Rory's First Dance Recital

 

After being with family for so long, going back to reality was a tough pill to swallow. Not even sister matching could save us from our dark moods! Since we had the car space driving back, my mom asked me to FINALLY clean out all my childhood junk that I had left behind since moving out 10 years ago. One of the things I took back with me was my Kitchen Fairy collection. Trying to be a cool easy going mom, I picked two of the fairies that seemed the sturdiest and least likely to break and I told Rory that if she was very careful with them then these special fairies would live in her room with her. Well, this was one of my fairies by the end of the afternoon (it didn't even take a whole day!) and I remembered why I'm not a cool mom. 

To help get over our post vacation blues the Collins invited us to go to the Salt River with them. We had never been before and we all enjoyed the cold river in the morning heat. Rory picked out sea shells and used her goggles to look for other treasures the entire time. Ada liked splashing in the water. Stephen had a little adventure trying to chase Rory's lost water shoes down the river. And we were only mildly jealous of the people riding by on paddle boards. It was a lovely morning. 

Then it was time for Rory's first dance recital! I debated a lot about putting her in dance this year, but I ended up doing it because I knew she needed some kind of scheduled class time since she wasn't yet old enough for preschool and I also wanted to get the feel of the studio to decide if I would want to enroll her in their preschool program the following year. Just barely turning three in October, she was the youngest in her class by a lot and it showed. She stuck with it and in all my going back and forth about whether it was the right decision or if paying tuition was a waste, I held on to the vision of her first dance recital! And then coronavirus hit. I was so so so sad that her first recital would not be what I had been envisioning all year, but bless her little studio they did the best that they could! With only two in person classes before the big show (because really, you can only accomplish so much on zoom), her teacher tried to whip these little dancers into shape for both a tap AND ballet routine. In the end, they decided to have specific performance times for each class and parents would be able to watch from monitors set up in the lobby of the theater. Only one parent was allowed per child, but they would also live stream the performance online for family and friends. It was not ideal but it was at least something. 

For Rory's call time we were going to need to leave by 8:15, which is very early in this house, and so I tried to prep her as much as possible the night before. I did everything in my power to wear her out during the day and I had her in bed by 7 pm sharp. She spent the next three hours coming up with excuses to come out to talk to Stephen and I, sneaking toys and water into her bed, and generally just not sleeping. She finally dozed off at 11:00 pm and I knew our morning would be a tough one. After waking up early to get myself presentable I had to drag her out of bed, force her half sleeping body into tights and a costume, curl her hair,  and THEN do a full face of make up on a sleepy, cranky toddler. Doc McStuffins helped enormously, but it was still ROUGH. In the end she looked like a tiny ballerina doll and I felt like all my sweat, anger and anxiety was well spent. I also threatened her with the most dire of consequences if she were to rub her eye or lips. Being a dance mom is not for the faint of heart. 

We picked up Rebecca and Sarah, who were still scrambling to get ready themselves, and made our way to the theater. We sent the girls backstage to wait with their classes and then waited and waited and waited for it to be their turn. Thanks to some technical difficulties they were having, we were allowed to actually sit in the auditorium while they performed and it was such a wonderful little miracle. I was so proud to see her up there on that stage! She was every bit the tiny dancer on her ballet dance and it was all I could do to hold back the tears and play it cool and  then she stood there and yawned through her tap dance and I had to stop myself from laughing out loud at her. Here she is with her teacher, Miss Shelly. We went to a park afterwards to snap a few pictures of the girls together and to make up for the fact that I had missed Rory's dance pictures. 

Stephen was able to watch on the livestream while he stayed home with Ada, and I was so sad we couldn't all be there together as a family. To celebrate as a family he took us all out to Handel's!

One benefit of home church is getting to have cute matching babies without the pressure of dealing with any public tantrums. Ada only gets her pacifier at nap time but sometimes she manages to sneak it out and on during this photo session she was trying to share it with Rory- talk about sisterly love! Our meetings haven't been anything earth shattering and some weeks we definitely do better than others, but I've actually really loved our little home Sacrament meetings. I try really hard to make our house a peaceful, safe place where the spirit can be felt and I have loved feeling my efforts coming to fruition on these sabbath days at home. 

Ada is still not crawling or scooting or moving around at all, so sometimes we like to leave her places you should never put a baby, because we are only ok parents. One of the cutest of these places was the top bunk of Rory's bed, and Ada LOVED it. Perks of having an immobile little buddy. 

One of our go to quarantine activities was painting rocks, which I almost immediately regretted because it meant that Rory was always collecting rocks when we went outside and I would find them everywhere inside the house. I finally convinced her to keep her rock "collections" outside until we had a painting day. We went back to having play dates with the Bartons this month and so I let the girls paint rocks for their activity. I decided to let them use some of my old nail polishes, feeling like a genius because it meant I wouldn't have to deal with paint brushes, pouring paints, and water. Well, about ten minutes in when the fumes got really bad I realized my mistake, but by then the girls were much too enthralled to stop. The rocks turned out cute and sparkly and now I have to tell Rory every other day why we can't paint with nail polish again. 

Sometimes I find myself completely blown away by how cute Ada's little baby details are. I love her leg rolls, her double chin, her squishy little bum. I love her gummy smile that shows off her two little teefers. I love her little hands and feet that circle all around when she gets excited. I love her full body shakes and shrieks when she sees something she wants. I love the smell of her neck and the feel of her and if I could bottle this baby up I absolutely would. Instead, I'll just take pictures when I'm overwhelmed by the desire to eat her up. 

At the end of June, Rory's friend Naomi had a last minute 5th birthday party that was Fancy Nancy themed. They played games like Plain, Plain, Fancy (Duck, duck, goose), took pictures, ran around and got goody bags. Rory was in HEAVEN. I snapped these pictures of her "fanciest outfit" that she picked out and I loved that she was clearly feeling herself. 

I didn't take any pictures, but Rory did two weeks of swim lessons this month! We found a girl in our old ward that did one on one thirty minute lessons and Rory loved them. She got so much better and she now lives to show off her swimming skills. She's not quite ready to be completely floatie-less, but she swallows a lot less pool water now! Rory asks about her best friend Carlie and when she gets to go swimming at her pool again regularly. One of my favorite moments was in her very first lesson right before getting in the pool she said, "Hey guess what! I threw up in Grandma Blucina's pool!" Girl knows how to make a first impression. 

Moses Lake or Bust

One of the greatest benefits of Stephen working from home is the amount of time he has gotten to spend with Baby Ada. Well, that and the fact that I never have to bring kids with me to the grocery store anymore (silver lining!), but mostly the Ada thing. This baby loves to sit by Stephen while he works and chew on his mouse, extra keyboard, or Panic Pete (his stress relieving friend). Also, Ada gives better cuddles than any baby I have ever known and we are all here for it. 

We were enjoying being back to our regular quarantine routine and everything was going fine until I started chatting with my sisters. Kristy decided she had had enough of being stuck in Duvall with nothing to do, so she and Declan took off to Moses Lake to hang out at Mom and Dad's. Trevor came up and saw them over the weekend and they just decided to stay for a while because they were having so much fun. Courtney had been stuck at home super quarantining since Curtis is working at the hospital and clinic right now, so they are the most likely to be infected, but that meant a lot of time with just her and her kids and nothing to do (seriously, her neighbor yelled at her because her children playing in their backyard were upsetting his dog) and so she had had enough and decided that she was coming to Moses Lake, too. I was immediately so jealous! It wasn't as if I could hop on a plane to join them like I usually would. Courtney texted me saying she would love it if I could come too, but no pressure it would just totally make her birthday and I immediately started mapping routes. I went to Stephen and said, "What if I told you I wanted to drive to Moses Lake?" and he said, "Ok." Shocked, I said, "What if I told you it's a 21-hour drive?" and he said, "Ok." And that is why my husband rocks. 

We left for St George on a Friday in the evening. We spent the next day playing in the pool and hanging out with cousins and golfing. On Sunday we loaded up in the car early and psyching ourselves up to spend a day trapped on the road. The nice thing about the drive to Moses Lake is that it is all so familiar to me, so I actually find the scenery pretty enjoyable. We had to stop at Lowe's to pick something up for my mom's current home project and the Lowe's she picked happen to be about a five minute walk from Madalyn's apartment, so we were able to stop and chat with her for a minute and she FINALLY met Ada. It was the best little fortuitous gift. The ride actually went really well. Stephen drove most of the way and we rotated between listening to Hank Smith talks, to the Frozen 2 soundtrack (whenever we were trying to put Ada to sleep) and then whatever we had loaded on our own devices. Rory sat in the back with her headphones and iPad and quietly watched Disney movies or slept the entire drive, pausing only temporarily to yell for a snack or a drink every so often. She is the best. And Ada, for all the car hating she did early on, actually did surprisingly well!  At one point, just a few miles outside of Boise, we got stuck behind a wreck at a very poor time when we both were starving and all needed a restroom. We were paused for about an hour and were almost resorting to all using Ada's diapers when things finally started to move again. In the end we made it out alive and were so happy to see Grammy and Grandpa and all of the cousins!

As soon as I arrived I found out that my parents had booked Kendall a flight out since we had quite a little reunion going so she and Ethan got there the following morning and there was so much cute baby cousin fun time. 

The best part of quarantining together was that we really had nowhere to go and nothing to do. I can't remember the last time we were altogether and didn't have every day scheduled out with things to get done. It was crazy to have nothing to do at the dance studio, but we all loved mom's undivided attention and boy, did she deserve the break!

Here are some things we enjoyed doing together in no particular order. There was story time with Grammy every evening, and Rory usually opted to read in the book nook with Grammy all to herself instead of joining in on cousin reading time. We also got to do a lot of dance parties once everyone had their jammies on, and as always the Goldfish Song was the hit of the night. 

We loved heading outside for some bike riding time. There are one million varieties of toys with wheels to choose from and the perfect number of helmets for the crew that we had together. I remember always being scared to ride down the hill on anything (anything being a scooter because I couldn't ride a bike for forever) but none of these kids even bat an eye at it! The weather was perfect and we could sit and chat on camping chairs while kids rolled around and occasionally fought over whose turn it was. Grammy even gave some magical tours of the garden in the red wagon and they were such a hit that the older boys almost immediately tried to knock off her idea and start their own guided tours. 

Most of the days were a little cool to truly enjoy the lake, but we still got out there and braved the cold water a couple of times. I finally got to try paddleboarding and I loved it! I was nervous about having a child with me on my first attempt, but it was Dean and he was just as cautious as I was about staying exactly in the center of the board and not rocking too much. Rory came out on my second attempt once I had learned the ropes a little better, which is a blessing because she was much less cautious than Dean. She had no problem standing up instead of sitting (like the other kids were) and I had to battle her several times in order to regain control of the oar. We also blew up the giant flamingo and the kids enjoyed jumping on and off of it while it slowly succumbed to the holes popped in it's side in a previous summer. I love the picture of bare bottomed Rory at the edge of the dock because 1) I'm not exactly sure why she took her bottoms off and 2) that's my dad in the boat in the background trying to keep the boat from sinking because he forgot to put the plug back in after they winterized the boat- again. Same thing happens every year and it's never not a little funny. He had to keep the boat going a certain speed because if he slowed down enough the boat would take on water and start sinking and it was quite the drama trying to get the lift ready for the boat to dock. At one point mom had to rush to the detach garage to get the heavy lift battery, which she then hefted onto one of the kids scooters and rode down as far as she could. Once the boat was finally on the lift Courtney was the brave soul who jumped in the muck to try to get the plug back on, while my own husband sat there watching her and saying, "There is no chance I am going in there." when she had difficulty getting the job done. So much for rocking. Haha, only kidding. 

There was lots of cousin trampoline time and zero trampoline injuries, which is really quite the feat. 

The cutie cousin babies were rarely awake at the same time, but when they were together they spent a lot of time stealing toys and whacking each other. True friendship. Ethan is very physical and loves to be standing up or trying to scoot around and Ada just sits there and watches him. They are so fun to watch together. 

One thing we did A LOT of is baking. One of our main goals was to make a fancy cake for Courtney's birthday and it turned out so good! We did a brown butter Rice Krispy treat cake. We also made a Dark chocolate strawberry truffle cake, which was also delicious. We made several cheesecakes, copycat Crumbl cookies, banana muffins, creme brulee, and all kinds of other delicious things. The funny thing was that my mom's oven was broken so the temperatures were way off and it couldn't hold a steady temp and you had to keep constantly watching every little thing. Most things came out alright, but we definitely had a few burnt casualties. When we weren't baking we were completing puzzles left and right, and I was actually good at them! I'm telling you, it was the most magical trip. 

Before we officially decided to come to Moses Lake, my dad sent a text to Stephen promising free golf for his whole visit. Stephen was a champion and worked all day in my mom's office while I played with my sisters. My dad invited him to golf every day, and I think he managed to get out once or twice, but he ended up with a larger workload than he had originally had when we planned this trip. Anyways, upon arrival my dad told us that the Coeur D'Alene resort was running a special so the boys were going to go golf Saturday morning and then Stephen and I and Brad and Jules would all go stay the night at the resort (while my sisters watched our kids!). For the record, I would have never asked Courtney to watch my children on her birthday. I specifically drove 21 hours to spend her birthday with her! But like I said, this was all planned and decided before I arrived, so I wasn't about to turn down a free vacay!

The boys left early in the morning for their tee time, but Jules and I didn't take off until the afternoon. We met up with the boys and got all checked in. Stephen and I ended up with the strangest but coolest room. It was on the penthouse floor, but it was basically an extra room they crammed in with the windows all around. When we checked out the lady told us they refer to it as the birdhouse room, and that's exactly what it felt like. It had an amazing view and was so quirky and cozy. 

Luckily for us, it was the first weekend that Idaho was opening back up, so there was tons for us to do. We had a delicious dinner out, went for a walk along the water, and then tried our luck at an escape room. We got out just in the nick of time, and headed back to the resort for an ice cream sundae. In the morning we slept in and then grabbed a quick breakfast at a local bakery before driving back to our kids. It was one of my top weekends ever. 

As our unplanned Coeur D'Alene adventure ate up our weekend, we were forced to stay another week since we would need a full two days to drive home. Oh what a bother. We did even more baking, puzzling, biking, boating, and playing and had the best time. We had so much fun playing we felt renewed enough to take on another project and so we helped my mom fix up the playroom. We took down all the old decals and painted it sky blue for a jungle theme. I didn't take a picture of the final product of the room, but I did catch Prince Harry blue-pawed. 

One of our other highlights was getting to visit with Grandma and have her see Ada again. I'm so glad we remembered to take a picture this time and that Stephen was actually with us to see her. I love my grandma so much and I'm grateful for every minute that I get to spend with her. When we got there, Grandma was finishing up visiting with Donna and Dennis and so Rory and I waited for them to finish their game while Stephen and Ada went to visit with Uncle Doug. Rory sat down and said, "So she's looking very old today. I wonder if she's going to die soon?" with the ease in which one might say, "Lovely weather we're having, isn't it?" This girl kills me. When we actually had Grandma's full attention Rory was sweet as can be and gave her lots of hugs and kisses. I'm grateful for the ease she feels around old people because I know that is not the case for a lot of kids. 

Just like Ada enjoying her first Oreo, our weeks in Moses Lake were pure bliss! I love being at home and I love being with my family and I especially love sharing all my favorite things with my little family. In the midst of all this uncertainty and unrest, it was exactly what my heart needed. 

We finally made our way back home on Saturday and once again the kids did a fantastic job in the car. We stopped in Provo to have dinner with Bryan at Cafe Rio and even though our visit was short it was so much fun to see him in person. He was just finishing up his first round of med school applications and we are so so proud of him. Rory was most interested in turning her movie back on and Ada was most interested in trying to eat my salad, but they are so lucky to have him as an uncle. 

We stayed the night in St George once again and played at Grandma and Poppop's all Sunday. Monday was a holiday so we were able to take our time. We left Monday and stopped in Vegas to eat lunch with Kacey and Jon and John and Ashleigh's crew. Kacey picked up delicious sandwiches for us all to share completely last minute because she is the best like that. Seriously I said, be there in an hour or so and without any more questions she just took care of the rest. I got to see all 6 of my siblings in one week in the middle of a pandemic even though I don't live in the same state as any of them, and if that is not a miracle then I don't know what is! Thank you coronavirus.