Pictures!!!!! My Dresser Transformation to a sidetable

Before, with no drawers

After: New nobs, spray painted the middle original handles, I even antiqued it

A closeup

I Guess It Must Be Time To Laugh

When my life changed almost 3 years ago with our move to Massachusetts, I said that someday I would look back on our challenges there and laugh and laugh. Today I think it is finally my time to laugh. The challenges we faced and overcame there helped us to grow SO much and in so many ways we don't always recognize. I look back at the Alysa who moved there and I almost don't recognize her innocence or her stick-to-it-iveness. I was that Alysa and I am that Alysa. When we moved back from Massachusetts, our hearts were broken. The place that we were so uncertain of became the place we loved with all our hearts. That change only came because of our Father in Heaven's help and because we tried so hard to be who He wanted us to be there.
    Our broken hearts have had a hard time mending from our move. We lived with my parents until I finished my pregnancy, feeling so grateful for their generosity while we got back on our feet financially. We were blessed with a job, definitely not the one we thought we would find, but the one He had planned that would help us continue on our path that was divinely designed. We moved here to Idaho Falls. Mirren has been such a blessing in our lives and has helped us continue to feel our Heavenly Father's blessings daily. I can see how each hardship I have been through has only strengthened me for where I find myself now. How is it that every trial we come to feels harder than one we've had before?
    I know that what I'm going through now isn't hard, it's all about the attitude I choose to conquer it with. And yet, sometimes I can't see my way through my problems.
     Aftyn still struggles with our move from Massachusetts. She struggles with the places and people lost to her. Tonight, while discussing our future plans to give her her own room and lamenting that we don't have a bed for her but that we could get one for her, she broke down crying. She said to me "I had a bed! I miss my pink bed! And it had 3 pillows!!". I could only look at her in disbelief. We took down her little pink bed when she was barely 3 and traded it for the girls bunk beds. I honestly couldn't believe she still remembered something from over 2 years ago!  As I listened to her and encouraged her to remember with me all the lovely memories from Massachusetts, I listened to her sadness. And her heartbreak.  I am so grateful that life there became so good for us and for her. I'm grateful for the many many pictures I took while we lived there. But how to help my Aftyn who bottles up her sadness until in a moment of freedom she allows herself to let it out. It breaks my heart.
      I went looking through my old blog posts in search of pictures of Aftyn's pink bed because I made a promise to her that we would recreate her bed so she could sleep in it again.  I think that's why I find myself here, feeling nostalgic. And grateful. And like I need to allow myself to laugh.

Aftyn's pink bed. Oh my little little Aftyn.

Seriously so so sorry

Well, no pictures yet. Please forgive me.

So remember when I wrote that post about being overwhelmed and stopping everything?

Due to a vacation and life, I haven't exactly started everything back up. 
Like preschool.
My girls have been begging for it but the idea of all the work that goes into a normal preschool hour has just seemed daunting to me lately.
Finally today I said "To heck with it!" and had the girls practice writing their names and worked with Bronwyn on actually identifying the letters in her name.

She still has no idea which letter is which, but she can identify a movie by almost any vague reference, such as "fortunes, forecasts, lucky charms ...". LOL 
Oh my kids.
And then we played with our magnetic alphabet letters and worked on identifying more letters. I feel like it helped Bronwyn, and Aftyn thought it was fun to try and find all the letters of the alphabet and put them in order on her side of the magnet board.
All in all I'd say it was fun and good for all of us. 
And made me realize that in my perfect little world where everything happens perfectly (LOL!!!)  or at least that is what my brain tries to tell me must happen, there is room for imperfect little preschool lessons where we just have fun and do a few things that are learning related and don't have to seem like so much work.

For me.

Inspired?!

I just have to document that tonight my aunt and cousin came into town. My cousin is close in age to me and one of my good friends as I was growing up and around that particular side of my family. She happens to have 2 little boys ages 2 and 4.

Tonight was the first night in a long long while that I witnessed Aftyn playing with a peer and not trying to be an animal. It was amazing. She was having so much genuine, calm, real fun with the 4 year old. I was so excited for her! She tends to not know how to interact well with her peers and after witnessing her with this little boy it made me remember my childhood and all the boys I chose to play with over girls. Maybe there is something there. . . . .  I also just have to say what amazing little boys these guys were. I have never witnessed such calmness in little boys. They didn't seem to instigate fights over toys, no hitting, no nothing. My kids were so calm and having genuine fun with these 2 sweet little boys. I sure wish they lived closer so they could play more often!

Mirren's Talking To Us . . . .

People I have bad news. My computer has issues and won't allow me to download any recent pictures! Ack!! I've been trying to figure out how to fix this but haven't figured anything out yet other than the fact that my computer needs to be fixed. . . . Hopefully I can resolve this soon. :(

Mirren has been saying lots of different sounds and it's always fun to hear the combinations she comes up with. I have been suspecting for awhile that she was saying "hi" on purpose but wasn't sure since she says lots of sounds but this week I am now sure on a few things she has said.
 3 days ago while feeding her in her highchair, I asked her " do you want more or are you done?".  She answered back "Done". LOL  I was flabbergasted and ran up to tell Reed in his office and he laughed and said he wished he could have heard it.

Last night she seemed pretty gabby so I was trying to encourage her to talk. She loves her daddy and most of her sounds start off with da da da. So I said to her, "Say hi dada." Shockeroo when she said "Hi da da.."
So now I know she can say Hi! And she can repeat. Crazy girl.
Right after that I asked her to say Done since Reed was in the room and hadn't heard her say it before. And right away she said it very clearly, "Done".  Hahaha!! She has been telling us nana whenever she wants to eat or I've kept her waiting too long and she wants some food. It's pretty funny! I don't remember my babies trying to use their words to communicate this early. I've probably just forgotten. Babies are so amazingly smart and do things so young. They are incredible!

Overwhelmed but here we go!

Wow. 

The past few weeks I have had no less than 3 road trips,

 possibly more (I've lost count), 

taken one ugly dresser and transformed it into a thing of beauty

 and somehow managed to keep my household running and preschool lessons taught. 

Until today. 

Everything came to a screeching halt because I am just plain OVERWHELMED! 

 I'm tired of busy, I'm tired of catchup, I'm tired. 

It also doesn't help that this past week

 I have been on a time crunch to make Mirren chubby ASAP. 

With a weigh in today to see if I was successful. 

After a moment to wipe the sweat from my brow,

 I decided to just stop and enjoy today

 and stop pushing myself to accomplish absolutely everything on my to-do list.

I haven't even put all the groceries away that I bought this morning.

I have had more time to play with my kids and hug them,

more time to look through my sewing pile and dream,

and more time to just be.

Aaah.

And now I would like to add a blog post to my list of accomplishments for today.

Here goes.

Mirren hates baths. I can count maybe twice that she hasn't cried while taking a bath.

Because of this, her baths are quick and to the point. 

With a shift in our bathing procedures lately,

Bronwyn and Mirren took their first bath together. 

Wa-la! Alakazam!

Just like that, there was no crying!

She just needed a Bronwyn and a duckie and she actually 

LAUGHED during her bath!!

I can't even begin to tell you how much Mirren loves Bronwyn.

She is always watching for her to be looking at her and greets her gaze with a smile.

Don't get me wrong. Mirren loves Aftyn too but Aftyn doesn't perform for Mirren.

Mirren loves it when Aftyn picks her up. Aftyn loves doing that too.

But Mirren knows out of the two, Bronwyn is ready and willing 

to entertain her at all times and in all places.

(Pictures to be added later.)

Car-Aaazy

Life seems to be so full of things lately, I figured I better take a minute to record what we've been up to.

I'm preschooling Aftyn and Bronwyn. Started last week! Bronwyn is a receptive little thing and it's fun to get to work one on one with Aftyn and see how close she is to reading.

Bronwyn is still getting her 3 year molars. Those things seems like they are NEVER going to come!

Mirren is still toothless. Yet again, those teeth just want to stay in. I don't mind though, she doesn't seem to be in too much pain.  She is getting super mobile. She likes to find hair elastics the girls drop on the floor mindlessly and chew on them. Never eat, just chew. I find at least one a day in her mouth. Ew.  Obviously I should vacuum every night. Gotta get that into my routine.

My parents 50th wedding anniversary is coming up this weekend. That should be fun. It'll be nice to get the siblings all together to honor them.

Last weekend I sang in a trio with my sisters Alyson and Laura in Alyson's ward. I have NEVER received so many compliments in my life. And the song was good, but I messed up at least 3 times. And still received so many kind people's compliments. I'm totally singing in that ward again! :)

We got to have dinner with Reed's brother and wife here in Idaho Falls. Steve and Amanda and their 7 kids + us = lots of people, lots of yummy food and lots of good conversation! They were such good sports to come have dinner with us after hiking and driving through Yellowstone all day. Even though we were 15 minutes late for dinner and they were probably starving and wondering where we were. ;)

Reed is working. And driving. Repeat. I think we must be coming into his busy season because boy has he gotten busy! He's already tired of being gone from home so much. And we all miss him but it won't be forever. And his busy-ness will end.