Top 10 of 2009

Here are the top 10 happenings in the Myers family for 2009

1: Luke Ryan Myers joined our family on January 14 (10 days before my due date) at 7:48pm, weighing in at a hefty 8lbs 9oz and measuring 21.5 inches long. He's been a joy in our family and his smile and personality just light up the room! And who doesn't love that curly mop top of his?!

2: Andrew turned 3 years old and started preschool in the fall. I can't believe how fast he's grown up. He speaks like a little grown up and is so smart it's scary sometimes. He's active and loves his little brother...sometimes too much.

3: We were able to spend two weeks in Idaho with my family. It was so much fun to get to spend time with loved ones and get to show my family some of the spectacular sites of Idaho.

4: Over the course of the year, we were able to pay off our car and two of our three student loans. And we aren't too far from paying off the last one. We used the ideas from the LDS Church's guide "One for the Money" and have been able to pay off a lot of debt faster than we might have otherwise.

5: Clayton turned the big 3-0 this year. It was nice to have my honey join me in the 30s. It was a pretty quiet day, but it makes me feel better that we are both in the same decade of age again.

6: 4th of July was a good one for us. Clayton and I hadn't been to a fireworks show since we got married and decided to find one. We ended up in Coolidge and boy was it a fun day. Clayton's brother and nephew joined us and we took the kids to the pool for some free swimming. Then we headed to the park to wait for the fireworks. They had all kinds of bounce houses and water slides to keep the kids busy. And the fireworks display was amazing. It lasted for a full 52 minutes! That's right... 52 minutes! Almost an hour. We will definitely be going back next year.

7: Clayton finished his Masters and graduated with his Masters of Science in Information Management. It was a long year and we have loved having him back full time. It was actually a busy month for the Myers boys. All three of the brothers received a degree within a week of each other.

8: After over three years of staring at a brown back yard, we finally planted grass. It's green...mostly due to some strange fern-like plant that I've never seen that has taken over the backyard. Maybe one of these years, we'll actually have a real grass yard...but at least for now the back yard is green.

9: This year, I decided to get serious about food storage. I bought a wheat grinder and a bosch mixer and have been making my own bread. We have stored up a lot of canned food items as well as dry items. We still have a ways to go before we have a full year supply, but we are well on our way.

10: We tried to grow a garden last year, but we got it in a little too late so everything fried in the hot summer sun before it could fruit. This year, we started a little earlier and were able to enjoy fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, etc. It was so great to eat something that I grew myself. We still were totally successful, but we were one step closer and looking forward to trying again this year.

The Season of Gift Giving

I'm one of those people who likes to believe that no matter what our circumstances, we always have a chance at a new beginning in our lives. We can start right now to change something or improve ourselves to make our lives happier. Now I don't really go with "New Year's Resolutions", but I do sit down each year and map out a list of goals for me to work on through the year. Then I try to review them every couple of months to see how I've been doing. In the past, those goals have included paying off debt, finishing schooling, reading books, improving my spiritual progress, working on relationships with people and many others.

This year I decided to think of it in a different way. For our Relief Society Enrichment, they had each of the sisters write a gift for our Savior on a piece of paper and put it in a stocking to hang on the tree. As I've thought about this, I've decided to change my perspective on my new beginnings. Instead of setting "goals", I'm going to make a list of gifts I want to offer...to my Savior, my loved ones and myself. For example, a gift to the Savior may be to offer more sincere and diligent prayers. Or to give the gift of time to your children. Or to set aside a little time for yourself to do the things that will rejuvenate you and fill your cup.

I have only started the process of making out my "Gift" list. As I ponder over the things that I need to improve upon, instead of thinking what I am going to get out of each one, I want to look at it as how can I give something. I do have items on my list already to give to others, but I also feel it's important to do things for ourselves. If my cup is empty, I cannot give to those who are most important to me. So I will work on filling my own cup as I fill the cups of those most important to me.

I encourage each of you to think of "Gifts" you can give to those most important in your life. And please remember to put yourself on the list.

Losing Wisdom

I have a bone to pick with whoever it was that decided we needed to have wisdom teeth. Why would we have teeth come in that more than 90% of the time need to be removed? And why make them so that they become more difficult to remove as we get older? And why make a tooth that will decay even if it hasn't come in and isn't really exposed to anything damaging?

So I had to have a wisdom tooth, my last one, surgically removed last Thursday. It was my last one and the one that hadn't ever broken through. I have been putting it off for years, having been told by a former dentist to wait until it came in. Well, that wasn't the best advice.

So after going through the painful process of being numbed - I hate the shot in the roof of my mouth - it began. Only for the dentist to tell me that he was having problems getting a hold of it because it was the consistency of cookie dough from the decay. After some very uncomfortable pulling, yanking, and pushing, the decision was made to bring out the big guns. He ended up breaking the tooth into pieces to remove it. I kind of wish he'd have done that to start with. It would have been a much quicker process. So one wisdom tooth and the wisdom that came with it later....I got home, the numbness started to wear off, and the pain set in. Even taking prescription painkillers barely took the edge off the pain. I spent all day in bed just trying not to cry. I have a pretty high pain tolerance, but I had already been through a sore jaw from a cleaning and a couple of fillings the week prior. My mouth had taken all it could.

So I'm a few days post surgery, and my mouth is still a little swollen and sore. I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever be able to brush my teeth without my gums bleeding near the extraction site.

But at least I will never have to have another tooth surgically extracted from below the gums ever again. Just don't be surprised if I'm a little slower than I used to be. I just lost my last bit of "wisdom"!

Any girl would be jealous

I've always wanted curly hair. When I was little, it took a jar of Dippity-Doo and half a can of hairspray to get my hair to hold enough curls for one of my ballet recitals. A perm was gone in about a week. As I got older, my hair started to get curly and when I got married, it was finally starting to look like I'd get the curls I wanted. Then I had a baby. Now it's just a little bit of messy, uncontrollable wave, but nothing like the curls I'd love to have.

Andrew got my strait as a stick hair from my childhood. It used to get a little flip when it would get too long, but not anymore. Straight, straight, straight.

Then there is Luke. I don't know where he got it, but he's got the curliest hair. When he gets out of the bath tub, tight curls cover the top of his head. And they are beginning to spread to the back, too. It's just not fair! I want those curls. :o) And I'm sure he's going to grow to hate them someday. If they stick around, he'll probably want to cut them off.

And here I am, drooling over those curls that any girl would love to have. And did I mention his eyelashes fall in the covet-worthy category, too? He got those from his dad. Thick, long BLACK eyelashes.

I'm going to go repent of coveting my kid's hair and eyelashes now...

Leaving Your Mark

So, anyone who knew me back in my glory days of high school would tell you I was relatively shy, stuck pretty much to my own little group of friends, and tended to blend in with the wall. I wasn't popular, but I wasn't anything else either. I just was. I got along with pretty well everyone, but didn't really have a huge circle of friends. And to be honest, I didn't think I would have had a lasting impression on anyone. I learned otherwise yesterday.

I got an email from a woman that I went to high school with. It was a simple, short email. The subject heading was "Thank you!" It went on to say how this person was grateful for me doing all the work when we were science lab partners because she didn't and couldn't understand what was going on. And how much she admired my ability to grasp the concepts and help her out with them.

Now, I have to admit, I only vaguely remember her being my lab partner in Chemistry my junior year nearly 16 years and half my lifetime ago. I have no recollection of doing all the work or really of grasping it all that well. Chemistry involves a lot of math and I'm not very good at math. It didn't mean enough to me for me to remember it. But it must have meant something to her. Her thank you made my day. I've been feeling pretty lousy the past week or so. That little thank you shone a bright ray of sunshine into my day.

This just testified to me of how important it is to act as a disciple of Christ at all time and in all things because I never know who may be watching or listening to me. Something that I think is unimportant may leave a lasting impression on someone. So my challenge to myself, and to all of you, is to be the best person you can each and every day. Treat everyone you meet with kindness and respect. Let your light so shine that others will see the image of the Lord in your countenance. And to thank the people in your life who have meant something to you or impacted your life in some way, no matter how long ago it was. We all need to know that what we do makes a difference, even if it was something so simple that we don't remember it.