4:30

I'm 16 again. It's a beautiful summer night, my mom always has the heat on, she's always cold. I open my window like any other night thankful for the sweet relief the cool summer wind brings and climb in bed. I say my prayers and turn out the light...something doesn't feel right. The spirit tells me to get up and close the window, I try to ignore it, I'm hot and uncomfortable. The spirit tells me more urgently, get up close the window and lock it. Images of Elizabeth Smart flash before me eyes, and I get up and close my bedroom window and lock it. "Now lock your bedroom door", I listen and walk over and lock my door. Immediately I feel peace and collapse into bed, asleep within seconds.

Out of a dead sleep I awake panicked. My heart is racing, I feel the breath being squeezed out of my chest...I look at the time 4:30 am. "Go back to sleep!" I tell myself. But something is wrong and with every fiber of my being I feel it. "Listen," The spirit is almost shouting in my ear, "sit up and listen." My stomach is rolling at this point and I sit up to listen to the silence. 30 seconds pass when I hear it, the steps of a thief padding down the hallway.

My hallway. My breath catches, I know something is wrong. It's not my mom or anyone else I know, I can tell by the way they are carefully stepping. I can't breath. I feel sick. I listen as the steps come closer and closer to my door and hear the familiar *creak* just on the other side of the door. My door. I know they are there just on the other side of my door, my locked door. I start praying fervently, what do I do. Do I scream and wake everyone up? I know I should, but I feel like I'm going to pass out and I'm paralyzed with fear.

My door knob moves, I'm sick. "Please Heavenly Father, help me!" I scream inside, I feel so defenseless. No sound escapes my lips, I will myself to scream out. They try to move the door knob again more insistent this time, pushing on my door trying to force themselves in. Gripping my covers, holding on for dear life I start crying...begging for Heavenly Father's protection when I hear the voice of an angel.

My mother yells out "WHO'S THERE!" Feet pound down my hallway and the thief is running out the door. My mother's familiar steps are in close pursuit and I hear them both run out of the house and two cars pull from my driveway racing. The second car only moments after the first.

It is dawn before my mom is home again. She followed them with the lights off to her car but she didn't catch them. Like a snake they slinked into the darkness, eluding any chance for justice.

When my mom got home, I heard Chuck say from their room, "Is Nicole okay?" My mom pops the lock to the door, and as it flies open I know everything is okay. I crumble and I know my mom was watching over me, she was the angel I prayed for Heavenly Father to send. She tells me everything is fine, cradles me and tucks me in. It will be hours before any of us rest, years for me.

8 years. 8 years have passed, and I still find myself waking up at 4:30 am. Heart racing, listening for any sound that they are back. Even with Chase by my side, I shake in the dark. Many nights, I take Ruark from his bed and lock him in the room with Chase and I because sleep with come no other way. Other times, I know morning will start for me at 4:30 because somewhere out in the darkness I know that there is a thief who broke into my home and came looking for me. Someone tried to take me from my warm bed and my family. I know who that someone is...but it's not enough to know who he is. It's not enough to know where he is, locked in prison for so many heinous crimes I can't count.

I'm 16 again praying for strength and relief for hours of the night. I lay awake keeping watch over my most precious jewel Ruark. I am no longer scared for myself, that feeling was gone the moment I held him in my arms. When the sun dawns, I once again feel safe and give in to rest that has escaped me for so long. Hours go by like days when you feel the way I do at 4:30. My angel mother heard the shouting of the spirit, she was on the Lord's errand that night as in so many days and nights that followed. I am so thankful for my mother because I truly can say I don't know where I would be right now, without her.

Our House!

Two years ago I was halfway through my pregnancy with Ruark when I received a call from my sister. Her friend from work was selling his house and she told me I HAVE to see it. It was appraised for 260,000 and they were selling it for 200,000. I had no desire to leave our house on 11th street, we were just getting ready to paint the nursery, but my sister was insistent.



I followed my sister to what is now our home...Chase and I had driven down this same street and stopped at this very house and said how much we'd love to live here. They were just building it at the time and we were so disappointed. It was located in the area we wanted at the end of a cul de sac. We imagined how nice it would be to have our kids run and play here, but after a few minutes in front of the home we drove on and eventually bought our home on 11th street.

I pulled up to the house and I couldn't believe it was the same home. I walked in and it immediately felt familiar. It was so beautiful and we were in love. We went to the banks the next morning and we were immediately approved, unfortunately the market was slow and it took us nearly a year to sell our home, and it's been a year since that time waiting for the self-employment requirements to be fulfilled. We've been here for almost a year and a half before our loan finally went through. On June 31st, 2010 we bought our home one day shy of our 5 year wedding anniversary. We couldn't be happier!

Instrument in the Lord's Hands

I have a good friend and neighbor who offered to give me piano lessons for free!! She is an AMAZING teacher and I am learning so quickly! It has always been a dream of mine to play the piano. This picture is acutally a piano I bought when I first started playing, but it was never sent so Ebay refunded my money, so for now I'm playing on a keyboard.

When Chase and I were first married I got a phone call from the Primary Presidency, they said they had really been praying about who should fulfill this calling and they told me they felt very strongly that I should be piano player for the Primary, they asked if I would except this calling....

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SILENCE

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"I would never turn down a calling, but I don't know how to play the piano," was the only thing I could reply. They couldn't believe it because they had felt so strongly that this was to be my calling. They told me they must have been mistaken.

FAST FORWARD

1 month ago I was sitting in the Bishop's office getting a team teaching calling in the Primary, teaching CTR 5. When they asked if I could play the piano, I laughed and told them the story of what happened nearly 5 years before. The 1st counselor of my Bishopric relayed a very interesting story that happened years ago when he was in the Bishopric back East.

This particular ward needed a new piano player for the congregation, every Sunday. The Bishopric prayed and felt very strongly about a young man. They called him in and asked if he would accept this calling...he sat there in shock and said yes.

What the Bishopric did not know was this young man had never played the piano before. Monday morning he set up piano lessons and picked up beginning books. Each week he learned a new song to play and would play for the congregation, but eventually he was able to play a list of songs. They offered to release him because there were many piano players in the ward, he declined feeling that he was needed to fulfill this calling.

He challenged me to start learning to play. That was all it took, I started that week. Janina and I start out every lesson with a prayer and I truly believe the spirit is helping me understand and progress far more quickly than I could have ever hoped on my own. I am so thankful for this opportunity to develop new talents. Now I'm just hoping to be an instrument in the Lord's hands.

He's a big boy now...

After 16 months Ruark finally decided he was done nursing. I love nursing, he loved nursing, it was such a bonding experience. I decided he would have to be the one to stop because I couldn't bring myself to be the one to say no. Chase would joke I would have to go to kindergarten with him. Finally the night of May 1st came and Ruark didn't ask to nurse, days went by and he never asked so he's done.

I'm feeling more like myself! I have more energy, I'm not hungry anymore, and I love not having huge boobs!!! I am dying to ride a roller coaster. Now of course you can ride one while you are nursing, but my hormones made my heart race even thinking about stepping foot into Lagoon. Now my hormones are back where they haven't been in over 2 years. I thought when I stopped nursing I would be ready for another baby because mine would be all grown up.

So not true, the only thing I can think right now is "am I ready to start all over again?" For the time being, no. Chase is excited to have me back enjoying the same things I used to and for now I'm going to take the summer and enjoy every minute!

I'm getting the hint...

For the past few weeks Ruark does the funniest thing. I tend to leave my bras around my bedroom, I take it off right before bed and throw it on the dresser or night stand. I'll admit I hardly ever make it to the drawer, this has never been a problem before now.

If Ruark finds my bras anywhere, even the laundry he drops everything and comes running as fast as he can with my bra and wants me to put it on. I tell him what a good boy he is and thank him. He runs away happy as a clam. I will admit I've walked around my house with two or three bras on at a time just to make him happy.

The other night Chase was trying to put Ruark to sleep. I was catching up on some much needed mommy time, relaxing in the bathtub. Ruark could see me from the bedroom and was screaming and screaming for probably 10 minutes. Finally Chase put him down to see what he wanted, because he never acts like that. Tears streaming down his face, and trembling he toddles around my bedroom picks my bra off of the floor and brings it to me in the bath. I took it from him and told him thank you and what a good boy he is. He nodded his head like he knew he'd done a good job walked back to Chase climbed into his arms and went to sleep immediately.

We laughed, but it made me sad. Maybe he thinks I'm not taking good enough care of myself so he feels he needs to do, maybe he's just trying to tell me to pick up my clothes. Either way I'm so thankful he's my son and he loves me so much. Whoever marries my son is one lucky girl.

Potty Training

So the other day I put Ruark on his potty. I was running around collecting laundry when I walked by the bathroom, Ruark was looking down so I knew he was peeing. I thought I would put the clothes in the wash and run back to give him his reward. While I was starting the washer I heard the toilet flush. "Oh great", last time he threw my IPod in the toilet (which is ruined), I tore through my front room afraid what I would find.

Ruark had peed, gotten off of his potty, opened the big toilet, disassembled his toilet, poured the contents in the toilet and flushed it without spilling a drop! I was amazed! Surely my son must be brilliant, I am still convinced that he is. He's only 16 months old, potty training is going great, hopefully by 18 months he'll be done!

Baby Shower

This weekend was the baby shower!!! I'm so glad to have it over with and be able to move on to more projects!! These are the winning prizes from the games we played. I gave everyone magazines and about 10 minutes to go through and pick out eyes, ears, hair, nose, all the facial features they think the baby will look like, the mother-to-be picked the winner!

The second game we played I had everyone guess how big they thought Sadie's belly is. I gave them ribbon and they had to guess, her sister was EXACTLY right! Good guessing!

These were the party favors, everyone took these home. They are cleaned out baby food jars that I filled with dirt and flower seeds. The seeds attract butterflies and hummingbirds. I wrapped them with ribbon, attached these cute bees I cut out at the craft store and covered the baby jar lids with scrap booking paper and mod podge :) A lot of work, but everyone seemed to love them.

Tissue paper, if I never work with tissue paper again it will be too soon!!! No it wasn't that bad, I just need a break from all the tissue paper pom-pom's we made. We strung them from our fan to make a chandelier. I LOVED it, I never wanted to take it down!

My beloved diaper cake! I loved making this cake!!

We had yummy food, this fruit salad looked SOOO good, unfortunately I am DEATHLY allergic to Kiwi fruit, so I was unable to eat it, but everyone else raved about how good it was. We also had yummy chicken salad sandwiches, green salad, chocolate cake with marshmallow frosting and lemon bars for dessert.

I bought these beautiful goblets and serving dishes from Wal-Mart. I love them, they are so pretty and went perfectly with the theme!

The pretty plates!

These are the silverware. We wrapped each silverware set with the buttons and ribbon we made, it looked so pretty. Some people took them home because they loved them so much :)

Our beautiful Sadie, so close to delivery!

She received so many wonderful gifts, the diaper raffle was a hit! Unfortunately I didn't snag any pictures of the prize. It included the "bee movie", treats and all kinds of goodies. In return, Sadie took home 13 packs of diapers!!! Wow what a great start!

I had many people ask if I was a professional party planner, which was a great compliment. I do love throwing parties and how I would LOVE to do it for a living!!! for now I am thankful to have had the opportunity to throw this shower for my sweet sister.

I feel so lucky she's even asked me to be in the room when she gives birth, and throughout her labor!! I am so excited, this will be the 3rd labor I've attended, not counting my own of course. I can't wait to throw another party and am looking for any kind of excuse for the next one!