This Week at Our House # 26

1. It's July, and we are halfway through 2017! I always heard that the older one gets, the faster time flies! It's flying now. I remember when I had just two little girls and how the time just dragged. Now I miss that time. John worked and we looked at houses. He took Ruth, Kate, Johnny, and Adam to the Temple to do baptisms. There, he got the sad news that in January, the Temple will be closing for repairs for a year and a half. That means we will either have to go to Washington, DC or Columbia, SC.
2. We put an offer in on a foreclosed, run down, double wide with a 2 car garage on 3 acres for $50,000 and the bank gave it to the other offer which was a cash offer. We were pretty sad. The sale was supposed to be opened to families who needed a home only first. We even had to sign papers saying that we would move in asap after the closing and live there for a full year. Who with $50,000 in cash buys an old manufactured home to live there? We think someone lied and it was swooped out from under us by an investor. We were excited about a $400 a month house payment. It's not likely such a deal will come up again, and if it does, I am sure we will be in the same situation. So it is back to the drawing board. But at least we are working on it.
3. Ruth did baptisms at the Temple with her siblings. She reads scriptures for 2 to 3 hours everyday and she is going out with the missionaries. I am impressed at her dedication to be spiritually prepared for her mission.
4. Kate enjoyed her temple trip. She is looking forward to being able to put in her mission papers and take out her endowments. Kate is reading Mansfield Park to Ruth and Rachel and she is reading History of the Church with Ruth. 
5. When Johnny plays computer or video games, he sits Sam on his lap. Sam likes to watch Johnny play video games. It's pretty cute.
6. I am still seeing Adam sit down to read without being told. That is just so much better. But, Adam is not a computer game guy like many of his other siblings. His preferred activity is to be outside and that, of course, is very good. 
7. Rachel has always been a very emotional girl. We have been working with her recently to get her to stop reacting to everything she does not like with yelling. We know she will have a nuch happier life if she can get this fixed.
8. Anya drew a bunch of really nice dragon pictures this week. I am planning on having her work on drawing as part of her school curriculum this year.
9. Joseph has gotten Rachel, and Anya, and Adam into playing John and Johnny's favorite card game. We play a lot of games in our house.
10. Joshua likes to dump out huge amounts of toys and then play war with them.
11. Arwen and Susan are following in the path of Ruth and Kate by falling in love with The Land Before Time and playing with dinosaurs. Arwen is really good at picking up when I tell her to. She is quick and efficient and not quite 5 years old. (Of course, I love that.)
12. Susan is still not potty trained, so I have put her back in a diaper. It seems to have helped more, because she is telling us better when she has to poop. Josh was really hard to potty train too. Sometimes, I find myself wondering if there is something wrong with her. But other than speech that has been a little delayed, she has no signs of autism. She is friendly. She has great eye contact. She plays pretend and has for a long time, and she plays with the other kids more than she plays by herself. 
13. Sam climbs the stairs now, and he follows me all over the house. Wherever I go, Sam will not be too far behind. Sam expects different things from different people in the family. It's pretty cute. 

Pictures

Attempts to take passport photos for Ruth's mission president were pretty funny

This Week at Our House # 25

1. The week was much quieter. We were planning on going to the Temple on Thursday, when we had driven about 20 minutes, John realized that he forgotten his recommend, so we came home and went on Friday instead.
2. It's hard to read a book with Sam because he keeps peeking around the book to smile at you or check up on you. It's cute for sure, but it makes it a lot harder to sit and read.
3. Ruth was very happy to get back to the Temple. She also went out with the missionaries twice and babysat some. She loves going out with the missionaries. She is definitely getting used to the reality of a mission and I think that is good. I expect the London, England mission will be hard.
4. Kate has been working pretty hard and pretty steady to get her first semester schedule for college completed. She has even called one professor to ask to be allowed into his class. She now has enough credit hours, but she is waiting on two more wait listed classes.
5. Johnny babysat a lot for us while we looked at houses and went to the Temple. 
6. Adam has been sitting down to read more. That makes me very happy.
7. Rachel is trying to get me to learn new games because the kids can get me to play a game with them for one ticket.
8. Anya wrote her talk for primary all by herself. It was really good and she presented it very well.
9. Joseph has started the countdown to his birthday and I have begun to set up things for his baptism.
10. Joshua took a nerf sword with him everytime he came with me on an errand. 
11. Arwen woke up in the middle of the night and said she had to go to the bathroom. She then pulled down her underwear, which was over a diaper, sat on the toilet, and wet her diaper. She got off the toilet, pulled up her underwear and went back to bed. Since then, she has not wet the bed.
12. Susan will use the toilet if she is wearing nothing at all. But if she even has so much as a pair of underwear on, she will not bother.
13. We left Sam for the first time while going to the Temple. I had 2 bottles pumped for him, and he did very well. He crawled where ever Kate went and stayed very close to her. I have often said that Kate is Sam's second mom. In fact, he started to cry when Kate left the room last night even though I was still there.

Pictures

Drawn by Rachel

Happy Birthday, Susan

Little Miss Suzy is 3!!!!! She has always been a joy and a comfort to me even as she turned from a cute sweet baby to a terrifying toddler. She is strong willed and full of fun. We love our little Susan.

This Week at Our House # 24

1. My parents rented a home at a nearby beach for the week, so we traveled back and forth and had a lot of fun at the beach. John worked a lot on the drives, at home before we left and the two days we did not make it down. Then he was just in love at the beach. It's the perfect place for exercise.
2. Our family really, really loves the beach. We spent Monday, Wednesday, Friday night and Saturday at the beach with my parents. On Monday, we spent 5 straight hours swimming. That was a mistake because most of us burned pretty badly and some were pretty sick from heat and dehydration. My favorite part was when John and I swam together alone on Monday and had a very nice conversation. The waves were gentle Monday, but by Saturday they were coming hard and fast and tall.
3. Tuesday, I drove to Raleigh for Ruth to finish the last thing she needed for her visa. She got her fingerprints done and then mailed everything in to the Church. Hopefully, everything is right and her visa will come in on time. Ruth did some family history with my mom. She is working on the English line and excited about this as her mission will be in England.
4. Kate was very sick on Tuesday. Monday, she swam for 5 hours straight and between the salt, the heat, and the sunburn, she was very dehydrated. She spent all night Monday with diarrhea and then vomiting on Tuesday while trying to rehydrate. Monday night she finally felt better, weak, but better. But because of it, she missed the beach on Wednesday.
5. Johnny stayed home with Kate on Wednesday. He got a pretty bad sunburn and after that he was careful about how much time he spent in the sun.
6. Adam loves the ocean and swimming. He has become a very strong swimmer and seems to have a lot of stamina. Our garden is growing reasonably well and Adam is the one to harvest it, He enjoys eating it too, including the turnips. I have really enjoyed the herbicide-free, pesticde-free, and non-gmo tomatoes.
7. Rachel swam with Kate without taking a break on Monday. She burned the worst and spent all day Tuesday lying on the couch moaning. After that, she was concerned about the sun. But, for the first time ever, she took my advice and wore a shirt over her swimsuit. It's not as cute, but it is much more practical. Rachel is gaining some wisdom!Oh, and Rachel finally learned to ride a bike. All the other kids picked it up between 7 and 8 and often just on their own. Rachel finally got up enough gumption to spend the time needed to learn.
8. Anya burned on her back pretty badly too. But she just doesn't ever complain much. Anya loves to swim, but she is very cautious. She will not go out very deep. It's cute to have her tell me to stop and not go further in the water because it makes her afraid. Anya loves catching minnows at the beach. Monday, they were plentiful and she had a bucket full of fish. She also caught two hermit crabs. 
9. On Monday Joseph swam in the deep water above his head the whole day, but the rest of the week, the waves were too fierce and he had to stay shallow. Joseph can swim now and he swims well. I used to think I needed to get my kids swimming lessons, but I have learned that all you really need to do is take them swimming enough and eventually they pick it up. 
10. My mom bought Joshua this really big truck to play with on the beach. He is in love!! 
11. My mom bought tons of buckets and shovels and sand toys that Arwen had a lot of fun with. 
12. On Thursday, I told Suzy that her birthday was soon. She didn't say much, but later she fetched her unwrapped birthday present out of hiding. I had no idea she knew where it was, what it was, or what her birthday is. We hid her presents in a safer place, but she is clearly ready and waiting. She will be 3 tomorrow.
13. Despite using sunscreen, a sun hat, and keeping Sam in the shade, he still got sunburnt from Saturdays beach time. Fortunately for me, he seems to sleep a little longer and deeper. I expected the opposite. 

Pictures

Adam's love for Duck Dynasty and the outdoors has led to a love for camo-- blek

Josh has been building some awesome block creations for his creative time each day.

Kate at her seminary graduation not wanting me to get a photo.

Suzy wears her old swimsuit on her head for a headband almost everyday.

Suzy has the same birthday as my mom, so my mom likes to do a mini-double-celebration every year. This year they are 70 and 3!

Fathers Day 2017

No one wanted a picture except me, and maybe that is because I wasn't in it. I told them that they didn't even have to go outside or smile... all I wanted them to do was to sit in a way that I could see everyone's faces. But that apparently was still too much to ask.

Anyway, John is a great dad. Our kids are very lucky. He is always teaching, training, talking, playing, and having fun with our kids. He is a superior gospel teacher and takes his role as patriarch of our home very seriously. We are all blessed to have him.

This Week at Our House # 23

1. The year is sure speeding by and we had another busy week. John of course worked. But he also spent a lot of time teaching our family and playing with the kids. 
2. Monday we had a 15 year old home school girl from Idaho give our kids a presentation on movies. I really liked having my kids connect with other homeschoolers and members of the church in this way.
3. Ruth went out with the missionaries twice. She really likes doing this and feels like it is helping her to prepare for her mission. The British visa computer system finally started working, so Ruth has her appointment made and will have all that stuff finished and in by the end of this week.
4. We were invited to the beach with our Bishops family. Kate and Johnny are good friends with their kids. I know that Kate had a great time. Kate had seminary graduation today and she is being told that it is time for her to attend the singles ward. That is a little problem for us because we only have one car and the two wards times make it impossible to just drop them off. Oh and I now have 17 years of seminary to go.
5. Johnny had a fun time swimming with his friends too. 
6. Adam tried riding a skin board at the beach. I think he really enjoyed that. 
7. Rachel and I had a great time swimming together at the beach. The waves were calm and the water was warm.
8. Anya caught a tiny fish at the beach and carried it up to the house in a large shell that she caught as well. It was pretty cute. She spent a lot of time trying to trap those tiny minnows.
9. Joseph has been learning to play some difficult games. He pays good attention and is enjoying learning strategy. He plays with John and Johnny now.
10. Joshua loved the beach. He does a good job staying shallow and knowing how much he can handle.
11. Arwen has grown up a lot in the last month or two. All of the little things I had worried about are no longer a problem. 
12. Potty training is not going too well for Miss Suzy. Hopefully, it won't be too much longer before she gets it.
13. Sam is 7 months and still sleeping with me. Otherwise he is just a calm, easy going little guy.

20 Years

June 7, 1997

Today John and I celebrate 20 years of marriage! We have a nursing baby, so we won't be doing anything special or overnight. We thought maybe we would next year, but both Ruth and Kate will be gone and Johnny will only be 16, so like the rest of our anniversaries, we will go out to dinner and wait until our kids are older to do something extra special. But having Samuel here makes every little sacrifice worth it.

Here's our 20 year Numbers

• 12 babies (11 living)
• weight gained: we are 50 and 75 lbs above our marriage weights (total gained and lost over 14 pregnancies would be astronomical.)
• 5 local moves
• 6 long distance moves
• 2 houses bought and sold and one expected purchase coming soon along with another local move.
• 3 cars (that's probably way below average) so that's something good.

Here's some things I know we've done right

• Monthly, bi-weekly, or weekly Temple attendance.
• Daily couple and family prayers.
• Searching the scriptures as a couple and really trying to come to an understanding of them.
• Having a large family despite difficulties.
• Making gospel teaching a priority in the home.

Hopefully, our 25 year marriage numbers will have lower weight gains as we are both hoping to take some of those extra pounds off.

Here are a few Pictures of us from the last 20 years.

These 2 Photos are from John's Birthday Oct 7, 1996 about a month after we met while attending the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. 

 These two photos are from April 2000. John had just finished all his work for his PhD and we had 2 kids. John had a post doc lined up in New York. Life was pretty exciting.

This is from February 2001. We lived in New York and I was just barely pregnant with Johnny.

 This above picture was taken in 2003. We had 3 kids and lived in Toronto, Canada. John was on his second post doc. 

This above picture was March 2006 at Ruth's baptism. I was 8.5 months pregnant with Rachel. Adam was just under a year and a half and we lived in Wichita, KS

 This picture was also 2006 when Rachel was new born. we thought we had a very big family.

The above picture is from 2007. We still had just 5 kids and lived in Kansas. The below picture is from Oct 2009. We had moved to Utah that year and we now had 7 children. Anya came in Jan 2008 and Joseph in July 2009.

The above picture was taken while we lived in Utah in the fall of 2010. Joseph was 1 and Ruth was 12 and I was about 5 months pregnant with Joshua. John had a good job and we had our lovely home in North Salt Lake. We thought life would continue to be just as blissful. We felt like we had finally made it. We were living in the state of our choice, enjoying extended family, and all was mostly as we imagined it when we got married.

This above picture was taken in November of 2013. Arwen and Josh were added to our family. John had been unemployed for 6 months and was working a job that only lasted 6 months. This was before things really got hard for us and before we ever imagined selling our house and leaving Utah.

This was taken when we were living with my parents just after we moved to North Carolina. I was pregnant with Christopher and completely unaware of what the future held. Things were really hard for our whole family at this time. 

This was just last December when Ruth came home from college for Christmas and Sam was a month old. We knew for sure that all of our kids had made it to our family. John had been working a good job for a few months and life was blissful once again.

And here we are today, June 7, 2017, 20 years of marriage and feeling grateful everyday that we married and chose to have the beautiful family that we now have. We do not know what the future holds, but we do know that with God's help and each other life will continue to be beautiful!