Jazmin's Journey

My nanny is absolutely fabulous. She just adores the kids and I may have spied on her once and all I heard was "How many times am I gonna kiss you today? Mwah, mwah, mwah!" Accompanied by my babies giggles. I've heard her discipline Dylan in totally appropriate ways and get them all down for their naps happily.

Jazmin is about 53 yrs old, half-Italian, she is American, yet she has that loving foreigner personality where she wants to take care of you. She is chatty!! Like chatty times 100. :) She loves to talk, loves to give advice, and here's where it gets good... she is doing everything she can to find God's true church.

After she had only worked here for 2 days, she asked me what church I go to. I told her. After a pause, she rushed all sorts of thoughts she'd been having since her interview 4 days before that point.

She basically said - (I'm not using quotes because it's not an exact quote) - I admire your family so much. I just love how you treat your children and how you discipline them. I want to be like your family. I just love families.

I showed her The Family - A Proclamation to the World from The First Presidency. She took it home and loved it.

The next day, she asked about what we believe and asked about the "rules" of the church so she could decide if it was the church for her. I bore testimony of God, Jesus Christ, and the church being restored through a living prophet. I was grateful I served a mission bc it flowed so naturally and I know that was both the spirit and bc of my preparation and experience of sharing the gospel.

She just loved it. She couldn't believe she didn't know these things. She told me how thirsty she was to know the truths and she had tried 7th Day Adventist and Jehovah Witnesses and was raised Catholic. She just knew those were not the churches for her. She prays constantly and I just know with 100% certainty that God brought us together so that she could find the church.

When she asked others about visiting the Mormon church, they said you had to be invited. When I said I was Mormon, she got so excited because it was the one church she felt she hadn't explored and had always admired the way missionaries treat each other.

I immediately called the missionaries, they came over the next day. Two weeks later, she made it to church this Sunday with me. Everything was so new to her, she was just soaking it all in. The investigator lesson was fabulous about priesthood authority. At the end (she got a lot of attention as she was the only non-member or missionary - there were 6 Elders in there) Jazmin saw a portrait at the back of the room of Jesus Christ laying his hands on an apostle with the other apostles gathered around. She said, "Do you see that? I read and prayed about the Book of Mormon for hours. I feel God hit me over the head with a hammer that it was true. I was praying for a sign, and God knew I would need no less than a hammer. He hit me over the head with a hammer. That night, I had a dream. These 2 Elders, these 2 right here (the ones teaching her) had their hands on my head just like in that photo! I knew it was true."

The spirit was so strong. I feel so blessed to have been able to be a part of this experience. To know that she had literally never heard of "laying on of hands" or anything about blessings or priesthood authority before this point and then to have had a dream where the Elders had their hands laid on her head... it's just a miracle.

God loves us. I still sit here awed at the fact that God chose me to be the one to introduce her to the church and to be able to go on this journey with her.

When I started looking for a nanny, a last resort was to post on Craigslist, unsure what crazies might come along. Somehow, of the 20 people who replied to my ad, Jazmin was the only one who fit perfectly. Seriously, a couple other interviews were set up and they just fell through for random reasons. Plus, Jazmin confessed that she had another job offer for more than double what I'm paying her for only 1 kid, and she chose to work here. She said she just knew she wanted to work for me, her boyfriend still thinks she's crazy for it.

I know without a doubt that God directed her here. He directed me in my hiring. He allowed me to trust a complete stranger with my children (yes, I did do a background check). She has already bought them all Christmas gifts! Are you kidding me?? She's so amazing. I just love her. To top it off, she does the dishes, cleans the floors, and does the kids laundry.

She is currently working towards a baptismal date of January 11th. She has a lot of things to learn and do (like get married or become single, etc.), but she is golden and I know God will help her get there.

I feel like everything Bryce and I have gone through has led us to this point. If Bryce didn't leave me for a month, I never would have hired a nanny. God is directing His work. I'm so grateful He chose to use me. I literally did nothing, I hoped I could talk to this new nanny about the church at some point, but that's the extent of what I did. She and God did the rest and I'm just watching it go by in front of me.

The 411

I need to find some pictures to add on here, the blog is getting a little boring with all this text.

Right now, I am working what seems like a lot of hours for Women for Decency. We are in the midst of a major rebranding which has been really fun to be on board for. We are refining our mission statement and goals while renaming our organization to be focused more on the kids rather than the women who are helping the kids learn how to reject porn.

I'm really enjoying my job. Some days it takes a lot more proactiveness than I want, but overall, I really love the freedom I'm given to share opinions, make a difference, and help with marketing and other businessy type decisions or projects. There is always something to do, something to improve.

The girls are really struggling with naps. I can't complain bc all kids usually sleep a solid 11-12 hours at night. The girls seem to nap for about 1 hour and then are cranky in the late evening bc they are so tired. They used to take two 1.5 hr naps, so not sure why it's down to one super short one. Thus, days are not so productive once my sweet Jazmin nanny leaves.

I love hanging out with my sweet babies when they get up from their naps. After the initial fussiness they are just super giggly and hilarious. They wake up about 2pm.

Dylan takes a super long nap and wakes up between 3-4pm (goes down at 1pm). Evenings are rough because these girls are ravenous! I swear I can never get enough food in them... and no, it's not always healthy food - they are starting to reject solid veggies, which is a pain because they loved baby food veggies.

The girls love to go to bed at night and practically throw themselves in bed immediately after I walk in their room. They each have a lovey and a stuffed animal that they must have to sleep. So adorbs.

Dylan is a bigger project to get to bed, but still adorbs. It takes bribes and threats to get him to go potty, put on pj's, go to bed. He generally likes his teeth brushed, reading books, and singing songs and will lay down nicely once all is finally completed. It's a long process sometimes. Tonight he was devastated to go to bed because we were playing tag and he just did not want to stop. I should have played for another 10 minutes to get a real good workout in. :)

The girls favorite game is Ring Around the Rosie. Sylvie is easy and likes to play it with me, but Axie tearfully requests with her outstretched hand that Dylan always join in... and he's apparently sick of playing it with us. Sad. It was so fun to have them all do it together, but now he feels it's a chore since he has to do it to keep Axie happy.

We spend tons of time in the backyard. Sadly it gets dark at 5pm, so evenings are rough! But, we are always out there at least from 4-5, or earlier depending on naps and post-nap snack. They spend mornings out there too. Such cuties. Love me sweet kids.

In Colorado

Bryce is currently staying in my sisters basement in Colorado looking for a job. He's been gone since Sunday, November 3 (10 days and counting)... and will get back November 27, the day before Thanksgiving.

I am here alone... with 3 kids.

My sanity comes from...

9am-1pm: My wonderful nanny, Jazmin! I work upstairs in my room on the computer while she's here. she just adores the kids. So awesome.

1-2pm: Naps. The girls wake up about 2 if I'm lucky, sometimes earlier (which means they barely slept since they go down at 12:30!), I eat lunch and finish any work.

Evenings: Alternate between my wonderful in-laws who bring me dinner or come visit and play with kids or paint Dylans used headboard we got months ago AND our best friends here Katie and Ben and kids who make us dinner or come here for dinner or play. If I have nothing planned, I load up the car or stroller and figure out something to do because sitting at home just makes for fussy, bored kids.

Nights: Bryce's brother comes and sleeps here at nights because I'm the most paranoid person ever and didn't sleep the first week Bryce was gone from all the noises.

Let's hope something works out while he's there! Or he will have to go spend all of December looking for a job as well. Ugh.