3 doors down

I painted 3 more doors this week. I stop start/stop start projects often. This last stop was not by choice. When Matt took the girls snowboarding I painted for 8+ hours straight and my old lady thumb was all like, no thanks. Since then it’s been crazy sore, When i bend it it pops out of the socket, and it hurts to put any pressure on it, even holding a pencil. So the lesson learned is that old lady body parts don’t take kindly to overuse and i need to stop and stretch and baby maself. Old lady thumb is doing much better and I think soon I’ll be able to bend it without pain. Old lady fingers crossed. 

It’s book fair week at school, which means every day I’ve gotten to go have lunch with one girl and go to the book fair. F was today, D yesterday, and A Tuesday. They each got to pick 1 book. 

Addies on a roller blading kick. She’s such a fun girl. I’ve had several different people this week tell me what a sweet girl she is. 

And Frankie, who, much to her chagrin, does not have roller blades that fit her, learned how to bike without hands. #jelly

Bubba came over on Tuesday, so he came with me to addies lunch/book fair day. He was all the rage among the 5th grade crew. 

Along with the old lady thumb, i also got my first mammogram this week. I was on the fence and researched and asked around and finally decided on the new and more accurate 3D mammo. So when I made my appointment I checked to make sure they offered that and when she said yes I figured I was set. I was disappointed when I went to my appointment to find that there’s only one 3D machine and it was tied up the whole day I was there. But the pink smock was cute. And I don’t know what the big deal is about them, it wasn’t bad at all. 

I ♥️ baby bugs. 

The girls love playing at Johnna’s waiting for each other during their lessons. Super Frankie. 



And finally, a little Come Follow Me action shot. I really love studying with my family and can’t wait to dive even deeper into the New Testament. 

Goodbye to our Mc’s

Today was an at home day for me. I love adventures and I love at home days. I mean, love love. Also, there’s a new royal baby that I’m pretty stoked about, apropos of nothing. 

After piano we picked daddy up and went to Sweet Frog for spirit night. We try to do a few spirit nights each year. 

Addie was telling me a story while we were at piano and she was so cute and earnest. She is so grown up and such a sweet girl. She was a little sassy while practicing piano before piano. She was frustrated that she couldn’t figure out a note and when I offered to help she said, and I quote “you won’t be able to figure it out either!” in a real sassy way. She’s so kind and patient, and I couldn’t figure it out incidentally, that I let it slide and she got over her anger pretty quickly. Then at piano she thanked me for letting them take lessons. She’s such a good little pianist!

A few weeks back Delaney found a wishbone of chicken on our plate. “Take a picture, mommy!”

Attention! Attention! Attention! After more than 9 years of being the only girl born in the Patuxent ward in all of 2010, Frankie finally has a girlfriend in her class. And best of the best, she’s a sweetie! Sarah said Abby loser all the girls and used the timer to take this picture! She rocked it!

Delaney and Frankie are super excited about my curly curl journey and really want to be curly girls too. This was Delaney’s first night of plopping. 

And she’s a semi curly girl!

Last Sunday our wonderful friends that are more like family rolled out of the SMC for good. We spent a lot of time that week helping them pack, clean, and paint. The last hugs were hard. 

Maggie was younger than Delaney when they moved here. We’ve done a whole lot of living together!

These 4 parents have raised and launched kids, planned holidays, kept company at hospitals and on ambulance rides, celebrated special events, cried, and laughed together for the last 9 years. We’ve done a lot of life with our people. 

Pretty much the most rice or die ever. 😂

And Katie too! This girl is pure gold. We love us some Katie. 

I made the kids all get together for a pic and then Matt and I jumped in. 

Fav silly shots. 

At this point several other families had showed up to see them off, it was last 7 and I hadn’t fed my kids, and I know they needed to hit the road, so we made our departure. 

Since we’d spent so much time there helping and the weathers been so beautiful, the girls fell in love with their backyard (again).

A Saturday shot of cleaning. We ended up ditching the cleaning party to help Laura buy coolers that the movers had packed. 

On Friday night we watched all 4 Aina girls so they could go on a date for Sarah’s birthday. 

Even Isla had a good time. Also, Adeline declared me “the best maker in real life” for my Aldi pizza making skills, soooo. 

Isla loves my girls, which is wonderful because the feeling is totally mutual. 

😂😂😂 I love pictures. 

We are sad to see our friends go, but excited for their new adventures. And we’re all just crazy enough that we know we’ll travel together again someday. There are a lot of lights left to see in the world!

Weekly update

We’ve been pretty free and easy lately, not too busy, and it’s been a nice season of work and rest. Yesterday we brought the little D’s home from church with us so Chelsea could go to the missionary correlation meeting. The kids played all day and were sometimes loud and rowdy, and there were sometimes tears, but for the most part they worked it all out. 

They loved these cute pioneer dresses my mom made for Halloween’s of yore. 

We had a cinco de Mayo fiesta. I had thought briefly about making banners with the kids and really decorating, but then halfway ran out of time and halfway ran out of drive. And the food only fiesta we have is better than the amazing fiesta we don’t have. This is one of my favorite principles, and I heard it put in a different way last week that I’ve been ruminating on - something that’s worth doing is worth doing poorly. Such a good reminder. 

Anyways, what kick started the fiesta, other than cinco de Mayo was some Malta drinks at Aldi. They always have such fun foreign food and i heart them. And because I love food, here’s the food rundown. I fried tacos and had soft shell and crunchy available as well. We had rice and homemade refried beans, homemade salsa and chips, and a delish pioneer woman tres leches cake that every kid had seconds of. It was a good day, even if I didn’t get a nap. 

A random picture we sent to Lu. 

On Saturday Matt and I drove the jolly green up to AMCAP. This was my 4th year to go, I always love it. This year was different because apparently something came up in some of the stakes up north, they said a visitor from Salt Lake,  so they had about a quarter of the people they usually do. Chelsea, Bishop D, and Matt attended for the first time, so that was fun. I went to a seminar called Supporting the Supporters where we talked all things Relief Society. The first thing we did was to talk about all of the challenges we face. It was so nice to  hear that we are not alone. A wave of emotion hit as we were talking and I’m so grateful for the opportunity to circle round in such a supportive and loving group. We talked about strategies and helpful ways to work through the challenges. The second session Matt and I went to together, which was connecting as couples when you can’t talk about things, as in confidential things that come up at church. Again, she had lots of good ideas and ways for couples to connect. Matt and I are going to go through and pick some out to work on because it’s so easy to forget. And the third session I went to was having difficult conversations. We talked about the animal models from Janet Treasure, which I’d never heard of but were interesting. I can’t say I learned a whole lot of new info at amcap, but lots of good, cup filling reminders. Chris cane over early and took the girls to Sarah’s for the day when he had to leave for work, so they had a blast. 

D-bug has a snaggle tooth up front that is just so ready to come out! Matt’s tried pulling it a few times but he says it’s not ready. I’m not the family tooth puller, so idk, but it looks hilarious. 

This little mommy completed her bachelors degree! She did most of her schooling online, which is a feat in and of itself I think, not to mention being pregnant and working full time. I’m so proud of her for finishing when it would have been so easy not to. She works for a paper company (Dunder mifflin dream come true!) and has gotten a raise and started training in their marketing department now that she’s ‘educated.’ She’s hoping to be able to do some of that work from home after the baby comes. 

The girls had a fun author come to their school and we let them get 1 book so he could autograph it. Thankfully it’s a super cute book, so we lucked out. 

And Delaney brought a ladybug in to show me. It’s on her middle finger in this pic. 

She borrowed my phone (we’ve got a fun app that works with their electric toothbrush) to brush her teeth after school one day (she’d forgotten in the morning and I could tell) and when she brought it to me it was ringing. It was 911 because someone had called and hung up. 🤦‍♀️I’m glad I answered. D had accidentally held the emergency buttons down, and then also screenshotted it for me to remember for posterity. 

Cody came over to help fix a tricky patch of ceiling paint one night. the girls wanted to go for a walk while they worked, so we went to check the Aina’s progress. They were hoping the girls would be there, but it was just tony. He took them on a tour though, so they enjoyed that. 

This path is going to be even more well worn when our friends move! It’s .6 miles from our door to theirs. 

It was just a regular old week with visits, presidency meetings, emails, school, tutoring, and dinners. Matt finished up his month-o-Navy, so that’s a good feeling. I will never complain about these normal days. 

Annapolis

On Thursday of spring break we went on an Annapolis adventure with the little D’s and Jess & Adeline. 

I am lookng for windows to decorate our family room, and found some in Shady Side, which is only about 15 minutes from Annapolis. When I found out Chelsea and crew were going, I decided to tag along. C had a whole day planned out with thrift store stops and fun all along the way. We switched kids back and forth and it was so fun. Sadly, the window situation didn’t work out - they were the perfect size, but the wrong orientation. 

A few thrift stores and a dollar tree for good measure, and then our beautiful state house. It was such a pretty day and the state house is amazing!

Girlfriend is a trip!

Her own pose, obvi. She was work-ing it. 

For a little while we were able to tag along with a tour group, and since she was telling about a sunken ship, everyone was fascinated. She told about the Baltimore tea party, lesser known than the Boston one. 

I love this thinking girl. 

Delaney really wanted to go up into the cupola, especially after we learned about the worker that fell to his death building it. She wouldn’t take my word for it that we couldn’t go up, so she asked a guard. Because mommas not asking for her. 

Their pose with George W. D was in a posing kind of mood!

“Delaney, come on!”

Spring break fun at the state house!

Then we played on the grounds. Tulips are my favorite! And it was bright. 

💕

Curly girl!

The kids could have run around there all day. The only problem was the climbing my girls do incessantly. 

Next stop was the mall. Little D’s have a store they like to go to, pretzels, and I wanted to check out Gymboree and Ctazy 8 before they closed. Spoiler, they already closed. 

C always likes to do these fun pics of feet and then flip it up to get faces. 

A whole lot of fun and walking done with these feet. 

More state house fun. We love our flag!

7 buckets of fun! And semi listening kids. 

After the mall we did dinner at a cute little Italian restaurant. I was ready to grab McD’s and head home, but the girls voted for Italian with friends. It went ok, not great. We were all pretty done by that point. But the food was delicious and I do love all these people, so it was still fun. We got home after 9. Party all the time!