Easter Weekend

Our Easter weekend started on Thursday, April 1, for us. Many of you know that April 1 was the year mark of losing our baby girl, Angelina. You can visit http://letterstoangelina.blogspot.com to read more about approaching April 1 and what we did, etc. But one of the things we did, which has been something we have wanted to do forever but didn't really know how to do it, was make a sign to put on the bench Taylor gave me last year for Mother's Day that sits by the waterfall in our back yard. We think it turned out perfect!!

It reads: "In Loving Memory of Our Angel, Angelina Joyce Housley, April 1, 2009" We love it!!!

Then on Saturday, I got a crazy hair to throw a neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt. I had the idea because my sister-in-law does it every year with her neighborhood--when I thought about doing it here, I needed some encouragement so I called one of my neighbors to see if she would participate. That really locked me in to doing it! I didn't think we had too many houses in our neighborhood, but when you have to go door to door to drop off fliers, you begin to notice how many houses there really are! I think in the end there were close to 86 houses that we had to individually deliver fliers to!! Isaac was all about helping me for the first 10 houses or so, but then he wanted to sit in the car! :)


We had over 300 eggs and a great turn out. It will be a great annual tradition for our neighborhood!! The only downside was that it was windy and about 50 degrees, which wasn't bad, but with the wind, it was cold!!

We had food afterwards which provided a great opportunity to meet our neighbors.

After the Easter Egg hunt, we jumped right in the car and went to the hospital because my sister had her baby!!! Heather and Tyson welcomed their first child, Katie Sue, at 2:49 a.m. on Saturday, April 3. Katie weighed 6 lbs 8 ozs and was about 19 inches long. She is SOOO adorable!!

The two Fink grandkids!!

Me and my sis with our kiddos.

A close up of Katie. She had to go to the NICU for a day...it sounds worse than it was, but they took the necessary precautions and had to stay an extra day in the hospital.

Then on Monday, mom and baby came home!! She is soo precious!

And while we were at the hospital...Isaac found ways to entertain himself! ;)

On Easter, Isaac woke up to the goodies we got him in his Easter basket. Here he is showing me one of the cars he got.

Then off to Nana and Papa's. It was General Conference for our church--which is a worldwide meeting for all where our leaders speak to us on several topics, you can go to www.lds.org to read more about it--between sessions my parents gave Isaac a basket as well. He thought it was pretty cool.

Isaac giving Papa a hug to say thank you

After the basket, they did another Easter Egg hunt for Isaac in their basement. I love this picture of Isaac looking at my dads mountain lion while grabbing the egg.

This is his "searching" pose....love it!

Isaac got a Little Einstein DVD...have I mentioned lately that he LOVES Little Einstein??? He calls it "pat pat pat" and asks to watch it ALL the time.

And that was our Easter weekend. It was pretty busy but yet low key. Can I put those two phrases in the same sentence?? :) Between General Conference, the neighborhood Easter Egg hunt, and going back and forth to the hospital, we had a great weekend filled with friends and family. It is wonderful to be at a point where Isaac can start to understand holidays.

We are so silly....

The other night...Isaac and I were in a bit of a silly mood... We, yes, I said "we", put his pajamas on our heads and had a ball! Taylor was on the phone while we did this, so we were getting a good laugh out of trying to make him laugh but not distract him too much... hahaha...

Oh it is fun to have nights like this!!!

Alright...time to update!

I know, I haven't posted for about a month now, and the reason for that is because I have totally slacked on taking pictures. So I tried to do better, hence a post. :)

We've been plenty busy, so to start...here is a fairly recent (within a few weeks) picture of Isaac. He is almost 2 1/2 years old!!!!

This past weekend, my good friend Jodie and I put together a Post-Valentine's day video-taped scavenger hunt with some couples in our ward. Unfortunately, a pretty good snow storm came in Thursday and Friday so we changed our plans last minute. We stayed at our house and played a game--while it wasn't the original plan, we still had a great time!!

The next day we were busy with getting a free pretzel for "Free Preztel day" and attending the AFA v. New Mexico girls basketball game. Isaac sure loved it--even blew a kiss to the Air Force Academy's mascot, the falcon; however, when the mascot came to sit behind us, Isaac FREAKED out, so the falcon left. It was pretty comical! Apparently Isaac likes the falcon from a distance, but that's it! After the game, we went home to put Isaac down for a nap. Once he woke up we went to dinner with some good friends, the Sidwell's, and then went bowling with them. Isaac LOVED bowling! He even bowled a strike to boost my score!

And the last bit of update, we had my sister--Heather's--baby shower last night at my house. I couldn't have pulled it off without the incredible help of my mom!! We had a great turn out and Heather got loaded with cute clothes! She is 35 weeks and is having a girl, who they will name Katie Sue.

...now I don't feel so bad about how long it has been since I last posted... :)

My prayer was answered

I had a really neat experience today, so in the spirit of remembering, I thought I would post it.

It all started this past Saturday...a toothache. A terrible toothache. The pain climaxed for me on Sunday evening when it was too painful to eat dinner. I called my good friend in our ward--who is a dentist--and asked what their availability was the following day. (We had talked at church and she said she would let me know what the availability was on Monday, so it didn't come out of the blue). They were so good to me and said they could see me first thing Monday morning. Side note: I don't have fond feelings when it comes to going to the dentist, so the fact that I was willing to go shows that I was in a lot of pain.

So, Monday morning came. The dentist looked at it. I had no sensitivity to cold, and after some x-rays, it looked like I might need a root canal...a.ka. I had a dead tooth. He was 66% sure that would be what was needed and referred me to a root canal specialist.

I was having a hard time with the fact that I was going to be having a root canal before my 24th birthday. It solidified the fact that I need to take better care of my teeth and get over my dentist fear. But really, a root canal at 23??? That just sounded pathetic to me!!

The pain was so annoying and unbearable that I wanted the root canal--anything to make the pain go away, I would do it! ...at least, that was my thought yesterday.

Last night, as we were preparing to go to bed, the "fear of the dentist" started to creep in and the thought of a root canal started to freak me out. I don't know why, but it did. Taylor was trying to calm my fears by saying there was a 33% chance it could be something else....but I was still scared.

As I prayed last night, I don't remember exactly what I said in terms of the root canal...perhaps something like, "please don't let it be a root canal!!" but I do remember something I prayed for specifically....I prayed that the dentist would be inspired with what was wrong and that he would heed whatever prompting came to him.

This takes us to today. I went to the dentist first thing this morning. As he was examining my tooth, he told me that I had a hole in my filling. So, long story short, he said that I had a cracked filling and that by just repairing the filling (take it out and put a new one in) it could fix my pain. We have known this dentist for years and so he takes pretty good care of us.

He is a talker, so in a sense he tells me what he his thinking. He said that a lot of dentists may just do the root canal so that the 'tooth can no longer talk,' or so there won't be anymore problems with it. But that what he was going to do was more of a challenge because my filling was so deep as it was....he took the filling out and it was so deep that it exposed a little bit of my nerve. He had his wife come in and give a second opinion and at one point said that they are doing what they would do if I was their daughter.

Overall, I didn't have to do a root canal. I still had to be numb, I still had to have a filling put it, but, a filling is a lot less expensive than a root canal. As I was sitting there in that chair, I wasn't focused on the drilling and the fact that I was at the dentist, instead I was praying prayers of gratitude that the Lord had answered my prayer.

I truly am grateful that the Lord knows our fears and our heart. I know prayers are answered. I know prayers may not be answered as quickly as we would like or how we would like, but I know they are answered. And today, I am grateful that mine was answered in the way that it was because it was a big deal to me and meant a lot--and I know the Lord knew that, because he knows me.

The Random Post

Nothing too new to report--at least nothing blog worthy. I sure haven't posted much recently, so I decided to post some random pictures we have taken over the past few weeks. We got a new camera for Christmas, so we have been trying to figure out how it works.

These are especially for our Utah-loving friends and family....picture in Isaac's BYU pj's. :)

These were taken this last weekend--our weather has been beautiful!

Isaac's "hut-hut-hike" face

Playing in the dirt in the lot next to us.

These are random pictures taken the past few weeks...this one Taylor took at our house.

I took this one at my parents house.

And then Taylor took this at our house.

The Month of December

Wow, it's been a long time since I last posted. Thanksgiving, in fact. There are a few reasons in regards to the lack of posting, 1) We had to get an external hard drive before I could download pictures to the computer, 2) I haven't taken many pictures and 3) we've just been busy. So here are some highlights from our month of December.

We started the month off by seeing Santa Claus at a work party--look at this Santa, he is authentic! Isaac did well, wasn't all chummy and friendly with him, but he sat on his lap!
Then we played in Papa's office! (My dad's office) Isaac knew right where the candy was...notice the chocolate smile.

We had a ward party, where Santa came as well. We have such awesome youth in our ward, and this particular night two young women took Isaac around and got him a bell and some candy--they are so awesome and Isaac loved them!

We went to a white elephant party with some friends in the ward--sure wish I took pictures of this one! :) Since we spent the actual Christmas day in Utah, we spent Christmas Eve with my family before we left. Isaac got a new pair of Cars pajamas and slippers, he loves them!

We flew to Utah on Christmas Eve and arrived in time for the annual Housley cookie contest.

Christmas morning at Grandma's house.... I love this picture of Isaac!

Later Christmas Day, the cousins and aunts and uncles came over. We had everyone but Jordan and Erin and Kim and Theran--we sure missed them!
Isaac riding the "horsie."

All the boys in Taylor's family (minus Theran since he couldn't because of work) had a beard-growing contest for three weeks. Here they all are on the last day of the contest...who do you think won??
Saturday evening we had a girls night out amongst the sister-in-laws and Suzanne...again, sure wish I got pictures. We went and had manicures/pedicures and then went out to eat...we will definitely be making this night a tradition! :) And while the girls were being pampered, the boys watched the Jazz game in SLC. We had four fun-filled days in Utah--we sure love being with family and seeing you all!!

We came home on Sunday night, and on Monday night we celebrated Christmas with my family. I got a picture of Taylor opening one of the gifts I got him--a down comforter mattress topper--wahoo! what he always wanted...haha! :)

We had a great Christmas and thank our family for making it so!!

After all our Christmas celebrations, Taylor and I celebrated FOUR years of marriage on December 29. Part of me thinks that is so long, another part doesn't. We decided to switch off years on the planning, so this year was mine (so that he gets the big 5 year next year!) :) We had a wonderful day together as he took off half the day from work. I am so grateful to have him by my side! I wouldn't want it any other way....I love you Taylor!!

Last but not least--New Year's. We were in Colorado and went out to dinner with my family and then over to Taylor's aunt and uncle for games. We had SO much fun and decided at midnight that we should watch a movie. Why we do this to ourselves, I don't know. We stayed up until 2:30 a.m. just to be awakened by Isaac at 8. Nevertheless, we were zombies all New Year's Day.

Here's to hoping 2010 will be a great year!