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.

Zoey

It's been a week since we brought our darling puppy, Zoey, home. Everyone who said having a puppy is like having a newborn wasn't kidding!! This puppy business is a whole lot of work! But Zoey is the most amazing dog and we are all very glad that she is part of our family.
When we started talking seriously about getting a dog for Christmas I couldn't help but imagine a scene straight out of the movies where we surprised the kids with a puppy on Christmas morning. It didn't take me long to realize that it would be nearly impossible to pull that off and it was just all around a bad idea. Plus, the more I read about puppy selection, the more I knew that I wanted the kids to be involved in the whole process of picking out and preparing for a puppy. I'm so glad we decided to do it this way because it has really given the kids a sense of ownership and commitment from day one instead of it being a novelty that just appears and then wears off quickly.
The plan was to pick Zoey up on Tuesday after the kids got out of school for Christmas Break. As the day got closer and we were finalizing plans with the breeder we decided it would work out better for everyone's schedule to pick her up a day earlier - but we didn't tell the kids and decided maybe we would try to get a surprise in after all. On Monday night, for family home evening, we surprised the kids by having an early Christmas. I wrapped all our new puppy stuff and put it under the tree. I had been hiding all the packages as they came throughout the month and Brynn was starting to get very worried that none of our supplies had come yet and we were picking up Zoey the next day. She was extremely relieved and excited when we started opening the presents and she realized everything was there. After all the presents had been opened and little voices could be heard saying things like, "I wish we had her here with us right now!" and "I don't think I can wait through a whole day of school tomorrow. I am too excited!" we told the kids we had one more Christmas surprise. I told them all to go put on their shoes and coats and get in the car ... because we were going to get our puppy!  They all exploded with excitement and ran around the house screaming for several minutes. I'm pretty sure I even saw a few glistening tears on Brynn's cheek.

We drove out to Mapleton and picked up our sweet pup. She was so nervous and scared as we got in the car. I sat in the back seat holding her tight and trying to soothe and calm her as she whimpered and I could feel her little heart racing. When we got home the kids couldn't get enough of Zoey and completely wore her out. Once she had crashed we were able to pull the kids away from her and get them to bed. Then we began our first night home with a puppy. 

In a lot of ways it felt like the first night bringing a baby home. Scott set up our video monitor and he watched her every move and listened to her every sound all night long. The night went better than I ever could have hoped for. Her whining was minimal and really only lasted a few minutes each time we took her potty and she had to get settled back in her pen. My heart broke thinking of how scared and alone she must feel. The mother in me couldn't help but sit close to her and pet her until she was settled each time. I wanted to make sure she felt loads of love during this transition. Of course she refused to sleep on the mat or blankets we had for her and just slept on the hard floor instead. We were 1 for 5 on successful potty trips during the night which was a little discouraging, but the next day she started getting the hang of it and has caught onto potty training really well. She stays in the main room where we rolled up all the rugs leaving just laminate floors, which makes house training much less stressful because when an accident does happen it's a quick and easy clean up.

It's only been a week but we are all completely in love with this pup. I can't even count how many times a day one of us can be heard saying what a good dog Zoey is and what a perfect fit for our family she is. Like I said, it has been a LOT of work so far, and I know that there is still a lot more to come. But I am already seeing some of the positive effects I was hoping a dog would bring to my kids and seeing them all so happy makes it totally worth all the time and energy I will be putting into this addition to our family.

Mason had a connection with Zoey from the minute we met her. He was a big reason why we chose her even though she was the bigger than we originally wanted. "I just love looking into her eyes" he frequently says. I think this is the beginning of a great friendship for him. 

Brynn is on cloud nine with Zoey finally home. As soon as the breeder handed her over to us Brynn hugged me and said, "I'm not the only girl in our family anymore." with a big grin. Brynn has so much love to give and Zoey is one lucky puppy to be on the receiving end of it.

Of all the kiddos, Miles is the one I was most unsure how he would respond to having a dog. So far he loves her a whole lot.

We knew that the hardest thing about getting a puppy right now would be Ryan. Ideally he would have been a year or two older, but for all of our other kids and life in general, now was the right time for us. But keeping up with these two as they fight over toys and dog treats is definitely going to keep me busy.

Welcome to the family Zoey!

Mama #2

Ryan is still very much a Mama's boy, but I'm starting to have some serious competition from Brynn for the position of his favorite. She is pretty much his second mother these days and if my arms aren't available it doesn't take long for him to locate Brynn and go running to her. She is a natural nurturer and she loves Ryan to no end. He trusts her completely and loves her so much. Each morning when I take Ryan downstairs to wake the kids up for school he squeals with absolute delight the moment we enter Brynn's room and he lays eyes on her. She is always quick to jump in and help play with Ryan when I am trying to get something done and he's whining (this is a common situation at our house). We have even started letting her babysit Ryan for very short and controlled periods of time like when I have a quick errand to run or something. Ryan got out "buh" for Brynn before he was consistently saying mama or dada. I hope Ryan always knows how lucky he is to have a big sister, and second mother, like Brynn.

Ryan's Blanky

Ryan was a snugly baby from the minute he was born and 18 months later he remains the snuggliest mama's boy EVER! There has never been any doubt in my mind that he would be a blanky baby, but he has never shown any real preference for one blanket over another, he just loves them all. That is until he recently found Ellie's soft minky blanket in Brynn's room and fell in love with it. It has become his favorite blanket to snuggle up with and nothing could make my heart happier than him having something of his sister's to love and cherish.