15-years-old

Caitlyn turned 15-years-old today.  She has grown up so much over the last two years.  I look at pictures from two years ago and she looks so young, now she looks like a woman.  She has been taller than me for a while and she just passed up Keith. She loves being the tallest one in the house!

She is such a beautiful girl.  She struggles with self image like most other teenage girls, but overall I think she is fairly confident.  She doesn't wear make up very often and she doesn't need to, she is a natural beauty!

Caitlyn started High School this year.  She was pretty nervous before school started. I think she was feeling pretty overwhelmed and insecure.  The first few weeks of school were a tough adjustment.  Her bright spot was tennis practice every day.  Joining the tennis team was so good for Caitlyn.

She started out with no tennis experience and had a great attitude and put in a lot of hard work.  She improved so much over the season.  I love that she isn't afraid to try new things.  I love seeing her push herself out of her comfort zone.

She really enjoys school now (she misses it so much right now).  She loves seminary, ASL and dance.  At the beginning of the year she struggled keeping up in her classes and figuring out how to study for tests.  Now she has it down.  She pushes herself, studies hard, does all of her assignments and loves to maintain a 4.0.  I love seeing her work ethic.

Caitlyn has been working hard on personal goals.  When the church switched over to a new youth program in January, she got right to work setting goals.  I have been so impressed with how she has stuck with them. 

Caitlyn has always been very spiritual.  She has insights that are amazing and so thoughtful.  She has taken her spirituality up a level with seminary.  Her scriptures are marked up with notes, highlights and sticky notes.  I love to see her really studying and applying what she is learning.

Caitlyn is hilarious.  She loves to laugh and have fun.  She loves to make people laugh.  She will make fun of herself to get people to laugh.  The things she says are so funny.  Ataiya uses a funny voice and inflection and now all of the girls do it.  Caitlyn does it all the time and it makes everyone laugh.  Lately Jonah has started laughing at the things she says and Caitlyn loves that!

Sometimes Caitlyn's teenage attitude comes through, but she really is so sweet.  She cares about everyone's feelings and looks out for everyone. She has always had empathy beyond her years.  Her Young Women leaders always tell me how much fun she is and how nice she is to everyone.

Caitlyn loves to decorate.  She is constantly on the look out for things to put up in her room. She loves to find new ways to arrange her room.

Caitlyn loves loves loves her extended family. She lives for the weekends when she can hang out with her cousins.  She loves all of her aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents.  They are all so good to her and she feels confident in their love for her.  It makes me so happy that she has so many people that she loves and who love her.

Caitlyn is a great older sister.  She loves to spend time with her siblings and usually does whatever activity they want to do.

Caitlyn is a wonderful, beautiful, kind, thoughtful, wise, spiritual and hard working girl.  I'm so lucky to be her mom.

Something on me always hurts, but usually it's my feelings!

Hallee is constantly telling us that something hurts, her head, her stomach, her knee, her finger.  I told her that she is always hurt and Wyatt spoke up and said, "Something on me always hurts, but it's usually my feelings."  We all started laughing.  He is sensitive, that's for sure.

Wyatt wanted to climb up here while we were on the parkway and he was already a little freaked out, but when I noticed something hanging from the ceiling behind him I really freaked him out and we got him down immediately. 

Keith came home for lunch one day.  Hallee wanted Keith to come to the skate park to see her go down the hills before he went back to work. 

We have started riding our scooters from the skate park over to the Provo river trail.  We ride over this bridge.

After that we go down a hill and under Geneva road.  Hallee loves going down the hill.

It has added some variety to our skate park days.

I have been using Jonah's friends scooter that he left at our house.  I have had so much fun that I decided to buy my own scooter.  Wyatt and Hallee love that I ride with them.

Wyatt enjoyed having a zoom call with his class this week.  I think he was happy to see his teacher and all of his friends.  He had a piece of tape over the camera.  He said, "remember Kyle said that people can see you through your computer, I put tape on there so they can't." 

Hallee has had a few zoom calls with her class and she loves them.  It is so funny to hear what the kids say to each other and what they want to show each other.  She showed Jackson to her class.  Her teacher is so good at listening to all of them and telling them she misses them.

Caitlyn has been struggling this week, she is missing her cousins so much.  We went over to the church parking lot to drive to try and lift her spirits.

We have been driving every day and she has improved so much.  She has started driving around the neighborhood and over by the High School.  She is excited to get her permit soon!

I don't sleep well at night. I usually wake up for a few hours every night.  I have been sleeping in since we don't have to be up.  Hallee is an early riser so usually she just watches shows until I get up, but this week she started logging on and doing her school work.  She was so proud of herself.  She is so cute, she gets up and opens the blinds, and lets Jackson out.  I love seeing her be so responsible.

Jackson is Caitlyn's bright spot.  I love how his ears are standing straight up.

I haven't put on makeup or done my hair for a while.  I got ready yesterday and then got a little depressed because I had nowhere to go.  I decided to go to grab some lunch with Keith.  It felt great to get out and do something normal.

Yesterday Caitlyn was leading our scripture reading.  Wyatt and Jonah could not stop laughing so I had to separate them.  I told Wyatt to sit behind the couch so they couldn't see each other.  He climbed in this box and then put his fingers outside the little hole and ended up ripping it so we could see his face.  We all couldn't help but laugh and at that point scripture reading was over.  At least we laughed together.

Wyatt has been watching you tube videos where they run over stuff. I have been ordering a lot of stuff online (I have this bad habit of shopping in the middle of the night when I can't sleep) I like to think of it as me doing my part to keep the economy going.  Wyatt wanted to take the air pillows from all of our packages and run over them.  We went over to the church parking lot to let Caitlyn drive over them. 

It was windy so it made it hard.  At one point I told Caitlyn to go and it blew away and Wyatt went to get it, thank goodness no one got hurt. Wyatt was very happy with the loud popping noises, he said they were very satisfying.

Today I went grocery shopping so I picked up the stuff to make French toast with whipped cream and strawberries, Jonah's favorite.  Last night Jonah looked for a picture of himself on my phone and had a hard time finding one.  I told him that is because he never lets me take his picture.

He let me take his picture today and he was very happy with his food!

I'd rather die than get the Corona Virus

Hallee said she would rather die than have the corona virus, funny girl. It is interesting to hear them say things that give me a glimpse into what they are thinking.  This is such a crazy and uncertain time and it's hard to know exactly how it is affecting the kids.  My older kids don't think it would be a big deal to get the virus, but I think Hallee and Wyatt worry about it.  The last week and a half feels like it has been two years.  We have had lots of emotions at our house.  We all feel sad and disappointed with all of the activities that we are missing out on. We all miss hanging out with our family and friends.  None of the kids are big fans of online school.  I think they are all surprised by how much they miss school.  We have all had breakdowns and cried when we felt overwhelmed and hopeless. We have all been annoyed with each other because we are spending all day every day with each other. We have all snapped at each other because we are all on our last straw multiple times a day.  I have to constantly manage my thoughts when I want everyone to be happy and remind myself that we all need to feel however we feel and that's okay if my kids don't like my decisions, that is my job. I have a really hard time with that because I want everyone to be happy and I hate when people are mad at me or don't agree with me.  I'm working on it though.  I even got coached on it last week in my life coaching program and that helped me get more leverage on it. It's hard to be confident in your decisions when you don't know what the right decision is or there is no right decision.  I feel like I don't know what I should be doing right now.   Should I go to the store, should we eat out, should we visit family? Some of it depends on the day.  Some days I feel very anxious and overwhelmed and I just need to survive on those days and keep everything simple. Right now we are pretty much staying at home.  We get outside every day and I do some shopping by myself, but that's about it.  We have gotten take out food and I still get my Sonic drink every day. Keith is working at the office because he doesn't think he would be able to work from home.  He is on calls or listening to calls a lot and that wouldn't work with four kids at home.  There is only one other guy who is consistently in the office with him.  He said it is weird because it is so quiet and the lights are on sensors so he ends up in the dark a lot because all of the lights outside his office go off because there is no movement. With all of that being said, we have had a lot of good times too.  I don't take pictures of the hard times, so I will just write about those, but I have lots of pictures of our fun times over the last couple of weeks.

Hallee has had fun making rainbow loom bracelets.

Wyatt went through a couple of days where he wanted to dress up in nice clothes and tell jokes. He called it "The Wyatt Show." 

He is such a funny kid.  Luckily, all of this craziness doesn't seem to be effecting him too much.  He has hard days like the rest of us, but overall he is handling it well.  I'm so grateful for that.

He wanted to practice typing so he gathered jokes and typed them all up and then read them to us one night.

I woke up feeling really anxious and overwhelmed on Saturday.  My kids are doing well at taking care of their school work on their own and things had been going fairly smoothly so I wasn't sure why I felt so burned out.  After Tiff told me how good it felt to get out and roller blade it hit me that I hadn't hardly had any alone time.  I'm used to my quiet days with lots of time to myself and this has been a big change for me.  I still have quiet time in my room when all of the kids are doing something, but I'm constantly interrupted with problems, fights or someone needs something.  I enjoyed going outside with the kids all week, but I was constantly being bombarded with, "Mom watch this!"  I decided I needed to get out alone.  I went to the Provo River Trail and just walked and listened to podcasts.  It was so great to not worry about if my kids were in someone's way or if they were touching something they shouldn't be.  The sun and fresh air were so good for me.  After that I went to Sonic and got ice cream and just sat in the parking lot and ate it alone.  After that break I felt ready to take on life again.

While I was gone Caitlyn and Keith put this game table together.  We had been debating on getting this for a while, ever since we rearranged downstairs.  When I heard that school was canceled I went ahead and ordered it and it was delivered on Saturday. 

It has been a great distraction for us this week.  It has hockey, foosball and pool.

We have all had fun playing together.  I think pool and foosball are our favorite.

Everyone is spending a lot of time on electronics so it is nice to have another option.

Wyatt was channeling his inner ninja one day.

Hallee has been playing with her beanie boos a lot. 

This picture doesn't show it well, but it looks like Cailtyn has barely passed up Keith on height.  She loves to tell us all that she is the tallest in the house.

We had another church from home this week and we did it over facetime with my parents. The kids made this stand out of blocks.  Hallee led the singing while Caitlyn played the piano.

Wyatt said the prayer.

My favorite part is having Keith and Jonah administer the sacrament.  It is definitely something special to have them do that in our home.

Jonah gave an excellent talk on Grace.  He didn't want to, but he did it anyway.  Last week he broke one of our rules for cell phones and got his taken away.  I kept feeling like we needed to give him grace.  I told him that if he would watch the video of Brad Wilcox's BYU devotional, "Changed by Grace" that he could get his phone back.  He happily took the deal and hopefully learned something, judging by his talk I would say he did.  I'm hoping that the life lesson along with the lesson will help it sink in.

Caitlyn gave a beautiful talk about the scriptures and why they are important.  She loves to share what she is learning in seminary.  I'm so impressed with her studying.  Her scriptures are covered in notes, highlights and sticky note.   After that mom gave a great lesson out of Come Follow Me.  It was really nice to do that with mom, dad and Alexys.  It was nice to feel connected!

I will see your coronavirus pandemic and raise you an earthquake

The kids didn't have school Monday or Tuesday and online school started Wednesday.  On Tuesday we went to the schools and picked up books and packets.  Lakeview was so organized, you just drove through and the teachers were standing outside with everything you needed.  I was pretty optimistic going into this because my kids are all pretty motivated and do well in school.  I was so cute and naive.  Our morning started with a pushing match over a computer and with Hallee running into her room, slamming the door and yelling "I hate you!" over and over. Luckily, things got better from there.

Caitlyn is on top of all of her school work and hasn't needed any help so far.  I'm so impressed with her organization and hard work.

Jonah has stayed on top of his school work as well and tries to get ahead.  He is in a STEM Math and Science class and those are definitely the hardest for him. His math and science teachers do videos every day which helps so much.

I've been very pleased with how well Wyatt has done at getting things done without being asked.  His school work is easy for him, so he gets through it quickly.

Hallee started out rough, but today has been much better.  She loves the videos from her teacher.  Her teacher is awesome.  They were reading a book in class and she is making videos of herself reading the book to the kids.

We were all on edge after only a couple days of social distancing and in anticipation of starting online school, but things got even crazier! On Wednesday morning at just after 7 AM I was laying in bed and the bed started shaking, my immediate thought was, that was weird, wouldn't that be crazy if we had an earthquake now.  Next thing I know Wyatt is asking me if I felt the earthquake.  I checked the news and social media and sure enough there was a 5.7 magnitude earthquake in Magna.  We felt the rumble out here, but not bad.  There was some damage around the state, but luckily no injuries.  Poor mom and Mel had to deal with aftershocks all day.  I can only imagine how unsettling that was.  I was shocked that Wyatt thought it was cool instead of freaking out. I am so grateful that his anxiety isn't heightened right now. Both Wyatt and Caitlyn are doing well anxiety wise right now and that is a huge blessing. 

The Angel Moroni's trumpet was broke off the Salt Lake Temple during the earthquake.  I was really starting to wonder if Jesus was on his way! It was a lot of craziness in such a short time. 

Getting outside has really helped us keep our sanity this week.  Keith took Wyatt and Hallee to a skate park on Saturday and Wyatt loved it.  He has been begging to go back.  On Tuesday we went over there.

Caitlyn and Jonah wanted to play tennis, but there were people at the tennis courts so they just hit the ball back and forth.

We all took turns playing tennis and riding scooters.  The weather was beautiful and I love that mountain view!

Hallee really needed to get out after her frustrations with her school work.

I borrowed Jonah's scooter and rode around.  It was really fun.

Yesterday and today we dropped Caitlyn and Jonah off at the tennis courts and I took Hallee and Wyatt to the skate park.  Caitlyn and Jonah have been having so much fun playing tennis together.

Yesterday Hallee wanted to go down the hill on her scooter so bad, but kept getting scared.  She got so frustrated and cranky.  I was getting frustrated with her so I decided to try going down the hill so I could empathize with her. To my surprise it wasn't bad and I didn't fall!  Wyatt was so impressed and I had fun with my new trick.

I was nervous to take Hallee back to the skate park today because of her experience yesterday, but we talked about sticking with things and that hard things take time and practice.  She was in a much better mental state today and worked up the courage to go down the hill! She was so proud of herself.

We had a great time at the skate park and stayed until it started raining. 

We started a puzzle on Saturday and we finished it this morning.  It's been fun to work on it with the kids.

Wyatt wanted to do a puzzle on his own after we finished that one.

Hallee wanted to do one too and was so proud that she did it all by herself.

For the most part the kids have been pretty good about finding things to do.  Hallee and Caitlyn baked yummy cupcakes! 

Life feels a little crazy and unsettled right now, but we really have so much to be grateful for.  I am really nervous how this coronavirus is going to affect the economy, but I'm trying not to let my mind run away with worry and focus on the fact that as for now we are healthy and we have everything we need.