Ella's Observation Week

Lucky for me, I was able to go to Ella's observation day at ballet as well.  Normally I just bring Lily and we do math in the waiting area while Ella is in class.  But after the boys watched Lily dance, they insisted on watching Ella dance, too.  Since they were phenomenally amazing during Lily's class, I said okay and they tagged along.  They were amazing.  I mourn over the fact that my kids are getting older, but in all seriousness, the fact that they're able to understand behavioral expectations is a huge plus.

Also, this is how I spent most of the class:

May he never grow older.

Also, I have decided that if Ben would have been born a girl he would be Ella's twin.  As I look at these pictures I can't help but see 4 year-old Ben with long, long curls.

Ella's plie.

*waving* "Hi Mom!  Hi Skyler!  Hi Lily!  Hi Faddeo!"

(She had to make sure we felt the love about 10 times during her class)

Enjoy her preciousness.

Lily's Observation Week

Twice a year I look forward to observation week at ballet and then without fail I always forget that it's observation week and I'm scrambling with my hands full of kids while taking lame-o shots on my phone.  However -- it never ceases to amaze me how much none of that matters.  I can think of very few things I enjoy more than watching Lily dance.  It is crazy to see how much she has grown up.  Looking at her now it's hard to believe that she was this super chubby baby with rolls covering her arms and legs.  Instead she has turned into this gorgeous young lady and depending on the moment, I'm not sure if I'm okay with it.

But during observation week, I'm always okay with it.

This is our 3rd year in a row with Miss Carrie.  We love her so much that Ella is now taking ballet from her as well.  Miss Carrie is about as perfect as a ballet teacher can be.  She is always patient, in good spirits, and genuinely loves all of her girls.  She's also a homeschooling mom herself so that earns her extra points.  ;)

This year they've really put a lot of emphasis on stretching and twisting the girls' bodies so that they can be correctly positioned without hurting themselves.  I have tried attempting some of their exercises and I can't do most of them.  Ha.  My body's getting old.  In this picture Lily's TA is helping her point her left foot backwards toward her heel.

Also, I have to say how much I appreciate having teenage teacher assistants in Lily and Ella's classes.  They always are so kind and helpful, but more than anything they give the younger girls a glimpse at what they can become if they continue to work hard.  I love Holly Springs School of Dance so much.  When classes start each hour and all the girls are hopping out of their cars, there are 4 year-olds and 17 year-olds and everything in between walking together and talking.  Several times a year the younger girls go into the older girls' studios to observe.  I really can't emphasize how much I love this non-competitive dance school.

She made it up!  She almost got her arms above her head while balancing.

Ben's Great British Bake Off

Ben and I have watched a bunch of seasons of The Great British Bake Off, and we're *slightly* obsessed with it for several different reasons.

First, it is the nicest competition in the world.  Why can't all competitors be so nice and helpful to each other in America?

Second, Americans really have no clue how to bake.  We make cakes and cookies, and that's about it.  British people are like, "Oh yeah, I make jam and custard to put in my homemade trifles all the time.  But my cakes are always a genoise.  I wouldn't make another type of sponge."

Third, they have the best hosts on TV.  

Fourth, the judges names are Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry.  Can you think of a better baking name than Mary Berry????

Anyway, now that I have proven my nerdiness, I'll explain what happened last Sunday.  Ben was making dinner.  Butternut squash soup was already on the stove and he wanted to make biscuits.  But why make them the traditional way by cutting in the butter?  Why not *dramatic music* make it the way you would make homemade phyllo dough?

(All of you who have seen Bake Off know that making your own phyllo dough is the most difficult of all baking skills)

So he used a biscuit recipe but made it like phyllo dough.  Here is the camera footage.

(Please read all commentary in a British accent as Ben and I were speaking this way the whole time he was doing this)

First you have to thinly slice your butter.  It is crucial that the butter be as cold as possible.  Don't touch it with your hands.  Be sure to cover both sides with cling film.

(I'm sorry, I just can't help myself)

Then beat it....

And roll the butter out so that it's the same size as your dough.

Then put the two on top of one another...

And fold one third at a time, just so.

Keep repeating the folding and rolling out until you have several layers of butter between the dough.

As Mary Berry would say, "This has very clearly defined layers."

OVEN STARING!

Phyllo dough-ish biscuits.

I had to sample the biscuits the way Mary Berry always does from the side of her mouth.

After eating two biscuits, it was clear that Ben was definitely last week's star baker.

Thad's 3rd Birthday

September was one doozy of a month for me.  My doctor warned me that miscarrying twins could be twice as hard as miscarrying just one baby.  My hcg levels were one of the highest he'd ever seen and he told me I might crash as my hormones were going back to normal.  Well, he wasn't kidding because I spent most of the month of September in bed dealing with one health problem after another after another after another.  Ben was incredible and pulled double duty many days, while friends and my parents also stepped in to help with the kids.  I truly couldn't have made it without help.

Needless to say, I didn't think I could do anything too big for Thad's birthday.  Fortunately he was only turning 3 and so he was happy with having a water balloon fight and going out for pizza.

You can't really tell, but the water balloons came with dye and so they made different colors when they exploded.  Ben was the main target of the day.  :)

When they were done Ben hosed them off which, apparently, was just as much fun as the water balloon fight.

He's been waiting for so long to get his very own piggy bank.  He was so excited to see it was a BB-8 bank.

His bouncy zebra from Nanni and Papa was a hit.

And he loved his dragon place mat from Grandmum and Pop Pop.

Happy birthday little Bud!

Maryland and Philadelphia Temple Trip

This Summer, Becca and Preston moved to Maryland after Preston graduated from dental school.  He's now specializing in Pediatric dentisty and they will be there for 2 years.  The temple closest to them is the Washington D.C. temple, but with the Philadelphia temple just built, their stake was assigned that temple.  Becca invited us to come stay with them over Labor Day weekend and said that they would be going to the temple open house that weekend.  Ben and I agreed that we had no idea the next time we would be able to take all of our kids in the temple (they've never been in one before) and so we knew this was too good of an opportunity to pass up.

Becca and Preston live in the middle of the country near the coast of Maryland.  Ben and I basically want to move there.  It's beautiful.  In their tiny town they have a small free zoo.  It was the perfect size and was so fun for the kids.

When we arrived, Becca told me that they lived 25 minutes away from the town where Runaway Bride was filmed.  In the movie it's called Hale, Maryland, but in real life it's set in Berlin, Maryland.  Walking through the streets was like being in the movie.  We got a pretty good idea of which store was "Curl Up and Dye."  While we were touring, I saw so many scenes from the movie and it was just bizarre.  Like this band performing on the corner and a kid skateboarding down the sidewalk.  It was so fun!

The kids, on the other hand, were very confused as to why we were even there.

"We're here to.... walk around?"

Ha!  Yes, yes we are.

The hotel from the movie.  It is the cutest hotel when you walk around it!

We spent a lot of time playing with their dog, Lacy.  Ella was scared of her the whole time and finally came to love her (from a distance) by the time we left.  The kids loved learning how to make her do tricks.

I had to take this picture for my own pride.  Becca's legs are on the left and mine are on the right.  Now that we live in a neighborhood with a pool and go swimming frequently, I actually get a little tiny bit of color during the summer.  (And by "little color" I mean that during the summer I can wear the second lightest shade of foundation and not just the lightest shade, ha!)  But this is the first time EVER that I have been more tan than Becca.  It had to be recorded.

We went to church with Becca and Preston.  They both have Sunday callings and so I offered to take Colby during the last 2 hours.  Within a couple of minutes of gospel doctrine starting, Ben took Colby from me, said he would try to help him take a nap (since it was his nap time), and used his baby magic to put him to sleep.  They said Colby hasn't fallen asleep on them in months.  Ben loved every minute of it.  It's been a while since we've had sleeping baby snuggles.

On Saturday we drove 2.5 hours to Philadelphia and toured the temple.  There were SO MANY people there.  We waited in the stake center for about an hour before they said that they were going to have to change the tour to accommodate all the visitors.  So instead of having someone explain each room to us, they just had a steady stream of people touring through the temple in a single file line.  

This is one of my favorite memories that we have made as a family.  I'm so glad we made the drive up.  Lily told me that she always knew temples were so beautiful on the outside but she had no idea how beautiful they were on the inside.  I had a special moment when we walked through the brides' room and I told Lily and Ella that when they get married in the temple they get to get ready in a room just like that one.  They looked around at the chandeliers and the beautiful decor and were in awe.  

When we walked through the Celestial Room we stood there for a few minutes so that the kids could soak up the beauty.

The whole experience was a very meaningful one for me personally.  The temple is obviously decorated in a very colonial fashion and walking through it feels like walking through something that could have been built and kept up since the 1700's.  It was a wonderful feeling to have the spirit go hand in hand with patriotism.  

This was the perfect experience for our family, especially right before my surgery when we knew we'd be losing our twins.  How grateful we are to be an eternal family.  I'm so grateful for temples and for the priesthood.  I look forward to the day when all of us can be in the temple together again.

Another Miscarriage

July 26th:  It's Ella's birthday.  We go to the Dollar Tree to buy her birthday balloons.  Ironically, she wants a "Welcome Baby" balloon even though she has no idea.  I laugh inwardly as I hand the cashier a pregnancy test.  The test comes back positive.  I'm already 5 weeks.

7 Weeks:  I got through a few days of morning sickness and then it disappears.  Since I am usually sick for several weeks this makes me nervous since I stopped being sick right when the baby died in my previous miscarriage.  A few people tell me, "It's normal to be paranoid after having a miscarriage.  Everything will be alright."  I don't feel like everything will be alright but try to convince myself that I'm being ridiculous.

8 Weeks:  I get my first ultrasound.  I am notorious for not being able to understand everything that's being shown in an ultrasound but it is beyond obvious that there is absolutely nothing to see.  There is an amniotic sack full of fluid that is measuring on time but nothing else.  We see the doctor and he gives us a 1% chance that this pregnancy will go to term.  The baby might not have developed yet and my "dates could be off."  Since there is still a chance, albeit tiny, we schedule an ultrasound for the next week to find out if we are going to be having a baby or not.

9 Weeks:  Ben and I are super nervous as we go into this ultrasound.  Our family has had a family fast but I still am going crazy waiting for answers.  The ultrasound screen shows that there has been development, but not the kind we were expecting.  My amniotic sack has split into two and one has a yolk sack in it.  Neither sack has a baby.  The doctor says that since there is still development happening, we should wait another week to see what is going to happen.  He tells us we will either be having identical twins or nothing -- it's not likely that we'll just get one.

As you can imagine the next week is the most agonizing week of all.  We are caught up in two extremes -- twins or another miscarriage.

10 Weeks:  I get my final ultrasound.  Nothing new has developed.  No babies.  No heartbeats.  There is bleeding.  And somehow I'm measuring smaller than the previous week.  We talk to the doctor and he says that a natural miscarriage is now out of the question with this pregnancy and that I will have to have another D&E.  If I go naturally it will be far more dangerous for me.  He threw words around that I'd never heard of like "pregnancy cancer."  We scheduled a D&E and were grateful that he let us wait to get it until after our trip to visit Becca in Maryland.

September 7th:  It's my parents' anniversary.  So naturally Ben and I bring all the kids over for a sleepover so that I can be at the hospital at 5:30 the next morning.  #daughteroftheyear

September 8th:  I'm the first person checked into the hospital that day.  After getting me prepped, they hook me up with anesthesia and I am completely knocked out.  When I'm coming to all I can think about is how cold I am.  I don't remember asking for blankets but somehow I keep getting more and I put them over my head I'm so cold.  I haven't even opened my eyes but I can hear the nurses chuckling over asking to see my armband and I poke my hand out the top of my blanket.  Ben takes me home.  I'm still on anesthesia and serious pain meds and so I sleep the whole day on the couch while we have a Great British Bake Off marathon.  Apparently we watched the same episode 3 times in a row without me realizing it.


This miscarriage has been harder on me than my last one.  It's my third miscarriage.  I have officially given birth to as many children as I have lost.  Part of me feels defeated.  Part of me feels physically broken because of how hard this year has been on my body.  Part of me feels guilty for being sad since I already have 4 wonderful children and some people would do anything just to have one.  Part of me really breaks up over the fact that I'm not having twins even though the idea terrified me as much as it excited me.

No matter what situation I'm in I can always find something to be positive about -- and this case is no different.  But sometimes, it's okay just to be sad.  So just a warning that if you catch me off guard and ask me how I'm doing, I'm going to say that I'm fine.  But really I'm not and I'm just not in the mood to talk about it.