Christmas 2014

I have celebrated 27 Christmas's in my life. This year marks the 13th with my husband (we missed one due to my stubborn life crisis as a teen) and I felt so many many emotions this morning. Yesterday my family hosted "Christmas Dinner" with my siblings, their awesome children, spouses, and even my birth mother was there. It was a special kind of deep pain to feel the emptiness of my Mom not being there. I hadn't really thought about it until all of us were sitting around the table, our plates loaded with food and I asked a really simple question - what's a favorite Christmas memory everyone has? Then grief came deep, swift and leaving me mourning. Food tasted like shit after that. I didn't even know it was possible to ruin cheesecake but let me tell you, it is possible and grieving is the unsettling emotion that can do it. 

But it's not all bad - my favorite Christmas memories surround WRAPPING! My mom would tell the same story every year about her job at a local toy store in Nampa Idaho in the 1950s. She was hired during the Christmas season to wrap gifts for customers. That story was always told when she was surrounded by a million gifts for my siblings, that she always hid in the trunk of her car, and she taught me how to make a package beautiful. This year as I wrapped presents for my babies, that I had hid in the trunk of my car, I felt myself tear up as I wished she could know how grateful I am for her legacy. Though this is the second Christmas without my mom, it is the first one I felt it. Last year I was too close to everything to process. I was on auto-pilot, I had just planned my first funeral. This year, I let the emotion in and experienced it. I feel overwhelming joy for the life I have and while this sadness was present, I did not invite it to stay, I had too much happiness going on! And, I got the stellar perk of cuddling Anaius - our rainbow baby after our lost little, and reminded that I found out I was expecting him on Christmas last year! 

Here's what Christmas morning looked like in our house:

(4 of the 5 looking and smiling? A Christmas miracle indeed!)

Ya know those people that get around and complain about their mother in laws? I cannot do that. My mother in law is fabulous! Our kiddos are loving their new Christmas Jammies compliments of my lovely MIL. It's adorable to watch them open them and mad-dash to put them on as fast as possible. So fun. This is a tradition many families, including my husbands family, does every year. I hadn't heard of it though until I had my own kiddos and my MIL sent jammies <3 

All around, a fabulous morning. In our home, we start with someone opening a gift and then they pick the next to give to someone, and that person opens then picks a next for another... it is fun to watch the kiddos want their siblings to get more gifts. 

One of the perks? Since yesterday was the big dinner, I didn't slave in the kitchen today! Left overs rock. Ham, garlic and cheddar potatoes and pie? Yep, pretty much amazing.

And a crock pot with hot cider, cinnamon and cloves in it? Oh. My house smells like heaven and I've been sipping this fabulousness all day!

Tonight we plan on laying tile in our bathroom to almost wrap up what's left of our remodel (blog to come on that fun!!) but one of the activities we will do that I'm super excited about it make candy nativity scenes. The kids are thrilled and I think it helps them remember the reason our family celebrates Christmas. I am so grateful for today.

I am wishing everyone a beautiful, blessed, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! 

December's beginnings.... kicking off the Xmas Season!

We have a tradition in my home that really kicks off the Christmas season for all of us. Thanksgiving weekend our family attends the Boise Festival of Trees! It's really a fun time we all look forward to. This year we decided to make a whole day of it. We had a slow start to our black-Friday morning and then set out to hit the FOT first. We enjoyed several hours of admiring trees, watching performances on stage and doing a scavenger hunt. We all worked up an appetite and decided to grab tacos before surprising our kiddos with taking them to a 7 pm movie in the theater! We saw "The Boxtrolls". It was a cute movie and enjoyed by all. 

We picked up a Christmas tree in town this year. Our 4-wheel drive on our Betty is broken, Anaius is tiny, I'm glued to a pump. I was just too exhausted to commit to hunting for a tree in the mountains this year. I hope to do it again next year! 

Our kids have been enjoying dance classes on Tuesday mornings for the last three months. It's been a fun time for them to do something "just for big kids" because so much of my time is very busy with Anaius. Here's some quick snap shots of their lessons. 

Another fun fact : We have TWO kiddos who can sing "All I want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth" this year!

We also ventured out on an awesome "field trip" with a home school group and watched "Nutcracker Jr" ballet. It was an hour long and Daunika is begging to go to the full version next year. She LOVED it. We all had a good time and it was long enough to feel worth it, but not long enough that anyone in our young crew got restless. They also got to check out the costumes before the performance. Perfect :) 

One of the best parts of this December was our family going to the Boise Temple to be sealed for time and all eternity! It was a special day for us. We felt so loved and supported by those of our friends that came to witness our deeply personal ordinance. It was a beautiful day indeed! 

I have no words for how amazing it is to call this family mine.

And it wouldn't be mid-December without Kalani's birthday!!! I cannot believe this little spitfire tot of mine is THREE. She is such a joy. There is always laughter in her eyes as if she's clued into a joke I can't hear.

What a wonderful first half of the month it's been! 

Three months and still mountain climbing.

I absolutely love referring to our adventures in feeding Anaius as mountain climbing. Someone asked me a couple weeks ago why label it with something so hard... and I got to thinking about that. I don't think mountain climbing is that hard? Can I do it today? Heck no. But I think it takes a team effort, you cultivate skills to manage the climb, and then you work diligently toward your goal... You do not sit at the bottom of Mount Everest and decide you're just going to have a casual Sunday stroll up it. I've looked at this journey like mountain climbing because I have had to assemble a team. I've had to learn to skills and facilitate an environment that my son can learn new skills too. Diligently striving forward.

We break up our routine into multiple sections - feeding, pumping, torticollis, and alertness/weight gain. Sounds complex but it's really not. It's just the four categories we seem to measure his progress in right now. Anaius doesn't cry. If he's hungry, he will just give up and go back to sleep. A baby who doesn't cry? Sounds amazing right? Well, kind of. Yes, we love his peaceful nature but watching his cues is very different from our other four kiddos.

So, for feeding - we have to provoke him, often, to remind him that food is a good thing. Silly little man would be content to be worn on me all day and sleep to death. OYE! He is such a peaceful spirit.

But there are so many funny things about him. He has all this gorgeous hair right? Well, instead of losing hair in the back of his head, he's got BABY DREADS!! 

Anaius has decided to take his physical therapy into his own hands. He has right sided torticollis and that means his head almost always looks toward the right. We consistently work with him to encourage him to look left..... Well, our little man has found a love for his LEFT thumb!!! WOOT! He has made huge improvement in the last month simply because of this one fact. It's amazing. I'm so happy for him! 

If you've ever had a baby struggle to gain weight, I'm sure you can understand how very awesome it is that Anaius has grown so much that he's far outgrown his 3 month clothing (and maintains a really cute double chin!)

I'm just so incredibly blessed to have this little man as my child. This experience has taught me more patience, advocacy, compassion for others, and more love for all my children than I knew I had in me.

This little soul is such a wonderful one. 

Our goals this month are to continue physical therapy, begin-again speech/feeding therapy. Continue with cranial sacral therapy and enjoy just being a family. As Anaius has begun to giggle with the kids, they are enjoying connecting with him and all look forward to playing! I expect to continue the every-two-hour-with-out-fail pumping schedule until he can master nursing on both sides. Until then, he won't want for milk at all in this home.

I am committed, one day at a time, to stay in tune with what we all need. It's a really fabulous mountain we're climbing! 

Onward, upward.

November Fun!

I cannot believe it's the end of November already. Thanksgiving has come and gone. Where did this month go?! It's been a really great month. We've had some great fun, lots of hard work and are excited to begin decorating for Christmas soon!

Many of our days are spent at home looking a bit like this: 

Daunika has continued her interest in all things pertaining to ancient Egypt but has found a new interest in fashion design. She has checked out many books about it recently and has decided to keep a notebook full of her designs. It's very cool! In this picture she was just coloring on her easel but she can often be found designing something fabulous! 

It's hot cocoa season around here! Seeing these two together never fails to make me smile. Such a good impulse buy don't you think?

This month we celebrated 9 years of marriage! 

Ya know, when you think of it, it's been a crazy 9 years. 5 children, 5 moves, a whole bunch of pets, crossing into another decade together (we've seen our teens, our twenties and now my love has hit his thirties!). In the last 9 years we started college, then quit college. We started a career and decided to change into full business ownership and all it's vulnerable glory! We have likely fought a million times and spent countless hours laughing, talking late into the night. We have changed our faith, core beliefs and religious preferences completely. We learned to be intensely vulnerable with each other to connect in a sacred and protected space together.

We have been SO blessed. I am humbled that his love makes me a stronger woman who strives to be the kind of wife he's proud to call his. <3

November also brought some wild weather!! 

I learned what it looks liken when the clouds dump 8 inches of snow on my old farm house with it's metal roof. We had to enforce strict rules for no one going on the front porch because we were concerned all the snow would fall at once and injure someone. It didn't... it fell in pieces and displayed some really cool icicles! 

But just 10 short days after this 8 inches of snow, we had a record HIGH temp. What did we do? GARDEN!! Of course, if you know me at all, that was assumed right?!

One of my greatest joys in purchasing our first home is planting things that can be enjoyed year after year. Damon picked up a yard of fresh top soil for me as the beginning of my landscaped front surround for the porch. Since we're on a tight schedule with Anaius still, this is all I could manage this month. My awesome bunch of children helped me plant 150 bulbs of tulips and daffodils!

I can't say that anything that went into the ground was straight, organized or well planned but I can say we had so much fun digging in the dirt together and I felt renewed in a way I have missed this fall. I love gardening and working in the dirt grounds me.

Speaking of my little helpers... They've banded together into a goofy pack of children throughout these last 11 weeks. I'm so proud of their solidarity and willingness to help one another. Fear not, there is plenty of sibling squabbles to remind us they are real kids.

Sometimes, it really is the simple things in life that are the best to witness!

It's been a dependable month. Our kids are enjoying weekly dance classes, we've hit the library about every 10 days, we wrapped up co-op for the year and are generally just accomplishing what we need to all around.

Onward to the end of the year race... I swear time speeds up in December!

Shenanigans of late

For those of you not on facebook, we're alive and well around here!

As in well, I mean we are finding a new normal. A different normal. Our normal, for now. 

Work is busy busy busy. Projects that started months ago that are lingering are in the final stages. We are thrilled to mentally "check them off the list". We are thrilled to see our business not just sit but be booked out until December! What a glorious fact indeed.

Around the house, our new normal is paper plates, quick meals and genuinely seeping in gratitude for those who have helped. I was well prepared for having a baby, I had meals prepped and a realistic expectation for a peaceful transition... I wasn't prepared for this new normal but by the blessing of those who have extended their love for us with service, I think I am ready to call this my normal now and have a realistic expectation of what my day will look like!

I'm putting myself through "school". I'm learning so much about muscles, their functions, how they develop and relate to each other for effective use for a lifetime of needing to consume food. I purchased a book that is stretching my brain in all directions. It's not a light reading type book, so when I'm exhausted, I often have to re-read the same page a few times to fully grasp it's text. I'm taking copious amounts of notes. 

And the pictures are awesome! 

Life is continuing to move at lightening speed... Aurora is thrilled with losing her front top tooth (this makes tooth #3 for her) and she is working on getting out her other front tooth. Silly girl!

Years ago there was a point of contention in my marriage.... Nothing huge, just irritating mostly. This point of contention was over laundry. Specifically there was laundry always sitting on the couch, usually folded and waiting to be put away. At that time, I decided that the way to resolve this contention was simple: I went out and bought myself a LAUNDRY couch. I'm not even kidding. I specifically acquired a couch so I could sit laundry on it and fold it and we could have our other couch for sitting. (Oh my poor husband) Well, as a few years passed and I grew into a routine of chores, the couch began to bother me too. In a stunning move, I offed the couch and began to keep up with laundry very well with habit.

Well folks, I'm here to tell you that in this new normal, my familiar couch has returned. Since I consider this temporary, I am not going out to get another couch but for now, I am peacefully accepting that what I am accomplishing with Anaius is far more important than a few months of irritating laundry on my couch. Neither of us seem to care too much either. We're busy mountain climbing. The clothes are clean and folded, but that final step sometimes just doesn't get done. Oh well. 

Realistic expectations for this new normal are critically important to sanity! 

But fear not, I have amazing helpers who are just all too willing to clean the house.... 

When I asked her what she was doing, she replied simply "the window was dirty"...

In other news, my awesome mom-mobile rolled over into a new mileage. And to think, this is our low-miles vehicle, our truck sits with over 350,000. 

I accomplished a MAJOR feat last week.

Let me tell you a simple fact about my life right now - I pump ALL.THE.TIME. To ensure that my baby has enough milk and to re-establish a supply that was badly damaged through stress, I am pumping every 2 hours around the clock. Without fail, I am attached to this machine and with each tiny drop, I am further committed to understanding the complexity of his needs. When Anaius is sound asleep in the middle of the night, I still have to get up.

Since this was my new normal, I knew immediately that to ensure my sanity, I had to find a way OUT of the house. First, I overcame my shame surrounding deep feelings of failing my baby somehow and I asked for help. I asked three safe friends if I could come to their planned gatherings at their homes and find a safe place to pump in their home. All three said yes and I cannot tell you how scared I was that they would say no. I didn't even realize it until they responded.

Well, then there was the logistics of balancing a baby, lugging around a pump, and all that.... Man, this is complicated!

This photo is shared with sincere pride that I have not crumbled. I still get out of the house. I still have friends who love and support me. I am finding my new normal. 

That's me, sitting on the floor of a friends daughters room, with my sleeping baby shifted comfortably to my back and I'm pumping. 

I still felt bad a bit. At both places, I was the last to leave and I didn't want to feel like I was imposing my trial on their schedules. I'm working through that. I am having to check my emotional fears and realize that adults can and do express their thoughts without me placing them in their heads for them.

We're also successfully finding a schedule that allows us to breathe fresh air. Getting out and walking the dog. Seeing the blue sky. Being the new normal for us.

I'm also realistic that if I'm awake every 2 hours (3 hours max at night) around the clock, I need to nap.
And apparently my big girls decided it was OK to take a picture of me while sound asleep.... At least I'm not snoring or drooling on him :)

There is so much to say, so little time. 

My alarm is ringing on my phone - off I go to go pump!

<3

Flames, emotions and the spark of a real family.

 “At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.” 

— Albert Schweitzer

It was a difficult day. In fact, it's been a difficult week. Challenges of finding our balance of getting milk from me to our little man is faced with all manner of emotion. It's also been a great week. I've gone out to a knit night with two ladies who sustain my sanity by being amazing friends and walked my kids to the park for some much needed sunshine, fresh air and laughter. 

Today, someone took it upon themselves to spend less than one hour with us and decided that I was so severely depressed and our son was too orally challenged to have any hope. While this is not news to anyone on facebook, I've pondered how I felt about this assessment for the rest of my day. 

Was I depressed? 

Hmm.. That's an interesting question. If we are going to define depression with honest admission of the intensity of emotion that comes with the mountain I'm climbing - then sure, call me depressed. I'll gladly take on that title if you define it as the expression of ALL emotion. 

I think we have misunderstood the reality that is the human emotional playing field. It is my genuine belief that so many of us are trying to numb out all negative emotion without realizing there is NO SELECTIVE NUMBING. You cannot cancel out all the shitty days and only have sunshine and rainbows. If by somehow admitting to this person that I felt a deep sense of mourning for the loss of my personal expectation of a breastfeeding experience gives them some belief I'm depressed, have at it.

Let me tell you about my JOY.

Anaius is absolutely peaceful. In fact, I think as a family we gravitate to this little man because he just seems to exude calm. To hold him is to still a part of the busy world around us and just want to be.

Our children are so amazing. In this journey, they have faced many baby sitters, moved around appointments, missed some regularly scheduled events and guess what? They amaze me. As I sat in my basement, feeding my little guy and listening to my 6 year old do her reading/school assignment, my heart just swelled with intense love that all of my children chose to be in the same space.

We had pandora playing in the background, Declan was "fighting" with his cars, he's into making them crash a lot these days. Daunika was drawing in her notebook because her current ambission is to become a clothing designer. Kalani was making a mess of the wooden puzzles because she's a two year old. We were together.

My husband asked me to join him on a date sometime this month. Just us, and our newborn. I loved that. In all this transition, we are not forgetting us. This man is my rock. He is solid when I need a steady place to lean. He listens. 

I have grown closer to my savior, Jesus Christ, through this trial. I've enjoyed the "feeling stuck" to read in my scriptures more. I feel uplifted and truly awed by my growth. In the most timely fashion, one of our households favorite events came too. General Conference. A time to listen to counsel and thoughts from leaders from our chosen church. I love that this "forced" slow down has allowed me time to listen to some of the talks a few times and take notes.

Guess what else? I'm building the worlds longest list of people I want to return the blessings to. If you asked me about my family that lived in the valley, I'd name two people - my brother and sister. While they are amazing, that would be a pretty small family. What I have realized over the last year is my family is far greater and bigger than I could have imagined. People who drop by with a gallon of milk and a hug, just because. The friends who have come in and cleaned so I could take a NAP! The amazing women who have just listened. They didn't seek to push or sway me from where I was at, they just held a sacred and special place for me to talk through all of what I was experiencing.

My family is huge folks!

So, circle back around to this crappy beginning of the day... Ya know, it feels REAL to start the day in a bad place. I'm not going to pretend it didn't hurt to hear someone so quickly sum up our situation and give negative feedback. Perhaps I didn't tell her enough of our joys, our awesome moments. Perhaps, she didn't realize I'm an expert mountain climber.

It seems fitting to have some bad days. You know why? Because these moments that are so intensely crappy are never over cast on my blessings.

I will not pretend not to have bad days to make other people more comfortable. Darlings, I will choose all emotions because they don't run your life - they are. When emotions arrive, let them be. It's OK to sit with sadness and not invite it to stay for dinner. It's OK to feel loss, it's OK to mourn. That doesn't mean you give up. I welcome the chance to FEEL. It is one of those beautiful reminders that I am alive and well.

And when those emotions that are less than warm fuzzy feelings arrive, when you feel like you aren't sure how to re-kindle your own flame - It is absolutely OK to ask others to remind you. To share in their warmth and glow of their fire as you find your own footing again.

Many of you have shared your light with me as I have felt weary this month. Thank you for sparking my candle to glow again. I promise with every fiber of my being, I would do the same for you. This is the way family truly works!

Deep gratitude for my family is all I can feel right now.

The Perfect Storm and a Mountain to Climb

There are moments in life when the stars assign so perfectly you can't imagine how anything can go wrong... There are also moments in life that bring you to your knees with such an intensity that you fear you won't stand again. This past week brought the later to my home. 

First, I am aware of the blessings I have. On September 15, a perfect in every way baby boy was welcomed into our home. Anaius Elek was born safely in water in our living room after a strange on again off again labor pattern weighing 9#6oz. It was a very different labor than expected but I felt amazing through the whole pregnancy! Our younger two kids slept soundly through the birth and had a beautiful surprise when they awoke the next morning. Declan is thrilled to have a brother. Imagine kids faces on Christmas morning... His face was even better when we told him it was a baby boy!

1 day old, I felt amazing and he was so peaceful. He really feels like a peaceful soul to me.

Our first week was a good adjusting time. Damon was able to be home more than I expected, the kids were thrilled with Anaius. All things seemed fairly normal.

At a week old, Anaius had dropped 8% of his body weight. This is not outside of the scope of normal for us. All of our babies have started out bigger and taken about 2-3 weeks to regain to birth weight. In this case, a perfect storm was brewing. As we passed the 1 week mark, I fell ill. Seriously ill. Like, everything inside me hurt like I was going to die. Nursing was a nightmare that my baby seemed to not be able to understand and as I was so sick, I missed cues that things were getting much farther off track than normal. At 11 days old, things came crashing down. In what was expected to be a typical weight check and PKU screening turned into one of the most heart wrenching days of my life. My baby in a few days had gone from 8% weight loss to 18% weight loss. In that moment, it didn't matter how sick I had felt, I looked at my baby and realized he was no longer chubby. He was thin and weaker looking.

How could I have missed this?! There is no measure to describe the feeling of despair I felt as a Mom to realize my baby was starving somehow. This became a major emergency in a matter of seconds. In the hours to follow, I cannot remember exactly what happen. A whirlwind of phone calls, pediatric appointment, more phone calls, a priesthood blessing, a drive to the hospital. For the first time in our life life, we had a baby in NICU.

In the days to follow, I felt the disconnect with my baby. Nurses and doctors constantly touching him. Tubes. Wires. Constant beeping of machines. Feeding tube. Blood sugar checks every hour... more blood drawn for tests. Urine for tests. What had happen to my newborn and how had I missed it?

This is us in NICU with a feeding (NG) tube down his nose.

I refused to leave. I longed to hold onto my other kids for comfort and reminder than health is possible but how could I leave him? I'm so incredibly thankful for the families that helped us watch our 4 big kids while I sat with my baby waiting to find out what was wrong.

Damon spent a night with us too. I slept very very little that night actually. While having him there was the reassurance I personally needed to keep my shit together, my mama brain refused to stop worrying about my other kids. What if they woke up at night? What if they were scared? What if they ruined someones house?! It was a very long night.

By Sunday morning, our deepest fears were calmed. We knew that he had no major metabolic disorder. On one hand, I felt so much relief. My baby was "normal", he could digest food. This is really important if you think about it... on the other hand, this meant the problem was he was hungry. I had starved my baby. The problem was I had plenty of milk - he just wasn't getting it.

NICU was a fight to get out. The moment I knew that he was not sick - I knew we needed out. We have mountains to climb. We began checking out of NICU at MIDNIGHT and still didn't leave until noon. The doctors agreed it wasn't a deficiency on my end of things. They felt confident enough to let us leave to begin our task of fixing our son.

Anaius is unable to transfer milk effectively. The first week of his life he was gulping milk from excessive let down but in the second week, he would have had to work to breastfeed and he wasn't able to do so; and I was too sick to realize it.

In the last week of being home, it's been a nightmare and a blessing compared to other struggles I'm sure. With the idea of starvation, my confidence in the ability to care for a baby has completely eroded away. I'm isolated into our room trying to continue to teach him to latch properly, pumping so he has milk (since he really cannot nurse), and on and on. I  am exhausted. Keeping up this schedule cannot last forever.

Wednesday night I had the opportunity to get out of the house with a group of safe women... Thursday morning we decided to brave co-op. Both events were relatively uneventful, except both had nursing mothers at them. I sobbed the whole way home from both. Why me?! Why us?! Why him?! I am devastated and still finding my footing through this mess. This is a scary place of unknown. By suggesting that I should be just thankful for my healthy baby is not honoring of the mother-baby connection and if another person says shit like that to me I might just murder them. I'm not refusing to acknowledge that we could face so much worse but I'm not going to pretend I'm not traumatized and mourning either. There is a swahili word for mother-baby: MAMATOTO. It is ONE word. You cannot have the baby without the mother or be a mother without the baby. This is a connection that is at the core of my belief of our divine heritage.


Our pediatrician and two lactation consultants agreed, he has mouth issues. We await oral surgery that will hopefully begin our road to recovery. This is a mountain we are going to climb. Surgery won't fix everything, it will hopefully fix the physical limitations that prevent him from even trying to eat though. That appointment with the ENT cannot come fast enough. We are working with a lactation specialist who also does cranial sacral therapy. We expect this to be a long process... Rome wasn't built in a day.

We are so incredibly thankful for the support system that has saved our lives.

A beautiful group of friends from around the US sent us a huge pack (300?) of paper plates. Another dear local friend set up a meal calendar that has literally fed us while we figure out how to balance everything. People took care of our kids and continue to do so while we see specialists and therapists to find our way through this. These people are literal angels helping us through. They sustain me just enough so I don't lose it.

We will exhaust our financial resources, our energy and our very souls trying to climb this mountain and I believe it's worth it.

One. Day. At. A Time.

So lovelies, I'm mountain climbing with this beautiful baby of mine. I don't expect much right now. I will have good days, bad days and all in between. I'm healing. He's growing. We are finding our way. There is trauma. It's messy and emotional.

He's worth it. 

Summer is coming to an end

I woke up this morning and my house was a perfect 60*. Cool enough for me to grab for a cup of chai tea and want to snuggle my babies and read all day with them. I'm so thankful we survived the season without air conditioning. I admit, I didn't think we would. I wondered how anyone could ask a pregnant woman to do that, wasn't that cruelty under some legal definition? But alas, we did make it past the hottest part and now we're headed to cooler and cooler days! 

August has been super productive around here. More canning, new work books for the kids to start, lots of swimming and having a great time. All around, we have enjoyed our summer. 

We continued to fill our pantry for the winter. This is a lovely batch (or 8 batches?) of salsa. I'm still in search of the perfect recipe. This one isn't exactly what I want either but each year, I get a bit closer.

Our big kids went to girl scout camp alone this year. Last year, I had the opportunity to attend with her and it was a blast!! This year she decided she wanted to do a "short and sweet" stay for 3 nights. She was not nervous at all, I'm so proud of her! She said she had an amazing time and next year wants to stay for 5 days because 3 was too short. She was excited to recognize some of the camp leaders from across the globe that were there last year. Next year we'll have TWO girl scouts going to camp. Amazing how fast they grow. 

We wrap up the summer with the fair. This year was super relaxed and just all around a great day. It didn't feel rushed or chaotic. We arrived about 130 and ended up leaving about 10! I'm excited for days to come when the big kids can have wrist bands for riding as many rides as they want and Damon and I can relax together doing whatever we want! 

End of summer has brought all sorts of fun and random events too. Meridian swimming pool did free swimming and we caught it on a Friday afternoon that was perfect weather! After that, we hit Dutch Bros for $1 strawberry smoothies at a new locations grand opening. The kids were thrilled and it was totally budget friendly!! The uppper photo is after a quick trip to Fred Meyer. I just wanted a couple boxes of tea and Teaccino but the kids ended up with cookies and balloons for free. Such happy squeals the whole way home!

There is also a good amount of hanging out and enjoying life. These little people are so amazing. They come up with the most creative games and stories. 

Daunika learned how to make lanyards at camp this year and brought home the love of making them. Aurora quickly picked up the craft and is loving her lanyard! Both girls have made a couple each now and are enjoying the different color combinations. 

Sometimes I get caught up in the worry of motherhood. Am I doing enough for them? with them? Will they look back on their childhoods with fond memories and happiness? I think it's normal to question those important aspects in life... and sometimes, I'm stopped dead in my tracks when a pure happiness moment comes to my attention that I realize they might actually have a good life.

This was one of those moments. I was getting myself a drink of water and looked outside the window to see this. Daunika and Aurora, sitting under the canopy of our beloved walnut tree. Side by side, each eating a vanilla ice cream cone I just scooped them and talking about life. What a marvelous sight to behold. No agenda, no rush. No places to be or people to see. Just two sisters, enjoying the summer afternoon together.

Sometimes the best things in life are the simple things. We haven't seen a lot of my lovely husband this summer. A combination of buying a house, having a baby, me not working, and continued growth of our business have been the perfect recipe for busy busy busy. When we can, we take these precious moments. Saturday night he didn't get home until after 9:30 pm. But we built a fire, got out marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate and enjoyed some relaxed family time. We also crawled onto the trampoline as an entire family and laid down to enjoy the stars. It was a clear night, not too cold and what else is there to do at 10:30 on a summer night? We crawled in bed at 11:30, exhausted and happy.

I'm looking forward to cooler weather continuing. This summer has been a beautiful, chaotic, busy summer. I can't wait to see what fall brings us!