Springing it Up

I can't believe it is the middle of April already! It seems like the snow from Valentine's Day just happened and suddenly we've been able to really enjoy the outdoors again. We've already hit 70 degrees this year! I love to see everyone come out from their caccoons to begin weeding their yards, washing their cars, and pulling their kids in wagons.

Going on a nature walk with the neighbors in the field behind our house

Of course living in the Pacific Northwest means many spring days are cool and damp which is why most days our kids wear hats outside. I'm kinda crazy like that! But they have really been enjoying the frequent trips to the wide-variety of parks we have here. And of course just behind the house.

We made a quick trip to Coeur d'Alene for cousin Luukas' baptism. I was invited to be the pianist for the baptism. Kind of out of my element as I haven't done this for a LONG time. Luckily it was only Hymns and Primary songs.
This was the first time Baelor really let loose on the trampoline! He had a blast with his cousins Finn and Karter. How lucky to have some his own age.

GO BAELOR, GO!!

Karter has been living with my mom and Will for 3/4 of a year now. He is just months older than Baelor. These two get into a lot of mischief, but I guess that's the territory of a two-year old. Both have a lot of personality, yet very different. Karter has lots of "gusto" and is a talker while Baelor tends to take a back seat and observe. Maybe that's why their relationship works?

Reina of course loves to spend time with her cousins, Miia and Heleena, which are also her age. They will all be starting kindergarten in the fall.

One thing I have to make note of is that our trip home from Coeur d'Alene is usually a 6 1/2-7 hour trip due to one or two stops along the way. Well this time we made it home in 5 1/2 hours and NO STOPS! Not for pottying, eating, NOTHING! This will never happen again. It was amazing! So is having "Frozen" to watch on the tablet. Speaking of "Frozen", this is the "thing" in our house this past spring. I finally took Reina to see it before it came out on video. This was her first movie in a theater.

"Selfie" shot on our way in to see "Frozen" (this was still in February)

Reina's friend Ashley was moving so they had a going away "Frozen" movie party

We made it a mommy/daughter day with lunch at Taco Bell afterwards and buying new church shoes. I felt kind of bad since every other little girl had already seen the movie. We kind of new the storyline before seeing the movie because she got the book for her birthday and we've read it multiple times before bed. I knew this was a great one to take her to the theaters for. Since seeing the movie we've had to repeat the songs from the movie on YouTube over and over again at home, and listen to the songs over and over in the car as well! I do seriously love this movie but I'm getting close to my limit of listening to "Let it Go"...or maybe not. It's that good.

I made some St. Patrick's Day goodies for my primary class at church. I didn't do the whole "green food" thing for our kids, but my attempt to give them mint chocolate chip ice cream as a treat for St. Patrick's day failed as Tillamook decided to take out the green dye from the ingredients. Of course the one time I actually wanted the dye! I just told Reina to lick it with her eyes closed and pretend it is green.

Wearing whatever green we had for St. Patty's Day (Reina wanted pigtails everyday for the month of March. April is headbands.)

This cool toy is called a "Flying Turtle"! It glides along hardwood floors and fun for big kids too!

We had the best weather I can remember for spring break this year! It was sunny and warm everyday! I did still have to work some, but not as long everyday which was great for getting some extra time with family.

 

Uncle Steve even joined us for dinner a couple of times and stayed the night so that Paul and him could get a full day of shooting in. Reina was so happy she could participate in Uncle Steve's first time watching "Frozen".

Reina also had friends, Abby and Emily over for a play day. They tagged along with me to Costco and played mostly outside on the trampoline while I finally got to weeding the front yard. The back yard is a complete mess with more weeds than grass and a mean ol' mole that has left holes all over the place. We enjoy the field behind us none the less.

Emily reading a bedtime story to Baelor...she adores him!

Life has been really great as far as our family goes. We are blessed to love each other tremendously. We also feel very blessed to have the gospel of Jesus Christ as our anchor in life. This has helped us with some past challenges, recent challenges, and continuing challenges. Paul recently quit at Yoder Chiropractic and is now at a new office in Battle Ground that fits his philosophy of chiropractic much better. It's a good change! He will miss the people he worked with and so many patients will miss him as well!

Besides the normal challenges that happen in life, our most recent challenge has been my health. I have been recently diagnosed with type II diabetes. This has been something that I knew may happen in the future, but didn't know it would be this early in my life. I have already had precursers to it when diagnosed with gestational diabetes with both my pregnancies and continued insulin resistance. I thought I could keep it controlled with diet and exercise since discovering this six years ago. My doctors say it's my luck of the draw as no one in my family history (known) has diabetes. This is related to the PCOS I have, yet I have very few symptoms. All of this is attributed to my infertility issues which is why I am so blessed to have two children. I know we are all given challenges, some bigger and some smaller. This is really tough for me. It is a challenge for me to get pregnant. I SO wish I could just follow the normal recommendations of the doctors who typically diagnose people with this disease to "exercise and watch carbs" but this obviously has not helped the past six years with my dietary changes and always active lifestyle. I am still human and do like my chocolate and other carb-filled foods. I try to eat well most days. Part of the joys of life is eating delicious food. I am not giving everything up, but I will do my best to find the right balance. I am grateful for the power of the priesthood in receiving blessings. I am holding fast to those promises that were made to me in my blessing. Our church recently had General Conference, where we get to listen to the prophet and leaders of our church speak to us. One particular talk by President Uchtdorf really hit home to me. It's a great talk, yet a tough talk. I am trying to tackle this. I want to see my children grow old with families of their own. I can only try my best and have the help of modern medicine and faith in the Lord to help me see this happen.

I did a little decorating for spring, but we will be in Las Vegas for Easter weekend so I didn't do much.

  

I have a weakness for blue and white ceramics. Here are my second-hand finds:

 

Paul and I have revamped a few things around the house since my last home tour when we moved in. I'll get to those DIY projects in a future post.

Little Dancer

Our daughter, Reina, is the luckiest little girl... along with nearly a dozen other little girls. I say this because they get to learn ballet and jazz at such a young age. I always wanted to wear those pink ballet slippers and tutus and prance around the floor feeling just like the ballerina from the toy music box.

I did do some dancing as a child but it was in a singing and dancing group called "Sunshine Generation". If you are a child from the '80's you've probably either heard of it or were part of it. It was kind of the thing back in the '80's. I chuckle just thinking of the video evidence of my brother performing his awkward moves in this orchestration.  I am not putting down Sunshine Generation as it probably helped develop my rhythm and coordination, but the costumes were not pretty. Every little girl likes pretty dresses. They were bright yellow, bulky and hung down to your ankles only to reveal old-lady nude colored pantyhose and black slippers. I never even asked to be in ballet or any other dance class because both of my older sisters were in Sunshine Generation and my mom even became an instructor. Things were just different back then. We didn't ask for much. Or maybe it was just our family?

Through elementary school I did dance around at home learning line dances (they were the "in" thing back then), and then would organize and perform them at talent shows and school productions with a large group of my friends. I didn't really get involved in any other dancing until junior high. They had a little dance team at school that performed only for the parades at the end of the school year. Those parades were the highlight of my young adolescent years; that and band.

(Please excuse the picture choices and quality of my childhood pictures...they were all that I could find without some serious digging. I know there are a lot more somewhere.)

I always wanted a ballet dress like this. I somehow managed to wear this for a school music concert

It really wasn't until then that I realized I had a passion for dancing. I felt extra special when I was asked to be a captain of the dance team as an 8th grader (the top dog was 9th grade in junior high) and again in 9th grade. I don't think some of the 9th graders appreciated having me as a captain, their junior, but luckily I was innocent to their envy.

I did cheerleading and gymnastics for two years, and basketball for one whole season but never felt excited to go to practice like I did with dance. I felt too rigid and wasn't ever loud enough to cheer. Gymnastics was a lot of fun, although I only did well at balance beam and floor routine. Basketball was a joke. I pretended to play but never enjoyed the scrambling over a ball idea.

Remind me why size XL shirts were in style back then?

I didn't intend for this post to be all about me. I suppose it's good sometimes to evaluate how my experiences in life have brought me to where I am today. High school was very much devoted to dance team. In fact, I went to my high school partly for their acclaimed dance team. I had the option to go to the other high school in the area where ALL my friends were going but the academics and dance team were not as good and therefore made a difficult, yet sure decision.

Pep assembly performance to Michael Jackson's "Thriller"

 I piddled in various dance classes all throughout college including: ballroom (of course), jazz, modern, clogging, and even folk dancing. I've stuck with ballroom because I do like the social aspect of it, although I'd be very interested in taking some jazz and modern dance classes again!


During my two years at Ricks College (now BYU Idaho) every Wednesday was Swing Dance Night. I looked forward to this all week! I somehow managed to have a dance partner where we met up to have some fun! We strictly met for dancing and having fun; no drama, which is why I may have had more male friends than female friends.

Dance partner for Latin Ballroom Team

At BYU Utah, I was part of a Latin Ballroom team. We did small performances at the school. They also had some competitions for the ballroom dance classes. My dance partner and I (someone from my ballroom class) participated in the Lindy Hop competition at BYU and got second place! You don't compete with an actual routine, just play around until you are eliminated. I've never really been in a competition until our cruise just last November where my professional partner and I got second place on the whole ship. Pretty cool! Okay, I'm seeing the trend that I am always runner-up?

Life has changed with a growing family, so taking a Friday or Saturday night to go dancing has not been often. Luckily I have been enjoying a lot of Zumba! It's basically the modern Jazzercise with more Latin dance and funk. I do this a lot as part of my workout routine and even get to instruct with some of the ladies from church on Friday mornings, and for the youth occasionally.

I'm sure that my life would have revolved around dancing if I had no intentions of having a family. But I knew that having a family was greater than the exotic life as a dancer. Okay, that kind of sounds bad....extravagant life as a dancer. I do still get to dance. I have a daughter that enjoys dancing. This makes me happy. Music makes me happy. What a great blessing it is to be able to put the two together and make a harmonious little music and dancing sandwich.

Blurry but I liked the shot :)

For Reina's dance class, they are working on basic ballet poses, which are all new to me as I have NO ballet background. They practice different leaps across the floor. One thing I really like is that the teacher helps them to control their form and posture rather than letting them just do it however their little bodies want to. They are preparing a dance for their recital in summer from "Singing in the Rain". It's a challenge as the song is very fast! Luckily they still have lots of time to prepare. Reina is one of the youngest in her class since she is in the 5-7 year old class. I wanted her to be challenged which is why I didn't put her in the 3-5 year old class.