Holland's Eighth and Baptism

Holland turned 8!!! What a delight that girl is! She is kind, fun, smart, creative, strong, loving, generous, patient, and more. She is such a sweetheart! This year she really turned a corner on being able to do things that she doesn't want to do, and it has really made a difference for the whole family. She is tough and cuddly. She is playful and thoughtful. She is amazing! 

Here is an interview with Holland. I couldn't help myself and made it kind of long. 

What do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be a stay at home mom or a scientist. 

If you could be a superhero, what would your magic power be? It would be the power of animus. (It means that I could have any power in the world except it would mean I would feel more entitled to use my power for evil things, but I would cast a spell to prevent that.)

What is something that scares you? To be honest, something that comes around is, it is kind of a silly fear, but I am scared of dragonflies. They are just so big!

Do you have a favorite joke? I like the interrupting cow one. 

What is something you wish you knew how to do? To be honest, I would like to be able to do a front flip and a back flip. 

If you had a time machine, where would you go? I'd start over my life. 

What makes you laugh the most? When someone tickles me, which I don't really like. And when someone says something funny.

Who is your favorite Disney character? Elsa.

What does your dream house look like? A castle with a huge cave on one side with the prettiest garden and multiple levels. It has secret passages and secret rooms. It has marble walls. Waterslides coming from a balcony into a 50 feet wide pool. 

What is your perfect day? Christmas and everyone in our family's birthdays, plus Easter.

If you could be an animal, which animal would you be? A clever squirrel

What is your favorite thing about yourself? Imagination, love, and creativity.

If a friend asked you to keep a secret, but it made you feel upset, what would you do? Calm myself down.

Would you rather go to the beach or the mountains? Beach

What is your favorite outfit and why? My grey shirt with the gold sparkles and my black pants with the white specks, and my yellow shirt with the flowers by the pocket with my pink pants. I like how the gold specks look like stars. And the yellow shirt with the pink pants, well they just look pretty together. 

Do you have a favorite song? I am so Blessed

If you could grow wings and fly, where would you go? I would fly to get everyone first, then fly to the biggest island of Hawaii.

Which pizza topping is best? Sausage

Do you have any hidden talents? I have the talent of doing tricks on the hammock chair. 

Would you rather go to the bottom of the ocean or outer space? Outer space

If you could be any toy, which one would you be? A picture because pictures remind people about what happened before now. 

What is a job that you would never want to have? A servant in a house with no other servants. 

Which season is your favorite and why? Spring and Summer, because Spring with all the flowers. And Summer all the time with my family.

If you could learn any language, which language would it be? Spanish

What is your favorite holiday? Christmas

How would you describe yourself? Impossible to describe

What is one thing that makes you unique? Almost everyone in my class loves typing, and I don't like it.

If you were given $50, how would you spend it? 1. On a couple of books. 2. On a small lego set.

What are you thankful for? Everything

Do you have a favorite chore? Dusting because it gets done quicker. 

What is your favorite candy? White chocolate and jolly ranchers

Do you have a hero? Mommy and Daddy and Heavenly Father and Jesus

What is your favorite thing to do when it's raining? Most of the time, I like to sit inside and peacefully read and listen to the rain.

Who is someone you wish you could meet? President Nelson and President Biden

If you could be on a TV show, what show would it be? I would be on Liv and Maddy. 

What is the best smell? The smell of flowers and the smell of Daddy's chili (from last year's chili cook off). 

What is your favorite vegetable? Cucumbers and tomatoes

Would you rather be as small as an ant or as big as an elephant? Small as an ant because I could sneak into places.

Do you have a favorite dinner? Raviolis and Daddy's chili from last year.

What is something you are good at? Ice skating

If you could invent something, what would it be? The ability to teleport.

What qualities do you look for in friends? For one thing, non-ditching. One time I was playing this game and I did not know what was happening. And this girl, her name is Clara, she totally ditched me right then and there. So the qualities I want are loyalty, bravery, ambitious, kind, fun and funny. 

If you could buy anything, what would it be? A pair of ice skates. 

If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be? Daddy's chili competition and raviolis

If you were the president, what rules would you put into place? No drinking coffee, tea, alcohol. 

What song do you know all the words to? Give said the Little Stream.

Which teacher has been your favorite and why? Mrs. Clifford, because she is a unique kind of nice. Well, one thing is that I think she is always there to help and honest.

What is the best advice you've ever gotten? To be myself

Do you prefer shorts or pants? Shorts if they are not jean shorts

What is your favorite fruit? Mango

Do you have a favorite drink? Egg nog

What is your favorite movie? Frozen 2

Who is your favorite family member? Everyone

If you could go to a theme park by yourself, what is the first thing you would do? I would go on the ride into the hotel. 

Would you live on the moon? No because there no way I would be able to get myself food.

What is the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning? Lay in bed.

Can you play any instruments? I am learning the violin at school.

Does anything scare you about the future? One thing that scares me about the future is the end of college.

Do you have a favorite family game? Bohnanza

What is one way you help your parents? I play with Darcy.

What is something you like to do when you're bored? Read or play legos.

Do you have a favorite book? That is beyond possible because I have too many of those.

What is your favorite part about school? Read a loud.

What is your least favorite part about school? 95%

What is something your mom or dad always says to you? I love you and Get on your work.

What is love? A serious relationship.

What is your favorite part of the day? Afternoon

If stuffed animals could talk, what would they say? Hello, time to play with me!

The day after her baptism she wore her baptism dress to church and asked Steven Charles, "Would you like a twirl?" She is adorable!

Holland says the funniest things. Recently she told me, "Darcy is not at the age to start worrying about economicking." 

Another time she told us, "They might be talking about how much they want to kiss." (About a couple having a serious looking discussion in a nearby car.)

One of the books or shows she liked must have introduced this to her, but for a while we heard Holland tell herself, "I am in my signature black outfit." 

"It is almost sun dip." (sunset)

"I do weird things, like this thing I am doing right now. 

"Thanks I know I have pointy eyes. (After John told her she had sharp eyes.)

"It was my dream." (About swimming with dolphins.)

"If I die when I am still a child I want you to keep my skull, no all of my body bones. Yeah! I am liking this!"

"Baby Jesus is in my heart." 

"I want milk to cheer me down." 

Holland's birthday and baptism was a three event celebration. Her birthday was a Saturday and happened to fall on the MCO concert. She didn't really get to celebrate her birthday that day, but we still tried to make her feel special. We had a fun breakfast. After we dropped off the girls for the MCO concert call time, we explored City Creek shopping center. We told her she could pick out any small thing or treat. She picked to get pizza, and then a small birthday stone necklace in the shape of a flower. The day concluded with a wonderful concert. We all loved it!

The next weekend we actually celebrated her birthday. Her friend Sophie had a sleepover. We started the day with waffles. Then they just played all morning. It was fun to have an extra person there to enjoy all of the decorations. We took a picnic to Discovery Park and had the kids play on that extra fun play structure. Then we dropped Sophie off at her basketball game and went to the Clark Planetarium. The Clark Planetarium is so nice because it is free, but there are actually fun things to do see there. We all loved it. On our way home we had a scary moment when we saw someone spin all over the freeway, but somehow no one and nothing was hit. We couldn't believe it, and it definitely got all of our hearts pumping. Thankfully we got home safely and enjoyed raviolis for dinner (love it when the kids choose something easy for birthday dinners!). Then it was time for presents! (She got so many books!) We finished out the night with strawberry napoleons for her birthday treat. (We're just not birthday cake people.) 

At Holland's 8 year check up, she weighed 42.33 pounds, which is the 2.32%. She was 47 inches tall, which is the 7%. This meant that her BMI was 13.47, which is the 4.4%

This is her actual birthday dress, but I took her photos in her baptism dress. 

I am a little frustrated that I didn't take more photos of her actual baptism. She is such a little angel. My heart melted seeing her in my baptism dress. She looked so tiny in the font, but so perfectly childlike. Her confirmation was beautiful, and I felt the love of God. All four girls sang "I like to Look for Rainbows, " and I loved it so much!

We did a lunch out on our patio, and thankfully people brought pop up shades. This made it quite nice. It kind of kills me that we did a huge family gathering out on the patio during the summer that we did our patio project, but before we actually did it. It was a bit of an eye sore, but was still fine. We served lunch meat sandwiches and brownies with ice cream. People brought sides to share. I was so grateful to have so many people show up. Marc and Miriam came all the way down from Garland. They were one of the first people to tell us they would come. My parents made it too! My mom wasn't doing well and hadn't been able to get out of the house to go to things for a while. But they made it with time to spare. It kills me that I didn't get a photo with her in it. That was the last time she was at my house. Our friends the Davises came too. Holland and Sophie are best buds and ditched the rest of the gathering to eat on the front porch. Kayla's family came, and so did everyone that lives in Utah on John's side. That was so kind of everyone to take time out of their Saturday to come celebrate with us. 

I made a little baptism book for Holland to remember that day. It is kind of my favorite. She wrote a few pages about her experience that day. Also, we kept the little notes people wrote her during her baptism. 

Holland is such a special girl, and I am so proud of her for making this critical first step along the covenant path. 

May 2023 + Capitol Reef

It was finally starting to really get warm. Thank heavens. Because of the record breaking snow fall of the winter, there were a lot of flooding concerns for the change in season. It seemed like there was a big to do about prepping for flooding, but then I don't think I ever heard about people's houses flooding (except in David's ward). I guess this is maybe because it was prepped for? We never had any issues with flooding. Our state really, really needed that relief from the drought, but it would be even better if we could get multiple years with extra water. That would be amazing. We all still need to pray for water. 

This was our first spring in our Provo house with plants and flowers. It was delightful to see the bulbs that we planted the previous fall start to shoot up and eventually bloom. It gave us a false sense of success to plant other type of tubers/bulbs that were not successful at all. Live and learn, I guess. 

We mowed the lawn with a borrowed lawn mower and then spread our some more grass seed to help it thicken up. I think it thickened quite a bit through the winter and then adding more seed only helped it too. It was pretty frustrating to see how the sprinklers were not watering consistently, especially along the edges of the grass. Randomly there are still bare patches in the grass that hopefully fill in as time goes on. Adding grass seed made for kind of a weird time with our grass. We couldn't mow the grass because we can't step on the new shoots, but we also can't spread weed killer either because it might prevent it growing. What that meant was that we weeded the grass by hand, hopping from thick spot of grass to thick spot of grass. It was a lot of work, but made for some quality time with my girls. 

On the first day of May our first tulips bloomed! Kristina Davis brought us ice cream and flowers over for May Day. We ate it on the patio while we did value night. Doing our cheer loud for the whole world to hear was awesome. Also, that day we took Darcy for an eye appointment. It was very encouraging to find out that her eyes are improving and the prescription strength could decrease. 

On May 2nd John and I went to the temple. I loved having that time to contemplate my covenants. Also, listening to the Follow Him podcast really blesses my life. Also, naps with Darcy on my bed blesses my life. :)  

Reading lesson + self applied eye liner by a two year old.

We got Holland a better fitting baptism dress! She is lovely. She spent a lot time choosing her perfect dress. She made an excellent choice. One Sunday it was her baptism interview. She was hilarious and smart. "Can I have full access to the church after I am a member?" 

Darcy is still learning how to choose matching clothing. 

Parent child dates in May included Holland going with John to the Rec Center. They played at the indoor playground, racquetball, climbing wall, and just explored the whole rec center. They came home and watched a show. 

Miriam and I went to Pioneer Book to use the gift cards she received for winning Battle of the Books. She had a great time picking out a lot of used books including one for everyone in our family. She was so generous. We also picked up donuts for her good grades and picked out presents for Lizzy and Kayla because they are having some pretty big challenges right now with Lizzy's health. 

Surprisingly Mom's amaryllis sprouted a bloom after moving to our house. It is truly a stunning bloom that is bigger than my hand. It was fun to share that with my mom. 

The weekend of Holland's eighth birthday was the Spring MCO Concerts. Because she is in Children's Chorus, her rehearsal time wasn't as long as her sisters'. We were able to play around Temple Square. We visited the Family History library first. We pretty much just went straight to the children's area, where we made pictures of temples from big blocks, colored temple pictures digitally, played with the flower garden, and pretended to speak in General Conference. That was only a fraction of the activities that we could have done. There is a ton of things for kids to do there. 

After the Family History Library, we walked around Temple Square to see the flowers. It is only a small area compared because of all of the construction right now. We were able to slip into the Tabernacle and watch the Tabernacle Choir practice. It was interesting to hear the conductor remind them to do things or pronounce words differently. They sounded perfect to my untrained ear. Then we explored the Salt Palace which is where the rehearsal is. 

Holland was sent Crumbl Cookies from her Primary teachers for her birthday. They are so kind. Unfortunately I tried a piece of one and had a peanut reaction. 

MCO concert weekend is kind of a thing, but the concerts are so phenomenal. That is how they keep us coming back year after year. On Friday night John volunteered and was able to be a door holder and hear the concert again. He also got a cute photo of Holland up on the balcony. While they were at the concert, Darcy and I walked over to the park. She loved, loved the climbing slope and was so proud of herself for climbing it. She climbed it again and again. Bicentennial Park is particularly good for that age of kid. Darcy told me, "I love this slide. This is a great Park. I love this park."

On Saturday, it was Holland's birthday. It was a little bit crazy, but we had a good time. We had a fancy breakfast. Her call time was after our other girls', so we played a little bit downtown. We explored City Creek and got pizza. We also stopped by Deseret Book and got her a little birthstone flower necklace. We thoroughly enjoyed the MCO concert. The big heavy hitters this performance was "I am so Blessed" and "A Mighty Fortress is Our God."

The next day was Mother's Day. The girls all made me sweet cards. I am so blessed to be their mother. This Mother's Day was kind of hard because it was right when the call was made to put my mom on Hospice despite a lifetime of her hating/fear Hospice. She considered it a death sentence. It was difficult for me to think about her being betrayed this way and not even knowing it. Yet, I am not a doctor. It seemed like everyone thought it was the right call. Who am I to contradict everyone? 

I was pretty sad that day, but my family was all really kind and loving and tried to make me feel special. 

One day in May, John and I had a fun, yummy date to Cubby's. Despite it being a head-achy kind of day, being with John was so nice. I love playing games with him at restaurants. Darcy was pretty cute that day. She told me first thing "I had a good dream--I dreamed about you!" Later she told me she wanted to trade me for a cat!!

Another day at 8:45 am, Darcy told me "Did you know I am already bored?" It was so funny. 

One day Darcy saw us kiss goodbye in the morning and said, "You guys are falling in love!"

Another day Darcy called me "One tough cookie." That about sums me up. :) 

Darcy exercising with me is about the cutest thing ever. The only thing is that she requires at least 2/3 of the mat. Occasionally I hear her pretending to lead a exercise class as part of her play. One morning I heard her talking to herself from the other room. "Easy workout time today. Are you with me? Are you sweating yet? One, two, let's go! Get you bod ropes! One, two, let's go. Are you burning yet? Are you working? Let's go!" All while jumping and pretending to life weights. 

The girls really wanted to finish their book before school.

Our next door neighbor thinned her iris and gave us some. My sweet friend, Sarah, helped me plant them. One day we also went up to my parents' house and got a few plants to transplant to our house. It was nice to see them especially because my mom has had a hard time recently. 

Miriam graduated elementary school. Eliza never had an end of elementary school experience because of covid, so this was new to us. I was surprised at what a to-do it was. In the year and a half she was at Provo Peaks she made some really great friends. I am glad they were so welcoming to her.

Miriam helps me so much everyday! Loading dishes, taking care of siblings, helping make food, cleaning up things. So grateful for her!

While Miriam graduated from elementary school, Eliza was having her last day of middle school. There was a school carnival, and she and some friends wanted to walk home from school via the Creamery on Ninth. I am so grateful that she has such a solid group of friends. 

Miriam, Temperance, Isabelle

Miriam, Mary R, Lucy, Vinnae

Top Row: Isabelle, Coco, Temperance, Stella
Bottom Row: Mary R, Mary S, Miriam, Maelle

Miriam and her teacher, Mrs. Fiatoa

On Memorial Day we really debated what to do. We were going to go to a close hike, but then there was too much snow and ice still. Then we were going to go on a day trip to Goblin Valley, but then we read about how there are often multi hour what times to get into the park on Memorial Day. We landed on making it a day trip to Capitol Reef National Park. It is one of the less popular national parks in Utah. The crowds were not an issue for us even though it was a holiday. 

Here are some fun facts about Capitol Reef:

Capitol Reef Has Been A Homeland To People For Thousands Of Years

The Earliest Explorers Of Capitol Reef Were Dominican Friars

John Fremont Came To The Area In 1854

The Earliest Settlers Of Capitol Reef Were Mormon Pioneers

In 1869 The First Known Successful Rafting Expedition In Wood Boats Was Led By John Wesley Powell

Two Businessman Were Instrumental In Making Capitol Reef A National Park

Capitol Reef Was Originally To Be Named “Wayne Wonderland”

Capitol Reef Is Home To A Natural Bridge

58 Species Of Mammals Have Been Documented Living In The Park

More Than 230 Species Of Birds Have Been Documented In Capitol Reef

Capitol Reef Is An International Dark Sky Park

At Capitol Reef National Park, You Can Actually Pick The Fruit

We started the day at the Visitor Center and then paid with a little envelope at a drop box on the side of the road. I couldn't believe there wasn't even a booth we had to stop at. Then we headed to the Grand Wash to head up to Cassidy Arch. The only tricky part was noticing when to turn off of the wash and onto to the trail heading up the side of the canyon to the arch. It was a wonderful hike full of lots of opportunities to take photos. The only thing I didn't like about this trail was that there were pretty severe drop off regularly. I mean, the views were amazing, but I didn't like not being able to hold everyone's hands to make sure you were being safe. We played many, many rounds of "I am thinking of an animal." Another happy memory is remembering all of the super heroes that Holland would make up. Darcy was so content to ride and nap in the carrier. She is so sweet. 

Snack spot in the shade!

We made it to the arch! It seemed like a particularly dramatic arch because the ground just opens down to this big hole in the cliff. We could even walk out onto the arch. It looks scary but it is actually pretty wide out there. 

We love shade on a sunny hike!

This is the view looking back from the top of the arch. 

I loved the cactus blooms!

There is a lovely picnic area in Fruita. We enjoyed our packed lunch and then explored the historic buildings there. Next was a hike along the Grand Wash from the top. We just walked a couple miles down and then back to the van. It was such a beautiful walk!

We looked and looked for heart rocks.

Darcy took a nap on this part day.

I love these girls so much. I love their conversations. It is hilarious when they talk love triangles. They are so much fun. I am so lucky to be their mom. It is way better than I ever imagined. 

Panorama Point viewpoint

Chimney Rock!

It was such a spontaneous day trip. We loved it! I had a red sand tan at the end of the day. Whew, my feet are white. I had to scrub and soak and scrub and soak (repeated 5x) to get the red stains out of Holland's clothes. Definitely shouldn't have let her wear cute lighter colored clothes to climb red rock. 

Darcy is doing so well at reading lesson. She is so close to being able to sound out CVC words. It makes such a difference that she loves doing it. One day she wanted to do it first thing in the morning and after her nap. She loves doing the preschool book too. Mainly I am trying to teach her how to use/hold a pencil, but I wouldn't call that an immediate success. But she loves it even if she doesn't have much of an attention span. 

By the end of May we decided that we needed to start buying plants that were already rooted from the nursery. Those pretty much all survived! One day we went with Holland Darcy to Home Depot and let them pick out plants. They were so enthused--running through the plant aisles.