Since I last posted, for Helen’s birthday, the world has essentially turned upside down. I must confess a lot of me wants to not even mention the COVID-19 pandemic; but I think it is probably good to document such a momentous time in history.

I know that a lot of the world is experiencing a lot more trouble due to this pandemic than we are; and for that I am immensely grateful. I just hope that we can help lift others’ burdens somehow. I’m grateful for the gift of fast-offerings that makes it really easy to do something even though I can’t leave my house.

Anyway, rather than focusing on the anxiety and uncertainty I have experienced, I want to focus on the good stuff: being at home together. For us, quarantine has actually been pretty fun. Because we don’t have anywhere we need to be (like Young Men’s, Dance practice, school, work, RS meetings, etc.) everything feels so much more laid back. Josh lets me sleep as long as I need every morning; and yet we still have time for exercise in the morning as well as breakfast. Josh doesn’t have to catch the train and I don’t have to get the kids to school. It’s great! We are still doing school with the kids; but it’s whenever we want to do it–which is never before 9:00 AM. This is the best I have ever felt at 37 weeks pregnant: extra sleep, low stress lifestyle, exercise, lots of Josh time!

Here are a few of the things we have been doing to have fun.

#1–St. Patrick’s Day!
The day of St. Patrick’s Day, I was actually really stressed out by the whole quarantine thing. Plus we fed the Sister Missionaries for dinner (which I usually LOVE doing; but this time was just the straw that broke my camel’s back), and I basically didn’t have anything cool planned to do. We did have some cool shamrock-shaped ravioli for dinner; but other than that and the decorating I had done prior, I had nothing. Fortunately, Josh always has fun up his sleeve, and he threw together a little Irish experience for the kids, complete with Celtic music, treasure hunting, games, and a Leprechaun Legend! He’s the best (if you haven’t heard).

Here are my contributions to St. Patrick’s Day.

• 

• 

• 

Also, Portia’s joy-school has been cancelled–like everything else, and the mom who was supposed to teach on March 16 sent her St. Patrick’s Day crafts around to each of the kids since they wouldn’t be able to do them at school! It was so sweet! Of course, the other three kids wanted to do the same project, so I pulled what I could together so that they could.

• 

#2–Family Party!
The kids have continued to plan fun and exciting activities for us to do each Monday. Fay’s activity two weeks ago was family outdoor games and play. We swung on the swings, slid down the slide, played with frisbees, walked on stilts, played fetch with the dog, played catch with hand-held nets, and just had a great time!

• 

• 

Carter’s choice for last week was a family game night on the Switch. We all played Mario party, which is about as sophisticated a game as we can handle right now. 🙂

• 

• 

#3–Random little games people frequently forget exist.
We have played Huckle-buckle beanstalk, a Leprechaun version of Sardines, Pictionary, and tag. Josh also made up a little beanbag game where the kids were supposed to run beanbags from one basket to another. When you have so much family time, you start getting creative. I, personally, am really enjoying it all!

• 

• 

#4–Playing outside
I am feeling VERY blessed to have a big back yard with lots of toys for my kids. I am also grateful that we live in a circle and that each child has a bike they can ride. When the weather is nice, the kids will happily spend most of the day outside doing a lot of those things we did for Fay’s family party. It is healing for all of us to be able to enjoy this beautiful spring even though we can’t go out.

• 

#5–Going out…very cautiously.
We went to a park last week just to play in the grass–not getting near any people or the playground. We also took a little road-trip out to the Bonneville Salt Flats last Saturday. Both times were thoroughly enjoyed by all!

• 

#6–Etc.
The kids have also been working on school, we’ve all done some crafts (more on that another day), we’ve been watching more movies together (all 4 of Portia’s birthday Barbie movies), eating together, and more etc.

• 

• 

• 

We have also felt very privileged to be able to have the Sacrament in our home for three weeks now. It is definitely not the most reverent Sacrament experience ever; but it is still really special. I hope the kids will remember it.

Writing this post has reminded me of a couple of things. One is that we have a really good little life around here. Even with earthquakes and pandemics we are happy together and have a lot of fun. I am so grateful that we are a happy family, especially at this time of relative chaos. The other thing this post reminds me of is that reading any kind of social media is rather deceptive. We HAVE been doing these fun things, and they ARE as sweet and simple fun as they appear. BUT, that’s only one little fragment of our life. Most of the time we’re still just trying to do school and work, do laundry, wash dishes, stop people from fighting, keep the house clean enough that we can at least walk in it without danger, and all those other things that make up real life. And I’m not saying it’s not good. But it’s also just real, and not photograph or blog-post worthy.

The last thing I wanted to mention was the last date Josh and I had before going into quarantine. For Christmas Josh gave me a session at a place called The Gem Studio. I’m kind of a pretty-rock nerd these days, and this place lets you choose a semi-precious gem and you (with the help of silversmith) craft your own ring or pendant out of silver! I think Josh originally intended for me to go alone; but everything is more fun with Josh, so I arranged for us to do it for our date (Thanks Mary for watching the cuties)! If anybody is interested in hearing about the experience I will totally tell you more! But, in the mean time, here’s a picture of us (me wearing my new malachite ring!!!) after the workshop.

• 

Today is Helen’s birthday! It truly doesn’t feel like two years ago that I got sliced open to bring her into the world; but then I can’t quite recall what life was like before her. Or even what life was like before she was who she is now. I’m so glad she’s ours!

• 

One fun/exciting thing about Helen is that she is a mover! She was our earliest walker by 2 months and is a remarkable climber! She has figured out that if she gets a chair to the counter, she can get whatever she wants that we put “out of reach.” We’re very proud of her cleverness and determination; but we’re also grateful for the times she has too much trouble to move the chair all the way to her intended destination.

• 

Another thing that characterizes Helen is her all-around mischief. She is my first child to have removed a stinky diaper and played with its contents. She also once removed her diaper and then pooped all over the upstairs. (If any of the other children had done this sort of thing we may never have made it to 4 kids.) She loves to get markers and crayons and color on everything she can–the wall, library books, herself, etc. She likes to dump out cereal, craft supplies, water, and anything else that makes the floor a little more interesting. And yet, she is just SO ADORABLE and smiley while she does it all, that we just clean it up, laugh it off, and keep loving our sweet little cutie! (Except in the case of the poop. I lose all semblance of “cool” when there is poop all over the house.)

• 

A new love Helen discovered in the past few weeks is dirt! When its’ time to go outside and play, she will almost always spend some of that time in the dirt. She also says “dirt” and it is super cute!

• 

Helen also LOVES to swing! One of the cutest things ever is when she is being pushed on the swings and plays peek-a-boo at the same time!

• 

Helen is at that point in her development where she is learning new words every day! Some of the cutest ones include: dee-dotto (teeter-totter), mo (snow), wada (flower), bot (spot–meaning a place to sit), go-goak (coat) and wado (water)–which is one of her favorite parts of life.

Other Helen loves include: Her swaddle blankets–usually referred to as “meeeeee!!!!”, baths (called bass), Anna and Elsa (but mostly Anna), riding in the push-car or her new push-bike outside, pulling out anything I’ve put in her hair, her fuzzies (meow), kitties, books, and deciding what she is going to wear.

• 

• 

• 

• 

Here is the birthday girl today!

• 

• 

We love you, Helenator! Happy Two Years!

• 

A last note:
It is about two weeks since I initially wrote this post; but there was something I really wanted to record and didn’t think to do it then.

One very notable thing about Helen at this point in her life is her ability to sing tunes. Since she was about 18 months old, Helen has been able to sing little snippets of tunes to her favorite songs even though she can’t yet say the words. She began with “e-i-e-i-o” and then wowed us with her version of baby shark around Thanksgiving time “Baby la-la-la-la.” She can also sing snippets from Frozen 2 and Moana. I am consistently impressed by it, and it is so much fun to listen to!

• 

Let’s talk about Portia! Yesterday, this little ball of fire turned four years old; and we couldn’t be happier that she has been ours for every day of those four years!

• 

Here are some things you might like to know about Portia:

• She has ALL the opinions and ALL the preferences! Don’t you dare try to tell her that she can sleep just fine with a different blanket; or that her other Elsa shirt is dirty and this one looks almost the exact same; or that keeping her underwear dry is actually going to allow her to play more than wetting in the middle of playing. She knows what she likes. She knows what she wants. And you’re going to get it if she doesn’t get it.
• She loves cuddles! If shes’ not on some exciting mission you will often find her under her beloved diamond-blanket (affectionately termed “dime”) with her thumb in her mouth. She especially loves cuddles with the dog, which the dog equally detests.
• She can talk and talk and talk. If you’ve ever met Portia, you didn’t need to hear this one. She started speaking in sentences when she was about 21 months old and says just about anything and everything that comes to her mind. One example is: when told to brush her teeth for the night, Portia responded with ” My toothbrush is invisible!!!! It says on my toothbrush Portia’s. Tooth. Brush. Is. A. Visible!”
• She loves having stories read to her (as many as she can possibly get), playing with dolls, Barbie–especially the books and movies, Frozen and Frozen 2–especially the music therefrom, playing outside on the swings and teeter-totter, riding her bike (a new skill she is very proud of having practiced!), and playing pretend with her big brother and sister.
• She has the most striking features! As you can see from the pictures, she has hair that countless women pay hundreds of dollars a year to mimic, almost porcelain-like skin, and bright, sparkling blue eyes. She is as beautiful as a princess!

• 

• 

For her birthday, Portia chose Cotton Candy Crunch for breakfast, unicorn mac n’ cheese with popcorn for lunch, and pizza for dinner. Despite having looked at character cakes and unicorn cakes, she chose a chocolate cake with strawberries.

• 

• 

Some other fun tidbits about Portia include:

• Her love of 4-year-old-fashion–including, but not limited to: high-heels, “messy ponytails” (where mom does NOT attempt to detangle the hair first), skirts and dresses over pants most of the time, and anything that makes you look like a princess.
• She is our family’s ultimate night-owl. She is frequently the last child to fall asleep, and almost always the last one to wake up. She has been a good sleeper basically her whole life, but she does prefer later to earlier.
• She’s just fun! Basically everyone who knows her is completely smitten with her sparkle and enthusiasm. I know we definitely are!

• 

• 

• 

• 

Happy Birthday, Portia-Roo! We love you SO MUCH!!!

I am loving being back in the habit of blogging more the past few weeks; so even though I missed last week, I’m going to try to touch on some of the fun things we did for the past two weeks.

I heard something I really like from a guy in our ward. He says that when he’s feeling weighed down by life, work, responsibilities, etc. he likes to look through the pictures on his phone and remember all the good things that have happened in his life. I feel like that is a really great, simple and easy way to remember just how much love and joy Heavenly Father sends us! This blog post is kind of like an extension of that idea.

One thing I have continued loving is our new version of Family Party where the kids get a chance to arrange the activity. Almost two weeks ago, when it was Carter’s turn, we had a fabulous family craft night! Carter started collecting potential craft supplies–like strawberry clam-shells, cardboard boxes, etc.–the week before and added those to the other craft supplies we have on hand. Everybody found a way to make something creative and new, and everybody had a lot of fun!

• 

We crafted up until past the kids bedtime, so we left a lot of the stuff on the table. The next morning, when I wasn’t paying attention, Helen decided she was ready to play with the craft supplies again….

• 

This past week it was Portia’s turn to choose the activity. She chose a family karaoke night! She and Josh made sure it was super impressive! We had Josh’s new giant speakers, fancy lights, and a disco ball. Here is a video of Portia rocking out to her favorite song!

Tomorrow I’m going to take a turn planning Family Party. I feel like the kids have set the bar pretty high!

Last weekend, Lacey and Richard cashed in the Christmas gift we gave them, and we had Lucy with us on Friday night. She was so good the whole time! It was so fun to hear her talk and see the kids interact with her! Plus, she even slept great for us!

• 

The next day, after Lucy returned to her parents, we cashed in the Valentine’s gift we got from Mother and Daddy and got frozen yogurt at Menchie’s. The kids love Menchie’s because of the toppings, and they loaded up on them. The parents did too. 🙂

• 

• 

• 

A month or so ago Fay ran out of pants that fit her. So we went to the store looking for pants, and a years-long dream of mine came true! We found Fay the perfect jumpsuit! I feel like Fay’s age and its environs are the demographic for whom jumpsuits were truly designed, and I have been dreaming of having one for her since she was in kindergarten! I was taking a picture of Fay in her adorableness the other morning, and all the kids needed to take their turn also being photographed. It was cute and happy, even if we were a little late to school drop-off.

• 

• 

• 

• 

They’re all so cute!

Last Sunday, Fay made another batch of cupcakes for her church youth-program goal. The family all enjoyed the delicious vanilla Valentine’s cupcakes, and then we brought some to our neighbors. Fay made a sweet card to go with her sweet treat. It is a genuine pleasure to support Fay in this goal. I’m excited to see what other goals she makes in the future!

• 

Another very exciting thing that happened this past week is the arrival of our new camera!!! We have loved using the camera that Josh got for Christmas back when we were dating. I honestly would have just kept using it forever, basically–especially since I already knew all the controls and settings I like to use–but the last time I went to use it, it wouldn’t turn on. Silly me, I must not have charged the battery. I charged it to completely full, replaced it, and the camera still wouldn’t turn on. I called customer service/repairs and they walked me through some possible things I could do to get it to turn back on; but to no avail. It was just broken. But that’s what tax returns are for! So now we have a beautiful new camera! So far I’ve learned the settings I generally use; but I have the goal to learn more cool things the camera can do!

• 

Here are some pictures I have taken with it so far. (It is a much better photography tool than my phone’s camera.)

• 

• 

• 

• 

The last thing I wanted to mention was that the weather most of this week has been GLORIOUS! The kids and the dog have played and played in the sunshine! Carter taught himself to pump this week; Helen developed a love for playing in the dirt; and the kids at home and I even enjoyed a picnic lunch outside this week! I’m very much looking forward to more spring weather!

•