2016- Week 3

This week, was a good one.  We had a lot of events and plans this week, but I feel like it wasn't too crazy.  Perhaps, I was a bit more organized than normal.

On Tuesday, Kaiton had his well child check-up.  He is in the 3rd percentile for both height and weight, which is better than his last visit.   In the evening, Brooklen had hockey and I took the other three kids to the Woodcrest Roller Skating Party.  Hurley had fun with her friends; she spent a lot of time with Evan Nicholas and they even held hands on the partner skates.  Zaya's friend, Lucy was there and they skated together.  Lucy had never skated before and Zaya was such a patient friend to her.  Even though Zaya is a great skater, she held Lucy's hand and helped her skate a lot of the time. Kaiton wanted to be on his skates almost the entire time.  I was so impressed with him.  By the end, he was skating with just one of my hands.

On Wednesday, Zaya had school and then I watched Maddy Hale for an hour.  A bit later, Ronan and Soleil Bills came over to play with the kids.  We picked up the older kids at the end of their school day and dropped Hurley off for gymnastics.  I taught piano to the three Parks girls while Hurley was at gymnastics and then I took Brooklen to scouts after dinner.

On Friday, Zaya had a field trip for school at the gymnastics center.  We called it her "crazy gymnastics day" because in the afternoon, we met her friends, Lucy and Nev, in Freeland for open gym.  Then, at night, I took Hurley and Zaya to the CMU vs. BYU gymnastics meet.  We left early so that I could take them out to dinner at Ruby Tuesdays.  Though Ruby Tuesdays isn't anything special, they felt pretty cool getting to go to a sit-down restaurant and order anything they wanted.  Zaya ordered corn dogs and Hurley ordered pizza.  They also got fries and drinks and we ordered a chicken appetizer.  The gymnastics meet was great.  The girls seemed to really enjoy it and it was cool to get to sit so close to the action.  CMU won the meet and afterwards the girls got to get autographs from several of the CMU gymnasts.  On the way home, we stopped by McDonalds and I got them milkshakes.  We had such a wonderful girls night!

On Saturday, Brooklen had hockey at 8:15am.  After hockey, he came home and the kids all hung out and played together.  We left at about noon to go to Saginaw.  We went to check out some elbow pads at Peranis and then we took Brooklen to Jake's birthday party at the Freeland Sportszone.  While Brooklen was at the party, we did our grocery shopping at Meijer and ran to Old Navy.  After the party, we came home, fed the kids, and dropped them off at Thomas and Altas.  Rob and I went to eat at the Grand Traverse pie company.  We had a gift card from Rob's work and they were so nice at the restaurant.  Afterwards, we ran to Dunhams and to Walmart to pick up a few things.  We spent some time talking to Thomas and Alta when we went to pick up our kids, so we didn't get them home until almost 10:00.

Today, Rob had to visit the Saginaw Ward for ward conference.  I got to church 10 minutes early, but I left the house a complete disaster.  Alta had to speak in church, so I sat with all seven of the kids. After church today, I went to help accompany a choir that Jenny Lowe is leading.  Her organist couldn't make it, so I came and subbed by playing the piano.

2016- Week 2

Today was Kaiton's 2nd birthday.  Instead of my usual journaling about my week, I'm going to write a letter to my sweet baby.

Dear Kaiton,

Today you turned 2 years old!!  2!!  Time has gone by so quickly these past two years; it almost frightens me how quickly time seems to pass.

You are such a joy in our lives, Kaiton.  You are such a happy boy.  You love to be active, but you are not wild.  You have such an independent spirit.  When you want to do something you figure out how to do it yourself.  If I give you an orange, you like to peel it yourself.  You always put the peel in the garbage and then you find a bowl to put the orange in.  When you want to color, you grab paper and crayons and begin the activity all by yourself.  Speaking of coloring, you love to color!  You love to ask others to draw basketball hoops and baseball bats and hockey sticks for you!  You go through so much paper each day; I just love that you are focused enough to stay entertained when you are coloring.

You love sports!  Your favorites seem to be hockey and baseball.  But you also love basketball and football.  You are learning to skate and can even stand up in your rollerblades and skate a few inches by yourself.  You also love to hit the ball on the tee.  Your favorite clothes are your Redwings jersey and your football pajamas.  When we take you to Dunhams, it is like heaven to you.  It is pretty hard to get you to leave.  You recently learned to jump and you can also do a somersault all by yourself.

You talk a lot.  You vocabulary is so big and you absolutely love to read books with others.  You love to point to things in books and tell us what they are.  You are so smart!  You know many of your colors and you can sort colors too.

You are a big eater.  You love fruits (especially oranges, grapes, and strawberries), sweets, pasta, and meat.  You are a big fan of water and always have been.  While most babies love milk, you can't get enough of that H2O.  You constantly get out little bowls and ask us me if you can have a snack.  You are a little guy, but that belly of yours can certainly fit a lot of food in it.

Kaiton, one of your silliest habits is that you like to have your thumb in your mouth and you like to put a finger from your other hand in to your belly button.  You do it all the time!  It doesn't matter what you are wearing, you pull your shirt up or unzip your pajamas to make sure that both fingers can be in the correct spots!

Hands down, your favorite show is Daniel Tiger.  You know all of the characters and you would watch it all day if I let you.  We bought you a set of Daniel Tiger books for your birthday today and you were thrilled with the present.  You have seen all of the episodes many times, but you never seem to get tired of them.

Kait, we love you more than words could ever explain.  You have filled a void in our family; you bring a happy, sweet spirit into our home and you help to unite your siblings.  We can't wait to see who you become.

Love,

Mommy

2016-Week 1

Here we are again at the beginning of a new year.  I can't believe how quickly time seems to pass.  I tell my kids all the time that I wish I could put them in a bottle and close the lid.  It is amazing to see my kids learn and grow and become kind, talented, kind individuals, but it also hurts a bit to see them grow up.  It is a constant fault of mine to look too far ahead and I constantly find myself in a storm of emotions wondering what it will be like when my kids are grown and create their own families.  Will they have time for me?  Will my faults cause them to think so much less of me?  Will the relationships that I have worked so hard to create be hard to maintain?

With all of this in mind, my goals for this year are around relationships.

1) Building a stronger relationship with Rob.  I need to listen more, talk less.  I need to learn to ask the right questions and I need to give him what he want and needs, which means thinking less about myself and more about him.

2) Fostering stronger relationships with my children.  I want to make time for all of them, individually.  I'm not quite sure how I am going to do that, but I am currently thinking about that.  I am often overwhelmed by all of them wanting my attention at the same time.  I need to find ways to let them know that I am interested in talking, learning, and playing with each of them in an uninterrupted, solo setting.  Again, this means thinking less about myself and more about what THEY want to do.

3) Learning about each of my Young Women and praying about how to help them individually.

4) Working on my own relationship with myself.  I need to be more self-confident and I need to find time to work on me.  Specifically, I have felt like my brain is dying.  I literally can't focus on anything anymore.  I haven't done anything academic in so long, I can't even read a page of a book without my mind wandering

And, of course, I am vowing to take more pictures of my sweet kiddos this year.  I make this resolution every year and I struggle with it.  I'll get it eventually.  I'm going to keep on trying.

In news this week, I just wanted to record a couple of things.  Brooklen had a hockey game yesterday.  Only 4 boys from his team showed up.  They played for 40 minutes straight.  His coach sent the parents of the 4 boys this email today:

Mike, Barry, Rob, Adrienne, Brent, and Susan,

I just wanted to tell you how impressed I was at the way the boys played yesterday. I thought about it most of the day. They showed a tremendous amount of heart and never quit. Even for 8 year olds, it’s tough skating that long without many breaks.

For what it’s worth, a couple of the other coaches offered to give us a couple of their players. I declined, as I have other times we’ve been shorthanded. While I understand all the mites are one big 40 player team, and we all practice together and a lot of the boys are friends, we are still the Valley Electric Team. Our boys don’t get a lot of team bonding, and I very much like the players on our Valley Electric team. I prefer to keep our team intact.

With one player falling ill at the last minute yesterday, and another not showing up, yesterday was pushing the envelope with just 3 skaters. I watched them closely to see if frustration set in; it’s supposed to be fun, not frustrating. I didn’t see any frustration. I saw some tired faces in the locker room, but I also felt a sense of accomplishment from them.

I tip my hat to Isaiah, Jordin, Brooklen, and Andrew.


I loved that sweet email.  I really am proud of Brooklen and how hard he has worked in this new sport.  I love that he has fought so hard to keep up with the other kids.

On Monday, we took the kids to the roller skating rink.  They all competed in races.  Brooklen got second to a speed skated, Hurley came in right behind another girl, and brave little Zaya was the only one in her age group, but she took her lap (her first time on roller blades at the rink) and finished.   The Nymans and the Whites came too; it was such a fun afternoon.

On New Year's Eve, we had Thomas and Alta Bills and their kids over.  I made tacos and we had root beer floats.  It was completely low-key and I LOVE that about the Bills family.  I feel comfortable not making a fuss around them and we had so much fun hanging out with them.

On New Year's Day, we took the whole family ice skating.  I didn't fall once, and by the end, I had Kaiton standing up while I pushed the assist.

Week Fifty-One

So since this is the last week of the year, it seems that somewhere along the line I got off track.  I really thought that I had recorded every week this year (some in more detail than others).  Although I'm a bit disappointed, I am also SHOCKED that I actually made it through the entire year with only one missed week.  I started this blog as an experiment and a New Year's Resolution.  I am so glad that it has become a habit that I will continue to maintain.  I still have a lot of catching up to do on pictures for this year, but I plan to try to be more responsible about that next year.

Christmas was amazing this year.  Rob and I were very fortunate to be able to give the kids everything they wanted (and more).  The weather was amazing over the holidays.  On Wednesday, it even reached 63 degrees.  We still don't have any snow, so it feels like Fall around here.

On Monday, I spent time at Woodcrest for both Brooklen and Hurley's class parties.  They both went really well and I was actually pretty grateful to get them over with.  On Tuesday, I tried to finish up things at home and I also watched Alta's two kids for a couple of hours and I watched Ellie and Jack Jones for about 5 hours.  It was pretty crazy around here and I got less done than I wanted to, but I know I helped both of my friends a lot, so it was definitely worth it.

On Wednesday, the kids were home from school.  We decorated Christmas cookies with Jake and Jenna in the morning, and then I took Hurley to gymnastics while Zaya and Brooklen played at the Nymans.  When I went to pick the kids up from the Nyman's they told me that Zaya had had a tantrum and had kicked Todd.  She was really upset and denied the whole event.  I brought her home and put her in her room.  Later that day, I made her draw Todd a picture and we took it over to their house and she apologized.  I know it was really hard for her to do that, but she needs to learn to keep her emotions in check and to apologize when you make a mistake.

On Thursday morning, we ran some last minute errands and then came home and finished some homemade gifts.  Rob came home a little early and we had our "Jesus dinner" on the floor while we watched the movie elf.  My mom always gets everyone new pajamas and the kids were so excited to open them.  Brooklen got Redwings pajamas, Kaiton's had a football on them, Zaya got Elsa jammies, and Hurley had requested Wonderwoman pajamas.  Brooklen and Hurley had a hard time getting to sleep on Christmas Eve because they were so excited. Hurley was up several times during the night.

On Christmas morning, I got up first and started some cinnamon roll dough.  The kids came down the stairs together at about 8:00am.  Brooklen got an iPad, a baseball rebounder, Redwings tickets, two Wii games, and plenty of other things.  He was SHOCKED by the iPad.  He hadn't asked for one because he figured he wouldn't get it.  He was soooo excited. Hurley got an American Girl doll, a gymnastic bar, a tablet, Magformers, and Washi Tape.  Zaya got an American Girl doll, a gymnastic bar, a Barbie camper, rollerblades, ice skates, and a Razor Scooter.  She also got a rope and a flashlight.  She saw Santa twice this year; at her preschool and at the Santa house.  Both times that's what she told him she wanted.  I think she got some ideas from some of her best boyfriends at preschool (haha).  Kaiton got a tricycle, ice skates, roller blades, and an indoor hockey puck and stick.

The kids also made several gifts.  Collectively, they made playdough, peanut butter cups, a few games, bracelets, a bookmark, and a dancing ribbon hoop. I love that they make their gifts for each other.  It is a lot of work for me, but I really hope it teaches them to give of their time and to give a meaningful gift.

We spent most of Christmas day in our pajamas.  We headed outside in the afternoon to use some of the new toys and to take a walk in the gorgeous weather.  We had mexican food, including tamales, for dinner.

On Saturday, I left to do some newborn photos while Rob (bless his heart) took all of the kids to Brooklen's hockey practice.  We hung around the house and cleaned the garage in the afternoon.  In the evening, we went to the Nyman's to hang out and have dessert.

I am so grateful for my little family.  I feel so lucky.  I am grateful for the Savior and the love he provides.  I am grateful that in a dark and scary world I can show my children some light.  I am grateful that I can wake up each day and keep trying to be a better wife, a more patient mother, a more loyal friend, a better disciple of God, and a kinder person.  I am grateful for the mercy that the Lord's plan provides and for the tools that I have to help me journey through this life.

Week Fifty

On Tuesday, Rob had a board meeting.  Brooklen had hockey that night, so I took all of the kids to hockey with me.  I haven't been to one of his practices in quite a while and I was impressed with his improvement on many of the drills.  Still, it was frustrating to be at the civic arena with the younger three kids.  I am constantly upset with myself for snapping at them while we are there, but it is so hard to focus on Brooklen's hockey games (or practices) when the younger three are whining and fighting.  I vow to myself to try harder to be more patient with them.  Hopefully, that will make the experience better.

On Wednesday morning, I spent a couple of hours helping my friend, Tiffany Jaimie, clean out her preschool.  She had to shut down the school and needed to be out of the building by Thursday.  In the evening, we took the kids to the Santa House.  We waited for an hour and a half, but it was worth it.  The kids enjoy the tradition of going there and they love seeing the reindeer too.  Kaiton loved the reindeer, but he was fiercely afraid of Santa.  He didn't want to get anywhere near him.  After we came home, I went back to the preschool to help Tiffany for a little bit.

On Thursday night, Zaya had a Christmas program at her school.  She has been excited about this for weeks and I was so excited to have her get to have her "own thing."  Zaya spends so much time being carted to Brooklen and Hurley's events and she is always having to celebrate their successes.  She told me that she needed to get dressed up fancy, so we chose a special dress, pretty leopard print shoes and we did a crown braid in her hair.  She was elated during the entire event.  She ran around her school like she was queen of the world and she sang her songs so well.  Rob commented to me during the event that he was bored, but when I pointed out how excited Zaya was, I think he felt differently.

On Friday night, we decorated the gingerbread house and the gingerbread men that my mom had given us.  The kids had so much fun and ate so much candy.  Hurley was apparently really impressed with my gingerbread house decorating skills.  Even though I didn't really do anything fancy, she kept complementing me.  I have to admit that I appreciated every compliment that she gave me!

On Saturday, the kids played around the house in the morning.  At noon, Hurley had a gymnastics team Christmas party.  I took Zaya and Kaiton and we dropped her off.  Then, we ran over to the church to get the choir music for Sunday ready.  Brooklen and Rob headed to Brooklen's hockey games in Gladwin.  After I picked Hurley up at noon, we all headed out to Gladwin.  Hurley was so excited about the stocking full of goodies that she got from the stocking exchange during her party.  She chatted about it all the way to Gladwin.  We missed most of Brooklen's first game, but we caught the very end. He played two more games that day.  I felt a little bad because during the second game I was really annoyed that he wasn't scoring and that he was skating so slow.  During the last game, he ended up scoring three goals.  The worst part was that I only saw one goal because I was so busy dealing with the younger kids.

On Saturday evening, Brooklen and Rob went to a Saginaw Spirit game with Brooklen's good buddy, Ethan Menzies, and his dad.  The younger kids and I went to Meijer to do our grocery shopping and then I picked up McDonalds for them on the way home.  We watched a new Barbie movie before bed.

Today was the Christmas program at church.  I was sooo nervous about it, but it went really well.  The speakers were awesome and the music was wonderful.  I think I made some really good, possibly inspired decisions.  One of the numbers was a cello solo (which I accompanied) by an older woman in my ward.  Pam was actually a cello major in college, but has never owned her own cello.  I felt like I should ask her to perform and she actually bought a cello so she could do so.  She was very nervous and she was playing on an elementary instrument, but when she performed, she sounded better than I had heard her sound in our practices.  I think she was thrilled to be playing again and I felt very grateful I "forced" the opportunity.

Week Forty-Nine

This week just flew by! On Monday, we spent the evening at home having Family Home Evening.  Rob gave a lesson about reading scriptures and challenged everyone to read daily.  He presented a vase from the dollar store and a couple of bags of marbles.  Each day, if we read scriptures, each person can put a marble in the jar.  When the jar is full, the kids can pick something fun for us to do together.  They are pretty excited about this and I am crossing my fingers that it helps get us all back on track with our scripture reading.

On Tuesday, I had mutual.  We helped take down the nativity exhibit.  It was pretty fun and I was surprised how much work we were able to get done in an hour and a half!  After mutual, the advisors were asked to come to the presidency meeting.

On Wednesday, Hurley had gymnastics after school, Brooklen had hockey, and I taught three piano lessons.  I have to admit, I don't really enjoy it when our afternoons/evenings are that full.  It makes the entire day pretty stressful for me!

On Friday evening, Rob got us tickets to go to Cobblestone's Home for the Holidays event in partnership with the hospital.  We got a babysitter for the kids and went and toured five of Cobblestone's decorated homes.  It was a lot of fun to tour the homes with Rob; I just love looking at homes . . . I definitely took a lot of notes for any future home(s) that we may have.  After the event, Rob headed to the Civic Arena to volunteer and I went home to get the kids.  The kids and I went and picked up a couple of pizzas and then we watched a movie in bed!

On Saturday morning, we had to leave at 6:00am to go to a hockey tournament in Lapeer.  Brooklen played four games throughout the day and we had a lot of fun watching him.  He scored one goal and got an assist.  He played really well; he is a very "smart" player.  After the games, we stopped in Saginaw to do some holiday shopping at Perani's Hockey World, Dunham's, and Five Below.  We got home at about 5:30pm.  We fed the kids leftover pizza and then sent them up to bathe.  At 6:30pm, Thomas and Alta Bills brought their kids over for us to babysit.  We let the kids play and then set up a movie for them in the basement.  I had to leave at 8:00pm to play the piano for a song practice and then afterwards I stopped at Meijer to do our grocery shopping

Week Forty-Eight

On Monday night, Rob gave a great Family Home Evening that fit right with my goals for this Christmas season.  He talked about being kind to our family members.  We talk a lot about service at this time of the year, but my kids aren't always very nice to each other, so I think Rob thought that we should start at home.  He had Hurley help him prepare the lesson; she really enjoyed that.   They prepared two kinds of paper "tokens."  One said, "gotcha" and the other said, "caught you."  The idea was to leave "gotcha" tokens when you secretly served others and to award "caught you" tokens when you saw someone being nice to a family member.  I've tried to support Rob this week by helping the kids with this and also with rewarding tokens to the kids.  I hope that it helps my kids to remember to get along better.

Our elf, "elfie," came to the house again this week.  He had a successful first two nights getting in to trouble, but then he remained in the same spot for the next three nights.  Oops!

I went to help with the nativity set-up on Tuesday night.  It was a nice chance to help with the nativity and also to interact with the Laurels a bit.  Hopefully, I will be able to make some sort of an impression on them before many of them graduate from High School in a few months.

On Friday, I got to work at Zaya's preschool.  She was so cute this time.  She wanted to be near me most of the time and I just loved every minute of it!  So many of her little girl friends also wanted to sit on my lap and help me, but I was just so excited to spend time with Zaya!  I am going to miss her so much next year when she leaves me all day to go to kindergarten.

On Friday night, we had a movie night at home.  We made homemade pizza and watched a movie that Rob had picked up from Redbox.  The movie wasn't quite a hit, but the pizza and popcorn and relaxing sure were.

Yesterday, I woke up and baked a breakfast casserole for a baby shower.  Then, at 11:30, Brooklen had a hockey game.  He scored a goal and played really well.  Their team was short several players so he had to play almost the entire first 20 minutes and he did play the entire second 20 minutes.  At the end, he confessed that he had fun but that he was so tired that by the end he was trying to stay in one general area and hope that someone passed the puck to him.

After the game, I helped get the kids dressed up and then I went to City Forest for a photo session while Rob took the kids to the MCFTA for the Nutcracker.  He had gotten free tickets through Chemical Bank (he does business with them).  I arrived just before the show began and we all went in to the theater.  Kaiton did really well until halfway through the first act the tree grew (this was done digitally) and he got scared.  He refused to go in the theater for the rest of the show.  I ended up in the "wiggle room" with him for the rest of the ballet, while Rob watched it in the theater with the other kids.  Hurley and Zaya enjoyed it, but Brooklen did not like having to go to a ballet.  It was my first time seeing a ballet, and honestly, I don't think I would be jumping at a chance to go again!