Go For It!

As I was scrolling through Instagram, a person I follow tagged this post. 

 

Did you read the whole post? At the end, I was like, yes! I was (am) like this girl and did some of the very same things. Fear has such a hold on us sometimes, maybe a lot of times. But I loved what she said, “…the greatest memories I have from every single year I spent in school happened when I was afraid and I did it anyways.” Do you find this to be true? Do your best memories result from doing something hard? A lot of mine do!

I have nieces and nephews that do the hard a lot more than I was doing in college. They try out for things, sign up for challenges, set their sights high. They go for it! I have many family members that go for it! My kids sometimes go for it (fist pump!). I have many friends who do the same. These are not people who are necessarily free from fear. Nope. They’ve embraced it and use it to their advantage. It’s amazing! 

Time and time again I hear this message and I love it. I’m making it a part of my life one small step at a time. Baby steps over here, but steps nonetheless!

Spring means Easter, eggs, and egg launching(!?!)

Celebrating Easter with my family and the extended family got me all teary-eyed this year. The good kind of teary-eyed! I think this happened because 1) I’m getting older and thus more sensitive and willing to let the emotions flow, 2) its definitely nice to take EXTRA time to celebrate that He lives!, and 3) a weekend with my family is always a reason for those emotions. I feel so much for my immediate and extended family. Spending time with them emphasizes that feeling. 

Here’s my own little family in our Sunday best. Is it bad that Elsie is the only kiddo wearing new springy clothes? Life’s moving fast over here. The kids are growing and time seems to speed by. So much so that there’s no time to look for Easter clothes. Or dye Easter eggs.

Still, we held the neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt in our yard and it was so fun! The weather showed up for us - a sunny afternoon sandwiched between rain, and the 50+ kids found 700+ eggs with the most exciting part being the finding of the special silver egg. It was great to get back to it after we took two years off due to COVID. 

On Sunday, we did an Easter Egg hunt at Grandma’s house. Her yard makes for the best hunt. Up hills, behind boulders, even up in trees. It was funny because the easiest eggs to find, those hidden among the grass, were the last to be found. 

At one point, I was pointing out an egg to Elsie and right then Ian swooped in and grabbed it. But Elsie didn’t really care. She was enjoying all of the other good things in the yard like the chimes, birds, flowers and the swing!

Later that evening, we had dinner at an Uncle and Aunt’s house. The kids played and played. Did they get enough dinner? Probably not, but they did have fun. We finished off the night with an egg launch. We didn’t dye eggs, but we did hard boil some and shoot them far across a field to be caught by family with baseball gloves on the other side. The creative ideas my brothers come up with! I mean, come on! Here Oliver launches one wayyyyy across the field. 

Elsie just wanted to eat an egg. I guess this answers my previous question, she didn’t get enough dinner. Ha!

It was a beautiful day and perfect way to end a great weekend. Happy Easter and welcome spring!

Age 2

Elsie is a character at age two. 

She calls out “Dad, dinner time!” at the top of her lungs when we’re sitting down to dinner and waiting for Jess to come down from his home office. 

She does everything Ian does. Legos, scooter riding, sweeping, book reading, drawing. And Ian is a good brother…most of the time.

She likes to choose her clothes and most specifically loves her rainbow sweater and her dress with printed cats. She loves to wear dresses and likes to dance when we put them on. She like having “ponies” or pigtails in her hair and prefers a bow. 

She loves all critters. Dogs, cats, lizards, ants, bees (got her first sting yesterday because she tried to grab one), and crickets. We have a lizard and as a result we keep crickets to feed him. Elsie once found the container of live crickets, grabbed a handful and went about playing with them. By the time Ian alerted me to this, she had squished one and had another four alive in her palm. I put her in an empty tub and let her play until all of the crickets had been handled more than they could handle. It was a fun twenty minutes for her while Ian and I went about catching the few crickets who had gotten out during the fiasco. 

She loves to swim, run, jump, ride, basically be on the move. 

She always wants to be playing. She and Ian have the busiest social schedules of any littles I know!

She gives some of the best hugs and will say, “Mom, I love you,” in the sweetest and most sincere voice ever. 

But then there’s this: She likes to call every woman around my age, “mom.” Ha! She really loves everyone. 

Spring Break Baby!

A week off of school to spend time with friends and family? Heck yeah!

We started off the relaxing week with a spot of herbal tea. Elsie prefers it in English china from her great grandma. 

Then it was off to Coke and Conference. Thanks to my mom for coining such a catchy and truthful alliterated phrase. We listened and we talked and we celebrated birthdays in Park City. 

Ian was gifted this balloon from a cousin and didn’t take it off his wrist for 12 hours straight. 

We spent some time at a trampoline park. Elsie’s getting so good at running and getting to just about everywhere she wants. 

Then we were off to St. George for some warmer weather. On our way down to southern Utah, we visited our friend’s family’s farm. It was lambing season. We got to see lots of baby lambs, some less than 24 hours old!

It was neat to see a working farm. My friend mentioned that sometimes the ewes have too many lambs and some of them don’t get enough milk. These lambs are called dogies and have to be hand fed. She said that sometimes friends and family take them home, raise them, and return them to the farm. I was tempted to do so. Look how cute they are!

There were baby puppies too. Elsie was in heaven. 

Ansel liked them too. As for me, I was tempted to take home a puppy as well. Upon better judgement, I didn’t, but those little things are just the cutest. 

We continued down the interstate to finally meet up with cousins. We swam in the pool, made dinner together, did some karaoke, played tennis (I’m learning!), mountain biked, played games including the “guess that See’s chocolate flavor,” and climbed on the rocks. 

We swam a lot and at one point, made a tubechain around the lazy river. 

The red rock always delivers on the fun. We went through “the crack” and I must admit, my heart was beating just a little bit faster when I was about to start through it…with my two year old. Needless to say, we made it through the tight squeeze. 

The cousins were so good with Elsie. They’d play and help her at any time. Every time she’d go down for a nap, she’d ask if everyone was going to be there when she woke up. She was having such a grand time. 

The teens were definitely going to sleep late. Here’s my daytime nap evidence to prove it. Ha!

It was fabulous time had by all! Another spring break in the books.