November Life {via a letter written to our missionary}

 11/7/21 (letter written to our missionary)

Dear Emma, 

Oh man!  It's the first night of Daylight Savings Time and I'm STILL getting off to a past 10:00pm starting time on your letter.   

BUT...I have a good excuse....I've been working on the Christmas card for this year.   haha   

Actually though...it's true and I'm very excited about it.   

I'm still working with the Etsy artist who did the portrait to get Adam's and Cami's hair color adjusted, but overall I'm very happy about it.   I think the likenesses for Dad and I are the least life-like, but overall I'm thrilled that we'll have a picture together in a year that we can't actually be together.  

Right now the plan is to get it printed sooner rather than later, so I can beat the Christmas rush.  Then I'll wait to send it out until Lucie is born, so I can include information about her arrival in the letter.   Speaking of Lucie's arrival.....IT'S GETTING SO CLOSE!!!!! I'm rather excited about it!    Ellie's disappointed that I commissioned this  before we knew about Denali, but I plan on adding something about her in the letter too.   We shall see!  

Here's a close-up of the tag I created for the portrait.  You know just in case you always wanted a digital version of your tag.  

On a completely different note, here's a gorgeous sunrise we saw this past week.  The Alpine City Cemetery is about a 5 minute walk from our house and I am enamored with the view from atop the hill there (where this picture was taken).  

On another another note, my mom gave me this picture that I drew when I was 10-years old.   It was funny, because as soon as I saw it I remembered the book where I drew my inspiration from.  Here is my picture next to my inspiration!  I know, I know.  It's amazing and everyone should be jealous of my mad art skillz. 

I'm just going with random thoughts tonight...

Here's the latest picture of Denali.  She's quadruple her birth weight, is walking around now, and is all around pretty darn adorable.   

We finally celebrated Adam's birthday this weekend.  We took him out for dinner (he picked Pad Thai for his birthday meal), watched the new Marvel movie (it was okay), and found our new Utah ice cream (Brookers Founding Flavors)!  

Also, check out the bros' matching outfits!  Spence wouldn't allow me to take a "real" photo of them, but I thought this one captured their matchedness pretty well.  Both Spence and Adam were quick to inform us that their similar attire was definitely just a serendipitous coincidence, because, you know, matching on purpose is for wusses and their mom. 

Here is the birthday cake Ellie made for Adam.  Garbanzo bean chocolate cake with raspberry frosting and chocolate ganache between the layers.  YUM!!!

Alright, I promised Dad I would be ready for bed by 11:00pm, so I guess I should check out for now.  I hope you had an amazing week!   WE LOVE YOU!!!! 

Love, 
yo momma 

Showering Cami!

I can't remember if I've announced this here yet or not, but I am very excited to become a grandma for the first time in a few weeks!   My daughter, Cami, is due to have a baby girl soon and thus far the pregnancy is going well.  It's been hard to be so far away from her during this time, but Halloween weekend Ellie and I flew to Texas so we could attend her baby shower. 

 It was the first time I'd been able to see her noticeably pregnant belly in person and it was crazy to think that it really didn't seem all that long ago when I was big and pregnant with her.    These photos-- were taken just eleven days apart 24-years ago.  

It was great to see Amy (Cami's mother-in-law ) who will also be a first-time grandma when their baby is born, though her second will be coming along MUCH MUCH sooner than our second.  haha. 

I was also so grateful that my sister, Kristina, and her daughter, Madeline, flew in for the festivities as well!  She's the only Crain sister who's not living here in Utah currently, so it was a treat to be able to spend time with them both!  

It was also fun to meet so many people who love Cami.  Living far away from your kids is hard, but it's a little easier knowing that there are wonderful people loving and supporting her while I'm far away.  

Other highlights of the weekend included a 6-1/2 mile walk along Lady Bird Lake...

A walking tour of the UT campus and the state capitol...

Some really good food--including some delicious gluten free options too (Here are some of the places we tried:  Torchy's, Lola's, Via313, Jeni's, Moonshine Grill, Bird Bird Biscuit)

Some beautifully warm weather (especially compared to Utah...

Ellie trying unsuccessfully to make friends with a weird goose/duck we saw...

And another walk along the river...

Reality hit hard with lots of catch-up work when we returned, but it was absolutely a treat to be able to spend some time with Cami and shower her and Baby Girl with lots of love for a few days.  

Next time we see her....we look forward to having a little baby to snuggle too!  

Who's the biggest nerd you know?

I just sent Happy Fall/We Moved cards to everyone on our Christmas list...

including this goofy picture. 

  

Why did I do it?  Because, with three moves in 2 years' time,  I was actually worried that way too many of our Christmas cards would be lost forever in the mail system and as you all know....Christmas cards are one of my favorite parts of the season!   I think about them months in advance and enjoy every part of creating them, writing them, addressing them, and then get absolutely giddy when I send them off every year.   And then get even more excited when our mailbox starts filling up.   

Plus I hoped they would make people smile.  😆    

And that's not even the end of it!    I'm such a nerd that I totally volunteer to help family members with their Christmas letters and cards every year too, because I don't want anyone I love to be deprived of the joy of sending out cards too.  You want help?   Call me and I'll be thrilled to help you too!     

So, now that you know all that....do I win the nerdiest nerd you know contest?   😜

A Halloween Day 21-years ago!

In honor of sweet Emma’s 21st birthday yesterday, I thought I’d include this entertaining video of her singing when she was about 3-years old.  She was a middle child born with a song in her heart and didn’t like anyone (like big sisters) stealing her spotlight.

 For 21 years she’s been making this world a better and brighter place and we are grateful for her example...especially now as she sacrifices 18-months to serve, love, and teach the people in the Salt Lake West mission.

 

For your entertainment, here are 21 things you may or may not know about her….

1. When I found out that Emma was due on Halloween, I was quoted as telling everyone I hoped she would be born any day but her due date.

2. In true Emma style and with a little “I’ll show you” attitude, she came promptly on her due date.

3. She won a big prize from the local girl scout troop for being the first girl born in our hospital on the founder of Girl Scouts’ (Juliet Gordon Low’s) birthday.

4. She’s always loved being born on Halloween. I think she loves that everyone is celebrating anyway and it makes her birthday feel extra special. Plus no one ever forgets what day her birthday is.

5. In keeping with the Halloween birthday theme, Emma had bright red hair until she was about 4-years-old. When she was born, she completed her trio of kids with all different colors of hair. It was quite a sight to see -- Spencer with his dark hair, Cami with blond, and Emma with her red hair. It's not that red anymore, but I still delight in the fact when the sun catches her hair just right you can still see the red in it a bit!

6. Emma is full of energy. From the time she was a tiny baby, she was in constant motion and was my only non-snuggly baby. Her energy level is a few steps beyond my own and she amazes me with the amount she can accomplish in a day.

7. Emma was the biggest mischief maker of all my toddlers! Her high energy level was only matched by her high level of curiosity and she got into EVERYTHING!

8. Emma hates contention with every part of who she is and tries very hard to seek for peaceful solutions to contention. I have been humbled by her many times.

9. Emma loves, loves, loves music...and has since she was a baby. She loves to listen to it, loves to play it, and loves to sing it. She practiced for hours a day and is the only one of my kids who we've had to tell to STOP practicing her music so much, because someone is sleeping, or on the phone, etc.

10. Emma is self-driven and a very hard worker. In other words, she was the perfect personality to homeschool and she is good at making things happen.

11. Emma likes doing things her own way! Whether it be school, music, cooking, or whatever….she likes to figure out her own way to do things.

12.Emma is passionate about her pursuits. When Emma decides something is important to her, she goes at it 110%. Her mission is no exception.

13. Emma is our family's only natural morning person. I haven’t indulged my night owl tendencies in many years, but even still I struggle to pop up and get moving as quickly as Emma does on her own.

14. Emma is a baker extraordinaire. While I consider myself to be a somewhat simple baker, she is not intimidated at all by recipes that have weird ingredients or long instructions...not that she uses or follows recipes as written very often.

15. Emma rarely watches tv, but when she does it's invariably a cooking show.And even better than watching a cooking show, she absolutely loves to recreate the shows for a family activity. For her, what could be better than engaging the whole family in cooking with crazy ingredients or while performing difficult feats?

16. As a teen, Emma's room was never messy unless someone else left their stuff lying around.
Emma was such a mess-maker as a child that we teasingly said she kicked up a cloud of dust behind her when she walked, but she was the only one of our teens to consistently keep a clean room.

17. Emma is a gifted writer. She is an avid journal keeper and is not afraid of writing (like some of my other children). She definitely has a gift with words and I enjoy reading her work.

18. Emma seems naturally quiet when you meet her, but she is the loudest of all my kids. It may stem from her status as a middle born child, but between her constant singing, animated way of telling a story, and her dramatic responses to surprises, the volume of our home is several degrees lower when she’s not around and it makes us miss her all the more.

19. Emma is good at making the most of situations that don’t go the way she expects or wants them to. Everything about her mission has been different than she expected from when she turned in her papers, but she has handled all the changes with grace and maturity.

20. Emma only has about 2 months left on her church mission and we couldn’t be more excited for her to come home in early January.

21. Emma has a beautiful smile that lights up a room and she loves to share it with all she knows!

Happy birthday, Emma!!! We love you!!!

Best Day of Ellie's Life

Ellie has always had a soft spot for anything cute and cuddly.  She's Rocky's biggest champion and is drawn to animals wherever we go. She animals of all kinds (cats, rabbits, llamas, alpacas, guinea pigs, etc), but her favorite has always been dogs.   When she was young, she was known to stop dog owners in parks to chat them up about their dogs, while she played and loved on their pets while they chatted.  She has "Must love dogs" on her list of required traits for a future spouse and has dreams of owning several someday. 

That's why when my good friend, Natalie, announced on Facebook that her sweet poodle mama had just had puppies, I knew we needed to invite ourselves over for a visit.   Luckily they were born right before Fall Break, which meant that we had plenty of open time  for a visit when they were just 2 days old.  

Mia {the dog mom} had just given birth to 11 goldendoodle puppies and it was seriously such a cool experience to be there and watch her gently caring for her large litter.  

Their eyes weren't open yet and they mostly just squeaked and writhed around looking for milk, but they were adorable and so fun to watch.  Ellie was enamored and very much enjoyed giving those sweet teeny little pups lots of love and snuggles.  Not even a pound each yet, they were so tiny they fit into the palms of our hands. 

Natalie's daughters {and a friend} joined the fun and we were having a certifiable puppy snuggling party!  We enjoyed learning all about the process of responsible puppy breeding and what it takes to properly care for a litter of new puppies.  They literally watch them 24/7 the first couple weeks--taking turns staying up all night with them. They also weigh each one of them a couple times a day to make sure they are all thriving and take time to perform some neurological stimulation exercises with them each day as well.   It really was a highlight of fall break for Ellie! 

I should have known this would happen, but as soon as we left Natalie's house that day, I got a full court press that we needed to adopt one of the new puppies.  And it didn't just come from Ellie.  It also came from Cami and then from Glen as well.  

Eventually I said, "yes." 

Here are a few of the reasons I changed my mind {I'm including this here for some future day when I'm overwhelmed with doggy responsibilities and I question my past sanity}:

1.  Rocky is 13-years-old...and the average age that puggles live to is 10-15, which means our time left with him is likely somewhat short.  He is also deaf and sleeps 20+ hours a day.

2. Ellie really really really loves animals 

3.  Ellie is the lone child left at home

4. We are new to the area {again} and still feeling pretty lonely

5. The puppies were responsibly bred and are being very well-cared for

6. Goldendoodles don't shed and aren't normally as high energy as the breeds of Rocky or Kiwi

7.  I read a study about benefits of pet ownership on people's physical and mental health. 

8.  I think I will enjoy having a dog in the house when the kids are all gone 

Soooooooo....I hope I don't regret it, but here's Denali.....

She's now two weeks old and growing soooo fast.  Denali just opened her eyes this week, which adds some depth to her personality. 

 She's snuggly and calm so far and is supposed to end up about 25 pounds.   We'll get to take her home around Christmastime and in the meantime, Ellie is determined to visit and snuggle her as often as possible.  

So what was the best day of Ellie's life?   

First it was meeting the 2 day old puppies for the first time.  Then it was me eventually saying, "yes," to keeping one.  The next best day will be the day we bring her home!   💓💓💓

For Good

The other day I took a trek down to BYU to wish one of my former young women a happy 23rd birthday!    I was surprised when I got there  -but not too surprised- to see that she was roommates with two more of my young women!  I hadn't seen any of them since before their missions and it warmed my heart to hear the amazing things they're all a part of and to see how well they're doing. 

 

I was a broken mess when they called me to serve as young women's president just a couple weeks after Spencer had ended his treatment for leukemia and I worried immensely that I was the wrong person for the job.  Looking back on the 5 years I was in that calling though, I firmly believe that that having this  calling during that period of my life was truly a gift from Heavenly Father to help me along in my healing process and to shift my focus outward again.  It was a steep learning curve for me that brought me outside of my comfort zone repeatedly, but it also brought 30ish amazing young women into my life that inspired and taught me. 

Those young women did far more for me than I ever did for them and I am grateful every day for the love, laughter, and richness they brought to my life at a time when I needed it most.  It has been a joy to watch them grow into amazing missionaries, mothers, students, and overall awesome women who are making this world a better place! 

💓💓💓

Capturing the Stories

If you are reading this blogpost, then it is likely that you already know that I have had this blog for a very long time.  14+ years to be exact.   There was a time when this blog was my main creative outlet  and a major key to my sanity, however for various reasons (moving 3 times, social media, and changing stages of my life to name a few), blogging has taken a back burner in my life the last several years.  Fact of the matter is though....I miss having our stories written down.   My family enjoys going back and reading about cute and funny things they did when they were younger.  Or seeing a recap of a family vacation we went on.  Or checking out their Halloween costumes from days of yore.  

Though my life isn't as cute or funny  without little kids around, I still want to remember these days.   

I want to remember the two crazy weekends when we dogsat Spence's 7-month-old puppy.  Kiwi is like a big sweet bumbling toddler who doesn't know how big she is.  She's curious and can't be left alone for 2 minutes or she'll eat food off the counter, demolish my fall decorations (pine cones are a favorite of hers), chew up a pen, or pee on the rug.   

I also don't want to forget how Rocky and Kiwi sacked out on the end of our bed, while Ellie and I watched a movie.  Glen wasn't too disappointed to be out of town for both Kiwi escapades.  

I also don't want to forget these missionary Mondays when I get to talk with my sweet Hermana who's on the 2nd to last transfer of her mission!!!   I won't lie....I'm getting mighty excited for January 11th to roll around!  

I also don't want to forget the early morning walk Glen and I took in the 35-degree rain/slush the other day.  With all his recent travel and busy work schedule, it had been several days since we'd been able to take our normal morning walk together, and I missed it enough that it was well worth it to brave the cold and wet to have that time to connect together.  Just for the record, I was wearing a winter hat and thick jacket for the walk and I STILL got this wet!  

I don't know if I've mentioned this on here before, but I LOVE mail...especially postcards.  I collect postcards wherever we go and even participate in a postcard exchange group where I send and receive postcards from all over the world.  It's a guilty pleasure hobby for me and I've been doing it for several years.  Someday I'll do a whole post on it, but for now I'll just share this postcard I received this week.  There was only about 1/3 of it left and apparently the other 2/3 had gotten caught up in the machinery at the post office.  Luckily that 1/3 that survived happened to have my address on it and it got delivered in a bag just like this.  

Also, I don't want to forget how deeply I love hiking around here.  Of course I knew there were good mountain trails here, but I also knew we wouldn't have time to do those on an everyday basis, so I had this expectation of boring treeless trails we'd have to walk most days.    I think my expectation was so low mostly because we really loved the hiking trails near our home in Pennsylvania and I didn't think I'd find anything close to home to compare.   But it turns out that we live in a lovely place and I rather enjoy seeing camels, alpacas, horses, cows, goats, and swans on my everyday hikes too.   This view is from a hike we take once or twice a week up to the Horsetail Falls trailhead.  The trailhead is about 2 miles from our house (all uphill), which makes it the perfect amount of challenge for us.  

 This is our life. It's not all that entertaining or interesting, but it's mine, and I'm grateful for that.  

Thanks for caring enough to read.  

Have an awesome weekend! 

The Paper Heart

When I pulled out my fall decorations a few weeks ago, 

I laughed when I found a cute little paper heart taped to our pumpkin door sign.

 It took me a minute to remember where it came from, but when I did it made me smile even more. 

 Here’s the story…

As most of you all know, we lived in the same house in Virginia for 20 years. Moving to Pennsylvania in 2019 was a HUGE leap of faith for us, but we felt strongly that that’s where we were supposed to be, and we went with open hearts, ready to embrace our new community. Six months into our new adventure, COVID kicked in and Pennsylvania locked down hard. We had already struggled to find our footing with the new social landscape of PA anyway and we found that COVID made it infinitely harder. Then our landlords came home from their overseas sabbatical and we found out that we had to move yet again.

That’s where the cute paper heart comes in. In the summer of 2020, we moved to the new house in Phoenixville…just 20 minutes away from our old one….but in a whole new ward and community. Honestly we were feeling quite lonely at this point and pretty discouraged at what our prospects looked like—with almost nothing happening in person to give us the opportunity to get to know people and me having some strained/weird social things going on with the old ward. 

That’s when the dear Latey family swooped in and made sure we knew we were loved and welcomed. I think we initially bonded over sweet sister missionaries starting their missions only a few weeks apart and both getting reassigned to Utah, but the connection definitely went beyond that and they made sure we didn't get lost in COVID anonymity.  They sent us letters, they invited us for socially distanced walks, and one day we came home to our door covered with hearts and sweet welcoming messages.  They didn't let us feel forgotten and it meant the world to us.  

The Lateys are the type of people I aspire to be...not just builders who help people feel loved, but true friends that  listen without judgment and show up when it matters.   

So....we were thrilled to hear they were coming to Utah last week for BYU homecoming and extra glad that their responsibilities as alumni directors for the Philly area didn't keep them too busy to come visit us.     

We had a lovely visit together and enjoyed catching up and renewing our friendship!

And of course we had to share the story of the paper heart with them (which I'm totally leaving up as long as possible)...

 I still don’t know all the reasons why we needed to live in Pennsylvania for two years, but meeting the Latey family was definitely one of them!