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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I’m a few days late, but this past Friday–March 12–Helen turned 3 years old! All the people who came to wish Portia well on Wednesday also mentioned how Helen’s birthday was coming up very shortly; and she seemed a little confused by it. When someone would ask her anything about her birthday (the date thereof or how old she would be turning) she would look slightly stressed and just say “Tell me.” But when she arose on Friday morning to singing and decorations and gifts all for her, she finally believed that the birthday phenomenon could, indeed, apply to her and she now enthusiastically declares that she is three!

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Helen decided last fall that she is a raccoon. She got a stuffed raccoon and a book about a raccoon for Christmas, and both the stuffie and the book character have been dubbed “Helen Raccoon” (Sorry, Chester). So, of course, raccoons had to feature prominently on her birthday. We are pretty last-minute when it comes to decorations, so her raccoons were just printed the night before. She still loved it!

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For her birthday foods, Helen chose coco puffs for breakfast, mac and cheese for lunch, and mac and cheese for dinner! We really did eat mac and cheese two meals in a row (thanks for lunch, Mom!) and Helen ate heartily at both meals! Then for her dessert she wanted strawberries, blueberries and chocolate ice-cream. Life doesn’t get much better than that.

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Some things that you ought to know about Helen include, but are not limited to:

• Her affinity for raccoons is rather appropriate, as I feel like she is very similar to a raccoon. Specifically she and raccoons are alike in that they are both outrageously adorable and very prone to mischief. Helen seems to always be into something, and yet is usually too cute to handle even in the act!
• She LOVES her siblings. She has a unique bond with each one.
• Helen is a remarkably good singer. She picks up tunes quickly and loves to sing them. Her favorite song is still Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.
• If you ever ask her what she wants to eat she basically always says “pasta.” But apparently mac and cheese is the favorite variety.
• Along with raccoons, Helen loves books, swinging on the swings, helping in the kitchen, and being bigger than Bianca and the dog.
• Helen is our first kid to have somewhat curly hair! I am beyond obsessed with it! When we don’t do anything to it it is wavy and crazy; but when we put a little gel in there, her curls are the cutest things in the whole world!

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We love this sweet, sneaky girl of ours! And we’re excited to see how she continues to entertain us over the next year!

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Happy Birthday, Helen!

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Yesterday, Portia turned 5 years old! She is so excited to be five because she knows that she gets to go to kindergarten when she is five. We’re excited that she is five, because that means we have had her in our lives for five whole years!

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For Portia’s birthday she requested Reese’s Puffs for breakfast, pasta with red and white sauce for lunch, hot dogs for dinner, and strawberry cake with chocolate frosting for dessert. We drew a diagram beforehand of precisely what she wanted for that cake. She also wanted to make sure that we did some fun activities for her birthday, though she never really specified what those ought to be. Multiple times during the day she reminded me that we hadn’t done anything birthday worthy yet. Ultimately a trip to the “fish park” was deemed sufficient.

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Here is Portia on her birthday with her birthday dress and her birthday doll, Lily.

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Some things you should know about Portia include:

• She is getting to be quite good at reading! She is very proud to have read her first “chapter book” on her very birthday. It was Dick and Jane. 🙂
• She still loves snuggles and sucking her thumb.
• She is as enthusiastic as ever, only she has left the majority of the toddler drama behind her and is, most of the time, just fun fun fun to be around.
• She has a big, beautiful smile and bright blue eyes that reflect her inner sparkle!
• She loves playing outside and riding her bike. She can pump on the swings all by herself, but still likes a good under-doggie every now and again.
• She is SUCH a big helper to me while Fay and Carter are at school. She prides herself on being the oldest one (and the biggest helper) at home during the day.
• She is an excellent listener and picks up lots of things that Josh and I just say in passing. And she still astounds us with the caliber of words she is able to use.

We are SO grateful for this amazing girl! She is just every wonderful and happy thing! Happy Birthday, Portia!

Have I ever mentioned that I love Valentine’s Day? (I know I have; but lest you had forgotten, I thought I would mention it again.) I get the notion, from things other people say on the subject, that many people think that Valentine’s Day is exclusively about ultra-romantic love, provided primarily by the man. I definitely disagree. I feel like Valentine’s Day is about all kinds of love, but most especially whichever kind of love is most prevalent in the current life of the celebrator. As such, I have always loved Valentine’s Day and always shall!

This year, we did something that I hope becomes a long-lasting tradition! I bought a really cute Valentine’s mailbox as a decoration and decided to cut up pieces of colored paper so we could send “love notes” to each other through the mailbox. The whole family latched on to the idea, and throughout the past 4ish weeks, we have been enjoying lots of kind, loving thoughts sent through “the mail!” We kept all the notes throughout the season and put them in another heart container we have. Tonight, before bed, we pulled out all the notes and read them again. It was such a happy experience! Everybody had all the warm-fuzzies and went to bed feeling very loved!

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Other than love notes, we celebrated the season with decorations! Here is my beloved mantel looking extra loved!

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We also decorated the table for breakfast this morning. That is a tradition we didn’t necessarily mean to start (I probably would have tried to prioritize decorating the table for dinner over breakfast); but now the kids totally expect it, so we carry on. And I usually decorate the table again, at least somewhat, for dinner. Why not, right?!

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We ate really well this Valentine’s Day thanks to Mother and Daddy and Mom and Dad. From Mother and Daddy, we got an ice-cream party!

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And from Mom and Dad, we got spaghetti/spaghetti squash dinner with garlic bread!

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It was such a delightful and lovely Valentine’s Day! And being that it is also Sunday, I feel to express gratitude to our loving Father in Heaven who truly is so so good to us and sends us His love in countless ways each and every day!

For December Fast Sunday our family fasted for a safe, happy, healthy Christmas. I fully believe in the power of fasting to invoke the power of Heaven into our lives.
During December, and the Christmas season, we got COVID, Josh got the world’s worst canker-sore, I got a pretty significant ear-infection, and Josh seriously injured his foot on Christmas Eve.
It’s interesting, because thinking about those things one might, naturally, think that our prayer was denied up in Heaven. But through every one of the things we went through I felt countless blessings!

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We got COVID, the cause of the upheaval in the world, the thing that has had me worried–not knowing how my loved ones and I would respond to it–for 9 months. And we had virtually no symptoms except extra fatigue. We had SO many wonderful people help us in countless ways while we were hulled up at home. We were still able to participate in church as well as get everybody to school and work thanks to remote-everything! As far as a case of COVID is concerned, we truly were very safe and healthy.

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We think that the severity of the canker-sore and ear-infection may have had something to do with our immune systems being busy with COVID; because we each deal with those respective things to lesser degrees relatively frequently. But because we deal with them more often, we already had everything we needed (ear drops for me and mouth numbing spray for Josh) on hand. I didn’t have to go to a doctor (which I couldn’t have done because of being in isolation), because I just called Daddy! And he instructed me how to treat my cranky ear all from the comfort of my own COVID home.

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Josh injured his foot on Christmas Eve night jumping up the stairs to his parents’ front porch–as he has done countless times before. Though no InstaCares were open that evening, he was able to be seen and treated on Christmas Day!!! I am so grateful for all the people who sacrificed their own family and personal time and made it possible for Josh to be treated and returned safely to us to enjoy the rest of Christmas! As far as injured (potentially fractured) foot on Christmas Eve goes, that seems pretty happy.

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So, God did not prevent us from having an excitingly mortal experience this Christmas Season. But we are still feeling His love abundantly, and know that He hears and answers our prayers and fasts. And by answering our request with helping us through bumps in the road, He gave us the opportunity to witness His hand blessing us in a different way than if we had simply had an uneventful December. We fasted in gratitude today.

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And now we have entered 2021! We are looking forward to seeing how the Lord will continue to bless us in exciting ways. 😉

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With the new year, I have a new goal! I feel like this one will help me simplify a little bit while still stretching myself. As I practiced last year, there was something I got really excited about doing more of. I want to significantly expand the number of excellent books I read. Growing up, I basically never read anything extra-curricular, and didn’t until Josh and I got married. I resented reading for school because I felt like you were supposed to be able to read really fast (I’m slow) in order to complete assignments on time, and then you’re expected to find all kinds of symbolism that may or may not actually be contained in the book. But at the same time I lamented that I had such a bad relationship with reading. I have always known that reading is a positive habit to have throughout life, so I knew my attitude towards it would probably need to change at some point, but Wuthering Heights definitely wasn’t the book that was going to do it.

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Anyway, I started reading fluff books when Josh and I first got married and then got more into fluff books (aka: everything Janette Rallison ever wrote) after Fay was born and I had to sit and pump milk for hours each day. But I’m ready to move past the fluff and onto some really cool, inspiring, uplifting literature! And I must confess that I’m grateful for all those English teachers who, despite my efforts to the contrary, actually did help me to glean interesting messages from books. So, as you have undoubtedly already guessed, my word for 2021 is Read.

I’m excited about it!

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This post will also include our Christmas decor for the year. I had so much fun with those two years I decorated the whole house and made it all official, and one day perhaps I will do it again. But not this year.

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At the outset of this year I decided that I just wanted to put forth a little more effort in my life towards becoming my dream-self. I chose the word practice because that seemed like the best way to get to being that version of me. If you want to read the whole spiel, you can see the earlier post.

This year has been such a blessing on so many levels! There are SO many things I wanted to be practicing, and so many things I didn’t realize I needed to be practicing; and, of course, the Lord made it happen for me! I am nowhere near a “finished product” of that dream self. But I did practice a lot (and also skipped a lot of opportunities to practice, which is fine) and I am feeling really grateful.

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One thing I had specifically wanted to practice was the piano. Mother and Daddy gave me a wonderful, full-sized keyboard for Christmas several years ago, and I have wanted to get better at playing. I started out the year trying to sit down to the piano at least a little bit more than I had been doing. As my pregnancy with Bianca drew to a close and when she was brand new (so, basically the middle half of the year) I didn’t do as much. But I did get myself a new song, about which I was very excited, and have learned about half of it. And then, last week, I felt like Heavenly Father gave me one last little nudge toward my piano goals. I was asked to play in church. I found a piece that I felt was reasonable for me to learn, while still being at least somewhat interesting to listen to, and I have been practicing all week! I also decided that this was the Christmas that I would finally just sit down and practice my favorite Christmas hymn: I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day. And I can play it downright decently! Perhaps by Christmas proper, I’ll be able to accompany my family singing it! I am still very far from my piano goals; but I am closer today than I was on January first! So practice paid off!

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Another thing I wanted to practice, especially after the physical blah-ness of being pregnant, was regular exercise–specifically strength training. I checked a book out from the library in January that talked about all the amazing benefits to lifelong health of strength training (the most impressive one to me was that it helps prevent osteoporosis!) as well as showing different exercises and how to put them together to get a full-body workout. It was really fun for a few weeks; but then the book was due at the library, and I was very pregnant, and I stopped practicing. Fortunately, the Lord again had my back and sent me a gift through my sister, Kathryn. She texted the girls in the family and said “Do you want to participate in this free 5 day pilates challenge?” I didn’t know basically anything about pilates; but I decided to give it a go. I had a really hard time doing some of the exercises, because I was 8 months pregnant; but after each workout, I still just felt good! I considered joining the group right then; but decided not to, because I knew I would be recovering from birth and life would be crazy. But then Kathryn texted us again in September asking if we wanted to do another challenge: which meant that the group was open for enrollment again. I did the challenge and again loved how I felt. So I totally joined! And since joining, I have been more consistent in my exercise, than I have been since Carter was born! And pilates is all about strength training! I’m definitely not perfect at doing it; but practice is again paying off!

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Another thing I was wanting to practice at the beginning of the year was spending more time enjoying my children. I was so frequently just trying to survive each day that I missed out on the joy of having these precious little humans the Lord has given me. And, I didn’t even have to do anything! We were blessed with this pandemic which keeps us all home all the time! There have been a few times that I remember consciously practicing focusing on my kids rather than a task to be done; but mostly I feel like this is something the Savior really just handed to me. I absolutely feel closer to each one of my five children and to Josh than I did at the beginning of the year!

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The final experience I want to mention is this: I began the year hoping to develop my relationship with the Savior. I began reading Jesus the Christ and praying for greater faith in and familiarity with Jesus Christ. I specifically wanted to come to know Him without having to deal with a huge trial. ha ha! Well, the pandemic came, we had a new baby, there was an ugly election, we wondered and wondered what our future would hold. And every time I asked what I should do with everything that was going on the answer was the same: turn to the Savior. And He saved me every time. He sent miracles and healing and so much hope!
I kind of feel like I have this same sort of conclusion at the end of every year. And I hope I always do. It is clear that I will never be done practicing developing a relationship with Jesus Christ. And even though it frequently requires that trial I don’t want, I always look back and think how I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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I have already decided on my theme-verb for 2021 and I am SO excited! It is something I have begun practicing this year that I want to take to the next level! So stay tuned!

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We had one humdinger of a Halloween this year! We had all kinds of new adventures and experiences thanks to good ol’ COVID. The coolest one was that Josh totally became famous for his Halloween display this year! He should probably be famous every year for his Halloween display; but we’ll take what we can get. 🙂 Originally we had planned to take a year off; but one morning Josh woke up with the idea for Perky Pumpkins fully formed in his mind. We feel like it was revelation, especially because of the multiple people who shared with us that it was an uplifting thing for them this year.

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If you want to see the news reel where Josh was featured, go to this link.

On Halloween proper, we all just stayed home. We opted against trick-or-treating in the neighborhood–which, just so you know, I believe to be one of the best traditions ever for bringing people together as a neighborhood. But we couldn’t leave the kids (us included) candy-less, so we did it at home: decidedly not the same, but better than nothing.

But you all know Josh; he couldn’t just let the kids knock on boring, ordinary doors around the house. He decorated 7 different rooms in the house in different themes and then had Grandma, Grandpa, and Katie be virtual candy-distributors. Here are just some of the rooms:

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And the kids all wore their costumes, of course!

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We also had a fun, decorated dinner! Usually I try to make a really healthy dinner to eat before trick-or-treating; but since we missed out on true trick-or-treating, we got take out Mexican food instead! It was SO good! Especially those chimichangas, mmmm. 😉

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And now Halloween has past, and we are enjoying what remains of autumn. We have had lots of little snow storms, and I must confess that it is testing my resolve to wait until after Thanksgiving to start celebrating Christmas. But we are DEFINITELY still observing my favorite part of the Thanksgiving season which is spontaneous “thankful minutes” each day. The deal is this: anyone can call out “Thankful Minute!” at any time and then everybody present gets to share something for which they are thankful! I love that tradition!

Here are some things for which I am thankful!

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Happy Fall, Y’all!

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I have been the worst at blogging recently (it happens every time I have a new baby). But this past week was definitely one to remember; so I am taking measures to remember it!

The kids were on fall break this whole past week and we did fun stuff basically every day!

Monday

The kids (Fay especially) have been dying to jump in piles of fallen leaves for the past month+. The leaves finally fell last weekend and Monday morning was the perfect time to jump in! As we were preparing to head out to the yard, I got a text inviting us for a playdate. I said we might have to do a different day since leaves were the priority; but the playdate came to us because, apparently, ours weren’t the only children dying to jump into fallen leaves!

That afternoon we watched the first half of Hocus Pocus! It was the first time the kids have been permitted to watch and I’m very pleased to report that none of them thought it was too scary. It was really amusing to me, though, that whenever the movie was focusing on the normal people, the kids would all cry out “Where are the witches?! When are the witches coming back?!” And true to form for our kids, they have been playing Sanderson Sisters the rest of the week.

Also on Monday, we had family party, in which Carter elected to do in-house trick-or-treating. So much Halloween fun!

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Tuesday

The morning was kind of basic. In the afternoon the kids and I finished watching Hocus Pocus. That evening, after we raked and disposed of many leaves, Mother and Daddy came over to see Perky Pumpkins! We also happened to have 4 other groups of neighbors stop by and see them while we were out in the yard. Everybody was quite impressed with everything Josh had created, as they should have been! And it was fun for me to remember again just how amazing a man I am sealed to. I just like him so much! If you haven’t seen/played Perky Pumpkins yet, you still have a week to come check it out!

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Wednesday

This was another chill day at home. But in the afternoon we went to the “fish park” and played. There is a stocked-with-fish pond and the playground has a fish on it. We walked around the pond some and the kids collected some leaves and other plants, which I told them they could keep until we went home. However, I did allow one leaf to accompany us home because the kids wanted to classify it! (How can you say no to classifying plant species?!) Based on our research, it appeared to be Cottonwood.

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Thursday

Today was extra exciting! We went with some friends to Gardner Village to see witches! It was pretty chilly, and Bianca lost it, so we didn’t get to stay as long as we had hoped (aka: until we found all the witches on the Scavenger Hunt); but we still had a lot of fun! Gardner Village witches are one of my favorite Halloween traditions! I’m so grateful they were still here despite the pandemic.

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Another thing I did on Thursday was make cinnamon rolls (with the AMAZING Cinnabon recipe I got from Megan)! I added some butter-toasted pecans to the top this time. They were a hit!

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Friday

Today was certainly the highlight of the week! Back on Wednesday, as we were walking around the park, Fay was explaining to me the difference between a “park” and an “adventure property.” She wanted to be at the latter. I told her that when I was a kid we used to go up to the “Beaver Pond” which was really out in nature and definitely a place for adventuring. She thought it sounded cool, and then I really wanted to go! So I called Mother on the way home and asked if she would take us. She said she would, but that it might have to be next year because she thought they would close the gate this weekend. I informed Mother that we were currently on Fall Break and had no plans for Friday, and she–being the coolest person ever–agreed to take us up over the mountain to roast hotdogs and marshmallows at the Beaver Pond just two days later!

So we went! Morgan came too, and I was so grateful he did! At the Beaver Pond the temperature was 31°. Fay, Carter, and Portia did decently well in the cold, especially with all their winter gear and the fire Morgan made. But Helen and Bianca absolutely LOST it! Mother and Morgan helped everybody have a little bit of adventure before they froze and made sure everybody got food, etc. And then they cleaned everything up while I sat in the car trying to soothe Bianca from her abject rage. Despite the cold and the baby drama, I loved our excursion up over the mountain! We were also very privileged to see lots and lots of beautiful autumn leaves, as well as some fun Halloween yard displays.

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Thank you so much Mother (and Morgan, too) for the wonderful adventure!

Friday night, we drove down to Lindon to participate in “Boston Cream Pie Day.” Grandma Zulla has been serving Boston Cream Pie to all the extended family every year on October 23 for decades! This year, due to COVID, only Josh’s siblings and their families came to the party in person; but Mom and Grandma delivered Boston Cream Pie kits to others who would have ordinarily been invited. It is a fun tradition!

Saturday

Saturday was Josh’s definition of success for a day: productive. Friday night, I told Josh that I had a list of things I wanted to accomplish on Saturday. By the end of Saturday, the list had grown significantly and we had checked off almost all the things! While Josh and I were being productive, the kids happily entertained themselves with newly rotated toys, and even helped out a little. 🙂 And Bianca slept like a champ! That was a huge part of our ability to get so much done.

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Sunday

We have loved our week of autumny magic! And this morning we woke up to snow! Just a skiff, but still we had to play in it! After church, the kids all went out and made a family of tiny snow-men and as big of snowballs as they could!

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Just for fun, I’ll add the family picture we took almost 2 weeks ago. We originally had grandiose plans for enlarging/printing it and displaying it throughout the season ,etc. But we basically laid all grandiose decorating ideas aside this month in favor of Josh’s epic haunt and new carpet. So, I don’t really feel like complaining. Maybe we’ll blow it up next year…

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