Monday, August 29, 2011

Kindergarten--can this really be happening?

I woke Ryn up early this morning, after I watched her sleeping face for a few minutes wondering how this big, sweet, beautiful baby turned into this even bigger, sweeter, more beautiful girl. "It's time to wake up for your first day of school." Immediately, she smiled with her eyes still closed. We made her bed together and said a prayer and she chose her favorite outfit (thanks, Mary!) to wear.

Elle and Eden wanted to get dressed, too, so we could all go to the bus stop together. The whole time we were getting dressed and brushing hair, they all kept telling each other how much they were going to miss each other as they start this new chapter in our life. My little bubble is bursting today.

We prayed and ate breakfast and read scriptures and I will be praying all day and every day. There is a quote Kev and I found to put on t-shirts for our moms one Mother's Day that I'm really identifying with today.

“Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”

Now, instead of having my heart just walking around my house, by my side, in my back yard and maybe at a friend's house for little while, my heart is walking around Draper Elementary School!

Out the front door...

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One of the big kids now...

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One last sister hug before she goes....

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Eden got a little smushed which is why she made this great face...

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Talking with our friend, Henry, about wanting to walk home together...

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Wide eyes watching the bus pull up to our stop...

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It really is hard to see our first baby climb up those stairs on the big yellow bus. To let her go. And this is just the first of the many letting go's to come. But I look at that smile, so full of anticipation and joy, and I can't wait to see all the amazing things she will do in her life.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

summer smiles and swimming lessons

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Ryn and Elle loved taking their first swim lessons from a great lady in our neighborhood. No nonsense and so kind, Linda is the greatest teacher I could have ever imagined for these mermaids that have always feared the water.


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Tuesday, August 16, 2011

what do you do with lemons?

In the middle of our fun home repair days, the girls decided they wanted to set up a lemonade stand. It actually turned out to be an amazingly fun distraction stretched over 2 days. Day 1: we made the signs,
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...got the table and chairs ready, and then opened the door to see huge rain clouds on their way. So the girls just sat on the front step and caught rain drops on their tongues.
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Ryn tried to teach Elle the exact method for correct raindrop catching.
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Day 2: offered the perfect weather (HOT), so we tried again. It was so hot, though, that they started drinking all the lemonade themselves.
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Cute Grandpa Tom showed up with an umbrella to shade the little saleswomen and be their first paying customer.
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They actually ended up doing pretty well, thanks to all of our nice neighbors, and stayed out long enough for Eden to help a bit after her nap.
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Don't know if any of them will end up in sales, but it made for one adorable sight out of my front window.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Homeownership

has its ups and downs. We are thrilled and feel so blessed to have found this great home.
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Each month has brought fun surprises--every color of tulip imaginable, fabulous family gatherings, an amazing new ward family, front row seats for Draper Days fireworks (set off from the parking lot of Ryn's soon-to-be elementary school that's in our ward boundaries), delicious blackberries growing along the wall of Kev's gym, being able to walk to church just 2 doors down and the library and park just 2 blocks away, etc, etc, etc.

As for the downs, it just sometimes feels like we've stepped into Tom Hanks' and Shelly Long's roles in "The Money Pit". In the last 2 months we've had an AC unit break down multiple times (finally fixed, yea!), a water leak on our main culinary line, a broken gas line (currently being replaced) that feeds our stove and dryer, and a visit from the health department informing us that we have an illegal septic tank in our back yard that was installed for the detached garage when it was built 16 years ago. We knew there was a septic tank, just didn't know it was illegal. Get excited. So when our tub falls through the floor tomorrow, just picture me laughing like Tom Hanks :).

Honestly, I am really tired and it has been pretty frustrating. But also, I've been amazed by the blessings we've received during and in the midst of all these little bumps in the road. When we moved in, we found out that our stake's emergency preparedness goal for this quarter was for every family to obtain or rotate their 2 week and 72 hour water supplies. We have a big 55 gallon drum up at Kev's parents' house that we need to get down here, empty, and refill. But until we could do that, I just started filling up the 96 oz apple juice bottles we use (about 2/week) and the girls had a blast carrying them down to our storage closet in the basement. (We had a Family Home Evening lesson on home storage and they love filling those shelves little by little.) When we found the leak in the water line, we had it turned off for 3 days until we could cap it. The first night, when it was time to brush our teeth, we skipped to the storage closet to get out a bottle of water and we had more than enough to see us through those three days. It was so fun to have that tangible and immediate lesson of how we are blessed when we follow the counsel of our prophet and leaders.

On one of the days when it seemed like every half hour I was receiving some little bit of bad news about one of the problems, I got a phone call from a lady that teaches the preschool where I had been praying to be able to send Elle. All the classes had been filled, so I had her on the waiting list and a spot opened up in the very one I wanted--MWF in the morning, so her schedule would coincide with Ryn's AM Kindergarten. Then, last Friday, in the 20 minutes between some repair men leaving and right before the man from the health department showed up, my neighbor called to tell me that their piano teacher had an opening for Ryn. Another answer to prayer.

To anyone else, these might seem like little blessings compared to the bigger problems. But not to me. Each one of these miracles showed me that God knows me personally and He loves me enough to care about the "little" things that are important to me as a mother. He hears my prayers and He answers them. He cares enough about me and my family to inspire our stake leaders to have that specific goal for water at the exact moment we were moving in to this house and would need it during our water leak repair. And He loves my children enough to offer me that teaching moment so they will have the faith to trust Him and follow Him always. He loves me so much that He lets me grow and learn through these trials, but gives me perfectly timed tender mercies to stregthen my hope and faith so I can survive them. Truly, I stand amazed at the love and grace that He offers me.

A few days ago, my friend Michelle pointed me towards this BYU devotional about grace, given by Brad Wilcox. Amazing. Here is one of my favorite parts that I have seen up close and personally these past few weeks:

"Christ is not waiting at the finish line once we have done “all we can do” (2 Nephi 25:23). He is with us every step of the way. Elder Bruce C. Hafen has written, “The Savior’s gift of grace to us is not necessarily limited in time to ‘after’ all we can do. We may receive his grace before, during and after the time when we expend our own efforts”. So grace is not a booster engine that kicks in once our fuel supply is exhausted. Rather, it is our constant energy source. It is not the light at the end of the tunnel but the light that moves us through the tunnel. Grace is not achieved somewhere down the road. It is received right here and right now. It is not a finishing touch; it is the Finisher’s touch (see Hebrews 12:2)."

http://byutv.org/watch/49475abb-10d4-4f45-a757-7000b9945468#comments