the hedin family

here's a picture of our family. notice anything?

that's right...we're expeciting. we are so excited to welcome number two into our family mid-september. i will be 15 weeks on friday and couldn't be feeling better!

reunion

things are back to normal in our house again. katelyn has been reunited with her elephant, and she couldn't be happier.

as soon as he got to our place, we opened up the box and let her do the unwrapping. it was so fun to watch her as she slowly opened it up. first she had a confused look on her face, but it quickly changed to a surprised look then a very excited one. i don't think i need to explain much more
because the pictures explain it all.

here's what i got. i apoligize for the quality of the pictures. the unwrapping went quickly, so i was snapping pictures just as fast.

farewell dear friend

this past weekend we lost katelyn's beloved elephant. anyone who has ever been around katelyn knows that she rarely goes anywhere without her elephant. he is truly her best friend. here's how it happened (by the way this is loooong) :

katelyn and i had gone shopping with some friends at a couple of different stores. it was a rainy afternoon, so i decided not to argue with katelyn when she wanted to bring elephant inside with her. i just wanted to get inside quickly.

we went to our first store without any hitches. it was the second store where we lost elephant. i was the one holding and keeping track of elephant while katelyn ran around the store with friends playing with toys. i was also the one who set elephant down and forgot about him. it wasn't until it was time to go that i realized i no longer had elephant in my arms. i quickly ran back to the place i had him last, fully expecting to find him, but he wasn't there. at first i didn't think anything of it. i thought i must have moved him or dropped him somewhere else. so i started searching the whole store. it didn't take long to search because it was a very small store, but elephant was no where to be found. i really was baffled. i searched and searched that store for another 30 minutes. i asked the employees if they had seen anything, but they hadn't. by the end of my search i was completely confused and frustrated. katelyn didn't realize at the time what was wrong, but i knew she would when bedtime rolled around.

i left the store crying, mainly out of frustration and guilt for losing katelyn's favorite toy. i got in my car and prayed that we could find this elephant.

katelyn did great that night playing and having fun...until it was time to go to bed. we put her in bed and she immedietely started looking around for elephant. she started patting her bed and asking, "where is it?" over and over again. we tried to explain that elephant was gone, but she didn't understand. she wanted to get out of her crib to search, but of course he wasn't anywhere around the house. after trying to help her understand again, we finally put her back in her crib and closed the door. she cried for 10-15 minutes, then finally fell asleep. after she went to sleep i decided to check the internet to see if i could find the same elephant. i had no idea there were so many stuffed animal elephants out there, and not one was the same.

that night i couldn't stop feeling guilty about her elephant. i felt so bad that i had made katelyn cry when she hadn't done anything wrong. sure, i make her cry all of the time when i say no or make her share her favorite toy, but this was different. i sat on the couch for a long time thinking about that elephant. i couldn't stop thinking about the stories i grew up hearing from gene r. cook about prayer and finding things you have lost. i finally decided to pull out my book, receiving answers to prayer, by gene r. cook. i read of the personal examples he shared and the ways he talked about preparing yourself for prayer and receiving answers to prayer. i applied these principals he talked of to the best of my ability. i can honestly say i felt much better after i took that time to ponder. i really felt like everything was going to be okay. tyler and i then decided to go back to the store the next day to take one more look for the elephant.

before searching the store a second time, tyler and i prayed once more to find the elephant. i just remember telling the Lord that we knew that He knew where the elephant was. but if it wasn't meant to be found, then we would accept that answer. we went into the store and searched once more, but to no avail. i admit i went home a little disappointed. i truly thought we were going to find him.

that evening, as i was yet again thinking about elephant, i decided to check the internet one more time. i typed in the exact same thing i had typed the day before. one of the searches came up from ebay. i clicked on it, and amazingly, it was the exact same elephant. i was elated. i made tyler come and take a look and we hurried and bought the elephant.

i know that this was a direct answer to my prayers. i'm grateful that we have this wonderful principle where we can talk to a loving Father in Heaven who cares about the same things we do. i know it was just a dumb, dirty elephant, but he meant so much to our little katelyn, and after losing him, to me. i'm grateful also that we didn't find him right away so that my faith could be strenghthed and i could take the time to really prepare my mind and heart for prayer.
i'm pretty sure that elephant will be a constant reminder of this principle, and i'm grateful for that too.

we haven't yet received elephant in the mail, but we will surely video record katelyn's reaction with her beloved elephant.

keys+katelyn=not good

this is how i spent my saturday afternoon. how about you?

• drop tyler off at medical college for some good study time. plan to pick him up later.
• head out to joanns for some fun, crafty shopping.
• get to joanns quickly. awesome. find a killer parking spot. even better.
• look back at katelyn. she reaches for car keys. give her a big smile and hand 'em right over.
• get out of car. go to her side of the car.
• try the door handle. hmm. the door's stuck. that's weird.
• try the door handle again. realize the door is not stuck. it's locked. realize how dumb i am for handing katelyn the keys with a lock button on them.
• start pounding window. she'll eventually press the unlock button right?
• pray, pray, pray.
• call mom. don't want to bug tyler. eventually call tyler and admit my mistake.
• more pounding on the window. katelyn is now pressing the lock button over and over. causes loud honking noise everytime it is pressed. wrong button!
• a kind lady sees me, asks if i need help. heads inside to call police.
• police come, try to break in. no luck.
• tyler gets a hold of our good friend, marissa. she jumps into her car, drives to my house, begs downstair neighbors to let her in and grabs our spare car keys. she heads out to joanns.
• police take over pounding the window.
• katelyn thinks this is a game. laughing at police pounding on window.
• more laughing from katelyn.
• marissa arrives. yeah! open car and get katelyn out. she couldn't car less.
• police leave...laughing. i'm sure if i get pulled over by them i'm good.
• go inside and shop with marissa. phew.

thanks again marissa! we couldn't have done it without you.

chocolate does equal happiness

i love watching katelyn eat those fun little treats that make her so happy. the kind where she can make a huge mess and no one cares. the kind that really isn't that good for her. the kind that brings that smile to her face.

we were having a particularly good morning so i was feeling extra generous. when i opened up the food cupboard to find something for her to eat it was like the pudding was calling my name. it was the perfect treat for a good little girl. and once she saw me pull out there was no going back. she was too excited.

so i got her mostly undressed, stuck her bib on and let her have at it.

i think in the beginning she forgot i was there. she was completely enthralled in her chocolate. like mother like daughter.

if it wasn't so unhealthy i would probably give it to her everday just for that smile.

when she was through, she even made some funny faces for me. she is never willing to do this for me! that's why i say chocolate = happiness and we all know when we are happy we are more willing to do things for others, right?

i PICK you valentine

have a happy valentine's day!

another test week under our belts

we love life after test week. don't get me wrong, we still have a great time during those two weeks because we stay busy with our friends. but it really is such a wonderful thing to have tyler back and available again. he is such a great husband and dad, we can't help but miss him when he is gone! plus, it means that we get out and do some fun things together as a family again.

we started off our test week with a delicious brunch. the kiddos played while the women chatted. but isn't it this way everytime? gotta love it. we also had an ice cream gathering one evening and a couple of different play dates throughout the week.

the kids found a prime spot to play. under the kitchen table. it was a perfect hide out. they were all together and none of the moms could see what they were doing.

byrdie was so nice to have everyone over for ice cream. aren't we lucky to have all of these wonderful women around? i'm not sure what i would do during test week without them. these are many, but not all of the of the lds first year wives.

once test week had come and gone we all celebrated the night away at a cinderella birthday party. the company was fun and the food was delicious and the birthday girl was as cute as ever.

the birthday girl, eliza.

this picture doesn't really show much except that she was there at the party.

the next day a bunch of us headed out to tour the sprecher brewery. this is a locally owned brewery that makes both beer and soda. as we were checking in they saw our utah driver's license and made the comment that we wouldn't be charged as much for the tour because we wouldn't be drinking the beer afterwards. i guess they've had some other lds people visit before.

it was a fun little tour and just the right amount of time for katelyn.

if the above picture wasn't big enough, well then here you go.

after the tour you get to drink as much sprecher soda as you want. we even let katelyn have her fair share, which was definitely a mistake. she was on such a sugar high after that!

don't let this little smile deceive you. yes, she was happy while playing in this fun sprecher car, but as soon as we took her out, she threw a HUGE tantrum.