Joined the Club

I have had it pretty easy so far. I am only sick to my stomach. No actual throwing up, up to this point. I finally have joined the ranks of all the other pregnant women! I knew it was bound to happen, but I was not so thrilled about when it happened.

Yesterday morning we got up early and headed for the highschool. The girls basketball team have a tournament in the valley Thursday-Saturday and Trevor had to go, and I was invited to come along. I decided to go, because I really didn't want to be at home by myself for the next three days. In Payson we stopped to get a quick breakfast at McDonald's. The girls all know that I am pregnant and they were asking me how I am feeling. I told them pretty good. I don't really throw up, I'm just sick a lot. About one hour later the bus has to be pulled over for me to throw up. How embarassing. Of all the times, it had to be while we were with a ton of people. I hate to throw up, but now that I have had that initial throw-up over with, it's not so bad. I felt good all day long. If throwing up will make me not be nauseaus all day, it might not be too bad.

I told my mom about it, and she said, "Welcome to pregnancy."

Merry Christmas

Today we woke up nice and early to start the day off. I woke up first and got dressed followed shortly by Trevor waking up and taking a shower. Because we got new floors this year we really didn't plan on a very big Christmas at our house. We had stockings filled with candy, and my favorite-chocolate orange!!! Plus, we each got new toothbrushes. Trevor got some razors, and I got Carrie Underwood's newest cd in my stocking as well. Then we opened a few gifts each. I mostly got Trevor little things to help fill his toolbox: a level, a razor knife, a staple gun, and a tire pressure thing. Really just a few things that I knew he could use, but hadn't asked for. He gave me a couple cd's and a little tiny boombox to play them on. I also can't ever go one Christmas without getting some form of Bonne Belle Lipsmackers. He did really well and got me this little bag with like 6 different kinds. I was VERY impressed.

By 7:30 we headed to my mom's house. We had a few gifts for Kade and Taylor and my mom, plus a few that I had wrapped for my mom to take. We opened gifts there and got a big surprise. Well, I had known about it. First of all, let me tell you about me and gift giving. I am great at picking out stuff for people, but I am terible at keeping it secret. I hint majorly, and I usually end up letting whoever is getting my gifts open one or more early. I am like a little kid about it. It slightly drives Trevor crazy. Anyway.....this was the ultimate gift and I didn't even hint about it. I have kept it secret forever. My mom wrapped this in like 4 boxes before Trevor got to it. Inside was a Phoenix Suns ticket!!!! We have been wanting to go to a game forever. Neither of us have ever been to a professional basketball game! He could not believe it. My mom had wrapped my ticket seperately, so at first he thought he was going to have to go by himself. It was so exciting to see his face. After the gifts we ate stuffed french toast. Yum!

Soon after breakfast we excused ourselves to Trevor's parents house. There was us, Trev's parents and two of his three brothers. Mike and Adam were there, but not Dustin and his family. They had waited for us before even opening one gift! We really thought they would have opened theirs and then opened whatever we brought when we came. Trevor and I both got desperately needed G's. Then Trev hit the motherload with clothes. He really needed them so it was great. I got quite a bit of money for clothes via gift cards. I am so glad about it too. I need pants so bad. I was going to get money for clothes from Trevor, but I was really down hearted about it because I don't want to spend a bunch of money on clothes that I will be growing out of fairly soon. Now I don't feel so guilty if I buy them on gift card money. We also got a pressure cooker that we have wanted for a while. We really felt like we got way more than we had even thought we would. We left later and went home so I could take a shower and actually get really ready for the day.

Once we were home I got ready, and Trevor turned on the double header of basketball games. Nothing says Christmas like basketball, right??? At least, in Trevor's world it does. I couldn't take that much b-ball so I took a good nap. Late in the afternoon we got one of the best things in all. We got to talk to my brother, Elder Spenser Chance Garner on the phone. It was so exciting. And so weird. He has been out for 7 months already and we've only communicated through emails and letters, so to hear his voice was crazy. We had major problems getting through though. My mom had bought a phone card because it is way cheaper to call Brazil with one of those than just calling directly there. Five different times we called and he would say hello and then the call would disconnect. We didn't know what to do. My mom tried calling the operator and the phone card hotline. Finally one time she called somebody when our phone rang and it was him. I answered and he was all stressed. He was spending someone else's money by calling us, but he needed to give us another number to reach him. He tried to tell me the number, but he was saying it in Portugese. He got frustrated and turned to someone and something like I can't! Finally, using the little Spanish I know I said the numbers to him in Spanish. He was like yes, yes! Then he said repeat it. So I did, and we finally had the right number! I hung up and my mom called him right back. It was so good to talk to him. He bore his testimony in Portugese to each of us individually. He also was so excited about me being pregnant. He knew from an email, but he told me about telling his companion. He kept calling it a "He" but I said no we want a girl. He said no it's going to be a boy. I think he is the only one that wants us to have a boy. (We'd really be happy with either, and it probably will be a boy, but I want us to have a girl.) We only got a half hour to talk and then my dad got to call him for a half hour as well. It was so fun to talk to him and I can't wait to do it again.



Finally, we went back to Trevor's parents house for dinner. It was a really yummy ham dinner. I am still so full. All in all, a really fun Christmas. The suns game on tonight is most likely the ending of our day, but oh well. It wouldn't be normal if we didn't have a day of some sort of basketball going on!



I hope all went well with everyone else's Christmas. Hopefully next year will be even better with our little one. We can't wait!



P.S. The picture of Spenser was the only one I had on my camera. I think I have used it before, but it was taken at Kade's eighth grade graduation a few days before Spenny left on his mission.

Christmas Eve

Tonight was my family's annual Christmas Eve party. It is always spent at my Grampa Stradling's house with all of the extended family. I absolutely LOVE it! We really don't do much except eat Mexican food. There are always home made tamales and enchiladas made by mom and aunts. It is just fun because we are all there together. Of course, we never have everyone there at the same time because there are just too many of us, and we are all spread everywhere, but we are excited with whoever does show up.

My cousin, Cliff and his wife Lisa were there and that was really fun. They live in Utah so we don't see them often. They filmed everyone and we took a picture or two with them.

The picture of the little girl, is Kenady (Jaymi's little girl). We could not get her to smile at all. She wasn't mad or upset, but just very solemn. She was spread out between Trevor and Ariel just making this serious face!

One of my favorite pictures I took was of my sister, Taylor and our Grampa. He was just sitting there with his arm around her so I grabbed my camera as quick as I could and snapped a picture. He just kind of sat there and took everything in last night. He was really quiet. He finally said, "My mom always wanted a big family. She would be so proud." My great-gramma, or Nan as she was called only had my grampa. Her second baby died and a few weeks later her husband died, so that is why she always longed for a big family.

We missed those of you who couldn't make it, but we hope to see you next year. Of course, that probably means that most of the ones we did see this year won't be there next year. I guess that's part of growing up!

Christmas Break

D-day has finally come! Okay, not really, but it is finally my last day of work for two weeks. I am so excited! I really and truly do love my job. The kids are so fun. I know a lot of people wouldn't want to work at a school, and especially not at a middle school with 7th graders, but I really love them. Of course, they are teenagers and they have their moments, but don't we all? They can be held accountable for their actions, and they are figuring out who they are. It is just lots of fun to be around them.

People don't realize how much work goes into being a teacher or a teacher's aide like me. I have heard it called a cushion job, but I don't think you would call it that if you did it everyday. My husband always gives me a hard time because we have the summer off and then Christmas break and also half-days of school often. What some people don't realize is how much those days are needed!!! Not only are the kids sick of the everyday hum-drum of school, but they are sick of us. Likewise, we need a break from them too. Bring on the break....

I fully intend on sleeping in every morning (anything past 6:30 is sleeping in for me), and just lying in bed on those days when I feel so sick to my stomach. I have two weeks of not having to fight the morning sickness at work. YAY!

Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you all have a good one. Travel safe. I hope all my kids at school will come back rested and ready to get back to work.

What Season is it?

The weather here has been so crazy. I don't think the weather is sure what it wants to do. For a few days we saw nothing but fog and drizzly weather. It would sort of rain, and then look like it was going to snow, but it felt more like it was the end of October than the middle of December.

Then last week it all of a sudden started to snow! I couldn't believe it. We never get snow here. I still remember when I was in highschool I would get ready in the morning with the radio on just listening for them to say St. Johns had a delay or no school. Every school would be out or have delays but us. But we had snow several days. Last week we even had a big storm that hadn't been predicted. The stove at our house has been going all night long to keep us warm! It finally feels like winter. (yuck!)

Now the last two days it has been warmer. It feels like the start of spring. It's still really cold in the morning and at night, but it warms up in the day and you don't even need a jacket. All the snow is pretty much melted. You can't hardly tell we even had storms.

Although winter is not my favorite, and I don't mind a fairly dry winter, I do hope that we have a white Christmas. If it would just be snowy on Christmas eve and Christmas day I would be a happy girl. Of course, we could use the moisture.....

Sarcastically Sweet

I am a firm believer in not letting yourself get completely walked on because you are too afraid of saying something mean. I have almost perfected saying what I want to in semi-nice way. I truly believe that it is an art. My mom sometimes tells me things just so that I will say something to people. Really though, I sometimes wish that I could be a little nicer and not let things bother me, but then I look at some of my friends that just deal with their circumstances and in the process don't ever get their way. Let your voice be heard my friends!!! Let me give you a for example of what I am talking about.



Setting: St. Johns High School basketball games. St. Johns vs. Alchesay



Main Characters: Narrator (a.k.a me, Taytum)

3 girls from Alchesay



Scene: There's a big messy problem, and narrator decides to fix it.



While sitting at the SJ vs. Alchesay games I look down the row from me, and there are sunflower seeds EVERYWHERE! First of all, ew. Second of all, the gym (although it may smell like it sometimes) is not a barn! Not only were there seeds on the row down from me, but on the two rows in front of that. Gross, spit-out-of-the-mouth seeds covering three rows of bleachers. I look, and sure enough it isn't any of our fans that have created the mess, it is three reservation girls from Alchesay. Not only does it bother me because it is a germy mess, but they are on the HOME team side. Go sit on the VISITOR side! Someone needs to post signs to direct people to their appropriate areas....in Taytum's "perfect world" there would be. But, moving on.

As I sit fuming, I decide something should be done about this. I don't think Mr. Holden, the custodian should have to clean up that kind of mess. If you were to look at the rest of the stands there are a few wrappers and soda cans here and there, but no mess like this. I decide to take action into my own hands. Mr. Holden is down by the door closest to me so I get up to go talk to him. As I go, I pass the three girls. I stop and say in my nicest school teacher way,

"Ladies, would you like me to get a broom for you to clean up this? We don't make these kinds of messes here."

They look at me completely dumbfounded. I don't think they could believe someone said anything at all to them. Partly because they mess up their own places and the other reason they were in disbelief was because I don't think they ever thought they would be held accountable for their mess. Surprisingly, they all shook their heads or said yes they would clean it up.

I continued down to Mr. Holden and told him about the mess and that if he would give them a little broom or something they would clean it up for him. He was like, "Really?" And I said yes. I showed him which girls, and they had already gotten on their hands and knees and were picking it up with their hands!

The End.

I was so proud of myself. See if I hadn't done that, it would have been left there. Totally rude. I figured I'd rather take a chance and have some girls I don't even know think I am mean, then to sit there and fume and know that someone else would have to pick up their spitty seed shells.
If I had to do it again, I would.

A Poet but I didn't Know it

No sound will ever be as sweet,

As the pitter-patter of little feet.

Join the excitement of Trev and Tayt....

'Cause in August they'll welcome BABY Waite!!!!

Embarassing Moment

One of my fears is that while being at the school with all the kids that I will slip and fall in front of a bunch of them. I can trip over just about anything so it really is a worry. Plus, I think it is way worse to trip and eat it in front of kids than it is adults. Especially kids at school. These are the people you are in constant contact with. They look up to you as a leader and someone older and wiser. Today I didn't trip, but I am sure that it was worse.

The seventh graders are getting all geared up for their annual balloon launch. They build hot air balloons out of tissue paper and than they are later launched. They get so many points for their grade depending on how well the balloon does. Part of the tradition is to watch this old movie called Night Crossing. It is based on a true story and the kids have to answer questions on it as another part of their grade.

While sitting their in between a break they had, we were getting ready to start the movie up again. All was quiet, and I was sitting in the back in this chair. One side of the chair has been broken all year. The arm wasn't attached at all. I have sat in this stupid chair all year with no problems, but just a little annoyed by the precarious chair. While leaning back in the chair the silence is completely broken by the snapping of the other arm on the chair followed by a loud crash! Because I had been leaning back the whole back of the chair fell off! On top of that, I was so far back in the chair that the rolling bottom on it slid out from underneath me and I fell completely on the floor!

Kids heads flip around and they are all staring so to try and save a little face I start laughing. Granted the situation was really funny, but not so much if you are the one falling. I couldn't believe my luck. Of all the times for that stupid thing to break, it had to in front of the ENTIRE 7th grade. Not just one small class. EVERYONE!!!!

I call Trevor to let him no that his wife is in fact a fat a$$. Yes, those were my words. He laughed and then told me not to break anymore chairs today. Believe me sir, if I could have helped it, I wouldn't have broken ONE in the first place! I went to take pictures of the evidence, but the picture above is all that's left of the aforesaid chair. Now I am left with a bruised ego, and slightly sore body.

Good Ole SJ

I know that I live in a small town, but I never really think much about it until certain things happen. When one comment can spread like wildfire or when a school bus accidently runs into the dollar store is the biggest news. Even better news is when Corky's has 25 or more ice cream flavors-which by the way, they have holiday flavors like eggnog and I dream about it on a daily basis.

Today as I am driving to work low and behold there are three huge black cows making their way down the side of the road. Now in St. Johns that isn't anything out of the ordinary, but these were almost to Brides. I would expect to see those more out towards my house, but they were almost to the main road! I had to laugh as I pulled into the grocery store wondering where they came from. When I got back on the road less than ten minutes later the cows were gone! I thought that maybe the owners of the cows had shooed them off, but while looking I see that the cops had been called in on the scene.

I love this small town even if it is called a "hell hole" by some (cough, cough Bailey). Where else are you going to have your very own personal Barney 5 type of police squad???

New Floors

Our new floors are almost all the way installed. Trevor and I have been so excited about the change. He has done all the work. I definitely can't take credit for any of it. We just had plain linoleom floors. These have totally changed the way the house looks. The floors just make it seem so much warmer.

We have been checking out floors all over the place. We have practically stalked the floor installation aisles at Home Depot for months. Everything has been too expensive. We kept thinking that we would buy a little bit at a time, but then we were afraid that whatever we finally picked would stop being ordered after we bought like half of it. Finally, we found a flooring that we liked at Sam's club. It really wasn't too expensive and we knew it was going to be in stock for a while. When we were in the valley at one of the boys football games we bought half of what we needed. Then two weeks later when we were down again for another game we bought the other half.

As we got home from our first trip I told Trevor he wouldn't be able to wait for all of it. Sure enough, when I got home from work one day he had put in all the flooring through the dining room. We stayed like that with it half done for two weeks. Now that we have it all, Trevor has put it through the kitchen and down the hallway. He only has to put in a few final pieces that have to be cut down for the hallway.

Yay for new floors! The only sad thing was, we were at Home Depot on Saturday, and one of the floor choices that we had liked was on sale! We could have got that flooring for like 7 dollars a box cheaper!!!! Oh well. We love what we have! Thanks, handy man Trevor for putting in all the labor!

Pizza Hut Hissy-fit

After being a waitress for about a year I have come to either be the most understanding customer when things are going bad or the worst critic ever if you are a crappy waitress for seemingly no reason. That being said, let me tell you about our lunch at Pizza Hut on Saturday....

Pizza is by far one of my favorite foods. It's right up there with chips and salsa and bean and cheese burritos as a food I could eat nearly every day. Here-in the middle of nowhere-you can't really get pizza. There used to be Hot Stuff pizza, which wasn't that great, but it changed to Noble Roman's and has gone completely down hill to freak nasty if you ask me. Pizza Hut is such a treat to me. Plus, of all the pizza places (dominos, little caesars, etc)it's my favorite. But if any of you plan on eating at the Pizza Hut in Show Low, beware.....they suck.

Last time we ate there, the stupid people put on too much cheese and the pizza was all doughy...ewww...We got another one cooked that day and the pizza itself half off, but Trevor swore that even that one was still doughy. Another time, I ordered myself a personal pan pizza to go and the sauce tasted sour or something like it had gone bad. I know there was something else wrong another time we went, but I can't remember what. Saturday was the final staw for me.

We get there and order our pizza right away. I ask for extra sauce with the breadsticks. Our drinks come and the breadsticks, but no extra sauce. The waitress runs by later and we ask for sauce again and she says okay...it never comes. I'll deal with the loss fairly well and then when our pizza comes she drops it off and leaves. Trevor finally goes up and asks the manager at the front for the sauce we asked for three times. This is not the end. We look at our pizza and there is like no sauce on it and hardly any cheese! What the HELL! I am so ticked! All I want is a good pizza. We would have told our waitress, but she never comes and checks on us once! We were so hungry, we figured we would just deal. Then we both run out of drinks. I hate not having something to drink with my meal. She finally comes by to give us our ticket and two take-out boxes. Why two boxes with only like 3 pieces left? Who knows. Then the lady has the nerve to ask if we want refills. Why would we want refills when we are leaving? I am not at all happy. Trevor says he's going to talk to the manager.

We go to leave and the manager wasn't at the front so Trevor was going to let it go. Not me. I couldn't. I was mad. She comes out and I just tell her how it is. First I say don't you guys use scales to measure out your ingredients? She tells me that they do and so I said that they must not be because the last two times things were wrong. One time too much toppings another time not enough. Then I tell her, I have waitressed before so I understand when things are busy but this has happened more than once! Then no drinks no sauce. Not one good thing happened. Poor Trevor is standing there looking at the ceiling like, "um...maybe I'll go stand over here.." He told me later that I was kind of loud. I didn't think I was loud, but maybe I did raise my voice a little. Finally we got our meal for free, but that really wasn't the point. I kept saying I'm not trying to be rude, but I just think you shoud know. I think this shouldn't happen everytime we come. What are the odds of having everything screwed up everytime we come? Better luck next time? If I didn't love Pizza Hut so much, I would say I wouldn't ever go there again.

Be of Good Cheer

....for it's the most Wonderful time of the Year! That's right...it's the season for giving (or receiving) again. I love Christmas time. Last week we put up our tree, and I have loved every second of it. When it gets remotely close to dusk the lights are on. We bought this tree last year, and I swear it looks even better than I remember. Trevor is actually the one who picked it out and I think that he made a wise choice. I picked the decorations, and I think that I did a pretty good job. I still have the goofy Charlie Brown tree that I bought for 20 bucks when I was in college, but I would much rather have this tree anyday!

We just bought new wood floors for our house and we are counting those as our Christmas present. If there are any presents under the tree, they will be what we are buying for our families. We did agree to do stockings though. It may seem a little childish, but I still get all giddy at Christmas. Stockings have always been my favorite things, so we definitely couldn't NOT do them. I can't wait for the day when we have our own little ones. I say this now, but I actually think it would be fun to keep kids out of the presents and away from the ornaments on the tree. I think it is so cute! They are so excited and trying to figure out what everything is all about. It's almost like reliving your own Christmas's as a kid. I am so envious of those of you that have kids!

All I have to say is bring on the lights, the music, hot chocolate, Christmas eve at Grampa's, the movie A Christmas Story and How the Grinch stole Christmas (along with all the others, but you can't have christmas without those two), and of course the two week break I get from work!!!! Woot-woo! Life doesn't get much better.......