It's a Boy!!!

We would like to introduce you to the newest member of the Larson family. This was by far the best Christmas present and I have ever received. I finally talked Dennis into getting a dog and I don't think we could have found a better one. A friend of a friend of mine was getting ride of their dog due to a few reasons (pregnant wife, small house...) I just happened to get an email from my friend on Thursday night about a dog that someone was giving away (this goes along with the husbands great gift of getting things for free.) So Friday night we went to go see the dog. I fell in love instantly. The dog is trained, well behaved and so loveable, not mention has a great personality. It just the last 48 hours we have had him, we have seen alot. He likes to put his front paws on the bathroom counter and look at himself in the mirror. We turned the music on last night and he stood in front of the speakers and tilted his head and just looked at them. He loves to dive over our couch and bed. We let him sleep with us last night and he hogged the bed. He slept in this morning until 10 and we had to drag him out of bed after we got up. Sorry to those of you who were waiting for the moment when the Larsons would no longer be able to sleep in- it doesn't look like that is going to be a problem!

The little boy who owned him named him Monster so we are keeping his name since he is 6 months already and knows his name. He is a pure bread blue american pit bull terrier. He is a really great dog- people are afraid of pit bulls because they have a rep of being mean dogs but its all in the way the owner treats the dog. Monster is a great dog and we are glad to have him in the family. We took him on a walk tonight with our neighbor and their dog and they loved it. They chased each other through the field and had a blast.

Christmas 2007

We had a very busy Christmas. First, Shanna and Deanna spent Friday,Saturday and Sunday night with us. We went to dinner, did some last minute shopping, made cookies, and watched movies. On Sunday, we went to our old ward and then off to the Cilleys to have Christmas with Donnas side of the family. All 20 of us were there. We exchanged gifts, ate dinner and then were surprised by Joseph arriving home from the Marines a day early! On Christmas Eve- we lounged around the house and then went to see a late night movie with Joseph and Andrea. We saw I am Legend- very interesting... not sure it was worth the time. Christmas morning we went to Donnas and opened our gifts, at breakfast and then headed over to Uncle Dales to eat some more. Dennis was very surprised to get the ladder he asked for from his mom along with a remote control VW bug. It was fun to see the 3 brothers outside Christmas morning racing them down the street.
We really enjoyed spending time with the family and remembering the true meaning of Christmas.

Also, Dennis and I started a tradition when we got married. We didn't have alot of ornaments for our first Christmas many years ago. We decided back then to buy each other an ornament every year. This year Dennis decided to be funny and bought me the biggest, ugliest, yet funny ornament I have ever seen. Just look at the picture and you will agree with me.

More books please!

I LOVE to buy new books. I enjoy snuggling up with a blanket, a cup of hot cocoa and a good book. 2 of my students gave me very generous gift cards to Borders and I went to buy some new books today. The last 2 weeks Of December at work are "child care" weeks. That pretty much means there is no curriculum and just babysitting. So, today I decided to do a movie marathon with the kids. We watched movies from 10:30a.m- 4:30p.m- stopping to eat snacks and lunch of course! The kids really enjoyed the relaxation and I really enjoyed reading 14 chapters of The Wednesday Letters- I am almost finished.

On to my Borders adventure.... I could stay in that store for HOURS- I guess its a good thing I was on my lunch break and was on a time limit. I went in the store with $60 in gift cards to spend. I am proud to say I only spent $30 of it today. I want to go see the movie P.S I Love You- we didn't make it there this weekend so I bought the book instead. I also bought- Family Wanted, Stories of Adoption- a topic that interests me at the present time. P.S I love you is a 500 page book and Family Wanted has 300. Let's see how long it takes me to finish the two. Now where is my hot cocoa?

21 Pieces of Advice to Never Forget

ONE. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.

TWO. Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their conversational skills will be as important as any other.

THREE. Don't believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want

FOUR. When you say, "I love you," mean it.

FIVE. When you say, "I'm sorry," look the person in the eye.

SIX. Be engaged at least six months before you get married.

SEVEN. Believe in love at first sight.

EIGHT. Never laugh at anyone's dream. People who don't have dreams don't have much.

NINE. Love deeply and passionately. Y ou might get hurt but it's the only way to live life completely.

TEN. In disagreements, fight fairly. No name calling.

ELEVEN. Don't judge people by their relatives.

TWELVE . Talk slowly but think quickly.

THIRTEEN. When someone asks you a question you don't want to answer, smile and ask, "Why do you want to know?"

FOURTEEN. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

FIFTEEN. Say "God bless you" when you hear someone sneeze.

SIXTEEN. When you lose, don't lose the lesson .

SEVENTEEN. Remember the three R's: Respect for self; Respect for others; and Responsibility for all your actions.

EIGHTEEN. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

NINETEEN. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

TWENTY. Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice.

TWENTY-ONE. Spend some time alone.

All I want for Christmas is........

1. A puppy

2. A new job

3. For all of our bills to go "POOF"

Called to Serve..... in Young Womens!

So I was called as the Young Womens advisor for our ward. I am absolutely thrilled! I am very excited to get to work with the youth and fufill a part of my patriarichal (sp?) blessing. Apparently, I am the only advisor in the ward- I am looking forward to learning all about Young Womens- given the fact that I joined the church after I would have been able to be a part of the program. I went to Young Women in Excellence tonight and all I can say is WOW! This is really where the Lord wants me to be. It feels so right!

The dark side....

With fall here and winter fast approaching, I decided to do something drastic and change my hair color. This time I let Dennis pick the color and my good friend Lindsey worked her magic. This is what she came up with. She is brillant!

Domestication...

I have decided that I need to do more things like sewing, gardening, and crafting. So a few weekends ago not only was I crafty in creating a "family board" at Enrichment night but I managed to plant some tulip bulbs in our front walk way and I will be starting on sewing a blanket this week. I promised myself that I would start scrapbooking before the end of the year- not sure if that's a good idea for the busy holiday season but I am daring!

I did it!!!!

I finally read an entire book! I was in the midst of reading like 5 different books and I finally finished one. I think I was able to do it because I find the topic very interesteing right now. This book, Secret Thoughts of an Adoptive Mother is amazing! I really enjoyed reading it and it made alot of sense. Now if I could only finish Accepting Joy & Wednesday Letters.........

Plesant Surprise

I came home from work on Tuesday to a painted guest bathroom!! I was planning to spend my Saturday at home painting it but since Dennis was home all day he decided to surprise me and give me my Saturday. He said he didn't want me to have to spend my day off painting when he could do it while I was at work! He earned some extra brownie points. Now its on to the kitchen... or maybe I will make him do it while I am at work!

First Field Trip!!

We took our first field trip last week!! We visited Kuipers Apple Orchard. We got to see how they make cider, eat apples, learn how to pick apples and take a hayride. It was a great day and my kids were perfect- being 4 years old and their first trip ever!

Adoption

We have some exciting news, we have begun the adoption process. We will keep you posted on how everything goes. Hopefully in the next year we will have a new born baby :)

Another dose of depression

So, since no one really reads my blogs any more I feel that posting the way I feel has helped me cope with the issues in my life and so what if someone else reads it. I hate writing and blogging helps me feel better- it's a free form of therapy!
I have gone about my life so far as a go getter- I am abitious I have been told. If there is something I want, I do what I can to get it, and 99.9% of the time, I achieve it. But lately I feel that no matter how hard I try at certain things, life is out to get me. Let's just say at this point, the eternities are looking so much better to me as each say passes and one more thing adds to Tara's list of "take it in the gut!" Yesturday during my break at work, I wrote down names of friends of mine that are expecting and their due dates so that I would remember.(There are over 10 women on this list). Those friends that are expecting really don't talk to me about their pregnancies because they think it will upset me- I appreciate every willing attempt to do so but it feels like it only make matters worse- my best friend is amongst this list of ladies and she has been distant lately. I have been trying to get over the fact that Dennis and I can't have children of our own but everytime I get to a good feeling point something happens and then the feelings come back again. They are unexplainable- the pain is horrible. I feel like changing my profession because some days when I am at work playing with my students it makes me feel worse- it's like a daily reminder of my problems. Then again it's nice because I get to be a part of their lives 5 days a week.
I want to get a dog but Dennis wants to wait until we get a house with a yard so he doesn't have to get up in the middle of the night and walk it since we can't just open the door and let the dog out into the yard. I feel like every mothering opportunity has been ripped away from me- this is a basic instinct that so despretley wants to come out- this is the type of person I was born to be. How would someone who wants such a big family be denied that?
I just wake up everyday asking myself it today is going to be ok or if one more thing is going to get added to my list of things that suck in my life. Oh to add to it for the week- Dennis quit his job and is currently looking for another one- add the wait of that to my shoulders- it just seems like everytime I get the chance to get a head in life something comes along that puts me 10 steps back.

Two Years

We celebrated our 2nd anniversary by going away for the weekend to the place where we spent our wedding night- Embassey Suites in Oakbrook. We spent Saturday walking around the Oakbrook mall- it was nice to have Dennis shop with me- that hasn't happened since April! We had dinner at our favorite restaurant- Maggianos. It was so good! We finished the evening with a dip in the pool, a few movies, and a midnight run to the gas station for some late night munchies!

This was the view from our room on the second floor. It was great to see one of my favorite places- Chicago!

The best part about staying at Embassey Suites is the complimentary cooked to order breakfast. You can get omletes, french toast, pancakes, sausage, bacon, hashbrowns, muffins, bagels, all kinds of fruit, and tons of juices. This was half the reason we decided to stay here again. Here is a preview of my breakfast- sorry you can't here the bag pipes playing in the background!!

My weekend in pictures

Shanna and Deanna came out to spend the weekend with us, despite Shanna's fragile condition. Poor girl threw up more times than I think I have in my life! On Saturday night we went to the Sandwich Fair with Deanna, Shanna, Josh & Nicole. It was a blast and of course Deanna was here usual cute self.


On Sunday, we got up and played with Deanna for a few hours before church ( I love having time in the morning to just lounge!) I was sitting in the living room talking to Shanna and I hear Deanna in the kitchen going " Auntie, I going to make you breakfast." So I just thought aww ain't that cute she is going to pretend. WRONG- I walk into the kitchen to find 4 pieces of bread in the toaster! Then she goes into "her" room and says she is getting dressed- She comes out in her skirt and Shanna's bra!!!! I think that was the best laugh I have ever had. My little girl is growing up so fast and she says the darndest but cuttest things! Enjoy the pics.

Just a preview

Here are a few house pictures of our living room and dining room. There will be more to come- I just have to find the time to take them of the rooms that are now unpacked and put away.

Letting go to become a better me

I must apologize for the negativety in my last blog entry. Life sure has taken the toll on us the last 6 months and I have managed to let it get the best of me. Today as I was driving home from my meeting at work, I felt a feeling of peace come over me. This was the first time in the last year that I had felt so amazing. I wanted to smile and call and talk to everyone I knew just to see how their day was going. I have decided to let go of everything that I had been holding onto that was making me a negative person. I just thought to myself that this isn't the type of person I am nor want to be. I am a happy kind and generous person. I needed to let go of the person I had become for the last few months and accept the fact that there are just things out my control that I can't change. This life is way to short to get down and depressed about the things that you can't have. Yes, I am crushed at the fact that Dennis and I won't be able to have children of our own or the fact that I have felt like I don't have any friends, feeling like I was left out of everything because I couldn't connect with others that had children and for a while I was looking at the negative instead of the positive. For example- I will never have to get fat, I don't have to sacrife my boobs! I will never have morning sickness, I will never have swollen feet. I will never have to go through all of those dr. visits where they poke you with needles and of course best of all I will never have to go through the pain of labor! But we are able to adopt of child that we can give just as much love to.

Through this whole ordeal, I am thankful for all of the things I do have like a loving husband and a caring family and a Heavenly Father that makes me realize that there is more to life that what I have been looking at.

So here goes.... I am letting go of everything mentioned and unmentioned that I have let hurt me.....

September... In like a lion

Well I don't know where to begin as I sit here at 10:30 tonight. Today has been an emotional rollar coaster. First, I wake up to find an email from my ex- sister in law that she is 3 months pregnant and has decided to move in with her boyfriend. I went to a friends baby shower this morning. Then, I try to do stuff around the house and forget what I am trying to do or what I am trying to find. I literally got up to grab something, turned around and forgot what I was getting. YesturdayI started to look for a pair of work pants that I bought on Wednesday and couldn't seem to find them. As I was talking to Dennis to see if he has seen the American Eagle bag- he makes the coment- "well did it every make it to the car?' Well....yeah I think so. And then as we leave to go run errands I have this thought.... I don't think I walked out of New York and Company with the American Eagle bag??? So I call NY&C and sure enough, they have my bag sitting in their back closet waiting for the idiot that left it there to claim it! Then every store we went to there were pregnant women everywhere I turned... not joking! And to put the icing on the cake for the day, Nicole my best friend calls to tell us to come over they have to show us something. Dennis is convinced that they got a dog.... NOPE. Nicole announces to us that she is 8 weeks pregnant. Did I do something wrong to deserve this punishment?!! So as I sit here balling my eyes out, I am trying to make sense of everything. The hardest part is that Family is such a cornerstone of our religon, we were sealed in the temple and I have such a strong love for children that this is really killing me right now. My biggest fear is that it is going to make us fall away from the church a bit. How do you maintain such a solid testimony of family when you can't even have one? Not to mention the fact that we are the only couple in our new ward that doesn't have kids and if someone asks me one more time when we are going to have kids- I swear I am going to punch them.

Where has my August gone!

So we are all moved in thanks to some great friends at our old ward willing to help out at the last minute and our friends at our new yard- I can't believe like 10 people showed up despite the nasty rain! I should be unpacking some boxes or doing laundry but I thought I would post an update and let everyone know that we are still alive just very busy. Luckily, my sister and her boyfriend have been here for the last week and go home on Friday. My sisters boyfriend was so helpful today. I came home from my first day of work to a clean kitchen and dinner waiting for me! Oh this is the life, I think I am going to make them stay! The first day of work went well. I promise to write more later and posts some pics of the house- right now I am ready to go spend some time with my husband and get ready to crash for the night!

Calming down....yeah..right!

Here we are the 9th of August and things are starting to settle down. Ok, not really thats just my way to calm down. My last day at Pointe is tomorrow and we leave for my parents house. I kind of don't want to go- I would rather sit down at home for a moment and be there for more than 5 minutes BUT my mother is in need of some help in the midst of her crisis (what else is new, I think this is crisis # 101)! For those who don't know (I think that included everone), my father has been sitting in jail for a little over three weeks now. Why? one would ask? Well let's just say it's another chapter in the "My family is so screwed up" book. He was dealing drugs, a.ka. pills, whatever you want to call them for my brother in law. Pretty much my dad went down for it and now he is kind of screwed and so is my mom. Long story made short- my mother has always relied on my grandmother to take care of her and her problems- hence the reason why she is moving out of the house that my grandmother is paying for and back in with my grandparents for like the umteenth time! Yes there are some unresolved issues from my childhood- some of which I am trying to let go, I really am but everytime I start to think my parents have changed- something else happens! Don't get me wrong I LOVE my parents but my bigges fear is that after my grandmother is no longer on this earth to take care of them I am going to be next in line. Now you have to understand, I don't mind helping people out, I actually feel bad for saying no at all BUT my mom will suck the life right out of ya. I'm just afraid that this gigantic burden will be put on me and I am going to have to say no- and feel bad about it but it will have to be done.
So for now, all I can do is offer a shoulder to cry on and an ear to listen.

Sweet Home Chicago!

Wow! What a day. We were able to get part pf Monday off and head down to the city to meet up with Ben & Diane. Let me just tell you- 2 days later and my legs still hurt! We went to the Planetarium, Shedd Aquarium, took a water taxi to Navy Pier, Millenium Park, Ed Debevics and Buckingham Fountain. Dinner at Ed's wasn't that great and our waiter wasn't very nice at all- the food was equivalent to Dennys restaurant. We ate some much thought that we decided to walk from Ed's to our car which was at the Planetarium- just a note- I mapquested those 2 locations and we walked over 3.5 miles!!!! Feel the burn. Over all it was a great and exhausting day.

I have an interview!!!!

After waiting and waiting, I finally got a call earlier this week. I have an interview on August 2nd for a kindergarten teacher at Kensington School in Naperville!!!!!! I am so excited!!

August 16th

Today we got to go an actually walk through our new house that is almost finished!! We also got our closing date- August 16th, which means move in date will probably be August 18th. I am so excited- I felt like I couldn't start packing because it seemed so far away but now I have less than a month- so guess what I am doing to night..... packing of course. Here are a few pics from our trip out today.

R&R- that's rest and relaxation...

Don't ask
Inside joke amongst our group of friends
Just the girls
The Group
SCRAMBLER
BFF's Forever!!
Ashley swears she was born gangsta!
Just Us

Wow! What a weekend. Saturday after a long day at work we ended up at Joe's girlfriend Andrea's for his grad party/send off to the Marines- its still scarey knowing that he is old enough to do so! We hung out with our friends Josh & Nicole and a few people from Church- oh what fuuny pictures we have!

We decided to take a break from life on Sunday. Yes I know we should have been at church BUT with the events that took place this last week- we NEEDED to get away from everything and have some good ole' fashion F-U-N!! We headed off to 6 Flags Great America at 9a.m with Josh, Nicole & Megan. I guess everyone else had the same idea in mind for the day because it was packed. The waterpark was AWESOME!! They have this slide called the tornado- definelty #1 on my list. It shoots you straight down this dark tube at 45mph and whips you ip the side back and forth (at about 4-5 stories high until finally you come out of the end into the pool- sorry I didn't get a picture but they have one on the sight. The wave pool was awesome followed by the "bowl" slide- which is like a toilet bowl- you go round and round until you go through the hole at the end. And last but not least- the lazy river. We had fun grabbing each other to try to direct their tube in the path of waterfalls and spraying jets. At about 5- we ventured out into the park to ride some rides. Nicole and Megan hit up the Raging Bull- an absolutely scarey lookinf rollar coaster, while Josh, Dennis and I opted for the Chubasco- spinning tea cups. Dennis got the thing spinning so fast it felt like we were upside down. Of course we couldn't leave without going on the scrambler- which in my opinion was very weak compared to the one Nicole and I rode last summer in Lake Geneva that had my face plastered to her arm 3 feet up in the air! On the drive home we swung by the temple to show our non LDS friends where we got married and talked about the importance of it- see we had a missionary moment that counts doesn't it.

07-07-07

Pictures- Top- bottom: The 3 Stooges: Amy, Tara & Joe: Bailey & Tara: Tara modeling the pretty centerpieces grandma made for the tables- aren't the purdy!!

07-07-07- I guess you can say it was a lucky day. Dennis' cousin Cherlynn and Scott got married in Yorkville- it turned out to me an all day event. The catholic ceremony was very interesting from an LDS perspective. Cherlynn forgot her flowers, so she walked down teh isle without them and then Aunt Amy went and got

them for her. We had 3 hours between the ceremony and the reception so we took mom and Vic to see our new house- it was nice to walk through it once again. We then went over to Uncle Dales and hung out with David, Amy and Grandma. We then headed over to Ralphs Place in Bristol where we had a buffet dinner and watch Beta fights. When you get Dennis and his 2 brothers and their cousin David together you get the 3 stooges. They decided to combin

e the Betas from the centerpieces into one bowl and watch them fight. It was pretty mean if you ask me yet funny at the same time. When Betas fight, they lock lips and just sit there- hmmm, interesting way to fight I guess?? Anywho after the reception we stopped by Josh's hous

e and shot off some major earth shaking fireworks- that was an understatment. By 12a.m that night- I was ready to crash!