Colby's Hope: June 2015

Guest Post: Kallene Chatterton

8:17 PM
By Colby Christensen
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Today we have a guest blog post from one of my good friends Kallene. We have known each other for a long time and she has influenced me in so many ways. I'm grateful I know her! Hope you enjoy!

Dear Colby,

I decided to write my guest post for you the same way I write for my and my sister's blog: in letter form. It just seems to make it easier for me. It makes me feel like I am sitting on the couch with you chatting during the commercial break of "Love it or List it" because of course I forgot to record it so we can't be fast-forwarding the commercials (what a fantastic invention that DVR thing!).

I was perusing my iPhone pictures trying to get inspiration for what to write about, and a picture of you and my adorable baby CC struck a chord in my soul and connected some dots for me, so I knew that was it.

Remember this day? We went and watched that football game together, and you held CC for me (thank you). CC being a second child (and a second child without a big age gap from the first child), gets passed around a lot, and held by a lot of other people. This is a tremendous help to me, but also often causes a stretch of my little mother-heart. I have to trust a lot of other people to help me do my job. It's my village I am trusting, people. My village that is helping raise my children.

I had no idea when I became a mom that while I was being entrusted with one of God's most precious souls, I myself would have to learn to trust others. Anytime one of my girls is in someone else's arms, I have to consciously choose to trust them, trust their judgment, and trust that my child will be safe in their care. (I guess these days I also have to trust that my children won't be terrors while I am not the one supervising them.) When I pass CC off to sit in your arms, I trust that you will hold her tenderly but firmly, and not let her wiggles bring her to a harmful or scary fall. When I attend the Relief Society activity to pull weeds at the church like I did tonight, I trust those kind young women to watch my dear baby. I trust that they know how to hold a baby, and that they know not to feed the baby candy or food, and they know not to try and make her play with things she doesn't know how to play with. I find myself trusting a lot.

And so I learn about trusting as a Mom, and as a person, and as a friend. You and your family are the dearest with my girls, and have helped me to grow my trust. Since each of you is completely trustworthy, it encourages me to continue trusting others. It makes me treasure the trust that has been placed in me as their mom. It is fitting for me to learn trust from both sides: being trustworthy, and trusting others. For showing trust is similar to showing faith. And faith is what keeps my hope shining bright. It is an honor to trust you Colby, and to have hope right along with you in the brightness of your future.

LOVE, Kallene

Kallene C. Chatterton

books

My Happiness Book

8:52 PM
By Colby Christensen
1 Comments

beginning

First Week of Cheer

2:37 PM
By Colby Christensen
1 Comments

This week was my first week having cheer practice from 7:00 to 10:00 every morning. At first I thought it would be hard to get up that early, especially during the summer, but it's actually not that bad because I'm super excited to go.

The first day we got to know each other a little bit by playing some games. Since there are 35 girls on the team so it's good to get to know everyone so that we can be a better team during the year.

Another fun thing we got to do was try on our uniforms. We got to try on everything, sweats, T-shirts, and finally the uniforms. It was really fun to try on everything, but yet kind of crazy because all of the girls were running around. It made me even more excited to do cheer seeing all of the fun stuff we're going to get to wear.

The next day we really got in the grind. We did a few stretches to warm up, and then we had to do a lap around the track. Now I am not a runner, despite all of the times I have tried to be, so it was kind of a struggle to run. At first I was up towards the front with my friends, but then I kind of fell back. I ran with the coach and we worked on keeping a steady pace. So hopefully by the end of all of our summer practices, I will be able to run better.

We also started stunting which was really fun. I've never witnessed stunts and been able to be a part of them. It was really cool to see the JV flyers go up in a stunt for the first time. They were really nervous, but they were able to tough it out and do a great job. My coaches were really impressed that we were stunting that well for the first time.

We also learned a dance the other day. It was kind of hard to learn even though it was so short just because of the speed of it. But after a lot of practice and work with the other girls on the team, I was able to get it down and it looks a lot better now.

Today was just kind of a relaxing day because we all came to practice really sore. We learned another dance that we spent a lot of time on. I felt that this dance was easier for me to learn, not because it was easier, but because I had already learned one dance and gotten used to it.

I really enjoyed doing cheer this week even though it was hard at first, I think I've gotten better. One thing I've learned this week is that when something is hard and you don't like to do it, you just have to keep pushing through and get better. There was a lot of stuff this week that was really hard for me, but because I kept pushing through, it got easier, and it will get even easier in the future. You just have to keep pushing through.

Always have hope,

Colby