Happy Birthday Bailey

On a cold January night, 13 years ago, I was packing our apartment to move. Nate had just finished his last semester of college and we were headed for Utah County for his first career job. I packed up the pictures, wrapping them with plastic bubbles and extra amounts of packing tape when Mr. Mecham finally talked me in to getting some sleep. I was 6 days overdue to deliver and it felt more like 6 months. Half way down the hall something happened and it nearly knocked me on my bootie! My big belly felt as hard as I imagined the 2 X 4 that seemed to be lodged between my ribs and hib bones. It didn't last long, but it was a first for me and I was hopeful. That night I never went to sleep... It was a frozen tundra outside... and I was inside in a hot shower trying to figure out what the heck was going on. Finally I told Mr. Mecham we were going to visit the hospital since the Doc. was willing to induce me sometime the within the next few days anyway. The nurses were certain that I wasn't in labor by the size of smile on my face and thought to send me home. But found that I could stay... and just hours later Miss Bailey joined our family. She wasn't very noisy at first. Her first look at the world was a pair of scissors cutting right at her neck where the umbilical cord was choking her tiney neck. And I am certain the first thing she must have heard was the Doc declare, "this one gets a discount for her beautiful red hair!". He had red hair and offered a $10.00 discount for every baby he delivered with red hair. Just enough to buy one hemroid pad at the hospital... bless him!
Bailey was quiet. I was freaked out. She wanted to sleep. I wanted her to wake up and eat. She wanted to be warm. I wanted to dress her and undress her in all the fun new clothes that I had. She wanted to be held and cuddled. I wanted everyone to keep their germs to themselves. She wanted to be a normal child and I wanted to be mother of the year... I had as much experience with motherhood as Barack Obama had going into office... and I was equally as clueless.
Needless to say, it has been 13 years of excitement, passion, determination, and nothing shy of all things extreme! Oh the fun we've had.

Bailey is:
funny
pretty
fun to shop with
has great taste in clothes
makes friends easily
oh so smart
helpful
beyond capable
gutsy
spiritual
clean freak
organized
lovable

On that cold January morning... what started as a contraction that nearly knocked my on my buns ended with a healthy pink and very sleepy baby, so tiney and sweet... and my life was forever changed.

Happy Birthday to she who made me a mother, my only daughter, a sweet friend. I love you Bailey.

I love these boys

I get a HUGE MUNGO kick out of these boys!
I love that they are buddies.
I love that they are kind.
I love that they share their toys, their clothes and sometimes a bed.
I love that when I come down in the morning there is an entire table full of empty chairs and they are still sharing a the same space.
It makes me smile.


Funny comment of the night award goes to Cole... again...

Nate: "Cole, Come do the Neti pot. We have to get rid of your cold."
Cole: "I don't want to."
Nate: "Well come any way."
Cole: "Why do we have agency?"

And then he found out that sometimes in the Mecham house your agency gets robbed from you... and so he did the neti against his will...

Cole upon completion of the neti pot: "I feel like a new man!"

It snowed... It really finally snowed!

It finally snowed! Finally! It was starting to feel like an overdue pregnancy! Infact, it was EXACTLY like that! Some of us couldn't wait to see the snow fall for the first time. To feel its coldness and roll it up together to form snowballs! We couldn't wait for the white washed night sky and ground to look the same only divided by the grey space that seperated it which would inevitably be speckaled with giant white snowflakes! It was all perfect in our minds!
We waited. We checked the weather station no less than 97 times a day to see what the weather man might prophesy... but NOTHING! Then... it happened. It was 10:00 p.m. and the sky was speckled beautifully... and wouldn't you know it, the little Mecham's were bundled up and out on the front lawn like it was noon. They watched the snow cover the ground and the very second they felt like it was covered enough,

A little snowman appeared...
and it took up all the snow in the whole yard.
But it sure was fun!
And tomorrow it has been predicted that snow will fly again. WE CAN't WAIT!

Święty Mikołaj Wigilia

It is Santa Clause Eve here in Poland. Tonight St. Nicholas will make his way to all the good boys and girls and leave them a stocking of either treats or coal depending on how good they have been this year... and a gift in their shoe or under their pillow.

SHEESH! It all makes sense now! Santa Clause comes earlier in the month to Poland because we are really close to the North Pole... and Santa doesn't actually travel the world over in one night. HA~!
The kids think that means that if we go to Arizona for Christmas then they can cash in on Christmas twice this year!
Silly kids... Santa is smarter than that! We don't even have a tree or stockings here... So I he will either pass us up or he will stop because he feels sorry for us. :) We will see.

Happy St. Nicholas Eve

Happy Birthday to my dear old Pops!

*Today is my dad's 65th birthday.
*Today I'm pretty sure that I woke him up... or atleast spoke to him while he was still in bed. :) That doesn't happen often.
*Today I am sad that I am not home to celebrate the way he loves the best: family.
*Today I have thought about a million reasons why I love that old man.
*Today I watched Mr. Mecham tear up when he talked to pops and tell him that "we wished we could be home to celebrate".
*Today I cried when I saw Mr. Mecham tear up. And we had a house full of guests... AWKWARD!

Making a list a mile long about the things I miss about my dad since I came to Poland would be absolutley PIECE OF CAKE! Here is the short version...
1)phone calls on his way home from work.
2)drop by visits on Saturday after he gets done with the temple.
3)drop by visits to take the kids for an ice cream.
4)Sunday dinners.
5)his big old smiley face staring at me.
6)Stopping by to pick up farm fresh eggs.

and the a few things I really really love about the old man...
1)He calls and tells my children ways that they can enjoy Poland.
2)He calls and tells us the score to games.
3)He is willing to do ANYTHING... and I MEAN ANyThing!... for us while we are here.
4)He is always doing something for somebody else. ALWAYS.
5)My children talk about how much they miss their Grandpa ALL THE TIME!

Happy Happy Birthday! Sure love you Dad. Enjoy that Choc. cake with cherries on top... since you are the only one who likes it! :) haha.. j/k.

School makes McKay sick... But Dr. Emilia makes us better.

McKay is really sick. Like three weeks ago we found a private school who would teach our children even though they are not fluent in Polish. McKay went for one hour the first day, he went for four hours the 2nd day and then he got sick. He had a cold. The School won't let you in the doors if you are sick AT ALL! So he was home for the next few days. Then on MOnday of the next week he felt a little better. But Tuesday all the kids realized that they were sickly and couldn't go. They were home until Friday. That is when the other kids got better and Mr. McKay took a turn for the worse... but sadly I didn't believe him because I know how much McKay loves to go to school! NOT! So I sent them all Friday and I was home for one hour when the phone rang. It was McKay. He was too sick to be at school. He came home and went to bed. By Sunday he was laboring to breath. Sweet Emilia came over. She is our beloved neighbor who happens to be an Internal Medicine Doc. She came. She listened. She diagnosed. She prescripted. She ordered, "no school for atleast 3 days." She went home. Thorough as can be... and ever so kind. McKay smiled. He says the best part of being sick is that he can say, "I told you I was sick and you didn't believe me". And he reminds me every day.
INSERT GUILT HERE: I believe in the mum who sides with her cubs... and defends them to the end! I also believe in the mum who challenges her wee ones to do hard things and goes to great length to make certain of their success. I can't decide if I crossed the line... I should have been the mum who came home and smooched little McKay, put on the movies, and began making a pot of soup. But I wasn't. I thought he was faking. And so I tried to be stern. I am bad at that. Oh well. This time it bit me in the buttocks.
McKay got worse as the week went on. He couldn't breathe. Mr. Mecham blew up our nebulizer with the wrong size of transformer. Emilia came back over and listened again. She said, "we need to go the hospital now, okay?" And next thing you know, McKay and I were off to the hospital just barely passing Mr. Mecham and the other kidlets as they came home from Polish classes.

The hospital was like walking into a WARP ZONE... but atleast we were with somebody we trusted and who spoke the language well! Both dr. and Polish.



When we came to Poland it was required of us to have medical insurance to get a legal VISA. But when we got to the hospital they didn't believe us that our insurance was legit. They wouldn't have treated us if Emilia wasn't fighting for us. Doctors in this country get in BIG trouble from the government for treating patients without legit insurance... and they charge the Doctor for all the medical costs of the patient that they treated if they don't check insurance first. CRAZY! needless to say, registering at the front desk was interesting.
The concrete walls, the steel doors and the old style beds on antique training wheels gave us the creeps... McKay said the Elder Plumb told him there were "zombies" working in the hospital! I assured him that wasn't the case but that it just looked scary... like the Gas chamber we visited at the Majdanek death camp! Then Dr. Africa called us in.
ZOMBIE!



and he listened to McKay's chest and agreed that he was very sick and needed a lung x-ray to rule out pneumonia. Indeed the long scary halls made us afraid. I was worried about the zombies behind the metal doors. It was like a bomb shelter. And then behind the 3 foot thick concrete wall I saw the x-ray machine... and I felt so much better. UP TO DATE! And sweet Emilia was right there with us.
Back to Zombie Africa Dr... And wouldn't you know he said an "injection of steroids" was needed. And he had Zombie Polish nurse preparing the meds...
She was so nasty that sweet Emilia had to get after her. Dr. Emilia told zombie polish nurse that perhaps she needed to "get a new job. Perhaps one she won't be working with children and where she could grump around all day and it wouldn't matter". Then that zombie nurse put in the injection side ways into McKay's buttocks and took her time shooting in that medication. Too bad McKay is so tuff and it didn't matter that she sucked at giving shots. And when the fear finally hit McKay and tears began to come, sweet Emilia petitioned the zombie Africa Doc to give a new nebulizer rather than 10 more shots like this! And a quiet tear rolled off her cheeks as she saw how upset McKay was. But she got us out of 10 days of steroid shots. She became McKay's favorite person right then and there!
We made friends with that zombie Africa Doc. He liked McKay. He even shook his hand and then said, "Now you can tell all your friends you shook hands with a black man." To that I replied, "yea... well there are tonz of black folk where we come from and so it just makes us feel at home". Dr. Africa turned out to not be a zombie even though he looks like one.
Then a trip to the APTEKA...at mid-night... where we picked up one nebulizer, two antibiotics which we mix ourselves (and is awesome since the directions are in Polish), probiotics, 2 different vitamins, more cough stuff, one inhalor steroid, one resuce inhalor and a partirge in a pear tree. And Emilia was with us the whole time.



Did I say that her name is sacred in our home yet? Emilia... sweetest doctor of all time. we love her.

looks like McKay will get to miss school all week! :) Lucky dog.
Mckay slept like a baby.

p.s. Just because the medication and care is cheaper here in Poland because they have socialized medicine, it doesn't mean that it is better. And so today I am thankful that the U.S of A. is still not practicing socialized medicine... and I will fight to my death to keep it that way.

On another note:
happy birthday on Nov. 28 to Kaden and Kams. Sure love you.

Coley watched "the village" today. He is upstairs singing "I AM A CHILD OF GOD" in an effort to get that scary movie out of his head... and It is really super cute. I'm going to smooch his face off right now and lay by him since he is obviously scared to death.

Today, I could not be more thankful

Happy Thanksgiving

Today I could not be more thankful. Really... because I have much to be thankful for. Here are 5 of them.
(5) A loving Father in Heaven who answers prayers:
During the summer of 2010 the Mecham's were the guests at the cabin retreat of the Lindley's. They were serving as mission presidents in Australia while we vacationed with their family at the lovely Bear Lake! We learned about the blessing that service was to the family. It made Mr. Mecham and I want to serve in far off lands. We came home with a new goal. We decided we would do whatever it took to put our finances and lives in order to serve missions for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and in small ways return a portion of the love that Heavenly Father has shown to us. We searched out and found a side business to build while Mr. Mecham continued with his career. We prayerfully explained our goal Heavenward and we feel like we worked hard. Great things happened for the rest of that year. Then January 12, 2011 came. I was driving home when I listened to a message from Mr. Mecham explaining that he needed me to come pick him up because he had just been laid off from his work and was walking home. My heart lept followed by a comfort which set in deep. We believed that Heavenly Father was in control. We had been well prepared for that to happen. However, our goal began to look far off. For the next 6 months miracles happened. The sweetest people touched our lives in the most profound ways. We saw the love of heaven pour out upon us. We look back on those 6 months with fondness. It was undoubtedly the best thing that ever happened to us. It lead us to Poland... and an opportunity to live in the mission field with our childrne, tremendous opportunity to serve Heavenly Father and to teach our children exactly as we dreamed of.
Prayers are answered. Always! Sometimes in time. Sometimes mysteriously. Prayers are answered and I am thankful for that.
(4) Missionaries:
Missionaries are amazing! Elders Plumb and Basha were the only reason I could have stayed here. Those first few months kicked our buns... and those kind elders helped out more than I could ever adequately verbalize. We love them like they were our very own. Then Elder Marsing came. We fell in love with him the very same way. We are certain that these little men are tender mercies from heaven. They have blessed our lives with their courage, their obedience, their humor, their love for these people whom they serve and with their inspiring example to us an our children. We will FOREVER love and appreciate missionaries and missionary work throughout the world. They are a huge blessing in our lives.
(3) The prophet Joseph Smith:
The prophet of the restored gospel in the last dispensation of the fullness of times. What more can be said? I am most thankful for the sacrifices he made to bring forth the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ in its fullness... and for the Book of Mormon which blesses my life.
(2) Friends:
I've always known how much friends meant to me. I have the best friends out there. They are treasured in memory, in conversation and in my heart. Their kind acts, humorous memories, huge impact on the lives of me and my children and the efforts that so many still put in to keeping track touch and bless my life EVERY. SINGLE. DAY! And I am also thankful for technology which makes it so easy to keep tabs on each other! BLESS them both!
(1) Family:
Heaven knew how to make life bearable. It starts and ends with family. Our sweet parents who constantly call as if we were neighbors, often just to tell a joke or keep us in "the loop", and who are so willing to travel the world over to come see us. Our siblings who do the same and take a special interest and thought for us clear across the globe. Our dear children who have made monumental sacrifice, shown tremendous trust and believed in us with all their hearts. They deserve a life of happiness and children as wonderful as they are. And a special gratitude for the sweetest husband a woman could ask for. Mr. Mecham is a dream. I love him more than I ever imagined I could.

Happy Thanksgiving!
And To Mr. Loyd... Happy Birthday buddy! Hope it is the best one yet! Love and miss you.