Winds of Change

September Writing Challenge  - Prompt #2:

Different

After writing about COVID the other day, I’ve been thinking about some of the things that have changed for my family and me over the past six years. Here are some things that are different now:

We’re done with elementary school.

This is one of the most recent milestones. I’m glad for it! Junior high can be brutal, but I was ready to move on. I don't have little kids anymore, and that’s okay. 

Should she be scared of junior high, 

or should junior high be scared of her?

Nicky has graduated and left home.

I have an adult child, and he’s living on a tiny island in the Caribbean. He speaks a foreign language that he didn’t learn from me! I’m in awe of this. 

Um... Elder?

I work.

After being a stay at home mom for 17 years, I got a part-time job. It’s been almost three years since I started working. I have to say, though, that I have a pretty cozy work life. I really have the best of both worlds because my work doesn't interfere with my family life. 

Daisy can drive.

It’s so nice when kids can drive themselves. Daisy is a bit slow to tackle the freeway and long distances, but for now it’s helpful enough that she can get herself to school and back. I need to work with her on getting more comfortable with some of the more challenging drives.

We’re in a different ward (church congregation).

Three years ago our congregation was dissolved, and we were divided between two other wards. It was a good change but also a hard one. I felt like I had gone stagnant in our ward - there was no more growth for me there, so I needed a change, but it hasn’t been the greatest for our children.

Most of our parents have moved.

We have four sets of parents, and three of them have moved since 2020.

Visiting my dad - two hours away

(the goat is not my dad)

I’ve lost my marbles.

I turned 40, and my body betrayed me, and I became (more) emotionally unstable.

I have sleep apnea and neuropathy.

You can read more about that here and here if you’re that kind of bored.

Some of our favorite restaurants have closed. 

Two of my favorite Chinese restaurants and Scotty's favorite Mexican restaurant closed. 

Our last visit to New Dragon Diner

My last fortune cookie

We’ve had four significant deaths in our family.

Doug

James

Amber

and my brother-in-law Aaron.

All four passed away tragically early. 

We lost the last of our grandparents.

My grandma and Scotty's grandma were the last to pass, and with that...

Our grandparents houses have been sold off and torn down (almost). 

Both our maternal grandparents owned a good chunk of land in our city. Scotty's grandpa's property was purchased for development, and the house sat empty for years before they finally tore it down. The land still sits empty. My grandparents' property was sold for a new hospital campus. Their home has been sitting vacant for over a year and will be torn down as will my great-grandpa's home. 

Our final visit to my grandma's house before the University of Utah took over ownership

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I didn't realize, until I started making this list, just how much change we've experienced in the last few years. We've had good changes, expected changes, and hard changes. I guess that's how life goes. Who knows how different things could be in five more years! Fingers crossed for good changes!

Show Me the Money

When we started our family, we wanted to put some things into place to help our kids learn about money. This is kind of a hard thing because you have to choose what you expect your kids to pay for, and what the family economy will be like. There are a lot of opinions about things like whether kids should have jobs in high school and whether they should be given allowance. 

When I was in school for my Marriage and Family Relations degree, this was a topic that came up in a few different courses. The research varies, so suffice it to say, there are a lot of different ways to handle money in a family, and various methods have good outcomes. I know a family that didn't allow their kids to have jobs while they were in school, and now those kids are all successful adults whose incomes have far surpassed their parents'. I know families whose kids were expected to work and pay their way for everything, and they, too, are very successful, affluent adults. So when it comes to kids and money, there's no perfect way, but there are many ways that work out. The most important thing, in my opinion, is to model living below your means, and be grateful for what you have. 

A few things we have implemented with our kids in regards to money are:

1. Starting a savings for them early on

From the time our kids were babies, they've received some gifts in the form of money. We put that money in the bank - even if it was just $20 a year. As they got older, they started being more aware of their birthday and Christmas money, so occasionally, it doesn’t make it into the bank, but about 75% of the money they've received as gifts has gone into the bank. This hasn't amounted to tons of money, but it's something. 

2. We give unconditional allowance

That makes them sound spoiled, but it's $5 every two weeks when they are little (to match our pay day, they also get pay day), and then when they get older, it's $10. So it's seriously next to nothing. The purpose is to give them the opportunity to practice having money. They need the chance to make stupid decisions. They need to learn to save or wait for things, and anticipating a few dollars every two weeks helps them do that. 

I am also always willing to come up with a plan for them to earn some money if they want to. 

3. We pay for what they need as long as they are being responsible

We cover the expenses of their extracurricular activities and things like gas and insurance as long as they are doing well in school, behaving at home, driving safely, meeting curfew, and helping out when asked.

4. We do a "savings match"

We opened a savings account for each kid with two simple rules:

1. We will match any money they put in that savings account up to $1,200 a year. 

2. They don't get the money until they turn 25. 

We did this so they will have a little bit of savings in young adulthood, but we didn't want to hand it over at age 18 or 21, so we decided to go with 25. We wanted them to have the experience of doing something now that will benefit them later. So far, Nicky and Daisy have caught on really well, and they have chosen to save as much money as they can. Zoe is starting to understand more. Eva, on the other hand, has put $8 in that account for a whopping total of $16. 

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We definitely don't know yet if we've made the best choices, but we've had some positive results. All of our kids have gone through a phase where money burns a hole in their pockets, but as they've become older teens, they've shown a lot of responsibility. Nicky and Daisy have become savvy shoppers, and they both love buying things second-hand. Zoe spends a little more, but she always knows exactly what she wants. Eva... well... let's just say we're still going to be working with that one for a while. 

One thing I need to work on with my kids is showing them more of the cost of living expenses we have so they can get familiar with the services we pay for and how much things cost. As our income has become a little more flexible, our kids have gotten accustomed to things like streaming services and family outings. They don't remember that we went without internet for three years because we couldn't afford it or that we used to mow my grandma's lawn for $20 a week, and that's all the money we had for groceries. 

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I wanted to share this in case other parents are looking for options for how to work with kids and money. I got the idea for the savings match from someone else and modified it to work for our family. Where past generations have not thought it appropriate to talk about money, I think it's very important to have conversations about it. Some aspects of finances are definitely no one's business, but I think it's important to teach our children how to handle money. 

Sunday Night Entertainment

We have a Ring doorbell, and right now they are doing free trials of intelligent video descriptions, so when we get notifications that there is someone on our porch, it also tells us what they *might* be doing. I say *might* because the accuracy is touch and go. Sometimes it's so accurate that it's creepy, and other times it's so inaccurate that we get a good laugh over it. 

Last night, during a moment of boredom, I told my kids that we were going to play a game. We took turns going out on the porch and doing something and seeing what description the Ring would give for what was happening out there. 

Here's how it went:

What the doorbell said: A person is walking and looking at their wrist

What was actually happening: Zoe was dancing

What the doorbell said: Two people are walking to the entrance

What was actually happening: Eva was proposing to Daisy

What the doorbell said: A person is standing on the porch holding a potted plant

WINNER! WINNER!

What the doorbell said: A person is carrying a large black object up the porch steps

WINNER! WINNER!

(It was a foam roller)

What the doorbell said: A person is standing on the porch holding a shell

What was actually happening: I was holding an alligator head

What the doorbell said: A child is climbing the stairs

What was actually happening: Zoe was pretending to poop

What the doorbell said: A person is standing on the porch and turning around

What was actually happening: Daisy was pants-ing herself

What the doorbell said: A child is standing on the porch

WINNER! WINNER!

(I mean... it's true... a child was standing on the porch, but she was pretty disappointed that the doorbell didn't acknowledge that she was wearing a Luigi hat)

What the doorbell said: A person is standing on the porch holding a container

What was actually happening: It wasn't just any container! It was a GALLON of MAYO!

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This isn't a service I need or would ever pay for, but it kept us busy for 15 minutes on the longest day of the week, so enjoy our contribution, data centers!

Grandma D

Scotty and I no longer have any living grandparents.  We were blessed to have most of them in our lives long enough for our kids to meet them, but our last living grandmas passed away a few years ago. 

My grandma's casket

The other night, I had a dream about trying to load my maternal grandma's dishwasher.* It got me thinking about memories of my grandma. I’ve written about her before (here), but I wanted to jot down another series of memories about her. 

Me with my Grandma on Thanksgiving several years ago

-My grandma had very little patience for people not trying new foods and would always tell me, “If it kills you, you never have to eat it again.” (I now say that to my kids).

-She had a video rental system. My grandparents had a huge collection of VHS tapes (literally hundreds and hundreds of movies) and a detailed catalogue system. They were all numbered (and stored numerically), and you could look them up on a spreadsheet and borrow them. When you borrowed a tape, you had to write your name on a post it with the number of the video. Then you could retire your post it when you returned your video. 

-She was always wiping her floor clean. We always joked about how you could eat off her floor because twenty times a day she would bend down and clean a section of the kitchen floor. 

-She loved planting flowers and keeping her flower beds nice. She planted lots of marigolds. 

-She knitted two items in mass quantities - slippers and dish cloths. She gave everyone a dish cloth for every holiday and she would trace our feet on paper so she would know how big to make our slippers. 

Grandma's dish cloths

-She loved to cook and bake and had a lot of signature foods: meatballs, rouladen, crinkle cookies, baked beans, taco salad, finger jello, and crescent rolls. She always had Banquet chicken pot pies and Totino’s pizzas in her freezer. Every family party had a relish tray with dill pickles and olives and a bowl of Classic Lay’s with ranch dip. 

-She always put towels on the seats of her cars to protect them. We never sat directly on her car seats! 

-My grandma traveled a lot with my grandpa for work, and she would always bring back hotel toiletries. She kept them in a basket on her counter and handed them to us like party favors. Every time we left her house, she would make us take something from her stash. We had a family rule that when Grandma offered you something, you took it even if you didn't want it so we could get it out of her house. 

-She was an excellent typist. My grandpa was a patriarch in the Church (read more about that here), and it was my grandma’s job to transcribe the blessings he gave. She did this on a typewriter (she started using a computer the last few years of my grandpa's service). I would hang out at her house a lot after school, and she would type blessings while I played the piano. The clickety clack of the typewriter keys was the soundtrack of my grandma's house (that and the chime of the grandfather clock in her living room).** She also did all of the scheduling for blessings and always had post its on the kitchen door frame with the appointments on them. I would always check the appointments for my friends’ names. 

-She used the same kind of calendar every year - the free one that came in the mail from the McDougal Funeral Home. She kept track of the anniversaries of everything. If you wanted to know how old her TV was, you could find it on her calendar. 

-She spent a lot of time ridding her back porch of box elder bugs. She’d go out there and stomp on them and then sweep them off the porch with her broom. Some people look for dragonflies or butterflies to represent their loved ones. I’m pretty sure my grandma is represented by the box elder bugs. 

-She kept a stash of canned soda in a dresser in what was called the "back bedroom." She would let us (the grandkids) have sodas, but she had some weird rules about it. She would let us pour half a can in a cup, and then we would have to put the rest of the can in the fridge. Most of the time, if we wanted a soda, we would have to choose from the selection of half-drank sodas in the fridge that were leftover from other cousins, who knows how long ago. I always hoped for a fresh soda, but she would always make me drink an old, flat one from the fridge. I came up with sneaky ways to get a fresh one when she wasn't looking because I hated drinking those old, flat sodas!

-She was diligent at recycling her soda cans. There was a special spot on the counter where we were supposed to leave our empty soda cans. Then she would crush them by stepping on them and save them up til she had a big bag to recycle. 

-She always clipped obituaries and comics from the newspaper and hung them on the fridge. Part of going to Grandma's house always included checking to see if she had any newly dead friends on her fridge. 

4 Generations

Read about my grandma’s unique home here. 

A painting of my grandma's house

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*I mentioned this earlier this week - how I have recurring dreams about my grandma's dishwasher. (Weird, right?) I have no explanation or reason for it, but my grandma's dishwasher and kitchen sink are part of my dreams probably at least once a month. I'm not a big believer in dream interpretation, but out of curiosity I did some googling and found that a grandmother's dishwasher can represent nostalgia, a desire to clear away negative emotions, a desire to be nurtured, and preparation for a life change. 

**It's strange to me that people were okay living with that kind of noise. Somehow it was pleasing to those older generations to have loud chimes announce each changing hour. Anywhere else, that would drive me nuts, but I was used to it in that house.

Spring Break 2024

This past week was spring break for our school district. I always struggle a bit when my kids are out of school. I wish that weren’t the case - it’s one of my greatest shames in motherhood, that I have a hard time managing my kids at home for long periods of time. I love them fiercely, but I get overwhelmed and overstimulated by them very easily. I had a couple of days this week where I about lost it, but I tried really hard to give my kids a decent spring break. It wasn’t anything super amazing, but we all survived it. 

Here are a few things that happened while the kids were out of school:

Nicky and Daisy performed at the high school dance concert

Daisy did two dances with her junior high dance company, and Nicky was in a partner dance with the high school dance company (it’s been pretty funny to see how often Nicky ends up in dance performances).

Nicky went to Disneyland for theatre and was gone over Easter. 

Bounding with his boys

We celebrated Easter.

We celebrated April Fools’. 

April Fools’ dinner

Zoe pranking me with a dish of “brown E’s”

I worked two days (this was a bit of a trial run to see how my kids would do at home without me).

We tried to fly kites, and it didn’t go very well.

Three minutes into the event 

We went on a DI shopping trip and then to Wheeler Farm.

We went to the pet store and didn’t buy a bearded dragon (or any other animals).

I went rock climbing with the Young Women (and by that I mean I sat in a bench and watched).

Zoe and Lydia

Nicky’s “not girlfriend” (who has “not” been his girlfriend for about a year and a half now) turned 16 while Nicky was in California. I was in charge of delivering 16 roses to her on her birthday. They tipped over while I was driving, and the water from the vase “glug, glug, glugged” all over the floor of my van where there happened to be a sweatshirt and jacket to absorb it all (perks of having a messy van this week).

We went to see Kung Fu Panda 4.

We went to the Manti temple open house.

While we were in the area, we made a surprise visit at my parents’ house to take my step-mom her birthday present. We got to see lots of animals between theirs and their neighbors’ homesteads. The highlight was the baby bunnies.

Dear little bunnies,

Please don’t be dead after we touched you

Zoe and Eva slept over at my mom’s house one night. The rest of spring break they slept in their own tents in our family room. They loved it because it’s the closest they’ve ever been to having their own rooms. I’m not opposed to making it a permanent arrangement.

Nicky and Zoe had orthodontist appointments, and Nicky officially graduated. No more orthodontist appointments for him unless he has an issue.

We did baptisms for the dead and then went to Red Robin for lunch.

We went on another DI shopping trip (since Nicky was in California for our first round). 

We listened to General Conference. 

We played lots of board games and watched some movies. 

When I look back at this post, it seems like we did so much! But even with all this, we endured hours and hours of boredom, and my kids spent way too much time on electronics. Zoe and Eva fought incessantly, and it felt like spring break was three months long. It ended with me being a bit of an emotional mess Sunday night. 

All the People in This Family

Eva

• Is in third grade
• Isn’t exactly a model student
• Is, like, three years behind in reading and math
• Is so stubborn and committed to her craft. As an example, here is a photo I took of her after we asked her to clean her room, and she screamed in this position for half an hour because she got “stuck” while making her bed:

My suggestion that she just pull her arms out was met with much crying

• Takes dance class and is dancing to “Zero to Hero” in the spring concert
• Is a chatterbox
• Loves going to the events formerly known as "Activity Days," which we all still call “Activity Days.”
• Says “No, thanks!” anytime we ask her to do something
• Likes us to blow dry her hair at night
• Always wants to play outside, but she wants us to go with her, we we have to take turns bundling up and going out to watch her roller skate/swing/jump on the trampoline/ride her bike
• Does cartwheels all the time
• Has a bit of a potty mouth
• Gets really hyper at night
• Refuses to brush her teeth (we have to fight her)
• Leaves a trail of messes everywhere she goes

Zoe

• Is in 5th grade
• Is causing me the most worry right now
• Is always full of big ideas (this week she asked if she could rewrite her school song)
• Is obsessed with Groundhog Day
• Had to get some immunizations recently and is horrible with shots
• Has anger issues
• Yells a lot
• Loves AJR and Imagine Dragons
• Has been suffering from a broken heart all school year because the boy she loves doesn’t like her anymore
• Participated in Lego League and is going to State

District Lego League competition last Saturday

• Does the school choir
• Always wants to try new things and is currently asking for violin lessons and to join a hockey team (she also wants to quit everything after she starts)
• Is my only kid that reads (and she’s still behind benchmark in reading)
• Is obsessed with YouTube and being famous (drives me nuts)
• Fights with Eva constantly (drives me nuts)
• Has a very hard time making friends
• Was Alexander Hamilton in the 5th grade wax museum and performed a very dramatic monologue

I made her costume from DI finds and felt

• Is in Young Women now and seems to like it, but I think she’s too young
• Did baptisms for the dead for the first time a few weeks ago

Oquirrh Mountain Temple

Daisy

• Is in the process of registering for high school
• Had her first boyfriend and breakup 
• Tried out for the high school dance ensemble and made it
• Is choreographing a dance for the junior high spring concert 
• Is playing Ariel in Footloose (she is 5’7” and the boy playing Ren is 4’11”. Have you ever heard of anything more “junior high” in your life?)
• Pretty much hates everything to do with church and is fetching a fit that I’m making her participate in a stake youth choir
• Sings all the time… unless she’s at stake youth choir
• Loves Winnie the Pooh right now

Daisy in her Pooh gear in front of Pooh ride

• Says she wants to be a chiropractor (I don’t know if she actually knows what that is, but at least she’s thinking about the future)
• Tells me every little injury and every little pop of her joints that happens EVER. If her ankle pops while walking to class, I hear about it. If a butterfly lands on her too hard, I hear about it.
• Is boy crazy
• Is wrapped up in a lot of drama with friends. Sigh…

Nicky

• Is never home
• Works two nights a week
• Stays after school everyday for something… ceramics, theatre, swim team, tennis team, girls… I don’t even know
• Went to Sweethearts with his friend Sofie and wore all white. I tried everything I could to help him not look like a temple worker
• Likes going to the El Rancho Grande food truck
• Is on seminary council and stake youth council and is the second assistant in the priests quorum
• Loves working with special ed students at school and is planning on participating in Unified Theatre and Unified Sports next year

Scotty

• Donates plasma twice a week 
• Is looking forward to Brocation even though we are mad at Disneyland
• Would go to bed at 8:30 every night if he could (instead, he goes to bed at 8:45)
• Has a new boss at work
• Had to work out of a different building while his office was being renovated and just moved back
• Likes to spy on all the neighbors

Scotty in his spying spot

Britt (also known as me)

• Was just called to be on the stake girls camp committee
• Got a part-time job (which is why all of my posts lately are lists)

and since I talk about myself incessantly here on the blog, that's really all there is that's new.

It’s What Fun Is

September Writing Challenge - Prompt #13:

Purchase

For Christmas last year, we decided to get season passports to Lagoon, our local amusement park. I have a love/hate relationship with Lagoon (which, as a child, I thought was called Little Goon). There are so many rides at Lagoon that I love! But I hate the lines, the crowds, the hot summer weather,* and don’t even get me started on their parking lot! (IYKYK) 

We had season passports seven years ago. Our kids were 9, 6, 3, and 1. It was hard to take them to Lagoon, and frankly, I didn’t care for the experience. I was in school, so usually it was Scotty that would take the kids while I did homework. After that season of Lagoon-ing, I was fine to not go again for a really long time. Thus, seven years passed before I would even consider going to Lagoon again. Then Black Friday 2022 rolled around, and we had no idea what else to do for Christmas, so we ordered Lagoon passes from our condo in California over Thanksgiving weekend.

After the first couple of attempts at taking the whole family to Lagoon, I was ready to pull my hair out. Zoe and Eva were horrible. They disagreed about every ride and constantly begged to play carnival games and buy junk food. No matter what we did, someone was mad. We couldn’t go on any rides as a family because one of them would always throw a fit and stay off the ride. It wasn’t that they didn’t like the ride - it was that they didn’t get to choose the ride. If someone else picked it, they had to pretend they hated it and refuse to go on it. Nicky and Daisy were miserable because Zoe and Eva were so difficult. 

We took a hiatus from family Lagoon trips for a while, and Nicky and Daisy started going with their friends instead. It turns out everyone has Lagoon passes. Has it always been this way? Have I just never noticed? Or was this year just a really popular year for our locals to go to Lagoon? The people in The Other County (the one Lagoon is in) always have Lagoon passes. But our county? I dunno. Have I just not been paying attention? Has everyone been hanging out at Lagoon without me? 

Anyway, we didn’t go to Lagoon for a while because it was hot, and we were busy. Then after all our camps ended and things calmed down a little, we started going again, and to my surprise, things got better with Zoe and Eva. Still not ideal, but better.

We found that if we went right when they opened and left by noon, things were quite pleasant. It wasn’t too hot or too crowded, and we got out of there before Zoe and Eva were completely burned out and ornery. I would always pack a cooler full of food, which we would usually leave in the van and eat on the way home. We bought reusable ICEE cups so they could get ICEEs at the end of each trip. 

Once we found our system, Lagoon became a lot of fun, and the passes were worth every penny!

It’s nice to go for a quick trip and not have to feel like we need to stay all day. We also don’t have to worry much about weather. On Labor Day we went to Lagoon in the pouring rain. We weren’t sure if the rides would be open, but we figured we could just leave if things didn’t work out - no big deal. Turns out, since there was no lightning, they were able to operate all the rides in the storm. We froze a little, but it was an absolute blast and one of the funnest and most memorable experiences of the season!

We still have another month and a half of potential (weekend) Lagoon visits, so I can’t make my final assessment, but at this point, I’m a little shocked to be able to say… I think I might want to do this again. 

*Lagoon is only open from April-October and the season begins and ends with weekend hours, so the peak of the season is June-August.

Family Updates

Everyday around 1:00, I hit my wall. This is the time of day when I'm suddenly overcome with exhaustion, and I want to burrito myself in my big, green blanket and go to sleep. Each day, when I hit this point, I try to fight it. Now and then, I give in, but sometimes I'm able to ward it off. I don't really like napping - I don't like trying to get going again afterward (though I find it a lot easier to wake up if I set a timer for 20-30 minutes). When 1:00 rolls around, I usually force myself to walk around the house. Sometimes I get in the shower. Other times I blast some upbeat music. I just can't be sitting, or I'll never make it. Today, I'm trying blogging as an anti-nap tactic. We'll see if that works (since I will be sitting). How about some family updates? Here's what we've had going on lately (forgive my lack of photos):

 Nicky

• is on the high school tennis team, but the matches keep getting canceled because of weather, so at this point, the only real perk of being on the tennis team is that he has some really nice team clothing
• "medaled" at the 6-A State Theatre competition last week with his performance of a classical scene from A Woman of No Importance
• is loving the independence of driving and, for the most part, has been very trustworthy and responsible
• works 1-2 times a week
• auditioned and made the Play Productions team ("PlayPro") at school 
• went to Disneyland with the performing arts for school and had the time of his life
• is facing the reality that he is growing up really fast and only has two years left of high school (he's gone through a bit of a mourning phase with this)
• went to his first prom with his good friend, Addison (I was really excited about this because I didn't know if Nicky would ever ask a girl to a dance)
• is participating in a partner dance with the cheerleaders for their end-of-year showcase as well as a "male cheer" number
• needs new pants all around (funnily, he is slightly shorter than Scotty but has longer legs and needs a longer inseam - I have to order his pants online because stores never carry 34-36" inseams)

Daisy

• is in the school choir but has had to miss most of their events this semester because of other activities
• is also on the dance team (which is part of the conflict with choir)
• wears two pairs of pants to school everyday because she refuses to change out of her dance clothes but has to meet dress code for other classes (weird things insecure teens do)
• did her first partner dance... with a boy... whom she won't talk to
• but also has lots of "guy friends" that she hangs out with and talks to just fine (weird things insecure teens do)
• lays on the floor all the time
• was cast as the "apple vendor" in the schools production of Aladdin Jr (she wore a green dress, carried a basket of apples, and yelled out lines like, "Thief!")
• complains daily of every ache and pain in her body
• got her braces off and then got glasses. She's so happy to finally be able to see! (Oops on the part of this mama).
• will be taller than me any minute now

Zoe

• is having some mighty seasonal allergies this year
• was able to be a spokesperson for the media launch of a campaign to bring the spikes from the transcontinental railroad to Utah (she's obsessed with this campaign)
• dropped out of her tumbling class (Monday was her last day)
• has some pretty big issues with jealousy
• has been reading the Dog Man series (which I don't love, but I'm just happy when my kids read any book at this point)
• wants to display everything she owns - every toy, every paper from school, every picture, etc - and I'm always having to tell her to put her stuff away and not display anything. The entire wall around her top bunk bed is covered in her artwork, and she displays everything she acquires from every event and holiday on the bookshelf or the dollhouses in her room. All of my kids have hoarded, but she is by far the worst. 
• will be in Young Women next year, and I just need to cope with the shock of that
• is going to do a three-week theatre camp this summer and be in a kids' production of Seussical
• is very excited for the new Zelda game to be released next month
• went to the eye doctor and no longer needs glasses!

Eva

• turned 8 on April 15th
• will be getting baptized next week
• is a bit of a comedian
• loves cheap toys and junk and is always begging to go to the dollar store
• says "no thank you" anytime we ask her to do something
• throws mighty tantrums
• is in activity days for primary (or "the event formerly known as activity days that we all still call activity days") and enjoys it unless she thinks Zoe's group had a better activity in which case, she whines and says, "All we ever do is learn stuff!" to which I respond, "Isn't it so wonderful that you get to learn stuff?" and she goes, "Hmph."

Scotty

• is boring for the most part
• is currently going through a bout of cluster headaches. If you're not familiar with clusters, it's a headache condition that strikes about every three years for about six weeks (this timetable varies from person to person, but that's the approximate timeline for Scotty). Scotty has daily headaches behind his right eye. This bout started in early March, so hopefully he'll go into remission again soon. In the meantime, he's in a lot of pain.
• continues donating plasma twice a week to supplement our income
• is excited for warm weather days so he can drive his motorcycle (no ripped pants so far this year)
• talks incessantly about Disney parks
• is serving as Elder's Quorum president in our ward going on two years now
• is getting new glasses (hooray for sight!)

Brittany 

(that's me!)

• is also pretty boring for the most part
• feels the effects of aging each day as her hair turns gray, her knees grow weaker, and she can't do what she used to be able to do (such as fouettes in the church gym, which recently landed her flat on her back)
• yet... still has the zits of a hormonal thirteen year old
• is the Young Women secretary in the ward
• is helping plan YW camp for this summer
• has given up soda and exercises (almost) every day but still has high blood pressure, so what's the point?
• loves her dishwasher possibly to the point of idol worship
• wants to read books and cook all day

Family Photos Behind-the-Scenes

One of my goals in my 40x40 project was to get family photos taken. The last time we had family photos done was in November of 2019, and it was a bit of a disaster. 

November 2019

It was Zoe’s birthday so she was mad about having to have pictures taken on her special day. She hated the sleeves on her outfit (they were 3/4 length, and she wanted them to go to her wrists), so she was tantruming and pouting the whole time, and then she would try to pull her arms into her sleeves all weird-like. She wouldn't do anything the photographer asked her to, so we had to keep pulling her aside to engage in pep talks and bribery. Nicky was in his “shorts only” phase, and Eva was in a “I will never smile, ever” phase. Everyone was grumpy and unreasonable. 

When asked to smile, this is what Eva would give us

At least the older two were cooperating

On top of that, everyone was freezing, so our faces were all red, and the seasons were confused. Were these Fall photos? Were they winter photos? The location couldn't decide.  

Our sweet photographer ended up giving us our money back because she wasn’t happy with the way the photos turned out. She wanted to do a reshoot for us in the spring, but then COVID crept in, and it never happened.

I did have some updated photos taken of just the kids in October 2020 in conjunction with Zoe's baptism, but it's been over three years since Scotty and I stepped into a photo. 

That session was done by my niece, and she was a lot of fun, so my kids were perfectly agreeable and photogenic. 

(Nicky was still in his "shorts only" phase).

Since Eva is going to be baptized soon, this was a great time to do family photos - that way we would not only have updated pictures, but I could sneak in some photos of Eva in her baptism dress. 

Here we are:

April 2023

For the most part, everything went smoothly, and I have no complaints, but as you know, there are always some behind-the-scenes truths with family photos. I love Elder Gary Stevenson's family photo story as seen in this video (begins around 3:30):

(Blogger is refusing to center this video, much to my dismay)

Though our recent session went much better than photo shoots from the past, here are a few truths you can't see:

Truth #1: I had to pay Zoe to wear that shirt because she didn't want to match Daisy. She was the first one to pick her shirt, and I planned the entire color scheme around that shirt, but when Zoe saw that Daisy also had a yellow shirt (a few days later), she went ballistic.

Truth #2: Daisy hasn't worn jeans since she was about three years old, but I made her for these pictures (she acted like she hated them, but now she's wearing them sometimes, and I think she actually likes them). Her biggest complaint was that the jeans made her look like me. 

Truth #3: There were homeless people all around us. 

Truth #4: It was freezing. But not as cold as November 2019. Off scenes, I would stick kids in my jean jacket to try and warm them up.

Truth #5: The only way to get Zoe and Eva to smile was by making fart jokes. 

Truth #6: I had no time to get ready after getting everyone else dressed and presentable, so I threw on some clothes, ran out the door, and put on minimal make-up at stoplights. 

Truth #7: My hair was fake. 

Truth #8: The photographer made Nicky pull his pants down below his butt so they would be long enough to hide his socks). 

Truth #9: I made Nicky wear a pair of Scotty's shoes because I wanted the shoes to be boring. Nicky's shoes are all bright colors. 

Truth #10: Eva insisted on this pose.

It's a relief that they are done, and that they turned out decent. I try to be chill about family photos (and our photographer complimented us on how easy we were to work with, so I'm happy about that) but they're always more stressful than I intend for them to be. We got everything we wanted, though, so I deem this round a success!