The Wilhelmsen Botanical Blog

Hello!  So last week was Halloween.  Tuesday evening we went to our friend Dan’s to watch Transformers and carve pumpkins.  Brandon and I dressed up as an Angel and a Devil and I wore a sign that said, “The Devil made me do it.”  It was pretty fun and I enjoyed Transformers, that was the first time I had seen it.  Wednesday was of course the official holiday and so I dressed up in my costume to hand out the candy.  The trick or treaters started coming at 6:00 and I had run out of candy/otter pops by 7:30.  Of course we didn’t have all that much to begin with so it isn’t saying much.  Luckily here at the apartment complex they give us an orange sign to put up if we accept trick or treaters so I was able to take that down and nobody else rang the doorbell.  Nice! 

Saturday night, we went to Dan’s (grocery store) to pick up some milk and they were doing a cake walk when we got there.  Unfortunately we didn’t get in on the fun, but as we were finishing up they had a trivia question.  It was, “When did the first Thanksgiving take place?” It was multiple choice or I wouldn’t have been able to guess.  They said, “1492, 1621, 17??,” and one other year.  Well, once they had said 1621 I said to Brandon, “I think it is that one.” and the guy stocking milk said, “1621.”  So Brandon and I picked up our milk and started to run to the customer service desk.  We were arriving at the same time as another girl and she was starting to say, “164..” so the guy at the counter pointed to me and I said the correct year.  The prize was a pumpkin pie!  Yay, for Brandon because he gets to eat the WHOLE thing.  (I don’t like pumpkin pie.)

Well, those are the highlights for the week of halloween, I know that they are a bit late.  Love you all!

Hello everyone, I know that it has been awhile since I last wrote. It has been somewhat uneventful around here. I mean aside from me working on making little baby booties and pushing on my stomach to try and feel little Aiden moving. I think that this little guy will have the funnest personality. I mean I don’t really know much yet but I have been giggling a lot and being silly (as I am prone to do) and I just think that he will come out knowing that life is good.

Anyway, today is an eventful day. It is the day that I go with my fairy godfather and get Aiden his crib and mattress. I am very excited because aside from a few clothes that I inherited, a pack-n-play that I inherited, and the things that I have made for Aiden, we still don’t really have anything.

In just two short weeks I will start my third trimester and another exciting thing is that after my prenatal visit on Nov. 29th, I will start having prenatal visits every 2 weeks! There will still be 12 weeks left in my pregnancy but I think going in for prenatal visits more regularly will help the time pass more quickly. 🙂 We will also start birthing classes on Dec. 6th.

Well, that is all for now. I will take pictures of the crib when we get it put together and I will also take pictures of the baby booties I have been working on, as well as any little outfits that I make. I also realize that I have not yet finished and taken a picture of the crib quilt, so I will get around to that as well. Adios!

This morning I was reading through some scholarships that Brandon submitted on fast web.  He would really love people to make comments on them or to vote on them starting Monday.  These are the links… “The Real America Scholarship,” The “To Rise From the Ashes Scholarship,” and “The Modern Ninja Scholarship.”  Anyway, it got me to thinking about a brief essay that I wrote when I applied at Challenger School long ago.  We were asked to write about our view of America and I feel that it is still accurate today and wanted to share it with you.  So here it is…

America 

I am grateful to live in a country where we have freedom; freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of press, and the freedom to assemble peaceably.  I also believe that it is a great privilege to live in a country that is by the people, for the people.  As a U.S. citizen this allows me to have the right to choose the leaders of my country and my state and how I want them to spend my tax money.

Today’s children are the future leaders of America and in order for them to become honest, hard working, and intelligent leaders they need the best education that they can receive.  This means that the schools that they are attending need to have better supplies and text books, better teachers, and the students need to have more hands on experiences within the classroom.  These things are only going to be possible if more of our tax money goes toward educational purposes.

In conclusion, I know that our country has the potential to bring forth the very best political leaders that we have ever had running our country, if we will only tap into our resources to do so.

Lastly, I just want to encourage all of you again to please be sure to go out and vote.  Election day is next Tuesday.  For those of you who have not yet registered to vote, do so now so that you can vote in next year’s presidential election.  Also, I would ask that when voting, do not vote democrat, republican or green party.  Just vote American, by this I mean, study out the candidates for president review their opinions of the issues most important to you, (for me these would be mostly be immigration and education) and vote for the candidate who most closely resembles your opinion.  Love you all!

This just keeps coming back to my little brain.  I have spoken to many different people on the subject hearing a wide variety of good opinions and arguments both for and against illegal immigration.  I was encouraged to think about how Heavenly Father or Jesus would handle this particular situation and base my opinion on that and the following thoughts are a result of that.

First of all, I firmly believe that laws are created for the benefit and well being of us as American’s and those who come into America as guest workers, or on visa’s and passports.  They also protect those who have come in the country with the purpose of becoming a citizen of the United States.  When a person of any ethnicity or race, comes into our country from another country without following the proper proceedure they will be subjected to exploitation.  They are not covered by the laws that protect our own citizens from sub par wages, they have to sneak around, they can’t apply for a social security number, and I would imagine they aren’t protected under our laws if they were to become subject to theft, violence, etc. 

I feel that although we are all Heavenly Father’s children and are all equal in his eyes, and even though it seems like a brotherly thing to do to let these immigrants in and work for sub par wages because it is a better life then what they could get back home, if we just shift our view slightly, then we will see it is not.  If you consider that American companies like to hire these workers over American’s because they are willing to work for wages that are below minimum wage and that we do have a law such as having a minimum wage for a reason, then we can liken these employers unto slave owners with the immigrants being their slaves.  These illegal immigrants are being taken advantage of due to the fact that they have snuck into the country, they are willing to work for sub par wages, and because to them it is “better” then back home.  This seems corrupt to me. 

I feel that Christ would encourage those wanting to migrate to America to do so as the laws outline, because that way they will have the same freedoms, rights, and protections as the citizens.  They will be able to have an even better life because they too will be eligible to receive minimum wage and benefit from that law.  He would not have us giving them jobs and paying them poorly just because to them it is a better life.  This argument to me seems to provide an argument for big companies outsourcing and paying pennies on the dollar.  For instance, if we go into madagascar (I just randomly chose a country for example) and after researching that their average pay is $2.50 a week we offer jobs that pay $3.50 a week, because “it is a better life then what their own country can offer” even though here in America we are paying employees who are doing the same job $5.25 an hour, isn’t that exploitation?  Aren’t we taking advantage of them because of their circumstances?  This is not a brotherly thing to do, it is not a Christlike thing to do, it is for the gain of the American company and the United States and not to help better the lives of others.

Oi, I have gone on for quite long enough.  I hope that my points were made clearly.  Ta ta.

We successfully got the nursery painted friday night! Hooray! You can see pictures of the progress in the photo albums. We only painted two walls because we did not want to fuss with the cinderblock. Yesterday I also got his crib quilt mostly finished, made a pair of booties and started on a romper that will have a red shirt on the top half and car print fabric on the bottom. (It is a one piece) I look forward to getting some fleece and other non-fraying fabric so that I can make a myriad more little booties. It is super fun (and easy). Ta ta for now.

Hey everyone!  Here is a little bit of what we have been up to this week…First of all, starting Wednesday November 7th I will be volunteering at Legacy Preparatory Academy once a week to help with testing and substitute for classes.  This will be unpaid as any change in our income could cause us to lose medicaid which is our health insurance for the duration of the pregnancy.  I am excited to be going back, even for just a few hours a week, because it was probably my favorite job thus far in my life.  I know what you are all thinking, Erin, you should become a teacher.  Well, I tell you this, I want to be a full time mom.  Also, I worry too much and get overwhelmed somewhat easily and I think that the stress of being a full time teacher would be too much.  This part time job as an instructor was perfect because I taught 3 classes with only 6-10 kids.  I was able to get to know them more individually and the grades weren’t too much. 

Next, I will probably be helping grandma with projects, gift wrapping, and organizing, once a week through the end of my pregnancy.  I helped her this last week wrapping some dishes and going through a small portion of her Christmas stuff to organize it.  She also had me vacuum.  It went pretty well and grandma is fun company.

Yesterday I worked on Aiden’s baby quilt, started sewing a romper and completed a pair of baby booties.  Last night, Brandon and I finally painted two of the walls in Aiden’s room and it looks pretty good.  (For photos of the progress in the nursery visit Aiden’s site)  We both really love having a splash of color in there. 

Brandon is still just busy with the same old, same old.  Today he is spending a little bit of time creating a hood for his halloween costume.  We also bought a cool trident and some little devil horns.  It is fun when things start to come together.  We love you all!  Take care.

While sad news, it is important to recognize that Aiden’s great grandmother Trudy Cheel passed away last night, she was preceeded in death by her husband Joe Cheel in July, 2000.  She has had several hard months and we are greatful that she has gone to a better place.  Perhaps she will get to spend some time with Aiden with he begins his sojourn here on earth and they can swap stories.

Is anyone reading our blog?  If so please post comments so that we know that our postings aren’t going unread.  We love you all.

Is anyone else as concerned with the status of the world as I am?  It seems more and more that people are saying crazy things and we American’s just take them at face value no matter how insane the idea is.  Also, people are allowed to get away with more and more and more these days because the “rules” our politicians are making tie our hands from solving problems. 

Here are a few examples that I can think of.  A man comes into our country illegally and murders some people (I don’t remember minute details such as his name or what state this occured in) we catch him and proceed to try him for murder.  His country calls us, and says that because we didn’t contact that embassy (per our rule that we made) then we can’t try him and sentance him to death and we need to send him back to his country.  This man has already broken one law by entering our country illegally, he then broke a second very HUGE law by killing american citizens and we are not allowed to try him and punish him for breaking our laws.  How is this reasonable?

Next, there have been several unprovoked acts of violence recently and I imagine these will happen more and more frequently.  One happened while a lady was out walking her dog.  As she did so a man with two knives stabbed her repeatedly for no reason whatsoever after having stolen 4 knives from Texas Smokehouse and stabbing a restaurant worker.  Luckily there was an off duty cop eating at a restaurant nearby who was able to stabilize the situation.  The lady didn’t die and is in serious but stable condition in the hospital.  Another is that a few days ago in Holladay there were about  20 cars whose windows had been smashed in for no apparent reason other then the perpetuators wanting a few kicks.  Luckily the police were able to catch them when they pulled over a car who had run a stop sign.  Inside the car was alcohal, broken glass, and a metal bat.  Two are in the salt lake county jail while the third is in juvenile detention.  It makes me a little nervous to think that I could be the victim of some unprovoked violence.

I can’t think of much else to say except that it is becoming more and more clear to me that humans, even the smartest and most intelligent humans in the world, don’t even know a small part of what our father in Heaven knows.  One day we are told to drink orange juice because it fights cancer and several years later we are told it causes cancer.  Another day we are told not to eat fat and later we are told that our bodies need a little bit of fat.  In the 70’s we are told that we need to prepare for another ice age and here we are 30 year later being told to prepare for intense global warming (while ironically the meteorologists are predicting the coldest winter in Utah that we have had in several years).  Here is what I think about all of that, Heavenly Father commands all things, he regulates the weather and the climate changes, we here just need to go with the flow of the seasons and not predict one extreme or another.  We need to not do silly and extreme things to “balance” out the climate either like dump ash on the north pole or metal shavings into the ocean.  We just need to be smart and use our resources wisely.  Also, where food is concerned if we follow the teachings of the scriptures we can’t go wrong.  Heavenly Father made our bodies, he knows what is best for them, and no well-meaning scientist who sole focus is to study the body will ever know all the things that Heavenly Father knows.  So there you have it, my rant for today.

Hey everybody! I am writing because last night I finally felt what I am 95% sure was the baby moving. I was laying on my back and had my hand on my belly and I felt, well it is hard to describe, but it was like a little bump up and then a slight brush along my hand. This happened twice. It would be similar to taking your knuckle and running it gently along your other hand. How very exciting! I hope that this starts to happen more and more because I would really like Brandon to feel little Aiden moving around. It was pretty exciting!

We also have everything out of the nursery that we can move without a truck (and also Brandon’s drums). I plan to finish taping the walls this week so that the painting can begin!! It is very exciting. On top of that a little birdy told me that when the room is ready (which mostly just means the painted walls are dry) they would be obliged to take me to go get the baby crib and crib mattress. Yippee! I can start to see things coming together a little bit and this is very good. Brandon was given a web design job a few weeks ago that will pay well enough for us to buy the stroller/car seat and the swing/bouncer that we wanted with enough to have a little bit left over. Those are the three major purchases that we had and I am glad that we have a way to get them.