Artist Anyone?

Hailey has been painting a lot lately. We both love it, it keeps her busily engaged and I guess when she gets board of paper paintings she is creative and expresses it on her body. Hopefully this is the only form of body art she will have:) When I walked into the kitchen she said, "Mom don't get mad I painted with the colors of the wind. (Yep she took that line from Pocahontas. For those of you who don't know Hailey is Pocahontas and has been for about two weeks. The latest Pocahontas episode happened at my parents home. Hailey was watching a movie and Bub went to check on her. He looked around to find her on top of my brothers punching bag just crouched like a gargoyle (sorry I don't know how to spell that). When Bub asked her what she was doing she stood on top of the punching bag with her head an inch from the ceiling and jumped with her arms behind her while looking up at the ceiling and fell onto a lovesac. She was pretending to be Pocahontas jumping off of the cliff into the water just like on the movie.

On Sunday we were going for a family drive when Bub and I started listening in on Hailey's conversation to herself. By the way we love doing this, she says the funniest things. But this time we were amazed to find that she was talking about Joseph Smith. We decided that the lesson in sunbeams must of been about Joseph Smith that day. Well, as we continued to listen we heard her say, "I love you Joseph Smith." Awe, so cute were my feelings until they were interrupted by, "I love you to Pocahontas!" Then the light dawned, she wasn't talking about Joseph Smith, she was talking about John Smith.

I did it!

Yeah, I did it! I'm an Registered Nurse and start my new job with IHC Home Care tommorow. Thank you everyone for your prayers. Love you all!

Kicked in the butt!

I got to talk to my Dad before he went to the Huntsman Center today. He not only looks great with out hair and is proud of having a Jack Bower scar, but I was excited to hear how he is dealing with all of this mentally. My Dad told me, "Today is the day cancer gets a kick in the butt." You go Dad. Love Ya!

Family!

I love this picture! Very few things come close to the importance of the family unit. I love my family! The First Presidency and Council of the Twelve Apostles proclaim that "The Family" is ordained of God. With this knowledge, we know that the plan of happiness allows family relationships to be continued throughout eternity. In the Proclamation to the World, we are told that part of Heavenly Fathers plan is for his children ( all of us ) to gain a physical body and gain earthly experience to progress toward perfection and ultimately realize our divine destiny as an heir of eternal life. Thus, gaining earthly experiences are a beautiful and precious thing. I hope that we can all remember this as we experience success as well as hardships and trails in our lives.

At first I did not notice the framed picture of my family in the background. That is our family eight years ago. Eight years ago we gained earthly experiences day to day that strengthened (whether it be hard or simple) our character, our knowledge, and our testimonies. I am thankful to my Heavenly Father for his wisdom in knowing that our experiences difficult/simple & easy are for our own good. I learned today that we should look on past experiences with gratitude, knowing that our Father in Heaven has been polishing us. We can know with conviction that we have not been left alone. Today, we can be determined to move forward and meet our earthly experiences with faith and determination as we endure to the end while keeping His commandments we can be assured of exaltation!

Updates on my Dad!

Hi everyone, just wanted to let you know that my Dad has joined the blog world. You can view his blog by clicking on my link "Dad & Mom". He will be continually updating you all on the happenings of his life, thoughts, and inspirations. Love you all and thanks for the continued prayers in my Dad and our families behalf.

Family Time on Easter Sunday!

This was the best Easter our family has every had. We got to spend a lot of time together. We learned how we strengthen each other when someone is feeling down. We have been able to share our testimonies and our deepest thoughts with one another and have grown closer together as a family. Easter dinner would not be the same if everyone wasn't present. So, we took our dinner to the hospital and ate with our Dad. It was awesome!
Some updates on my Dad:
My Dad is being discharged today and coming home from the hospital. Yeahhh!!! We are so excited to get to have him home again. He has had a great appetite and has been keeping his nurses busy walking him multiple times a day. We all knew that this situation would not keep my Dad down for long, he is an athlete, a fighter, a Wilson, and our Dad. The plan now is to come home and to continue recovering from surgery. Then the first week of April he starts his radiation and chemo treatments.
Again thank you all for your prayers and support. This is going to be a long hard process for my Dad and our family but we feel comfort with everyone's prayers. We could not ask for better family, friend, and neighbors.

Easter Sunday!

Nobody hurt your necks over these pictures. I didn't have time to turn them. Anyway, this has probably been the best Easter our family has ever had. We were able to spend a lot of family time together over the weekend. Our testimonies of the Savior, his sacrifice, and resurrection has been enriched this Easter weekend.
Bub and my sister Eliza set up the egg hunt for Hailey. It was the first year Hailey understood what she was supposed to do. It was fun to watch her. Every time she found an egg she was so excited.
Of course Bub hid things in trees where Hailey could not get to them. All the boys thought it was pretty funny.
While Hailey was looking for more eggs my brothers would get eggs out of her basket and hide them again. The hunt went on and on and on.

Thank You!

I just want to thank everyone who has been praying for my Dad and our family. It is an amazing feeling to feel everyone's prayers and support. You all are really helping us get through these times. Thank you so much! We love you all!

Please Pray!

My cute Dad has just been diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor and is going into surgery on Friday morning. Please keep him in your prayers! Thank you and we love you all! Love you Dad!

Cooking is a given talent!

One of my goals for this year was to finally learn how to cook more than a weeks worth of meals for my family. Most people who know me are aware that cooking is not one of my talents. I have had some success which helps me push myself to reach my goal. I even made a book full of three months worth of meals and a grocery list to go with each week. I pinpointed that I don't enjoy cooking because when I try to make something I realize I am missing an ingredient. Hopefully my book can help me overcome my lack of creativity in the kitchen. It has been going okay however within the last two days I have had 0% success in the kitchen. My mom gave me this really easy bread recipe so I decided I would try it. Turns out while the bread was baking I was finishing laundry, bathing Hailey, and trying to decide where to hang a self. Yep, I forgot I was even making bread. I don't like to waist things including my time ( hence this situation) so we tried to eat the bread. It was hard as a rock. Anyway, I decided I better start making dinner, just an easy pasta. While waiting for the water to heat, I went to my room to watch a small part of Dancing with the Stars. I looked over into my kitchen, smoke everywhere. I ran in there right when I saw my burner spark into a flame. No worries the apartment did not burn down. I smothered the fire and it was out. Anyway today Hailey wanted to make cookies. We made peanut butter cookies and yes they burnt too. So tonight for dinner, pizza it is!

Summer Time In Logan is Beautiful!

So I guess you could say we are seriously "trunky" for summer time. We try to spend as much time outdoors as we can but it has been so cold, being outside isn't happening as often as we would like. All you Loganites now how this is. These are some family pictures from the summer of 07' and they remind me of all the fun and warmth summer brings. I am excited to go for walks, bike rides, to play at the park, go to the pool (everyday would be fine with me), go hiking, camping, star gazing. Anyway my list could go on and on. I guess spring comes before summer, but both seasons are welcome as far as the Longenecker's are concerned. Let it be Spring!

TAG

Tag....I'm it! My sister-in-law Jennie got me a while back but it looks like I missed the tag until now. SORRY! Anyway, I am about to tell you all what is in my purse. Bub knows this is a scary and kind of embarrassing situation. It really does not matter how big or small my purse is, it just accumulates junk. So here I go...

Two pairs of sunglasses
Ibuprofen
A dentist bill
One old checkbook without anymore checks in it
One new checkbook with checks in it
A bunch of pictures I picked up from Sam's club
Hand sanitizer
A monthly planner
Keys ( I don't know what they go to, truly they are in my purse from when Hailey was a baby and I would give them to her to play with):
Asthma medicine
A piece of a puzzle ( I put things in my purse when I find them and I'm away from home so they won't get lost, they just never make it out of my purse).
WIC packet
Pay stub
2 hair pins
A Dora the Explorer hair elastic
nursing scissors
And the best part, a ticket from some Logan Police man for not stopping all the way at a stop sign at 5am after I got off a bad night at work.
The next best part, I've got to get going to work right now so all of this stuff just went back into the black hole, my purse.