Just January

Can you tell I'm a big fan of alliteration?  I attended a private parochial (Catholic) school from grades three through seven and during my time there I learned about all things grammatical.  Alliteration has always stuck with me as one of my favorites.

As the title of this posts suggest it has just been a January - nothing too exciting, nothing too terrible, nothing too anything to report.  It is definitely not the January that I expected.  We had a wonderful first few weeks including New Year's celebration (just the idea of a New Year, a fresh start, things a new makes me smile) and an Anniversary Event (thanks to a great husband, see previous post). But we've had a few sniffles along the way - the girls have been sick for about two weeks and I'm not exactly sure how I feel about that.

Sickness - Webster's dictionary defines it as...

a. ill health

OR

b. a disordered, weakened, or unsound condition.

I'd like to take the second definition because we have definitely become disordered and weakened and unsound in our sick condition.  Elizabeth and Olivia seem to get this illness once very few months.  Elizabeth starts with a cough which turns into sniffles and then of course Olivia starts in on it too.  It usually lasts actively for about a week, including on again off again fevers.  And then for about five more days with just the nagging cough and occasional running nose.  Apparently today, according to her father, Olivia has been a leaky faucet in the nose department.

On one hand I chalk it all up to being a child and building your immune system.  Elizabeth attends pre-school twice a week and both the girls go to church every Sunday where they participate in lessons for approximately two hours with the other children in our immediate area.  It seems to be inevitable that a sickness or two would creep in.  It's just a really bad cold, according to first doctor's visit of 2011 for Elizabeth and brave dad Chris. Just keep them hydrated and give them Motrin to bring down the fever.  I can also chalk it up to bad weather (winter in Utah either brings beautiful and copious amounts of snow combined with a lovely thing called the inversion - all the yucky air gets trapped between the mountains and the differing amounts of pressure in the atmosphere) therefore we don't leave the house too often so the germs that are around stick around forever.  One thing I've learned as of late also - things could be much worse - a lot of the neighbor children have worse things such as RSV and Pneumonia. 

Having sick children is teaching us a lot of things.  We don't really have a lot of patience - I think there should be some sort of class you have to take before you get to have children. I'm pretty sure that we wouldn't have passed the test either upon first taking it or completing it for the tenth time.  Our girls have always been good sleepers - in part because they have a mean mom (just ask any of my other mom friends). If you are a child born into our family you only get 10 weeks of being an infant - after 10 weeks you will sleep through the night because you physically able to.  I know it sounds harsh but I need 8 hours of sleep or I'm not a very pleasant being, parental or otherwise.  The girls can't seem to get through a night the past few nights without waking up.  Luckily Olivia still hasn't figured out how to open her door so we can let her cry for a bit and she usually falls asleep.  Elizabeth on the other hand - comes out of her room and just says 'I need something'.  It is also teaching us that we generally are blessed to have excellent health, not just the children but also Chris and I.

I figure I'll post a picture of our almost 6 month old puppy Moose because if you haven't seen him in a few weeks you wouldn't even know it was the same dog.  He is now weighing in at almost sixty pounds and he is the beast of beasts - he is very obedient as long as Chris is giving the commands.  Chris can tell him to sit in the basement and Chris can go upstairs and do something in the kitchen and then come back downstairs and Moose will still be sitting in the exact same spot - I think he has patience beyond his years.  The picture isn't great because no one in our family holds still for more than half of a second but I wanted to include a frame of reference so you can see that he is big.

Having a dog is teaching us a lot of things.  For the most part it is teaching us to love unconditional because really it isn't the dog's fault if someone (this person shall remain nameless) lets him in the house upstairs in the dark and does not realize that his paws are full of mud until he gets to the master bedroom all through and along the carpeted main level.  It is also teaching us that little by little anything can be accomplished if you just work at it.  I never thought he'd be an obedient dog - I forget that not every dog can be like the 6 year old golden retriever you got for $10 who was perfect - and he is a puppy, but man he is full of energy and sometimes he gets distracted easily. 

Last but not least I wanted to give an update on the mega-machine husband of mine who loses weight like it is no body's business.  I would like to say that we just stayed in shape our entire lives, made wise choices with our eating and exercising habits but you know sometimes it is just way more fun to eat junk that tastes good but isn't good for you.  I have also lost some weight but Mr. Wheeler takes the cake as far as getting into shape (mostly he did it to be healthy but also he had some incentive to get in shape for hunting involving massive amounts of hiking around in the middle of no where for long periods of time to find one's prized animal - post to follow including the mounted elk head in our front room, you know you are jealous).  So I have a before and after picture.

Before picture taken January 2010 on our ten year anniversary trip to Denver, Colorado in what is now my favorite place to eat breakfast on the face of the planet (http://www.snoozeeatery.com/). 

After pictures taken January 2011 at home, I tried to get a similar angle and close up shot of our faces so you can see the difference.  Man I guess I have lost some weight - you know when you see yourself every day you don't notice it as much.  The after picture is a self-portrait so sorry our chins are exactly at the right angle (pretty good for only two attempts - I'll never get a picture with out glasses glare though).

All in all the new year is off to a great start at the Wheeler household.  We are being more diligent in most aspects of our life, eating, exercising - the physical stuff - reading scriptures, saying prayers, having family home evening on Monday nights - the physical stuff.  I've been reading my scriptures every day and if I'd just do it every day I'd be through the Standard Works in no time flat - hopefully I can keep it up.  We had family home evening tonight and the girls were inattentive as usual but I guess at least we had a spiritual message in our home and we sang songs with spiritual message - hopefully one day they'll remember all the fun times we had and actually some of the things we taught them too!