I'm still planning to keep this blog updated. Hectic doesn't even cover what life has been like. We moved to Manti in mid February. Nothing about the move has gone smoothly and we are still having adjustment issues. It's made the blog take a back seat, but I'm really want to remember Grace at this stage and do a quick birthday post. This is more just for a remembrance about what she is like right now and next post can be her birthday post. This girl is hard. She is a picky, finicky baby, but I love every piece of her. We have finally dropped to two naps a day and that's working sooo much better with my schedule. She still doesn't sleep through the night and I spend a lot of time worrying about how I can wean this little girl. I'm wanting to wean so that I can start the timeline for my cancer treatments, but this little girl is pretty dependent on nursing and just loves it. She is still waking up a couple times a night to nurse, which is way better than 4-5 times but needs to be cut all together. Ha. Here are some tidbits
She is super active and has a speed walk that borders on a run.
She does not like to sit in church meetings and we often are walking the halls for the last two hours.
I ordered her her first pair of shoes, which she absolutely loves. The first day I got them I put them on her and she just stared at her feet and then proceeded to pace back and forth in her new shoes.
She does this adorable thing where if I crouch down and open my arms to her she speed walks to me with her eyes closed, a big cheesy grin and a schrunched up nose.
We acquired 3 cats in the rental we are in. They live by our backdoor and try to come in when we open it. Meg and Adin have taken to firmly saying, "back, back" when they go out the back door. Now whenever we open the back door, Grace uses a firm voice and says, "ba, ba".
She loves loves books. She likes to flip through grown up people books and hymn books. She lifts the pages and watches them fall. She loves her board books and read them in an adorable high pitched voice and points at the pictures just like I do. Oddly sometimes she even puts the book up to her mouth while reading. Not sure where she got that.
She has a funny sense of humor. Brian is super goofy with her and she gives him a little half amused smile. The other two babies would have been laughing and giggling and she is just mildly amused.
She loves the show Sophia the First and squeals when we turn it on. Thanks to daddy and Meg, she also likes to watch Frozen songs on the computer.
She loves to empty cupboards and drawers. Usually I just love that it's keeping her busy, but when I'm trying to clean it feels a little like she is a one woman wrecking ball.
She has the cutest dance moves ever. Basically she has a spin, which sometimes includes one of her arms out behind her like a tail. Her other move is a squat. I must catch this on camera. Adorable!
She absolutely loves her blankie. If she is hurt or scared or tired she needs mommy or her blankie. At nap time, she loves to toss her blankie out of her bed and then cry until I come and get it for her. Then repeat. Argh.
She gives kisses...especially to daddy. Sometimes he has to work for them. Every once in a while she absolutely refuses and shoves people away with her little hands.
She loves bananas and hot dogs. It's hard to find "snack" food that she likes. She likes pretty much anything I make for dinner.
She often talks out of the side of her mouth and often whispers. Her favorite word to whisper sounds like "what".
We moved to Manti when Gracie was 11 months. Brian and I both felt really good about our decision to move to Manti. Our main purpose was to see if we could qualify to get our student loans paid off. Because it felt like a really good decision, I think we both assumed that everything would fall into place. Ha hahahahahahahahahah aahhahaha. It didn't. It wasn't a smooth transition. It started with moving day. We had sooo much stuff that we ended up filling an entire truck and had to go get a second truck. We were both pretty mad about that. We like some aspects of living in Manti. I love that I can walk to the kids school. That has been a welcome change after driving 30 minutes round trip to Oakridge for 4+ years. I love that I can also walk to do almost all my errands (post office, pharmacy, car repairs, market). We have an amazing view of the temple out our back door. We do not miss Salt Lake traffic and Brian has a really relaxing, scenic drive to work. We adore the house we are renting. It is an old pioneer home. It has tons of history. Brigham Young slept in Adin's room while visiting to check up on the building of the temple. There is a mantle from the Lion House. There is a bath tub that was used in temple. There is a trap door that leads to an underground room used to hide polygamist wives. It's huge and we have really been able to spread out. It has two backyard areas where the kids can finally play. It has been really fun living here so far. Before moving down here, Brian and I thought it was a high possibility that we may stay in Manti for a very long time and raise the kids here. Now that we are here, we know that isn't going to happen so we are reframing and looking at it as a fun experience (in some ways) for 2 years if we qualify for loan repayment (we find out in a couple months). Brian's job at the prison is absolutely not going to work. They run him into the ground and treat the therapists like they are completely unimportant. Brian dreads every single day that he goes there. They run their employees, especially their therapists into the ground. Brian has talked to many people who are close to retirement and they say that staying wasn't worth it and that he should get out before it's tempting to stay. They just seem so beat down. We do NOT want to follow that path. I could go on and on with stories of under appreciation and mistreatment because things happen daily that remind us that the prison won't work for us, but suffice it to say that Manti will be a short stay. Neither of us feel like we made a wrong decision. In fact, I still feel like things really fell into place to get us here. I still feel like we have been blessed with this opportunity. It just isn't as long term as we thought it might be.
Well that's a brief update. I wish I had had time to blog more, but it has been literally insane. Brian's parents asked us to host the family Easter party here this year. It made it be a crazy 2 months trying to get this house and yard pulled together. That has consumed every moment for the past 2 months for me. It's over now, so stay tuned for an Easter party post. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment