Grandpa VanDenBerghe

In Loving Memory

My wonderful grandfather passed away on December 15, 2010, from the effects of cancer. He will be sorely missed.
We were set to leave for England that day, so I knew that we would miss his funeral that weekend. Fortunately, because we knew that missing his funeral would be a possibility, we were able to visit him one last time the Sunday before he passed away. I was worried that he would either be asleep the whole time, or that he wouldn't recognize us even if he was awake, but he was completely lucid and talked to us about out trip, and about Poppy. The sweetest part was watching Poppy lean over and grab his hand to say goodbye to him before we left. I am so glad that I have some fond memories of my grandpa, and that he was able to meet Poppy and know her for a time, even if her memories of him will be very limited.
My grandpa was always one of my greatest supports, and one of the best examples for my siblings and myself. He instilled in me a desire to serve a mission, which I knew I would do long before the time grew near. I am also grateful that he was able to be our temple sealer when we got married in the temple, and that he was able to be at Poppy's blessing and get to know her some. And my best memory so far, and one of the things I am still most thankful for, was a blessing he gave me about 3 years ago. Paul and I had been left devastated after failed IVF, a doctor telling us we would never be able to conceive children naturally, a couple of invasive surgeries, and 3 miscarriages. It got to a point where I felt like I wasn't sure if we should give up, but didn't feel ready to consider adoption yet. We decided to get blessings from my grandpa because he was someone that I always looked up to most, spiritually. I had faith in him, and I wanted a priesthood blessing from him. I remember him telling me in the blessing that we would be blessed with children, and that it would be sooner rather than later. He told me that I would be healthy enough to do this, if I obeyed the Word of Wisdom, treated my body right, and listened to what my doctor told me to do. It was only a few months after that that I found out I was pregnant with Poppy, and was amazed when my doctor told me that everything looked great and that my hormone levels were normal. And now we have a beautiful, healthy, happy little 23-month-old! That experience restored my faith, and I will always remember what my grandpa has done for my family. I really miss him, but look forward to the day that we will meet again.

Thanksgiving and Family Pictures

It seems we've been lazy again, and haven't been keeping up on our blog like we should - which is hard, because then it's difficult to try and remember everything that's been going on in the past month or so. But then again, I suppose the blog is more of a journal for us anyway than it is for other peoples' reading pleasure.
So what have we been up to? Mainly, we've been trying to keep up with work and church stuff. Right now, Paul is filling in as Interim Director at CAP Utah because his boss is relocating to Denver, so he has been ridiculously busy and has even fit in a trip to Kansas City. As for myself, work is still the same, but I have been serving as the primary president at church, which is actually kind of a lot of work. Who knew? I guess anyone who has been a primary president.
Poppy has started doing really well in nursery and really likes it now, except for when certain boys start pulling her pigtails. She talks more and more, and can say all of her cousins' names, and repeats a lot of what Paul and I say now. It still melts our hearts when we ask for a kiss, and she plants one right on our lips. Which is one of those rare occasions where she actually does what we tell her to do. She can definitely be stubborn when she wants to be! The stubbornness is apparent in the photos -- she can pose and be a ham if she chooses to be, but if she is forced into taking a picture in the freezing cold at Daybreak (see above), she will definitely rebel!
We are preparing to visit England from December 15th to the 29th, and are very excited to be spending Christmas with Paul's family, which will be a first for Poppy and me. Poppy will be meeting some of Paul's family members for the first time, including her brand-new twin cousins, which will be so fun. We're still extremely nervous for the long plane rides, but if we can survive that, we can survive anything, right? We have our movies, toys, snacks and benadryl ready!
Thanksgiving was fun and we were able to spend it at my parents' house with all of my siblings and their kids, and my first-ever pumpkin pie turned out deliciously! All in all, the holidays so far have been very relaxing. Everyone in the family is doing well, except my Grandpa VanDenBerghe who has been in the hospital again and is very ill. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers. I can't help but think about him right now, since tomorrow is Dutch Christmas. I have so many great memories with him and my Grandma, and Dutch Christmas was always one of the best times of the year for me. So, I really hope he gets better soon!
We wish all of our friends and family a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year!

Family pictures at Daybreak = really cold!

Getting started early!

Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma and Grandpa VanDenBerghe's house.

Our little baker.

Putting the star on the Christmas tree with Daddy.

Trunk or Treat! (and our last Halloween themed post)

So here are just a couple of pictures from the Trunk or Treat that we went to last Saturday (for those Brits reading this that do not know what a Trunk or Treat is, it's kind of like a car boot sale but instead of selling random junk you park up and give out candy as the kids go from car to car - it's basically an easy way to trick or treat that is perfect for little kids -like Pops- as it is earlier in the day and much less walking). Anyhoo we went along, handed out candy and Poppy filled up her bucket, the only downside was that it was pouring with rain, so we only stayed for about 15 minutes (just enough time to get lots of sweets) and headed home. Once the rain stopped Anna and Poppy went out and trick or treated our street, while I stayed home and answered the door approximately 650 times! Poppy got lots and lots of sweets, which is now sitting on the conference table at my work as Anna banished it from the house. We had such a fun Halloween, Poppy really seemed to enjoy it.

I know that all we talk about on this blog is Poppy, but seriously, she is such a funny, sweet, entertaining little girl. The latest developments are that she can say Edison (her cousins name, I guess Grandma was telling Edison to stop doing something yesterday and kept repeating his name). Poppy also can do head, shoulders, knees and toes. Although she pretty much just does head and skips right to the toes, where in fact she says shoes (but close enough). Also she is doing so much better in nursery, she stayed the whole time last week and seemed to have fun. Oh and one last thing the other night I had gone out and when I came back in she said "hi dada" it was the cutest thing. She is just so fun - we love her lots!

More Pictures of Our Favorite 20-month-old

Here are some cute pictures we took of Popsicle yesterday...

Trick-or-treating at my office - she loved it! She even walked down the halls saying, "Chick-O-Chee!"

Rémi Jet & Rafe Beau

Congratulations to Adam and Louise on the arrival of their twins last Saturday, Rémi and Rafe! They were each just over 4 pounds, which is actually a good size considering they were about 7 weeks early. Poppy's excited to meet her new cousins!

The Very VanDenBerghe Halloween Party

We held the first of our Halloween festivities on Saturday night, which was lots and lots of fun! We had pizza, played games, ate way too much, and laughed. So, it was a success. All of the kids looked adorable. Poppy isn't a huge fan of her hat (well, she likes it if she sees it and decides to put it on herself, but she HATES it when you try to force it on her head). Here are some pics of our adorable little cowgirl and her equally cute cousins. Next up: Ward Halloween Party and the Trunk-or-Treat.

Yee-Haw

Getting ready to party

Can you tell what everyone is??

Yummy goodies. I don't know how great my pumpkin cake looks, but hey, I'm not on "Cake Boss"

Decorating pumpkins with toddler-friendly stickers. We opted for this version, since Poppy + paint and/or knives = disaster

We are playing a mummy game where I wrap Poppy up with toilet paper. She didn't really get it.

Have I mentioned that she likes to stick weird things on her head?

This is where she says, "BOO!"

Paul was pretty proud of this decoration.

Lovely October

This year has just flown by!! I can't believe it's October, as I'm typing this. And, finally, some lovely, cool fall weather to accompany it! Still, it seems weird that in another 2 months will be Christmas and the start of a whole new year - and a soon-to-be 2-year-old!!!!! I am actually reeling as I realize that Poppy is 20 months old now. There is no way that she can be that old, right?? Her favorite words of late: "Show", "No, no, no, no, no", "Night-night".
As you can see from the pictures below, I had the fabulous opportunity to participate in a 10K today with my sister, Alison. To give you a brief history of my abilities as a jogger, well, there isn't really one. I've never loved running very much, or felt I was very good at it. For example, as a missionary, I found that you could either get stuck with a companion who loved running and insisted on waking up at 5:30 to go (and since you can't leave your companion, you get dragged along, willingly or not), or you'd get a companion that was vehemently against running. I wasn't really either, but I had both types of companions. At one point in the mission, I was part of a music touring group called "The Musical Witnesses of Christ", and was able to visit several cities in the mission with a choir of about 14 missionaries doing concerts. It was awesome. We all lived at the mission president's home for about a month during this time, and there were a few days where I begrudgingly went jogging, because all 3 of the other sisters were going, so really I had no choice. I wish I could say I was awesome, but I'd be lying. I was the one at the back of the pack that the mission president felt obligated to run alongside, speaking words of encouragement. "We just have to make it to that lamp post up there", he would say. I was wise to this trick.
Needless to say, being able to do a 10K is something I'm pretty proud of, because in all honesty I have never been able to train this much to even go 3 miles at a time, let alone over 6! I'm pretty happy. Thankfully, Alison kept me motivated at the end, reminding me of the free bagels at the finish line, and telling me to keep my head down on the hills. I was pretty excited about the part of the race that weaves through the beautiful gardens at Thanksgiving Point. Turns out that was the worst part, for a couple of reasons. First of all, because the paths are not very wide. The race organizers decided that the 10K-ers and the 6K-ers would meet up halfway through and run together. Doesn't work well on narrow paths with a couple thousand women. Secondly, if you've ever been to the gardens there, you may remember that the beginning of the path spirals downhill for a good while until you get into the small valley of flower beds and gardens. Fun going down, not so fun going up. The best part of a race? The part where the volunteers (in this case, cub scouts) hand out water cups, and you get to drink up and toss them because no one cares that you're just throwing trash on the ground. Be gone with you, Cup! Alison and I did the race in approximately 1:08 (though I can't be sure, since we were toward the back when the pack started going). I wasn't too excited about that, since I thought for sure that we could run it in less than an hour - and hey, we didn't stop once! - but according to some other ladies who had pedometers and iPhone apps tracking the distance, turns out we did around 7.15 miles!! No wonder I was dying at the end! Good thing I had Captain Alison to push me along. My mom pointed out to Alison and me that her best 10K time was 48 minutes. Thanks for that, Mom. Looks like we have more work to do!

While I may look like I'm doing jazz hands, I assure you that I am not.

Finally, the end is in sight!

The Victors

Waiting patiently for Mummy

Still waiting patiently...

Our pretty girl - almost 20 months old!

Usually, when you ask for a kiss, she'll plant one right on you. But the other half of the time, she will push your face away and say "No!" Can't blame her, I guess.