Snapshots Of Summer

Summer is officially behind us and Marshall and Bridget are in their third week of school.  It was a grand summer.  Gretchen was beyond cooperative with being carted all over and missing naps.  Rachel, hooray, was potty-trained before summer started and that certainly made life easier!  I revolutionized our lives and gave Marshall and Bridget more responsibility and they have done great with it.  I hardly cleaned a toilet all summer long!  We made a huge bucket list, that we did not finish, but we did a lot and had a whole lot of fun.  

I really tried to document our summer via my weekly email and Instagram, but I wanted to wrap it up here with some pictures and memories that might not have been mentioned.  

Evening at Farmington Station.

24th of July float preview. 

Richard's fellowship graduation and view from Rice Eccles Stadium.  It is a beautiful view.  

Getting ready for a sailing excursion on Jordanelle with Grandpa Bob.  

Morning games.  I loved it.  The kids weren't allowed to have electronics until all responsibilities were completed.  Games became the go-to activity.

Fun on Grandma's swing set.

Grandpa Yancey's 91st birthday celebration at the cemetery.

Toney Family Vacation in Park City.  These girls loved being together.  

Telestrations with my Dad.  We all laugh harder just laughing with him!

We made it through the bird show at Tracy Aviary in 100 degree heat!

Duplos.  Such a great investment!

Sunday evening dress-ups at Grandma Laura's.  

Zoo train rides.

First ice cream cone.

Impromptu meet-ups with our Provo family.  Love.

4th of July races for Marshall and Bridget

I took the kids on a tour of the Conference Center.  Rachel slept through the entire thing.  Probably a more peaceful tour this way.  :)

Movie night at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

So much time in the stroller this summer for Gretchen.  She was always showing off her flexibility.  

An evening swim with cousin Jaxon.

Lots of park visits.  Gretchen loves the swings.

 A visit from our Maryland cousins.

My Dad has a true talent for feeding Gretchen.  I wish he could feed her every meal!

A visit from some of our best Milwaukee friends.

Post-bath teeth brushing.

Nerves at her four year check-up!  Prepared with blankets.  :)

Bridget went to a darling back to school princess party.  I am tucking this idea away for the future.  Rachel is already planning her own party, complete with a pumpkin.  

Rachel's antics.  Changed into a leotard and tights halfway through the day.  When I asked her to smile for a picture, this is one of the many poses I got.  

Lots of one-on-one time with Marshall.  This was after his second surgery.  I am so glad for all the movies, games, and books he and I did together.  But I am even more glad he has finally recovered!

Davis County Rodeo!  

We can always count on Bridget for a laugh.  

Our last hurrah of the summer was the eclipse!  So amazing!  I hope Marshall and Bridget always remember it!

So along summer of 2017.  Who knows what next summer will bring!  A move...somewhere!  And probably a lot more crazy.  

Marshall At Eight And A Half

Marshall, Marshall, Marshall.  Probably my most dynamic, and also most trying child.  I don't know that it is fair to have your first child be your most difficult, but maybe that makes parenting all the rest of the children easier.  Might as well get the hard one out of the way first!  Or maybe he is the hardest because he is the oldest and we have no idea what in the heck we are doing.  But I am fairly certain I was my parents' easiest child...so that theory cannot be true.  ;)

There is so much good in Marshall.  I see it, and I literally pray every day that he sees it too.

  

At the core of Marshall is a sweet, tender, and sensitive little boy.  He has such a soft heart.  Every morning when he wakes up, he scoops up his two blankets, usually one or two stuffed animals, a book, and heads downstairs.  When we tuck him in at night he is literally buried under his sheet, comforter, two blankets, and about 10-15 stuffed animals...even when he complains of being too hot.  

At the age of eight he can still be a snuggler.  Usually at church he is leaning his head against Richard, and when Richard is working, despite three other girls clamoring for my attention, Marshall is leaning on me.  During the week, Marshall sets his alarm for 6:15 so he can see Richard before he leaves for work at 6:30.  The girls sleep in quite a bit longer than that so usually Marshall and I have some good time together in the mornings, just the two of us.  After Richard leaves, he spends his time reading, and sometimes I am finishing a workout, but we usually find some time to sit on the couch together and he lets me rub his hair while he reads.  

Marshall continues to be a sponge when it comes to learning things.  He has so many questions, most of them fact based, and loves looking up the answers (something I never enjoyed doing as a child!).  He wants to know what the tallest building is, what was the deadliest hurricane, he wants to know about galaxies and black holes, the list goes on and on and on.  He is currently reading a book on Alaska and natural disasters and loves learning from their pages.

Speaking of reading, Marshall has now read all seven Harry Potter books.  He plowed through those things and loved them.  His favorites being number four and number seven.  He also loves the  Diary of a Wimpy Kid series and the Nathan Hale books.  Each night Richard reads Diary of a Wimpy Kid to Marshall (he has the entire series and has read them multiple times) and then Marshall reads to me from Nathan Hale.  Marshall reading to me was completely his idea that he formulated for two reasons:  1) I need to know more about history and 2) anytime I sit down to read I fall asleep.  His plan is to solve both of these predicaments by reading to me, and I would say its working.  

Earlier in the year Marshall went through a phase of just watching football highlight videos on YouTube.  He would play them on the TV, and then basically play his own football game in the family room.  This meant no one else could use the family room because it meant Marshall would probably slide/fall/or tackle them.  He has mostly moved on from those videos now and is currently loving Studio C.  All the kids love it actually.  It is fun to watch with them because they laugh at the obvious humor and I laugh at them and the more nuanced humor.  Good, clean fun for everyone.  

I am thrilled to report that Marshall finally has two good friends.  A literal answer to my prayers.  One friend is our neighbor, Tate.  Tate is only seven and in first grade, but we carpool with him and he has been so good with Marshall.  Tate is polite and kind and has lived here for a while so he knows all the neighborhood kids.  When the weather warmed up in February, he started taking Marshall with him to the neighborhood park where the kids would meet up after school to play games.  I love Tate.  The other friend is Cooper.  Cooper is the sweetest kid and he is in Marshall's school class.  Cooper and Marshall play wall ball together every single recess.  Every Friday when they sell beef jerky at school, Cooper helps Marshall get some because Marshall is too nervous.  We had Cooper over for the first time in March and that first play date started a slew of play dates.  

With these friends comes some new independence for Marshall, and also letting some control go on my end.  The first time Tate invited Marshall to the park (I can see part of this park from my bathroom window!) I about died of anxiety and worry while he was gone.  Just yesterday Marshall and Tate walked to school for the first time.  I was walking to school, and crossing a major street, in first grade, so I suppose its okay if my second grader does the same.  

Back in the fall Marshall played flag football.  His timidity just about killed me, but he had a good time and his team ended up making it all the way to the championship game.  He did the Junior Jazz instructional league this winter and loved it.  It was so fun to watch him play.  He is more in his element with basketball.  This spring he is playing soccer, which started a bit rough, but it is getting better.  His team lacks any ability to follow the ball, his coach has no idea what he is doing, and Marshall doesn't know any of the boys, so he is shy.  But he has made good progress each game and that has been fun to see.  I love watching him do things he loves.  

Moving to Utah has been hard on Marshall.  He desperately misses Eisenhower (school here has not been academically challenging), he misses his friends, and he also desperately wants a brother.  Things really came to a head with Marshall the middle of February.  He spent the majority of his days angry and his happiness was so fleeting.  I walked on egg shells when he was around, never knowing what might set off a torrential downward spiral that was likely to span hours.  It was exhausting.  Once we reached that point I felt so defeated and absolutely helpless.  I knew that he deserved better than his current state of misery, and the other five of us living under the same roof deserved more happiness as well.  I started down a path of getting Marshall some professional help.  It took several weeks to get things arranged with our insurance, but we were set up with a child play therapist, named Cody, and he has been amazing.  It has been so good for Marshall to be accountable to someone other than me and Richard.  Cody has taught Marshall a lot, and in turn, I have learned so much as well.  We are working on identifying feelings, understanding that we can feel mad, but it is not okay to hurt people or be disrespectful.  We are learning what things calm us down and how to decide to calm down, even when we are fuming.  We are learning about the emotional side of our brain and our logical side and how to wake up the logical side when the emotional brain wants to take control.  Marshall has made exceptional progress since we started seeing Cody in March.  His main emotion now is happy, his outbursts are fewer and shorter lived, and Richard and I are learning how to better approach him as well.  I am so glad we made this decision, and I am even more glad for the conscious changes Marshall has chosen to make.  It is so commendable.  

Richard and I love spending time with Marshall.  He is the greatest conversationalist and a pure delight to be with one on one.  We are so thankful to have him in our family!

Bridget At Six

Our little Bridget is growing up, and growing up quick.  For some reason, in my mind, Bridget never gets older, so to think that she is now six, it just completely blows me away!  I really feel like Bridget is the glue that holds our family together.  She has mellowed out from her emotional one, two, three and four year old self and is usually our happiest, most cooperative, and most helpful child! Occasionally we see sightings of the "old" Bridget where she kicks and cries, but it is so few and far between, for which we are very thankful.  :)  So besides all of that, here are a slew of things about Bridget at age six.

Bridget is a fantastic sister.  She plays so well with Marshall, and then can seamlessly transition to playing with Rachel.  Rachel and I are both going to miss Bridget so much when she starts full day school in the fall!  Bridget is also so great with Gretchen.  She has the longest attention span with Gretchen out of all the kids.  She can easily spend 10-15 minutes playing with her and making her laugh.  

Bridget still loves art.  She can frequently be found drawing, writing notes, and making all sorts of creations.  I have a spiral notebook that I keep in the kitchen that I write our daily jobs in.  Well,  Bridget has filled that book with her drawings.  

Bridget's reading has really taken off, and I love it.  By the end of last school year she knew all the letters and their sounds so she could sound out words really well, but she had a hard time putting all the sounds together to figure out the word.  Just since January this skill has gone through the roof.  I love reading with her because she can easily figure out so many words now.  This has also drastically improved her spelling.  It is just so exciting to see this progress.  Lately she has loved reading in bed at night, just like Marshall does, and she asked for a flashlight for her birthday so she can read in bed with the bedroom light off.

Bridget is still the pickiest eater and it drives me and Richard crazy!  However, she can pound seven or eight McDonald's chicken nuggets (gag!) in under five minutes.  It is crazy.  This school year I make her eat two breakfasts, because I am terrified she is going to pass out one day at school.  She can have one bowl of cereal (and for Bridget this means sugar cereal with no milk, very filling) and then she can choose from toast, bagel, muffin, egg, or oatmeal.  She will only eat a soft boiled egg, and only eats the yolk, so even that is only somewhat beneficial to her.  This girl!  Months ago we made a food chart for her that earned her a date with Richard when she filled up the entire chart.  She got to put a sticker on when she tried a new food.  I am pretty sure we made this chart before Gretchen was born and she just barely filled it up!  Our hope was that she would discover some new foods she likes and incorporate those into her life on a regular basis.  Not so.  She has suffered through each new food, only taking a bite or two, and I am pretty sure she has not eaten any of these foods a second time!  Its not like we are asking her to eat squid!  Try a raspberry, or a baked potato, or an incredibly tender pork chop!  Geez!  Maybe one day this girl will subsist off of more than ten foods.  

Speaking of picky, but also healthy, she continues to only drink water, no other beverages for this girl.  Her teeth are pristine.  

Bridget has lost two baby teeth, the center teeth on the bottom.  She almost passed out after she lost her first one, but thankfully the second tooth was much less traumatic!

Bridget has a great imagination.  She can play by herself or with Marshall and Rachel and she just has a complete dialogue going on.  It is just so fun to observe. 

Bridget still counts Max Hassell as her best friend.  In the fall, several weeks into school, she showed me some schoolwork she had brought home.  On one paper she had drawn pictures of some kids in her class and she was telling me their names.  She pointed to one boy and told me that was Max.  She went on to say that she pretends he is still in class with her even though he is not.  She was elated to see him three times in December and they picked up right where they left off.  I love their friendship. 

For years Bridget preferred me over Richard.  This was heartbreaking for Richard and taxing for me!  In the last year or so though, Bridget has developed an equal love for both of us, and at times even prefers Richard.  She was over the moon when he took her to her first BYU football game this fall.  Bridget loves her time with her dad.  

Bridget has become great little friends to our two neighbors, a little girl who is one and another little girl who is three.  I think her happy and content nature makes it easy for her to play with kids of any age, which is why she does so well with Gretchen.  She just plays and brings these kids along with whatever game she has made up.  She is such a great helper to me and I don't think I could survive having four children without Bridget!

Grief

We arrived in Utah eight months and nine days ago.  This has been the hardest thing I have ever done.  Moving, putting the kids in a new school, losing my grandpa, adding another human being into this family.  

Just the other day a Facebook memory from last year popped up...the day I announced on social media that we were having another baby.  I stared at that post for minutes.  First, I just looked at the ultrasound picture of Gretchen, I was only 12 weeks along.  I have mentioned before, but I was riddled with worry for the majority of that pregnancy...and I have no idea why, but I was.  I looked at that ultrasound picture in complete awe.  Every perfect pregnancy is nothing short of a miracle.  But after I looked at the ultrasound picture, I just thought back to my life last February.  In my post I noted that we were going to make 2016 our most exciting and crazy year yet.  It was definitely exciting and crazy, but it was also heart-wrenching, exhilarating, stressful, happy, worrisome, special, gut-wrenching and pretty much every other emotion.  Part of me thinks that if I knew last February what was headed my way I probably would have opted to crawl under a rock and disappear.  

In our first couple of weeks here, we were at my parents for Sunday dinner.  After dinner Rachel asked me to push her on the swing so she and I went outside and my mom followed shortly after.  She put her arm around me and asked me how I was doing.  There I was, probably 32 weeks pregnant, in the heat of a July afternoon, and I just started sobbing.  I told her this was the hardest thing I had ever done.  Little did I know I was at the tip of the iceberg.  

There has been SO much good about being here, surrounded by family.  I love that our families have had so much time with Gretchen as a baby.  I love that my kids get to see their grandparents, cousin, aunts, and uncles on a regular basis.  I love that all these people love my kids; that means the world to me.  I love that we have been able to celebrate every holiday and birthday with family.  

But gosh darn it, so much has been hard.  Navigating this new life, and I really feel like that is what it is, has beat me down on more than one occasion.  The things is, we have a pretty good thing going on here.  We have a good routine going, the kids enjoy playing together for the most part, we have fun as a family, but as soon as something happens that momentarily kicks us out of our groove, I literally feel like someone threw a bucket of ice water on me.  It takes my breath away, twists my heart, and reminds me we are still new here and things are so very different.  

Last week I was listening to a podcast about a woman whose husband died last year, leaving her a very young widow with five small children.  His death was expected, but obviously that didn't make it any less painful.  She talked about how she pulled herself together most days and she and her kids found their new normal.  But sometimes things, big or small, would trigger her grief and she would just break down.  She related one time she was shopping in Target, something reminded her of her husband and she just crumbled in the isle and sobbed.  Now, I certainly have not lost a husband, and so my grief is different, but in listening to her describe her grief and how she could contain it and at times she couldn't, I realized in that moment, that I am working through grief.  I don't know why I hadn't made that connection before.  Wisconsin was my life for nine years, and especially as the kids got older and we did more .  And now it is gone.  We have the memories, but that life we built there is nothing but a memory, and now here we are, in our new life.  Sometimes I can compartmentalize and I carry us on and life seems normal, but then something happens, my grief is triggered, and I find myself so, so sad.

Last week Bridget had a friend over to play after school.  We know this little girl fairly well, she also goes to church with us and she has been over multiple times.  The girls usually get along quite well, but this day was a bit trickier.  Bridget and her friend could not agree on the same activity and I tried to help and suggest, but they just could not agree.  I talked to Bridget about being a good host and friend, but I wasn't really making any headway.  After a lot of back and forth and some progress, I left the girls alone for a bit and when I came back to check on them I found the friend playing, and Bridget was sitting on the couch, holding a picture of Max and just starting at it.  Gut-wrenching.

That same night I got another slap in the face.  I went on a visit with the primary president.  We walked in the house and immediately this other woman and the primary president began to talk.  I felt so out of place.  Here I was with two women, who knew each other very well, in a house I had never been in and I felt so odd.  I longed for the comfort of a friend's home the entire time we were there.  I came home that night and just cried to Richard.  I miss friends, and I miss the comfort of their homes.  

Finally identifying this whole process as grief was actually very comforting to me.  People work through grief, life goes on, and it will get better.   

Rachel Louise At Three And A Half

Rachel, Rachel, Rachel.  She drives us crazy and cracks us up 100 times a day.

Rachel continues to be our most affectionate child.  I love morning snuggles with her in my bed, and while that rarely happens, I soak up those moments.  She just snuggles right into me and usually wraps her arms around my neck and kisses my cheeks.  It is just the greatest.  She tells me I love you and thank you and you're welcome all day long.  As of late, when Richard gets home she runs to him, gives him a hug, and says, "I missed you!"  

Rachel's favorite playmate is Bridget and is always so happy when she comes home from school.  Rachel also adores Gretchen, sometimes too much for Gretchen's liking.  :)

When we got rid of Rachel's binkies last year, she took an extra liking to the tags on her blankets.  Now she has always loved tags, so this is not a completely new development, but those blanket tags have become her soothing mechanism and it just cracks me up.  She holds one of the tags on her blanket to fall asleep and she carries it around by that same tag.  I don't think the tag will last much longer!  I have seen her close to sleep, laying down with her eyes closed, threading her blanket through her hands until she finds the tag.  Love it!

Still not potty-trained...but probably not entirely her fault.  Sigh.  I made zero potty-training attempts until January, because you know, moving, new baby...who has the time?!  Anyway, I picked a Monday in January, she knew about it, and I decided we were going to hit it head on.  Well, that Monday morning came and she was completely defiant...outright refused to wear underwear.  I honestly was shocked because while potty training Marshall and Bridget was no breeze, they at least agreed to wear underwear!  After some back and forth with no progress I just decided to drop it.  We have since bought a potty seat which she is quite attached to, and has sat on a few times, but nothing yet.  Just this week I picked a new day, March 9th, and we'll give this one a solid attempt.  She is three and a half, by golly, we have to get this done!

Rachel is quirky, quirky, quirky!  This is how she talks, "Is that hims ball?"  "Are thems gone?"  "Hers not Gretchen, hers is sister."  It drives Richard absolutely bonkers, but I love it, and while I don't want this terrible grammar to continue for long, I am basking in it now.

The passing of my Grandpa Yancey has had quite a profound impact on her.  She talks to my mom about it and asks if she is sad that her dad is dead.  She recently found out that both of Grandma Becky's parents have passed away and on our most recent visit to Vernal I overhead Rachel to talking to Becky about it.  I actually found it quite touching and sweet.  At one point I heard Rachel say, "But thems in heaven with Grandpa Yancey."  Tender.  

Rachel's prayers are hilarious.  First of all, she refuses to say "Dear Heavenly Father".  When I talk about how we pray to Heavenly Father, she gets upset and is adamant we are praying to Jesus.  She always says, "Thank you that Grandpa Yancey died.  Thank you that Max had a sleepover on Christmas Eve.  Thank you that Emery is coming tomorrow."  None of this is true!  She has also recently added in "Thank you that Grandma Becky's mom and dad died."  Her prayers are always so thoughtful.  She talks in a sweet voice with her head bowed and arms folded tightly.  Her sincerity and sweetness makes these confused prayers even better.

Rachel frequently chooses to wear mismatched shoes.  One sandal, one dress shoe, or any other combination.  She also usually has her shoes on the wrong feet and will not let anybody change them.  You have no idea how many times strangers have told me her shoes are on the wrong feet.  Thanks for the tip!

Besides her shoe quirk, she is so particular with her clothes.  She only wears leggings, who can blame her there, but she pretty much just wears the same five shirts.  Even shirts I have her pick out, she will wear once, and if she doesn't like it, will never wear it again.  She has multiple dresses in her closet that Bridget used to wear that she refuses to wear.  Bridget has even passed down to her Disney princesses shirts and she will have nothing to do with them!  I will admit, this is all slightly frustrating to me because she only wears half her clothes and the half she wears are looking incredibly worn!

Rachel has taken to saying, "I was a baby last year."  And she'll say it at the end of anything.  And in fact, just today at lunch she told me she was a baby last night.  So clearly she doesn't know what a baby is or she doesn't get the concept of last night and last year.  :)

Rachel's imagination is incredible!  I have captured some great videos of her as of late completely absorbed in her own world with delightful conversations going on between her princess figures as she plays with them.  Her current favorite toys are her Sofia the First figures, Elena of Avalor, Tsums Tsums, Palace Pets, and My Little Ponies.  That basically sums up all of our girl toys.  :)

Rachel is currently in the midst of identifying her emotions.  She will frequently say,, "You make me so angry!"  and then stomp to her room, fists clenched, and slam the door, twice.  :)  She will also say, "You don't tell me!"  or "Stop talking Mom!" when we are asking her to do something.  Despite these angry words, she has also been known to melt our hearts with words.  Two weeks ago she said to Richard, "You take this upstairs for me.  You are such an amazing dad!"  Where does she learn this stuff?!  Richard was dumbfounded.

One day this fall, soon after Gretchen was born, I made some banana muffins.  Seeing as Gretchen was still so new, this small task seemed daunting, so it was really the only thing I wanted to accomplish that day.  I made them in the morning and then a while later laid down to take a nap.  Just as I was falling asleep Rachel came to tell me she was hungry so I told her to grab a muffin.  Well, when I woke up 30 minutes later I went into the kitchen and immediately saw all the muffins were not where I had left them.  I asked Rachel where the muffins were and she pointed to the speaker.  She had eaten the tops off of all 12 muffins!  Just a few weeks ago I made cornbread for dinner.  After dinner Richard and I went upstairs to start the bedtime routine and when I came back down I found Rachel eating the top of the remaining cornbread!  This girl cannot be trusted around grains.  :)

Rachel is clearly very resourceful when it comes to obtaining food for herself.  Every morning when I am upstairs taking care of Gretchen after the older kids have gone to school, I hear Rachel scooting a chair around the kitchen so she can get anything she wants.  When she has snuck a treat she always covers her eyes when she hears me coming down the stairs.  Always trying to be sneaky!

Rachel's smiles have become increasingly amusing.  She is such a little poser, and sometimes a very odd poser!  Her smiles are usually a wide open mouth and it is hilarious.  Every picture that Rachel is in brings a smile to my own face!

We love this one of a kind little girl, Rachel Louise!