants to know! I really want a Nikon D-80, but my budget simply won't allow it! This is my blog. My name is Megan Abbott.

For Christmas this year I got two packages of Giradhelli chocolate squares and two packages of Jelly Bellies. Boy, am I set for the year! I love how my family knows what I love. So, what is your favorite Jelly Belly? Mine is Buttered Popcorn. No, I don't love it enough to buy a single bag full of buttered popcorn. Yes, I love it enough that each time I pop one of those delicious, buttery white and yellow speckled pieces of yummy in my mouth, I confirm "Yes! This one is my favorite." I asked Josh what his favorite was. He said he didn't have. What? You don't have one? I exclaimed! Yeah, I like them all. You like them all? Equally? Even the strawberry ones? So, now it is confirmed. Josh and I are two separate people. For sure. This is my blog. My name is Megan Abbott.

In light of the fact that we just obtained a new niece and cousin yesterday- a baby girl for Aaron and Marrisse- six weeks early!- I am posting Elizabeth's Birth story. I went into labor early Sunday morning- the day after my due date (Sep. 14, 2002). It was 2 am and I woke up with contractions! I was so excited! This is it!! I thought. (Little did I know that you would be born 2 days later.) I woke up your Dad and had him time the contractions- 8 min., 10 min., 7 min- they were all over the place. We called your Uncle Doug around 8 am- who was in Medical school. He said if we had more than 6 contractions an hour to go into the hospital- so we did. They sent us home (irregular contractions). We missed Church and went for a walk. The contractions started coming only every 30 minutes. I was discouraged. Josh said that they would probably not stop- it would just take a while. My visiting teachers came over and taught me. Later, after dinner, Jen and Ben (your Aunt and Uncle) came over...

Merry Christmas, Everyone! This picture was taken two weeks ago, when we went to Butler's Orchard and chopped down our own Christmas tree. Here is our day so far, from the mouths of our little children: me: "Good morning. Merry Christmas." Ethan: "Can we open our presents today?" me: "Yes, after the stockings." Ethan sprints down the hallway as fast as his little legs would take him. I had to stop him, because Josh was still getting some things ready! Jonah: opens Elizabeth and Asher's door. "It's Christmas!" Elizabeth: "Can we open our presents today?" Me: (Did I already have this conversation today?) "Yes, after stockings." Elizabeth sprints down the hallways as fast as her big legs can take her. Again, I stop her. Josh is almost ready. Maybe I should have waited. But, I was excited too. Plus, this is our very first Christmas ever. With many many more to come. Our favorite presents: Mine: a new set of pots and pa...

So, you want to be a writer? Welcome to the 85 % of everyone else who wants to be a writer also. I was doing a little research for my upcoming princess book- upcoming as in when all my kids are in school and came across a lot of good information. One, princesses can often be demoted from their title by princes. I didn't know this. So sad. It doesn't happen a lot though. Two, Shannon Hale, www.shannonhale.com, has written two books that I haven't read so far- I promptly bought the most recent from Amazon, and is holding a Princess Academy contest, the winner of which gets a phone call from her, all five of her books signed and $50 to their favorite bookstore. I promptly applied to the contest. You can see it on her website. Also, I learned that 85% of the population aspire to be writers, most think that if you write fantasy you will end up making millions like J.K. Rowling and only 2% ever actually finish a book. Go Mom Abbott! So, yes, I do want to write a book. But until...

For my birthday, Josh stayed home from work and watched the kids while I went to the temple. I was planning to spend all day there. No kids. No noise. Just peace. I went and was so excited to see the Temple Matron welcoming us into endowment room. Then, the temple President F.Melvin Hammond officiated. We love the Hammonds. They spoke to us at a stake conference in Provo and then just recently at a stake conference here. Afterwards Josh dragged me up to say hi to them. They are the neatest people we know! After going through a session and being in the Celestial room for a little while, I felt prompted to go home. I came, I served and now it was time to return to my duties at home. I came home refreshed and renewed and sent Josh to bed for a nap, washed the dishes, started laundry and made my cake. I love to serve and I learned that the second best place to serve besides the temple is in our own homes. Me at the temple. Josh's sister MaryRuth sent me a beautiful package filled with ...

Last night, as Josh and I watched tv and I folded a huge mountain of clothes, we paused upon the movie Shallow Hal. We watched if for a little while, but then moved on. It was mean and pretty much made fun of fat people the whole time. It was slightly funny, but then you felt bad for laughing at fat people. Especially when you have been fat yourself. I'm not talking about Josh here. I'm talking about me. While on my mission to Spain I gained 30 pounds. That's right! 30! At one point, the top button of my favorite skirt popped off- right in the middle of a gospel conversation on the street. I had hit a low point of 175 pounds. Actually, I don't even know exactly how much I weighed since the scales I used were all in kilograms, but all I know it was 77 kilograms and I did not think that translated well to pounds. Since then I have been able to lose more than 50 pounds. All the weight I put on during my mission, plus my college life pounds also. So, my point is- if you ha...

No, D-Day is not Christmas. It is my 30th birthday. Me? 30? I just turned 23 like two days ago. Did someone speed up the Earth? Pretty soon I'll be 84 on Wednesday. My birthday is tommorrow. I'm almost 30 and I can't even spell tommorow. See that's proof. I'm really just 23. I swear! No, the five year old with me is not mine- I'm twenty three! Tomorrow. Ok. Now I can turn 30. I am celebrating the big day by making nutella crepes for breakfast. I have never seen or even heard of these until my daily calendar that has "5 things to be happy about" on each day told me that one of those 5 things was "Nutella crepes". So, I will be trying these out for the very first time on my 30th birthday. Also, Josh is taking the day off of work tomm- oops, I almost acted like a 23 year old again!- tomorrow. I will be going to the temple. Then, we will be having Angel Food cake, ala chef Joshua and opening my present, which I already know of since I spotted it ...

Good Morning! I'm back to posting in the mornings! I was neglecting my family by being online too much. We have a Parent Watch program on our computer and I set it so that I was only allowed online from 12 pm on. That's when the kids nap and later- are in bed, so it was safe for me to blog. This weekend, when I needed to print out directions to the tree farm where we can cut down our own Christmas tree *which we did and it was fun and fabulous and now we have a gorgeous tree in our living room and no, I won't tell you how much we spent on it*- I found out that I can go on to the administrator's site and access the internet from there. That's good because it has internet access, but doesn't have all my favorites that I could read for hours while the kids run around crazy. Already this morning, the kids have gotten into my dresser, where I hide birthday stuff, pulled out the balloons, got into both bathrooms- after I chased them out of the upstairs one they went ...

These are my twinners- Ethan and Jonah. They got these towels for Christmas when they were six months old. Three years later, they still love them! Roar away, Jonah and Ethan! You know that you have a lot of little kids when you have to lay out four pairs of pajamas, plus three diapers. I just hope the boys will be potty trained before the next one comes along! Elizabeth has now decided to take showers on her own. I guess the three boys in the tub really helped her make this decision. Here she is with Josh, waiting for the shower to be free. We like to spike Asher's hair sometimes after a bath. It's fun! This is my blog. My name is Megan Abbott.

This is what we are doing this year. Of course, we just bought a house, so we have little money and it makes this easy to achieve, but I would like to do this every year. Two presents for each child- one from Santa and one from us. That's it. That's all folks. This is my blog. My name is Megan Abbott.

January February- Asher has grown so much! March- Aren't my kids just so cute? April- wait, was Easter in March this year? May- Ethan and Jonah turn 3! June- Jonah playing with water July- Asher turned one! August- Ethan playing seriously at Bear Lake, Utah September- Elizabeth turned 5! October November December 2007

For those of you who aren't familiar with Shannon Hale, let me familiarize you for a second. Shannon Hale is an LDS author. She lives in Salt Lake with her husband and two children and this was where I first read her first book, Goose Girl. I loved it and proceeded to read Edna Burning, which gave me nightmares, so I gave up on her for a while. A couple of weeks ago I was perusing the Juvenile section of our local library, while my children quietly read books. I was going to write "while my children were running wild" but they weren't. They were all- even Asher- reading books at one table. It was amazing. It was like a gift from Heavenly Father, because it gave me a chance to find this book on the shelf- Princess Academy- from the New York Times Bestseller List I might add- and then read it and feel that it was written for me. Here's a passage I came across today that describes how I am feeling pertaining to my progress with co-dependency, differentiation, low se...

What a day! This morning was bright and full of possibilities. As I read some of yesterday's newspaper to Elizabeth, we learned about Reindeer and Jonah mentioned that we should go to the zoo- to see the Reindeer, of course! I was up for it and said ok! Two hours later- a shower for me, clothes for the kids (I have never seen Jonah get dressed so fast) and a pot of soup heated up for the Relief Society President to take to the Visitor Center's missionaries, we were off. Twenty minutes later and a forgotten stroller left behind found us lost. We took I-495 to Virginia, instead of to Chevy Chase. I could have sworn the ZOO was towards Virginia. The highway, with no exits whatsoever, led us to the Ronald Regan Airport. I thought about stopping and getting a one way ticket to California, away from these crazy roads, but decided that Josh would not be happy about that and our already negative bank account wouldn't handle any trips either. Turning around, we found Turkey Hill an...

This is a picture of Elizabeth, Ethan and Jonah's Joy School class. Aren't they cute? Next week will be our last week- due to my having to teach twice as much since I have three times as many kids in the class and to having six or seven- counting Asher- toddlers running around in my house. It has been a good, learning experience for everyone. Yay- Joy School! This is my blog. My name is Megan Abbott

We met, officially, on Sunday, February 4th, 2000- less than a week after I had gone to the temple. We know what day we met because while we were dating we had a conversation where we talked about exactly when we met and we figured out it was the fourth. The fourth of February. Ever since then we recognize that day as when it all started. And this is how it all began. I was living in an apartment complex called bi-centennial, apt. #16, near BYU campus in Provo, Utah. Josh was also living there, in apartment #11- practically three doors away from me. My roommate Annette went around the apartment complex, inviting everyone to a surprise birthday party for her friend- who none of us really knew. I still have a picture from that day of all of us, although I don't think Josh was in it and if I ever get a scanner, I will scan that picture into this blog. Josh claims he came for the free food. He loves to use that line. I was in the kitchen, eating that free food. I saw him and casually ...

I was 23 years old. I had just gotten back from a 18 month mission in Spain for my Church that allowed no dating whatsoever and I was ready to date! I got back on July 28, 2000 and went back to BYU as soon as possible- two weeks later. One of my zone leaders was being a Y group leader and had encouraged me to do it also. I agreed- hoping that there would be a connection between us! Being a Y group leader was fun, but there was no connection between me and the guy. School started for all the regular students and I was on the look out for anyone handsome, righteous and meeting all the item on my "list". The first guy I noticed was Ash- he was engaged! Second was Kevin- he has asked me out earlier (while I was interested in Ash) and I said no. Now, he wouldn't give me a second chance. Mark came and went. Mike was someone I admired from afar but never talked to. Another Mike, also no go. And another Mike- still nope. Dan came along and we started to date. We went to Preferenc...

This is what happens when you leave twins alone at nap time. This happened about a month ago, but I just found the pictures now. Ethan had completely turned his bed upside down and emptied a whole kleenex box. The second picture is of Ethan, trying to clean up his mess. All I can say is TWINS! They stayed in underwear all yesterday and are in underwear again today! Jonah has yet to go on the potty though. This is my blog. My name is Megan Abbott. in other potty news- Jonah- or Ethan- has never seen boy underwear before. When I put them on him again today he said they were "sidewars (a combo of backwards and sideways). I explained to him that boy underwear has a little pocket in front to use if he didn't want to pull his pants down. How did boys get so lucky? And where is Josh to teach him these things when I need him? Today Ethan said "Mom, can you take me to the potty." I said sure and we walked into the bathroom. He said "close the door." I did. No! he ye...

Right now the boys are both wearing underwear. Ethan has gone potty twice. Jonah- not yet. They were both very excited to put big boy underwear and were running around the house yelling "jelly beans"- my treat of choice for my kids. We watched Elmo goes Potty and as the video went on, the boys got more fussy and clinging, asking for snacks and to sit on my lap. After the video was over, I put them both on the potty. Jonah cried and screamed. Ethan screamed and tried to scratch me. I sat them down anyways. Is this normal? They are both still dry and it's 8:30 am. So, still early! I'll keep you updated! This is my blog. My name is Megan Abbott.

Go to my other blog: www.pinkpanda.typepad.com for my weekly list of Heavenly Father's blessings. This is my blog. My name is Megan Abbott.