4 Years

Today is Mark and I's fourth anniversary.  And even though I am incredibly sad that we are spending another anniversary apart (remember last year) which now means that we have spent just as many anniversaries apart as we have together, this is still a great day.  

I love Mark so much.  This last year has been difficult in a lot of different ways but I feel like it has made our relationship all the stronger.  He is my best friend in every way.  There is truly no one I would rather spend forever with.  He makes me feel special and loved every day.  He understands and supports me.  He is a wonderful father and our children are incredibly lucky to have him.  He always makes time for his family and puts us first - which means a lot to me.  I love that he reads to me in bed while I fall asleep (one of the things I am missing the most).  I love that he strives to do his best in all aspects of his life.  I love that he is a hard worker.  I love that when he gets home he always comes right up to me and gives me a kiss before he does anything else.  

I love that we can celebrate our family starting four years ago.  

And I love that we have forever to be together.  

I love you. 

Hogle Zoo

Yesterday, Melina, Megan, the kiddos and I went to Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake.  It was a beautiful, crisp day.  We got there first thing in the morning and it was perfect.  Jacob, of course, loved all of the attention he got from his aunts.  And Sarah, unfortunately, just cried most of the time so that was a bit of a bummer.  

But it was nice to get out of the house and see the animals.  Jacob was most excited to see the giraffes and we were so bummed when they weren't out when we first got there.  But we checked again as we were leaving and he was able to see them.  Happy boy.

Cutest picture of the day!

 

P.S.  I promise Sarah did come with us - she was supposed to be napping and so no pictures were taken!

Solo Parenting

So I have re-written this post several times.  Sometimes I struggle with what to write - wanting to be "real" so I can remember this time of my life and what I was really feeling but also not wanting to be too personal either.  This is one of those posts that definitely falls into that area for me.  

I am now nearing the end of my second week of "solo parenting" as I like to call it.  It's gone better than I thought it would.  Most days I am actually pretty positive - well, maybe positive is too strong - but I am definitely not moping around either.  I continue to find ways to be productive and in a lot of ways my everyday happenings haven't really changed.  

I don't really like to talk about Mark being gone and all of my thoughts and emotions about it.  Maybe that's not healthy but I don't feel like I am completely bottling it up inside me either.  I pray a lot.  My Heavenly Father has to listen to all of my cares and worries, which almost always involve some tears, but I feel stronger and comforted by the end.  And that's all I can ask for.  

This definitely isn't how I imagined things to be.  I never thought Mark and I would be separated for this long.  Ever.  Maybe that was foolish but I truly never saw that coming.  I thought having a husband who was going to be a pharmacist pretty much guaranteed me a husband who would be home every night.  

And I know that day will come.  

I think the hardest thing, other than Mark being gone of course, is the fact that I feel like I am living in limbo right now.  I feel like everything in my life is at a standstill.  I don't feel like I am moving forward.  It's hard and frustrating.  Whenever I think of a way to try and move forward in some aspect of my life it feels like everything always falls through.  

I know that things are hard right now.  That is just how it is going to be.  I also don't think that when Mark gets his diploma in three months that we will be granted a bag of pixie dust and our world will become one giant fairy tale.  I know that life is filled with ups and downs and right now we are just in a down.  All of my focus is on enduring, just making it through this.  This is just one more sacrifice on the path to Mark's career and I am 100% willing to do that so that Mark can be apart of a profession that makes him feel fulfilled.  

So we are doing okay.  Not great.  But okay.  

Luckily, I get to spend all day with the two greatest kids.

Valentine's Day

We had a wonderful Valentine's Day.  We wanted to keep things light and not dwell on the fact that it was our last day together for a long time.  

Mark and I decided that we really want Valentine's Day to be a family day because it is so close to our anniversary so we have that day to really focus on just the two of us - plus we love our little family like crazy so love celebrating that love too.  

We had an amazingly yummy breakfast, went on our hike to the "Y", snuggled and relaxed, ate a delicious dinner and then opened our love notes to each other.  We each made big envelopes and put them on our bedroom doors and have been putting love notes in them.  So after dinner we sat around and opened all of our notes.  It was so sweet and I loved every second of it.  Then Mark and I put the kiddos to bed and snuggled up with a movie.  

It was a perfect day.  

I love my little family. 

Hike the Y

For Family Fun we had planned to go snowshoeing but seeing as we have absolutely NO snow we decided to go and hike the "Y" instead.  Mark and I both had never done it before and always wanted to.  It was a beautiful day.  The weather was perfect.  But holy smokes, the hike itself was rougher than I was thinking.  Although it doesn't help that I forgot water AND we were both carrying kiddos.  But it was still lots of fun and we made it to the top.  

Even Jacob hiked the last three turns PLUS hiked the entire way down - what a champ!  And Sarah was awesome too especially since it was right in the middle of her morning nap and she luckily fell asleep on the hike down.  

The view is absolutely incredible and Jacob picked up some rocks at the top and carried them all the way down in his pockets so that he could have something to remember it by.  He was really happy about his rocks and had to keep checking they were still there.  

It was a perfect morning and we loved spending some time together. 

 

Pears

This little munchkin had her first taste of some solid food.  I think we are still pretty unsure.  Maybe a lot unsure.  She was a lot more excited about putting her bib in her mouth than the pears - but hopefully that will change with time ;)

Before we started...

First taste...

 

 

Love you little one.

 

 

5 Months

This little sweetie turned five months old on Wednesday.  Where is the time going?!

Sarah is growing way too fast!  She definitely surpassed my expectations when I measured her.  She is now 26.1 inches tall (86% percentile), 18.0 pounds (95%), and 42.7 cm head circumference (77%). 

She is now taking two naps a day and still sleeping all night.  WOOT WOOT!

Have we mentioned that Sarah is the wiggliest child ever?!  She is.  That girl is a mover and a groover.  She loves to pivot her body around.  And, in the bathtub, it is ridiculous.  She is constantly trying to wiggle further into the water.  It is actually quite amazing - if it weren't so scary!  But who can blame her, she has quite an active older brother that she gets to watch all day so she is ready to join him. 

Sarah is also laughing now.  I tell you, baby laughs are the best sounds in the world.  I love them.  Her Dad is the best at getting her to belly laugh.  Blowing raspberries on her tummy and playing peek-a-boo are the surest ways to get some giggles. 

Sarah is just the sweetest little girl.  When you go into a room and she sees you her whole face just lights up and smiles and she makes you feel like the best person in the world.  She is just such a sweetheart and pretty much has everyone in the family wrapped around her little fingers. 

Speaking of fingers, Sarah loves her fingers, or anyone's fingers!  She loves to suck on her hand and fingers or anyone else that's around.  She is a big fan of her binkie as well.  We are definitely entering the drool phase and everything goes straight into her mouth and the almost-constant drool on her shirt. 

Sarah is also getting a lot more interested in the world around her.  She definitely is interested in her toys now and her favorite seems to be her elephant (it was Jacob's favorite too!).  She is also more interested while we read to her and I can tell is more engaged in the pictures.

We love our sweet girl.  

The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

Written last Saturday, February 7:

So this last week was kind of horrible.  Really.  It was one of the most negatively emotionally charged weeks ever.  Sounds dramatic, I know, but really I was a wreck.  

From pretty much the second Monday started things just went bad.  After Monday, my goal every day was to simply not cry - and every day I cried.  It was one of those weeks that was just hard.  

It all boils down to one word - overwhelmed.  I was completely overwhelmed.

All of a sudden it hit me that Mark was leaving, that he was going to be leaving for a long time.  Last year, at this exact same time, I had come to Draper to stay with my parents so that they could help take care of Jacob while I was so sick pregnant with Sarah.  We had been apart for four weeks and it was horrible.  I hated every single second of being away from Mark.  And when we got back I made Mark promise that we would never do that again.  And now we are doing it again - but for so much longer!  Boo.

I depend on him.  Maybe I depend on him too much.  He is my best friend in every way.  And I feel like marriage is supposed to be like this.  Aren't you supposed to want to be with each other?!  Well, I do.  It makes me so sad to think of being apart.  I am sad for him and all that he is going to miss with Jacob and Sarah.  The whole situation just makes me very sad.  

And then Jacob decided to switch places with a child that was...well, I don't know a positive word for that child.  Seriously, I felt like I had stepped into a Super Nanny episode.  He was screaming, hitting, you name it.  It was horrible.  Example: One day he was in his room in time-out and I was sitting outside of his door on the floor with Sarah waiting for him to calm down when all of a sudden his door opens and he throws his plastic cash register at me.  Yep, you read that correctly.  Seriously.  It was horrible.  I just cried all the time.  Never, ever, ever, had Jacob acted so horrifically.  So, Jacob when you are reading this in a couple of years I deserve a hug.  It was a hard mom week.  

Jacob has luckily switched back to his normal self and we are back to loves and please and thank yous.  Thank goodness.  I promise I love my children, but seriously, throwing a cash register!!!  It was horrible.  

Then if all of that weren't enough, everything else just seemed to be up against me.  For example, in a ten minute period of preparing dinner one night.  I open the oven to take our dinner and had grabbed a kitchen towel to quickly take it out (I know I should have used an oven mit!) and I lift dinner out to notice that the towel is on fire!  Yes, fire.  Awesome.  Once I get that out, I go to open a cupboard and our griddle falls down from the top shelf hitting me and breaking.  Seriously.  No good.  

So yes, last week was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week.  All I could think of is things can seriously only go up from here.  And they have.  We are all happy and no one is crying (especially me!) and so things are definitely looking up.  But here is a very real post about our real life and the week that we just had!

So we will end on a positive note with adorable "everyday" pictures of the two cutest kids around...

Every time they both wear their "Christmas" pajamas, Jacob asks to take a picture.  Also, don't mind that Sarah has apparently broken out of them - just noticed!

Jacob did this completely on his own - precious

One tired little girl

I come out of the shower and Jacob is reading to a doll!  He told me he was putting her to bed.

The cuteness is overwhelming.

Jacob did his hair like Grandpa Clegg - his words!

Beauty and the Beast

For Christmas, Melina got us tickets to go see Beauty and the Beast at Kingsbury Hall in Salt Lake.  I absolutely loved it.  Mark and I got a night out on the town - we are getting so spoiled here!  We had awesome seats and the show was hilarious (Mark and I agreed that Gaston totally stole the show) and was beautifully done.  We loved watching all the little girls that were all dressed up.  Makes us excited to do things like this with our kiddos once they get older. 

Thanks Melina for a great night out!

The Bean Museum

A couple weeks ago my Mom, Megan, Jacob and I went down to BYU to The Bean Museum.  It's a free museum and I had no idea it existed.  It was fun to get out of the house and see something different.  They have a gallery filled with work that President Packer has done and I was so impressed by his talent and in so many different mediums.  And, of course, the animals were a hit!

Sarah also had a blast getting to spend the morning alone with her Grandpa.  They snuggled and even got a little "work" done :)