Flaming Gorge

 This was probably my all-time favorite summer activity this year. Maybe even for the last few years. I took me, Noah, Madison, and Dane to Flaming Gorge with my family. It was absolutely perfect. The children I brought were absolutely perfect. Noah and Madison don’t usually hang out together and don’t get along particularly well, so it was great to have them have a forced togetherness time for a few days. According to Jason that was also similar for Brock and Meagan. They got along really well while we were gone. And I don’t think the two of them ever talk in normal life. 

The drive to and from was just as much fun as the vacation. It was really enjoyable to spend that time with Madison and Noah and get to know a different part of their personality. We really had a lot of fun listening to music, conference talks (seriously), and look at our surroundings. We went on a road and part of the state we’ve never been to before. It was very pretty, and very remote. We saw some fun signs for a store that we never got to go to, some cows blocked us, and I got nervous because we drove for quite a while on the very remote dirt road.  It was so remote that it made me nervous so we decided to take a different way home. Noah only agreed to come with me on the trip if I got him home in time for a dance on Saturday night. So we were a little nervous to take the other way home because it was 30 minutes longer, but I promised I would go fast, Madison became a navigator and kept me up-to-date on every minute that I was over or under our time goal. I’m happy to report that he made it in time for the dance!

The one thing that wasn’t like I hoped was that I was hoping that I could take Dane and discover that he was actually really big. I thought that maybe he was acting younger and that I was keeping him young because of Eve and I thought that getting him an environment without Eve and in these big kid situation‘s it would help me see that he can age up more. That did not happen! He was still afraid of thunder and lightning and rain when we went and it thundered and lightninged and rained every day while we were there. So Dane and I spent a lot of time sitting in our car. On the day we left he seemed to be a bit better. I think if we would’ve stayed for four or five days we may have made that transition. 

When we first got to camp we set up our tent and our whole camp by ourselves because everybody else was down at the lake. They came up to have lunch with us and within 10 minutes there was a giant thunder and lightning and rain storm. Dane flipped out and we couldn’t calm him down. So we all headed to the Dutch John and grandma bought them ice cream cones. That seemed to call his fears for a bit.

I was so proud of Madison and Noah. They both tried everything! They both got up on skis and they both tried wakeboarding. I don't havem any pictures of them doing cool things because they were always on the "big kid boat" and I was always with the little kids, I tried not to let it hurt my feelings.  I was just happy they were happy, even if I didn't get to see them be happy, and I was with a toddler who wasn't happy.  Madison and Noah were so fun and so helpful. It really was the best vacation.

Dane even tried skiing! I was shocked, it did not go well, even after it didn’t go well, he still wanted to keep trying.

Another great reason flaming gorge was amazing with the time we got to spend with my family. My parents brought up Katie‘s older children but Katie didn’t come up. So I got to know them in a totally different way without their younger siblings or their parents. Nothing is wrong with their parents or younger siblings, you just get to see teenagers in a different way when their parents aren’t around. They were so fun and so helpful and so so fun with Madison and Noah. My brothers and their wives also came with all of their children and that was so fun for me and Dane. My sister-in-law‘s were also so sweet with my kids, and even though Angie was up there with her own four children, including a baby, she spent about a half hour helping me braid Madison's hair 

My brothers are so fun! Michael has his own boat and he’s so good with it and so generous. And Daniel is always up for a good adventure! He took all the kids down on the rocks by himself one afternoon

And then… I got to ski. I absolutely love water skiing. It is for sure my happy place. I skied two or three times every day. I knew I couldn’t overdo it because I couldn’t get hurt or too sore to take down camp or get everybody home. I’m a responsible mother now. Oh how it filled my soul with joy

I also got to sleep in the same tent with my kids! That is  my favorite part of camping! I learned several years ago that my soul loves sleeping in the same room with my children. Even more so if it’s the same bed. My heart and soul feel better when I can hear them breathe and listen to them sleep. I feel so connected with them and feel so much peace and joy.

About 5 hours before we left Dane finally left my side and started playing with his cousins.  It made me wish we could stay 2 more days, but I was at least glad he got 5 hours.

Not camping but still having fun

Back in February Jason and I made reservations for our favorite camping site. We haven’t been there for a few years but we thought that we were ready to try a whole family camping trip with all eight of us. As luck would have it on the day we were supposed to leave for our trip there was a huge thunder and lightning storm predicted for the entire time we were camping. Our favorite campsite is right on the edge of this ridge, so we knew it wasn’t a good idea. Secretly I was kind of glad, the babies were going through a stage where they were whining about everything, especially clouds and wind and noise. They also weren’t sleeping great at night so I just couldn’t imagine how we were going to have fun camping. But we felt like we have to be willing to do hard things with the babies so the big kids still have a good childhood, so we were going to do it. 

Even though we canceled our trip we still wanted to take that time and do something fun, plus Jason had taken work off. We decided to try out the Denver Children’s Museum. We’ve lived here for nine years, including with very young children and we have never been to the Denver Children’s Museum! I can’t believe it, I feel like I have wasted the previous nine years. We have been back several times since this trip. It was great for all ages, I actually think it’s better for older children, it’s a little old for my young kids.

They have this amazing river/waterfall play area outside.

They have this weird outdoor obstacle course type thing. I still don’t really understand what it is.  It’s built with what seems to be recycled material or something like that. But it’s for older kids and they’re supposed to put helmets and harnesses on and walk around this outdoor adventure park. Jason went in with them and they all seem to really enjoy it

They have a woodworking area with real hammers and nails and saws and all sorts of things. I would say most of our older kids spent most of their time here making all sorts of things. They didn’t get to finish their project so they brought them home and want to go back and finish how you want what do you wanna get down

 

I was upstairs playing with the babies and I looked down over the balcony and saw these tv screens full of pictures of my girls playing with a camera.  It brought a smile to my face.

All of the boys seem to love the paper launching station the best. And I mean ALL my boys, all four of them.

Jason played in the bubble room with the babies for a while, and they loved it. Although Brock spent a considerable amount of time in the water room and seem to really get into all the different water activities. I really enjoy watching my older children enjoy activities like this.

 

Fourth of july

 We are almost always in Utah for the Fourth of July, so when we took an early summer trip to Utah we had to find ways to entertain ourselves. The night before I asked the older kids if they wanted to come to the parade with me and the babies. I have learned that parades anywhere other than Utah are really lame. Our Highlands Ranch parade doesn’t have a float, a marching band, or any sort of dancing groups. They’re mostly just fancy cars and businesses walking down the street throwing candy and business cards. It’s lame, but I thought it be fun for the babies. All the other kids said they didn’t want to go to the parade so I didn’t plan on them coming. At about five in the morning when I went to work out I went and sat out our blankets and chairs for me and the babies. 

When it was time for the parade, of course, all my other children decided they wanted to go. I was so happy to have everyone with me, however our place that I had reserved did not fit all of us so we had a spill out into other peoples places. It worked out OK because it just so happened that several people from our ward had saved a place right by us. I don’t often get to do things with just me and all six of my kids, so it just makes me feel so happy when it works out and I didn’t have to force them! That was the best part they all came because they wanted to. And I think they all had a great time.

Once upon a time these two were best friends. They’ve never really fought or hated each other. They’ve gone through a phase where they seem to just feel indifferent. Sometimes annoyed, but mostly indifferent. They both tell me that they have nothing in common, but during a private conversation with each one of them I told them that if they weren’t brothers and they were just in the same teachers quorum together they would probably be really good friends. They really do have a lot of the same interests. That seemed to kind of click with them and ever since that conversation I see them engaging with each other a little bit more. Now they are both in high school together their paths are crossing more often and I hope that they will find each other again and become best friends. 

These two babies just kill me. They are so adorable and I love having all of these experiences with them. They loved the parade.

The girls enjoyed hanging out with the other girls from the ward and getting candy.

Eve reached a point where she had decided she had gotten enough candy and went and sat in the shade on our blanket and ate her candy. It was pretty cute. She didn’t care that everybody else was getting more candy, she was happy with what she had. She sat there for probably 40 minutes until the parade ended eating her candy. There was another dad sitting next to her and they bonded

I just love my gaggle of children.

In the evening we went to a barbecue at the Clark’s house. This barbecue proved to be life-changing for a few reasons. During the beginning of July Dane was going through a really difficult stage. He was extremely whiny and frightened. Especially from storms and clouds and wind and thunder. When we got there their were a lot of families who were invited from their new ward that we’ve never met before. A lot of them had younger boys around his age. He has never really played with a large group of boys around his age before, especially ones who are a bit older than him. It was so good to watch him run around and play with them and try to navigate that type of relationship. They definitely had all been used to each other and Dane was the odd one out. They were teasing him a little bit and he wasn’t understanding, but I asked the other moms not to get involved, I knew that he needed to learn how to negotiate playing with larger groups of children. He definitely has such a unique childhood - between Covid, four older teenage siblings, and no cousins or real friends he is seriously lacking in his social skills. As the evening went on some storm clouds started rolling in and it started to thunder and rain a bit.  This wold normally send Dane over the edge and he would scream and cry until it stopped, nothing could calm him.  But he quickly noticed that if he was crying and freaking out he wasn't playing with his friends, so he chose to go play.  This night the beginning of him starting to calm down about the weather.  Towards the end of the night I started talking with those boys' moms and discovered some new great friends. The Hatches and the Vaughn‘s live in the Northridge ward, and they both have six kids between the ages of three and 15. It is a perfect fit for our families! About two weeks later we had them all over to our house for dessert and all of our kids really hit it off! We have continued to get together often and I think our friendship is really going to be life-changing. Kayleen and I already have found that we hold the answers to each other’s prayers. It’s so fantastic! Brock also got a new friend. The Hatch’s oldest daughter is the same age as Brock. And they got each other’s numbers and have started texting quite a bit. This is the first time he’s had any sort of relationship like this with another girl. He says he doesn’t like her but they sure to text a lot and it’s been fun watching him navigate this new phase of life.

Also that night Heavenly Father answered one of my heart's prayers in a very personal way.  Earlier in the summer the boys went on trek.  Noah's ma and pa were a couple in our ward, but Brock's ma and pa were a couple I had never met before.  I have wanted to write them a thank you card but as the weeks wore on I kept forgetting.  I really wanted too, and it was always on my mind, but I just couldn't do it.  One day I said, "Heavenly Father, please help me check things off my list that i just can't seem to get done".  Then the next day we went to this party and guess who was there?  Brock's ma and pa!  It was such a tender mercy!  I got to talk to them, thank them, and hear all about Brock on trek.  I was so grateful to know Heavenly Father helps me with stupid things and things that are my fault.   

I Guess I Just Had to Blog About it

 I wrote my previous blog post about a month ago, but never edited it.  I was a the park with the babies and they were playing in the sand box so good and no one else was around and I had the idea to write that blog post using talk to text.  But I knew I needed to go in and edit it.  And I never did.  

Since that post 2 wonderful things have happened.

First, my dear, sweet husband figured out how to get my pictures on our computer.  It isn't perfect, and still takes a lot of administrative work, but I convinced Noah to do that administrative work for me - so I feel capable of catching up on my blog now.

and two...

I got sick.  But not too sick that I couldn't sit at a computer desk.  I sat up in our room from Friday at noon until Monday morning without ever coming out. I slept a lot, but mostly I wrote some blog posts (they will be published over the next few days), I made 2 blog books (all of 2013), and I updated our family church book (Eve wasn't in it), and started our new temple book.  Such a blessing.  And both are totally accredited to my husbands selflessness.

On that note I should record that our marriage is at an all time high. Our marriage was really good (not without challenges and disappointments) for the first 7 years.  Then just ok but struggling for the next 3 years.  Then really bad for the next 3 years.  Then just ok, but barley 5 years.  For SEVERAL reasons that Heavenly Father carefully orchestrated to all come together at the same time a lot of walls came down and we have been able to talk and connect in a way we haven't been able to for 12 years or so.  We are both holding our breath a little, terrified it wont last, but also just trying to enjoy and have faith.  God is good.  Jesus goes before our face.  I love Jason deeply and I know he loves me.

Eve turns 2!

Poor Eve! Poor sixth child. It’s only her second birthday and so far on both birthdays we have been traveling for her big day. I’m just not used to thinking about a summer birthday. Even though Madison‘s birthday is in August, we are already back in school by the time it’s her birthday. Both years I’ve decided to not celebrate her birthday while we are traveling and instead wait till we get home, and on both years by the time we get home and unpack and get into the swing of summer we forgot about her birthday. So we seem to celebrate her birthday sometime in late July . I assume I’ll have to get better as she gets older, or I would really just like to change her birthday. Ha ha, If I could change any birthday would be Dane's! But anyway back to Eve. 

After much discussion with Eve we settled on a rainbow cake. She loved it! And she still does! Every time anyone says anything about a birthday or rainbow she tells everybody about how she had a rainbow cake for her birthday. The best thing in life lately is the fact that I have two wonderful girls who are great bakers and who enjoy doing it. They help me so much with baking their cakes and push me to do cool things. Like this year they really wanted me to make rainbow batter on the inside. I told them that I would if they would help me. And what I mean by help me is... they did it.

Eve could not have been cuter for her birthday. She appreciated everything! She loved her rainbow cake! She loved her present! She loved her party! Two year olds are the best. (Our "indigo" turned black - sad).

We had a small little party with the Weister’s and Neyenhuis’s. Krista and Marisa are Eves best friends. I am sad we don't have any pictures of her opening presents, but that wasn’t my job. She got a bubble lawn mower,  a play phone and keys, and a doll high chair. 

Some things about Eve at 2

• She is the cutest little talker.  She is a parrot and with 5 older siblings she says the most ridiculous things.  Like: ridiculous, "I'm frustrated", actually, and calls her siblings by her nick names.
• She loves her dad and her older siblings.  She likes me fine and sometimes prefers me.  But I am definitely her care taker and her dad and her siblings are her friends.  One of our chores is "baby buddy" - this child is in charge of helping "extra" with the babies that week.  She always loves her baby buddy and goes looking for them.
• She loves to swing in her swing on the porch, read books (her first favorite book as a toddler was 'Brown Bear, Brown Bear' (Jason taught her the words), color flap books, and Good Night Moon)
• She loves Dane.  She has recently really started to play with him.  They love to fight and be silly.
• She loves to sing songs.  Her favorite songs are Down to the River to Pray, Bound for the Promise Land, Little Man Your Crying, and Give Said the Little Stream.  She is so cute at library story time and is a music leaders dream, she sings all the songs and does all the actions with enthusiasm.  
• She likes her baths "super cold"
• She likes to watch Daniel Tiger, play candyland (truth: she likes to say she wants to play candyland, but doesn't actually like to play), and color.
• She hated nursery more than any of my kids and cried for about 2 months, then (after teaching her to say "nursery, yay!) over and over she started loving it and now she loves it.
• She is potty trained.  Pretty easy.  Trained in 3 days, regressed for about 5 days, then has been fine, even for naps.  She wears a diaper at night but wakes up dry 5 days a week. 
• She is still in a crib, which is why she is in a diaper at night - that just seems fair.

The problem with blogging

 On one hand I can completely admit that I am drowning. There are so so many things that are really really important to me that I am just not doing and there are really so many of them. So many things are fallen by the wayside and so many projects are either never started or never finished. However, I don’t feel like a total mess and I feel like our days are fine. I feel like I meet everybody’s immediate needs, and several wants.  And several long-term vision things.  I spend most of my time and energy on things that are important to other people, instead of things that are important to me - and I am fine with that.  That is how it should be, as a mother of 6 children - all living in my home.  (I am NOT saying I do everything that is important to everyone - but I try to hit one thing per person per day) I follow the spirit and find ways to minister to not only my family but other people. But I also recognize that there are so many important things to me, to my husband, to my children, and to the Lord that I am just not getting to you (my blog/audience). One of those is blogging! 

There were some several big roadblocks that got in the way of my system and process that made it this way. The biggest one was my phone. Well, I haven’t been doing well for the last few years because the first big roadblock was my new computer. Jason got me a new computer and it was supposed to be better but it is only worse on the things that are important to me. Especially when it comes to my blog. It is difficult to take the pictures off my phone and put them on the computer, it takes forever and rarely works. And then it doesn’t upload them edited or turned. So then I have to go through an extra step of doing all of that. And then it also takes a really long time to upload it into my blog. But I figured all that out and was at least sort of staying on top of my blog. 

And then my phone broke. And that is what sent me down this spiral of never blogging. And since I needed to get a new phone I got an iPhone. And apparently they take pictures in this really weird format that does not compute onto my computer. So all the pictures I took all summer can’t be put on my computer.  I had 600 pictures on my phone.  Since getting married I have kept my pictures very organized on our computer, and now everything feels messy and overwhelming, like I will never catch up.  I realized that this dark cloud of pictures and blogging has hindered me in outher areas of my life.  I didn't know blogging was so important to my emotional well being.  But I guess it is, and not doing it has shown me that.

Another thing that I have let go of is my blog books. This one is really sad because we already enjoy our blog books and I’ve seen great blessings come from them and I think even more will come as I continue to make them. My goal was to make one blog book a quarter. Which I essentially do two books a year which is what I would have to do to get them all done. Because if I only do one year a year but I’m also blogging for that year then I would never catch up. But on that schedule I would get all of our blog Books done in six years. But it is already almost October and I haven’t even done one blog book. I was able to do blog books over the last couple years even when I was having babies. So I’m hoping that this is just a hard year because I have a two year old and a three year old and that’s always really hard. And that hopefully in the next few years I will be able to catch back up. I still have this fantasy of getting sick but not too sick to sit at a computer and spending a whole day or two just making blog books and still finishing 4 books by the end of the year. I’m really hoping that happens.

Another thing that I let go of was my garden. I have never gardened so little since this year. Which is sad because I’ve been pregnant through many summers. I did give it maybe two or three days at the beginning of the summer/end of spring and I’ve probably given one day since summer started. But I have not maintained it and did not turn out as beautiful as I had hoped. On one level I’m totally fine with it because I recognize it is not a season in my life for a really beautiful garden. I know it will be  in a few short years, I will have whole days to myself again and I actually know that will come way too quickly, and it isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. But on the other hand sometimes I feel a little sad because it really is a hobby that I truly enjoy, and it doesn’t seem that there’s much that I do just for me. 

But even as I say that sentence it makes me sound like a imprisoned or bitter housewife. And that is not how I feel at all. Truly my hobby is loving and teaching my children, serving my husband, studying the gospel, and having a home that is filled with love and the spirit. And a lot of my other hobbies, like printing out conference quotes, really fill my life with purpose and light and enjoyment. So when I start feeling like I don’t do anything for myself, I recognize that is very much a voice of Satan trying to make me feel like my life is not my own. When reality this is exactly what I want to be doing. But even at that, I recognize that I would feel so much more better about the overall status of my life if I had all of my children and probably my husband out of my home for 24 to 48 hours every 4 to 6 weeks. And if I had to hours every morning to myself when I could work out, study my scriptures, get ready, and then get a bunch of things on my to do list done. 

But without those things I feel like I am faring pretty well, but I do recognize that there are a lot of things slipping. I hope to find a better balance as the years roll on. But for now I would say I’m doing pretty well. If nothing else I know I have the spirit in my heart and in my home and if there’s something that’s really important I know how He speaks to me and I know that I hear it and I know how to act on it. Every day I follow His promptings and I find out that there were things that I didn’t know needed to be done but He did, and He makes sure I do those things. So I know that I am not missing anything that is not really important. He is guiding our life and if I can continue to say that then  I guess will be OK.

And with that.... I hope to be back to blogging.