3 Months Old!

Brody is 3 months old today!  Apparently the first three months of a baby's life is referred to as the "4th trimester".  Who knew?  So I guess we are graduating out of the 4th trimester today, and we have mixed emotions.  As I said to him this morning, "You're three months old today!  I'm not OK with that, but I am OK with it at the same time."  It's nice as they get a little older and start to settle into somewhat of a routine (not much of a routine, but better than those first few days of life).  But it's sad that they grow SO fast at the same time.

Brody continues to just be a little ray of sunshine.  We are all smitten by him...and he's becoming quite the charmer in our new ward here too.  Hard not to be popular when you're so dang cute...and I guess it's also because he's the only baby in the whole ward.  (Yep...ONLY baby.)

Here are some ADORABLE pictures of our sweet boy.

Concentrating hard, silently mocking the crazy people trying to get him to smile

Practicing his kung fu

He's starting to coo like crazy, I love the faces he makes when he's talking to us

Staring at Daddy...trying to decide if he thinks Daddy is funny or not

Yep...Daddy is funny

I love whole body smiles

We're SO grateful he's in our family!

Why?

Feeling defeated and discouraged tonight after a sad conversation with a sad little girl that really left me asking the same questions as her...WHY?

This evening, I had just put the 2 year old in bed and came out to find Brielle crying alone in her room.  I don't mean like a little teary, or maybe annoyed...I mean full on crying.

I asked her what was wrong, not sure what to expect.  And she just started sobbing.  She misses her friends in St. George so bad, and she's having a hard time.  She had THE BEST group of friends there, the best friends she's ever had.  They were the cutest, sweetest girls I had ever met as well. She asked so many questions that I just couldn't really answer.

- Why did we have to move here?

- Why are we the ones that always have to keep moving?

- Why couldn't daddy's boss have fired someone else and let daddy keep his job?

- Why couldn't daddy find a new job in St. George?

- Why couldn't he just work at Walmart there so we could stay?

- Why can't we just go back?

I wish, so much, that I could have answered her questions better.  But really all I could tell her was that I didn't know the answers.  That I was equally as frustrated and wished things were different as well, but that if we focus on all that's hard while we're here, we'll just be miserable, that we have to make the most of it.  

I tried to come up with some comforting things about "opportunities" we'll have here that we couldn't have in Utah.  But all I could muster was that we'd learn there are good people everywhere, not just in Utah or in the church, and that we'd have more opportunities for service here maybe.  

That was all I could think of.  

Truth be told, I want to know the answer to the questions as well!

Her list of questions are basically the same ones that run through my head on repeat day in and day out.  WHY?  Why are we here?  Why does this keep happening to us?  Why can't we just land somewhere and stay put?

Brielle continued on saying how hard it is here, because there is nobody like her St. George friends.  And she's right, it's very different here. She has one friend that she talks about.  She doesn't make it sound like she necessarily really likes this girl, but that it's someone who's been nice enough, so she spends some time with her.  My heart is just breaking for her!  

Another thing that makes it hard here is you aren't assigned to a school based on where you live, you just randomly pick a school to send your kids to.  So there is no neighborhood cohesiveness where all the kids go together.  In fact, there is only one family in our whole neighborhood that has kids going to the same school as ours.   

I told Brielle I understand how hard it is to move and leave friends behind.  But she told me I don't truly understand, because I never moved as a kid after I started kindergarten.  Which is true.  She said as an adult it's easier because I can still keep in touch with my friends on Facebook or call and email them as much as I want.  She was upset because she doesn't have phone numbers or addresses to write any of her friends.  She feels completely torn away from them.

And you know...she's totally right.  It sucks.  This is a very hard situation that I feel was completely out of our control.  We were not happily looking to leave Utah and found this.  We were forced out because of circumstances we could not control.  

The "why's" may just kill me...because I am not patient and I don't want to wait and figure it out.  I just want to know why I have to put my sweet girl through this hard time, take my family away from relatives - again - to a place that doesn't seem to hold a lot for us.  

And it really makes me mad.  And sad.  And homesick.

I wish the conversation had ended with us hugging and laughing about all the fun we could have while we were in California...but it didn't.  While we did hug and talk, we are basically both just going to bed feeling sad and confused.

I hope for answers and clarity soon, because right now it makes no sense. 

Other Random Happenings

I realize I've increased the blogging lately, and maybe you like it, maybe you're annoyed by it...but whenever we move away from family (which has happened WAY TOO MANY TIMES) I always feel a greater need to blog our regular old daily lives to keep all those family members and friends in the know (you know...all 2 of you that read my blog).

SO...here are pictures from my cell phone of other random happenings over the last couple weeks.

Molly likes markers...especially ones she finds hidden in her older sisters' bedroom.  We have tried many hiding places, but she always finds this one dang green dry erase marker and colors herself with it.  This is not a new thing, she did it MANY times in St. George as well.

The girls were building towers from Jenga pieces

Addison was just being silly 

Molly was being...well...Molly

Have I mentioned that our kitchen here is purple?  Yeah...it is...I don't like it...but I'm not going to paint a rental, so we just live with it.

Addison likes to play with the settings on my cell phone camera and take funny pictures

 Brody LOVES when Marty plays his guitar and sings to him.  He was propped up like a big boy on the couch just smiling and cooing along. 

 Molly loves any game that involves her climbing on her sisters 

 Brody is just the cutest.

 My parents and Emily came down this past weekend for a cousin's wedding.  Addison got home from school, changed into a dress and promptly instructed my mom to rub her back...she fell asleep for a good long while. 

Us at said wedding

 My kids love snuggling on my bed! 

Addison got straight hair, and Molly got her hair curled.  They thought it was funny that they switched hairstyles for the day.

We played around with Addison's hair the next day and did some big wavy curls.  I told her it wasn't fair that she was so darn cute.

Molly wanted in on the picture taking, even though I hadn't done anything to her hair yet.

Addison has THE BEST bed head in the mornings, it always makes me laugh.

And lastly, our fun with face swapping...

There you have it...the last couple of weeks in a nut shell.

First Day of School - in California

The night before school started, they wanted to try on their uniforms and then thought it was funny that they looked like little Target workers, so wanted me to take a picture

The girls all started at their new school here in California last week...and so far, we're loving it.

We were able to get them into a school of performing arts and foreign language, and the kids were THRILLED with that option.  Addison also gets to go to what they call "transitional kindergarten", which is basically preschool for the kids who miss the deadline, but are turning 5 before the end of the year.

The performing arts school does things quite a bit different though, and it has been an adjustment figuring it all out.

Brielle, being in 4th grade, has 6 "blocks" (basically class periods) and she rotates from classroom to classroom with different teachers and different students in each one.  It's an outdoor campus too, so she walks to different buildings (all close together) rather than just down a hall. It's almost exactly like Jr. High.  Half of her day is the regular math, science, writing, reading type stuff, and the other half she has Spanish class, guitar class and an art class.  We were SHOCKED to find out that she actually gets to bring home an electric guitar to practice on at home.  She is LOVING the guitar.  She wanted to get into drama to be able to do plays rather than the art class, but since we came in a little late, there wasn't room in drama.  We aren't sure if the classes change at the semester or if that's it for the year, but we'll try to get her into drama when we have the chance.

Jamming on her guitar

Claire, being in 2nd grade, doesn't change around as much.  She stays with her "home room" teacher for half of the day, doing all the regular math, science, writing, reading stuff.  Then her second half of the day she also does music with her home room teacher, and then she switches for Spanish and possibly for art (I can't remember if she said she goes back to her home room teacher for art or not...she's been hard to get details out of...funny kid.) She already has "more friends than even in St. George." Not sure that is true, but she does make friends very easily.  

The two older girls were very excited and nervous on the first day. 

 Addison, being in TK (as they refer to transitional kindergarten) doesn't do any switching.  They do your regular old preschool/kindergarten type things of learning letters and coloring.  She gets to ride the bus home with the older girls after school, and she LOVES that.

She came home the first day with evidence of a yummy cupcake...she was in heaven. 

The girls are adjusting very well to things.  Much faster and easier than I am...I'm still slightly in denial that we have to stay here.  But with their help, I'll try to make the most of it.  They are all excited to be able to talk to Marty in Spanish without me knowing what they're saying, and all are very excited about all the music and instrument choices.  I'm glad they had been introduced to music through piano lessons with me so they are not behind at all.

We stick out like a sore thumb around here.  The girls are definitely in the minority at school, but haven't said anything about that. I'm glad they get the diversity and that they don't see skin color at all.  In fact, when they describe their friends they've met, it's usually by the hairstyle, color of eyes, how tall they are, what they like to do at recess etc., they've not ONCE mentioned skin color, which I think is great.  I'm kind of dying to know how many other white kids are in their classes, just because I'm curious, but I haven't - and won't - ask them, because I don't want it to be something they start noticing.  I went to pick them up the first day and was THE ONLY PERSON in the whole car pickup line that wasn't in a small four-door car.  The only person with a big old Yukon and five kids.  So yeah, we're white, we have a huge family and we're Mormon...can't get much stranger for this area.  Definitely going to be getting a lot of great experiences here!

Here's to a great school year!