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!
Helen’s favorite trick
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!
Helen + Helen Raccoon + Raccoon Crown
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.
Helen with her “twinkle star dress” over her raccoon shirt.
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!
Curls!!!
Hopping on her new toy
We love this sweet, sneaky girl of ours! And we’re excited to see how she continues to entertain us over the next year!
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!
Portia Moana
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.
Birthday Breaky
That face!!!
Here is Portia on her birthday with her birthday dress and her birthday doll, Lily.
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.
Pretending to be Rosabelle from Dory Fantasmagory
Hanging in the hot tub
Spreading love and happiness
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!
These are all the notes!
Other than love notes, we celebrated the season with decorations! Here is my beloved mantel looking extra loved!
If you understand/appreciate the blocks, you and I should probably be best friends forever!
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?!
That’s the love notes mailbox in the middle!
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!
Bianca didn’t get any ice-cream; but she thoroughly enjoyed whipped cream!
And from Mom and Dad, we got spaghetti/spaghetti squash dinner with garlic bread!
So yummy!
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!
After Santa Came
Long Exposure Version
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.
Like a Kid at Christmas!
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.
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.
Not sure about Grandpa…
A Pirate’s Life for Josh
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.
This was the most magical house we saw on our night out to see the lights.
And now we have entered 2021! We are looking forward to seeing how the Lord will continue to bless us in exciting ways. 😉
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.
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!
Also, I cut my hair rather drastically. Daddy did a photoshoot and captured it fairly well, I’d say.
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.
I am so pleased with how the front room turned out this year!
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.
I had this vision for the mantel this year and I LOVE how it turned out! I made the sign all by myself with a little tutelage from Bob Ross. Those are, indeed, happy trees!
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!
Magical Christmas Bedroom!
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!
The cultural phenomenon I decided to embrace this year was the hot chocolate bar. It was fun! But those salted caramel spoons don’t really work.
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!
Day one of Josh’s 12 days of Christmas for the kids.
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.
I didn’t plan to be able to match Bianca with the Christmas decor. But it sure is cute!
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!
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.
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:
Laundry Room
Fay and Carter’s Room
Portia and Helen’s Room + Portia
And the kids all wore their costumes, of course!
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. 😉
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!
Bianca eating noodles
Helen demanding to be “Labybug Helen” for days at a time
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!
Bianca’s avocado costume for trick-or-treating. Thanks to Beatrice for sharing!
Eating candy afterwards
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!
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.
Portia with her cottonwood leaves
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.
We fit 9 of the 10 kids on this 2 person wagon seat!
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!
Yum!
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.
You can see all 5 kids in the car!
A yard display of a pumpkin party
Morgan was prepared with a little saw with which to procure wood for our fire.
Roasting our lunch!
Me with Bianca before she lost her mind with cold
A view of leaves from the car.
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.
One thing we did was pull out the high-chair for Bianca! She is loving the privilege of feeding herself!
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!
Helen and her snowball.
Carter and his!
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…
I haven’t written anything since August, but all there really is to share is that at-home school is busy, but getting more manageable.
I wanted to focus today’s post on each of the kids. They are all so fun to be with, and I love each of their personalities so much! So here’s just a little snippet of each of them at this moment in history.
Fay
Isn’t she just angelic?!
Fay is in third grade and is just seeming SO grown up! She is so good at doing her schoolwork, even though I can only be there with her intermittently. She still loves reading (especially Rescue Princesses) and adventures and fancy and all the classic Fay things. The other day I was trying to exercise while holding Bianca. Fay came down the stairs to announce that she was on a lunch break from school. When she saw me trying to exercise with Bianca, she just walked over, picked up Bianca, and took her downstairs to play until I was done with my workout. She is doing amazing stuff like that all the time! I am SO blessed to have this girl!
Some funny things from Fay: The other day a discussion got around to mint chocolate cupcakes. Josh mentioned that it would be funny if the baker used toothpaste to make the mint flavor. Fay chimed in with (paraphrased) “Yeah! You could use it as frosting. It’s even already in a piping bag.” I felt like it was such a clever notion!
Carter
He always has something cool!
Carter is in first grade and likes it fine. I think he would be a lot happier (as would Fay) if things were all normal and they could just go to real school. But he has absolutely latched onto the Dog Man series of books. He has now read all 9 of them, and if there were 12, he totally would have read those as well. (Thanks to Megan and Calvin for the suggestion!) He is frequently my first obeyer when it comes to doing chores, which is an incalculable blessing! The other day, he just decided to clean up the entire basement by himself so that we could rotate toys sooner. We’re so glad he’s our boy!
Some Funny things from Carter: A few weeks ago it was after lights-out time and Helen (room-mates with Carter) started yet another escape attempt from bed. I had totally had it by this time, so when I closed the door after saying goodnight, I stayed at the door holding the doorknob so she couldn’t escape. As Helen tried and tried to get the door open, I heard Carter encourage “Helen, try the handle.” I shot back “What?!” to which Carter replied “Aghh! I don’t know what I’m saying!” I cracked up!
Another amusing moment: Me: Carter, it’s time to get dressed. Can I pick out your outfit?! Carter: Sure. But can you pick my Hot Wheels shirt?
The boy knows what he wants!
Portia
I told her to smile.
This girl is always exciting! She is one year away from kindergarten, but because of the pandemic, she isn’t in any kind of preschool. She and I have been learning letters at home and she is beginning to sound out words on her own! She read the word “off” on the bathtub faucet and sounded out my name when writing me a note “momey.” I am very impressed! She still loves stories, playing with dolls and dress-up, sucking her thumb, and playing with all her siblings. We still adore her!
Funny from Portia: A year or so ago, Josh was asking Portia all her favorites. Favorite food: pasta. Favorite color: pink and purple. Favorite drink: juice. Etc. Then he asked her favorite animal. She emphatically responded: BEAVER. I literally hadn’t realized she even knew what a beaver was. But all this time she has maintained that a beaver is her favorite. That knowledge will help this next exchange make a little more sense.
Me: I love your picture, Portia! Is that a princess on a unicorn?! Portia: No!! It’s a mermaid on a beaver! Why would a unicorn have a checkered tail?!
Helen
“My hair wacky!”
Most everybody who spends a little time with Helen will comment that she is so sweet. And she IS! She is sweet and adorable no matter what she does, which is sometimes a little infuriating. For example, she sweetly pushes a chair over to the counter while everybody else is preoccupied with school or something, and sweetly swipes and eats the last peach that I promised someone they could have after they did such and such. When you catch her at the end of the deed, she smiles sweetly and says something like “peach yummy!” She’s sweet as she sneaks out of bed for the 638th time and pokes Carter as he tries to fall asleep. And no matter what the offense, she gives you the same perfectly adorable smile every time, and you just can’t help but giggle a little at her naughtiness.
But she is also just sweet when she’s sweet. She will happily play with anyone, but will also happily play by herself–which, with the advent of school, she has to do far more often than I would like for her. She loves coloring (frequently, sweetly all over furniture), baby dolls, play food, and Anna from Frozen. She continues developing her speaking skills and frequently speaks in sentences. And everything that comes out of her mouth is seriously SO SWEET! Like the other night when she saw me looking through cans in food storage, she excitedly asked “Whata you picking?!” I showed her the can I had removed and she giggle with elation as she said “Oh! Thata corn!” I can’t get enough of her sweetness!
Some sweet humor from Helen: At any moment in the day, with or without catalyst, Helen may pipe up with the following conversation:
I usually respond with a hearty affirmative followed by a declaration that Helen is also cute. That may be why she is so apt so say it…
Bianca
This baby, tho! Based on her first two months of life, I expected Bianca to be crawling by now. But she decided to sit and stay and get two teeth, instead! She is SUCH a happy baby! Over the past month or so, she has left basically all her cranky moments behind her and is either content, overjoyed, or ready for a nap. Josh’s mom asked a while ago “Were all of your kids this cute? She just gives the hugest smiles every time I look at her.” My response is: “All our kids were definitely that cute. But there is still only one Bianca.”
She absolutely LOVES eating big people food! She gets super excited watching the kids on the swings. She is fascinated by me sticking my tongue out and tries to grab it. She is definitely at the stage where she tries to put everything in her mouth. And she finally seems to have settled into somewhat of a nap schedule. She is such a joyful addition to our life!
Some baby humor from Bianca: A baby game I like to play with the kids is putting a thin blanket over them as they lie down and then pull it off exclaiming “peek-a-boo!” Bianca LOVES this game; but every time I pull the blanket off, she goes into the newborn startle reflex with her legs and arms straight out and a startled look on her face. Then she’ll go back to a smile. It is so funny to see the startle over and over!
Don’t you all just wish you could hang out with them all the time?! Having these amazing little people in my life is the biggest blessing! If only I had the best-ever husband to go along with them… Oh wait! I totally DO! 😉
This past week, the Monson family all got together for 4 days at Bear Lake. Mom and Dad rented an amazing cabin that felt spacious even with all 19 of us in it. We spent the days playing at the beach, playing at the cabin, playing lots of Nertz, and eating as much raspberry shake as we could (along with other yummy things)!
The house truly was amazing! The thing that stuck out the most to me was the fact that the kitchen was designed to comfortably seat 30 people at a table or counter and also had extra stools to add to the other side of the counter if needed! I’ve never seen a kitchen like that before! They also advertised 21 beds–13 of which were all nestled together in an impressive array of bunks. Clearly a “cousins’ room.” Our kids were the only cousins who were old enough to sleep away from parents; so we just claimed that whole corner of the house.
This only shows a few of the beds.
Other things to do around the house included: a playground, tetherball, a pickleball net, a games closet, TVs on which we played Switch, Game Cube, and Scene It, a little indoor pool downstairs, a closet filled with Barbies and dress-up, and an absolutely phenomenal view of Bear Lake!
Other toys came out as well. 🙂
This puzzle’s completion was notable because of how many people contributed to its disassembly at various times.
This may have been Carter’s favorite thing in the house. Richard seemed all too happy to introduce Carter to a new video game console.
Good morning, girls!
The first evening we arrived, Mom announced that she wanted to eat a raspberry shake every day we were there. Josh was determined to make sure her wish came true! But he wasn’t the only one to help it happen. We really did have shakes all the days at the house!
Yum! And check out this kitchen!
But we spent most of our time at the lake itself. The first day we got misinformation about having access to a private beach. We had a lot of fun there, and the true owner of the beach was very kind to us even as he told us we didn’t actually have access.
This water-bike-contraption was pretty sweet!
The other two days, we went to the North Shore beaches which were really nice, if a little busy. Everybody got plenty of water time–such that our kids didn’t mind so much that they never got in the pool downstairs–and lots of sun! Despite our best efforts to sunblock everybody thoroughly everyone in our seven person family ended up getting burned except Carter. (Lucky!) Six of us got quite burned.
Mom rented us some paddleboards and kayaks for the trip and we had tons of fun with them! There were multiple sandbars that made it such that even when we felt like we were really far from the shore on our paddleboard, we could still easily touch the bottom. Even the kids could touch most of the time! It made it much less nerve-racking as a parent. 🙂
After we packed up and said goodbye to the beach on Thursday, we caravanned together down to Logan where we finished off the trip with Aggie Ice-cream. Even after all the shakes, everybody was able to thoroughly enjoy it!
Even Bianca!
One more thing I want to mention is how much of a rockstar Josh was on this trip (even extra on top of his normal rockstar levels). Since his company got acquired, he is now in a limited PTO situation at work; and since he just started at the first of the month, he doesn’t have any yet. So he worked some last Saturday, and he woke up at 5 and 6:00 each morning of the trip in order to get most of a day’s work in before the rest of us had really started the day! I was super impressed, and grateful for his diligence.
Finally, here is a video Josh made of the trip. I tried to include different pictures in the post than he did in the video; but I apologize in advance if there are duplicates.
Josh really does look so good on his skateboard (see the post 30, Flirty, and Thriving). And I really wanted to document it. Plus, it is now a family affair that everybody loves, and that is obviously worth documenting as well. So here I am. Documenting it.
The kids love taking their turns zooming around with Dad!
Waiting for their turns
They also get creative as they try to play with it themselves.
Charlotte LOVES to run and play chase with Josh on the skateboard. It’s especially funny because she won’t run with a scooter or somebody just running for love nor food!
I have also taken several turns on the skateboard and can now maneuver it rather decently. (I literally NEVER thought I would learn how to steer a skateboard.) I even fell off the other day, which felt a little bit rad, and like I’m a real skateboarder now! (I’m definitely not.)
It’s been so much fun playing with the skateboard the past couple of weeks; but I know it’s not doing anything for our image as responsible adults. Oh well! If any of you want to come and look like a totally cool teenager with us (without any of the effort of actually pushing yourself!) just come on over!