Isaac turns 10! (and other cool things going on in his world)

Isaac just turned 10 about a month ago, I can't believe how fast time has passed! He has been wanting a gizmo watch for years, so it was pretty fun to surprise him with that (and I love being able to get ahold of him when he is out playing in the neighborhood!). He also got to have a super fun birthday party at Classic Skating.

 He is in 4th grade this year and still doing Chinese Immersion. It was really hard for him when 3rd grade ended so weirdly with the pandemic, especially because his 3rd grade English teacher was his favorite teacher so far. I am really proud of him for getting through something really hard and being resilient. Having to wear masks at school this year has probably been the hardest for him out of all my kids. We bought him a couple of different gaiters, which I think he likes better.

He is such a big help with Brooklyn!! He is so cute with her and it absolutely melts my heart!

(Sharing his popsicle with her)

He just finished up another soccer season where he rocked it, especially at goalie. I absolutely love watching him play! I hope he will go on to play for years to come. 

His team this year, "The Legends"

Took this pic of him on the day he made a goal! I  am so sad I wasn't at his game when he did it 😭 (Keith and I take turns going to his games and the other stays home with Brooklyn, she is so hard at things like that and we would end up spending the whole time chasing her around).

His favorite things to do are soccer, riding his bike, playing with friends, playing video games, and making videos for his YouTube channel (a project we started just for fun during quarantine). He always says that its his dream to be a youtuber someday. He is very in to Legend of Zelda and even has a Link costume that he dresses up in often to just play pretend. It makes me sad to think that he probably won't dress up and play pretend for much longer 😭 

Claire is rocking Kindergarten!!

Claire is rocking kindergarten!!! 🍎✏📚 She loves it so much and is always so excited to go each day. Her teacher is darling and does so many cute and fun things with the class. 

First day of kindergarten! I just love her style ❤

Claire with her teacher, Mrs. Dean (this was taken at the open house a couple of days before school started)

Because of covid the parents aren't allowed to go in the classroom much (this absolutely ripped my heart out on the first day of school 😭 I knew it was going to be that way and yet when it came down to it I took it harder than I thought I would). Thankfully her sweet teacher took tons of pictures of the kids on the first day and sent them to the parents! (Including this one of Claire sitting at her desk on the first day). She is awesome. 

P.S. its still so weird to me to see the kids with masks on 😔

This was the day she got to do show & tell. It was so funny because out of all the things in the world she could take for show & tell, she chose to take these dead snail shells that she found. 🐌 She was 100% set on taking these. It was so cute & funny!

Today Claire was so excited that she got to take the Mystery Bag to class! She couldn't wait until it was her turn! She got the letter "P" so we found items around the house that start with the letter "P" and put them in the bag, and we took a treat for the class ("purple princess" fruit snacks) 😁💜

Just cuz they are both so cute. I went to take this picture before school one day and Brooklyn wanted to get in the picture with her 👭💕

I can already tell she is learning lots (which is seriously amazing considering how short kindergarten is, and its even shorter right now because of the early out every day schedule due to covid!). I can't wait to see how much she grows this year!! 

2020 - The year we lived through a global pandemic

2020 has been a heck of a ride. We started out the year moving in to our new house, which was so awesome. We were just starting to get settled in and looking forward to spring when the 💩 hit the fan! At the beginning of March, Malea, Brooklyn and I went on a trip to Arizona to visit my friend Jill. That was the last time we got to travel for months (its September and we still haven't traveled much, or even left the state). We had heard about coronavirus on the news (or covid-19), mostly affecting China. We never dreamed that it would affect us here. As time went on, we started getting more and more worried, eventually finding out that it had spread to the US. We saw footage of over run hospitals in China, lots of people dying, and we were terrified. Suddenly you would go to the store and you wouldn't be able to find essential items like toilet paper. People were going crazy, over buying food storage to the point where the shelves were bare. You couldn't find canned foods or flour. It was insane! Then on Friday March 13th, my kids left school for the day, having no idea at the time that they wouldn't get to go back for the rest of the school year. We were told that it would only be for 2 weeks. Then it got extended to May 1st. Then, they finally came out and said that the kids would not be going back for the remainder of the school year. That was a pretty tough conversation to have with them.

All colleges sent their students home and went online. Non-essential businesses were forced to close, and people were told that if it was possible to work from home, they had to do it (this included Keith). Church was switched to at-home only, temples closed, and Missionaries were sent home from their missions. You weren't allowed to go in a restaurant, only drive thru or curbside. Weddings were cancelled, funerals had to be limited to family. We were told that we had to go in to quarantine, where we weren't allowed to spend time with anyone outside of our house hold, in order to "flatten the curve". Eventually all play grounds were closed. Everything on the news was scary. 

First day of "at-home school" aka remote learning

Pics of the kids after we started remote learning (it was rough....there were lots of tears and frustrations, missing friends and normalcy, etc)

Isaac on a Zoom meeting with Mrs. Taylor, his 3rd grade English teacher. She was his favorite teacher and he was so sad he didn't get to finish the school year in person with her. 

Malea had an assignment to make a slide show about something, so she chose gardening and shared her presentation with the family 

Keith starting work from home (which he is still doing 6 months later, and probably will until at least 2021). There are times it has been a blessing, and times it has been hard (like when the kids are loud 😬)

All public playgrounds were taped off 

Then! To make matters worse, Utah had an earthquake on March 18th. That was crazy! It was already a scary, uncertain time, and then the earthquake just made it feel that much more scary. We felt it a little bit down here in Springville, but it was a lot worse up in the Salt Lake area. The stores were already having a hard time keeping up with the demand, and the earthquake made it 10x worse. 

Malea made everyone in the family a mask 🥰

It was one of the hardest times of my life. I think I cried every day for weeks. Everything was so weird and uncertain. Every fun activity and event was cancelled. Malea was just wrapping up her last year of elementary school, and all the "lasts" she would normally get to experience were cancelled. I cried about this daily for months and even still tear up about when I think about it too much. Claire was wrapping up her last year of pre-k. Isaac had lots of things to look forward to at the end of 3rd grade. All cancelled. I felt like I was taking on the emotions of all my kids and their disappointments and fears. I know things weren't as bad for us as they were for some people, but it was still really hard. A couple of weeks into quarantine we found out Keith had to take a 20% pay cut for 6 months. Some people got laid off, so we were grateful he had a job at all, but it was still a huge blow, especially after just building a new house. We had lots of plans and things we wanted to do for our yard and house that had to be put on hold. At the time all the play grounds were closed, and we had no grass at all. So despite money being tight, we got some grass put in our backyard, just so the kids had somewhere to play!

LOTS of tears were shed during this time 😔

A picture from when I cleaned out Malea's backpack recently. It felt like it was frozen in time. Her incomplete March reading calendar, the script from the play "Peter Pan" that she was supposed to be in, a flyer for the book fair that was supposed to happen the week after school was cancelled, her permission slip for the track meet. All cancelled 😭💔

Thankfully, around the end of May, Utah was able to switch to yellow phase, which meant that things could open back up slowly (with precautions). This meant we were able to have a somewhat normal summer. I feel fortunate that this was the case, because things are still pretty strict in a lot of other states. 

Signs like this are everywhere, although now instead of "requested" they say "required". You can't go in to most major stores without one (i.e. Walmart, Smiths, Target, etc).

During quarantine we went on lots of walks and bike rides. We were lucky to have bikes, because during this time it was actually hard to even find bikes or scooters at the store!

Working on the backyard 

We didn't have grass yet, so we spent lots of time outside playing in our driveway.

Claire colored.....A LOT!!!

Lots of movie nights! These two also had sleepovers on the couches, which was kind of fun and different 

The library was closed, but you could order books online and go pick them up.

Mostly I wanted to do this post for memory's sake. But also as a reminder that we got through, and are still going through, something really hard. We have really had to band together as a family. There were weeks where the kids had to spend lots of time together, and were each other's friends. We played lots of board games together, went on bike rides, did movie nights and made forts, and explored our new neighborhood. We landscaped our backyard and Malea started a garden. It wasn't always easy, but I'm glad they had each other. It really put into perspective what is most important. It was also a good reminder to be prepared with our food storage and emergency kits, especially after earthquake.

Now it is September, and in Utah things are a little better but still uncertain. Thankfully, the kids were able to go back to school in person (HALLELUJAH), at least for now. They do have to wear masks, which is really hard and heartbreaking (I cried a lot of tears over that announcement too, and it took me weeks to come to terms with it), but we are glad they are able to go at all (a lot of states are still doing remote learning). Our numbers were really low for a while, and now they are spiking some. I'm really worried about them closing schools again. With cold and flu season coming, I really worry about what is to come. But I am just trying to take things day by day. 

First day of school, covid style 🤷‍♀️

2020 still isn't over, and we have had even more craziness outside of the pandemic, like an upcoming election and all that entails, the black lives matter movement and protests, etc. Lots of memes and jokes on social media talk about how we all can't wait for this year to be over, and hopefully things will go back to normal soon (although, I don't think a lot of things will be "normal" again for years). There are lots of things I could go in to, about how this pandemic was handled, how political it has gotten, whether or not we should have to be this strict about everything, how mental health is suffering nationwide and the economy is being affected, etc. Its a very complex issue. But I'll just say that  I have good days and bad days, and mostly just miss my pre-covid life. This experience will be a good lesson in enduring through trials and trying to make the best of hard situations. We have lived through a historical event that I hope we never have to experience again!

We built a house! 🏡

Another big change that I wanted to post about since I last kept up on this blog is that we built a new house! This was an absolute dream come true for us and was a long time coming. We sold our last house in May of 2018 and moved in to a rental home in Spanish Fork while we figured out where we wanted to build. There were lots of twists and turns along the way. We almost built in a different neighborhood with a different builder, but that didn't end up working out and we are actually really glad. We ended up in a great area that we love and I'm so glad that it worked out this way. We lived in the rental longer than we wanted, but it was better in the long run. We closed on January 9th, 2020 and started moving in right away! We love our new home and neighborhood! ❤

Getting our keys shortly after closing!

💕 Brooklyn Jill Walker 💕

Something big that has happened in the last 4 years since I last did a blog post is we had our 4th baby! 💗👶💗 Brooklyn Jill Walker was born June 4th, 2019 at 3:48am. She has been such a blessing to our family and is the perfect little caboose. Sadly, she is my last baby, and I shed many tears over the baby chapter of my life ending. But four is a great number for us and we feel that she completes our family. 

(Ignore how haggard I look, haha....it was 3:48am 😴)

She was 7 lbs 15 oz and 20 inches long. She came at 38 weeks, just like her older sister Claire, and she was my biggest baby. My water broke at home at about 1:30am, and she came not too long after. (That was a crazy thing to experience, I have never had my water break when I wasn't already at the hospital.....all of my labors have been fast, especially after my water breaks, so Keith drove REALLY fast to the hospital). My mom came over to be with the kids, so it was fun because in the morning they woke up to the surprise of her baby sister being born! It was really really special. (I am going to include her birth story at the end of this post that is way more in depth, for my own memory's sake).

Some pics from the hospital & when the kids got to come meet her in person:

First pic as a family of six!! 😱 (I still can't believe I have 4 kids sometimes)

(My heart just wanted to explode when I saw all my kids together with her 😭 there is nothing like it)

Since I'm making a very quick and condensed post about Brooklyn, here is a little compilation of pics from her first year:

I was so excited when I found this cute blanket, it felt like the perfect thing since she was our rainbow🌈 baby 💗 (I had a miscarriage in Sept of 2018). 

I really tried to cherish every moment with her, knowing she was my last baby. During the first half of her first year, we were living in a temporary rental in Spanish Fork while we waited for our house to be built (I'll do a separate post on that later). It was squishy and she was sleeping in our room with us most of that time, so we were very ready for our house to be done. Then in January of 2020 we moved, so the second half of her first year was spent in the new house. 

Just cuz I love this picture of her 😍 she was about 10-11 months here. I feel like I could do a million more pics of her first year, but thankfully I have all of those saved on Instagram. 

By March of 2020 we were living through a pandemic. It was a very crazy time. But I'm grateful we were in our new house and we could all be together. Keith started working from home, which was a blessing in disguise because he got to see more of her during those last few months of her "babyhood". 

Thankfully by her 1st birthday the lock downs had relaxed a little so we were able to do a birthday party for her. We were able to get enough grass put down in our backyard to have a party back there and it turned out so cute! I had a lot of fun planning it.

She DEVOURED her cake, it was so funny!!!

Its so unfair how fast the first year goes by. But I'm so grateful we were able to have a 4th baby and that I got to experience it one more time. Now she is 15 months old and she is BUSY!!! I would daresay she is in 2nd place to her brother Isaac with how busy she is, and that is really saying something. She just figured out how to climb on the kitchen chairs and gets right on top of the table!!! 😱 we have had to turn the chairs around to deter her but she still does it. It's crazy how fast they go from being a little newborn who can barely move, to climbing on the furniture. Motherhood sure is a crazy ride! We sure love this little cutie!

Brooklyn's birth story: 

Birth story: Part 1: I had a OBGYN appt that morning (the 3rd) and was disappointed to find out that I hadn't progressed at all from the previous week (I was still 1cm and 70% effaced). I really didn't want to make it to my inducement date on the 11th because I didnt want Claire and Brooklyn's birthdays to be a day apart. I had been having a lot of pressure, back pain, etc that I thought would have helped me progressed. I did have a bad cold the week before though, and had been trying to rest as much as I could to get over the cold before the baby got here, so I think that set me back. After the appt I took Malea to an art camp she was doing and then after that was over we decided to go to the splash pad. I took the kids to the splash pad and had to park kind of far away because Art City days was starting that week. We got set up fine and the kids played. I ran in to a mom friend of mine and at one point while I was standing there talking to her I suddenly felt like I was going to pass out. It was really weird. So I went and sat down and after that I didn't feel great. Keith happened to get off work and was heading home right then, so he met us at the splash pad and helped us get all the stuff back to the car (I didnt know if I would be able to do it by myself since I didnt feel well). I went and got the kids snow cones. It was actually a really fun outing and I'm glad we were able to go do that since I ended up having the baby that night. That afternoon we kind of just hung out and lounged around. I had been having contractions off and on but they were irregular so I didn't think anything of it. As the evening went on they started getting a little more regular. Keith and I sat outside that evening and watched the kids jump on the trampoline, it was such a nice night and it was fun to just sit and watch them. While I was sitting there I was having crampy contractions so I started timing them. The timing of them were random (like every 10 min, then 20 min, then 15 min) but I kept timing them anyway. We got the kids to bed and then as it got later they started becoming more regular. I started to wonder if this might be it. By about 10-11pm Keith went to bed and said to wake him up if anything changed. I stayed up and decided to clean up the living room & kitchen, I took a shower and shaved my legs (Haha) and then wrote out instructions for my mom in case I did end up needing to go in. By about midnight/12:30 or so I decided maybe I should just lay down and try to get some sleep. At that point my contractions were more steady at about 10 minutes apart. I debated whether to tell my mom but I didnt want to wake her up in case it was false labor. I fell asleep for a little bit and at 1:30am I got woken up by a painful contraction and then felt a "popping" feeling. It was such a weird sensation I can't even explain it. It felt like someone popped a water balloon inside my stomach. So weird! I said "oh my gosh!" And stood up really quick and ran to the bathroom. I went pee and then when I stood up water just kept coming out on to the bathroom floor. I knew then that my water had broken (I was pretty out of it haha). Keith had gotten up right then to go pee too (in a different bathroom) and when he came back in the room I said "my water just broke!" So we started scrambling to get everything ready. He called my mom and she said she would come over to be with the kids. In the past when my water has broken (which every time has been in a hospital bed in active labor) I have delivered really quick after that, so I was honestly a little scared that we wouldn't make it to the hospital. Thankfully the contractions hadn't been super close together yet, but once my water broke the contractions went from 10 minutes apart to 5 minutes and they are getting stronger. We didn't even grab my suitcase or anything, just my phone and purse and a towel to sit on. We left the front door unlocked and left, and my mom got there a few minutes later.

Part 2: Keith drove really fast to the hospital because he knew how fast my labors go, especially after my water breaks. He called ahead to warn them that we were coming. We got there at about 2:10am and got checked in and since my water had already broken they admitted me right away. I told them that my labors went fast so they did a good job of getting me hooked up and going with everything quick. After I got my IV and everything they checked me and I was already a 4.5-5 cm. It was crazy that just that morning I was only 1cm and hadn't really progressed since the week before. They asked if I wanted an epidural and I said yes definitely. So the anesthesiologist came and started the epidural. It was ironic because I had the same nurse and anesthesiologist as when I delivered Claire, so the whole thing felt very dejavu. It was interesting too because the same thing happened as it did with Claire, which is that it only numbed half my body at first and the epidural didn't quite kick in fast enough for delivery. After the epidural was done they checked me and I was at a 7cm. That was probably only a half hour later or so, so things were progressing fast. They had me lean on one side to help get the epidural to move to the opposite side. I could tell she was going to be coming soon. It is a stressful feeling knowing that the baby is coming soon and the epidural wasn't going to keep up fast enough! Not long after that I started feeling the urge to push. They had called the doctor by that point and he was on his way.  (Unfortunately Dr. Harward wasn't on call that night so Dr. Young delivered her. He did a good job). When my water broke there was a little bit of meconium so they made sure to have a respiratory therapist there when she came out. When I started to feel the urge to push she checked me again and I was at a 10cm. They got everything ready and I started pushing. I could still feel a lot and was in a lot of pain. It was hard for Keith to see me like that so he just hung back to the side (plus he gets queesie). I started pushing and she did not want to come out. In my past deliveries I only had to push a few times and they would be out. This time felt like it was taking an eternity. I knew something was wrong since she wasn't coming out as easily. After a while the doctor said that he needed to use forceps because every time I pushed her heart rate would go down. The forceps really hurt but as soon as he used those I pushed one or two more times and she was out. Turned out that the cord was wrapped around her neck once so every time I pushed it would pinch it off. I'm so glad she got out safely and there were no problems. She came out and they took her and sucked out everything and then I got to do skin to skin. I was so happy she was finally here! All those months of discomfort and sickness and she was finally here. She had lots of hair and I noticed right away that she had long fingernails, which was kind of funny. They went to weigh her and she just pooped and pooped and peed all over. She ended up being 7 lbs 15 oz but they said had she not pooped so much she would have been at least 8 lbs. My biggest baby! And 2 weeks early! Once I was stitched up and all taken care of everyone left except for my main nurse and Keith & I just held her and stared at her for a while. She was so perfect. She was born at 3:48am and by the time everything was said and done it was closer to 4:30-5am. I hadn't slept much at all (maybe 45 minutes or so) but I was so happy and excited that I didn't even feel tired. We knew that the kids would wake up soon and be super surprised that my mom was there. We planned on video calling them after they woke up in the morning so they could see her.

I'm back! {4 years later 😬}

I've decided to bring this blog back from the dead!! 🎉 For the past few years I've posted most of my family pictures on to social media, which was fine for a while but I'm getting to a point where social media is getting so negative and bad for my mental health, so I decided I'm going to focus more on my blog. I find myself getting sucked in and suddenly I've wasted an hour just sitting there scrolling. Between the covid pandemic, the upcoming election, protests, etc its just gotten so bad on social media. I cannot believe the amount of trolls and cyberbullying that goes on, mostly with grown adults! Its crazy! There is also a lot of worrisome things I have learned about trafficking and I just want to be more careful about keeping my kids safe while still being able to keep in touch with people and keep track of important memories. (I will actually be making this blog private soon, so if you would like to have access to it let me know!). Keeping a record of my kids' milestones and special accomplishments has been really important to me, and I've had my Instagram account synced up to my chatbooks for a few years now, so I will keep posting there as well but I will go in to more detail here and share things that are a little more personal. I have found that I want to share things for my own memory but I feel a little silly sharing it over social media. I also want to eventually get this blog printed out, because I've got years worth of blog posts and pictures/memories that I want my kids to be able to look back on. I feel a little overwhelmed at the thought of having to go back and do catch up, so I'll probably just start from today on (although I do want to do a separate post about Brooklyn, our newest addition to the family since my last post on her 4 years ago). Anyway! Just wanted to give a little update for the 3 people that read this blog 😉 (do people even read blogs anymore? Haha). Anyway, I'm excited to start trying to spend less time on social media and more time focused on what is most important. 🥰