Livin'

Man it is time, or past due time for a blog post, rather. So sit down put on your protective eye wear and get comfy! I am about to catch you up on all things Wray.

January is where I left off at our 10 year anniversary then it was Macee's Birthday on the 13th, she turned 7. Yep that means next year we will have another baptism! YIPES!

She invited a bunch of friends from school and had a pajama movie party. I got a bunch of candy for 75% off after Christmas and I had bought some popcorn bags and special soda cups. I printed "Macee bucks" and the party guests could go to the concessions booth run by Austin and buy all the treats they wanted. It was a lot of fun and Austin loved serving all the girls their refreshments. I even made Macee's cake this year in the theme of Littlest Pet Shops.

Next we celebrated Kelly's birthday on February 2nd. Kelly loves to eat so that's what we did.....EAT....at Chuck A Rama. His sister Amy, her husband and their kids came along with Kelly's Dad and step mom Tami. It was fun! We all ate til we were sick!

Then two short days later it was Addie's 5th birthday! By this point I'll be honest, I am all birthdayed out but the parties must go on! Addie celebrated at Leo's place with friends and cousins. She had a bawl! She loves to be the center of attention so her birthday party was the highlight of her year! She does make me a little nervous though, when I asked her who she wanted to invite to her party two names were of little girls and 4 names were of little boys. Addie for the record you can never date and boys are icky until your like 35! :)

At the end of February Austin earned a boat load of awards and patches at scouts. Too many to name, plus let me just tell you, I am new to this whole scouting thing so I feel totally out of the loop. Among his many awards he earned his Bobcat, an arrow point, and about 6 different belt loops and I am happy to say he finished his wolf Friday morning. Whew! We did it 2 animals down and I am not sure how many left to go  but hey I made it this far!!!

Stay tuned for pictures and a play by play of Austin's pinewood derby coming up on the 24th. Let me just tell you, Kelly is in it to win it! Austin is excited about the design of his car! Me, I am scared to let my husband play with saws, sanders, and power tools. If you know about the diabolical grout mix disaster in the summer of 09' you know why! I love you honey, never a dull moment!!!

I had the amazing opportunity to listen to Sister Julie B. Beck speak at BYU-Idaho with two of my dear friends. It was an amazing format in the new BYU I Center that was just dedicated there. It looks just like the conference center but only on a smaller scale. Any way Sister Beck had an open format where sisters could ask questions at microphones and she would answer them. She was amazing! With each question she was so gracious she would immediately have us turn to find the answer in the scriptures and she would share personal experiences and stories with us to illustrate. The spirit was so strong! It was like every breath I took was filled with the spirit! I learned so much about the type of mother, wife, and daughter of God I need and want to be. I also felt very validated and loved. We were just given some links today at church to access the material from her forum that day and I wanted to share because it was so awesome so go here and here. Watch her speak and read the articles!!!! LOVE IT!

In other happy news (I don't usually do this by the way), I am excited to share that, just before Thanksgiving, I made a goal, with Kelly's help and support, to get healthy and fit for me and for my family. With Kelly's changing health we felt it very important for at least one of us to be healthy. Around the holidays we were a pretty sad pair! So I got a personal trainer through my work and I have worked hard! I am down 30 pounds. My blood pressure is back within normal limits, so I was able to come off of my blood pressure medication. Also, I recently went off of my thyroid medicine and had my thyroid rechecked and found it too is back within normal limits. I am feeling pretty darn good. My goal is to loose another 20 pounds. I still struggle with the occasional horrible migraines and pass outs spells due to my chiari malformation but those have even spaced out! I am so proud of myself for sweating it out, literally! I just wanted to take a minute to thank my husband, my friends, and my family for their support while I have been on this journey so far. Thanks for the words of encouragement and for listening to me whine when Gretchen kicked my butt in the gym and I hurt all over. I couldn't do this without you!

Well this post really is becoming a novel so I will stop and hopefully I can keep up a little better so you won't have to endure anymore posts like this! Hugs friends and fam! Don't forget to leave us a comment. We love to know who is checking in on us!