Author: lifeofaprice

So I planned to do these Birthday posts for my kids many months ago. Obviously that didn’t happen.  But its happening now, so thats good right?

My Mom has a wall in her house that has a portrait of all of her children at the age of 3. You often hear her lovingly referring to it saying “Look at my babies!!” I decided I wanted to do something similar. But I really wanted to capture my kids interests too. So that is what we’ve done so far. Bet you can’t guess what Kennedi was into at 3.

Prepare for a picture overload, because how am I supposed to pick a favourite?

 

So when this little lady turned 3 she pretty much loved every second of it. We did a princess themed party because anyone who knows her knows that she’s just the tiniest bit obsessed. I decorated my Mom’s living room so it looked like some kind of pink and purple explosion, made the pinkest most sparkly cake you can imagine (literally a square with hot pink frosting and sparkle sprinkles, thankfully 3 year olds are easily pleased) and we were set.

This girl LOVES to be the centre of attention so opening presents and everyone singing to her basically was a dream come true. I think though that aunt Emily’s gift of her very own makeup was the favourite. Thats a big deal when princess dresses were in the mix.

It’s hard to prepare people for Kennedi. They don’t undersand when I try to prepare them (mainly her teachers). She’s an experience. So let me finish off by trying to list some things I think best describe this girl of ours…..because there is a lot of personality inside this tiny body.

Sweet, Loving, Feisty, Stubborn, Aggressive, Passionate, Princess, Daddy’s girl, did I mention stubborn, her way or the highway, go getter, determined, and a true romantic at heart.

She’s also a great sister for these two boys. She can drive them crazy, but she also knows just how to be a best friend to each of them. We love her and are grateful she is ours.

Wow, I’ve gotten so behind! I mean lets just revisit February for a minute. This picture from the first day of school is something I’ve wanted to write a post about for a while……obviously months at this point, since we’ve now had our last day of school ha!

This picture captured everything in how that morning was going. The first day of school is a big deal. Especially when it is your first borns very first day of full-time school (like all day everyday), in a new country, having never been to even preschool. I was all kinds of emotional and nervous.

I found out when we were planning to move that you start full-time school in England when you are 4 turning 5 in what is called Foundation Stage or Reception. I heard that and the anxiety set in. I mean I was mentally ready for him to be in pre-school for a few hours every other day (that would have been the plan had we not moved).  Lincoln’s birthday is in November so my plan was to start him in Kindergarten when he was 5 turning 6 within the school year. I asked if we could kind of follow that plan and wait until the next year to start him full-time. But that doesn’t work here. In the U.S. you have a little more flexibility when it comes to a child’s age and what grade they are in. In England they have to stay within the age group that their birthday falls in. So if we waited to put him in the next year he would go straight into Year 1…….aaannnd since he’d never even been to preschool yet, I wasn’t about to throw that at him.

Looking at it in hindsight it seems so silly that I was so worried, but then I think thats because I’ve gotten used to the British school system (which I love, but I’ll save that for my “last day of school” post). It’s funny how the unfamiliar and unknown can affect us. I was definitely creating expectations of my knowledge of school in the U.S. for what the experience would be like here. It is totally different, and definitely what he needed and was ready for, but that didn’t necessarily make it easier for either of us.

So we got here in December and I started the process of getting him into school right after Christmas break had ended. I quickly learned that once we got his applications for school in that it would probably be another month or so before he could actually start. This was fine with me because I wasn’t in any rush for him to start…………until a few weeks later and we were both so ready for him to start ha.

So in February, Lincoln had his very first day of school. I think ecstatic probably best describes how he was feeling.

I guess I’ll start there. I can still very vividly remember walking into the school gates with him that morning and him holding his book bag, with all that excitement bubbling out. He informed me as we walked in “Mom, you know the reason I need to go to school is so I can start going to college!” Ha! thanks to all my siblings who are currently in college, your influence apparently stuck big time. We walked into his classroom and his teacher (who had come to do a home visit the week before, so Lincoln was somewhat familiar with him) came and guided him in to join the rest of his class. I waved goodbye and left, thinking about how smoothly everything had gone. Then I spent the rest of the day stressing about how it was going for him (first time school mom problems).

Fast-forward to pick-up time. Kennedi, Benson and I were all there to pick him up. We had plans to stop by the park to play as we walked home. As I approached the pick-up area I saw Lincoln standing out front next to his teacher, and boy did he look ticked. His teacher came over to me and informed me that “Lincoln did great, but it was a bit of a long day for him, and he had a bit of a disagreement with the TA”. That was it, I’m super grateful to his teacher because he was so understanding and didn’t say one thing to me about Lincoln’s not so positive behaviour at the end of school. I mean I’m his Mom, I’ve seen the best and definitely worst of his behavior. My mind was imaging all that they might have encountered with this so called ‘disagreement’.

Lincoln came over threw his school bag in the stroller and declared “I’m never ever going back to school again!”. Thankfully I had the sense to not say anything about school and to just focus on the park. As we played on the teeter totter we were able to talk about his day and it became pretty obvious that at the end of the day he had been frustrated when he had to switch from play time to class time. Getting used to following a structured schedule was a little rough at first (not to mention the completely foreign environment new people and different English etc). But after letting some energy out at the park he was happy as could be and things seemed to be looking up.

It’s funny how pictures are just a shot of that one moment in time. I knew in the future I’d look at that picture and remember all the happy things about his school because we’d have so many more memories tied to the school and new place we were living. But I want to make sure I remembered the hard things about this week too. First of all to remind myself that I can totally do hard things, and Second that God is so aware of each of us and our individual circumstances.

Well, the next day he walked into school a little apprehensive but positive. Things seemed to be going well until he threw up after dinner. The school policy is that they can’t go to school for two days just to make sure they’re not spreading anything. I remember thinking great, he has one day of school and now he is home again (he was totally okay, the throw up incident turned out to be a fluke). I knew he needed consistency to get used to all the changes.

So here he was stuck home and so full of energy and of course Kennedi got hit with some kind of virus that day. She was sicker than I’ve ever seen her, fighting a constant fever for days. I couldn’t wait for Friday, Lincoln could go back to school, I could hopefully recover a little from being up all night with Kennedi (I’d been sick the week before too). It was that little piece of hope you grasp for to try and survive, well I was holding onto the thought of Friday like you wouldn’t believe. Well Thursday evening really put me in my place. He started throwing up after dinner and kept it up all night. I remember thinking “is this how bad he doesn’t want to go back to school?”

Well so much for the hope of creating some normalcy. Kennedi was just starting to come out of whatever she had and Lincoln was legitimately sick with some kind of stomach bug. I don’t know what kind of stomach flu allows you to not throw-up all day but constantly throughout the night….for days……but I loathed it, whatever it was. So he only made it to two days of school his first week and then it was a school holiday so they were off for a week.

It was a mixture of so many things timed perfectly together that just brought me to a low point that I don’t think I’ve felt for a long time (like since being a missionary) if ever. I feel like I’m a pretty strong person and can handle a lot, but maybe because of all the new change added to all this perfectly timed illness, the lack of warmth and sunshine, my kids (and me) really struggling with being away from family, and still getting to know our new “village” (it really does take a village people!) that it was just the right combo to put me over the edge.

So lets take a minute to talk about Gratitude, because that was my saving grace at that low point. I’m a firm believer that gratitude is what allows God to bring joy into our lives. There is a quote from one of my favourite talks by Thomas S. Monson “Sincerely giving thanks not only helps us recognize our blessings, but it also unlocks the doors of heaven and helps us feel God’s love.”

The day that everyone seemed to be on the mend the sun came out and we went on a walk. It was amazing to me to see what happened just getting out and feeling the sun on my face. I went from down in the dumps to feeling so grateful for the sun, then grateful for the beautiful place we get to live, which turned into feeling gratitude for the amazing opportunities we’ve been given, especially this new (not always easy) experience. It was such a drastic switch in emotion that it really impacted me that day, and I wanted to remember it. To remember to focus on gratitude for the little things that surround me in my day to day as well as the big things.

Moral of the story is, it’s amazing what one picture can make us remember about a moment in time, and that’s why I started this blog……hopefully I can get better at keeping it up to date🙈.

I

Introducing Sean’s new “ride”…..

When we were trying to figure out our move over here we chose to find a place nearby work that would allow Sean to either walk or bike most days. We had decided we’d buy our family car and then see how things went.

Well, he was pretty set on getting a bike. That is until we went to Esther and Lance’s house on Christmas Day. Rachel and Lance had gotten new scooters for Christmas and apparently that sparked a new idea in Sean’s mind. A few days later he told me he’d really been thinking about it and decided that he wanted to get a scooter rather than a bike. To be honest it kind of took me by surprise, but he had me with his logic. You see in England you never know what the weather is going to do. It could start out raining and then be sunny or vice versa. A scooter that he could easily fold up and throw in the back of the car if he needed a ride home from work would be much easier to handle than a bike.

And so we ordered a scooter. The day it arrived had everyone so excited, I mean the kids were just as stoked about the fact that now Dad could scooter with them.

 

And you know what? We are a month in and that scooter has been super dependable. I’ve only had to take him to work once so far and that is saying something in the middle of winter. I try to ignore the fact that he tells me he can make it home in five minutes. I mean I’ve walked to and from the office with the kids and if he’s doing it in five, he’s flying. So I’ll just continue to pray for his safety and coordination.

But it’s been fun for me to watch the kids have so much fun going for a scooter ride in the park whenever we can (big and small, his inner kid definitely comes out on that thing).

 

The cutest little scooter brigade I ever did see!! We highly recommend scooters.

P.S. Benson and I have ridden the scooter together (strapped in the baby carrier of course, I won’t mention the strange looks we got) and he definitely approves….

 

Trying to organize this post is a little difficult. Christmas this year for me is basically one big crazy blur. We arrived a week before Christmas Day and it took us most of that week just to get over the jet lag. So between that and getting moved into our house I feel very proud of the fact that Christmas actually happened at our house at all ha.

I think the best way to organize my thoughts is to let the pictures be the guide and to cover everything as “Christmas Break”.

I feel like this picture sums up most of our time those first two weeks. Life with a shopping cart. (I mean that baby makes it totally look enjoyable).

Having to go shop so much for Christmas and moving in was good and bad. Good because we were forced to really get around and get to know what stores there were in our city, bad because I mean have you ever gone shopping the week before Christmas, with 3 kids in tow? It’s total CHAOS. I was in major “get it done” mode and Sean got completely shopped out a few days in. I mean I don’t blame him, there were sooooo many people at every store all trying to finish their last minute shopping. It was overwhelming for a guy who really enjoyed the solitude of ranch life.

But you know shopping so late in the holidays had its perks. We got our Christmas tree on Christmas Eve and everything “Christmas” had just been marked 40% off. So we got an awesome deal.

Boxes. I think that would be the second thing that defined our first two weeks boxes, assembling and more boxes. My kids thought they’d died and gone to heaven….

Thankfully Sean and I were able to pull it together (barely) and help the kids get everything ready for Santa.

We wanted to make cookies to leave for Santa and since we had literally moved into our house the day before Christmas Eve we knew we needed the quick version. We searched high and low for prepared cookie dough…….I don’t think it exists here. (England friends if I’m wrong on that, PLEASE let me know where we can find it). So I grabbed the best looking pre-made “kind of like cookies” alternative that I could find. Cheesecake bites, I mean in my personal opinion that is totally something Santa wouldn’t mind eating at all, right?

As we were setting them on the plate this is the conversation that went down:

Lincoln: “Mom, can I have one?”

Me: “Sure” (I mean, perfect excuse for me to eat one too)…..(they were okay, not the best)

Lincoln: with a disgusted look “these are disgusting!”, deep thinking look “that’s okay though Santa will still like them” as he slides the plate back over to me.

I don’t know why, probably because we were deliriously tired at this point, but Sean I and could not stop laughing at that one.

Christmas morning came a little earlier than we expected. This was the first year that the kids woke us up to go downstairs. There are definitely great sleep advantages on Christmas morning when your kids are little. We thought it would be Lincoln that would be up first, but Kennedi had everyone in the house up by 7:00. I guess our coaching the night before that they couldn’t  go downstairs without Mom and Dad really stuck for her (thank goodness, she’s a known explorer and destroyer).

The kids got each other presents for under the tree and I got these videos the day they went “shopping”.

I filmed that on Marco Polo right after she got in the car. I didn’t know at the time that I could get the video off of the App so I filmed this next video on my phone to try and get what she said again……Round 2 is what I expected originally.

To her credit she did keep it a secret from Lincoln. It was so cute to see how excited they were to give each other those gifts.

Even though we were living in a whirlwind this Christmas season we really got to enjoy the Christmas spirit thanks to friends and family.

Our first day in our house a group from our ward came to do some Carolling at our house. It was so sweet, and Lincoln was begging to go Christmas Carolling after that for about a month.

Christmas Eve we went Carolling with friends in Leighton Buzzard on High Street. It was an awesome experience. So many people turned up and it was fun to hear all those people singing carols together…..not to mention the Santa Clause sighting.

 

 

Believe it or not we have family here in England. Esther and Lance live in London and have really helped us feel at home. I mean my kids ask about every other day if we can go to Aunt Esther’s house. We got to spend some of the Christmas holiday with them as well I didn’t get a lot of pictures, just a few from time in the park.

They took us to experience the green parrots in Hyde Park, Rachel and Olivia are pros with those things and knew exactly what snacks would coax them down to us. Kenni was enthralled and terrified at the same time, and Lincoln’s favourite was chasing all the pigeons.

New Years we decided to make it a relaxing day with the kids since we’d been going like crazy for most of our Holiday.

Our ward did a New Years Day walk around Willen Lake which I thought was a great way to start off the day.

We went out to lunch. All I’ll say is that it was an interesting experience, ending with some people a few tables over getting into a fist fight. But we got some cute pictures of the kids! Even though we told them we wouldn’t be going out to eat for a while because of some crazy behaviour (particularly that little lady featured below). Worth it right? I just kept telling myself that…..we couldn’t get home fast enough ha!

And ended our day with a movie night and dance party.

It was a good end to a very crazy, but fun Christmas Holiday.

Okay, so we had a big change over in our little world, we finally have a car! Let me clarify, we have our own car. We’ve been driving a rental for the last month. A rental that I was not insured on, meaning I couldn’t drive it. So this whole “we have our own car” thing is a big deal not only for me but for Sean too. I have freedom, he doesn’t have to play chauffeur all the time for me, so its a win for everyone. I mean the driving on the other side of the road is just a little part of that big deal right? Ha.

But in all the excitement of this new found freedom I really wanted to dedicate a post to pay tribute to “the buggy” (meaning the stroller).

This little red buggy has been the kids and my main mode of transportation for the past month. It has been used more in the last month than in the past year that we’ve had it. We love this thing. My top 5 reasons that I love it:

1. It’s taught me that not having a car doesn’t mean I have to feel stuck. (To think outside the box for getting things taken care of and letting go of those things that really don’t have to be done right away.)
2. That walking is not only good for me physically but especially mentally.
3. It’s taught me to slow down and appreciate more of the beauty that God has created.
4. Its the most perfect colour of neon red that I’ve ever seen and no matter how gloomy the day may be, it brightens my mood and lifts my spirits.
5. Most of all its taught me to better slow down and appreciate being out with my kids, wether we are enjoying nature or grocery shopping (number 6 would have to be the extra large basket space underneath for said groceries).

Needless to say she has served us well and I plan to still use her on the daily at least once, even with the car.

 

We’ve moved to England! We arrived this morning and as I’m writing this it is so surreal to me that we’re actually here. I mean serious jet lag side effects definitely have nothing to do with that right? I’ll give a quick summary of how this whole thing came about….

Sean started working for the Europe team a few years ago. He would travel once a year to their Europe convention for a week. Then, with some changes he started traveling specifically to the England office every other month at the beginning of this year. Our moving over was something that started to be discussed and in August we decided to look more seriously at that option. Sean and I came out to look at housing and to let me get a feel for what it would be like living here. It really didn’t take much convincing.

Getting our visa’s took a little bit more time than we expected. (Our timing on starting the visa applications wasn’t the best, it corresponded with the start of Brexit for England so things got extended a little bit). But 4 months later things went through.

It ended up being a good thing that we had the 4 months of prep time. I had been able to start going through our stuff and doing some serious de-junking. We were able to find and solidify a house, and I could figure out what was going with us and what wasn’t. This was all a huge blessing because our visa’s went through and our flights were booked for a week later. So our last week consisted of some organized chaos focused around packing, shipping and selling things we weren’t keeping. And of course, just as kids usually do, our kids decided it was the perfect week to catch every little bug that was going around. Thankfully they got sick at the beginning of the week so they were on the mending side of things when we left.

We left at 6:00 a.m. to catch our flight in Salt Lake City, had a layover in Detroit and then made it to London at 7:00 a.m. Considering the 20 hours of travel, our kids did great. They were able to get some sleep. We didn’t sleep at all, but I mean that was our expectation, and with no crying babies, toddler tantrums and an awesome 5 year old helper we were totally okay with the no sleep situation.

(I couldn’t resist getting a video of Kenni and her walk. She walks like this everywhere we go)

Now if you mentioned the baggage situation, we might have some not so pleasant comments to share with you. I mean when your shipment of belongings won’t get to you for 9 weeks you have to make sure you take what you’ll need from now until then. This came out to equal a lot of luggage. Things were fine and dandy until we arrived in London. I mean luggage aside, with our carry ons, kids carseats and stroller we were already a sight to behold. We walked down to customs and the line was so long that it went clear down the hall outside the main customs room (which if any of you have seen those customs areas, they are not small). When we finally made it into the customs area we realized we were in for a 3 hour line situation. Thankfully, a WONDERFUL airport employee told Sean that we could skip to the handicap line. As we passed her, she said “just tell them we told you to come through because the babies were screaming”. That woman was a blessing, because our kids were not making one peep. If we’d been stuck in the 3 hour line, then yes they most likely would have definitely been doing exactly what she said. Then it was on to figuring out the luggage situation. I wish now that I’d taken a picture of our amazing balancing act, but in a moment like that pictures really aren’t on your mind.

A driver in a van (large enough for all of us and our never ending luggage) picked us up and dropped us off at the short stay apartment we’ll be in for a few days as we get some beds into our currently empty house.

It has been so fun to see the kids excitement and so surreal to take them with us to places we came to in August. We are so excited for this new adventure and all thats in store!

Yes its ‘official’ I’m entering the blogosphere. Okay, so this is in reality take 2 on this whole blog thing. But life over here has been starting to get crazy and I’m watching my kids grow up, crazy changes are happening and I want to remember this! Not to mention I recently lost my pictures from the last year and a half! Talk about sick to your stomach. So this is going to be my method of self accountability to keep my photos safe, organized and to actually look at them.

Getting back into the blogging world has been on my mind since the beginning of this year. Since I started my last blog (which unfortunately hasn’t been updated in four years) we went from one kid to three, moved three times (with another coming soon), graduated college, and a dog. So I’ve had a lot of time to think about what the purpose of this space will be. I’ve decided not only will it include whats happening in our family life, but my thoughts on motherhood, life and hopefully to just send something positive out into the world.

I’ll be attaching my instagram and facebook to the blog as well so you’ll know when I shared something new. I’m sure this will be read mostly by family, but I hope it at least benefits them. For those that do decide to read this, its going to seem a little chaotic. My plan of attack is to consistently post about the present, with past events or photos inserted in what might seem as random posts. This will be me trying to get myself organized and play a little catch up on events from the last few years for my personal record. I’ll post three times a week.

Why am I telling you all of this unnecessary information, well to hopefully create some sense of responsibility for myself to be diligent in actually doing this.

Let the challenge begin!