Merry Christmas from the Sharp's

We took a few pictures on sunday (thanks to Josh and April). When we tried by ourselves it was a sad experience. I almost gave up and decided to just print the ones where the girls were bawling or pulling hair or falling over or glaring or sticking out tounges, etc...but Aaron had a great idea. "Let's go to the Lindsay's." He's good looking AND smart! Lucky me.
Well, I don't usually send christmas cards so this will have to suffice. Merry Christmas to all my family and friends out there! We love you all so much!!


It looks like Jocelyn is reaching for a pretty little ornament doesn't it? Nope. I'm holding lollipops above them to keep their attention. Hee, hee

I figured I'd add a couple of photos of the devil-house (as Aaron puts it) and boat since a few friends have asked me to. The boat actually wasn't too expensive considering we went in on it with April and Josh, but I'm afraid it's still gonna go. Anybody want a boat? A house? I'll give you a great dealio....any takers? :) Ha, ha, ha..seriously though. LOL :)

Olivia's Miracle

Olivia and I experienced a miracle yesterday. She was looking for a ziplock bag that had a piece of paper in it from her teacher. The paper has a list of all the books she's supposed to read and then Aaron or I have to sign them off. Well, we couldn't find it anywhere. I think she probably could've simply asked her teacher for a new one. I pretty much remembered all the books she had read so it would've been easy to mark them off again. I normally wouldn't have bothered with such a simple thing and told her to just ask for another one. However, the Spirit prompted me to tell her to go and say a prayer that Heavenly Father would help her find it. As she left to go say her prayer I was nervous. I pleaded in silent prayer that He would help her find her paper so that her faith would not waiver and so she would know that she could ask and He would answer. She returned and told me she was done. I should've prefaced this saying, at first I didn't want to help her look, and I didn't. (I've been trying to teach her to be responible for her things.) However when she told me she was done praying I had the strong desire to help her. I went about doing my normal work but was constantly looking for it as I cleaned up. With in minutes, I found it. She never would've seen it. It was inside a book cover behind the couch that I just happened to see. I wasn't cleaning anything by the couch I just felt like I should walk over to it. I called her into the room and showed it to her. We both cried together, but then she said, "But mom, Heavenly Father didn't answer my prayer because you found it and I didn't." I then got to explain to her how prayers work. Most of the time He uses other people to answer your prayers. I quickly thanked God for helping us but forgot to teach Olivia that important step. About 10 minutes later I saw my daughters "The Friend" magazine laying open to the story "Ten Lepers and a thank you note". I immediately called to her again and told her to go and say another prayer to thank Him for helping her. It's so amazing to see that as I am teaching them--He is teaching me. I think that my faith was strengthened just as much if not more than her's was. She probably had sufficient to find it but He wanted me to trust in Him.

On with the saga....

So far we've cut up 2 credit cards, hooray!!! What a great feeling. It's going to take a while I'm sure but we'll slowly get all our debts paid and be back to normal. No credit cards (with balances that is) and no large mortgages. I can't say no more boat because that was the best thing we have ever bought for our family. We'll just have to be happy with one we can afford next time. I don't think we could live without one now--nor could the YM and YW of our ward (or the cub scouts for that matter). Although, we'll have to live without it until everything else is paid off. You know, as bad as being in this situation is, I still consider it worth it. We sure had a great time thinking we were getting all that interest. We made some wonderful memories over the last two and a half years that we probably wouldn't have. And we would've been able to afford all of it too if we just wouldn't have bought this last house, darn it. Oh well...at least we got to live in the BEST neighborhood and ward we've ever been in. I still know that we were supposed to be here. Perhaps it was because I really need to learn humility--and I am. And, I've really got to say that I'm so grateful for it. I love me more now than before. I'm a much better person for having to go through this. I know that sounds like pride, but I, like Ammon, "...do not boast in my own strength, nor in my own wisdom; but behold, my joy is full, yea, my heart is brim with joy, and I will rejoice in my God." I continue to see God's love for me and He has shown me my weaknesses and I am trying to strengthen them with His help. "Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behod, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever." (Alma 26: 11-12) I sincerely think this will be my all-time favorite Christmas ever because of this. I feel like I say more earnest prayers, I read my scriptures more diligently and I continually have a prayer in my heart and think of my savior Jesus Christ more often. Truly this will be the best Christmas because I have been compelled to be humble. "And now, because ye are compelled to be humble blessed are ye;..." Unfortunately I had to be compelled. Alma goes on to say, "And now, as I said unto you, that because ye were compelled to be humble ye were blessed, do ye not suppose that they are more blessed who truly humble themselves because of the word." So my homework is to be humble without being compelled to do so. It's a lot less painful that way anyway.

Gee Whiz

Have you ever been on the verge of tears but you're doing a pretty good job of keeping it together---until someone gives you a hug or asks "What's wrong"? Well, Gabrielle that's what your response to my last post did to me. I just bawled. You've seen Monsters Inc. right? You know this part..."Keep it together man!" and then the little monster slaps the big one? If you've seen it you know what I'm talking about, if not...well, you should. I feel like I need a slap. (Please don't anyone take that literally or it would really just make matters worse.)
Now, get into your best downward dog pose and imagine with me.....Let's just say that you put some money into a bank account, ok not just some but ALOT, ALOT, ALOT of money into this hypothetical account. The bank says it's going to give you a great monthly interest rate. Said bank then begins making interest payments monthly to you. Life is grand right? The interest it's giving you is even more than you need or can spend so you reinvest it or you put it back into your account. Now the monthly interest is even more so you just keep putting it back in although you allow yourself to buy a nice house and a boat one year. Then a few more houses to rent out and then sell the boat and buy a really great boat the next year. You finally feel like you've got some elbow room. Those houses have a lot of equity in them so you decide to take that and put it in your bank account too. Now not only are you easily paying the mortgages but you can even reinvest the extra. Life is GOOOOOOD. But wait, suddenly your bank tells you that they aren't going to pay the interest anymore! Their timing is especially lousy because you just closed on a huge, nice home and moved into it. (Not because you felt you deserved it, it was only meant to be a great real estate investment) This bank then promises it will pay again "soon". So you continue with your perfect life but are slightly beginning to worry, but they said they'd pay so they will right. In the meantime you still have to make all your mortgage payments. Your husband starts working like a dog to pay the bills. Sure he was working before, but that was just side jobs because you didn't really need the money and you still had plenty in savings. Even though he works from sun up to sun down (literally) it's not enough...all those house payments...Little by little your savings is drained (which was substantial--being squirreled away for a rainy day). Next you begin to use your credit cards because you know your bank will give you the interest soon and you can easily pay off all your cards (and then some) with the great interest rate you are getting. Last to go is the money you've been saving on behalf of your darling children ($50 bucks a month for the past 5 1/2 years). There's not too much there but you still feel guilty (besides the fact it's yours anyway). Now your bank tells you the best news of all...they were never giving you interest at all, they were just giving you back your own money! Yes...just let that sink in...deep down. Your mind races, "but I took out all that equity, I used credit cards (which I NEVER do), I bought a BOAT for Pete’s sake--why, I never would've bought a boat until I could pay for it with cash...but I had all that interest and..." You must sit down before you fall down. Your heart races and you begin to sweat. "How can I make all my payments without that interest I was counting on?!?" Anger, remorse, depression, humility. You can't. Well, you can just barely pay for everything but that last stupid house if your husband works his butt off. (Which he does. Work his butt off I mean--he's lost 20 lbs. so far). You put the house and the boat up for sale, but no one wants it at the price you need to get. Now everyone wants to help you buy Christmas presents and food and it's humiliating. You don't really need the help, you think, I got myself into this mess by making a dumb decision to trust someone else with my money, and I can get myself out. Humiliating and embarrassing at first, then it's just so very humbling and you're so grateful.
"This too shall pass". You thank Heavenly Father that it's only money. It could've been something much, much worse that taught you this kind of humility. You're still healthy, you're family is all still alive and well. You still have your newborn baby that looks up at you from her place in the crook of your arm with angelic eyes and coos back at you. You feel a bit; ok a lot, weathered and a little wiser. You know it's not the end but at least it's more in the right perspective and you've gained empathy for a lot of other people in your same boat. (Man it was a nice boat too, to bad it’s got to go!)

life lately

Well, I read my profile and think back to the good old days when we were naive and happy. I don't write in a journal so this is it. If you're a friend or family and you can't handle black and white bluntness you might just want to skip this part. I get on my family website or my blog every day to just forget about my present life if it's only for a little while. As far as Aaron and I go--we're great, I can't state that enough. We are very much in love and I couldn't be more grateful for that. I know our girls know it too. We're all so happy when Aaron finally gets home. He's been killing himself working so hard lately. He gets up at 5:30 am and doesn't get home until around 7 or 8pm. He tries so, so hard to take care of his dear little family and it kills me to watch him. I am so thankful I've got such a good man for a husband. I don't know what I'd do without him. Christmas is around the corner. It's crazy, I NEVER thought in a million years that we'd be the family that people are helping. I know I am prideful but it's just so hard for me to accept. We used to be the ones helping. I guess what comes around goes around and I've had to eat a nice big helping of humble pie. We're starting to slowly pull ourselves out of the deep hole of debt we dug by trying to keep paying for this gigantic house. It's embarrassing to say that we might have to short sale or foreclose but we see it as the only way out now. My mom always used to tell me, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." Boy, was she right. We invested almost everything we had and what savings we didn't invest we used to pay our mortgages (we've got 5). We've been desperately trying to sell all of them but they all have prepayment penalties so we can't yet. As far as this one is concerned though, it's squashing us so between good advice and prayers we've decided to let it go. Who knows maybe we'll end up back in Ogden living in the ghetto. (It wasn't all that bad, actually we were happier there than living on the golf course here.) I have to look at the bright side and figure that way at least Olivia would learn spanish in kindergarten. I really hope that no one is still reading this, it is very personal but I posted it on the web so what did I think would happen? Oh well. Hopefully it will help my posterity out someday. We're not as bad off as it sounds on here. As long as we're not paying this mortgage we can afford more important things like food and diapers (yay for diapers, I can't imagine using cloth like my mom used to when I was a little girl, I remember poking April with one of those big pins. Ouch! Sorry Ape.) So, anyway that's my rant for the day. This is the first time I've written it down and it feels good. I know that within a year we'll be back to normal (other than credit scores that is). I guess I shouldn't feel too bad about it, we're not white-trash dead beats that refuse to make their payments (like soooooo many renters we've had in the past) we're just losing our home along with half of America right now. Thank heaven for a prophet and for food storage. We were very lucky that we listened to him and were prepared for this.
On a lighter note, although I'm admittedly not the best mom in the world, my kids are little rays of sunshine in this cloud of despair. They are so oblivious and therefore silly and crazy and funny. They make me laugh every day. Especially Macey, she's my littlest angel and her sweet smiles melt me. We've still got PLENTY to be thankful for! :)

Halloween '07

Hawaii

Aaron took me to Hawaii for Valentine's Day last year. My blog is totally out of order because this is when I was 4 months prego with Macey. Oh well, the only people looking at my blog are friends or family anyway so they won't care, right?

Here's our little "Chubby Bunny" dressed up for Halloween. So cute!!!

Macey's blessing day

As you can tell this was after church. The girls were hungry and weren't too excited to sit for pictures. All things considered I still think it's pretty dang cute.

Here's our little angel....She's about one week old here.

Just a couple of my fav's from the good ol' days....oh yeah, those were the days...

Aaron and the girls being crazy on the waverunners.

A couple of WILD WOMEN at Lake Powell. Yahooooo!

GOOD TIMES....out on Utah Lake last summer.

Here are a few pics from the pumpkin patch last year. Olivia only smiled for two and it was lucky that we caught it.

Proud daddy Aaron. (Not to mention HOT!)

Mommy and Macey

The Sharps at the temple. Makell, Olivia, Jocelyn and baby Macey (obviously not at the temple but what the heck)