Jake wrote: A little about me or, my self actualization. *remember Rocky and Bullwinkle*

Here it is 11:28 at night and I have had one of those really internal conflicts within myself of what I believe as I stand here and now. So here it goes,
I hate pride, although I would be the first to admit I love attention when it is given too me, in far too many cases have I seen pride tear relationships, families, spouses, siblings, hell- entire countries apart from one another.Not to mention have been a personal witness to so many very close friends who have had a destroyed psychie because a man or men felt that he was entitled to something he had no right in asking for. Or in a separate scenario one person feels like their better than another or that they feel they should be entitled to something more so than another person. It is the root of all evil. I try to keep myself humble and open to idea's, thoughts, suggestions, recommendations. Sometimes I too am willing to try something once (within my personal boundaries which coincide with the doctrines of the church of jesus christ of latter day saints).
Those who know me, have maybe gotten to know me a little too well because I like to maybe divulge aspects of my life that maybe should be best swept under the carpet. But I feel that I am who I am today because of the choices, right or as wrong as they are, or were or will be. I can't cover up my choices. It's pointless to try to sugar coat things as difficult as they may be to swallow. Or as un-couthe as they are to some people. You've gotta take life at face value.
I believe there is a life after death. I believe that my ancestors that have passed on do watch after me and protect me when I need them.
I believe in prayer, but sometimes it's hard when you either don't get the answer you feel is the right answer or feel like there is NO answer at all and that you just gotta wait it out.
For instance recently I had this job interview and I felt so "inspired" that I needed to have the interview. The day before the job posted on IHC's website I was thinking of not applying because of a couple reasons A) I had my CNA classes and tests and everything paid for from the company I work for currently AVALON which is the parent company of the long term care facility I work in Heritage in American Fork and they want their employees to work for them for 6 months because they were kind enough to pay for everything. But there have been instances where people have taken off before that time period. And B) This baby is going to be here any minute and it would take me a little far away from home to go to work. So in that regard I was thinking that I didn't want to even apply for anything until April. But as I said before I felt "inspired" so I went and did what the lord commanded I guess. Well I got an interview for the job posting. So something inside of me was kind of welling up inside saying, you are so going to get this job because of how good the prompting felt. I think I did awsome at the interview but alas as you have read previously I didn't get it.
Throughout the time period of the interview and their denying me the job I had plenty of people telling me about "thank god for unanswered prayers" and the like. But I had a hard time listening to them because of what I felt inside.
Of course I took this incident negatively like I usually do and ask "why did you put me through this trial just for the disappointment".
Now like alot of you, it seems like this entire life is one disappointment after another with some wonderful and amazing blessings in between.
And maybe its a difference between optimism and cynicism. I feel like alot of time I try to keep optimistic about life and feel like if something doesn't go my way it is just god's way of saying maybe it wasn't for you. Or maybe it wasn't for you at this time.
I've found that having a great support system helps situations alot. Surrounding you with people who aren't necessarily "yes" men but people who will be optimistic with you in your undertakings of life but gently let you know if maybe you aren't necessarily making the right choice at the time.
I believe that miracles do happen. I believe that there are so many tiny nuances in life that are miracles that people just feel like they are just happen stance.
I had the opportunity to meet one of the most wonderful friends I had ever meet in my entire life and she happened to be 90 something years old. She was probably less than 5' tall and had the warmest most wonderful smile. She had squinty little eyes and most of the day she spent watching BYU television or listening to one speaker or another. I had some beautiful conversations with her about the church and about eternity and what she felt about life. And I had the opportunity to give her a priesthood blessing that I would never forget telling her that although she was going back home soon that she would still be in this life a little while longer, I blessed her with strength to endure the last little bit of her life and that our heavenly father was pleased that she continued to love him and have faith in him her entire life.
I later had come to find out that she ended up being able to bless COUNTLESS lives with her generosity, charity, and love for all those around her. The kind of person that you go to their funeral and the overflow goes all the way to the back of gym area.
I have been truly blessed to know so many amazing people in my life, both old and young, guys and girls, different ethnic back grounds with different religious beliefs. I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter what walk of life you come from you have the potential for greatness.
You can't judge people, period!
I love the depeche mode song 'Walking in My Shoes' from their songs of faith and devotion album. It pretty much sums up how I try to take people most of the time.
I'll admit that alot of times if someone is a little scary looking I will be apprehensive about approaching them but as I get to know them I will either allow myself to continue to become closer to them or distance myself from them. Depending on whether or not they are out "to get gain" or they are "to serve others".
I try to serve as much as possible. There have been times that jodi is home with all the kids and going crazy and i'm trying to fulfill my priesthood responsibilities in helping others around the ward as the situations arise.
I have found in life the more you fulfill your church callings or you strive to keep the commandments or keep those covenants to be a true disciple of christ you are blessed. I have found so many instances in my life where I've continued to strive to put one foot in front of the other in the right direction when things just so happen to walk me in a positive direction.
I can honestly say that being away from the church is not the person that I am supposed to be.
There was a period of my life where I was drinking 'the bitter cup' and became reviled by the person I was. My soul was in torture because it knew that I was going against what I knew was true. Not just knowledge but deep internal fiber of my personal being knowing, so I can honestly say that I KNOW that going against the principles of the doctrine of christ isn't the correct direction for me.
It's hard to see people that you love and that you look up too and idolize fall away. It shakes you up a bit and makes you question things. It helps to solidify your own protective barriers you have for your personal ethics and values.
Parenthood is the greatest blessing and blessed headache you will ever have in your life.
I've been told from a couple people that parenthood is likened unto having your heart ripped from your chest and running around rampant. I can attest to that. I love each and every one of my little men. I would do absolutely anything for any of them. But I can also tell you that trying to give them a decent amount of time is also difficult. They all want you all at the same time ALL the time and as those of you who have more than one child know. THAT IS NOT POSSIBLE. You do the best you can and most the time you feel like your failing miserably but you always thank the heavens that god has granted you with patience to be able to handle all of them at once and the ability to turn your ears to the volume of DEAF when they are all screaming at the same time.
For some reason you just obtain this capability of tuning them all out!
But parenthood is to not be taken lightly either. You are the childs EVERYTHING. Every little thing that you do and try to be and are they will mimic ten fold. You want to give your children everything their heart desires and be the best person that child needs. But then you realize that you too are only human and that they will never be able to get everything they want. Because that would be disastrous for them.
A big family isn't for everyone, but it is for me.
There have been so many times where people will be so suprised with how many children i've got and the space that we have had our children and thought "what are you trying to do to that poor wife of yours" my response is. WE, both of us. Jodi and I both decided ever since we started dating that our family was comprised of 6 children and for some INSANE reason, our father in heaven has felt that we deserve so far 5 of the 6 children. I know that each of them has been such an amazing miracle to even obtain them and then to have them enrich our family.
Most of my married life has been trying to figure out how i'm going to provide for this family, which is why I am currently working through the prerequisites to get into nursing school at either SLCC, UVU, or MATC.
I have loved the opportunity to continue my education. Ever since I went back to school at provo college I realized a couple things. The first was that it is possible to obtain your dreams and achieve your goals and that life will continue to take you through twists and turns and obstacles. You have got to stay focused if you ever, EVER want to amount to anything in this life. There are so many people who are a Jack of All Trades but master of none.
The question I have for myself is do I have a strong enough will and desire to stay focused on the goal of getting my family out of this predicament.
If you can dream it you can achieve it. You don't allow anything to get in your way of your dreams. YOU do have the power to change your course and do what YOU want to do. Keep opening those doors for yourself. Don't let stumbling blocks stop you from picking yourself back up and continuing to put one foot in front of the next.
ANYTHING is possible!
Well I've ranted for nearly an hour. Hopefully it doesn't take that long to read through my collected thoughts, as scattered as they were. Thanks to all of you for being such great support. For having foot steps in my life no matter how large or small. I love you and and look forward to the day when we are all partying in the eternities, knowing that we ALL obtained the eternal salvation we ALL were aiming for.

What a week!!!

So this week is one of those were I am thinking I need a refund. It has been one problem after another. Let me explain:
Monday-Our car breaks down. I drove it to work and turn the car off and it keeps making this LOUD humming sound. I don't know anything about cars so I went into work just figuring that it is cold and cars make grumpy noises when they are cold. Well I got off of work and the battery is dead. Not good I still have to go and pick up Jeff from school. So I ran back into work and a coworker gave me a ride to the other office where my sister-in-law Nicole works because nicole said she would take me to get Jeff. Later on that night when we were able to go and pick up the car we find out that the noise was coming from the ABS sensor.
Tuesday-Izack age 5 told JT age 3 to throw a pan through the window that goes to the garage in the front room to see if the window would break. Guess what windows break. The only reason why I didn't get mad and fly off the handle is because that window is going to soon be the door way to a new bedroom.
Wednesday-was a pretty quite day. The boys were good and nothing big happened.
Thursday-Jake was doing laundry and spilled laundry soap behind the dryer he decided that he would clean it up while the dryer was on and he bumped the plug causing the dryer to quit working.
Friday-we took the car to the dealer to see what exactly is going on and find out that the parts it needs comes to a total of $2700. Not exactly what we can afford luckily we are buying the car from my sis and her hubby and they said that they would pick up the bill and we would split the bill in half and just add it onto what we owe them for the car.
I just hope that nothing else happens. I am tired of being tried. What lesson am I supposed to learn from all of this? I am grateful that Heavenly Father loves me but can't he show it with just one trial at a time?
The good thing about this week is that there are some men in the ward who have volunteered their time to turn the garage into a bedroom for us before the baby comes. which is in about 7 weeks or less.

Progress of Twilight

So I sat down a little bit more and decided I am going to keep working on the twilight picture. At this point I've decided to no longer continue the silly phase thing and just post with a description of the progression. In this new image you can see how I've started to work through the details of the hair and darken some on the faces to give the image more contrast. You can also start to see how I am beginning to work on their clothes as well.
I'm concerned that Bella is not looking to much like the actress but maybe thats just me. Artists tend to be their worst critiques.
Let me know what you think.

Thanksgiving day bummer

I hope everyone had a good thanksgiving. Not here in the Putnam house. It all started out well but in the end it turned out to be a real lousy thanksgiving.
This was the first year ever that Jakes parents have ever invited us up to their house for Thanksgiving dinner. I was ok with going up there HONESTLY. I was going to take some food from my parents house to eat. For those of you who don't know I have a problem eating at certain places, I am trying to get over it but I just don't trust people. So we were over at my parents waiting for the food to get done so I could grab my plate and go to Salt Lake. Jeffery asked me if Grandma and Grandpa Putnam were going to have Candied yams and I told him to ask Jake. So Jake called and asked them and they said yes but there are Walnuts on them. I freaked out. I am MAJORLY allergic to nuts. I know I was taking my own food, but even then the boys couldn't eat anything with nuts on. If they eat nuts and kiss me on the cheek I get a rash on my face. So rather than letting them eat nuts and avoiding them giving loves and such I just don't allow nuts. So needless to say we didn't go up there and it is all my fault because Jakes family feels like it is a personal attack on them because I wouldn't allow my kids to eat there. Jakes family even knows that I am allergic to nuts so I feel that it was a personal attack on me. Jakes sister said well we have different food but there is always the what-if they touched the food without nuts and the food with nuts with the same spoon I would still have a reaction. So blog readers give me your opinion I think that it was rude and they should try harder to accomadate me for my food allergies since it is MESSING WITH MY LIFE!!!!! But they think that I am just being rude by not allowing my kids to eat there. My mother in law is allergic to cats really badly and I make sure my kids don't touch the neighbors cat if we are going up to their house to visit them. Maybe next time we go up there I will rub the cat all over them to make sure they have plenty of cat dander on them after all they have the right to be able to play with cats right?

aaaarrrggghhhh

Last night as I was getting the boys ready for bed Jeffery comes up to me and says he needs to throw up. So I told him to go to the bathroom. Well he went and stood by the bathroom door and started to to throw up on the carpet. I yelled at him to get into the bathroom and he ran in and put the toilet seat up and started to puke in there. However I don't know how it happened but there was puke EVEYWHERE. Even on the wall behind him. Honestly he was pointing his face to the toilet but I had a GIANT mess to clean up.
While I was cleaning up the bathroom (something that I am not supposed to do because of certain complications), but I wasnt about ready to let the bathroom sit and stink not to mention I had to go and I was not going to sit in puke. So while I was cleaning I had my cleaning bucket next to me that has all of the cleaning sprays and what not in it I hear JT say "I didn't spray that in my mouth." So I immediatly stopped what I was doing and I asked him what he sprayed in his mouth and he showed me the bottle of Clorox disinfecting spray and I grabbed him and smelt his breath. I couldnt smell anything but the back of the bottle says to call the poison control center immediatly and give him lots of water to drink. He has done this before only with furniture polish and poison control told me then that he would have to drink a lot to have any effect and to just make him drink water. SO I had to force him to drink water. He wasnt very happy and needless to say I didn't sleep well cause everytime I heard him cough throughout the night I ran into his room to make sure he was ok and not throwing up.
Oh how I love being a mom and enjoying all lifes little surprises.

Phase II & Beginning Phase III

In this phase you will see a little more rendering on Edward and progression on Bella. So far I have 9 to 10 hours on Edward's face alone and I would say probably 5 hours on Bella's I will soon start rendering their clothes and then the real tedious task of working on the tree.
I wanted to first knock out the most important aspects of the image which is the likeness of the actor that plays Edward and then the actress that plays Bella since I feel they are the real focal point of the piece.
I am still interested to know what you great people in cyber-land think of the image. I appreciate your compliments but any constructive criticism would be very appreciated.

Spelling and homework

So since Jeffery is in the first grade now he gets to do homework every night. I am horrible when it comes to remembering to help him get his homework done. I had a hard enough time getting mine done when I was in school. Anyways he has spelling words that he has to go through during the week. This week one of the words was "WE" and since we have a nintendo wii when Jake asked him to spell WE he said "that one is easy wii" Jake and I kinda chuckled a bit and then told him that it is a different wii then we and told him the correct spelling. He got 100 percent on his test though I was nervous as to how he would spell it under pressure. He is doing awsome this year in school I am so proud of him.