Heartsick and Updates

I'm a little heartsick today. I always have a little sad nagging in the back of my brain knowing that time with these kids is flying by too fast, but sometimes when certain things are going on it's more than a little nagging. I'm working on closing the door on nursing Gracie. I find that I'm different than a lot of people and thoroughly enjoy nursing my babies. Gracie has been no different. I have cherished the quiet time that I get to go upstairs and nurse her as part of her bedtime routine. The bedtime routine is biting me in the bum bum right now. I never involved nursing in Adin or Megs bedtime routine and it was SO easy to wean them both. Gracie was so difficult in her infant stages that I used nursing as a way to get her to wind down and sleep. I was desperate and apparently became soft in my old age. :) Anways, that's what we are working on right now. I have my cancer treatments looming and she is 15 months. I nursed Adin and Meg to 15-16 months so I have been super blessed to be able to go this long with Grace. I know it's time. Every logical part of me knows and feels it's time, but the emotional part of me is mourning the fact that she is already to this age. She is becoming more and more toddlerish every day. I love her and her cuteness to death, but I'm sad she's grown so quickly. Her first 15 months of life have been a roller coaster on so many fronts that it has made time fly by. Darn it. That's making me more cognizant of time slipping by.

Another thing that has me heartsick has to do with Adin. He is looking older and older to me. Heck, he's getting baptized in November. Darn him. He has asked me a few times in the last couple weeks to tell him about what he was like as a baby. I remember some things but not as much as I wish I did. I tried to look back through this blog and out of the three kids, I did the least amount of recording of him. That breaks my heart. I adored him through all his stages, but I didn't write it down. I can't ever go back. I can only remember the best I can. I'm going to search through the journals by my bed and try to compile everything I wrote down, but I know it's not enough. That kills me.

Right about now, Adin is still a sweetheart. He hasn't made a ton of friends yet in this move and so we are spending a lot of time around each other now that it's summer break. He is still just as tender hearted as ever and I think he still has a sweetspot for me. I love that. He is quite obsessed with video games so we are monitoring how long he is allowed to play everyday. He craves positivity from Meg and soaks it up when she gives it. He loves playing with Grace. He plays with her in the sunroom. He hides in the curtains and when she finds him he runs screaming. I love to hear their simultaneous giggles in there. He  has more energy than the rest of us so he is usually the one to push Grace around on her little car or in the dumptruck.

Meg is as fun as ever too. She has her moments of sass and disrespect, but we're working on that. Overall she is a super big softy. She craves positive feedback and attention. She tries really hard to be good and is too hard on herself when she messes up. She is able to tell when I am frazzled and is great at helping me out when I am. She's in a hurry to grow up and was over the moon when she got her daddy  noticed it may be time for her first stick of deodorant. She is begging to wear a training bra, which I still have not consented to because she doesn't need it yet. She really wants to wear makeup and looks for anything that she thinks may be a reason I would let her wear a little. She looks older to me everyday and is a daily reminder that time is moving all too quickly.

 

Gracie has turned over a new leaf and really likes her daddy all of a sudden. She loves to sit with him at the computer no  matter what he is doing on it. She loves to come grab at your hand and have you walk around with her. More often than not she leads you to one of the doors that leads outside and points at it. She loves to play and be chased, but you can tell it makes her legitimately nervous and she always runs to me for safety. She says uh-oh really clearly with her mouth in the shape of an o and often drops things just to say uh oh. She definitely understands what no no means, but that doesn't mean that she will stop what she is doing. She loves to be outside points at the cats and says Key (short for kitty). Her other word that she know is Da for daddy and it's clear she knows what it means because she'll point at daddy across a room and say da. She loves for me and brian to kiss and tries to push us together. She loves all food. I can't think of anything off the top of my head that she doesn't like. She's actually becoming less picky and will eat most of the things she used to reject like graham crackers and yogurt bites. She does the most adorable run. She get's up on her tiptoes and does this dancy/prancy little run that is pretty much done in place. She walks faster than she runs because her run is all tiny little steps. I've kind of caught it on camera, but not the best.

We've all taken our fair share of pushing her around in this. She will pull it out, sit in it and stare at us waiting for someone to push her.

First try at a swing....not so much. I could tell the belly drops scared her.

She loves walking around with a blanket on her head and we have to follow her and make sure she doesn't walk into things.

 

We found out Brian got the loan repayment we moved down here for. We feel overwhelmingly blessed because many many people try for that loan repayment and few get it. At the same time we felt sad because that means we are locked in down here for at least two years...three if we want to get the loans paid off completely. This transition has been the hardest one we've ever made. We are too much of homebodys to enjoy the pressures that come with small towns. We love the slow pace, but do not like feeling like a spotlight is always on you. We miss the diversity of Salt Lake and we miss the easy access to things. We will stick it out for at least two years and see where things are as we decide the next step.

Next post will be back to vacations...just wanted to jot a few things down to ease my melancholy mood about these darn kids growing up so fast. :(

CALI- 2014

We were hopeful that we could make it back to Disneyland this year, but thought it would be toward the end of the year. We ended up getting more in tax returns than we anticipated and the mentions of disneyland began. Brian and I have been sooo burned out from this move. We have been incredibly blessed by getting a job down here and have been even more blessed to find out our loans will be repaid, but short of that this move has been anything buy smooth. It's been a mess and Brian hates the work. We will just be counting down the days. We both desperately needed a recharge. So in a short amount of time we went from hoping to planning. Kory just happened to facebook me while we were in the planning stages and asked when we were going to Disneyland next. A day later we planning with the Calls. It was my lifeline for a while. Knowing it was on the horizon was wonderful and exciting. Disneyland is not a relaxing vacation, but I personally adore every tiring moment of it. I love everything about that place, short of the pricetag. We were rather concerned about Gracie causing problems because she is super high maintenance, but she did awesome and actually forced me to really live in the moment the whole trip. I didn't spend time thinking about the stressors in our lives and now that we are back in the throws of life, I sorely miss California. I miss farmers market. I miss the beach. I miss the baby center at disneyland. I miss waiting in line for Splash Mountain. I sorely miss the smells and sights of Pirates. Eesh. It makes my heart hurt just typing it. With the exception of Spring Break 2005, this was the crowdy-est we have ever had. We plan to move our every-other-year trip to a more off season time next time around. Thankfully we went in with the expectation of it being crowded so some days were what we expected and some days we were pleasantly surprised. I am going to do a three posts for our trip. One will be for Disneyland highlights (it will be long), one for the beach, and one for our farmers market/off day.

 Mainstreet-awe the sounds and smells

 The girls-waiting for Haunted Mansion. Our tradition is to ride Pirates first because it is me and Brian's favorite ride. This year Pirates was closed when we got there...so was Haunted Mansion and Splash Mountain and Winnie the Pooh. Not a great start. Haunted Mansion ended up opening up as we were walking back so that was our first ride of the trip.

 Pirates is hands down my favorite ride, but I loved riding Splash with the kids this year. Adin always wanted to be in the front to "get soaked". Meg was always anxious and nervous about getting wet. :)

 Prior to the trip Adin mentioned how much he wanted to do the Star Wars show. I didn't want to get home and have him remember he missed it, so I asked them how important it was. Very important to both of them apparently. To guarantee getting chosen to participate you need to be right in the center in the front. They pick these kids because they know you have to be waiting there for a while before the show starts. Trick two is you have to act very enthusiastic to get picked. We've got this business down and both kids were picked. Phew. Gracie and I saved seats with backpacks for 45 minutes. Gracie had had it.

 Meg's turn to fight Vader.

 Adin's turn. We got this on video thankfully but apparently Adin's face was quite intense because the speaker guy commented on his fierceness.

 Don't let this picture fool you. I think Grace was pretty anxious the duration of the trip because she didn't want anyone to hold her but me. This is really her looking at me, freaking out, begging me to take her back.

 First visit to Cars Land. Very cool.

 This was the first year Adin was tall enough for Screamin' and Indiana Jones. He LOVED both.

 The babies. Quite the troopers.

 Gracie adores Sophia the First and her little 1 year old reaction to seeing her was adorable. Lots of ohs, pointing and reaching for her. As soon as it was her turn I set her down and she walked halfway to her and stopped. She wouldn't look at the camera despite lots of "getting attention" noises". She was enthralled.

 Adin's #1 ride.

 Meg's #2 ride

 Meg's #1 ride

 Adin's #2 ride.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meg and Adin's #3

 

 

Gracie's favorite ride. It was adorable. She was enthralled. She would dance and squeal and point. She says dika dika dika while she stomps her feet (that's her dance). Most other rides she just sat there acting mildly entertained like she was sitting at home watching TV. This one she loved.

 

 

Not sure if Brian's doing the peace sign or #2. This is he second favorite ride...so maybe...not sure.

 

 Disneyland 2014 was epic, and I think I miss it more than ever.

 

We tuckered this girl out.

Baseball Boy and Softball Girl

Manti is intense. I got a flyer from school for city league baseball and softball sign ups. I asked the kids if they wanted to do it and they both did. Meg did tball when she was 3 and dropped out. Hee hee. She thought it was so boring and would inevitably be sitting in the outfield playing with the grass or just leaving the game to come get a drink from us on the sidelines. You know, because she was working so hard out there. We actually moved to Ogden from Orem so she had to quit. Granted she was only 3, but she didn't request to try again until now. Adin did tball last fall in Salt Lake. He liked it quite a bit and was definitely was one of the best all around players on the team. Both of them had games on Saturdays. Meg had one practice a week and Adin's coach just had them show up a little early for each game and got a little practice in. I assumed that was what I was signing up for. Ha. Ha......HAHAHAHAHA. Not at all.

 Adin got unlucky or lucky depending on how you look at it. He got put on a team whose coach is most likely aspiring to be the high school baseball coach and his drill sargent father. Brian went with him to the first practice and came home extremely concerned. His protective instincts had kicked in and he mentioned pulling Adin out. Adin was by far the smallest on the team and his skills were nowhere near on par with the boys on his team. They had all obviously played before and played a lot. Then pair that with super intense coaches. They yell at the kids if they do something wrong. One kid sat down in the outfield and he got reamed and told if he was going to sit down he could do that at home. Eeesh. They say stuff like, how many times am I going to have to tell you and what is it going to take to get you guys to get this. My blood has boiled numerous times at practice. The boys who have been on his team before were used to it and don't bat an eye. Adin is overall pretty darn easy going, but I was still surprised that he didn't complain about the coaches being mean. One time after practice he said, that old guy yells a lot, but he didn't seem bugged by it at all. We started working overtime with Adin. I would go out in the back with him every day after school and work on catching and batting. Brian was shocked by how fast he improved. Just when he hit his stride and started getting pretty confidant with catching, disaster struck. Brian took him to practice and called me for ice. Adin had taken a ball to the eye. He was hysterical. Poor kid. That was a setback because we had to work even harder because now  he was a little scared of the ball. Over time Adin has started to LOVE baseball. He had his first game last week and he was so excited he couldn't contain his little body. He was off the wall. He got a great hit in the game! His coaches have told us a couple times how impressed they are with his improvement and say he is by far the most improved on the team. When we practice in the backyard together he can hit the ball over our back fence and into the second back yard. The first time he did that, he was so proud of himself. He talked about it the rest of the night. He was like a broken record talking about it. He even had to call Brian and work and tell him about it. The best part about the team he got put on is that their family are Yankees fans as well and the kids ended up with awesome Yankees uniforms and hats. Adorable! I've been super proud of him and how hard he has worked. The other day we were walking home from school and Adin found a dandelion to blow. He made a wish and then blew it. Then he told me that first he was going to wish that he could get really good at baseball, but then he realized if he got really good he wouldn't get to practice with me in the back yard everyday and he didn't want that so he changed his wish. Heart melter.

Meg didn't luck out with her coach either. Her coach is the opposite end. She has only held 2 practices compared to Adin's three practices a week (probably 10-12 practices before his first game). Meg, of course is upset about that. I kind of am too, which is funny because I came into this with quite low expectations. She went into the season really pretty good. Brian said he could tell that things have clicked for her. She is good at catching and only took a little work on batting. I took her to her first practice and she was a nervous wreck. She was pretty timid during all the drills and you can just read anxiety on her face. She was even running timidly when they were base running. We left the practice and I planned to talk to her about not being so shy, but before I could she exploded into how her outfit wasn't right and she didn't have a special softball bag like all the other girls and could we please get her a softball bag to carry her mit and treats and water. Haha. That's Meg for you. Always concerned about her outfits and making sure she looks that part. I did get a chance to talk to her about her shyness and her next practice she was super brave and looked way better. She was sprinting around those bases. I have practiced with her in the backyard too. The problem we have run into is that the girls pitch and none of them can throw strikes. Brian took her to her first game and said that it is two innings of straight walks. No hits. No fielding. Apparently once you've walked 8 then the inning is over. This makes it so the only people playing are the catcher and the pitcher. It's boring for all the other girls and not the greatest learning experience. Too bad we aren't in the position to change anything about that. On a side note, I was talking to Meg about running and how she is probably pretty fast with her long legs. She assured me that she could beat Brian in a race. In my mind that was craziness. I told her she was crazy, and that we would have to test it sometime. She was confidant. This past weekend we took them to the school to practice and I mentioned to Brian that she was sure she could beat him. Of course, the race was on. She is a speedy little thing. Brian beat her but not by much. I was sure that he maybe held up a little for her, but he assured me he was going all out. She wanted to race me. Darn it. Brian kept warning me she was fast, but I was still thinking he had been holding up a little even if it was not consciously. I put everything I had into that race and we tied. She is fast. I'm bummed that her coach hasn't worked with her much, but thankfully Brian has been able to and she is looking awesome. We're trying to encourage her to pick something and stick with it to become really good. She really liked basketball and maybe this season of softball will give her some clarity on what she might want to focus on.

What we got ourselves into is games every single weeknight but Friday and Adin's coach is still having practices on the off days so he is usually at practice during Meg's game. Another thing we didn't anticipate is that all the cities in the county play each other. This has meant traveling for more than half the games and sometimes as far as 40 minutes. What were we thinking??? Problem is that there is a chance they will both want to do it next year.

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