A Beginning

I'm completely new at this. Until a few months ago, I hardly ever even checked my e-mail. But then I joined facebook and now I'm online a lot more. It's been so fun reconnecting with old friends. I also realized that a lot of them were posting blogs. I love reading people's blogs and gaining a better insight into their lives and feelings. I decided to give it a whirl. I have had a very strong desire lately to express my thoughts and emotions. Mainly just to myself, but since I'm horrible at journal writing, I figured I would try blogging. Maybe it's just a passing phase because the whole facebook and messaging thing is still new, but it's worth a try.

So, since this is my first post, I guess it's as good of time as any to give you a brief history. ("Let me explain....no, it will take too long. Let me sum up..." --Princess Bride, one of the greatest movies EVER). Here it goes...I was born to Dennis and Nancy (no last names here--you never know who lurks on people's blogs). I have a twin sister. Her name is Denise and I honestly think that we had to come down here to earth together so I would make it through our first rough years. My parents divorced when we were about 2 and my Dad remarried shortly after that. He was granted primary custody of Denise and I. Janis, my new step-mom, became my mom in every sense of the word. We became a new family and my parents had three more kids: a brother, Jason; and two sisters, Jessica and Kaylee. My mom Nancy, also remarried when I was in Junior High and Denise and I visited them quite often.

Life was pretty good growing up. We moved to Davis County from Salt Lake City when I was in fourth grade. It was the perfect little community to grow up in. I had lots of friends and things were great. When I graduated from high school, I immediately went away to school up in Logan. It was there that I started dating the love of my life, Ryan. We were friends for a while before dating (I was 17 when I first met him), and we dated for almost a year before getting married in 1995. We had our first daughter a year and a half later. Kaitlyn Denise was born on her daddy's birthday. I was so thrilled to be a mom! I had always known that was what I was meant to do and be. She is so beautiful in every sense of the word. We had our second daughter 21 months after that. Lauren Elise looked exactly the same as Katie did when she was born (except for her cone-shaped head) it was like I had had the same baby twice. But I soon found out that she was different from Katie in almost every way. She is just as beautiful as Katie, and also spunky, full of life, emotion, and passion. It is amazing to me how unique all children are. I knew two little girls were going to keep me quite busy, so we slowed down the kid-making department for a while. It was during this time that Ryan was starting and completing 3 long years of law school.

Sometimes I wonder how we survived those days, and yet, I really miss them sometimes. After law school, we moved to Idaho Falls, bought a house, and started "normal" life. But Ryan was frustrated with his job, and we really felt like we belonged in Utah. One day he got a call from the Utah Supreme Court asking him to consider a clerkship position for one of the Justices. He had previously applied for that position, and it had never come through. We were thrilled. After a short 8 months of living in Idaho, we took the job and moved back home. After several mini detours, we built our home in Davis County, Ryan took a new job with a firm in Salt Lake after his clerkship, and we've been here ever since. Braiden Ryan, our first son, was born two weeks before we moved into our house. He was mellow and easy going from the start. He has remained that way for the most part. Two and a half years later, our final (yep, I said final) son was born. Ethan Dallin is full of energy. He definitely keeps me young (or at least tries to).

My life is mostly consumed by my role as a mother. It is who I am and I love that. There hasn't been much time for anything else in my life besides Ryan and the kids. I do a lot of the typical "Mormon Mom" stuff: scrapbooking, carpooling, church callings, housework, trying to make my house a home, cooking, etc. It is exhausting and, most of the time, thankless. There are more times that I want to sob than I care to admit, but when it all comes down to it, I love these five people more than anything. I'm so lucky and blessed to have them in my life. I hope they feel the same way about me.

That is a brief summary of me. There will be more to come that will hopefully fill in the gaps that I left with this post. I'm just excited to get it out of my head and on paper (so to speak). I will figure out how to post pictures and such. Be patient with me---I'm a rookie.