Hearts Full of Joy

who am i?

if you are my friend on facebook, you may have had the time and interest to read this already, or not - which i completely understand. this is a "note" which is circulating on facebook, and i enjoyed the challenge of coming up with 25 items to post.

1. I have put off making this list for a very long time.

2. I LOVE living in Nauvoo.

3. My favorite thing in the world is being married to Brock, second favorite is being a mommy to my kids.

4. I have lived in Japan 3 different times, for a total of almost 12 years, but am still not fluent in Japanese. My two oldest caucasian daughters can speak, read & write Japanese almost natively. My Japanese children can't.

5. I LOVE babies, and want to have more....will I ever stop feeling that way? 14 years of infertility can do that to a person. But I have always loved babies. My favorite job ever was working as a nurses' aid in a newborn nursery.

6. I am emotional and very passionate...about almost everything.

7. I don't get very excited about food....so you would think that I would be thinner.

8. I have been to nine countries, one territory and one protectorate, but never to Hawaii, and I have been to thirty-nine states, but never to Florida, Alaska, (or Hawaii)

9. Two of my brothers married girls named Nancy.

10. I have an addiction to chocolate, and it's not a good thing (explains number 7)

11. I love yoga

12. I love to read, but am a very picky reader...it needs to be intelligently written, great plot, believable characters, uplifting, and clean.

13. I love history, antiques, and quilting...so antique quilts are a passion.

14. I have a degree from BYU in a department that no longer exists: clothing & textiles.

15. I don't really like ice cream. really.

16. I can be very competitive, but I don't enjoy participating in or watching competitive sports.

17. I have felt a connection/fascination with Japan since I was about 5 years old, and always wanted a Japanese baby. Now I have two.

18. I have over 40 cousins on each side of my family...for a total of over 80. Second cousins are innumerable, but I am in touch with many.

19. Both of my grandmothers are on facebook.

20. I am very driven...to the point of being unhealthy (explains the need for number 11). I am learning not to be.

21. 4 of my 5 children are extremely intense.....must get it from Brock ;)
I am an oldest child, so is Brock. Alexa is obviously oldest, and after an 8 year space, Mia basically is too. Noah is an oldest boy. So, 5 people in our family have oldest personalities....yikes! It explains a lot. Gracie is just intense because she wants to be. Tashi has a big job balancing the rest of us out.

22. I prefer humid over dry climates and love a change in seasons. But I did love living in Phoenix. I have loved everywhere we have lived.

23. I am a runner, but no good at sports - I am completely pathetic at volleyball.

24. I play the piano, but can't sing.

25. My newest passion is studying and re-creating 1840s clothing.

grateful

things i am loving (and so grateful for) about my life:

living so close to a temple (and not just any temple)

my backyard - ahhhh

watching noah's face as he gets on the school bus, and gets off again when arriving home - happiness!

alone time with gracie while noah is at school - so fun to sit and play with her! she is a sweet & tender mommy to her baby dollies.

hanging out with the rodenbergs, and driving along the mississippi and through cornfields to get to their home.

early morning seminary - i wasn't looking forward to this, just the opposite. but, (so far) it seems to be helping my girls to be more centered, and i love that they are more motivated to settle down and go to bed on time, rather than staying up and playing on facebook, etc.

my family - in the last week three airplane crashes have injured and claimed the lives of people i know or know of - one crash in guatemala and  two in the western u.s. a new father who died had just blessed his newborn daughter. another couple died, leaving three teenagers without parents, and  yet another couple with four tiny children survived, but are severely burned. and another family i know, who has faced many struggles, has lost their father to cancer. many mre died & were burned in these three crashes, whose stories i don't know, but i'm sure are just as compelling. i am feeling blessed & grateful to have my family with me, and to be here with them - we never know when that may change.

this blog post by kelly reminds me of more reasons to be grateful for my children - infertility and the miracle of adoption and long awaited pregnancy. this was my reply to that post:

"you know i can't resist commenting on your infertility postings. i relate to all of it so intensely. and everything you said is beautifully true..."the best food ever tastes is after a fast. the best water ever feels going down your throat is when you are parched. and i know someday when i am holding a newborn in my arms the feelings of joy will be magnified for all the waiting and struggling. it will be just another blessing of infertility."
when we finally got mia, i was so grateful for my infertility, because it made the wonder & magic of that miracle so much more intensely perfect.
and about enjoying cate.... i remember well watching 5 year old natasha run on the play ground while we waited for lexi to get out of school one afternoon, during my infertility years, and being overcome with the wonder and miracle that she was in my life, and being grateful.
one more thought, which is just a thought.... brock was ready for adoption before i was. it is so true that "adoption has to be an intensely spiritually motivated thing, i think. to accept a baby as your own completely, well, you'd truly have to feel that they were "growing in your heart" and have a peaceful and compelling desire to find your child." so true. i have seen someone take a baby that they didn't feel that way about, and it didn't go well for them or the baby, and it broke my heart, because we would have been so happy to have that baby....
it took me longer to get to that point (and have a peaceful and compelling desire to find my child) than brock. i'm not trying to say that you will definitely get there, nor am i recommending that you eventually adopt. it's just a thought....it may be right for you someday, or it may not."

thank you kelly for reminding us of another reason that our families are to be cherished now and at every opportunity.

i could also make a list of the things i would change about my life right now, but those things are all overshadowed by my grateful list. and really, i should be most grateful for the things i would change, because they offer me the greatest opportunities for growth.

the miracle of infertility

i am touched and inspired by this posting on kelly's blog. i love her style of expressing herself, sweet & powerful.

infertility is a topic very close to my heart, and i can't resist posting about it too. i am grateful for infertility, 14 years of it in our case, and here is why:

i wouldn't have these two miracles in my life without experiencing infertility, and i wouldn't have felt the sheer joy these miracles brought. nothing else in my life has compared to that feeling - having a most fervent prayer answered so miraculously.  in mia's birth announcement email, i said something about her being a "miracle". someone, i believe it was brock's aunt, replied that "every baby is a miracle". i was caught somewhat off-guard by that statement at the time, because i was so swept away by the mircale of our adoption in japan, but have thought about it frequently since. and i know that she was right. every baby is a miracle. and infertility is the reason that i feel the truth of that statement so deeply.

another miracle that was brought into my life by infertility is that when i unexpectedly found myself pregnant after 14 years, i felt so very differently about it than i had before. i treasured every minute, and didn't mind the 9 months of nausea, the fatigue, the violent vomiting, the intense heartburn, etc. i just felt grateful. and i didn't allow myself to feel pressured to do "everything" like i did during my first two pregnancies. i put my own and my baby's physical and emotional health first, and my family a close second, and did very little else, and i enjoyed it, instead of feeling guilty. being able to have that attitude was a miracle for me. being able to feel that pregnancy and caring for babies were a priveledge and not ever a burden was a miracle. it's not that i didn't enjoy my first two babies, and think that they were the two most amazing things that had ever happened. it's just that i had a new level of understanding after infertility.

the miracle is that i learned what erma bombeck expressed in "if i had my life to live over":

"Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished every
moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only
chance in life to assist God in a miracle."(i personally would say the best chance, not the only)
"When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, 'Later. Now
go get washed up for dinner.' There would have been more 'I love you's',
More 'I'm sorry's.' "

(thank you melanie)