Bittersweet

This little girl is growing up, and honestly, I don't love it.  

Before I was pregnant with Gretchen, I was planning on having at least five or maybe even six kids.  But just a few weeks into my pregnancy with her, I started to think this would be our last.  I have relatively easy pregnancies, but the exhaustion alone, especially when taking care of three other children, just about did me in.  There were many afternoons during those early weeks, where it was all I could do to get Marshall home from school and then I would just fall asleep on the couch and he would take care of Bridget and Rachel.  Seriously!  He can be a real good kid when he wants to be.  

Once I started to think this could be it, I really tried hard to soak in all the special things of pregnancy.  I kept trying hard to do this after Gretchen was born.  I tried to spend more time holding her, staring at her during those night time feedings, and just soaking her up.  

Gretchen's lack of gross motor skills has at times brought stress and worry and extra work, but a part of me has loved how baby-ish it has kept her.  She is tiny in size and still wearing 12 month clothes, shoes that are 6-12 months, and honestly looks like a 9-12 month old baby.  Every time we are out and people watch this tiny little thing scoot around they ask me how old she is and are always shocked with my answer.  

I have relished these drawn out baby days though.  Sure, sometimes I wish I could put her down at the post office and have her stand up, but man, I have loved this extra baby time.  I love the way she tucks her legs up and curls her toes while she is sitting and playing.  I love, love, love her one-armed scoot while carrying a book or a baby doll.  I love that we have to carry her everywhere we go and she just holds onto our shoulders as we walk around.  

So when she took her first un-assisted steps on February 26, just a couple days shy of 18 months, though I was cheering on the outside, my heart was breaking on the inside.  Those precious, squishy, soft baby feet are going to disappear and my baby is going to turn into a toddler.  It was bound to happen, but I find that I am a lot more sad about it than I ever thought I would be.  

Christmas Break Part Two

After we got home from Vernal, we spent the remaining days of the Christmas Break with my family.  My brother, Ben, and his family were visiting from Arizona and my kids were elated to play with more cousins.  I hardly took any pictures during those days, but much fun was had and happy memories were made.  

We spent a morning at a church, just to have more space.  We played games, had pizza for lunch, and decorated gingerbread people.  Bridget and Anna were delighted to be sporting matching shirts.  

Me and my brothers.  I love feeling short when I am with them, especially when I position myself between Danny and Kevin, which I always do on purpose.  :)

LOVE Marshall's photo-bomb here.  :)

Even though I only have pictures from our church outing we also just played a lot, had sleepovers, restaurant night with adults-only, and went to the annual Yancey Christmas recital.  The highlight of our time together was Lisa surprising all of us, even Ben, that she was pregnant with twins!  Twins!  Due this summer!  Love this family, and love any time we can get together!

Christmas, In Pictures

Getting back to the holidays...

We spent Christmas in Vernal with Richard's family.  The last time we were in Vernal for Christmas was 2005, our first Christmas as a married couple.  So, here we were, 12 years and 4 kids later, and that was kind of fun to think about.  It was a wonderful and relaxing time.  We spent four full days there and enjoyed it all.

The weather was great the entire time we were there.  I was a little sad about no snow on Christmas, but really, who can complain when you get to play outside every day the end of December.  

On Saturday evening Joe's family came over for an early Christmas Eve dinner.  Becky had an awesome game planned with the kids and adults, all sorts of prizes wrapped in a giant saran-wrapped ball.  So much laughter, and so much fun!

Gretchen was reunited with Pepper and couldn't be happier.  I don't think Pepper shared the same sentiments.  

Evening snuggles and reading with Grandpa Bob.

Christmas Eve afternoon we made our traditional sugar cookies.  This is a tradition that I grew up with and we have kept it going, with one change, Richard rolls out the dough and helps the kids with the cookie cutters.  I love it!

Music time with Grandma Becky.

Christmas Eve pajamas!  Gretchen was so exhausted, that she went to bed early and missed out on the photo op.  You can just see the excitement!

Finally, a decent picture!

I am only including this picture because of Rachel's face.  You really never know what you are going to get with her!

Christmas morning!  The kids made it until almost 7:00 am.  

Gretchen LOVED opening gifts.  She was very possessive!  And if we weren't watching her, she was under the tree, opening other people's gifts!

Pepper also loved the firehouse.  :)

We spent the afternoon at Joe and Aubri's home playing games and eating delicious Christmas food.  We ended the night with hot cinnamon rolls back at Bob and Becky's home.  A cinnamon roll on Christmas evening might just have to become a tradition!

The next day we went to Dinosaur National Monument.  The kids were sworn in as junior rangers.  :)

This mountainside full of dinosaur bones was fascinating!  Look at all of those!

No big deal, just a dinosaur femur!

We ended our outing by hitting up Freddy's.  Where I was mauled by three out of four children for pretty much the entire meal.  

A memorable and happy Christmas holiday.  

Last year, very early on in the school year, a woman caught my eye.  I would see her walking to and from the school with a little girl in tow.  Sometimes I saw her on the school grounds after school, waiting for the same little girl.  The first time I saw this woman I was positive she was a meth addict.  She was so thin and had missing teeth and looked generally un-well.  

Last spring, several months into the school year, I was driving my kids and our neighbor to school.  As I approached a roundabout I saw this woman and the little girl starting to cross the street.  I slowed down for them, but the woman motioned to me with her hand and wanted me to stop.  I did so and rolled down my window.  She asked if we could give them a ride to the school.  I agreed, but I was nervous.  The woman got in the front passenger seat and the little girl squeezed in the back with the five kids already in my van.  Thankfully, the drive to the school is not far, but this woman talked the entire time.  She talked to me about how she had just had surgery the day before, but had no idea what the surgery was for, and how her mom just kept crying about it.  Seeing her close up confirmed my suspicions about meth because her mouth just looked awful and she smelled terrible.  After we dropped the kids off, she told me to drive her back home slow and directed me in a longer way so her boyfriend wouldn't ask why she was home so quickly.  I was relieved when I finally dropped her off and made it out of her parking lot.  

I was quite shaken by the whole thing, not just for myself and the kids, but especially for that little girl I always saw her with.  I ended up emailing the school principal, just to relate my experience and check on the little girl.  Mr. Prusse got back to me very quickly and said they are very aware of the little girl and they are doing everything they can to help her.  He told me the girl is actually the niece of that woman.  I have to admit, I still wonder about the state of the girl's parents if her aunt is the one who is the legal guardian.  Honestly, it terrifies me and breaks my heart for that little girl.  Mr. Prusse also told me that the girl was given a coat and that each Friday she is sent home with a "Pantry Pack", supplied by the Bountiful Food Pantry so that she has food to eat during the weekend.  This immediately broke my heart.  I could not imagine Marshall or Bridget being sent home with a pantry pack and having to ration that amount of food throughout the entire weekend until they could get back to school for a meal.  

Since this encounter, I began to learn more about the Bountiful Food Pantry and Pantry Packs.  The food pantry puts together 1500 pantry packs each week that are distributed to elementary school children throughout the district.  Even though that seems like a lot, there are an estimated 16,000 elementary school children in Davis County who are not getting enough to eat.  Junior high and high school students who face hunger have other options, similar to a food pantry, where they can get food.  Northridge High School just opened their own food pantry this fall, focused on serving hungry teenagers.  

On Monday night I took Bridget and Rachel to the food pantry to help assemble these packs.  Danny, Stacie, and Jaxon also joined us.  It was an hour well spent.  I definitely plan on going back so that Richard and Marshall can join us.  

It was heart-warming, and also heart-breaking, to watch my little girls, who have never had a lack of food in their life, fill a gallon ziploc bag with food.  We put in one cup of Kraft macaroni and cheese, one can of ravioli, one milk box, two fruit cups, one juice box, two packets of instant oatmeal, two granola bars, one fruit snack, and one cookie pack (which they don't always have).  That was it.  That is all that would fit.  That is all those 1500 kids are going to eat from Friday's school lunch until Monday's school breakfast or lunch.  It is incredible what burdens some people are forced to live through.  

Since we moved back to Utah from Wisconsin, I have had a strong desire to remind my kids, and show them through service like this, that we have so much, while some others have so little.  Even though they are still young, I felt like they were surrounded by the apparent needs of people much more in Milwaukee.  This mostly happened at church, because we picked up people who did not have cars, they saw that some people weren't dressed nice because they did not have money to buy nice clothes.  I also took them on a lot of Relief Society visits where they were in homes that were sad to be in.  They just saw need a lot more in Milwaukee, and they saw us help.  I was also surrounded by great friends who were so proactive with things like this and organized multiple service activities within our community.  

Now that we are in Utah, and will one day move into a larger home, surrounded by larger homes in a more established neighborhood, I do not want my kids to forget that there are a lot of people around them who have much less and have needs that are not being met.  I want them to want to serve.  I want them to feel comfortable serving.  I want them to feel comfortable around people who are different than they are.  I also want them to know that there are other organizations besides the Church that help people.  Growing up, most of my service experiences were through the Church.  When I moved to Wisconsin, I had a lot of other opportunities to serve that did not involve the Church.  I want my kids to know that other churches help people, that other organizations help people, and that they can find so many different ways to help people.  

"Unless we lose ourselves in service to others, there is little purpose to our own lives."

-President Thomas S. Monson

Thank Goodness For New Days

Saturday was one of my worst days as a mom.  I have had a handful of days where I just 

feel completely tapped out.  So many demands, so much whining, so much fighting, someone wanting something from me almost every single minute, or more like demanding.  It was exhausting.  

At 2:00 pm I started trying to find a baby-sitter for 5:00 or 6:00 that night.  I was completely unsuccessful.  So we kept with our plans for the evening, which involved all six of us, sadly.  :)  Thankfully, we survived that and bedtime was drawing near.  We got all the kids ready for bed and then I gave them a little talking to.  We ended the discussion by all five of us picking one thing we were going to do better at the next day.  Rachel, very much to her credit, came up with hers all on her own, no whining.  Hallelujah.  She was a huge factor in the awful day!

Sunday came and it was wonderful.  Truly wonderful.  

We have 9:00 am church now and our morning was almost completely flawless.  We needed to issue a couple of reminders about our promises, but we made it to church early, hence the picture, and everyone was happy!

The kids spent the entire afternoon playing and just had a great time together.  Richard, Gretchen, and I got a nap.  The kids cleaned up like they were supposed to and we ended our evening with a great time at my parents' house.  

I am so grateful for new days.  I am glad that we all have the choice to change, the choice to be better, to make improvements, even as young kids.  Small and good choices can make a big, big difference.