Fall 2011 Update

Good morning friends! I guess every blog post is going to start with a comment on how long it's been since I blogged last... Oh well. Life is busy! That is my excuse. There are a great many things that have changed in the Griffith household so I will try to touch on a few of them.

First, and most important, Michaela is now 17 months old! She started going to the Nursery class at church and is loving it so far. Mommy is loving it even more because I get to sit and listen in Sunday school and teach my Young Women's class without having to worry about entertaining her at the same time or asking friends to take her to their class with them. Thanks to all the wonderful friends who have been helping me out so I can teach my class on Sunday! Miki is the pride and joy of our life. She started walking at about 15 months old on August 14, 2011. She has been go go going ever since. She is such a love. She takes great care of her stuffed animals and dolls. She spends time putting diapers on them, covering them with blankets, feeding them bottles and giving lots of hugs and kisses. She even brushes their hair and shares her own sippy cup with them. She is very meticulous. She likes to have things a certain way. She hates to have her hands dirty whether it's food or dirt or whatever. She is very careful when she walks and runs too. She looooves playing outside. This beautiful Tennessee Fall weather is great for playing in. She loves to collect leaves, sticks, seeds and other things that she finds outside. Rocks are the newest conquest. She likes to hand them to me and keep them in her little hands. The other day she was sticking a rock in her mouth and I said, "No Miki. If you put the rocks in your mouth we will have to throw them in the trash." A minute later I heard her in the kitchen saying "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you." She was throwing the rocks in the trash and saying Thank You after each one went in the bin. She is so sweet. I love watching her learning about the world. She is discovering something new each day. She understands so much and she says so much now. She likes to call Matt "Mamma" and he haaates it! I think it's hilarious. She knows he is daddy. She even calls him that sometimes but she calls him Mamma a lot more. She cracks me up! We are excited to celebrate her 1 1/2 year old birthday next month. Time continues to fly as we watch her grow and change daily. What a blessing she is in our life!!

Big changes have taken place in my life as well. Our babysitter had to move with her husband to Utah in July kind of suddenly so Matt and I talked and made the decision that I would quit my job and stay home with Miki. The pieces fell into place quickly. My last day at the day care was July 27th and Miki and I enjoyed 3 weeks together in August before we all went home for 2 weeks for Labor Day with our family in Colorado. Now I am watching 3 little kiddos all between the ages of 4 months and 13 months. I get to be here with Miki and bring in a little money for us and it has been a great blessing in my life. I love being here with Miki and getting to really spend this time in her life with her. I now have 3 young women at church that I am enjoying getting to know. We have weekly activities at my house and we meet each Sunday for great classes. I learn so much from them and my testimony of my Savior and the gospel grows each week. I still get frustrated with being away from family but I am so blessed with wonderful women in my Branch at church who have become my friends. I also have my very close friends Kelly and Brittany who I am so thankful for. They have become my sisters-away-from-my-sisters and I am so grateful for that! I am loving finding a little bit of time to read and always looking for new things to read. I have a book club that I am involved with each month and I look forward to those times with friends to catch up and have a great time.

Matt is busy as always. He spent the summer playing 4 or 5 gigs a week with his band, Brookline. They had a great time and played for a lot of parties and restaurants. The gigs are slowing down as the weather gets colder but they have some exciting ones coming up soon. I guess the biggest change in Matt's life is that his job at DSI is being eliminated as of December 1st. He is going to spend time after that concentrating making music his full time job. He will be gigging with the band and trying to get into the studios to record more vocal demos. He was able to record at the famous Blackbird studios this summer for a friend of his. He recorded the vocals for 4 original songs written by his friend. He worked with amazing musicians and a great producer/engineer who has worked with Frank Sinatra, Gavin DeGraw, Carrie Underwood an many others. He learned so much and made some great contacts. 2 of the songs that he recorded have been picked up by Taxi and will be playing in restaurants across the country. So if you are out to dinner, you may hear Matt's voice! One of the songs is also being considered for a movie! We are very excited about all of the changes in our life coming around the corner.

We are continuing to marvel at our blessings. We thank Heavenly Father every day for the blessing of a home and an income that we are able to live on and provide for our family. We look forward to our family growing in the future.

There are a lot of frustrating things happening right now in our life and our family and friends lives. We just want to say that we love and support everyone and we are here to be friends and family to everyone who needs us. We pray for you all everyday and we love you all. Heavenly Father will see us all through these times of loss and frustration. Turning to each other and to Him and the scriptures will help pull us all through these difficult times.

Love you all!

A looooong overdue update

Well friends, since we have last seen each other a lot has happened. Let me esplain... no there is too much, let me sum up. Matt turned 25, I turned 27 and Michaela turned 1! We have purchased a home in Nashville, TN and have lived here now for about 10 days. We moved out of our apartment and stayed with our (awesome) friends Grant and Brittany Comp for just over 3 weeks. We also had a weeks-long visit from some of our dear friends from Colorado, Seth and Carrie Schaeffer! Whew! Ok, now I will elaborate.

First of all, the decision to buy a house was not made until the beginning of March. Our lease at our apartment was due to be up on March 31st... so we asked for a one month extension and started looking for houses. We looked at about 1,000 houses online. Or I should say Matthew looked. He has a little more computer time than I do so he did most of the research for us. We ended up looking at about 6 houses in the flesh. The house we chose was one of those 6. After a (long) ordeal and a lot of waiting, we signed the papers and became homeowners on May 27th! We now have a 3 bedroom 2 bath house with a sunroom, fenced backyard and one car garage with a ton of storage. And we are paying less than we were per month in rent at our old apartment. Can't beat that!

We had fun celebrating all of our May birthdays but, of course, the one we were most excited about was Michaela's! We can't believe our little girl is one year old already! We had a little party for her and she did very well eating her own cupcake. She didn't even get that dirty and she LOVED being the center of attention! We are blessed with great friends and family who got her some amazing gifts. New toys, books and clothes. What more can a girl need? She is so much fun right now! She is crawling on her hands and knees and she still throws in the army crawl once in a while. She has this little scrunchy-faced grin that is maybe the cutest thing I've ever seen. She has been using signs since she was about 9 months old and she still uses them along with sounds that sound more and more like words each day. She says "mama" "dada" what sounds like "thank you" and "bye bye" "I love you" and a few other things that sound like words. She also responds like crazy to words and phrases. The other day I asked her to show her shoes to her babysitter, Monica and she held up her foot. I also will ask her to use her hands and she does. If I tell her "No" she will stop doing what she is doing... most of the time. She is such a good natured little girl! We love her so much! She is now also sleeping in her own crib in her own room and, for the first time in her entire life the other night, she slept through the night! You can imagine how this made her tired mamma and daddy feel. We are so proud of her. She is becoming a Toddler now and it's amazing to see how much she absorbs in the world every day. She is very snuggly and cuddly. She gives us kisses with full puckers and kissing smacks. She hugs just about everything from her baby doll to her daddy's iphone. She pats your arms when she hugs you and says "Oh!" She is the joy of our life. We are hoping to add to our family in the next year or so. No concrete plans yet though. We are enjoying our time with Michaela. It's weird to think that when we have more kids she will be our oldest child. Huh, funny how that works out

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Matt continues to play his songs as much as he can and we are hoping that the right person hears them soon. He is still playing with his band, Brookline. They are playing a lot more this summer all around Nashville. He is working at DSI still doing cash posting as his day job. He works with some of our best friends our here and so he enjoys the time that they all get to spend together.

I am still working at the day care center for now. It is not my first choice to have to work but it is what we need right now for our family. Michaela has an amazing babysitter that we met through my church. We are truly blessed to have someone to trust her with every day.

We are settling into our house and new routine. Looking forward to some visits from family this summer. My sister, Kelli, is coming this weekend and staying for 4 1/2 days!! I can't wait and I am sure we will blog about it.

This little ache in my heart never goes away as long as we are away from our family but it gets put on hold when they come to visit so, thank you family for making plans to come see us this summer! You have NO IDEA how much I need it!

Love you all.

Thoughts

I guess a blog is supposed to be a place where you can post your ideas and thoughts on what's going on in your life or what you are thinking about. Or just a place where you can vent when you feel the need. Well, although there are a lot of things that I would love to vent about in my life right now, I am going to take this opportunity to share a small blessing I received in my life tonight. I was taking the dog down for her nightly bathroom break. The weather this week has been really nice in Tennessee. I walked outside and glanced up at the sky as I often do. I did a double take as I saw the most amazing sight. The moon was shining more brightly than I've ever seen. The fluffy clouds were surrounding it in a circle and there was mist floating in the air. The cool crisp air and the gorgeous shining moon kind of put some things in perspective for me. As I said, there are a lot of things in my life that are not going how I would like them to right now. There are a lot of people that I love who are struggling and going through a rough time. Consider yourselves all hugged from me. But that's not the point of this post. I was gently reminded that there are beautiful things in the world. We are all a part of a great and amazing plan on this earth. And when someone as insignificant as I am is having a hard time, Heavenly Father will send us a small reminder that we are special and important to Him. Even if that reminder is just a breathtaking sight in the night sky. I wish I could adequately describe the feeling that I had as I saw that gorgeous moon. Even with all of the stresses that we experience in this fast-paced world, we are not alone and there is a big wide world out there where our problems are not even an issue. I felt like I was given a breath of fresh air. I have always thought the moon was amazing. How it controls the tides and gives us light in the darkness of night. I love the little reminder that there are always beautiful things to see in this life. Whether it's the smiles of my daughter or the beauty of the moon or the feeling I get when Matt tells me he loves me, I feel so blessed in the small things and sometimes it's hard to remember those small blessings when we are in the midst of big trials. All I know is that I am so happy I had to take Elle down tonight so I could see that moon and receive that reminder from Heavenly Father that I am important to him. You are all important to me and I hope this thought lets you know that you are all special and loved and that sometimes it's the small blessings in life that make all of the difference. Goodnight!

Everything's Bigger in Texas

Including, it seems the ice storms. But I'll get to that in a minute. I am happy to report that I was able to get in some much needed sister and new niece time this last week. Michaela and I hopped on a plane last Wednesday the 26th of January and flew to Fort Worth Texas to visit Jen and Nick and my new niece Quincy Anne Sadler. For those of you who don't know, Jen had Quincy 7 and a half weeks early on December 11, 2010 and they spent a month in the NICU. They are now home and pretty well adjusted to this amazing new family life. I went down there with the expectation of having a glorious visit of not leaving the house and we pretty much succeeded. We went to Target one day for a quick trip and that was it. We literally were in the house the entire rest of the time! I loved it! Quin is now just over 6 pounds at 8 weeks old. She is tiny and I love her! Michaela was very curious and she kept reaching out to grab Quins hand while it was waving about. Jen and I were so anxious to get the new cousins together. We both agree that they should be related in a way that is closer than a cousin. I mean, Jen is my sister and best friend and so it only seems right that our daughters should be sisters too, right? Well, hopefully they will be good friends as they grow and we can thank modern technology for things like skype so we can be close while we are far away. My sister is reveling in this new role of mommy and I love to watch her with her new blessing! I know how Michaela has changed my life and what she has taught me about love and I am so glad that Jen gets to experience that for herself now too! My brother in law Nick is an amazing and attentive daddy. He feeds and burps and changes diapers and snuggles and loves and cleans the house and feeds the dogs and gets bottles ready and helps Jen while she's pumping and many many more things. He is a rock star husband and I am so happy that my sister has found such a great man to love her and take care of her. Jen and Nick are experts on preemie babies now and I would refer anyone who has a similar situation to them for advice and empathy. They are amazing people and I am blessed to call them family! The visit ended with a bonus 2 days! We got iced in. You could have ice skated on the inches of ice in the street in front of the house. It was crazy! I've never seen anything like it. Oh yeah, and there is this little thing called the Super Bowl that is pretty much all anyone on the news talked about and how the weather was going to affect the Super Bowl and the fans and the city...blah blah blah blah blah my water?! I can understand all of the excitement and there were actually fans outside at the NFL experience in the 15 degree weather. Yeah, that would never happen. You couldn't pay me to stand there for hours in the frigid air to stare at a bunch of NFL memorabilia. Ok, maybe you could pay me. Anyway, what a grand and glorious trip it was to sit around the house with our babies and watch movies and HGTV. Thank you Sadler family for the great trip!

So, after a big travel debacle, Miki Jo and I made it home on Thursday night at 8:30. (We were supposed to get here at 5:30.) Matt picked us up at the airport. I almost forgot what he looked like it had been so long since we had seen each other. We came home and got in bed and put Miki to sleep and then fell asleep by 10:45 and then I got up and went to work on Friday at 6:30 am. Blech. And now, Matt is in Oklahoma playing a gig at a friends dad's 50th birthday party! Yay! Ok, maybe not yay. We are home with our crazy dog elle who has an 8 inch stapled up incision on her back from recent back surgery. (Don't even get me started!) And gonna just relax with friends and wait for daddy to come home on Sunday. If he gets stuck in OK because of the weather I seriously will throw a fit. I think I may go get my hair trimmed today. I need to lose like 10 pounds in the next 3 weeks too because.... da da da daaaaa I GET TO GO TO UTAH FOR LISA'S WEDDING!!!

Oh yeah, Lisa is getting married to Hondo Guzman on February 25th in Provo and I am going only because I have the best friends in the world who payed for a ticket for me and Miki Jo to fly there for the wedding! Missing a sisters wedding was not going to sit very well with me and we knew we just couldn't afford it after me being in Texas for this last trip and Heavenly Father has blessed us with loving, kind, giving people who will certainly be blessed for their generosity! I promise to pay it forward someday and also to repay the kindness as soon as possible. Thank you my dear friends!

We continue to work hard and pray for Matt to be successful this year with his music career somehow. He is working on selling some of his songs and possibly doing a tour this summer. We both feel like this is the year that something grand is going to happen. We don't know what but we will work hard and hope that the fruits of our labors are good. Thank you all for your continued love and support! Signing off for now! Love and blessings.

Another Year Come and Gone

Happy New Year one and all! We hope the end of this year was a good one for all of you! For our part, we are pretty excited for a new start and a new year. The end of 2010 was kind of a rough one for our family. A lot of our dear friends were going through tough times and our family on both sides got some bad news and suffered some losses. It was not a great December for us in that way and we were missing our family and friends in Colorado really bad. But, when the Lord closes a door, somewhere He opens a window and there are positive things that are shining through the darkness. We are grateful for the example of our close friends and family and their Faith in hard times.

Enough of that. :) So, what have we been up to besides all of that? Well, we were slightly stressed about getting together a good Christmas for our baby girl since it was her very first one. Thank goodness Santa knows how to deliver by using friends and family to help us out! I know that Michaela wouldn't have cared if she got anything for Christmas this year but, as a new mommy, I would have been devastated if we couldn't do anything for our precious girl this year. Luckily we didn't have that problem. We did have to brave Wal Mart on Christmas Eve Eve... it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. Most people must have already had their shopping done by then. Well, we ended up having a wonderful, quiet Christmas here in Nashville. It was just Matthew, Michaela and me and we opened presents and Miki played with the paper to her hearts delight! She got clothes and toys and Matt and I got slippers, movies and a few much needed articles of clothes. We loved the quiet Christmas morning in our pj's with our baby. Next year we are hoping for a not-so-quiet Christmas morning with our family in Colorado! Let's all shoot for that!


Our year has ended very differently than it began. We have an amazing 7 1/2 month old daughter who was only a little baby bump last New Years. She has completely and totally changed our lives for the better. I can't imagine not having her in our lives and we look forward to growing our family even bigger in the years to come! Right now she is so much fun. She can sit up on her own and she loves banging toys together and yelling constantly. She is soooo happy all of the time! She loves meeting new people and she wasn't even afraid of Santa! She is so amazing and we love her so much! What a blessing to be parents. Our Heavenly Father has certainly blessed us this year. We are excited for a new year and new possibilities. Thank you everyone and we love you so much!