Odie the "Special" Wonder Dog

Ever since Jon and I got married we've wanted a good family dog. Our first attempt to make this happen was with a German short hair/chocolate lab mix named...wait for it.... Bruiser. His name was so fitting. This puppy was a total brute. We were both working at the time and didn't have the time to spend with him on training. It was unfair to him. PLUS he was IMPOSSIBLE to keep in our yard. We have a 6 foot privacy fence in the back of our house. I kid you not, this dog would take off running for the fence, jump, bite the top of the fence then fling himself over the gate. No lie...we watched him do it. Plus, our fence has teeth marks on the top to prove it. Bruiser was too much for our family to handle, so reluctantly we took him to the Humane Society. He was eventually adopted and I hope he's a good boy now! This is picture of Bruiser after he was at the Humane Society for a while. Apparently they're much better at getting him to sit. This dog was CONSTANTLY moving when he was at our house... and yes... I tried taking him to training classes at Petsmart. The second day of class he sprung himself from the car and drug me through the entire store where I finally came to rest...on top of a store employee. It was humiliating. The dog was a brute.

Fast forward about a year and Jon starts talking about wanting a good "little" dog. How his sister always had miniature dachshunds and they were the best dogs ever. I started the look out for one but they were pretty pricey. Finally, around Christmas time last year, I found a Craigslist ad for a dog named "Cheeto". I know exactly what you're thinking "Cheeto???" I agree. Totally stupid name for a dog. Anyway, this adorable little doggie needed a new home. The girl told us that she had too many pets and that her husband was making her get rid of a few. Her house smelt like someone had let a skunk lose inside, but we figured that one of her 4 other pets may have been the cause. We bought the dog and immediately changed his name to something more fitting... ODIE.

Odie is... how do I say this.... "Special". LOL he looooooooooves to be touched. Like, constantly. When we first got him he was very aggressive. He growled and snapped at us for a few days after we got him. He has turned into a very protective but very loving dog. He has some very bad habits that make me frustrated and call him names like "dumb dog" and "O-tard". He isn't house broken (despite what the girl who sold him to us had said), he chews on the strangest things... like diapers. This dog has a fascination with digging out messy diapers and eating the contents. See.... he's special. He too has an uncanny ability to escape from the back yard. He is small enough to fit through pretty much ANY hole in the fence. We've fixed our fence the best we can... but this dog can still escape. He's magic.

Despite his "specialness" we still love him like part of our family. Last week we had to go out of town for a funeral. We had planned to take Odie to the boarder but needed to take the boys to a friend first. We unloaded the van, leaving the keys in the ignition while we took the boys inside, doors unlocked. After a few minutes we came back out to find the van....completely locked. Odie was sitting on the driver's seat wagging his tail blinking at us. The stupid dog had stepped on the lock button for the car and locked us out of the van. The thing about our van is that it has a unique key... one that costs almost $150 to make copies of. Because of this we have ONE copy of the key, that was now locked inside our running van along with our dog. We immediately began to panic. We start talking about calling a lock smith, getting a key code for the van, etc. etc. Then my husband says "Maybe we can call Odie back over to the door and get him to step on the unlock button." While our friend called her neighbor(and a friend of ours as well) to see if he still had a wire coat hanger he used to spring someonelse's keys a few days before. We started calling the dog trying to coarse him back to step on the lock.... no luck. He kept getting sooo close, but never stepped in the right spot. I even called the cops to see if they would help us beings the dog was locked inside. The dispatcher responded by saying "we can break your window." Uh... no thanks. After about 5 or 10 minutes of trying I finally said "if this dog manages to unlock this door, I will NEVER call him a bad name again!" I must have said the magic words. His little tiny paw hit the window down button just enough for us to shove a plastic bat in the window and hit the unlock button. I jumped and clapped my hands like a giddy little school girl. My sister later laughed at what my friends and their neighbors must think of me.
I didn't care! I was proud of my little wiener dog!

Odie the wonder dog saved the day!!! A few days later he got back on my naughty list by eating Zoey's pillow pet... but that's another story.

I love being a freak!

I'm kind of a freak when it comes to certain things.... like lists. I really like to be organized but most of the time I'm not. Lists help me with this. Jon makes fun of me and says that I always make lists but never look at them. Well, sometimes even writing it down helps me to sort things out in my crazy brain.

One of the things I've been struggling with lately is managing my time. I seriously have no clue how I had time to work and be a mommy. Both Jon and I can't seem to figure out where my time has been disapearing to. Well.... I mean.... I spend too much time on Facebook (working on that!) but sometimes it feels like my time just disapears into thin air. This leaves a TON of things left undone and me feeling frustrated and cranky. No bueno.

So, here's what I did: I made a list! Three lists to be exact. One for the things that I need to do. One for the things I have to do (no, it's not the same thing), and one for the things I want to do. Then I pulled out my calendar for the week. I love this calendar it even has a mobile app for Androids that allows me to share all the things we have to do as a family with my husband. It is amazing. Anyway, I took the lists and added the things I HAVE to do (like take Zoey to school, Girl Scouts, Young Womens, Scripture Study, etc)first. Then I put in the things that I need to do (like laundry and cleaning out the garage). Next, I put in the things that I WANT to do (like having dinner with friends, reading, and watching my shows). I found a TON of free time! I'm so excited to see how this works out. Hopefully this will help me to get more things done. I'll keep you posted!

Starting an Additional Blog

Hey guys!



I don't want to be one of those people who are constantly creating new email addresses and blogs and blah blah blah. BUT.... I got this idea for a blog not too long ago and I want to get it going.



I have a couple guilty pleasures when it comes to blogs.

The first? I love to click on my friends blogs and then up in the top right corner of the screen hit "Next Blog". I have found the COOLEST blogs this way! I seriously can sit and click "next blog" for hours. I don't know these people... I've even randomly and anonymously commented on some of their posts. I know it's geeky but what can I say.



Second guilty pleasure? This is a new one for me. I was reading a friend's blog and he pointed out that one of HIS guilty pleasures was to check his "stats". I didn't even know what that meant until he posted that blog. NOT FAIR, CHARLIE! I was totally cool not knowing how many people view my blog. But now that I know how to check, I do it all the stinkin time.



Okay...back to the new blog thingy. Well one day while I was browsing through blogs I stumbled across a blog of a family who had lost their baby over the summer while they were on vacation. I had mentioned this in a previous post a few months ago. This poor family lost their little girl so suddenly and were totally devastated by it. In order to cope with their grief the family started writing letters to the baby as if she were still alive but on a vacation or somewhere far away. I thought it was a great way to deal with such a hard loss. I dwelt on this idea for quite awhile and then I had this thought: I thought it would be so neat for my kids to have letters written by their mommy that they can look back on as they get older, and maybe even after I'm gone. So I wanted to start a blog writing letters to my kids about the little things that are easily forgotten over time. The things that I cherish so much right now. BUT then my idea grew again on me. I don't want to limit it to ONLY my children. I thought I could start a blog of letters to everyone who touches my life.



I'm not FANTASTIC as writing letters, but I do think that I can put my feelings and thoughts better in writing than speaking them. Did that make sense? LOL



So here's the deal, I'm starting a new blog. I'll keep this one for more detailed explanation of things going on in my life, but will probably update the other one more often. Thanks for being such great friends and following my blog. I hope you'll follow this one too! http://http://lettersfromme2you.blogspot.com/

Thanks Guys! I love ya!

You've Got Mail!

Lately it seems like the universe is trying to tell me something about the order of my house. It started a few weeks ago when I spent the entire day cleaning my house from top to bottom, only to have it completely annihilated within a few hours. I was so frustrated I "boycotted" cleaning my house for the next few days. That's when it got really really messy. We're talking out of control messy. Which equaled more and more frustration with the help I've been getting... or not getting I should say.


A few days later I saw a post on one of the blogs I follow with a cute idea of how to encourage your kids to do their part. The post showed little letter sized chore cards that had point values assigned to them. They then had two sets of mailboxes; one for each child and one for the parents. In the morning the mom would put the "letters" into their mailboxes showing them which chores they needed to complete. The mom would then flip the flag up to let them know they have mail. When the chore is complete they put the chore card back into the mommy/daddy mailbox to track points earned. I knew as soon as I read the idea that it would be perfect for my kids. They LOVE to pretend to play mailman! I put this idea on the back burner and continued my daily routine for a few days.


That next Sunday our 1st counselor in YW was teaching a lesson on organization/cleanliness/attitudes. She had the girls (and leaders) do a quick word association with words like Home, Parents, Dark, My Room, Messy. You should have seen the words I associated with my room and messy.... not pretty. One of my answers was literally "Ughhhh!" I knew that I needed to make a change in this home.



Yet again, a few days later my husband and I went to Target to do some birthday shopping for Jon's oldest son, Trevor. When we passed the dollar section I noticed these: (SOOOO EXCITED!) PERFECT! So each of us have our own little mailbox that will have our chores in it. I then went and created a few little letters with the chores I hold my kids responsible for using paint.net and laminated the letters.

I haven't implemented our new system yet because Zoey's been sick all week but I can't wait! The kids are pretty excited too. I'll let you know how it goes!

Kind of a dumb random post but it's pretty much all that's going on in my little life. hee hee I'll write more next week when we get home from our quick trip to Roosevelt.

2010- An Amazing End to an Amazing Year!

I'm preparing my lesson for Young Women's this Sunday and I took a minute to look back over this year. What an amazing year 2010 has been. It's been full of ups and downs and I'm happy to look back and say.... every single minute has been worth it all. (Totally choking back tears as I type this) Our family has been so blessed, I want to take a minute to reflect over each month and how it's made our family and myself so much stronger.

January- With little Tanner B having just joined our family, it became crystal clear that something was missing in our little family. We had been inactive members of the LDS church for almost the entire time we had been married and knew that we could not raise another child that doesn't know his Father in Heaven. Just two weeks after Tanner was born we made it back to church and have only missed a few Sunday's as we traveled or kids were sick. It feels amazing. We have such an amazing ward family who has made our transition so much easier and our lives have been infinitely blessed by doing the things that we are supposed to.

February - With the passing of my Grandma's husband it became even more clear how important it was for our family to get our ducks in a row. In a meeting with our bishop we were able to set a goal for Jon to be ordained an Elder and have a rough goal set for becoming an Eternal family.

March- Jon and I received our first callings since we went back to church. I was called to be a Relief Society teacher which has blessed me in so many ways. I learned so much through the calling and I loved every minute of it. Jon was called to be a Sunday school teacher for the youth. Even though his class is very small, often with only one young man that attends, Jon loves his calling. The mom of the young man has told me how much she appreciates and how much he looks up to Jon. It means the world to us!

April- One of the best months out of the whole year! My dad has struggled with his activity in the church for most of my life. He had not been to church in over ten years. With Jon preparing to receive the Melchizedek priesthood, my Dad had agreed to let us watch General Conference in his home. While we were watching he pulled Jon aside and said "I feel like this conference was written for me. I need to get my act together." Two weeks later Jon was ordained to the office of an Elder. A miracle that I cannot thank my Father in Heaven enough for occurred that day.... for the first time in over ten years my ENTIRE family attended church together. What an amazing feeling to look down the pew and see my two sisters, my nephews, and my parents. Jon's family came down from Roosevelt and his brother ordained him an Elder. I will NEVER forget that Sunday. One of the many reasons my husband is my hero.

May- The most amazing Birthday present and Mother's Day present I could ever ask for: watching my husband bless my two sons. We were not active when Gavin was born so he was never blessed in Sacrament meeting. To watch my husband bless my 3 year old and listen to the words of the blessing still brings tears to my eyes. Yet another moment I will NEVER forget.

June- We took our first official family vacation! We picked up Trevor and took all the kids to Jon's sister's house in Lincoln, NE. where we had a mini family reunion. Jon's mom and step dad came down from New York and we spent the week playing and catching up. It was so great for my kids to get to renew their relationships with their Grandparents.

July- Jon was able to step back from his Vacation Relief position at work and into a regular route. This meant a little less pay but meant much more time with his family. It was an amazing blessing.

August- We hit a little bump on our happy little road. The trial that we were faced with changed EVERYTHING... while it seemed at first like everything changed for the worse... we are beginning to see how Heavenly Father has his hand in all things. We've been able to grow closer to each other and to our Father in Heaven because of it. Always look for the silver lining I guess. We began taking Temple classes to prepare our family to become an eternal family.

September- Jon and I celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary!

October- Gavin turned 4! Jon hit "mud season" and we began using our money in savings to help cover the bills. Jon and I begin to work on tying up some loose ends in our marriage. What an amazing opportunity this has been for us. As I said earlier... through our struggles we are made stronger. We have been able to use our struggles to become closer to each other and even closer to our Heavenly Father.

November- Zoey turns 7! Jon tears his ACL while playing basketball at the church. We are DEVASTATED as he is the sole provider for our family. He receives a blessing from the Elders in which he is told that this is did not happen to teach him a lesson....that this will be an experience that will grow his testimony and faith. BOY WAS THAT AN ACCURATE STATEMENT! We continue to work on our relationship and do the things we know we are supposed to do (pay our tithing/read our scriptures/say our prayers)....... miracles begin to occur..... we get a card from one of Jon's dear family members with just enough money to help us cover our bills.

December- this month has been completely amazing. Again with the tears. On the 13th of December I was sitting in my living room flipping through the phone book looking for a number to follow up on a job interview I had a few days before. The house was very noisy so I grabbed my phone and stepped outside to make a call. I pretty much trip over a huge box filled to the brim with gift bags. Each bag was labeled with a number and a small poem. Every night we open a bag that has something to do with the 12 days of Christmas. There were also a few small gifts in the bottom of the bag for my kids as well as my husband and I. We felt amazingly blessed. A few nights later while attending a church meeting I was handed an "anonymous" Christmas card with a substantial amount of money inside. We again are amazed at the kindness and charity of the people we know and love. On Saturday I had an opportunity to serve along side the Young Women and Young Men of our ward. During a fireside our Bishop and previous Bishop shared amazing stories of how their lives have been touched by service. I could not hold back the tears. We have been so blessed this year by so many people. That night I came home and my husband and I decided that this week, the one before Christmas, we were going to dedicate each day to help someone any way that we could. We volunteered some of our time today to help at the Bishop's Storehouse that provides food to members of the church during times of need. When we came home we found a small envelope taped to our front door. Inside was a LARGE amount of cash with a small note telling us how much we are loved. Tears poured down our cheeks as we said a prayer of thanks. These amazing miracles that have happened over and over again make me view every person I know in a different light. My husband and I can guess or speculate over who did what... but we will never know for sure. And because of that I love everyone so much more and cannot wait for the opportunity to pay it forward and provide a miracle for someone next year.

I love you all and hope you know how much your kind words and support have helped us through the tough times. Jon is going back to work tomorrow (yay!) on light duty and we are going to make it. We always will.

Merry Christmas to you all!

October and November

Holy Moly! It's time for another update! Geez. Where does the time go?

So things have been completely NUTSO in the Stanley household. Our life has been dumped upside down and inside out... but we're still hanging in there!

Jon has been going through a lot lately. We hit the start of "mud season" in the middle of October. We had stocked up our savings account and thought that we would be okay until things picked up after Thanksgiving. On November 2nd Jon went to his usual Tuesday night basketball game at the church. He called me at about 10pm and said that he had hurt his knee and couldn't walk. I have to admit I totally down played his injury when he called. I figured maybe he sprained it or twisted it and would be back to work in a few days. The next day he went to a sports injury specialist to find the extent of the damage.... almost immediately the doctor said he was 99% sure he had torn his ACL. A few days later they confirmed by MRI that Jon has completely obliterated his ACL. In order to repair it they would need to do surgery and this meant he would spend about 3 months out of work. MAJOR PANIC ATTACK! He is the SOLE provider for this family... I don't work at all. Not one penny comes into this house because of me. We do have short term disability insurance, however, it pays us 55% of his wages over the last 9 weeks (remember we were in mud season... the checks were not pretty), we still have to pay our insurance out of each check, and they still take out his 401k and stock plan. Not to mention we had to "eat" the first two weeks after the injury so we wouldn't receive any money at all for at least a month. YIKES!

Admission #2: Financial struggles make me come UNGLUED! I lose it. If we even seem to be low in funds I freak out. This frustrates the heck out of Jon and we normally end up getting into very heated arguments and one of us mad in the other room LOL. BUT this time has been different. Not a SINGLE argument about money. We knew that we had been doing everything we were supposed to be doing.... and that we couldn't do it alone... and our Heavenly Father has provided us with some AMAZING miracles. Everything is going to be okay.

Jon has been to two sessions of physical therapy and his PT has assured us that Jon can be walking without a limp in 1 to 2 weeks! This means he can be released to light duty and get back to work with a helper or running shuttles to Salt Lake. His PT is pretty much amazing. He came in on his day off to work with Jon, offered to work his lunch breaks so that Jon can get in 2 to 3 sessions in a week. That's so awesome to me! We're going to be working super hard to get Jon walking.

Zoey is doing amazing things every day. We are so incredibly proud of her. It completely blows me away that someone so small can have such an amazing testimony. Our ward had a primary program a few weeks ago and Zoey was asked to retell the story of the first vision in her own words. It took a little prompting (she didn't know that the story of Joseph Smith was called the first vision) but she was able to retell the story of the first vision in amazing detail. We've also started letting her take a turn reading verses in our family scripture study at night. Words that she would normally have a problem with she breezes through. We've talked a little to her about next year she will be ready to be baptized and we want her to know that she is making the right choice (her mom is not a member of the church and occasionally takes her to a different church). We encouraged her to pray to her Heavenly Father, just like Joseph Smith, to know that she is making the right choice. She told us that she already knew which church was the true church and that she wants to be baptized next year. We told her to keep praying anyway so that she knows for sure. We are so proud of her testimony!

Gavin is also blowing us away with his grasp of gospel principals. We have him sit on our lap during scripture study and have him repeat two or three words at a time to get through a verse. For the first time ever he has been able to tell us in his own words what we're reading. What a gift for a 4 year old to have! He still has his crazy little personality that makes us laugh every single day. The other day the kids had asked Jon if they could have a piece of candy. The kids came up eating a small piece of chocolate and Jon teased them "Hey! I said you could have candy not chocolate!" Smarty pants Zoey says "Chocolate IS candy". Jon teases them again and says "Chocolate isn't candy, it's a drug!" Without skipping a beat Gavin goes "Mmmmm! We like drugs!" LOL that took some explaining!

Tanner is getting so big! He is crawling over every inch of this house... and he's fast too! He can make it up the stairs almost as fast as the other kids. He is starting to eat like a giant. Yesterday for breakfast he ate a whole pancake by himself. Then for dinner he consumed FOUR jars of baby food. Tanner is so good at mimicking sounds. If someone says "Ow!" or "Hey!" or "What?" he makes the same sound almost immediately. It's pretty funny to watch. He loves music and pats his hands on his lap whenever you sing to him. I can't believe he will be 1 next month! Where did this year go?

Things have been pretty nutso for me as well. Having Jon home every day has been nice for the company but has completely killed my routine. All I want to do is lay in bed with him all day... my house is greatly suffering because of this. Before Jon even got hurt we decided I may need to head back to work. This feeling INTENSIFIED when he got hurt. I've had some really exciting opportunities present themselves. The one I am probably the most excited about is working as a dental assistant for Dr. Jolley's office. I've had one interview so far and waiting to hear back after the Thanksgiving holiday about the second and third. It seems to be a great office to worked for and I feel really good about it! We'll see how it turns out. In October I was released from my calling as a Relief Society teacher and asked to be a counselor in the Young Women's. It's been a lot of fun getting to know the girls and the other leaders as well. I was really scared to accept the calling at first but my husband reminded me of the amazing leaders I had growing up and their lasting effect on me. My life would not be the same without their amazing influence. I hope that I can have half the impact on these girls as my amazing leaders had on me.

Thanksgiving was just not the same this year. We always have dinner with my family at my mom and dad's. The night before Thanksgiving my dad had been having some dizzy spells. Three or four throughout the day but nothing that had kept him from going to work. That night he was walking into their living room and passed out. Luckily he didn't hurt himself when he fell. Now my dad is not exactly the picture of health. He's over 250 pounds, diabetic with high blood pressure. So when he passes out it sort of freaks us out a bit. Mom called the doctor and they advised her to take him to the ER. Everything seemed to check out okay.... blood sugar, heart rates, everything normal. The doctor still wanted to keep him overnight just to be sure. Because of this, Dad was stuck in the hospital while we were preparing Thanksgiving dinner. He called mom around noon to come get him but when she arrived they wanted to do more tests on dad which could take up to 2 to 3 more hours. They called us and demanded that we eat without them... it just wasn't the same. He came home as we were finishing our meal and seemed to be okay just a little tired. He will be on a heart monitor for the next 30 days and has been instructed to hit the record button whenever he has a dizzy spell. Scary stuff for us Johnson girls. We lost our Grandpa very suddenly in 1998 and now whenever someone tells us that "everything will be just fine" we can't help but second guess.

That about sums it up. I want to post some more about Jon's birthday present but my children are ripping apart my living room as I type.... I will post more hopefully today!

Thankful for my life

I have so much that I want to blog about. The last month has been a whirl wind of craziness but I just want to take a quick second to write a message of gratitude.

I stumbled across a blog today of a family who lost their little girl over the summer. While they were vacationing, their little girl drowned in a swimming pool. The blog is a way for them to sort through their emotions and feelings and press forward with faith. They write little letters to their daughter who has passed about how much they miss her and what they're doing to help themselves heal. I couldn't get past the first post. I was a wreck and I have never even met these people. I cannot begin to imagine how terrifying and soul altering it would be to lose a child. I know that I could not be strong enough to go through what these amazing parents(and so many more who have lost their children) have gone through.

My life is so blessed. I have three amazing, beautiful, healthy children who are the light of my life. They make me laugh, smile, and I enjoy my life so much more because they are in it. They are selfless and give love to everyone so freely. They are innocent and compassionate without being judgemental. They are quick to forgive and are so understanding. They are loyal servants of their Father in Heaven and they were sent here to bless my life. They are everything I want to be. I am so proud of them, everyday they surprise me even more. Mommy loves you, Tanner, Gavin and Zoey. Thank you for making me want to be a better person.