Top ten of 2015

I interrupt this regularly scheduled blog post to write my Top Ten of 2015.
If you'll recall, the top ten is a list of the ten things in 2015 that I think has most impact on our lives, or are most noteworthy. Not all good, not all bad. Most memorable or noteworthy. I shall post them in chronological order, or as close to it as I can remember.

1. Early in the year I became pregnant again. This pregnancy was only a few months after my previous pregnancy ended when I delivered our 16 week along baby boy. Because of that, I held off with hope or much excitement about the current pregnancy.

2. In February David and I kind of spur of the moment decided to go to McCall for a night for the ice festival. Our kids stayed with his parents and we had a lovely get away for just the two of us. The sculptures were all pretty much melted, but that's okay, we had fun anyway.

3. The end of March after a routine doctors visit when I was 13 weeks pregnant I learned that my baby once again didn't have a heartbeat. A couple weeks later I miscarried another baby boy. This time there were complications. Apparently I didn't deliver all of the placenta and so the bleeding was heavy for a prolonged period of time. I felt awful and weak, but thought it would naturally pass. However, after passing out in the middle of the night on the way back from the bathroom, (luckily my knight in shining armor was there to catch me) we finally decided to go to the ER. I'd lost a lot of blood and maybe even had a heart attack. They were going to do an EKG to find out but we complained about lack of insurance and the cost of tests so they didn't. But looking back at the symptoms I had, I wouldn't be surprised if it happened. Anyway, they filled me with fluids and removed the placenta and hours later we got to go home. My recovery wasn't swift.

4. Some time in the Spring, when I'd kind of given up hope on buying a house, I decided to put some of our savings toward paying off our car. And I did! And it got paid off! After that our only debt was David's student loans. That was a nice feeling.

5. In June I found out that I was pregnant again. This time it was after we had expensive test done to try and determine the cause for my recurrent miscarriages. Nothing was ever learned and we debated on whether or not to try for another child. Ultimately we decided to go the faith route and if God wanted us to have another baby we would. I'm still pregnant and into the third trimester and we are anticipating a healthy baby in March.

6. Early in the summer I got a new calling at church. I was released from nursery and called to the presidency in the YW. I really liked having that calling. I even got to go to girls camp, which I loved as a youth. It wasn't the same experience as an adult, and the weather made for some less than ideal camping situations, but it was memorable nonetheless.

7. We finally bought a house! We tried for so long and I thought we'd never be approved, but suddenly that changed. And sudden it was. We found out we were pre-approved for a loan, we began to look at houses and the second house we looked at was the one we loved. We thought it would be out of our price range, so we looked at a few others after that, but then decided to put an offer in anyway, below the asking price. It was countered, we went to as high a price as our lenders said we could, and it was rejected. But the next day we were informed the sellers had changed their minds. Then there was the whirlwind of inspections and everything, but on David's birthday, Aug. 31, we got the keys and were officially home owners! Yay!! We moved in the next day. There have been huge problems with plumbing, leaking roofs, broken water pumps, leaking water heaters, and a plethora of other problems that have been expensive to deal with, but we love the house, love the yard, love the shops, love the location, etc. So happy here.

8. My brother, Jason, got married in October. Finally. :) His wife is a delightful, spunky sort whom we call Kendra. It's exciting to have another member in the family. And the wedding was fun. We got to see relatives from out of town, I even played hostess for the first time to over-night guests in the new house, and David and I sang a duet at the reception. One of the coolest parts was being in the temple with my husband, parents, and all of my siblings for what I think was the very first time.

9. This school year started as normal with all the kids being homeschooled. That has changed. William was pushing and pushing to go to public school, since, you know, homeschool and step-mom are the worst things that could ever happen to him. It was a big struggle for everyone since his tantrums took a lot of my attention and focus and I couldn't focus on the other kids who needed a teacher/mom as much as I'd like. William clearly wasn't enjoying his time in our home which made David decide he'd rather have William like his home life than have him get the, what we believe is, superior education and training through homeschooling. So, William and Owen started public school. Owen didn't want to, but the poor kid was the collateral damage. Now homework is the worst thing that could ever happen to William in his life and he still tantrums and fights the majority of his time here... :(

10. David and I were once again in the Tender Mercies Choir that performs at the prisons in Boise for their LDS church Christmas services. It takes a lot of weeks of practice that can feel inconvenient, but the payoff is nice. The Spirit really does accompany us to the prisons. And to top it off, I got to do it not only with my talented husband, but with my other talented family members. This year my mom, sister, two brothers, and new sister-in-law were also in the choir.

2015 was another mostly good year for our family. There was also sadness, frustrations, lessons in patience, etc. but mostly good changes, growth, fun, and happiness.