Sunday, November 12, 2017

November is my new fave.

Things are good here. I almost can't separate the week into days, which means it rolled along blissfully without much on the schedule. It was the first week that I've had no new photography shoots to go to since August. . . instead of trying to juggle mom/business-owner, I could just focus on being mom. I would frequently have a pit in my stomach throughout the week thinking I needed to organize a babysitter or I was missing something only to realize there was nothing to forget. I think this is why my poor kids aren't signed up for a darn thing. They beg for dance (hannah) and horse back riding (Liesel), but it feels too good to have no deadlines to pack everyone up for. Liesel will be starting piano lessons after Thanksgiving (taught by Leslie), but that feels different. 

I feel like I've hardly seen Brian lately. He was gone in Denver last week and when he got back, his two friends from FLETC were in town on Mon/Tues so he spent both of his days off with them. Then he was in charge of an 80 person SAR training involving multiple counties in Utah, so that kept him busy the rest of the week until today. And he got into bed at 8pm. 

We celebrated our TEN YEAR wedding anniversary on Friday and were able to go on a date that night to a fancy restaurant in town. It was fun to think back and we both decided that we are pretty much exactly where we thought we would be after 10 years of marriage. We're heading on an overnight getaway to Fruita, CO tomorrow. Maybe we can pick out a baby name since we still have talked about that at all! 

Speaking of which, I feel like with the holidays rapidly approaching, I'm going to be due before I know it. Once New Years is over, I'll have like, 3 weeks till go-time. Wow. Baby number 4. Kind of feels like the top of the roller coaster and you know you've signed up for it, but you're still like "oh man! What did I get myself into!" I've decided to try and ignore my discomfort and run and mountain bike through this pregnancy. It definitely improves my happiness level... although I went with two other friends this week and I was in the back the whole time. I don't like being last. 

This week I'm realizing what a big girl Liesel is. She is reading amazingly well and just bumped up another reading level this week. She doesn't struggle at all with math or anything else in class. Her teacher told me at p/t conferences that Liesel is the kind of girl she can pair with anyone in class. With this said, she had been complaining about a difficult reading partner for a while and it just switched to one of her good friends-- Justin. She was very happy about that. School comes pretty naturally to her, but it also might be that Moab curriculum is easy. Liesel has really stepped up to being an older sister to Felicity lately and it's so cute when she will give her attention. Today F was growling like a lion and L was screaming and it made Felicity laugh so hard. 

Hannah has seemed a bit glum since she turned five. Not all the time, but more prone to massive mood swings. She brought a rock on our hike yesterday that she had found about a month ago-- it was shaped like a pizza and she carried it the entire 4.5 miles but somehow lost it in the last half mile. She ran back to where she last went pee on the trail all by herself to try and find it, but no luck. Her little slumped shoulders let me know immediately there was no success. She is a determined little girl and cried for the rest of the way to the car. 

This week I took felicity on several excursions while the kids were in school... mostly biking. She hated some and cried the whole time and loved others. She surprised me by hiking almost the entire 4.5 mile trail yesterday. She never complained, so I never picked her up until the last little bit back to the car when she seemed so tired she was laughing and loopy. I think she was still tired today because they told me she was very cranky in nursery and refused to color her picture. I am struggling with her to learn anything of a religious nature. Her prayer is the exact same every time and she gets very annoyed if I try and encourage her to add anything: "dear Hevly Father, tank dee for mom and dad. Name of Jesus Christ amen." This of course really offends Hannah and Liesel, but that doesn't seem to faze F'liss in getting the job done as quickly as possible. I'm worried about this new baby rocking her world, but I just tell myself that in five years, everything will be easier and Liesel will be able to babysit. ;) 

November this year has been surprisingly stunning-- hardly any gloomy days, perfect weather and still a few leaves clinging to branches. 

Hiking Negro Bill canyon with my girls and the Heidi's kids yesterday. I will still call it Negro Bill canyon despite the official BLM politically correct name change to William Grandstaff Canyon. 

My tic-tac-toe of cuties. 

Taking selfies with Felicity and laughing at all of her cute faces. There were several funny faces, but this was the only one without gag-enducing yellow snot running down her face.

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