Nov 2015-Feb 2016

November, December, January, and now, almost February, have passed. I’m guessing this is the new norm for trying to journal for our family, but at least I’m sticking with it! Baseball and soccer ended. A new class started for Ashley. Molly is trying to start a club at her school, and Emily is trouble.

 Molly is almost eight. She's gotten more responsible…like annoyingly responsible. She started to begin her homework in the car as soon as I picked her up from school. She started to take earlier showers and give us countdowns every night for scripture time, story time, etc. She started making her school lunches the night before. She started setting an alarm and getting up as soon as it went off. Honestly, it was a little over-kill, but thankfully, she’s calmed down a lot since she initially started making new habits for herself. Interestingly enough, I started to follow her lead and began waking up earlier, and preparing more for mornings, which are such a rushed time anyway. She truly helped me to be more responsible, without even meaning to! Nothing like an almost 8 year old teaching you how to be a more responsible adult! She is still the peace-maker in our home and endlessly forgiving of all of our shortcomings, especially mine. She has made the Principal’s List all year and is slowly becoming a much more mature kid, who still has endless questions about life and is still addicted to TV. (That is totally my fault since Dora practically raised her when I was finishing my degree when she was 2 years old.)

Ashley will be five in a little over a week. Next August, I’ll be doing the whole Kindergarten thing again. We recently discovered Ashley’s behavior is very affected by food coloring. For years I’ve heard about the theory that some children react to it, but we never put it on our radar. Early February, we decided to start experimenting with it, and low and behold, food coloring has a PROFOUND effect on her.
 

Aside from this, Ashley is growing into an awesome little human being. She is a natural nurturer and helper. She currently wants to be a cowgirl and she specifically says she does not want to be a mom because of the whole birth process and doesn’t want it to hurt. I suggested she become a professional nanny so she doesn’t have to give birth, but she still would get to take care of kids, which is her favorite thing to do, and get paid for it. I’m excited to see how she’ll feel about it when she meets her prince charming in the future! She loves spelling simple words and can read very simple sentences with help. She is the first to jump in if a problem needs to be solved or someone needs help, without anyone asking her to do so. She is Emily’s hero, best friend, private entertainer and 2^nd mom. She started a class in January, which consists of singing, acting and dancing. It is absolutely perfect for her and she loves it.

Emily is 16 months…Oh Emily…We've never had a toddler like her. She is trouble. She is our first kid who is into everything, who is is continually testing us just to see what we'll do, throwing fits, hitting if she doesn’t get her way, biting if something is taken away, doesn’t like food unless it has been previously thrown down on the floor by her, not sleeping at night unless she has a bottle or Dan right next to her….and to top it all off, she is barely walking at the age of 16 months… I know all that sounds like she’s a terrible kid, but the majority of the time, she is the epitome of a happy child and we absolutely love hanging out with her and getting to be her parents. We are awaiting an appointment with a pediatric orthopedic surgeon after our podiatrist friend noticed her tibia was turned outward and her feet were rolling inward. This was after our pediatrician told us not to worry about her not walking yet and two evaluations by therapists! After walking back and forth between us a couple times, she will sit down, pick up her foot, show it to us, and make a little cry. It’s like she is saying, “Something is wrong with it. Fix it!” Just last night, she was hanging out with me on the floor and she just kept lifting her foot up to show it to me, while making small moans. Poor baby. It breaks my heart. I can not wait until we get to see the specialist.

Dan is getting very good at installing toilets, replacing base boards, fixing washing machines and will soon be learning the art of tile installation, fridge and drywall repair. Recently, water started leaking through a vent in our downstairs bathroom. Come to find out, our upstairs toilet had been leaking for quite some time and was successfully flooding the ceiling above our downstairs master bathroom. After the flood of 2012 we had, where our upstairs bath overflowed, this was nothing. About a week after the ceiling and floor boards were replaced from the toilet leak flood, our washer overflowed and came leaking into our downstairs guest bath! All we could do was turn the washer off, soak up the water, and laugh hysterically. It turns out the switch that senses when the washer is full of water broke, thus the over-filling, over-flowing and flooding once again! We now have a giant hole in our dining area ceiling and no flooring in our laundry room. You’d think that’s enough flooding to reach our quota for the year, but wait, there’s more! A hose on our fridge was leaking and spraying everywhere when we filled up our cups, unbeknownst to us for about a week. Mind you, this is a nice and fairly new fridge. At this point, you’ve got to really start wondering if someone has a little Van Tienderen voodoo doll swimming in a bathtub.

 

Susi, well Susi is a mom of an 8, 5, and 1 year old, which means she drives a lot to and from schools, wakes up kids to drag them to places all day long, attends different activities, sweeps up crusty food from under the table 100 times a day, spot cleans with wipes because they are always on hand and continues to hope she’s not screwing up her kids too much when she lets them watch way too much TV, eat far too many Cheese-Its and Goldfish, and loses patience with them much too often. Probably the most exciting things that have been happening for her recently are when some dear friends, the Clarks, came into town and stayed for a week. It was glorious for so many reasons. Susi has also been quietly helping in the background to help a bill (HB 2442) to pass the Arizona legislature, which would benefit foster kids and families. Her lobbying stint back in 2012/2013 continues to help others and she is grateful to have a tiny part in something big that will help improve the foster care system in Arizona.

We recently moved Molly into her own room and moved Emily in with Ashley. It has been the end and beginning of a new era, and all the girls love it. Now Ashley can sing to her heart’s content as she’s laying in bed, trying to fall asleep at night. Molly doesn’t have to yell at her to be quiet, and we don’t have to tell Ashley to let her sister sleep every night. Why we didn’t do this earlier? I have no idea, but I am sure glad we finally did it! The move was a 2 week process because nothing can be done in one fell swoop with a one and four year old at home, but Molly loves her own room now. It doesn’t have that little-kid feel that her shared one did. We got her a desk and chair, and she loves the feel of her very own space.

Other than that, Heavenly Father’s Plan of Happiness rocks and it keeps us going in spite of the daily challenges we face!