Euphoric Serenity

Chicago

2012-01-06T22:57:00.001-08:00

I love the band Chicago. The song "Your the Inspiration" is one of my all time favorites. It was played at my wedding. I have many memories dancing to various Chicago songs from the album "The Best of Chicago". Super descriptive I know.

Well tonight for our date night Dustin and I ate some fantastic brownies and ice cream, followed by watching a show on TV called, "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives". That show makes my mouth water. After that we turned off the TV and played Yatzee. Twice. We then started to work on my website. (So romantic, I know!) I was able to get some awesome writing done. I was working on writing a welcome letter for my home page.

I received a coupon in the mail today for a FREE medium pizza and "garlic knots" from a locally owned restaurant. It basically said "welcome to your new house!" I so am excited for date night next week.

I am really enjoying Denver. The diversity from the "big city" feel to the more suburban areas is fun. Having the mountains so close also make for beautiful scenery. I also LOVE the weather. We have the warm days, similar to St. George, but we also enjoy the beautiful snow! I love having actual seasons.

It's late. Must go to bed because technically right now is Saturday.

Sacred Birth

2011-06-10T09:08:00.000-07:00

Check out this song on Youtube called "Sacred Birth." My dear friend Callie wrote this song about the beauty of giving birth and that birth is sacred and should be respected as such.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ukEN4O7RhA

"The concept for this song is contraction and expansion, a metaphor for labor. It's about birth as a microcosm of life and the paradox of yielding in order to triumph. Mothers give birth to babies, but also to new, stronger versions of ourselves. When a birthing woman is undisturbed, free from fear and distraction, she produces oxytocin, the "hormone of love", in abundance. Unhindered birth is a blissful, transcendent experience."

This song hits home for many mothers, old and young. As women, we have the sacred duty to carry, birth and rear our children. What better way to prepare us for the challenges that come with children than to experience the birthing process in all its entirety. There comes a point during labor when a woman is scared.She doesn't know if she can go on much longer. That is the point in which a woman must surrender and let go! She must give up all fear and doubt to embrace her moment of triumph in order to welcome her little one into the world. As mothers we welcome the sweet, fresh baby, who came strait from heaven, into our arms.

I welcome my baby Asher Joseph Parker into our family!

Being The Wife of a College Student

2011-05-31T22:44:00.000-07:00

Being the wife of a college student gives me lots of time for my own thoughts (especially on homework nights) and lots of time with the boys. Sometimes I'm not sure it is a good thing that I'm left to my own thoughts 1) because I can be terribly irresponsible and lazy with all the free time to think and 2) I start to over analyze the “friendships” I have with people on..say, Facebook. I could be doing many different things like cleaning up the kitchen, tiding the house, or doing something more constructive than surfing the web.

Tonight I ran across a very interesting blog. The writer of the blog made me feel very inspired to write. Honestly write and not be afraid about what I write and if it is acceptable to people I know. That is what holds me back from saying or doing things, such as writing, because I worry that I might make a mistake and be judged accordingly.

Having my husband in school sometimes makes me feel like I am the primary parent to our children. It can be a bit overwhelming. The teeth need to be brushed, diapers changed, house cleaned and on and on it goes. Especially the diapers part. Diapers are a never ending cycle. It can also be inconvenient. The every day duties keep me from doing things that I want to do, such as write, practice violin/voice, study for my doula certification, study for my childbirth education, or go for a run. After we decided to have kids that is when I forfeited my free time. I am now subject to the whim of a 1 month old and (almost) two year old.

I am OK with it.

I know that it is important to feel all sorts of different feelings - happiness, sadness, anger, hate, jealously, regret, joy, frustration. We are here on earth to experience these things and it is OK. It is OK to feel anger towards someone. We just have to decide how we will act on that anger. Will we react? Or over react?

I am so grateful I can be here experiencing life with my wonderful Dustin, and gorgeous boys-Luke and Asher. As difficult as life can seem at any one moment, we really do need to keep a long term perspective. Now is very important, but “is what I'm doing now going to help me to be where I want to be tomorrow? What could I do better?”

Homebirth

2011-04-27T09:28:00.000-07:00

Interested in seeing what a homebirth looks like?

Check out this amazing video: http://vimeo.com/22765005

Check out this amazing birth video!

37 Weeks Pregnant!

2011-04-18T08:00:00.003-07:00

Today is the day. 37 weeks pregnant. I can't believe how time has flown by, for the most part. Some of the highlights of the times are:

Luke has started to sleep in his "big boy bed." He's slept in it for the last 4 nights.

I no longer feel fat-but pregnant. Thanks to my friend Emili for sharing her big pregnancy clothes with me!

Brother in law, Bryce, is leaving for his mission in two days.

I don't have to make dinner tonight, because we're going over to the Parker's to eat.

Dad Parker and I are making homemade chocolate ice cream!!!

Peter has started working at the Pizza Factory.

Levi and Mom's birthdays are next week.

Some of the signs Luke knows include: please, more, grapes, apple, orange, thank you, water, tubby time, bye bye, drink, all done, eat, happy, bird,

Luke has learned to open the pantry door.

Luke attends nursery and loves it!

Dustin is almost done with my website and his senior project.

School ends in a couple of weeks. Pro or con? Not sure which.

My garden is still alive and thriving!

Luke loves to play with the window lock!

Luke sees/hears a bird!

Claiming My Turf

2011-02-09T21:41:00.000-08:00

I have finally had the gumption to say that this blog is mine. Not ours, but mine. It's taken a while, but I've done it AND renamed it. This is a personal accomplishment for me because sometimes it can be hard to claim something as your own. Right after I was married, everything I had ever known had gone from "mine" to "ours" in just about one moment. I started to apply the term way too broadly. So now, I feel free to post more openly and honestly, because this truly is my blog. Besides, my dear husband is never going to post anything but he will occasionally be included in my postings. OK so probably more often the occasionally. How about frequently? Yes. Frequently.

I have recently decided that I want to be more correct and clear in anything that I write. It throughly bugs when I cannot understand someones message they type when there is grammatical, spelling and punctuational issues. Being able to communicate with efficiency and clarity is an art that is being lost. We focus less and less on developing personal communication between people. Apparently this is the style of our modern, fast paced and ever changing society. Quick and short messages have been labeled as efficient ways to communicate when really, the perfection of the message and wholeness of it should not be down-trodden as irrelevant and unimportant. So, this Valentines day give the gift of understanding. Write, type and speak with perfection.

Saturday Morning

2011-02-05T08:45:00.001-08:00

Well today we woke up early to go pick up our bountiful basket. We left at 6:50 after-which we dropped Dustin off at the gym to work out with Dave and Peter. Luke and I proceeded home to put our produce away and then left again to go clean the church. We got there at 8am and began dusting. We had so many people there to help, it only took us about 35 mins to finish cleaning. Luke helped me by turning on (and off) the lights in the chapel. I was very relieved that I didn't have to clean any bathrooms. Reason being I chopped my finger the other day and I didn't want it to get infected.

A couple days ago I was cooking spaghetti pie. I was chopping shredded beef to put in the sauce when suddenly I cleanly nicked my finger with the huge knife I was using, taking off some of my nail with it. I was grateful that any blood spilled would have been camouflaged in the red spaghetti sauce. Now, being a few days later, it is healing up alright, but it is still annoying.

Well Dustin has still not gotten back from the gym yet. I need him home so he can help me fix the vacuum. I think there's a problem with the belt because when the carpet beater touches the carpet, it stops spinning thus making any vacuuming attempts quite futile.

Today Paul and Shannon are traveling down to St. George for a weekend visit! Since tomorrow is fast Sunday, we're all getting together for lunch at Mom and Dad's. We are going to each fajitas! SO excited. I am going to be bringing the lettuce and tomatoes for the meal. It's nice that tomorrows meal is planned, now all I have to do is plan tonights meal. Hmmmmmm.... any ideas?

2010-08-06T14:54:00.000-07:00

Fun pictures from our trip to Idaho! For the most part we had a great time. On the way up Luke got sick with some sort of stomach bug that passed to me and then to Dustin. By Sunday we were pretty much feeling normal, just tired. We had a great time on Sunday visiting with family and playing games. We left for home on Monday but decided to stop for the night because Luke was done traveling! We stayed with Grandpa Stewart and Grandma Sharon in Meadow. They were so kind to let us stay the night. In the morning we decided to go check out the warm springs that were near Meadow. There were three pools, but we only saw two because they were pretty far apart. At the first pool, we found the remnants of a teenage party, it was pretty gross. So we went and found another of the pools. It was a little walk to get there but we were so glad we were up to it because this second pool was much nicer. (No trash or random pieces of clothing lying about.)

We are so happy to be home now! It was great to get away for a few days but it's so nice to have your own space, your own bed and know where everything is kept. Though I really miss Grandma and Grandpa Robinson's big yard on the farm to let Luke roam about and play as he pleases. It's hard for him to get into mischief when your surrounded by gravel driveways and fields.

Make your own scrapbook design

Nightime

2010-05-05T21:33:00.000-07:00

It's night outside. Luke is asleep and I'm blogging instead of doing the dishes like I should. The dishes will have to wait. Blogging reminds me of keeping a journal. It can be as personal or impersonal as you want, and you can write whenever you want. I like it. But I really need to learn how to make it cutesy and fun. For now it's plain and boring, but I soon will learn this technological art.

Today I took my last final. Nutrition. It was relatively easy and I felt like I did OK. I think this test was one of the easiest in comparison to some of the others. My math final was another story. I was nervous and shaky, and ran out of time. Barely surviving the class I finished off with a B+. No complaints here! *shout out* MR BOWLER IS THE MOST AWESOME MATH TEACHER!!!

I made Taco Soup, Granola, and bread yesterday. I was so productive! I think bread was the hardest for me. I have this mind block that it is a HUGE task that must be done and if I mess up I've just wasted time, effort and money. Those are all so precious to me.

I'm tired. Until next time, cheerio!

2009-12-23T13:10:00.001-08:00

Make a Smilebox photobook

Greetings Family and Friends!

We just thought you all would like to know what's going on with Serene & Dustin Parker this holiday season.

Dustin has been working very hard in school this past semester, he took Calculus, Business and Technical writing, and three different computer classes. He passed all of them with flying colors! Dustin is a Computer Science major and is always doing something with computers. One of his recent projects was making a computer case, built out of plexi-glass.This was a "just for fun" project. He loves seeing the start to finish, fruit of his labors.

Dustin has been working at the computer lab in the evenings as a lab assistant. One really great thing about this job is that it's quiet and he's able to study and get class assignments done at work. That's a bonus for Luke and Serene, more free time at home to play!

After Dustin finishes his Bachelors here at Dixie, we plan to move away so he can get his Masters degree at a university. The decision as to where we will be moving is still pending. There are so many places and so many things to consider with that decision. He has also been enjoying teaching the eight year old primary class in our ward.

I have been busy being a mommy! Luke Adam was born in August and since then I've been busy learning to balance life with a new baby. I make my bread by hand, nurse, haul laundry down the hill to wash, nurse, clean the apartment, nurse, create menus and cook, nurse, also changing diapers throughout the day. I feel so domestic! I have also been strictly cloth diapering since October. Meaning I haven't had a disposable in my house since then. My midwife Laura and her assistant Dyanna introduced me to cloth diapering and at first I thought I would never do it, but with their help, instruction, advice and support, I'm doing it with full steam ahead and loving it!

Apart from my domesticity, I've been singing. In November I got a call from my Mom to come sing in "The Ten Virgins", a dramatic play. One of their cast members had gotten sick so I was to fill in for her. I had approximately 7 hours to prepare to sing a solo and recite dialog. With help, I was able to preform that night and do quite well. I have also had the opportunity to sing with my family this Christmas. Mom, Dad, Peter, Levi and I sang at the Nativity Festival, and at a High Priest Christmas Dinner. Dustin was a great supporter of these events!

We feel so blessed to be living in St. George with a roof over our heads and food on our table. We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Love,
Dustin, Serene & Luke