It's Official and reflections

We are ending one chapter in our lives and beginning another.  Marcus recently accepted a new job in Utah. 

Marcus is super excited.  He can hardly contain himself.  His job will include both engineering and business skills.  The cherry on top will be working with China again.  He is thrilled.  In all honesty I don't know how he will finish the next month at work.  It is great to see him excited about work again.

The rest of us are on the fence.  We are very excited to live close to family again.  It will be wonderful to be a part of family gatherings, get to know cousins and maybe, just maybe, my kids will get to visit their Darrington grandparents home for the first time in their life.  We are thrilled to live in a place that has the best climate of anywhere we have lived.  We love seasons and Utah does not disappoint.  I am personally excited to see some friends more regularly that I dearly love.  Having Jackson grandparents 10 minutes away is the best part of all.

The downside?  After one of the hardest times in my entire life (literally) we finally feel okay here.  Coming back from vacation the end of this past summer Marcus and I both commented that it was the first time we didn't drive back with dread.  Minnesota has not been our home until just the last few months.  We have had something like 13 families move into our ward in the last 6-8 months.  It has been heaven sent.  Our family has been praying for new families to come for 3 years.  Ainsley has kids her own age and friends!  This is a big deal since there was her and one other child her age for most of the last 3 years.  She is in a little preschool trade that she cherishes.  Reagan is loving school and has a good friend.  Will has an entire group of boys his age and is finally excited to be in nursery.  For me, the last few months have been wonderful.  I no longer feel as if the loneliness here will kill me.  Instead I am surrounded by women that I respect and love and treat me the same.

A big lesson was learned.  A very hard lesson.  A testimony altering lesson.  Never before in my life have I had experiences that I have had here.  Never before have I dreaded attending church.  For the first time I found myself an outsider.  I have always had friends.  It has never been a challenge in my life.  Looking back, I can see the growth and knowledge such an experience has provided.   It has also been eye opening as to what kind of woman I want to be and what kind I don't.  I had an amazing visiting teacher through the worst of it.  I knew she was praying for me.  I could feel it.  She would randomly show up on the very worst days, when the loneliness felt as if it would consume me.  I will always cherish her for showing me kindness and caring about me.

In the end the kids and I are nervous.  For me it is scary to go somewhere new again after the last move was so hard.  (It sounds crazy considering we have moved a ton and have lived all over and had great experiences everywhere else!)  Reagan wants to stay in her school.  Ainsley is okay to move as long as her friends move with us - this just about breaks my heart as I know this will be hard for her.  Will just likes his home (his familiar place).  We will all adjust and have decided together to support Marcus. 

So that is it.  Our house is on the market and the transition begins.  Wish us luck.  We are going to need it in the next few months!

Random Tid Bits

This year I am learning how to make pies.  It has been so much fun.  I love how beautiful they can look.  This was my first attempt at a lattice crust apple pie.  Yummy!

Ainsley at her Halloween Dance class.  I just loved the pictures.

Reagan at her last day of gymnastics.  She chose to go back to dance for a little while.  She loved gymnastics though and asks me to help her learn walk-overs.  I am sure she will take more classes in the future.  I didn't get any pictures of her on the beam which is sad because I think it is her best area.  She has no fear. 

And my little bike rider.  He is too cute on his bike.  He cruises around with his sisters and has no problem keeping up.  We had to ride every day.  He loved it so much.

Ainsley's Birthday - Family Celebration

Birthday breakfast.  Because I waited so long, I have no idea what she chose except sausage.  Breakfast meat is pretty much a birthday sort of thing at our house.

Grandma bought the girls new Sunday dresses and they wouldn't wait until after breakfast because they were so excited to wear them so, shirts and aprons went on top.

This is Ainsley's birthday dinner.  She had noodles, bread, broccoli, and cantaloupe.

My how I love this little girl.

We were very lucky to have Grandma and Grandpa here to celebrate the occasion.

And to finish it off, a normal picture of the three kids.  I wish I could say I felt sorry for Will but the kid holds his own. 

I can't believe my little Ains is 4 years old.  Time is certainly flying.  She is such a helpful little one.  She loves loves loves her routine.  She can accomplish anything IF it is in a routine.  If our schedule gets messed up, it is hard on this sensitive child.  She is my homebody.  She is my snuggler.  She loves books.  She will let you read to her for hours.  She is also the mothering child in our house.  Ainsley has a gift for including others (especially younger kids) and for seeing how others feel.  She is also a huge teaser.  She loves to get a reaction out of her siblings and also mom and dad.  Her latest and greatest is hiding.  She will randomly hide.  Marcus told her she is easy to find because she snickers (her word for giggling).  As soon as he mentioned that, the snickering disappeared.  Her hiding skills have drastically improved. 

There have been several moments in the past week that I have wished I could capture a moment and freeze it in time.  Mostly involving Ainsley and Reagan.  They are the best of friends (don't worry, plenty of fights as well).  They read together, play house or school or barbies or anything together, they team up against mom and dad.  I just love when I walk around a corner in the morning to see them snuggled in bed together reading a book by the light of a flashlight.  Do they really have to grow up? 

We love you Ainsley!  Our family would not be the same without you.

Ainsley's 4th Birthday Party

 We had a "color" themed party this year for Ainsley.  She is very much into colors right now and blue and purple are her very favorite.  I can't find the invitation that we sent out.  Marcus (again) did some clever rhyme that included some rainbow code that I have never heard of.  Oh yes, and because we were both running on low, neither one of us caught our spelling error, will instead of we'll.  AWESOME.

We played a coloring version of musical chairs.  Each child had a marker and when the music stopped, they would stop and color.  It worked just okay.  If I did it again I would have a paper for them with shapes or something that their specific color needed to fill and then have a contest to see who could get their color on the most papers.  Hind sight.  The kids still had fun.

Next they headed downstairs for games.  Of course they needed to dress-up first. 

We tried a couple of games and soon realized the kids were not quite old enough.  This was dropping the pom pom into the jar.  They would pretty much touch their noses to the jar.  It was hilarious.  Again, at least they had fun.

We tried a couple of relays but then aborted and played "keep the balloon off the ground".  It was a much better option. 

Then Marcus had this great idea to try and pop the balloon by sitting on it.  Oh boy did those kiddos try to pop the balloons.  Unfortunately, they didn't realize that I am terrified of blowing up balloons and always make sure that they will not pop in my face (meaning they aren't super inflated) so those balloons were not popping.  So darn funny to watch the kids try.

Marcus couldn't just watch but even he couldn't pop the balloon... with out a little additional weight.  The kids quickly realized that if they sat on him, his balloon would pop.  Again, so darn funny.

Then we played Twister.  Kind of.  Again, so funny!

 

I finally bought some color paste from Michael's (seriously, why did I wait so long!) and we had a blast making the coolest cupcakes.  My parents were in town and my mom had two creative ideas that turned out awesome... the cupcakes and the party favors.

Our cute neighbor girl Emma.  This is one of Ainsley's favorite friends.  She is the daughter of the fireman family that lives up the street (the same family that had to unlock us out of the girls' bedroom when we locked ourselves in during story time).

The last activity was a treasure hunt where the kids had to find four paper crayons to put in their "crayon box" or party bag.  We attached play dough, crayons, paints, and these super awesome pretzel crayons from here.  We had a great time. 



Star of the Week

Ainsley was the Star of the Week in dance right before her birthday.  She was able to be first in line for the mat time, lead a dance to a song of her choice, where a crown, and pick out the sticker for the end of the class.  It is such a simple but fun event that her instructor does.  The kids love it.  It is pretty fun to watch a 3 year old lead other kids her age in a dance.  Ainsley did a great job.

The Mother's Curse

When I was in highschool I forged my moms signature often.  Really often.  I was a pretty good kid but loved forging her name.  In all reality, my mom liked my help with the shopping and if I remember correctly had me sign one of her cards when it arrived in the mail because I used it quite a bit.  Anyway, I opened Reagan's daily school folder to initial the paper inside and was shocked to see it had already been done for me:)!  It gave me a good chuckle.  And... truthfully, I was a bit proud.

Preschool

This year we have had a big group of new families move into our ward.  It has been an answer to our little family's prayers.  Now instead of their being one other child Ainsley's age, there are six.  A huge side benefit is the preschool trade we have been able to start.  I have tried this in the past with Reagan and it wasn't very successful (glorified playdate).  This group has been awesome!  It is organized and all the parents are really invested.  Here is the little group with Will wearing the Cat in the Hat hat in front.  The kids get along well and have a great time.  Ainsley loves it.

Just a couple of adorable pictures of my almost 4 year old in October.  I sure love this sweet girl.