Happy 6 years to Portia this past Thursday! We love this spirited little girl we have so much!

Some fun things to note about Portia include, but are not limited to:

• She loves reading! She is a gifted reader who will spend 30+ minutes reading to herself for fun, or spend time reading to her little sisters!
• She loves beavers (as you may have gathered from the cake she selected). If you want to know why; don’t ask us. But we love it!
• She loves kisses and hugs and being carried and being held like a baby and anything where she gets snuggled. And she truly gives the best hugs! I love that she still loves all that even though she’s getting so big!
• She loves music. She is getting quite good at picking out melodies on the piano, and loves to sing along to her favorite songs.
• She is still a fabulous little talker. She began expressing herself in sentences long before she turned 2; and she still has an impressive mastery of language and communication. She loves to chat with friends at school, and she sometimes makes jokes and comments that are so funny I would think an adult had thought of it. Talking with Portia is always fun!
• She LOVES helping in the kitchen! No matter how big or small the thing we’re making, she is the first one to volunteer to help out and loves basically every part of it. I love having her as my sweet, happy little helper!

We are SO glad we have Portia in our family and for the modern medicine that keeps her with us! She is truly an amazing little girl who shows daily just how strong God made her. I always look forward to seeing the myriad wonderful things she does with every new day of her life.

If you can sing the title, you get extra points. But don’t sing the rest of the song, because–since acquiring the lovesac–we have learned that it really isn’t a very good song. That’s probably the reason why I only ever knew the chorus. Or maybe it’s because the chorus is the only catchy part of the song… Who knows?

ANYWAY

Based on these pictures, it looks like Portia is the #1 user of the Lovesac; but I think it is equally used by all the children who are big enough to get on it and read on their own.

Life has just kept putting along around here. I feel like we have become basically accustomed to double diabetes; though it is still not fun. But a lot of fun things have happened for our family in spite of it! I’m going to just do pictures with explanation this time around. Enjoy!

Moving when we did, we were behind on arranging things like preschool, so Helen spent the autumn at home with me. But our awesome neighbor down the street had one of her 3 year old preschool students move away at Christmastime and she invited Helen to enroll in her preschool. Helen LOVES going to preschool! She loves her teacher, Miss Karie, she loves doing show-and-tell on Tuesdays and tumbling on Fridays, she loves going on the field-trips. She LOVES everything about it! I also think it has been so good for her to have something special just for her–especially since it is her sisters just older and just younger who get ALL the attention for their diabetes.

We got a giant bean bag chair for the movie/game room downstairs. The kids love it; but not as much as the parents! Here are all the kiddos piled on top of it. Aren’t they adorable?!

Helen found the scissors one night. I don’t feel like it needs much more explanation.

Fay and I worked together to design this dress, and then I made it! I am SO amazed and pleased by how well it turned out! So frequently I attempt a sewing project thinking “Oh yeah, this will be really simple and come together easily and quickly” and then I’m completely wrong and I either ruin it and give up or it takes me FOREVER to finish it. But this one just worked out almost exactly how I expected it would. And it really did come together quickly and easily. I only worked on it for a total of about 3 hours! And believe me, nobody is more astonished by its success than me!

The first weekend of February we decided it was time to escape to severe cold and spend some time in the slightly less cold of St. George. It was a very quick trip–we arrived Friday evening at 6:00 and left for home on Sunday morning in time to make it to our 1:30 church meetings. But that Saturday we had there was basically perfectly spent! It was the perfect combination of going out and doing fun things and hanging out at our AirBnB doing relaxing things. Everybody had a fantastic time!

Since October, Fay has been practicing for the school musical. She finally got the chance to perform this month! The musical was “The Adventures of Lewis and Clark” and Fay loved being in it! We loved watching her in it! I was even THAT mom who got all misty-eyed watching my sweet girl perform!

To help Portia cope better with receiving shots all the time, we implemented a sticker chart where she gets a sticker every time she behaves reasonably for a shot. After completing one of her charts her selected reward was a frosting/sprinkles set from the grocery store and the privilege of making cookies to decorate with Mommy. Portia loves helping in the kitchen all the time for everything, so this was a total dream-come-true for her. And she’s even wearing her chef’s hat!

Valentine’s Day was lovely. We had some fancy pink and red things for breakfast with the pictured decorated table. The kids all had their parties at school. And for dinner we did simple cheese fondue, followed by a trip to Leatherby’s for ice-cream!

But my favorite thing we do for Valentine’s Day is something that lasts the whole season–there IS a Valentine’s season, right? 🙂 Anyway, we have a decorative Valentine’s mail box which we use to send little love notes to all the members of our family during the month leading up to Valentine’s Day. After somebody reads their love note we put it in another heart-shaped box decoration thing we have. On Valentine’s evening, we re-read all the notes from the month and feel ALL the love! It is such a happy little tradition!

Anyway, that’s a little taste of our past couple months. It’s always a party around here with all these cuties and their goings on.

It’s a new year and I am so excited to really get started on my word of the year! Usually I’ve got a pretty good idea of what word I want to use for the next year by about Thanksgiving time; but this year I had a rough time deciding what I wanted to do. I went back and forth on a list of 10 or so different words each with varying degrees of concreteness (think “engage 2018 vs read 2021–read is far more concrete than engage). But finally I just followed my gut and went with the first word I had considered.

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So welcome to Date 2022! This is meant in the very concrete way of: I just want to have way more dates with my love this year! In the past handful of months I have realized just how immensely important it is for Josh and me to just spend time together doing fun things without the kids. Literally every single part of my life is better when I have had a real date with Josh! And I know things are better for him, too. So it’s just a good thing!

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At the beginning of our marriage, I felt like every day was a date! We did go out occasionally on “official” dates; but I definitely felt no lack of connection with Josh. But as kids came, it became harder to go out and easier to get too busy/tired to do planned activities together, and so we really slacked off for … years.

But this past autumn, I felt like it was time to change that. So on weekends where we didn’t have a babysitter (most weekends), we committed to doing planned, legit at-home dates. We did great for about a month, and it truly was fabulous! That month was probably the best one of the whole year! But then “fill-in-the-blank” happened and we got out of the habit again. So it’s time to return!

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So this goal is marvelously simple, but actually still a decent amount of work. It takes lots of planning and effort to secure a babysitter for 5 kids and then get them/the house ready for that babysitter. And it also takes a lot of effort to plan novel, engaging at-home dates–which is why we didn’t do it for so many years. But that time with Josh and me together is truly transformative for both of us! So I’m super excited to have this be my challenge for the year! The official goal is to have a real date every single week. I will be shocked and delighted if that really happens; but if we get anywhere close to that I know it will be wonderful!

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So, this year my goal was simply to read! I never liked reading until I was married, and even then I still didn’t read a ton. So this year, I wanted to start reading some of those “high quality” books on my list. I try to be really realistic about my year-resolution-words and what I want to accomplish; so though I had some lofty dreams associated with this word, I find it a success that I read more this year because of my goal than I would have without it. Thank you to all who gave me recommendations and physical books (my favorite way to read) to help me with my goal! Here are the things I read in conjunction with #Read2021:

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In Full, I read

• Atomic Habits by James Clear–I loved it! But I am a nerd and really enjoy good self-help books. I felt like it was extra cool that the principles taught in this book were included in a General Conference talk this past October!
• Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen–Fun and witty, as Jane Austen is wont to be. It kind of made me want to read one of the Gothic novels she is satiring.
• A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle–A fun introduction to Sherlock Holmes (I had never known how he and Watson came to be friends); but I was really cranky because of the false ideas about members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints it portrayed. But I don’t think there are themes like that in other Sherlock Holmes books, so I may venture to read them in the future, in spite of my crankiness.
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling–The kids and I read a new Harry Potter book every summer. It is fun to read them again as I have only read them all once: when they were originally published.
• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving–It is all thanks to Fay that we actually finished this one! This book has the most magnificent, florid language and it simply demands to be read out loud. But my only audience is my kids and the beautiful, florid language is completely lost on basically everyone except Fay. But she was even more determined to finish the story than I was, so we succeeded! Thanks, Faymous!
• The Book of Mormon–Translated by Joseph Smith Jr.–In my efforts to follow along with Come Follow Me in 2020, I didn’t actually read all of the Book of Mormon. I primarily followed the prompts in the manual and called that good. So this year, I really wanted to read the whole thing. I’m so grateful that I did. It really is such a blessing to read it and come to know the Savior and understand His plan and gospel a little better each time I do. And I also feel like it is a special experience to accept Moroni’s invitation to ponder and pray about its truthfulness each time I conclude my reading. I liked the whole year’s experience so well that I’m doing it again this year!
• Many children’s books, including, but not limited to: Dory Fantasmagory series, Whatever After books, Dog Man books, Bunnicula (an aboslute classic!), Skinny Bones (laugh out loud funny in some parts), and picture books galore! It is really fun to share reading with my cuties!

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In Part

• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens–I would have loved to finish reading this one to the kids, but you know how Christmastime gets. Every time I read this story or even just watch the movies of it, I just want to be a better, more loving person!
• The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe–I’ve been trying to get the kids as excited about the Chronicles of Narnia as they are about Harry Potter. So far I have been unsuccessful. 🙂
• You Are Not Your Brain by Jeffrey M. Schwartz–If you’ve ever spoken to me about mental health you have heard all about this book. The principles taught in it have truly changed and saved my life! I feel like they have helped me learn better how to access the power of Jesus Christ in my life. I can’t recommend it highly enough. (Although, if you read it and try out the principles and they don’t work for you, you should let me know so maybe I’ll stop recommending it quite so much.)
• John Adams by David McCullough–This. Book. This is the book that began my reading journey this year. It was the book, above all others, that I wanted to complete. Everyone who had already read it reported that it was SO GOOD and also really long. Well, I can confirm that both of those statements are true. I only made it half way through because, while it really is just so so good, and gives you such a wonderful picture of the Revolutionary War time period and John and Abigail Adams and their personalities, it is just so dense. I didn’t think it seemed all that long. It’s only like 650 pages. But it’s not like Atomic Habits pages that you just fly through. Every page is filled with tons of details and 1700s language, and sometimes really heavy subject matter. It really feels long. But I am still determined to finish it. We’ll see how 2022 goes in that regard. But when I do finish it, I can already tell you that I will have LOTS to say about why John Adams is 10 Billion times better than Alexander Hamilton. Get excited!
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy–This was the single most recommended book on my list of recommendations. I knew there was no way I was going to be able to sit down and read this along with John Adams, so I decided to try Daddy’s suggestion and listen to an audio book version of it. Well, it turns out I also can’t really make time for that, because I only made it through a few chapters. But, after those few chapters, I wasn’t sure that I really wanted to read any more anyway. When Daddy told me about his experience reading this book, he said “At the end of the book, I was just filled with a profound sense of sadness.” Even if it is a marvelously real depiction of the human experience (as I have heard), I don’t know if I ever want to be unnecessarily filled with a profound sense of sadness. We’ll see if I try it again in the future.

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Anyway, I’m so grateful for the wonderful literature there is available to read in this world! And my hope is that my efforts to read more this year will carry over into the rest of my life. If nothing else, I really REALLY do want to finish reading John Adams. 🙂

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Once Upon a Time, there was an exhausted family. It was ours.

If you read the story of our move, you know that we were pretty well spent after the process of moving. And that was on the heels of 2020, which doesn’t really need a lot of explanation, but I might add that we also had a newborn baby that year as well as two kids doing full-time school from home. After finally moving into our beautiful new home and neighborhood, there was one big thing we saw between us and being able to settle down and decompress a little. That thing was a very exciting trip to Boston followed by a family reunion in New Hampshire. We were so excited to go and visit Boston and see family; but we knew that the reality of travel with 5 young children is tiring.

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While in Boston, we noticed some slightly odd behavior from Bianca who was 14 months old. She was insanely thirsty, not sleeping well, and having huge wet diapers. This made traveling with her even more difficult than it otherwise would have been, especially since Josh and I also didn’t sleep well. (And we get to be pretty decent drama-queens when we are sleep deprived.) After several of those hugely soaked through diapers, I wondered if there was something up.

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I looked up Bianca’s symptoms online and Type 1 Diabetes came up as a likely culprit. So, naturally, I called Daddy to ask him if I should be freaking out about this, or if it was just the internet which loves catastrophise even the most basic of symptoms. He told me that those were, indeed, symptoms of T1D and that since he was coming out the next day for the family reunion, he would bring a urine glucose test strip with him so that we could just know for certain. I asked what we should do if the answer was yes. He said, take her to the ER. I asked what we should do if the answer was no. He said, “Let her drink. It’s hot outside.”

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Daddy had me send him a text so that he would be sure to remember to bring the test strips; but somehow he still forgot them the next day when he came. So we just went to New Hampshire to enjoy time with family. Bianca was still not herself; but we knew that she was off her schedule, surrounded by unfamiliar people, and very tired, so we thought she was probably okay.

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As we had planned our trip back east, our original plan was for me to drive across the country with the kids and others who were going to the reunion, while Josh flew in order to miss less work. Josh felt quite bad about that decision. And despite my telling him that things would be fine, he felt like it would just be better for us to fly even though it would cost more. So we decided to just make it our family vacation as well as a reunion, hence the time in Boston beforehand. Looking back, I feel like he must have been inspired.

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Less than 48 hours after we arrived back home–and long before we would have returned had we driven home, Bianca was NOT doing well. She was insatiably thirsty, still very irritable, and her breathing had started to become labored and she was getting increasingly lethargic. We decided that it was time for answers. We took her to instacare and found out that she had a blood glucose reading of over 800. Her condition was so severe that they wouldn’t let us drive her to Primary Children’s Hospital. They called the Life-Flight team. I was super excited to ride in a helicopter; but they sent them via “ground transport” so it was just an ambulance.

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We were admitted for about 2 days. The first several hours were getting Bianca slowly back to healthy blood glucose, pH, and a bunch of other levels I don’t eve understand. The rest of the time was teaching Josh and I how to be the parents of a diabetic child. We had visits from doctors, nurses, dieticians, and social workers who helped us understand what was going on in our sweet baby’s body as well as how to measure blood glucose, count calories, and give insulin shots. By the time we left, we felt like we understood pretty well, and like we could handle this.

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And I think we genuinely did okay. But every other stressful part of our lives was still there. We still had a new house we were moving into. We still had five kids all home for summer break. We were still potty-training. Josh still had work. We still had tons of laundry. We still had all the things. Plus, the sky was constantly covered with a blanket of smoke. And the stress was just SO MUCH. I wasn’t really surprised when my anxiety kicked in again. But it definitely didn’t help things.

I feel the need to pause here and share that the number of tender mercies from God are too many to count through this experience. From the fact that Daddy forgot the glucose test strips, which allowed us to enjoy a family reunion and be at home, so close to an amazing children’s hospital with one of the largest teams of pediatric endocrinologists in the country, and surrounded by loving supportive family–instead of across the country where we know almost nobody, to the fact that our new Bishop has a son with juvenile diabetes, to the fact that though this is an enormous burden in so many ways, financially is not really one of them. We have felt so much love and support from the Savior and His hands here on the earth! And they just don’t stop! And despite the anxiety and the stress which I thought might crush me, the Savior truly delivered me! But that is another story all on its own.

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My hope for relief was always the beginning of school. If I could focus more on Bianca, and not be feeling like I was constantly neglecting my other 4 kids, things would surely be better. And they were. We started to get the hang of things, and I started a class that was every Tuesday night for 12 weeks. It was a sacred time for me to just walk away from it all and do something just for me. Things were seriously SO much better. I felt like a normal person again!

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Then, the Friday night before Thanksgiving, Portia (age 5) was not sleeping well. She woke up 4 times in the night to go to the bathroom and guzzle water. And despite all those trips to the bathroom, she still wet the bed. (She doesn’t do that.) As Josh and I discussed how strange that was the next morning, I realized what it reminded me of. I went up to Portia’s bed and immediately took her blood glucose with Bianca’s meter. Her glucose was 259. I wondered if perhaps the meter could be wrong, so I took mine as well. Mine was 84. I knew what we had to do.

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After a few phone calls, we were headed to Primary Children’s Hospital once again. And again, tender mercies began to ensue. The on-call endocrinologist for the weekend was Bianca’s doctor, so she already knew us. She met us in the ER along with another endocrinologist and after observing Portia’s condition–she was doing very well because of how early we caught it–and discussing how we had just been there 4 months before, they decided that we could skip being admitted and just go home. It was such a blessing! That weekend there were many visitors and well-wishers for Portia and her parents, and we were so grateful for their help and support! But I just felt broken.

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I knew that things would be fine. I knew that our life wasn’t actually going to change that much. But I just felt like I’d been hit with a train of hurt and more stress. It took me months to recover from that after Bianca. What was I going to do?!

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I needed somebody to mourn with me, I guess, because I reached out to our Bishop’s wife, Sister Porter. She was so kind and loving in her texts. And then she offered to bring us dinner. When they came, they brought us a delicious dinner (for which it was easy to count carbs!) and while they definitely did mourn with us, they also told us time and again “You guys have got this!” They knew that we were exhausted and weighed down; but they also assured us that we were strong and that things would be okay and that they would get better. I needed that SO MUCH! I felt so much lighter as they left.

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While they were there, I had missed a call from my sister Kathryn. I called her back and she informed me that she was trying to think of some way to help me, and she had recently heard of somebody ordering a cleaning service for someone who was in a really hard situation. She thought that would be a great way to lift some burden from me. I was so humbled and astonished that somebody would be so generous to me. She told me that she told my siblings what she was going to do and invited them to join if they wanted. I will always remember her words when she said “Elisabeth, everybody wants to help you.”

My broken heart was whole again in that moment. The diabetes was all still there. I still knew that my beautiful girls would have to go through this for their entire lives, and that Josh and I would still have to help and support with it for many many years to come. But the love I felt from my neighbors, from my family, and from the Savior healed my hurt and helped me feel like myself again. It truly was a beautiful miracle!

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So many other wonderful miracles have been ours as well. We were still able to go on our planned trip to Disneyland with the Monson family. We got a Dexcom for Portia after only 2 days of being diagnosed! (For those of you who don’t understand the significance of that, just know that before having a Dexcom, we had to get up every night at 2 AM to check blood sugar–that was for Bianca and Portia). And Portia is doing SO well with all these terrible changes in her life, and I know that one reason she is doing so well is because she has seen Bianca dealing with it for months.

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We truly do feel so blessed through this whole arduous process; but we are also still exhausted. I promised myself, when Bianca was diagnosed, that I would accept help from people who offer it. But, for the most part, I have no idea how to let people help us. But I am SUPER grateful for Janina–the cleaning lady–who came this week! She really took our main floor from catastrophe to glorious! It was such a blessing and glorious stress relief!

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I want to end this post by bearing my testimony. It is for me more than anything else. I believe in a wise, loving Father in Heaven who works in our lives for our greatest benefit. I believe that the more I make room for Him, the more goodness, joy, and peace I have in my life. I know that trials are universal to all in mortality; and I am SO grateful that I have never had to face them alone. I’m grateful for family and friends who support and love me. And I am also grateful that I have a knowledge of the Savior, Jesus Christ. He truly has saved me on countless occasions when nothing else could. I know that enduring hard times will make me stronger, and when I yoke myself to Jesus Christ, I receive His strength during the trial and afterwords. And if I make that the way of my life in this life and forever, He can ultimately make me like He is. And I can’t deny that He provides compensatory blessings along the way.

Elisabeth

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P.S. Everybody’s favorite question to ask after hearing about Portia’s diagnosis is: Are you going to get everybody else tested? The answer to this is yes. We are participating in the “TrialNet” test. It looks for certain antibodies in your blood that let you know if you have the gene for T1D (or something like that). The lovely irony of that, is that we signed up for the study at the beginning of November and got a test kit for Portia. We won’t be needing it. 🙂

This post is mostly for me to remember this experience. So if you don’t want to read a short novel, just skip to the final paragraph.

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After grad school, we moved back to Utah following a job that Josh was really excited about at a company called Experticity. He had a lot of fun there for a handful of months, but after a year, he was way ready to for a change. That same summer, my brother finally got permission to hire for a job he had been talking to Josh about for about 18 months, and Josh moved to Leavitt Partners to work as the sole developer on the Torch Insight team. It has turned out to be a HUGE blessing for him and our family! (Thanks David!) But not long after Josh took that job, we talked about how much we had loved living back east, and decided that once Josh had gotten/given what he wanted at that job we would look for our next job/house/life outside of Utah.

In August of 2019, we went with the Muhlestein family on a Disney cruise that left from Vancouver, Canada. The day before we sailed, we went to church in Canada. I loved hearing the stories that people were sharing in Sunday School about how they were sharing the gospel in “normal, natural ways!” On the cruise, I had one day where I actually read my scriptures, and I studied a talk by Elder Christofferson about preparing for the Second Coming of the Savior. That talk, coupled with my experience at church set my heart on fire! I wanted more than anything to share the gospel with everybody I could and do my part to prepare the earth for the return of her King! Thinking back on how easy it had been to share the gospel when we lived in Chapel Hill, and also just how much we loved the whole experience of being there, convinced me that it was WAY time to move away from Utah and back to (I’m embarrassed to type this; but it seems like the best way to describe the idea concisely) “the mission field.”

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But timing wasn’t right, and we knew it. There was a potential promotion at work, I got a positive pregnancy test just days after we returned from the cruise and we didn’t want to move in the middle of pregnancy, etc. So we gave ourselves a “goal” (more like a wish) to move by May 2020. But then we got the same surprise that everybody else in the world got: the pandemic. I know lots of people were still moving and changing jobs and all those things you do in normal life despite lockdowns, but we felt like we needed to stay. As 2020 went on, we felt more and more claustrophobic in our house–new baby #5 + working from home–but also in our present life. We felt from the beginning that our West Jordan house was temporary, and frankly, we felt like we had stayed longer than desired. That is not to say that we didn’t love our life in West Jordan! We did!!! We met so many wonderful people, learned TONS, had amazing opportunities to serve, and had a duck/goose pond in our back yard! It honestly was a dream life in so many ways. And yet, we just needed to move. Despite all those feelings and prayers on the subject, we felt that the Spirit’s answer was consistently a “Wait. Be Patient.” It was hard and frustrating. But I know that we’re not the only ones who dealt with that sort of sentiment during 2020.

At the end of the year, after Torch Insight got acquired by a global company in August and was declared “officially remote” through the year 2021, we finally felt like the Spirit gave us the okay to start looking for somewhere else to live. But then we realized that we didn’t really know where we wanted to live, and had no good reason to go anywhere. But we were desperate to move, so we thought and prayed and discussed and settled on moving back to North Carolina. We liked either the Charlotte area or back to the Triangle area. So, the second week of January, on crutches–because he broke his foot on Christmas Eve, Josh departed for the east coast. He met with a realtor in both areas and saw SO MANY houses! We found one we really liked at first, and seriously considered offering on it. But as we learned more, we realized it wasn’t the place for us. Over the next 3 months, we looked at new installments of houses each day, and got really excited about this new adventure we were embarking on!

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I remember talking to Christina about it and she was certain I was acting according to the Spirit because I was so calm about the idea of moving all the way across the country with 5 kids just for fun. I also remember feeling so much love from Heavenly Father as we were looking for our dream house. I felt like I could be as bold as Jared in the Book of Ether who said “And who knoweth but the Lord will carry us forth into a land which is choice above all the earth? And if it so be, let us be faithful unto the Lord, that we may receive it for our inheritance.” And I felt like we truly were doing in all in our power to be faithful to Him. So I felt like we were going to get it!

One sacred experience I had was after looking at a house that was SO beautiful! It had almost everything we wanted, had a TON of room to expand, was in pristine condition, and we just loved it! It was at the tippy top of the price range we thought we had based on what we thought we could get out of the West Jordan house, and it just felt like it was too expensive. So even though we loved it, and it seemed like we even had a decent chance of getting it based on our timing and the seller’s, I felt like we should not push the limits of our means. I have a HUGE testimony of living within our means and this felt like the prime time to put my faith into action. After Josh and I discussed it, and we told our realtor we would pass on the house, I felt overwhelming peace and love from the Lord. I knew that we had acted according to His will and that He would bless us for it.

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And I needed that experience to hold on to through the rest of the process. We offered on a house in Apex that we really liked and which had, again, almost all our dreams in it. But the market was crazy and even though we bid competitively, we didn’t get it. By this point, we were well under way trying to prepare out home in Utah to sell. And we were astonished by how much work it took, and how much of a payoff it would yield. That time of painting, and decorating, and cleaning, and repairing was the most stressful time in my life except, perhaps, when Fay was in the NICU and I was still in classes at BYU. Josh and I were always tired, physically, mentally, and emotionally. We were starting to wonder if we would ever be able to secure a new place to live.

The light at the end of our tunnel was a couple’s trip to Arizona Josh and I had planned to celebrate/recover from the weaning of Bianca. We left our kids with Monson grandparents to party, our house with our capable realtor team to do the open house, and departed with hopes of being able to enjoy a week free of house thoughts. But we were disappointed. As we thought about how we were really doing this, and as we kept getting texts telling us how the line to enter our open house was down the sidewalk a full block, I felt completely sick. I wondered if we were doing the right thing by selling. I wondered if we were doing the right thing by buying. And I couldn’t enjoy the trip much at all. This trip was supposed to be our stress-free getaway; but I was so weighed down with anxiety that I really couldn’t relax and have fun.

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On Sunday, Josh and I went to a Japanese friendship garden in Phoenix. It was so beautiful and peaceful. After our walk through the garden, we sat on a hill at a park and talked about what we should do. It was during this talk that Josh mentioned that we could just move within Utah. As he said that, I felt peace about the move for the first time since the house went on the market. I knew at that moment that we would stay in Utah; but I was also in denial. My plan was not to stay in Utah. My plan was to have a great adventure in North Carolina! My plan was to get out on our own! And to share the gospel in normal and natural ways with all my neighbors, and invite my kids’ nonmember friends to their baptisms and ordinations, and serve in the ward, and really “Go and Do!” But the Lord made it clear that His plan was for us to stay in Utah.

I was sad. And hurt. I felt abandoned by Heavenly Father. I felt like I was giving Him my whole being, with all the faith of Nephi agreeing to retrieve the brass plates, and He was saying “Nah. I don’t really need you.” I thought that if you had a desire, you were called to the work. But if Heavenly Father didn’t need me, then I wondered if I actually had anything to offer in the first place. If that all sounds like a dark and hopeless place to be, it was.

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But we pressed on. We had gotten quite used to the classic floor plan of North Carolina houses, and they were NOT to be found in Utah. I was actually really frustrated by how “ugly” and yardless all the houses out here seemed compared to the beautiful, well maintained ones with big yards and woods that were in our price-range back east. But we also had exciting times where we would go look at houses. And it was my first time EVER to look at a prospective new home in-person! It is way more fun to actually be there than to go through with a realtor’s iphone.

Then a house came up in Cedar Hills. It didn’t have EVERYthing we wanted and it needed a LOT of remodeling work; but it did have a lot of what we wanted, and it was in a great neighborhood and was a 10ish minute walk to Kathryn’s house! We decided to offer on it! That was Monday evening. The seller’s agent told us that if we bid competitively enough, they would cancel the open house that Saturday and just let us have it. We bid very generously, because by this time we were SO DONE looking for a house (this was mid April, so 3.5 months after we began the process). Well, they were apparently hoping for more, because they went ahead and held the open house. We asked our family to pray for us to get the house, but we also kept looking for other options in the mean time. That Saturday, the same day as the Cedar Hills house open house, we saw a house in Riverton. It was beautiful! It was big and open, and move-in ready, and on .34 acres! We loved it! Plus, staying in Salt Lake County means we would continue to have access to the best library system in the world! So, we offered on it! We again tried to offer very generously; and we waited.

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Both the seller from the Cedar Hills house and the Riverton house decided they would review offers at 5:30 PM on Monday. Around 4:00 PM we got a message from our realtor saying that Cedar Hills liked our offer! Evidently, nobody else wanted “potential” for nearly 3/4 million dollars. (They must not have been as desperate as we were.) But, we didn’t want Cedar Hills anymore. We wanted Riverton. So we waited with baited breath until our realtor finally messaged us at 5:31 that we ALSO got the Riverton house!

The search was FINALLY over!

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The next month was filled with closings and lease backs and trying diligently to prevent our children from breaking everything in the house that was technically no longer ours. (At least 5 major incidents occurred after closing, before moving out.)

And though we were very excited for our new Riverton life, I still felt a little abandoned by the God I had been and continue to be so anxious to serve.

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But over time, and through many sacred experiences, the Lord has shown me many reasons why He wanted us in this corner of the world. As pieces continue to fall together in my mind and heart I feel more and more like Heavenly Father truly didn’t just leave us here because He didn’t think we’d be of any use back east; He has led us here because He has a great work for us to accomplish and countless blessings in store for our family. I wanted to “go and do.” But apparently sometimes what the Lord needs from us is to “stay and do.”

I don’t think I’m to the point, yet, where I’m happy I didn’t get what I originally wanted. But I am grateful that I am again able to feel the Lord’s love on this subject.

So now we’re here! The house is beautiful and spacious! The neighbors are beyond amazing! And I’m hoping that we can “accomplish the thing which [the Lord] commandeth.” But I feel a lot like Nephi when he said he was “not knowing beforehand the things which [he] should do.” I just hope I can be led by the Spirit like he was.

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So, to sum it up for those who skipped to the bottom–we were ready to move out of our West Jordan house for lots of reasons, and originally planned to move to North Carolina since Josh’s company was declared fully remote for the foreseeable future. I especially was looking forward to living in a place where it is easier to share the gospel in normal and natural ways. But we felt like that was not the Lord’s plan for us and that He has important work for us to do here in Utah. So we bought a house in Riverton, and it is great!

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Our magnificent Fay turned 9 on Friday! This is an especially notable birthday because Fay’s absolute favorite book characters–the Rescue Princesses–are all 9 years old.

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Fay is such a passionate little person! The Rescue Princesses books really fit her because they are about girls who dress in fancy, pretty clothes who go on adventures, to save animals. Fay is a total princess at heart, wanting to wear long elegant dresses and tiaras. But she also LOVES adventuring, exploring, and learning new things about the natural world. And she absolutely adores animals! She reported a few months ago that when she grows up she wants to be a veterinarian who works with wild animals, not just pets. And she is also still always wanting to help anyone whenever she can!

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We had lots of fun on her birthday!

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She only asked for two things this year: The Rescue Princesses books–she has hitherto been checking them out, more or less constantly, from the library. And an adventure cape. She got them both, plus an adventure princess dress, and a scooter for ease of travel while adventuring. So with all that gear, and being 9 years old at long last, there’s nothing to stop her from saving the world!

For her birthday, she planned out quite the gourmet menu for the day with berry crepes for breakfast, lunchables for lunch, and spaghetti (not some other pasta) with red and white sauces and whole meatballs (not cut up into bite sized pieces for the kids). And then there was dessert!

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And here are just a few more pictures of Fay! She really is terrific!

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One last thing for fun, when Fay was born 6 weeks premature, Aunt Christina got her a one-size-fits-all shirt (the kind that were cool in 2003), in an effort to prove that the advertising was legitimate. Here is a little then and now for your viewing pleasure. I am, personally, looking forward to taking a picture of Fay wearing the shirt in many years when she is 9 months pregnant and displaying side by side pictures again!

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We just love you, Fay! Happy Birthday, girl!

This past Wednesday we celebrated seven fantastic years with our best boy!

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For his birthday, Carter knew he wanted Minecraft. We are fairly slow adopters of cool things like video games, so even though Minecraft has been around forever, this was the big birthday where Carter finally got his own copy! He also requested Minecraft decorations.

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Carter is at that stage of life where he is really figuring out what he loves, independent of anybody else. I feel like his #1 love right now is tinkering. This is the name we have given to Carter’s habit of touching as many buttons and/or parts on something–the computer, the printer, the refrigerator, the piano, the 3D printer, tools, you name it–in an effort to figure out how it works and how he can manipulate it. He will tinker at any time he can get away with it. We have discussed that there is a time and place for tinkering, and school is neither the time nor the place. He understands, but it is still hard to resist the excitement of discovery that comes from tinkering.

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Other loves of Carter’s that I feel go right along with his love of tinkering include building things and playing video games. They sort of embrace the same principles of figuring out how things work and what he can do with them.

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He also loves learning! He is always excited to share interesting things he has learned at school, or ask about things at home. He has been very happy to be back to in-person school. It has been a big blessing for all of us!

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Carter is also just fun. He likes to make things his own kind of exciting as well as participating in whatever the girls are doing.

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And the best thing about Carter is his big heart! He looks out for his sisters with his whole being, still loves cuddles, and wants to be like Jesus. We’re so grateful he’s been ours for seven years, and will be forever!

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Our gorgeous, spirited little chunk of chub turned one year old on Monday! We are SO glad she is part of our family forever!

I greeted Bianca multiple times on her birthday by calling her the Birthday Baby. That was the only day in her life she will ever have that position! She’s already only hanging on to babyhood by a thread. She now has nearly 8 teeth, can say “hi!”, and has taken her first few little steps!

Bianca’s birthday was blissfully simple. Since she has no idea what a birthday is, we celebrated exactly as much as we felt like. And with how exhaustingly stressful our life has been for the past 3 months, we felt like celebrating minimally. But the important things happened: the birthday girl had visits from her adoring grandparents, she got some presents, and she had her first ice-cream cone. What else matters?

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Some fun things to know about Bianca include, but are definitely not limited to:

• She makes the funniest faces! I wish I could describe them or that I had ever caught them on camera, but alas. Just come hang out with her sometime and you’ll see.
• She is BUSY! She loves climbing inside cupboards, up stairs and step ladders, dumping out things, walking around the house by pushing chairs, laundry baskets, etc., and all other mischief she can figure a way into.
• She loves people–from a distance. At church on Sunday she spent half of Sacrament Meeting telling the Peña family “Hi!” But if somebody outside of family tries to hold her, she loses it.
• Her hair has just a little bit of curl to it, which I LOVE!
• She LOVES to eat! Her favorites are pasta, scrambled eggs, yogurt, and whipped cream.
• She loves playing with all the siblings, but she and Helen have a special bond.

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Seriously though, this girl is just such a delight to have around!

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