Three Flying Fish

Another summer - another season with Flyin' Fish. This year Miles took the plunge (see what I did there ;) and joined in the fun. I don't know why, but seeing my kids hop on their bikes each day and ride off to swim team just makes me feel like they are having the kind of childhood experiences I want them to have.
Miles was SOO nervous for the first meet. We told Miles to dive in and streamline kick for awhile before side breathing and using his arms (he actually slows down a lot with his breathing). He took our advice to heart and swam 3/4 of the way across the pool in streamline before even taking a breath. Brynn had a blast swimming with her two best friends, Kristi and Grace this year. Ryan was a trooper sitting through all of the very long meets. All Miles wanted to do was get an airhead for finishing first in his heat. On the final meet he finally got that airhead. I was praising Miles for all his hard work this summer going to practice and listening to his coach and his response was, "I actually would usually just go underwater and not listen to my coach." Well, at least he's honest. The kids had such a fun group at swim team that mainly consisted of them and their friends from the neighborhood and school. They loved having McKenna as their coach and she loved them, too.  At the last meet I was standing with Miles waiting for his race and the mom in front of me turned around and asked, "Is this Miles?" When I told her yes she went on to tell me, "I am McKenna's sister and she has told us all about Miles. She LOVES him. She says she is going to name her first child Miles after him." Oh boy, somehow I have a feeling that is not because of his exemplary behavior.
All of their hard work really did pay off and it was fun to see all of the improvement they made in 2 short months.

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What Might Have Been

As Ellie's 5th birthday approaches I find my grief taking on a different tone. For the past 3 1/2 years I have grieved the loss of our perfectly imperfect Ellie. I have wondered how she would be doing developmentally and medically if she were still here with us. I have known there would have been plenty of challenges, but I also know there would have been wonderful things about having her in our life as well.
As time moves forward, it is becoming harder and harder to really imagine what life with Ellie might have been like now. There are simply too many unknowns. She really is forever 15 months in my mind. As this milestone when she would have been turning 5 and starting kindergarten approaches, I find myself spending a lot more time thinking about what our life and family would be like if Trisomy 4p had never been a part of Ellie's story. What if I had gone into the hospital on May 16, 2013 for my scheduled c-section and walked out the next day with a healthy baby girl. Our family would have moved forward with 4 kids under the age of 6 (the youngest 2 both being under 18 months) which my then naive self would have felt was incredibly hard, but I now understand would have been ideal compared to what we experienced in reality.
Fast forward 5 years and we would have gotten through the hard years and would now be entering a new phase of life where all of our kids would be attending the same school this year. Our afternoons would be filled with Mason and Miles playing marvel while Brynn and Ellie played American girl dolls and Barbies instead of Brynn always feeling left out. I would be teaching Miles and Ellie how to read and count together. Our family would look the way I always imagined it would with 2 boys and 2 girls all close in age being raised together.
Instead, our family is still trying to repair all the damage that grief and regret has caused over the last 5 years. Brynn is left as an only girl, something I never wanted her to have to experience like I have. Ryan is a caboose baby at home by himself all day, something I never wanted for any of my children.
To put it simply, this year as Ellie's 5th birthday approaches, I find myself grieving and longing for what might have been.

This year for Ellie Day, we spent the day creating Ellie's Angel Garden (our version of a fairy garden) as a happy and fun way to keep Ellie's memory a part of our home.

Mason - version 11.0

It's birthday time once again for Mason. I guess it is true what people say, time really does speed up with each passing year. It's feels impossible that our oldest is 11 years old already.

11-year-old Mason:

* Current obsession: All things Marvel. Marvel legos, Marvel video games, Marvel movies, Marvel shows.

* Started watching the TV show, The Flash, and has loved every second of it. It's crazy how he likes listening to and watching the same entertainment as us now. Makes hanging out with and having conversations with him pretty fun.

*  Has been exploring the world of drawing recently and turns out he is quite the artist - as long as he doesn't let his anxiety and perfectionism get in the way. His favorite things to draw are superheros with the help of Draw it too tutorials on you tube. He even sold some of his work in his economic fair this year.

* He is a wonderful older brother who is absolutely ADORED by his younger siblings, especially Miles who waits all day for Mason to come home so they can talk and play Marvel together. 

* He is so sweet and caring with Ryan and is becoming a great little baby-sitter.

* The world of youtube has hooked Mason this year and he is a big time fan of the Dude Perfect and Draw it Too channels. He loves watching funny videos and parodies.

* He loves listening to and reciting comedy routines of Brian Regan and Jim Gaffigan. 

* Honesty is still not his strongest trait and he can more often then not be found sneaking treats out of the storage room at night. 

* He went through a little reading drought this year as he struggled to find books he hadn't read yet that interested him. When we finally let him read The Hunger Games series he devoured them and declared them the best books he had ever read.
* 5th Grade has been his best school year to date. He has absolutely loved being in Mr. Perry's class and has made some great friendships. 

* Continues to play the piano and picked up the clarinet this year. He loves music but doesn't love practicing - Unless he is playing a variety of songs from pop culture he has picked out.

*  Mason continues to love football and basketball. He is hoping to spend more time golfing and mountain biking this summer.

We surprised Mason with a new (very nice) Mountain Bike for his birthday. Right after getting it Scott took him up for his first ride at Lambert Park. He had one big crash that scraped up his arm, but we explained that comes along with mountain biking. He was pretty excited about his bike and I'm excited to see him get some good use out of it this summer.

Mason's final pack meeting as a Cub Scout fell on his birthday. He received the Arrow of Light award which is the pinnacle of Cub Scouts and shows the dedication he has had over the past 3 years to earn it.

Referring back to my first bullet point, Mason is obsessed with all things Marvel, so you can imagine his excitement when he found out Avengers Infinity War movie was coming out just two days after his birthday. Naturally, that is all he wanted to do to celebrate his birthday.  He invited his best friends, Ella and Garrett, to go see the movie on opening day. It turned out to be pretty awesome.

Happy Birthday Mason.

Goals

As 2017 comes to a close and 2018 begins I find myself looking back on the last year with a sense of accomplishment at how far my family and I have come. After two years of merely surviving each day as I waded through the immense guilt and grief of loosing Ellie, we had fallen into some really bad patterns. At the beginning of 2017 I was extremely unhappy with who I had become and was ready to once again take control of my life. I was inspired by a quote I read from M. Russell Ballard that stated:
I am so thoroughly convinced that if we don't set goals in our life and learn how to master the techniques of living to reach goals, we can reach a ripe old age and look back on our life only to see that reached but a small part of our full potential when one learns to master the principles of setting a goal, she will then be able to make a great difference in the results she attains in this life."
I decided to set some very specific personal and family goals for 2017 and set smaller goals each month to help me attain what I wanted to accomplish.
My personal goal for 2017 was to ‘Be purposeful and deliberate with my time each day.’
Our Family Goal for 2017 was to ‘Increase Love and Kindness in our home.’
Each month we set a spiritual, health, and family improvement goal to work toward throughout the month. We had a set reward at the end of the month if we reached our goal. I was pleased with how effective it was.  Even when we fell short of some of our specific goals and didn’t earn the set reward, we still felt that we had made improvement and seen growth in the area we were working on. We were consistent with it until summertime and then we started to slip a little and we became less structured with our goals, but I felt like we were still making a concerted effort at improving our family and bringing more love and kindness into our home.
I found a lot of satisfaction in accomplishing a variety of personal goals I set for myself throughout the year. I didn’t accomplish them all, but “What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become while achieving your goals.” - Zig Ziglar.  While I still have a long way to go, I am extremely proud of the progress I have made this year.

My focus for 2018 comes down to one word - Simplify!!
A week or so ago, I happened upon the talk “Good, Better, Best” by Elder Dallin H. Oaks from Oct 2007 conference and as I read his inspired words I knew this would be my motto for the year. “We have to forgo some good things in order to choose others that are better or best because they develop faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and strengthen our families.”

Our family focus for 2018 will be ‘Working together to build a happy home.’ as I hope to continue teaching my kids responsibility, hard work, and discipline. As I tell my kids every time we are working together to complete a job, "Many hands make light work -- and a slightly less crazy mom."

I am feeling optimistic and excited to see what twists and turns 2018 has in store for our family.

Speech

 Watching Ryan grow and develop in a typical way has been nothing short of amazing. I took all the little milestones for granted with my older kids, but after working so hard for every single accomplishment with Ellie, I am in complete awe each time that Ryan just naturally figures out what to do next. I guess I did a pretty good job wiping my slate of expectations clean with Ellie and just celebrating each success as it came rather than worrying about what she should be doing at certain ages. Now I don't have the slightest idea what a baby should be doing developmentally at each age. Often times Ryan will completely blow me away by doing something new that I'm not expecting for a long time only to realize that he actually reached that milestone much later than any of my other kids. I guess that is why I didn't realize he was falling behind on speech until I was filling out the questionnaire at his 1 year check up and realized that he should be babbling more, making consonant noises like mamama, bababa, dadada, and mimicking our noises. But he wasn't doing any of that. He did a great job communicating his wants and needs with his go to sounds of "pthhhhh" and "oooo ooooo" with an accompanying pointing finger. The doctor told me that while Ryan was a little behind in his speech he was doing so great in every other area that there was no need to worry. Some kids just take a little bit longer to talk and he would probably be back on track by his 15 month checkup. I agreed that Ryan was doing great and while I was still aware over the coming months that he was behind on speech, I didn't worry about it. At his 15 month check up (that actually happened closer to 16 months) Ryan had made very little, if any, progress with his verbal speech. This time the doctor expressed concern over how far behind Ryan was. So after that appointment we had Ryan evaluated by Kids on the Move for early intervention. At his evaluation Ryan blew them away with how smart he is and how much he understands. They use an evaluation tool where anything less than 16 is below normal and 20-30 is the typical range. Ryan was right on if not a little high in every area but communication. Communication is divided into two categories - expressive and receptive communication. Ryan's receptive communication was off the charts at 50 while his expressive communication was way below at 6. This qualified him for early intervention for his speech.

For the last two months we have been working with an early childhood development specialist on skills that will help teach and encourage him to communicate verbally. I love working with these specialist who break down each skill into little micro-steps that have to be taken to reach the bigger goal. There is so much that goes into learning how to talk that I never would have realized. With their guidance we have been able to help Ryan develop the skills he was lacking. We started seeing little bits of progress from day 1 but just the last couple weeks his speech has really taken off. He is now able to sign basic daily needs like more, again, drink, food, all done, please, want. He has started mimicking noises and will tell you a dog says "woo woo", a chicken says "bababa", a cow says "mmooooo" and a car says "brrrrrrr". He says Mama, Dada, and Baba in reference to me, Scott, and his bottle. He says BA! for ball. "Hiiiii" with the cutest little wave and a similar but slightly different sounding "iiiiii" for Bye with the same darling wave. He asks for a treat by saying "Mmmmm" and "a" to be lifted up. He tells us he's done eating by signing all done while saying, "aahhhhh". And those are just the things he is saying consistently. There have been many other words he has mimicked a time or two like kiss, mess, eyes, poke, and many more.

We are all obsessed with his new found talking and it isn't uncommon for us all to erupt in applause whenever Ryan says something we ask him to. He loves the attention and will often start clapping excitedly for himself when he says something. I can't wait to hear all that Ryan has to tell us in the coming weeks and months.

I am so grateful for early intervention and how it has blessed our lives with two of our five kids.

Grandma's Sleepover

Grandma's Sleepover is without a doubt the most anticipated event of the year for my kids. A sleepover with cousins, Grandma calling all the shots with no parents interfering, new matching jammies, honestly what's not to love about it? My mom really went above and beyond planning this year to make sure that each of the different age groups had fun. On top of all the usual traditions of a kid favorites dinner, time in the hot tub, and jumping on the mattresses; my dad took Cannon and Mason bowling, the girls had plenty of time to play alone in 'the brown room' (that was their big request for the night), my mom played games and watched a movie with the little boys, and the babies were doted on and adored by all their cousins. We even avoided any huge meltdowns by any of my kids, so that was a big bonus.

While the kids were away for the night the adults enjoyed a yummy dinner at Outback together. Since Brandon and Whitney were picking up Carson, Chris and Kacie had a neighborhood party they wanted to go to, and we had to check in on Zoey, we all split up to do our own thing after dinner. After stopping to take Zoey out, Scott took me to Luminaria at Thanksgiving Point. I have wanted to go the last couple years, but didn't want to pay the high price to drag whining and complaining kids around in the cold. With it being after Christmas and late at night the crowds were all gone and it felt like we had the place to ourselves. It was so peaceful walking around talking and laughing with my best friend. I especially loved going through the Light of the World exhibit that has the most amazing statues of the Saviors life. The spirit was so strong as we walked through the displays and I like to think I felt Ellie a little closer to us while we were there, too. It was amazing the contrast we felt as we left the Light of the World with it's calming peace and spirit and re-entered Luminaria with it's bright lights and loud Christmas music. It was a very obvious contrast between a Christ centered Christmas and the world's Christmas. The whole night was absolutely perfect. I am finding more and more that the opportunities I have to step away from the noise and chaos of the world recharges my battery so much more than watching shows or going to movies or surrounding myself with groups of people. I hope to be able to set aside more time this next year for quiet reflection and meditation because I am learning how much I benefit from it.

The next morning we picked up the kids and on the drive home they were already talking about how excited they are for next year's Grandma's Sleepover.

Miles' Marvel-ous Birthday

Sometimes we celebrate Miles' birthday a month early so it doesn't get swallowed up by Christmas. This year I had additional motivation to get the party done early so I wouldn't have to stress about doing it with a new puppy. Miles didn't have to think twice about what kind of party he wanted this year. It was Marvel all the way! His only specific requests for the party were to have a pinata they got to punch with Hulk Buster hands and pictures of different Marvel characters hanging from the ceiling for decorations. Easy enough. He invited some of his friends from school, church, and neighbors. They started off by decorating their own shields. Then it was time for their training. We had several stations set up downstairs for them to rotate through. The Hulk Station with a punch board filled with prizes. This seemed like such a simple idea, but putting the board together proved to be much more of a pain than I anticipated. The kids absolutely loved it, though. Next was Hawkeye's station where they had to shoot bad guys with a nerf bow and arrow. Then we had the Flash Station where we timed each of them doing a shuttle run. Miles was very serious about running as fast a the Flash. I took of picture of him running that naturally turned out blurry. I showed it to him and jokingly said, "Look, you ran so fast you were just a blur like the Flash." You should have seen his beaming face and he went around telling everyone he ran so fast he was a blur. The last station was knocking over a stack of cups with Captain America's shield. When everyone had completed all of the stations we went upstairs for the pinata. It was rainy and cold so we had to get creative and come up with a way to do the pinata inside. It was hilarious and anxiety filled to watch as I was trying to make sure everyone got a turn and that no one ended up with stitches from a wayward swing. After the pinata was broken and the candy gathered we heard rumors of some villains who were downstairs and our superheros ran downstairs to attack. They engaged in a fantastic snowball fight with our wonderful villains Mason, Daniel, Brynn, and Maggie. After our villains were defeated we celebrated with cake and ice cream while Miles opened presents. Miles last present of the night was a surprise from us and my parents and was the pedal go cart like his friend Cannon's that he has been wanting for almost a year. Miles loved every second of the day and at the end of the night he gave me a big hug and said, "This was the best day of my life, Mom. Thanks!" That's what makes all the work of these parties worth it. I love seeing my kids happy and I hope they feel special on a day that we celebrate them!

Cole, Andrew, Chase, Diesel, Miles, Brock, Cade, Jake, Cannon, Zac, Ronan

About 6-year-old Miles

• Loves all things Marvel and all things Lego and if it is Marvel Legos than he is in heaven.
• Much to my dismay he is seriously addicted to playing video games and rarely a day goes by that he doesn't spend some amount of time playing the PS4 or Wii. His favorite games are Mario Kart, Madden 17, NBA2k, Lego Marvel, and recently he started exploring Minecraft. 
• Miles is a total smarty pants. He is already a great reader in kindergarten and he constantly blows me away with his math abilities. He definitely has a mathematical mind like his Daddy's and numbers and how they relate to one another just click in his brain. We have yet to reach the ceiling of how high he can count but we know it is at least into the thousands. He can add and subtract at a very high level, skip count like a pro,  I could go on and on. It really is amazing to me what his mind is capable of.
• He is still our sports enthusiast and is a great little athlete. Not only is he naturally athletic, but he understand the games more than most kids his age - including all the cool lingo he picks up from Mason and his buddies and the Playstation games. It is not uncommon to hear phrases like, "I rejected him!", "He O'delled it!", "I broke his ankles", etc. Oh boy.
• We still have a Dr Jeckel/Mr Hyde effect every afternoon when Miles gets tired and he goes from being sweet and obedient to an emotional monster. Not his finest hours of the day.
• He can't stand it when his glasses are dirty and will take them off as soon as they have a smudge on them. As soon as his glasses are off his eye crosses constantly. He has gotten very good at "self patching" by just closing his left eye which is his bad eye to correct his vision. It is practically a part time job for me keeping his glasses clean and on his face throughout the day. 
• Every single night when I tuck him into bed we do a hug and a kiss and I love you. Then he says, "Goodnight Mom. I Love you. See you in the morning" in the sweetest voice. 
• He is a mama's boy. Unless Grandma Nancy is around. Then he's a grandma's boy.
• He is amazing at doing his jobs each day. He wakes up and makes his bed before coming upstairs. Even if it is at 4 am. The minute he walked in the door from school he gets to work doing his jobs and moving his magnets because he knows he can't play the PlayStation until his jobs are done. 
• Miles is a great little piano player. Once again, it just clicks in his brain.
• Miles thinks he is 10 and loves hanging out with Mason and his friends more than kids his own age. They all seem to think he is pretty cool and like having him around, except Mason.
• Miles still loves to color and write. He has amazing handwriting for a kindergartner and is starting to sound out and spell words on his own. We get a lot of pictures and notes made for us each day and they are my absolute favorite.