What a year 2025 has been for our family! 

Caleb (2) is still as delightful and hilarious as ever.  We call him our “free range” baby because he likes to wander the house and find his own snacks and entertainment or scavenging any food he finds on top of the kitchen table.  His vocabulary has exploded and it’s so fun to hear his sweet little voice rattling off what’s in his brain!  One particularly hilarious affectation he acquired is scolding us by wagging his little finger and sternly saying his own full name, “Caleb. Warren. Hansen!”—a trick he clearly learned from the way David usually tells him off He has also recognized the pattern of scripture study – when we start reading scriptures he likes to boom out, “BEHOLD!” – which is apparently what he thinks every verse in the Doctrine & Covenants says.  He loves nursery and is always eager to go at the end of sacrament meeting each week.  However, he hates being left by anyone.  Whether it’s Eric going to the office, the kids going to school, or even friends leaving he frequently will start crying at the prospect of being left behind.  Luckily for him, his quick smile, bright eyes, and snuggly nature endears himself to everyone he meets and no one ever really wants to leave him behind anyways. We just adore this little guy!

David’s (8) first grade year in the Chinese immersion program went very well; he feels very clever having a secret language that he can use to talk to Dad.  We were very proud of him for taking 2^nd place in the first-grade spelling bee—although he came home disconsolate that he didn’t take first   It was a good lesson in how to approach defeat.  He has also been making progress in the Let’s Play Music Presto program where he is learning to play the piano.  During the first-grade year he spent his Thursday afternoons participating in an American Ninja Warrior-style training class.  It was fun to watch him have the chance to climb and jump all over – however we’ve swapped those classes in favor of trying out soccer and a tumbling class in the neighborhood this fall.  He spent the summer signing up for lots of different camps to keep him busy – art, karate, tumbling, Chinese – David is so busy and it’s hard to keep him adequately stimulated in the summer!  We regularly find David working on a Powerpoint presentation, writing a short book with stapled notebook paper, or creating funeral programs for the dead bird the neighborhood kids found. Normal 7-year-old stuff, right?  The big thing for him this year was getting baptized in October!  He asked Sam to baptize him and Eric was able to do the confirmation.  He even got to give the closing remarks and our bishop was so impressed with them, that he was asked to share them again in sacrament meeting the next day!

Maeli (11) has really gotten into musical theater over the last year and has enjoyed spending lots of time acting in various local productions. Over the past year she was able to participate in productions of Annie, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, and Aladdin! This year she is getting more training at the Hale Center Theater’s academy at the Ruth which she is very excited about—even though the culminating performance will be a Broadway review rather than a full production. She also enjoyed participating in her school’s Knowledge Bowl and Battle of the Books. She especially enjoyed that she was in charge of being her Knowledge Bowl team’s expert on musicals—which gave her the excuse to watch many musicals over the course of the year, and launched her into looking for even more wherever she can find them.  

After 3 years at our local public school she decided in May that she wanted to come back home this year to be homeschooled again. She was sad to leave the social scene and all of the friends she made there; however, she felt she was having a hard time progressing academically as well as she would like. We were able to enroll her in an online private school that is giving her a great balance of academics and social skills at her own pace. She is also excited this year to be part of a FIRST Lego League Robotics team. She was also able to re-start piano lessons and is excited to be progressing again, as well as taking art classes that have improved her drawing skills considerably! She has been very busy since coming home and we’re constantly trying to help her keep up with all of the activities she wants to be part of!  Probably the thing she’s most excited for is going into Young Women’s in January

Daniel (14) is officially a young man who now wants to go by Dan or Daniel rather than Danny.  He’s pretty chill about us calling him either way though, which is good because it’s hard to make that switch after him going by Danny for so long! He has grown taller than his mom—a fact that he is very proud of, no matter how short Brittny is. His passion for robotics has really taken off. He spent this past year on a FIRST Tech Challenge robotics team and loved every minute of it! Sadly, the team missed going to the state championships, but we’re hopeful that this will be a winning year for the team! He has the advantage this year that his mom is the new coach and the robot now lives at his house—he spends many afternoons and evenings tinkering away on the robot and consulting with the rest of the team over Slack.

Dan went to Stake Young Men’s camp and FSY for the first time this summer and really enjoyed the experiences. He especially came home from FSY on fire! He said the best part was just how strong the Spirit was throughout the whole week, and was seriously bugged by any of the kids who were just playing on their phones not taking advantage of the week . He said his favorite part was the personal study time that he got there, which was not what we would have expected!  He’s on fire and it’s awesome to see him grow a testimony of his own.

Dan also enjoyed participating in rec league soccer both in the spring and fall and is currently training in the off-season with a professional soccer coach. He has also been able to get back into piano and is really taking off. Having taken a break for a few years while we worked through finding him the right teacher seems to have made him really appreciate the opportunity and he’s doing great things with it.

In January Daniel & Sam both were awarded scholarships from the State of Utah to help fund their education as homeschoolers.  This has been an incredible blessing for our family in so many ways – homeschooling can be done for very cheap at the expense of the family, but it can be done very well with a bit of support.  The scholarship allows them to take a portion of the funding that would have supported them in the public school and use it in ways that better fit their educational goals.  With that funding we’ve been able to enroll both boys in BYU Online High School, get them art instruction, and finally get Sam some physical education that is working for him (Maeli also received a scholarship in the Fall which has enabled so many of the opportunities for her school year too).  We are so grateful for the opportunities this has opened up for them!  It has been a huge amount of work trying to keep up with the program as things have changed and as they’re working out the kinks of a new program – but it has really been revolutionary in helping us get our kids the education that they need when the public schools weren’t able to meet those needs.

Sam (16) is SIXTEEN! How is that even possible?! He is also taller than his mom – and is getting close to overtaking his dad in height as well.  He started the year by getting braces, which he was definitely not excited about, but the improvement has been noticeable already.  Sam has continued participating in debate classes which have been a huge highlight in his education.  He loves the challenge of thinking about issues from different points of view.  He has been very busy trying to make up some credits at BYU Online High School this year.  Several of his homeschooling studies didn’t directly correlate to their requirements so we have been playing some catch up.  He completed another year with the Lyceum Orchestra at American Heritage in May, however he’s decided to take this year off from orchestra so he can focus more intently on progressing through his solo violin music.

One really neat moment with Sam this year was watching him bear his testimony for the first time. After making a small mistake in the sacrament prayer, he got up and related the experience of getting to try again to the Atonement of Jesus Christ—how we all make mistakes but can always fix them. He also came home from FSY with his fire of faith stoked, which was so fun to watch.  We are so proud of the amazing young man he is becoming.

Just after school started he finally got his driver’s license!  Mom and Dad are glad to not be chauffeuring him around so much – especially after Brittny figured out that driving around just Sam was taking 8 hours of time every single week!  He was intimidated at first, but has quickly grown to love the freedom to get himself to all of his activities.  We’re not sure though whether Sam is more excited to have his license – or if Daniel is more excited to have someone who can be talked into taking him to Swig or Smith’s when he wants a treat.  Sam’s license has been bad for Daniel’s budget Sam was able to sign up for some strength training  which he has been taking fairly seriously and helping to grow in his physical coordination.  He’s growing up and it’s crazy to think that we have made an almost adult person – where does the time go?

Brittny (40) had the bittersweet moment in February of officially shutting down the app she’s been running for the last few years.  There were a lot of feelings with the close of that chapter, but mostly gratitude for the connections made and the lessons learned.   She didn’t have much time to kick back and relax though.  In June, she was surprised to be offered a position as a robotics coach for the team that Daniel competed with last year.  The fact that she’s never built a robot shouldn’t be a problem, right? It has been a bigger project to take on than she anticipated, however she’s really loving every minute of it and is excited to see this team be successful!  Sam has also joined the team this year and it is fun to watch both of the boys really get into the competition.  She also continues to keep herself busy as our ward’s Relief Society secretary (going for 5 years strong now!) and keeping the neighborhood book club running (or at least limping along). 

It’s been quite the year for saying goodbyes in our family.  Since last August Brittny has lost a cousin, a granddad, a dear friend’s daughter, an Aunt, a great-grandma, as well as losing 2 babies to miscarriage.  It has definitely been a year to really appreciate the life and health we’ve been given, and the blessings of eternal families and knowledge of the Plan of Salvation.  

Eric (40) celebrated the big 4-0 this year! To celebrate he and Brittny were able to take a trip to the big island of Hawaii.  The highlight was that we happened to be there when the volcano was erupting!  The experience of watching that live was absolutely breathtaking – something we never knew we should have had on our bucket list but one that was amazing to check off.  He continues to be the steady rock of our family, providing for us and supporting everyone through the year’s trials. He was excited to be invited onto a podcast earlier this year where he shared his experiences as a missionary (https://bit.ly/missionary-stories-eric-hansen). 

He is still doing his best to keep the Deacons alive and well in his calling as a Quorum Advisor. They had a successful trip rafting down the Green River, cliff jumping, and holding fire-building competitions during summer camp.

In July, he took on a brand new role as the Director of Student Journey Measurement & Orchestration (still at WGU). It’s been quite the shift to leave his old analytics team of 17 to start building a new one from scratch, but he loves that he gets to work more closely with building new technologies and initiatives focused on enhancing the overall student experience.

We hope the rest of this year finds you and yours happy and healthy! We are so grateful for the family ties that bind us all together. We love you!

Spring break brought us one of our most epic adventures yet—a road trip to see the last total solar eclipse in America for the next few decades. We decided to make multiple stops along the way to see family, Church History sites, and Eric’s hometown of Evansville, IN. It was almost two full weeks of travel that seemed never-ending at times! We put over 4,000 miles on our van and at the end of it we were about ready to never travel again! 

After such a big trip we took it easy over the summer with family coming to see us here.  We relaxed between summer camps, youth conferences and young men’s camping trips.  It was a great summer, although I think by the end of it we were all ready to get back into some semblance of a routine. 

For Thanksgiving we decided to head to California to see Brittny’s family. Our kids had a great time swimming and playing with cousins – even jumping in the cold swimming pool to get their Bobo to make them sweet rolls! Then halfway through the trip… a stomach bug hit. Having 20 people in a house with 3 toilets with a stomach bug going around – not recommended. Fortunately we all got through it and made it home again. Right now we’re all doubling down on our Vitamin C in anticipation of getting together with family for Christmas!

In March, Sam turned 15! He’s really been stepping up in his role as big brother, especially with Caleb. Watching him take such thoughtful care of Caleb is so heartwarming.  In April he decided to receive his patriarchal blessing.  It was an incredible experience to be a part of that and we were once again awed as parents by the sacred responsibility we have to help raise these amazing kids. Sam made great progress this year in orchestra, speech and debate, and somehow manages to balance all his schoolwork like a pro.  This past year he took on studying for the AP Biology independently and in May he managed to score a 4 on the exam as a freshman!  We are so proud of the ways he’s learning to manage himself and his time – although we’d love it if keeping his room clean was a higher priority in his mind   Now we’re gearing up to get him behind the wheel!  He earned his learner’s permit in September and we’re now taking on the task of road practice with a new driver.  Luckily Eric was able to also find a virtual driving simulator – complete with simulated driver’s wheel, pedals and even a VR headset experience so his mistakes while learning hopefully won’t be so costly. We are ready for him to drive himself and his siblings around, though we’re not quite ready to admit to be old enough for this stage!

Sam is continuing to homeschool this year.  He is now in the Elite level of his Speech & Debate league and is continuing to participate with the American Heritage Lyceum Orchestra.  He’s doing several classes with BYU Independent study this year and he decided against returning to take any classes at our local public school this year.  He found that he really didn’t like how much of his day those classes took from him, as well as the constant struggle of knowing which days were A days vs B days.  His one exception is that he is taking Seminary, however he found an early morning class that is all homeschoolers on a consistent schedule and he is really liking being a part of that class – even though he’s not thrilled about the 6:15am wake up time on Tuesdays and Thursdays!

We now have TWO teenagers living in the house. Danny turned 13 soon after Spring Break, and his big excitement was finally getting his own Venmo account   That might seem like an odd thing to celebrate but perfect for our entrepreneurial son. Danny continues to find every opportunity to earn money, whether through babysitting, dog sitting, or running drink stands at the local bike trails. Danny never fails to bring enthusiasm and dedication to everything he does. He has really gotten into soccer the last few years and had an awesome last season in our city’s rec league in the spring.  Luckily we were able to find another rec league that includes boys his age and he will be playing more this next year.  If you’ve watched the show Ted Lasso the character Dani Rojas reminds us strongly of Danny in his soccer playing, “Futbol is life!” – which is especially fitting since they share a first name After finishing their regular season the team decided to continue playing in another rec league. Somehow their team got pushed up into a higher age bracket, and most of the other teams were club teams Danny’s team of mostly 8th graders was playing against high school seniors. Needless to say – it was ROUGH. I was so proud of him for having a good attitude and sticking with it. His whole team did awesome at just getting out there and not getting overly frustrated or discouraged despite their total disadvantage. They won one game the whole season. Luckily the team is going to be together again for spring and I think they are going to find that playing with kids their actual age again is going to feel like a cakewalk after the season they just had.

His current passions include pickleball, chess, mountain biking, and heavily participating in our ward’s Deacons Quorum group.  He is currently serving as the first counselor in his quorum and he takes the role very seriously.  Danny really enjoyed taking classes at the local middle school last year – despite his initial reservations.  He loved being able to go in and have really solid direction to complete his schoolwork.  However, he also learned that middle schoolers are not always treated as much like adults as he is used to at home (and he was annoyed to find that most middle schoolers don’t ACT as much like adults as he does), so he decided to go back to a full time homeschool schedule this year.  He is also taking a few BYU Independent Study courses, as well as taking part in a robotics competition team through the same organization that runs Sam’s speech and debate league.  He aspires to become a robotics engineer when he grows up, so this is an amazing opportunity for him.

Maeli is now 10 and is super annoyed that she turns 11 just *after* the new year – which means that she has another full year before she gets to go to young womens.  Maeli is absolutely loving public school.  She has declared that her favorite days of the year in order are – Christmas, her birthday, and the first day of school!  Most kids count down to summer break, but Maeli counts down to when it is over   We had her final follow up for her vision therapy at the end of July and found out that all of the progress that she made is holding!  We are so grateful for the science that has been able to fix her eyes so that she can see properly.  As a result her reading has come along at an incredible pace.  We’ve started finding her curled up happily reading a book of her own volition several times and few things make us happier! 

Maeli also participated in soccer this last year but she has decided to give up soccer this year in exchange for starting a music dance theater class at a local studio. She also decided to participate in the musical at her elementary school and made it into the cast this year! She is loving both of those experiences and has found a deep love for musicals recently. You can almost always hear songs from Wicked, or Hamilton, or West Side Story blasting from her room! She has also gotten involved in all of the different academic teams activities that her school offers. She *loves* participating in the Battle of the Books – this last year her team nearly won for her grade level! She also decided to join the club for her school’s Knowledge Bowl – even though it means getting to school an hour early once a week and doing extra studying outside of school.  Maeli loves nothing more than to be out in the neighborhood with her friends.  She is such a social butterfly and is always talking.  If you get her started then you better buckle in because you might be listening for awhile!

David just turned 7 and has had a year full of excitement and growth. This year he is enrolled in a dual language immersion program in Mandarin. We are amazed with just how much Chinese he has learned in such a short time! He and Eric have lots of fun talking to each other in Chinese at home. David even tries talking to Brittny in Chinese – but that’s much less effective   His favorite thing is to spend time on his computer – where he mostly spends his time making spreadsheets, google docs and slideshows.  He also figured out that if he went to his school’s website he could find all of the email addresses of the teachers and staff at his school.  We’ve had to explain to him that it really isn’t appropriate to be sending random Google presentations to the principal – even though she luckily thinks he’s cute. 

At the beginning of the school year he started both a piano program and a ninja class.  It has been especially fun to see just how much he has loved learning piano. It’s probably not too surprising, he has always loved music. But wow! He comes home with the music that his class is learning and has started teaching himself how to play the parts that they aren’t even being taught at this level and sounding out whatever songs he wants to play by ear. I have a feeling this is the beginning of a lifetime of loving music. David was especially excited to lose his first two teeth this year! 

Caleb, our littlest guy, turned one during our epic spring break trip, and it’s hard to believe how much he’s grown. We celebrated his birthday at his Uncle Kent’s house while in Indiana, complete with General Conference viewing, cousin time, and a delicious chocolate cake. Caleb is such a light in our family—always smiley, snuggly, and loved by all. The older kids even argue over who gets to sit next to him in the car, even though it’s the least comfortable seat! 

He finally took his first steps on the first day of school – when he was nearly 17 months old! But even after taking those first few steps he completely refused to start walking. Luckily he finally gave in and was just barely walking when it was time to start nursery in October. It was just funny because we knew he *could* walk – there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with his legs or motor skills – he just refused to. If someone would try to stand him up to walk he would curl his legs into his body so that they couldn’t make him. I think we have a strong willed one on our hands! We were really concerned that he wouldn’t go to nursery. He won’t go to just about anyone other than his parents or siblings anymore. However, he surprised us on his first day of nursery by going in, sitting down, eating snacks and being totally content on his own for the whole time! Who would have guessed that our kid with serious stranger danger would love sitting and eating Pirates Booty with his nursery leaders each week His vocabulary really starting to take off. Our favorite thing is that if we tell him no he almost always asks, “why?” in the most innocent voice. He’s so stinking cute!

Brittny is spending her time deep in the trenches of motherhood – and loving it.  In December the kidney stone that she’d gotten at the end of Caleb’s pregnancy decided to rear its ugly head, sending her to the hospital during our Christmas break ski trip (boo!) and through a series of back and forths with doctors.  Most of the time everything is fine but she’s had three episodes of kidney infections in April, July, and again in November. The imaging says the stone is no longer there, however we’re still on the hunt to figure out what is causing these recurring infections – they’re no joke! Brittny is keeping busy running everyone to their different classes and commitments while trying to keep up with serving as our ward’s Relief Society Secretary and running the neighborhood book club.  She’s hopeful that she can get on top of the house projects enough this year to make progress on working on her blog and various business ideas – but that’s probably wishful thinking without dropping some other things from her schedule first.  She’s often said that she would rather be busy than bored – and so far she’s gotten her wish!

Eric is entering his third year as a Director of Analytics at WGU, and he’s learned and grown a lot. Recently, the executive leaders have instituted a new return to office policy that will eventually impact 12 of the 17 members of his team, and his work has gone in so many unexpected directions, so he’s trying to figure out how to best navigate his professional future. At least he enjoys serving as the Deacons Quorum advisor in the ward and participating in various hobbies with his children, be it skiing, pickleball, or playing violin.

We are happy to have another year of love and growth ahead of us and grateful for the direction that the gospel gives us in all of our adventures.  We hope your 2024 was blessed with love and joy, and that there are many good things to come for you in 2025!

After going the full summer without finding time to make it out to our land in the west desert of Utah we made the decision to work on selling that land in favor of projects closer to home. Just as we were ready to get it listed though we had a leak in our water heater which flooded the upper story of our house and into our garage  That lead to some massive unplanned renovations – replacing all the flooring in our upper floor, moving everyone out of their rooms for a couple months, and repainting a few rooms that we’d been putting off. While everyone was displaced we also decided to rearrange which rooms all of the kids were in. It was a huge and overwhelming project – but we’re finally to the tail end of it! Everyone is back in their own rooms – although there are lots of boxes that are still waiting to be unpacked and doors left to be repainted. We’re hopeful to be able to tackle the rest of them once we get past the holidays!

Meanwhile, here’s what each of us have been up to individually –

Caleb (8 months) On April 7th, we welcomed Caleb Warren Hansen into our family. It was a long 9 months to get him here, filled with back problems, nausea and kidney stones – but it was all worth it! The only real word to describe him is “delightful”.  He has been a happy, easy-going baby.  He’s happy to be passed around and carried around by siblings, cousins, neighbors.  Even when he has reasons to be mad you can tell that he still is trying to be happy and cheerful.  It’s such a change of pace after having David, who has a decidedly less happy temperament.  Caleb has done great at sleeping through the night – albeit from his parents’ bed.  However mom and dad are getting solid night’s of sleep so there are no complaints!  He’s crawling around and getting into things.  He hasn’t quite mastered crawling with his stomach off the floor but he’s gotten very fast at getting around in an army crawl.   Brittny was a little skeptical about having a little baby when his siblings were so much older – but she’s since decided that having a baby with much older sibling is the BEST!  She highly recommends that every baby come with a teenager that you can hand the baby to when you need to take a shower or a nap.  Fortunately the kids are every bit as enamored with Caleb as we are as parents so passing him off for needed breaks is easy.  We have really loved adding him to our family!

David (6). After finishing a year with two preschools to keep him busy we decided to enroll him in Kindergarten this year at Renaissance Academy where they have a full day program. Fortunately for us the state of Utah approved funding for full day kindergarten in the spring so it isn’t even costing us any money out of pocket   He was extremely anxious because part of the program includes foreign language instruction.  All summer long he kept telling us, “But I only speak English!” No matter how much we insisted that he would be able to learn the languages, he was terrified of the language learning. After a few days of class however he surprised us by not only tolerating the foreign language instruction, but it’s actually his favorite part of the day!  He finished a trimester of Arabic and came home every day to teach us new phrases in Arabic.  He has now started the next trimester which is Spanish instruction and seems to be loving it every bit as much!  We are no longer allowed to tell him “goodbye” only “adios” and if we speak to him in Spanish we have to be sure to call him “Dah-veed” and not “David”.  Every time Brittny goes on campus at Renaissance someone will stop her to say “Oh, YOU are David’s mom” and they always have a story to tell   Generally how David has set alarms on their smartwatch or made them a paper smartphone to pretend to text him with.  We are so grateful that he’s found somewhere that he is loved and challenged.

Maeli (9) has graduated from vision therapy and it is making a huge difference for her in her schooling.  She’s started 4th grade now, and her teacher is starting to push her more in hopes of helping her get caught up to her peers with her reading abilities.  She’s not loving that but it’s definitely good for her! Maeli is constantly found with her tablet in hand listening to audiobooks. No matter how difficult reading is for her she still loves a good story!  She played soccer in the spring and fall and loved being a part of both teams. Although we suspect that she enjoyed being with friends more than she enjoyed the actual sport. Maeli spends every possible waking moment off with her many friends in the neighborhood.

Danny (12) is fully immersed as part of the Deacon’s Quorum in our ward. He loves participating in lessons, weekly activities, and the fun campouts we’ve had this year. His passion for soccer has only grown stronger, and he couldn’t be happier with his weekly matches and practices.  He decided to take a couple classes at the local Middle School this year. This was his first foray into public school and he was VERY skeptical going into it. He was certain this was a terrible idea and that he was going to hate it. Fortunately – he was wrong – he has actually loved it! So much so that he has toyed with the idea of going to public school full time next year (he decided against it but the fact that he even considered it was incredible after how opposed he was at the beginning). He’s taking a science class which he’s loving, and a PE class that he’s hated (apparently the rest of the class doesn’t follow instructions well which makes the class pretty miserable). He’s glad to have his last day of PE this week before changing to Art next semester. He also loves coming home each day and telling us about all the exciting food that they have at the cafeteria – oh the excitement of public school!

Sam (14) attended his first high adventure and FSY this summer. He was as skeptical about FSY as Danny was about public school (to be fair, his mom tried to explain it by talking up the dances and classes) but he also ended up as enthusiastic in the end! He wasn’t able to go with our stake because of our family reunion but he made some good friends and had a great experience on his own at BYU. We enjoyed him getting a little more familiar with our alma mater as well #GoCougs He’s proud to now be taller than Mom – even if that was (quite literally) a low bar to pass.  He is taking a couple of classes at the middle school – fortunately at a time that coincides exactly with Danny’s schedule. He’s enjoying both seminary and Spanish. He is also continuing in his speech & debate and orchestra classes in the community – and we are really pleased to see him progressing well in each! In his spare time he’s been working on developing a video game in Unity with a group of friends. He also has an awesome group of friends that he enjoys playing D&D with each week.

Brittny is busy as ever between serving as Relief Society secretary, homeschooling, running a book club, and—oh yes—being Mom to a brand new baby. But she wouldn’t have it any other way! She has been working the last little while on trying to get her blog really going as writing in it brings her joy. You can find her blog at HaiTechMama.com and from there find her on all the different social media platforms if you want to keep up with all of her escapades ;) She has about 4 different apps that she really wants to build once she can find the time to build them (although you might imagine that time is in short supply with all of her other commitments…)

Eric enjoys advising our ward’s Deacon’s Quorum and Stake Emergency Preparedness committee. His team at WGU has grown to 17 full-timers, and the variety of data science and analytics projects keep him plenty busy in the day. He relished taking a full 6 weeks of paternity leave with Caleb’s arrival and eagerly awaits using his 6 remaining weeks of leave this winter— hopefully after the snow comes so he and the older kids can become better acquainted with the slopes .

In April we made the decision to purchase a 2.2 acre lot out in west Utah as part of an agricultural co-op.  We’ve had fun camping out on the ranch over several weekends and making plans for how we’re going to develop our little piece of land.  It’s definitely a unique project and its been interesting to figure out all of the different roadblocks as we’ve come to them, but we’re excited for the challenge.

In April we were also able to go to California to celebrate the sealing of Brittny’s youngest brother who was married civilly in the middle of the pandemic.  Afterwards we were able to surprise our kids with a day trip to Disneyland before returning home to Utah! 

We turned around from our trip to begin working on the reconstruction of two of our bathrooms (which had flooded) as well as replacing the flooring for the main story of our home. It was a nightmare of a project with a contractor that came and tore things out – and then completely ghosted us for months. It was almost 4 months of living in construction (most of that with a toilet sitting right in front of Maeli’s bedroom door for her to climb over every time she wanted to go in or out) but it was finally completed in July! Having those bathrooms back in order has been wonderful, and we’re really happy with our new flooring, so in the end it was all worthwhile – but it definitely wasn’t what we thought we were doing when we started!

We completed those projects just in time for back to back family reunions on both sides of the family.  Spending that time with family is always a highlight of the year and we felt especially fortunate that both reunions were relatively close to home. 

In early August Eric was surprised to come home one day and find that Brittny had gotten chickens for our backyard!  A neighbor was looking to rehome her 3 laying hens and thought of our family.  Danny especially has loved finally having some pets and carries them around like babies snuggling them (we’re not sure if the chickens like that as much as he does). 

There was only about a week to catch our breath from the addition of the chickens before we found out that we needed to prepare for another addition… Baby #5 will be joining our family in April 2023!  We did an early ultrasound and found out that we are having another boy – much to Maeli’s chagrin.  Right now the forerunner for his name is Joseph Warren Hansen, but we reserve the right to change that up until it’s written on the birth certificate   We’re excited to add our new little guy to our tribe next year.  

In October we were able to take the whole family to Australia!  Brittny’s mom is from Brisbane and her grandma (Brittny’s great grandma, and the kids’ great great grandma) turned 100 earlier in the year.  The whole Anderson family had planned to try to go out for festivities to celebrate her 100th birthday in February, however with COVID restrictions the country was still completely locked down. We had a Zoom celebration with much of the extended family, but it wasn’t quite what we’d hoped for.  Luckily Brittny’s mom found some great airfares and we were able to go and celebrate belatedly!  The kids agreed to make this trip their Christmas and we found some creative ways to budget to make the trip feasible (taking 6 people to Australia is NOT cheap!) and it was a wonderful adventure.  We were able to take some 5-generation photos, which was especially fun with Maeli as she could get a full 5 generations of her female lineage!  The trip was about 2 weeks which set everyone back in school and work considerably, so we’ve been trying to catch up ever since then. 

Unfortunately, one of the things we decided to catch up on is the bug that was been going around our neighborhood.  So we leapfrogged being sick and well for most of November – including Sam being so sick that he missed Thanksgiving Luckily we seem to finally all be well again *knock on wood* and are hopeful that we can bring our health into the New Year.

We have no more adventures planned until after the baby comes, and I think we’re all looking forward to having time to focus on smaller scale home projects and really getting things going on our ranch.  Here are some individual updates on what we’ve all been doing this year.

David (5) is super full of energy and makes sure his parents expend all of theirs chasing him across his various antics. He is all about preschool, so much so that we signed him up for summer preschool as well as two preschools in the fall – one every weekday in the mornings, and the other MWF in the afternoons! Some days it seems like a bit much, but he wakes up excited when it’s a TWO preschool day. There’s consideration for offering full day kindergarten in Utah next year, and while Brittny never thought she’d send a kindergartner for a full day, we’re really hoping this happens because David would LOVE it. David’s reading abilities continue to amaze us.  He lamented earlier this year that there was NOTHING in his bedroom to read, making it sound like there was nothing appropriate to his level.  He followed up by clarifying that he couldn’t find his book “Bayesian Probabilities for Babies” – that seems like a topic that would be an appropriate level for independent reading at age 4, right? David is constantly writing things on any piece of paper he can get a hold of.  He even wrote out his “testimony” in church a few months back and insisted that Eric take him up to the pulpit during a fast and testimony meeting to share.  His “testimony” mostly consisted of him reciting the sacrament prayer (which we weren’t sure was entirely appropriate, but it’s pretty hard to stop David when he puts his mind to something). It was very sweet though to see him want to get up and share his heart and beliefs, whether it made sense to others or not.  After his birthday in October David decided that 5 year olds should be potty trained and was really doing great for a couple of weeks… until we left for Australia.  Since that time he has regressed significantly and it’s been hard to get him back on the bandwagon.  He always has to go to the bathroom whenever there’s a public restroom to be used (wonderful), but he’s not very consistent anymore.  He insists though that he’s gone to the bathroom though so therefore – he is potty trained! We haven’t been able to convince him that being potty trained is really more about *not* using a diaper than it is being able to use a toilet.  We’re thinking we will try to get things back on track when he’s home for Christmas break and hopefully start the New Year diaper free.  It would be our first time with no one in diapers since Sam was born!  But of course, that streak will end in April.  Still, after nearly 14 years we’ve earned a 4 month break from diaper duty, don’t you think?

Maeli (8) was baptized in March after her birthday in January! She was disappointed to have to wait so long but with the way that the stake’s dates worked out for baptisms that was the first one that worked for her grandparents to attend.  It was a special day for our family and we are so grateful for everyone who came to be a part of it. 

She also completed her 3rd year of Let’s Play Music, culminating with a recital to perform an original composition.  Her first two years of the program had the recitals cancelled due to COVID restrictions – and she had to miss this final recital as our family came down with COVID the week of the recital   It was very disappointing for her but we tried to make the best of it by recording her composition and sharing it on Facebook, and ordering a special dinner to commemorate her achievements. She has since moved on to having virtual piano lessons with her aunt which are a highlight for her week. 

We recently learned that she has severe convergence insufficiency with her eyesight, causing her to see double for any detailed item that she tries to look at up close. This has caused many challenges for her reading development, but we’ve found a place where she could receive vision therapy to help her eyes work together. After only a few months they re-evaluated her and the doctor was really impressed with how much progress she’s made already! Being an extreme socialite, she decided that she really wanted to try public school this year, so in August we got her enrolled in our local school.  She has LOVED every minute of it!  She comes home every day and tells Danny that he’s SO missing out as a homeschooler.  It’s been good for her to get to be around other kids all day long.  We were nervous to send her knowing her vision problems and dyslexic processing issues, but so far she has been thriving.  She has been very blessed to get a teacher who has been willing to accommodate her in class even before getting an IEP in place.  My biggest concern in sending her to public school was knowing that her reading level was FAR below other kids her age.  At home that’s not a big deal since we just worked with her on her level, and we worked very hard to make sure she never felt like she was less because of her struggles.  I was less sure that would hold up in a classroom setting where it would be obvious how behind she was.  Luckily, so far it hasn’t been an issue and she still remains confident in the abilities that she does have rather than downtrodden by those that she doesn’t.  Between the fixes with her eyes and some focused work on her reading I was surprised when she looked over my shoulder the other day and was able to read most of the words in a text message I was responding to!  She still has a long way to go but the progress is really heartening.  Everywhere we go teachers and therapists tell me what a hard worker she is and we can think of no greater compliment that she can receive!  

Danny (11) is a business mogul just like his mother. He is always looking for ways to earn (and spend) money. He regularly bemoans the fact that the local grocery store won’t hire him until he is 16. However he has found a good bit of demand for his work as a babysitter and dog sitter – especially since he is available during the daytime! He is also always looking for fun new projects to work on, whether it be creating a LED light-up piano keyboard, 3D printing nerf gun accessories and finger windboards, or programming a robot drone. Unlike his other siblings, Daniel is all about being efficient with his time, and so he continuing with a 100% homeschooled schedule this school year.  Despite Maeli’s insistence that public school is better, he loves that he doesn’t have to wake up at a certain time, that he can do school work in his pajamas, and that he’s done with all his schoolwork before Maeli is even at lunch.  Like Maeli, Danny started taking piano lessons online with his aunt.  His enthusiasm for playing has increased drastically since making that change and he’s making good progress on the instrument again! In June Danny took the test to get his HAM radio license – and passed!  We were especially proud of him because he did it on his own with almost no help from us.  We helped him get the right tools but he took care of the studying on his own and gave up an entire Saturday to go to an in-person class before taking the test.  He is preparing to receive the priesthood and enter Young Men at the end of December – how did we get old enough to have TWO young men in our home??  He is most excited for it to be ski season again and is hoping for a LOT of snow this year so he can take advantage of his Ikon pass! So far this winter has not disappointed him on that front!

Sam (13) was called this as a counselor in his Deacon’s Quorum Presidency. He has really engaged with the Young Men organization and is grateful things are more normal now that pandemic restrictions have eased up. He also participated in Teen Author’s Boot Camp, submitting an excerpt of a book that he was writing into their competition. In his violin work, he completed Suzuki Book 1 while participating in Lyceum Orchestra for the school year as well as a Summer Camp.  Sam has also become part of a Dungeons and Dragons group that meets weekly which has been a highlight for him. He has definitely hit puberty and seems to be growing like a weed!  He’s very close to overtaking Brittny in height and seems to need bigger shoes all the time.  He has a pretty full schedule this year but seems to be handling it well.  He is taking 2 classes at the local middle school (Creative Writing and Health) which has been a fun change for him.  Our middle school has a block schedule which makes it so that he attends school every other day for about 3 hours and then sticks around for lunch.  It’s given him a nice balance of being involved in the school while still giving him time at home to work at his own pace.  In addition he’s continued his involvement in the Lyceum Prelude Orchestra, which has been a fantastic place for him to grow as a violinist.  He also joined the Wasatch Independent Speech and Debate League.  Speech and debate is definitely stretching him but we were proud of him that he was able to compete in his first online tournament just before Thanksgiving.  He was not prepared nearly as much as he would have liked, but he stuck with it and at the end of the day felt good about his performance.  He decided that he wanted to change events from oratory his first competition to impromptu at the more recent competition. Evidently he takes more after Eric than Brittny because he enjoyed impromptu much more!  Even though his days are busy we’re happy to see him finding places where he is thriving.

Brittny (37) is making decisions about what to do with the Ruby Ribbon application that she had built.  Her original application was a great success for her, however the corporate office launched their own version of the same functionality for free, which has (unsurprisingly) cut into her customer base.  She has a newer version of the app that she’s been trying to launch however she’s had struggles finding enough time to put the finishing touches on the functionality and is debating whether it’s time to dig in or move on. Her time was especially hard to come by during soccer season this spring and fall as she spent most of her time chauffeuring between practices, games, music lessons, orchestras, activity days, mutual, D&D group meetings, dyslexia tutoring, vision therapy, doctor’s appointments and preschool.  When she’s not driving kids around David is usually certain that he should have her full attention (and Eric’s too).  Her church calling was changed halfway through the year ever so slightly to RS Presidency Secretary from RS Assistant Secretary.  She has decided it was much easier being a homeschooling mom than it is to be a public school mom!  She misses the full control of her schedule that she’d had previously, but is happy that each of her kids is finding joy and success in their chosen educational plans.  She’s amazed how much time it takes driving kids to all the things – somehow the plan of keeping the kids busy so she would have time to do work is not working!  “Morning” sickness made things pretty rough for a few months but she’s happy to have her energy and gag reflex back under control again.  Unfortunately her back is giving her issues once again which limits her mobility.  However we discovered a free online physical therapy benefit through our insurance that she’s taking advantage of.  She’s glad to not have yet one more appointment to drive to and we’re hopeful that it will help her to be able to do more.  The highlight of her month is running our neighborhood ladies’ book club and getting out to chat with other women!

Eric (37) has passed his one year mark of serving as a Director at WGU and is starting to settle into his new role. It’s taken a lot of extra long days and nights working to keep things running, but he’s now grown his team to 18 people and finds little time to dig into code, but he still finds joy in helping others to develop themselves. He was released as Sunday School President and called as a Deacon’s quorum advisor, able to spend some time with Sam–and Danny come next year. Eric continues to serve as the President of the Draper HAM Radio Association, Stake Emergency Preparedness Committee, and the local chapter of the Digital Analytics Association. He’s hoping to simplify his commitments over the next year so he can better support Brittny and the family projects. He loved taking his family out to Colorado for a ski trip this winter. He even got Brittny to go skiing for the first time since their engagement! Eric (37) continues to learn and grow in his new role as Director of Outreach Analytics. His team is almost fully staffed, and he is thankfully returning to more normal working hours. He has been working on a number of projects out at the ranch (replacing batteries, installing solar, winterizing the trailer) and around the house (bathroom, kitchen, and first floor renovations). Feeling a bit overwhelmed, Eric is looking forward to simplifying his life as he finishes soon his terms serving as the President of the Draper HAM Radio Association and the local chapter leader of the Digital Analytics Association.

We hope you are all enjoying this holiday season and wish you all health and happiness in 2023!

In February we were able to host Eric’s brother for a few days during their family’s ski trip. Again we got to have the benefits of feeling like we were on vacation… while still sleeping in our own beds

April & May were exciting months for Brittny’s family as we welcomed 3 new nephews into the family! That brings the grandkid total in the Anderson family to 10 – 9 boys… and just Maeli. She both loves being the special princess on that side of the family – and is desperate for SOMEONE to have another little girl!

June brought one of the biggest changes of returning from quarantine life – we finally returned to having our full set of Sunday services back in person again! We didn’t much appreciate the early start time (our family is usually barely awake at 8:30am – let alone dressed, breakfasted, out the door and sitting in church pews), but we were happy to start up primary and our other classes again. Despite the early start time David recently was woken up to get ready for church and bounced out of bed saying, “Church? I love church!” We must be doing something right if our 4 year old loves church! Hopefully our older three (and let’s be honest, the two adults as well) will be able to better share his sentiments in the new year when our congregation’s meeting time is moved to 11am

In July we finally went out to California to meet all the new babies. It was a pretty fun baby tour – how much better does it get than having 3 brand new babies to snuggle with that you don’t have to wake up with in the middle of the night??

We got back from our baby tour just in time for Brittny to turn around and leave on her first business trip in many years! She had a great time with her team at convention and made connections that she hopes will last for many years to come.

August gave us the chance to meet up with lots of family again. The Andersons had a family reunion up in Wyoming for a couple of days and then a lot of the Hansens converged for our nephew’s wedding. We once again got to take advantage of feeling like we’re on vacation without having to leave home!

September brought the beginning of school again. Brittny was able to find an assistant to help with kids and household things so that she could keep a lot of focus on her business. She has been absolutely invaluable!

At the end of October we were able to go to California for Brittny’s mom’s something-th birthday. It was a great opportunity to be together as a family and get family pictures together. We enjoyed spending time swimming and playing together.

For Thanksgiving Brittny’s sister was able to bring her family to our house to celebrate. All the cousins loved spending time playing together. It was a fairly low key Thanksgiving and it was a pretty ideal week.

We will be rounding out our year with Brittny’s brother coming to visit us just before Christmas. Then we’re looking forward to a quiet Christmas at home with just our little family

Here’s a little more about what has been keeping each of us busy between our many adventures!

David (4) has taught himself how to read! It still surprises us a little when he can read words ranging from “hippopotamus”, to “master volume”, to “Jesus”. He started preschool this September and he LOVES it!  He recently told Brittny, “I go to sleep, and wake up and *hope* it’s a preschool day!”. We’re already making plans to send him to preschool 5 days a week next year instead of the 3 he does currently because he loves it so much. He still gets into plenty of trouble; so much so that we have Grannie over to help watch him on a regular basis so Brittny can actually get work done. He loves having her over to do Play-doh or play in his toy kitchen or call Aunt Katrina.  His love of music is still going strong but we’ve had to put some stricter limits on what songs he’s allowed to listen to after he picked “Shape of You” by Ed Sheeran has his favorite song for awhile… which is not exactly 4 year old appropriate. He is busy as can be and always has to be occupied with something.  He’s glad that the weather has gotten nice enough for daily excursions to the park and we’re grateful that he is tired enough at the end of each day to fall asleep quickly.

Maeli (7) had her birthday in January and was immediately excited about being baptized next year. She is especially loving learning piano in her Let’s Play Music program. She is still the friendliest little girl despite being rather shy.  We never go anywhere without her making a friend and we regularly have her friends come over in the afternoon only to be redirected to another friend’s house where she’s already playing.  She loves doing arts and crafts with her friends.  Maeli has really struggled with reading and we finally took her to a dyslexia center for some testing.  They can’t give a medical diagnosis for dyslexia but at the end of the text her examiner said “These are the things that we look for that would indicate dyslexia… and here are the things we saw in her testing” Maeli had hit almost every point for dyslexia.  We have started her on some tutoring and she already seems to be making good progress. Despite her difficulties with the mechanics of reading she absolutely Maeli has really struggled with reading and we finally took her to a dyslexia center for some testing.  They can’t give a medical diagnosis for dyslexia but at the end of the text her examiner said “These are the things that we look for that would indicate dyslexia… and here are the things we saw in her testing” Maeli had hit almost every point for dyslexia.  We have started her on some tutoring and she already seems to be making good progress. Despite her struggles with the mechanics of reading she loves books! Her current obsession is Harry Potter and she can spend hours in her room listening to the books on Audible while she draws or plays with her toys. Maeli is planning on getting baptized in February and we’re all excited for her!

Danny (10) had his birthday in April but had a hard time deciding what to spend all his money on. He was growing and needed a new mountain bike, but he also had set his sights on a hoverboard for him to play with. He didn’t have enough birthday money to cover both, so he went out and found a job babysitting for a neighbor at the end of every school day for just a half hour.  Normally he would have been a little young to take on a job like that but since it was close by and just watching a sleeping toddler while the mom picked up her kindergartner it worked out.  He was SO proud of himself to have a job and so grown up.  It was adorable to see how he would walk out the house 10 feet tall to go to work.  He did eventually earn enough money for his new mountain bike as well as the hoverboard.  He also did a good amount of skiing this past winter and was especially proud to go on his first black diamond trail!  He’s very eager to get back into skiing this season. Danny is our doer. This summer he started an Engineering class from the popular YouTuber Mark Rober. He also went down to visit his Uncle Cody who manages horse stables in California, working on various chores (like spreading manure with the tractor), playing with their pet dog Archie, and helping to take care of his new baby cousin Austin. Danny would LOVE to have a dog of his own, but that won’t happen while we’re living in this house. When he’s not working to make a little extra cash, you can usually find Danny playing VR or outside with friends. In school he’s most interested in Math because it doesn’t require as much reading as the other subjects.

Sam (12) was proud to receive the priesthood in January and join the Aaronic Priesthood quorum. He especially appreciated having an outlet to find more friends. He is always super excited to join in with any YM activity or class along with Sunday School. He has started really getting into writing stories and got to attend a virtual teen writing conference in January that he loved and then was able to attend a BYU writing camp in August.  He has also really started making some good progress in his violin skills.  It’s taken him a long time but he’s almost to the end of Suzuki book 1.  He was able to join the orchestra at the local elementary school this winter/spring and it was a highlight!  This fall he was able to join the Lyceum Orchestra at American Heritage School in the fall and he’s loving it there.  He’s quickly becoming busier with school and friends – we can see the teenager years slowly creeping in on us!

At the end of 2020 Brittny (35) signed up as an independent stylist for Ruby Ribbon solely to get 50% off of her purchase with zero intentions to sell anything.  She got her purchase and found she loved their bra replacement camis. They not only give her better lift than her previous underwire bras but do so while taking up to 3 inches off her waistline and smoothing everything out. She broke her resolution not to sell them so she could do just one party to share them with her friends.  In the process of sharing the camis she found out that the sizing process was seriously complicated. So she decided to create a web app (RRSize.Me) that would make the process easier.  What started as a small project has slowly become a larger enterprise with around 300 subscribers and new features that she’s developing all the time.  She now spends every moment that David is happily occupied coding the app and supporting her customers.  She’s hopeful to get to the point where she can get back to working on her chores app as the Ruby Ribbon app becomes more self-sustaining but for now we’re all sharing the start up pains as mom works the entrepreneur life.  In addition to her new found business, Brittny was called as Ministering/Assistant Relief Society Secretary and has really loved having the opportunity to better connect with the sisters in our ward.  Between all of that and homeschooling and taking care of our family there are rare moments that she’s not busy!

In August, Eric received a battlefield double-promotion to become the Director of Outreach Analytics at WGU.  It was a big adjustment but he seems to be hitting his stride now and has an amazing team of people that he gets to work with. While Eric was happy to help set up and run virtual Sunday School every other Sunday, he is also relieved to not have to deal with the stress of technology logistics anymore. He is still serving as the Sunday School President in our ward, but it’s much simpler in person than it was virtually! Eric continues to serve as the President of the Draper HAM Radio Association as well as on our Stake Emergency Preparedness Committee. He was able to participate in various drills with the Red Cross and other institutions for earthquake and general disaster preparedness. Last winter Utah had less snow than average, but he was still able to get out onto the slopes for some great ski days and is excited to hopefully get a lot more this upcoming season. Eric still enjoys presenting at conferences and leading the local Digital Analytics Association Chapter, and in his limited spare time he will find some video games or 3D printing projects to work on.

We hope this Christmas season brings you all peace and joy!  We look forward to 2022 and the blessings in the year to come!

In January we went as a family down to Las Vegas to enjoy some warmth in the middle of winter.  Eric stayed to participate in the Consumer Electronics Show while Brittny took the kids down to her parents’ house in California for some time swimming and playing with cousins.  At the end of January we were able to once again participate in the Utah March for Life and have a small part in standing for the lives of the unborn.  

At the end of February we were lucky to get all of Eric’s siblings together for his dad’s 80th birthday celebration!  We enjoyed the party itself, but even more fun was just having the family together and getting to go on some adventures.  Little did we know then that it would likely be awhile before such get togethers would be possible again!  

Before things shut down in March Brittny’s parents were able to come visit us to participate with her brother’s fiance in her temple endowment and bridal shower.  When we say before we mean *just* before.  The endowment session was on the last day before they shut the temples down, and while the bridal shower was happening the women were all getting phone calls from their school districts to say that school would be remote starting on Monday.  It was a surreal experience but we were so grateful for that time together.  The kids and Eric were able to get in quite a bit of skiing before everything got closed down for the season but they were still sad to have the season cut short.  

Just like everyone else the rest of March as well as April and May found us locked down in our home.  Since we had yet to plan a birthday party for any of our kids we negotiated with them that we would purchase them a trampoline in lieu of a birthday party.  At the time we thought that this was a good deal since we didn’t want to put off their parties for a few weeks and then forget about them – little did we know that those few weeks would turn into 9 months and counting!  We were fortunate that we jumped on getting that trampoline early on in the pandemic before such items had shortages.  Not only did we save money by purchasing a trampoline instead of throwing 3 birthday parties but it has proved to be an investment that has been worthwhile many times over.  We have felt so grateful to live where most of our kids have such good friends close by.  We’ve been fortunate to not feel too cut off from people as our kids could at least play outside with good friends in a safe environment.

In June we took a spur of the moment trip to California to visit Brittny’s family.  Our plans were derailed a bit during a stopover in Las Vegas when we got in a car accident on the way to Brittny’s brother’s house.  Our van was totaled but luckily no one sustained any serious injuries.  Eric and Brittny stayed in Vegas for a couple more days to celebrate their 13th anniversary while the kids continued on to California with Brittny’s parents.  There wasn’t a lot to do in Las Vegas of course since so many things were shut down but they enjoyed a couple of nights rest without a toddler in their bed which is always a pretty good deal.  We continued on to spend the rest of the week letting the kids swim at their grandparents’ house, spending time with cousins, and visiting their uncle & aunt who live on a ranch.  It ended up being a really good thing that we got all of that swimming in then because we weren’t able to get spots to go swimming at our community pool for the whole summer due to COVID restrictions.

Less than a week after we returned home from California we got an email just as we were going to bed that a wildfire was approaching our home and we might want to make considerations for evacuation.  Sure enough at about 3am we were evacuated from our home. This was especially unfortunate timing since our van had recently been totaled so just had Eric’s RAV4 – which seats 5 – and his motorcycle.  We loaded up on both vehicles and headed to the emergency shelter at a local high school.  The Red Cross ended up putting us up at a local Holiday Inn where we spent the morning before being told we could return to our home.  Luckily no homes were lost in that fire and the worst effect was a lost night’s sleep.  But it was quite the adventure and stressful day!  

We had intended to send our kids to a different charter school this year – one that would allow us to homeschool 4 days a week and give the kids one day a week on campus.  However as COVID restrictions continued we re-evaluated our plans and decided that this was not the year to change course. So Brittny spent a lot of July changing our schooling plans, picking out new curriculum etc.  She also spent a good amount of time helping the huge influx of new homeschoolers as many of them tried to get their feet under them in a whole new world.

When August hit we still had yet to purchase a vehicle that would fit our entire family.  With COVID restrictions we found we really didn’t go that many places and we functioned pretty well with just a single car and a motorcycle.  However we got the prompting to sell the RAV4 that Eric had purchased the previous year.  This prompting made ZERO sense to either of us – the car was exactly what Eric had wanted and it had lived up to everything we’d hoped it would do – but we both felt like it was time to sell it.  So Eric arranged a private party sale and we were able to borrow his parents’ minivan while we decided what to do next.  Hertz was having a huge liquidation and we ended up finding a used 2018 Toyota Sienna in California for such a great price it was worth the inconvenience of the location.  Even better, Brittny’s sister happened to be moving to the city it was in that very week.  We made arrangements that Brittny’s parents would pick up the van, drive it to Utah and then we would take our whole family back to California with Brittny’s parents to visit her sister’s family for a week.  It was a very whirlwind trip but it ended up being a great break at the beginning of the school year and allowed the kids some time to spend with cousins.

After returning to Utah Eric found a replacement for his RAV4 in the form of a used 2020 Toyota Corolla.  It was a little ironic replacing the RAV4 with a Toyota Corolla as we had sold our 2007 Toyota Corolla just last year to purchase the RAV4 – but it was a welcome upgrade from our previous Corolla and we appreciated cutting our monthly car payment by 75%.  

In September, Brittny felt motivated to update/create 72 hour kits for our family.  Our evacuation in June had revealed how woefully inadequate our previous kits had been (even to just be evacuated to a local Holiday Inn) and a Relief Society activity spurred her to action.  The project ended up taking about a month to complete to her satisfaction but in the end we feel much better prepared for any emergencies that may arise in the future.

October came and the idea was raised to convert our loft space (which we’d been using as a homeschool room) into a bedroom for Sam and Danny.  The boys had shared a room up until the end of last year when we let Sam take over the guest room in our basement.  The boys had enjoyed having their own space but we didn’t love having Sam so far away from the rest of the family.  By closing off the loft we had a large enough space that both boys could have their own space without actually having their own rooms.  We moved our homeschooling supplies into their former bedroom and have spent a lot of time painting, building new closets and other projects associated with the move.  Overall it’s been a great success and we’re really glad we’ve done it.

At the end of October Brittny’s parents were able to come visit for a few days.  They came on Halloween and Brittny’s brother and his wife were able to join us for the evening.  The next morning, Brittny’s birthday, her brother called to let us know that he wouldn’t be joining us for birthday celebrations that night.  He and his wife had woken up with fevers, which turned out to be COVID.  Brittny’s parents cut their trip short to return home in case they came down with the virus as well and we self-quarantined until we could get tested.  All of our tests came back negative and we were finally free to get out of quarantine… just as Governor Herbert put out new lockdown mandates saying that we were basically not to socialize outside of our home.  As those restrictions were ending we continued a self-quarantine in preparation for celebrating Thanksgiving with Eric’s parents.  Maeli was the only person to go anywhere from Halloween until Thanksgiving (music class after the test came back negative) with the exception of a few errands and allowing the kids to play outside with friends.  We were very grateful to be able to spend Thanksgiving with Julie’s family and Eric’s parents.  It was a very quiet Thanksgiving but we felt so blessed to be able to have the small gathering that we did and to enjoy the company of family again.  I don’t think after this year we will ever take those kinds of gatherings for granted again!  The kids were very glad when Thanksgiving passed and they were finally allowed to have friends in the house again

November also brought the demise of our washing machine and highlighted issues with our dryer.  After looking into fixing the washer Eric determined that we would be better off replacing it and we luckily were able to get a great deal on one for Black Friday.  Eric was fortunately able to resuscitate the dryer and we hope to get many more years out of it.  Brittny ended up taking all of the laundry to the laundromat one day and spent nearly $50 in quarters and about 3 hours to complete everything, minus Sam’s laundry which somehow got left behind.  We feel so grateful to have a working washing machine again – both for the convenience and the cost savings!

We anticipate a fairly quiet December as we wrap up this year.  We recently finished getting through the Marvel saga of movies as a family (we made it through Endgame last week) and now are looking for what to watch next for family movie nights.  We watch The Mandalorian as a family each week and our kids are OBSESSED with Baby Yoda.  After Christmas we’re planning a little “staycation” to find some fun things to do close to home but other than that we’re just at home working, learning and being together.  Most of our events this year have been together as a family but we will give you a quick update on each member too.

David broke our nearly 35 year streak of no broken bones in our household by breaking his arm just before the end of 2019.  Sadly he doesn’t even have a cool story to tell the ladies later in life – he was eating cereal at the breakfast table and his sister pushed in the bench with him still on it and he must have caught himself wrong with his arm   He took the whole thing very well and loved showing everyone his “orange cast”.  He was pretty stinking cute with it even though it was sad to think of his little broken arm.  Luckily it healed up just fine and he has no lingering effects.  He has gone this year from loving to parrot anything we say to reciting dialogues from his favorite YouTube shows. He still loves music and has a surprising affinity for the Cha Cha Slide, which he will dance to on a regular basis. He also loves to lead us in our family exercises, helping us know when to do jumping jacks, lunges, and push-ups. David enjoyed celebrating his 3rd birthday in October.  He loved blowing out the candles a million times.  He is as busy as can be and is always getting into trouble.  Luckily he is also the cutest and so he can get away with much of that trouble.  We keep discovering things he knows that we didn’t expect him to know.  For instance that he has memorized most of the sacrament prayers and can recite them himself.  Or that he apparently knows how to read word numbers (i.e. he knows that “three” means 3) despite never having been taught to read.  He keeps us on our toes for sure!

Maeli and Danny are thick as thieves getting into all sorts of mischief, and she’s taking a liking to bicycles just like him. Don’t be fooled for a second, though, Maeli is all girl. You can often find her playing with dolls, dress-up, or being super social with everyone in the neighborhood.  She finished her first year of homeschool kindergarten and was excited to start first grade in the fall! She is requesting to go to public school next year but we will wait and see what 2021 has in store.  She has started to learn to play the piano in Let’s Play Music and is progressing very well.  She was taking a hip hop class in the spring but that got derailed due to COVID.  We decided to forego dance classes this year until things normalize a little bit more.  But we’re hoping to get her back dancing next year!

Daniel turned 9 in April.  We were concerned that our social butterfly would be devastated to have a birthday in quarantine, but we ended up making a fun day of it building forts and playing Minecraft as a family.  Danny is all about building forts and contraptions wherever he can find space to do so.  He attended a mountain biking clinic back in May and discovered a new passion.  He spends as much time as he can manage biking on the trails near our home.  He lives to be out biking with his friends or engineering creations out of legos and PVC.  Danny is frequently frustrated as he feels like he’s the only one of the kids to do much work.  He will get up before everyone else and be basically done with all of his schoolwork and chores before 11am!  The truth is the other kids are so pokey that they can’t keep up with his zeal for life!

Sam turned 11 in March just before we got locked down.  He continues to improve his violin skills slowly but surely.  It’s been amazing to see that something has clicked and he’s really becoming a violinist!  He really enjoys playing – even though he drags his feet for practicing and lessons.  He will still devour any book he can get his hands on. Sam has had a particularly rough time with the lockdowns from COVID.  While we had expected our little introvert to thrive on not having to leave home he’s found that the few friends that he had moved on to different interests and outgrew him.  He has found himself very alone without great avenues for making new friends.  He is very excited to be joining Young Men’s next month and receiving the priesthood.  Sam really enjoys playing games on the computer and particularly puzzle games.

December marked for Brittny the end of six years as cub scout committee chair in our ward!  After doing it for so long planning and executing the activities didn’t seem like a big deal anymore, but having it taken off of her plate has provided a surprising amount of free time.  Her current calling as nursery leader hasn’t taken up much time since lockdowns started At the end of April she was lucky to be able to fly out to Texas to participate in her brother’s wedding. She was the only one of her siblings able to be there along with her parents and it was a very unique and special experience to be a part of. In her free time Brittny has also been hard at work developing a family-focused task management and goal setting app called MyAdvenChores with artistic contributions from Julie Olson. Unfortunately we’ve hit some roadblocks with the technology we had chosen which has sent us back nearly to square one.  Hopefully though we’re starting over with some better ideas so that we can build something that will be a better product in the long run.  Brittny spent a lot of time developing some tools for homeschoolers at the beginning of the school year and creating a small co-op for the kids to do some learning with friends.

Eric turned the big 35 in February, and he was fortunate to have gotten in a decent amount of skiing in during the season before the Coronavirus shutdowns. At the start of the new year and with the end of Cub Scouts, he was called as the new Sunday School President in our Ward. Little did they know when calling him just how much they would need his technological expertise as Sunday School has gone virtual!  With the shutdown and significant earthquake we had in March, he’s still been busy with his other calling as the Stake’s Emergency Communications coordinator. He was also elected as the President of the Draper HAM Radio Association, working with the city and other local districts in emergency preparedness measures. His work at WGU has not slowed down, but he appreciates being able to work from home full time now.  He has been able to present at several (virtual) conferences along with founding the Salt Lake City Chapter of the Digital Analytics Association.

This year has certainly made us grateful for the blessings of family, technology, steady remote employment and so much more.  We hope you all are able to stay well – physically, mentally and spiritually – and that 2021 brings blessings to you all!  Merry Christmas!

This was the year for family trips, it seems. In addition to a beachside camping trip down in Carpinteria followed by a half week in Las Vegas, we also spent an exciting week at Yosemite National Park and Bass Lake and we went to Disneyland for three days in the early fall, as well.

David (14 months) is still growing like crazy. He walks a little here and there, but he much prefers to be held by his Dad. He also speaks much clearer words now, though his vocabulary is limited to Ma-ma, Da-da, and Bye. His favorite things to do are to point at family pictures hanging on the walls of our house, playing dentist with any mouths that are within reach, and dancing to all sorts of music. The funniest thing he’s learned to do recently happens when he’s being held by dad while hugging his mom–he grabs mom by the sleeve and pulls her to Dad over and over so they can kiss. He’s lucky he is so cute, because he is not good at being left alone or sleeping by himself at all.

Maeli turned four and a half in July as she likes to tell everyone. She loved going to visit her Grandma, camping on the beach, and traveling through Yosemite. But by far her absolute favorite trip was to Disneyland back in September. She got to meet the real Anna and Elsa, sit in the VIP section for the Toy Story parade, play Buzz Lightyear’s Astroblasters, and ride the Rocket Ships! Her favorite part of pre-school is snack time, and she loved it when they brought in real-life butterflies to her class. She still attends the same school where her dance class is, and she dances to everything now, especially during the credits of our Friday Family Movie Nights.

Daniel (7) was most excited to see the snow start to fall around home. He loves to play with his neighborhood friends out in the winter and enjoy hot cocoa. It also means he gets to go skiing soon. The bigger boys got their season passes to the humongous Park City resort this season. He’s certainly a speed demon at heart, absolutely loving the time we spent on the wave runner during our Yosemite vacation week. The time spent at Disneyland also scratched that itch, because he got to ride the Space Mountain rollercoaster five times (the other kids gave up their fast passes to accommodate his need for speed)!

Sam’s (9) favorite part of summer was spending the entire day at Bass Lake on a rented pontoon boat. We swam, went tubing, and used the on-board BBQ to cook all our meals. His favorite song that he’s learned on the violin so far is Long, Long Ago. He’s been playing a video game on his 3DS called “Rhythm Thief” that helps him with his technical music skills. He was also really excited to get third place in the Pinewood Derby races this fall. It was unexpected because he waited until the very last minute to put it all together.  

Never one to be left without a project for long, Brittny took the lead on getting the basement finished this fall. She was happy to finally have a dedicated guest room and playroom, and Eric was excited to finally get the home theater and virtual reality room he’d wanted for so long.  Most days she doesn’t know where the time goes as she spends her time in a blur of homeschooling, housework and babycare. However slowly but surely she’s finding routines that help keep everything running, and she loves the opportunity she has to be a stay-at-home mom and has embraced the chaos that comes with it.  In her spare time (if such a thing exists) she participates in a neighborhood book club that she helped to start.

Over the past year Eric has taken the initiative to get a better grasp on his health. Through a combination of intermittent fasting and choosing to eat more ketogenic-friendly lunches, he has lost 30 pounds since last Thanksgiving!  Brittny has been very appreciative that he has been the least annoying dieter ever and doesn’t begrudge other people eating differently from him – he just quietly makes good choices for himself and doesn’t require massive changes for the whole family (which is especially helpful with picky kids at home!). The aging appliances at the house called for fixes to the dishwasher, refrigerator, and water heater this year. Thanks to Google, Eric has been able to make many of those fixes himself and learn a lot along the way. With all of those fixes and working on the basement it was a close call, but Eric was able to finish his classes and just started his last term to complete his MBA by May 2019. A couple months ago someone tried to break-in to the house, and that motivated him to finish his licensing and training for a concealed carry permit, which has been reassuring. At work, he’s hired yet another developer to help offload his increasing workload but still manages to find time to do some freelance work afterhours. Eric’s been called as the Emergency Communications coordinator for the Stake. However, as suspected, he and Brittny are going to remain in their scouting roles (cubmaster & cub scout committee chair) until the end of the program.  

Today is David’s 7 month birthday, so I thought maybe it was time I get his birth story posted to the blog.  Guess that’s what happens when you have your 4^th child, things are a bit busier than they were when Sam was born   So David’s birth story is going to have to start a little further back though because his pregnancy was much more eventful than our other children’s.  I’ll warn you, as always, this post is REALLY long.  I finished writing it one night and it was 10 pages long, so I put it aside so that I could edit it down the next night and I succeeded in making it only 12 pages (before pictures)!  But I write this all down more for me than for anyone else and I want to remember all 12 pages (or however many pages this happens to be after my next round of editing…)

For starters, we weren’t planning on having David when we did.  Towards the end of 2016 Eric and I had the conversation of whether or not we wanted to have a baby again in the next year.  It was time to lock in our insurance choices for the next year so it was a good time to evaluate those things.  I had vowed after my back problems with Maeli’s pregnancy that I was going to get in shape before getting pregnant again, but it was 3 years later and that hadn’t happened.  Things were kinda busy and hectic and we decided that it wasn’t time yet.  So I scheduled my annual checkup with my midwife so that I could renew my birth control prescription.  However, my checkup was scheduled for a little while after I’d run out of birth control.  I wasn’t too concerned – with our 3 older children it had taken about 3 months after going off birth control to get pregnant so I didn’t think it was really too likely that I’d get pregnant in that short interim – I know, famous last words   So I had a couple weeks without my prescription and I decided that I’d wait until the end of that cycle before starting my new batch.  In the back of my head I was also telling the Lord – ok, I’m not really ready to have another baby right now, but if it’s time, here’s your opening.

During that time I started noticing that my back was having some issues again.  I’d started wearing boots that had a little bit of a heel as my daily footwear and I thought it was probably due to those, so I ditched the boots for sneakers and called my mom for some advice on exercises for my back.  A week or so went by and I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror one Saturday night and thought – I look chubbier than usual. Not that I have a nicely toned physique most of the time, but I could just tell, I had more squish than was my normal… and I was about a week late.  I decided that I would take a pregnancy test the next morning, just in case.

I took the pregnancy test into the bathroom the next morning feeling like I was being paranoid.  I had one on hand so it wasn’t like I had to go out and buy one but I just wanted to talk myself out of thinking that’s what was going on.  I can’t even tell you how surprised I was when it came back positive.  Obviously, I knew it was a possibility but I *really* didn’t expect it to be positive. I sat there letting it set in for a couple minutes before hopping back into bed with Eric (we had 1pm church so there was time for sleeping in) and tried to gently wake him up.  I tried to wait until he was reasonably awake before springing the news on him, but I don’t think I succeeded as well as I would have liked – my nerves were a little high at that point   I asked him, “So… what would you think if we were to have a baby?”  He looked at me quizzically and I continued, “Because…. We’re going to have a baby.”  If he hadn’t been awake yet, he was then!  Eric was even more surprised than I was because even though I’d told him about my less than stellar adherence to birth control protocol, he hadn’t fully realized how much so.  He asked me how I felt about this news and I told him that I wasn’t expecting it but that of course I was happy about it, and when I turned the question on him his feelings mirrored mine.  We’ve been asked if David was an “accident” or a “mistake” – absolutely not.  David was a surprise to be sure, but just as it wouldn’t be an accident or a mistake to win the lottery it was not an accident or a mistake to have David.  We were not planning on him but we were certainly excited about it, and especially now that he’s here we can’t imagine our family without him.  We’re glad that Heavenly Father had a better plan for our family than we did.  He is an unexpected blessing

Of course, just because David is a blessing didn’t make his pregnancy easy – at all.  In fact going through that pregnancy is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.  I think partially not having intentionally signed up for pregnancy made it a little harder.  After trying to have babies before, a hard pregnancy was still hard but there’s the feeling at least of, “well, I knew this was what was coming.”  I think more so though it’s a lot harder being pregnant for the 4^th time at 31 than it was being pregnant the 1^st time at 23 – go figure   I had a rough first trimester – the back pain obviously wasn’t caused just by my high heeled boots and I immediately had to limit the amount of walking and bending I did so that I could make it through the day.  The “morning” sickness was also pretty bad this time around.  Of course, my morning sickness isn’t terrible compared to a lot of other women’s, so I can’t complain too much – I think I actually threw up maybe once this pregnancy, but I had a very sensitive gag reflex and generally felt miserable, tired, hungry, not wanting to eat, nauseated pretty much all the time for a few months.  Also my blood pressure drops pretty low in pregnancy which isn’t necessarily dangerous, but it can feel pretty freaky.

We didn’t wait to announce the pregnancy to everyone.  We told our kids and our parents right away and announced it on Facebook the next day.  Yes, I know people feel like that’s sharing way too much of my personal life with everyone, but to be honest, when I’m pregnant it’s kinda miserable and I need people to understand why I’m kinda miserable.  I need to have the people surrounding me able to say – “Hey, I know you posted that you’re having a miserable time with morning sickness right now and I noticed you put on pants today anyways.  High five!”  I hope that by being open about the things that I struggle with people feel like they can be open with me about their struggles and we can both help each other.  I feel that way about accepting help too.  As much as I want to be able to be independent and strong and do things on my own, I try to accept help from other people because 1) it’s really helpful (obviously) and makes me more able to do the things that really matter and 2) I hope that when they need help they think “Hey, I made soup for Brittny that one time and she wasn’t too proud to accept help, I bet she won’t judge me for needing some help too – I’ll call her!” I strongly believe that we all need each other to celebrate with and mourn with and by being open with others it can bless us both.  That’s not to say that I don’t understand people who choose to be more private or that I judge that choice – I just sometimes feel like people look at me and think I post so much of my life to Facebook because I’m seeking attention or don’t understand wanting to be private.  I do get it, but I’ve just decided for me that I’m happier being open with my circles of friends.  My other reason for wanting to post right away is that I hate trying to decide who is important enough to tell in person or first or whatever.  Our parents get first dibs on the news (if you contributed DNA to the child you probably should get some preferential treatment) but after that I don’t want to have to decide who gets to find out when – or risk that someone who feels like they should have heard the news from me finds out through someone else.  I have too many people that I love too much to feel ok with anyone feeling like they weren’t included in something like this – better to let everyone know at once and avoid that drama.

The best news came at my first appointment when the doctor measured David on the ultrasound and told me that he was measuring about 2 weeks ahead of what I’d calculated!  What’s funny is that meant that when I went in to my doctor’s appointment to renew my birth control prescription… I was already pregnant!  That made me feel a little bit better about not starting the prescription right away.  My thought at the time had been that I’d wait until the end of my cycle just in case I was already pregnant so that I wouldn’t hurt the baby.  In retrospect I think that was inspiration and I’m so glad I listened.  I was extra glad because I had felt like I was bigger and having more symptoms than I should have for how far along I was.  I was nervous that I might be expecting twins!  So not only was I glad to be closer to the finish line than I thought but to have the symptoms make sense and not be twins was a huge relief too!

During my second trimester the nausea at least started to wane and I could eat pretty normally again.  My gag reflex never receded entirely but I was able to eat more normally and my energy came back.  Of course, one of the best parts of the 2^nd trimester is getting to find out the baby’s gender.  When we went in for the ultrasound we were thinking the baby was a girl.  Partly that just seemed nice and neat – we had two boys, one girl… we were due for another girl, right?  Also I’d been extra sick when I was pregnant with Maeli and I was extra sick again so it seemed reasonable to think this was a girl as well.  When we went in for the ultrasound the first thing the ultrasound technician got was a view between the legs and she didn’t even have to tell us what the gender was – we could see for ourselves!  I think David was a bit perturbed that we’d been thinking he was a girl and he wanted there to be NO doubt in our minds that he was a BOY!

In June it was Eric’s & my 10 year wedding anniversary and we felt that was worthy of a celebration!  We also realized that with the arrival of a new baby we probably wouldn’t be able to get away with just the two of us for about 3 years between finishing off the pregnancy and having a nursing baby.  That lit a fire under us and we booked a cruise to Ensenada that we were able to just sneak in before the 24 week cut off for cruise travel!  Neither of us had been on a cruise before and it seemed like a fun way to get to do a vacation without too much planning – it was   I wasn’t able to do a lot of the activities that you’d normally want to do between my back and general pregnancy restrictions, but we enjoyed just having good food, good entertainment and (best of all) good company for a few days

I also gave us the assignment of naming the baby before we got home.  I like naming the baby as soon as we can after finding out the gender.  I like being able to refer to the baby by its name rather than just “the baby” or “it”.  It helps me bond with my babies before they’re born, and I think it helps the older kids to bond with the baby too.  They can look at my belly and we’ll talk about David, and make plans for David, and then when they come to the hospital to see us – there’s David!  The same David we’ve been talking about all this time!  For me it just makes the baby feel like more of a real person once they have a name.  We had a list of names going onto the ship but David wasn’t at the top.  We knew that we wanted to give the baby a middle name of James after Eric’s dad and we were considering the names Aaron, Adam, Caleb, David, Hyrum, Isaac, Jared, Levi, & Micah.  I liked David but the name sounded too close to Daniel and we’d end up calling the two boys each others’ names all the time (I was right – we do).  Also, we like naming our children after scriptural people to give them someone to look up to – and while David (in the Old Testament) starts out pretty awesome… he doesn’t exactly end the same way.  We tested out each name with the middle name and ruled some out.  We tried them out with our other kids names (i.e. “Sam, Danny, Maeli, _____ get in the van for Cub Scouts!”… If the name didn’t fit in that mix that was going to be a problem ).  We kept coming back to David and I decided that David and Daniel weren’t really too close – we already had Samuel and Daniel after all and those two names were pretty similar.  I also decided that even though David in the Old Testament doesn’t end up so great, that doesn’t de-value the good things he did at the beginning.  Plus his later failings serve as an important cautionary tale that none of us has ever done so great things that we are beyond where we could fall from grace and we must always remain vigilant that our deeds are good.  It was so nice to have a name for our baby and to be able to call him by it when we got off the boat.

As I got closer to the 3^rd trimester I got the doctor’s order for my least favorite part of pregnancy – the gestational diabetes test.  I have a pretty serious phobia of needles and that test is the worst, not only do I have to get poked with a needle, but I have to drink a drink that sets off a timer that “you will be poked with a needle in one hour”.  The psychological game there is pretty brutal.  I got the order and then I took it home to figure out when I could schedule it with Eric so that he could come to drive me home afterwards.  Between not wanting to schedule that appointment and waiting to try and coordinate schedules with Eric and the general craziness of summer… it might have been 10 weeks before I got that appointment scheduled.  In fact, I waited so long that my doctor finally called me and said, “uhm, are you ever coming back?”  They didn’t let me wait to figure out a time that would work with Eric’s schedule at that point and just scheduled my next appointment then and I then just had to tell Eric to work with it   The test itself went reasonably well – I came *really* close to passing out but managed to stay on this side of consciousness.  But I was glad to have that part of the pregnancy over with.  I did all of the bloodwork for the whole pregnancy at once just to avoid having multiple pokes and so that was a huge hurdle for me to get past.  I didn’t have any history of gestational diabetes or risk factors, and I knew that I’m pretty healthy overall so I wasn’t stressed about the results, I was just glad to be done with that!

The next week the test results came back, and they weren’t what I’d expected.  All of the general tests were fine – I didn’t have any of the diseases they were testing for, my iron levels looked fine – all that good stuff.  Unfortunately the diabetes numbers were just a little bit north of what the doctor would like to see for a confirmed non-Gestational Diabetes diagnosis.  NOOOOO!!!  She would have liked to have scheduled the 3 hour test (4 blood draws over the course of 3 hours – my worst nightmare) but she knew that I’d never come back and go have my baby in the woods on my own.  So instead she recommended that I get a blood glucose monitor and observe a diabetic diet.  When she told me to get a glucose monitor in my head I laughed at her and said “oh yeah right”.  I knew there was no way that I was going to be able to do my own blood tests.  I barely made it in to have someone else test my blood – how on earth was I going to test my own blood on a regular basis?

To be honest after my doctor called in the order for the glucose monitor I waited a day before I could wrap my head around actually going to pick the thing up (to be even more honest I really considered if I even *would* go pick it up).  I was trying to take it in baby steps.  It then took me another day before I could even pull it out of the bags.  I finally did and tried reading the instructions.  I got about halfway through before I started crying and hyperventilating just trying to wrap my head around it.  Just reading the words about poking, lancets and squeezing blood were too much for me to handle – especially knowing that these were things I was going to be expected to do to myself!  I know that makes me sound like a crazy person and I’m really not an overly dramatic person on the whole.  But no matter how hard I try I can’t seem be reasonable about needles – and I really do try!

My doctor had asked me to get a blood glucose reading 4 times per day – before eating in the morning and 1 hour after each meal.  I tried to convince myself that I could get those readings myself but I could barely be reasonable enough to let Eric do it for me so that didn’t happen.  I feel really blessed though that Eric was awesome with me.  He wouldn’t push me to do the blood tests even though he would encourage me.  So I would let him know when I finished eating something so that he knew that he had to do the blood draw in an hour – I knew if I just tracked it myself I’d chicken out when the hour was up and convince myself I had something more important to do and never tell Eric.  I had better integrity if I told Eric at the beginning rather than waiting until the end.  We’d have to go upstairs, lock the door to our room (the kids weren’t going to be helpful and don’t need to know how unreasonable mom was), turn on a TV show, then I’d run my hands under hot water (to promote good blood flow) while Eric prepped the glucose monitor.  Once my hands were warmed up I’d come out, pretend like I was just watching the show and give Eric my hand.  He learned pretty quick that he only had about one try to get a usable blood sample as I couldn’t get myself to sit back down for a second attempt – either we got it or we didn’t but I couldn’t do it again if it failed the first time.  Once he got the sample I would quickly jump off the bed and go wash my hands off again – mostly so I could indicate to my brain that we were done and get my stress levels back down.  Then I’d sit and watch a few minutes of the show while I got back to normal and then I could return to whatever I was doing beforehand.  My usual remedy for needle-related anxiety is chocolate… but that was obviously off limits with the whole diabetic thing 

To be honest I was really worried that having Eric sticking me with needles was going to create some subconscious trust issues for me.  However, the opposite happened.  Because Eric was so kind with me even when I was unreasonable, and he helped me without just letting me off the hook, I really learned to love him even more than I already did (which is saying something because I already loved him quite a lot).  I feel SO blessed to have him by my side throughout everything in this life, I couldn’t ask for a better husband.

As you might have guessed… I didn’t get all of my glucose readings in.  Not by a long shot.  I had some really high readings and lots of reasonable readings, not really enough to be super conclusive but I was proud of myself to have gotten as much done as I did.  However, I was absolutely religious about the diet.  I didn’t cheat on it, although at first I had a hard time just figuring out what things were ok to eat and what things weren’t, but I never once got to the point where I said, “just this once I’m going to eat x”.  I actually noticed that when I ate the things that were higher carb that my heart would get a little racy like I had associated with my low blood pressure, leading me to wonder if the problem was really gestational diabetes rather than low blood pressure.  Anyways, my doctor never was able to definitively diagnose me with gestational diabetes but I managed to get through the final month of pregnancy on that diet.

The diet was tough, I had been trying for awhile to limit the amount of meat that we were eating and was erring on the side of adding more carbs – so I had to change that to go completely the opposite direction.  I mostly just found things that I could eat myself and planned different meals for Eric and the kids.  It wasn’t terrible but I had the hardest time getting enough calories while staying on that diet.  I was hungry a lot but I didn’t want to get my glucose levels too high.  Plus, eating was scary because I knew that one hour after I’d eaten I was supposed to do a glucose check so I had to *really* want to eat to make it worth going through that again.  I actually started losing weight during that last month of pregnancy, which was a little bit scary.  Not that I didn’t have weight to lose, but I wanted to make sure I was eating enough to sustain my baby – I just couldn’t figure out what to eat!  My doctor wasn’t worried and said it was normal, but it was not the most fun way to end the pregnancy.

About 3 weeks into the gestational diabetes I was walking around one morning and felt… uncomfortable.  Ok, so that sounds ridiculous, I’d been uncomfortable for about 33 weeks at that point, but my digestive tract felt wrong.  At first I thought I was just constipated (I was on a weird diet, it seemed like a possibility).  But as the day went on that didn’t quite seem to explain my discomfort.  So I started googling things and came up with that I probably had appendicitis judging from where the pain was.  I was pretty certain of this until I went to the bathroom and noticed that my urine was totally brown.  A little bit more googling helped me diagnose myself as probably having a kidney stone – awesome.  I went into urgent care that evening and the doctor confirmed that most likely that was the case – although they understandably didn’t want to do any abdominal imaging on a woman who was 37 weeks pregnant, and wouldn’t have been able to see much even if they did because of the baby in the way.  I was given an antibiotic in case it was a kidney infection and told to drink lots of water to help things pass.  I was also told to stop taking Tums for my heartburn as all that extra calcium was a possible culprit for creating the stone in the first place.  Another suspect was the high protein diet from the gestational diabetes.  I was starting to feel like I just couldn’t win.  My mom had a kidney stone when she was pregnant with her 4^th child, who was also a boy.  I know I look a lot like my mom, but this was a trait I probably should have let her keep to herself

After the kidney stone I decided I was DONE with being pregnant.  With my other babies they had liked to stay put and cook past the 40 week mark so even though I was only 1 day short of 38 weeks I knew I was looking at probably 3 more weeks of pregnancy if I let nature take its course.  Between the kidney stone, back problems, blood pressure issues, and (of course) gestational diabetes – I was ready to throw in the towel.  I went in for my next midwife appointment and scheduled an induction for 10/4, i.e. the day I hit 39 weeks and was eligible for an elective induction.  To be honest, more than the kidney stone I was worried that since I had let the gestational diabetes go unchecked for so long (and I had not been eating healthy during that time) David was going to be too big to be born naturally and I would have to have a c-section.  I knew I was losing weight but the baby was still growing.  I wasn’t sure whether I was worried that I was undernourishing him or overnourishing him – but I didn’t feel great about either one.  I’d been debating scheduling an induction on those grounds, but the kidney stone pushed me over the edge.  I had my mom book a flight to be here to take care of my older kids and started counting down the days.

The day before my induction was the day of the annual Utah STEM Fair.  We had gone the year before and it had been a highlight of the year – they had asked for months afterwards when we would get to go again!  So even though it was more walking than I really felt up to, I decided to go for it!  It seemed like a fun “last hurrah” before becoming a family of 6 – one last time to enjoy just being the 5 of us.  It seems silly but just before having each new child it feels like we’re closing a chapter of our lives and while we’re so excited about the new baby we’re adding to our family, there’s a little tinge of sadness to be leaving the previous chapter behind. I always have felt like there’s something a little bit sad about moving on from each stage of life and having a chance to celebrate the family we have just before it changes always seems appropriate.

That day happened to also be a Tuesday which is when we have all of our commitments outside the home, and we’d need to pick my mom up at the airport that night.  Busy day!  I didn’t tell the kids about the fair until we were actually ready to go so they wouldn’t be disappointed if by the time we completed all of our other commitments I wasn’t up to it.  But we made it through preschool, violin, dance class, a haircut and music class and I was still ready to go!  We got there later than we would have preferred but the kids had a blast checking out all of the exhibits and I waddled around looking for anywhere I could sit for a second, all the while thinking – I’m going to have a baby to . mor . row.  It was a really funny experience just being there with all of these people doing a normal thing while feeling like there was something so huge that was about to happen to me and people didn’t really know.

When the fair closed we had to divide and conquer – Eric had some work that needed to be finished before taking the next couple days off, and I needed to pick my mom up at the airport.  We had both scored Olive Garden pasta passes though and wanted to use them to get dinner that night.  After some deliberation we decided that Eric would take Sam and Maeli to one Olive Garden on his way home and I would take Danny & my mom to a different Olive Garden after picking her up from the airport.  Don’t worry, I still didn’t break my diet – not even for Olive Garden!  I found out that they would substitute steamed broccoli for the pasta and had that and salad for a very satisfying last dinner of pregnancy   It was a late dinner but it added to the celebratory nature of the day – and we could do it without even having to pay for my meal, score!

Of course that night would be the night that people had trouble sleeping.  Maeli started having a nasty croupy sounding cough (just as I’m getting ready to bring home a newborn – awesome) and everyone got to bed much later than planned.  I seriously considered cancelling the induction because it didn’t seem like we would be ready for all that would entail… and truth be told I was still apprehensive about needing an IV – and even though consciously I wouldn’t have pushed it back for that, on a subconscious level I’m sure it made the idea of rescheduling seem more sane than it was.  Plus, I’m not generally a big fan of being induced (even though I’ve basically been induced with 3 of my 4 deliveries).  I still have a basic belief that babies are best left to be born when they’re ready and all done being cooked, but we don’t always get the ideal situations and we work with what we have.

In the end I got up the next morning, got dressed and we headed off to the hospital.  Eric tried to convince me that I wasn’t supposed to eat before the induction (because anesthesia stuff)  but since I hadn’t been given that instruction from the hospital I ate a couple of fried eggs and a vitamin water.  But it made me nervous that I was doing the wrong thing anyways.  The nurses later confirmed that I had made the right choice and I absolutely ought to have eaten beforehand since I had a long day of hard work ahead of me!  Phew!

We got to the hospital late (our scheduled arrival time was earlier than our usual waking up time – even without kids developing nasty coughs in the night) but we were able to get checked in quickly.  I told Eric that I felt funny walking into the hospital with a suitcase – like we were heading into a hotel for a fun getaway   Hopefully if I ever go for a spa getaway it’s considerably more comfortable than childbirth

Once I was changed into a lovely hospital gown and had answered all of their questions it was time for the IV – dun dun DUN!  Luckily I had a very understanding nurse who listened to me.  See, even though I’m not good at needles I have at least pretty well established how I can get through them – I need to be hydrated, have reasonably high blood sugar level, warm up my arms, have someone keep talking to me about anything not related to the needles, don’t look at the needles, don’t expect ME to keep talking (I need to just focus on breathing deeply and staying conscious), and don’t try to tell me how not a big deal it is (I know it’s not a big deal, but bringing my attention to the needles makes me face it more head on and I’m more likely to pass out).  It’s also good if the nurse tells me when they’re NOT ready to stick me with the needle (i.e. “I’m just looking at your veins, cleaning things up” etc) however they don’t have to tell me when they ARE going to stick me, and it’s definitely a bad idea to tell me to be ready because that elicits my fear response and all my veins shrink right up, if they say something like “ok, little stick” right as they’re sticking it in that’s fine but don’t give me more time to freak out.  The most important thing is “what thou doest, do quickly” and let me try to pretend that this isn’t happening – the less we talk about the better.  I’ve had nurses try to have me do it their way instead of my own way and while I really appreciate their intentions and experience, I know myself and other techniques make it worse rather than better.

Anyways, the nurse I had was awesome at listening to me and did everything just great.  She made sure to tape the lines down tightly so they wouldn’t wiggle, and she made sure to get all of the blood testing they needed through the IV port rather than making me go for another round of sticks.  When I was induced with Danny it took an hour and several pokes to get the IV set up, so you can imagine how relieved I was to have that part go smoothly.  Once we were set up then it was time to wait.  Since we hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before Eric and I both laid down and tried to sleep.   I think Eric got an actual nap in and I at least closed my eyes and pretended to sleep to get some rest.  I kept having to answer questions and my adrenaline was a little high so actual sleep didn’t really happen, but I at least got to relax.  All of my labors had been pretty quick – 8 hours for Sam, 4 for Danny, 3 for Maeli… I wasn’t expecting for things to take very long and was expecting them to be pretty intense, so some rest at the beginning seemed wise.  We were all set up by 9am and I was sort of expecting that we’d have David shortly after lunch.  While I was resting my nurse was talking to another nurse about how they coded different things and mentioned that Pitocin was a “high risk” drug – which I sort of knew but it was still jarring to hear her say that while we were starting me on it   It didn’t give me a lot of confidence in what the rest of the day would hold – especially since I’d already had enough complications with this pregnancy.

Eric woke up from his nap and my contractions were regular but not intense.  He hooked his tablet up to the TV and we watched some shows while we waited, and Eric did some work.  A couple hours later the contractions were uncomfortable but still nothing earth shattering.  I could still carry on conversation through them, even if I preferred to do some deep breathing to manage them.  A little after 1pm I sent Eric out to get himself some lunch – it didn’t seem like anything was going to change dramatically in the next little while and it seemed wise to let Eric get some food while he had the chance.  Luckily the hospital is right in the middle of a ton of different restaurants so Eric didn’t have to go far to get some Café Rio.

While Eric was gone I checked some of the notifications on my phone and found that one of my neighbors had sent me an Instagram message.  She was close to her due date too (there were about 5 ladies in our ward that were due within a couple weeks of me) and was in the hospital that day for some issues she was having.  She wasn’t in labor yet but was going to be induced the next day and was sitting in a little room all alone.  She decided to come over to my room with her IV and visited with me for a little while as we were both alone in the hospital.  I wish we’d thought to get a selfie of the two of us – how often is it that you and a friend get to visit each other while you’re *both* in the hospital?  It was definitely a unique experience!  I was grateful to have a familiar friendly face to be with me while I was waiting alone for a little while.  Even though I really was glad to let Eric go get some lunch, it wasn’t fun being in the hospital room alone and I was glad to have someone there who could call for a nurse if something suddenly went wrong.  I wasn’t expecting anything like that, but it was just comforting to have someone else there.

Eric came back from lunch and we continued watching shows, me being uncomfortable, but mostly just waiting for things to ramp up.  Slowly the contractions were getting a little stronger, but still nothing that I couldn’t manage a conversation through, although perhaps with some wincing.  Around 3pm my midwife came in and checked my progress.  She asked if I wanted to try some other positions to which I responded that I didn’t really – I was pretty happy where I was.  She looked at me like I was being obstinate so I clarified that I wasn’t saying I *wouldn’t* change positions but if we were doing it just based on what I wanted… I didn’t feel any burning desire to move from where I was – at 39 weeks pregnant moving around always seems like a huge chore, so all things being equal I’d just assume stay put.  With that cleared up my midwife told me that David was still up pretty high and it would be good to move around and see if we could get him to come down to start making progress.  Well that was a horse of a different color!  Progress sounded good to me so we started moving me around.  I don’t remember what we tried first but we put me on a birthing ball bouncing around for a little while, and put the bed in an upright position and had me hang over the back, and laid me on my side with a large peanut shaped ball between my legs.

Moving around did the trick!  My labor started to pick up and David made his way down into the birth canal.  By 4pm I’d gotten to 4cm dilated and David had dropped enough so we broke my water and things really got intense.  It’s so awkward having contractions after having my water broken because every contraction feels like I’m peeing myself.  Not like any part of labor is all that glamorous or not gross feeling – but that is especially gross feeling.  At that point things really started to hurt.  We kept moving my positions between hanging over the back of the bed, the ball, and on my side.  Within an hour the pain from the contractions was so intense that we finally got to the point where we turned the TV shows off as they were only serving to agitate me rather than distract from the pain.  I needed all my focus to be on just trying to relax between contractions.  I am not loud when I’m laboring which has led in the past to nurses not really thinking things are getting close (the doctor barely made it into the room to catch Danny because they didn’t think I’d gotten that far yet).  Luckily my midwife recognized that even though I was quiet it was because I was in the zone, not that I wasn’t progressing, and since she was done with her appointments for the day she stayed in the room from soon after my water was broken until the end.  I was so grateful for that extra attention and coaching.

We kept changing my positions and checking my progress, which continued to be steady.  Probably around 6:30 I started to feel the urge to push.  My midwife checked me and said I was really close.  On the next contraction I couldn’t not push and my midwife could see that and the nurses gathered around for the grand finale.  I was still on my side (which was the position that I made the best progress in while being the most comfortable) so someone held up my leg while I pushed David out from that position.  It was a weird position for giving birth I’m sure but I wasn’t really ready to move at that point.  It took maybe 5-10 contractions for me to push David out. I’d have a contraction and push as hard as I felt like I could without tearing for probably 30 seconds, and then get about 30 seconds to catch a deep breath before another big contraction would come and I’d push again.  Finally his head came through and on the next push I was able to get his shoulders and the rest of his body out.  He was here!  It is the weirdest feeling in the world to go from having a small human being in you to suddenly pushing them out and feeling so empty.  Not a bad empty, sort of a cathartic empty.  The second weirdest feeling is delivering the placenta.  It doesn’t hurt really but it’s this huge squishy organ that comes out all at once.  It’s very infrequent that you pass entire organs out of your body which is probably why it seems so strange.  It felt SO good to be done with being pregnant and to have my body back to myself again.  I told Eric over and over for the next day, “I did it.  I’m done.  I’m not pregnant anymore.  I’m NOT pregnant anymore!”  It had become such a defining part of who I was for the last 9 months that I had to keep saying it to convince myself it was really true – I’d made it!

David was born at 6:46pm and was 6lbs 12oz and 20.5 inches long.  I’d been worried about him being too big but he was actually the smallest of my babies by 13oz!  I’m still so glad that I went ahead with the induction.  It was SO nice to know that my older kids were settled before heading to the hospital.  It was also awesome to know that we could get a good night’s sleep beforehand and that Eric could plan out his day away from the office in advance.  Also just having a defined finish line was so helpful at the end of that long pregnancy – I’m not sure that I mentally could have taken 2 more weeks.  Besides which, as I mentioned before it was awesome to have my midwife there and able to really coach me through the delivery.  All things considered, I would likely choose to be induced again if we have another baby.

As soon as Eric posted to my mom that David was here our older kids were over the moon and started jumping up and down begging to come see him.  I had already arranged with my mom that I was ok with them coming up as soon as David arrived – once things were reasonably cleaned up in the delivery room they were welcome to come see him.  I had a few stitches but they were taken care of quickly – my midwife says it looked like I’d just torn in the same place I had with my previous births (Sam was 8lbs 11oz with a 90^th percentile head, so…. yeah, there was some tearing there that has opened up with each subsequent delivery).  To be honest after giving birth I feel like having visitors come right away.  I just did something monumentally hard – I want to show off!  I might not look amazing, but neither do marathon runners, it’s still good to have people you love with you to share in the achievement and the joy of a new baby.  Besides no one is really looking at me when there’s a cute baby to look at   I know everyone is different but I basically want the people I love to come and give me a high five and tell me I did a good job, and ooh and ahh over the cute baby that I’ve managed to produce.  I’m too amped up on adrenaline to rest for quite awhile anyways so people might as well be there to celebrate with me.

My midwife and nurses kept commenting how impressed they were with the control I had during delivery.  I guess that I did an especially good job of not pushing too hard or too fast and causing myself to tear.  I would bet that that’s primarily because I didn’t have an epidural so I could feel everything stretching and could tell what would cause me to tear.  I remember them saying the same thing about when Maeli was born – maybe it’s just something they tell every mom so that we feel good about ourselves   I don’t really know how I would have done things any other way so I’ll just take it for what it is!

The kids arrived with my mom at the same time as Eric’s parents arrived.  They had arrived home from their mission in Washington D.C. just that day and they were leaving to go visit naother one of their kids that weekend so it was perfect timing!  It was so great just to have everyone there – and to finally get to eat some carbohydrates!  The nurses told me to get my order into room service quickly before they closed for the night and I was excited just to have some real food after a full day of very minimal snacks and a really hard workout!  I don’t even remember what I ordered but I was excited for real food.  They also brought me in some snacks – graham crackers, saltines, yogurt, super exciting hospital snacks

While the kids were oogling David and we talked to our parents about the events of the day the nurses kept coming in every few minutes to check on me.  The first few times the nurse seemed moderately concerned that I was bleeding more than she would have liked.  That was highly disconcerting.  Considering how I feel about blood you can imagine that the idea of having a hemorrhaging problem after birth would really scare the dickens out of me.  However there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about it and the nurse wasn’t panicked or anything, so I just relaxed as best as I could and tried to ignore how very nervous that made me.  My mom gave me more wide eyed concerned looks, but I felt like there wasn’t anything that I could do about it so I was trying not to waste my energy on worrying.  I think she was concerned that having the extra people in the room could be a hinderance if something needed to happen, but I figured I wasn’t exerting myself by letting everyone be there, and it made me feel better having them there.  I relaxed as best as I could and assumed that if the doctors needed to do something with me they would shoo my family out and do it.  Luckily after a few rounds of concerned looks things seemed better and the nurse stopped commenting on it so presumably things were fine.

Also during that time a nurse came in to get all of David’s preliminary tests and procedures done.  She took him to the other side of the room from my kids to weigh, measure, poke and prod him.  My mom was unimpressed with how gentle (or not) she was being with David and looked at me like, “hey, why isn’t anyone snuggling that cute baby and making him happy?”  I obviously was in no place to hobble over and help out but I was grateful when my mom went over to hold his hand and try to comfort him a little while that was happening.  They poked him a few times and put the goop in his eyes – but somehow no one managed to actually wash him off.  We actually didn’t get him washed off until he came home and was a few days old

When my dinner came all of our visitors cleared out to let us get settled in for the night.  I was a little sad to see them go, but it was getting past the kids’ bedtime and it was time for us to get some rest too.  Of course “rest” in a hospital is relative.  The nurses came in every hour to check my temperature, blood pressure and bleeding until about midnight.  Then they started coming in every 4 hours.  At one point I’d fallen asleep for a little while and then woke up just before I thought they were going to come in again, so rather than going back to sleep I decided I’d just wait for them to come in.  So I waited… and waited… and waited.  It ended up being closer to an hour and a half before they came in again so I probably should have tried harder to go back to sleep, oh well.  I just don’t sleep well in the hospital – the sounds are weird, the bed isn’t mine, people are coming and going, and there’s always a possibility someone might want to stick a needle in me.  It’s not my favorite place to be.

In the morning my nurse came in to remove my IV.  To be honest, I like having the IV removed almost as little as I like having it put in as strange as that sounds.  They needed one more bit of blood work from me – a final glucose level to check that things were back to normal after giving birth.  As I talked to the nurse she thought she could probably get that blood sample when she removed the IV without doing an additional poke – she didn’t want to guarantee it but she said she’d try.  I can’t tell you exactly what happened (I was of course pretending that nothing was happening and just trying to stay conscious), but somehow she made that work and got me out of having an another poke.  She quickly made it onto my list of favorite people   Even better, the level was back to normal and I was freed from having to do glucose tests any more – hallelujah!

Throughout my pregnancy I kept thinking, “I never want to do this ever again.  This is so miserable.  Don’t forget how hard and miserable this is.  Nope, never ever ever ever EVER going to do this again.  This is the last time, absolutely, 100%, never doing this again.  I’m getting too old for this.”  That resolve at least doubled when I was in labor, and doubled again while in the final transition and during the actual birth of David.  That whole day in the hospital I kept thinking, “This is no fun at all, I really really don’t want to have to do this again.  DO NOT forget how hard this is!”  The pregnancy wasn’t just physically hard but it really was mentally exhausting.    After getting through all of that I really couldn’t fathom doing it again.  The day after his birth I was laying in the hospital bed and staring at my precious newborn baby and thought, “Awww, look how cute he is!  This is SO special and wonderful and worth EVERYTHING.  How sad would it be to never get to have a brand new baby like this again?  I could do this again!”  Of course the other part of me was screaming, “WHAT!?!?  Have you not been here for the last 9 months?  Do you not remember what happened YESTERDAY!  It hasn’t even been 24 hours!  You haven’t even left the hospital!  You still have an ice pack stuffed in your underpants!  What do you mean you ‘could do this again’?!?”  Both sides are completely true – having David was so worth everything I went through, we love him to the ends of the earth and back and more.  If you were to send me back to the end of 2016 and give me the choice of going through it all again or not having him I would 100% go through it all again, no question.  But man, contemplating doing it again…. That’s going to take a lot more convincing.  So far our kids have been spaced out like this – Sam to Danny: 2 years, Danny to Maeli: 3 years, Maeli to David: 4 years.  So if you’re wondering if we’re done or not just check the pattern… we can talk in 5 years

The next day contained all the routine post-birth things – the pediatrician came to evaluate David, my midwife came to check on me, billing wanted us to pay our bill up front, we filled out the birth certificate – all the things.  I had asked my midwife beforehand that we be discharged as soon as possible, generally 24 hours after birth, so long as everything looked good.  So as we went through all of our checks we got the oks from the doctors to be discharged at the end of the day.  As we got close to that 24 hour mark I had Eric help me shower and change back into normal clothes and we waited for the nurses to get all of the paperwork approved.  It took about 2 hours longer than we’d expected because they lost some of David’s bloodwork samples or something but finally they cut all the tags off of us and we were free to go home!  As we were leaving the nurses asked me if we didn’t have insurance or something – they were astounded that I would want to go home so quickly.  I guess most moms want to stay as long as possible where they have people to care for them, make the food, take the baby sometimes, all that good stuff.  We have reasonable insurance, but even with that an extra day in the hospital is a pretty pricey affair.  But more importantly, I just would rather be home!  If I didn’t have good care at home my feelings might be different, but I was going home where my mom would be there to help cook meals and tend my children and Eric would be there too.  Plus no one would be coming in to poke and prod me or my baby while we were sleeping, I could have my own bed with my own blankets, I could snuggle with my kids and know that Eric wasn’t stuck sleeping on a couch.  Unlike the nurses I can’t understand why anyone would want to stay in the hospital!  The care is great, but I’m still happier to be back home.  Room service meals is nice, but for the price… I’ll get someone to pick up takeout from a really good restaurant rather than be stuck eating hospital food thanks

My mom was able to stay with us for 2 weeks which was SO wonderful!  My recovery with David was harder than it was with my other kids, not for any particular reason but it was just harder.  I didn’t have any unexpected complications or unmanaged pain, but I wore down faster and had a hard time keeping my energy up or exerting myself much (by exerting myself I mean, walking around a little).  I wasn’t in any more pain than I would have expected, but I was just so easily drained.  My guess is that I really did lose a decent amount of blood during/after the birth and it just took that long for my body to regenerate my blood supply.  Obviously not so much as to need intervention, but more than I had with previous births and enough to cause a difference in recovery.  Luckily by the time my mom left to go back home I was starting to feel normal-ish again and ready to ease back into our routines, and even slowly get back to not just pregnancy normal but pre-pregnancy normal.  It’s been really eye opening to see just how much I let go of during the pregnancy as I’ve been able to pick things back up.  We also decided after this pregnancy that I probably ought to switch from taking a pill for birth control to having an IUD instead (since I clearly wasn’t doing a great job of taking a pill).  Even more surprising than how much better I feel not being pregnant is how much better I feel having changed birth control methods.  I hadn’t realized just how tired my other birth control had made me.  It didn’t help that when Eric and I first got married I had mono which took a long time to recover from, and then I had Sam who was a terrible sleeper, then pregnant with Danny, then another baby and dealing with sleep, then pregnant with Maeli and another baby.  It was difficult to separate exhaustion from mono/being a mom from birth control side effects – it was just my normal!  But now that I’ve switched I feel like I am fully awake for the first time in over 10 years.  I had no idea!  We switched just to give ourselves a more surefire method of birth control, but I might be more excited about getting my energy back than not having to take a pill every day!

David has been a delight to have in our home.  I can’t imagine our family without him and it absolutely blows my mind that we’d actually consciously decided that we were content with our 3 kids and didn’t need any more.  How sad!  It’s so bizarre how perfectly happy we can be not knowing what blessings could be ours if we were to just [fill in the blank].  Anyways, while he’s been a delight David has not been an easy baby.  He struggled with colic for the first few months and pretty much just wanted to be held all the time.  Luckily, Sam had colic too and since he was our first we didn’t know that it was a hard thing we sort of just thought that’s how babies were – until we had Danny and Maeli and realized that it wasn’t always like that   But having had the experience with Sam with colic we felt like we knew what to expect.  Honestly just having that expectation already set differently made all the difference.  We knew that we likely wouldn’t be able to put the baby down and we’d just need to take turns holding him, walking with him, bouncing with him etc – and we could work with that.  It wouldn’t last forever and we’d make it through, and just because our baby was upset didn’t mean we were bad parents or doing something wrong, it was just the way it was.  I slept a lot of nights on the recliner with the TV on, Eric and I would try to let each other take naps when we could, and mostly I just let other things go knowing that eventually “this too shall pass” and we’d get back on top of those things then.  Sam is now our best sleeper!  I mean, he’s 9, but still, he figured it out eventually!  David has the most intense stare, he will stare into your eyes for the longest time, and then just smile.  It makes you feel like the most wonderful person in the world – if this baby thinks you’re worthy of this kind of adoration you must be a pretty amazing person!  His siblings are still completely enamored with him, I can’t put him down without one of the kids going and getting up in his space or carrying him off to somewhere else to snuggle with him.  I hope he always recognizes just how lucky he is to have siblings who adore him like his siblings do.  We truly feel so blessed to have him in our home and are grateful every day to have him!

He was evicted a week before his due date because of Brittny’s gestational diabetes and kidney stone issues, so he ended up being the smallest of our babies.  He has quickly made up for it and was 12lbs 1oz at his 2 month check up! David was quickly assimilated into the tribe of siblings and receives more attention that he would like on a daily basis.  We are frequently asked if he’s a good baby, and the honest answer is “no”, but we like him anyways!  He’s definitely a bit high strung and has dealt with some colic, but since Sam was much the same we at least feel like we know what we’re up against, and most importantly that it will get better!  So we’re just enjoying him as much as we can.  He does seem to be getting happier though as he’s getting bigger.  

Aside from that we loved seeing everyone at the family reunion and having the kids enjoy cousin time.

Then in August, we made the trek up to see the spectacular total solar eclipse in Rexburg, ID with Dianne and Rob.  Leading up to it we were very concerned about whether we would be able to get in or out of Idaho – however we were able to get in just fine, and by waiting about 9 hours to leave we had a relatively smooth trip home as well.  It was well worth going and seeing.  We weren’t sure if our kids would appreciate it but they thought it was awesome.  Before going Sam read an article and said it used “too many superlatives” to describe the event.  After witnessing it for himself he felt like they hadn’t used enough superlatives!  We’ve already decided that we’re going to travel again for the next full solar eclipse in the US in 2024!

Maeli (3) started going to pre-school twice a week in the fall, and she seems to really enjoy her time there.  She’s especially loved that her preschool is attached to a dance studio and she can attend dance class right after her preschool class.  She’s still working on getting potty trained and tells us frequently that she’s afraid of the toilet (heavy sighs from both parents).  She is definitely the princess of the family and is probably grateful that David was a boy so that she didn’t have to give up youngest child and the only girl status all at once.  

Even though Daniel (6) turned six in April, we didn’t get around to celebrating his birthday until after the family reunion in July, but he didn’t seem to mind. He’s beginning to learn how to play piano in this year of Let’s Play Music and we’re impressed with how far he’s come already.  Brittny is homeschooling him and he’s making slow and steady progress towards being able to read.  We stopped doing kyuki-do over the summer with intentions to go back after Baby David was born, but we’re having a hard time convincing Danny to go back.  His objection, strangely enough, is that he has to change his clothes in order to go to class.  He doesn’t care so much *what* he has to change into, just that he has to change his clothes at all.  Instead over the summer he wanted to do t-ball and for once mom didn’t forget to sign up before the deadline.  Danny convinced both his brother and two of the boys’ friends to sign up for t-ball along with him, but I think Danny was the only one who really enjoyed the whole thing.

Sam (8) only ever wants to read.  We set a goal at the beginning of 2017 for him to read 100 chapter books before the end of the year.  We worried that the goal was too ambitious, but he had completed it before September and hasn’t stopped reading yet!  Sam’s also been enjoying being a full Cub Scout now with his parents and participated in the Raingutter Regatta this Fall.

He continues to progress in his violin lessons, and he recently earned his Twinkle Trophy for mastering all the variations and theme of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.

Obviously, Brittny’s time has been dedicated to taking care of baby David and homeschooling Danny and Sam. She’s wrapping up her startup business venture in favor of putting more time into her blog (http://www.techiechic.net/) and getting on top of housework.  She was released as a Sunbeam teacher but continues to serve as our ward’s Cub Scout Committee Chair.

Eric is continuing to build his new team at Western Governors University, hiring two full-time analysts and a contract developer in just the past few months. In addition to his regular contract work on the side, he also continues to make slow but steady progress on his MBA.  He’s enjoying serving as our ward’s Cubmaster, especially as he finally has one of his own sons in the program.

We hope this holiday season brings joy to your family.  We love you all and are hoping for opportunities to see you in 2018.

Well, we made it to the end of another exciting year with some interesting life changes and great experiences. We really enjoyed going to the Lyon family reunion at the beginning of the summer down near Zion’s National Park. We visited Brittny’s family for a week while she attended a convention near her home, and then at the end of the summer we took our own vacation to Yellowstone national park! Last but not least, after three years of fighting with our HOA, we finally got approval and installed solar panels on our roof. Hooray!

Maeli (2) will be turning three in January, and she lives life as if she were in a pre-school TV show. She often comes up to us and asks, “Can you help me find my tablet? When you see tablet, say tablet!” It’s very cute, and she can also be found following Danny around, doing whatever he is doing. She loves to participate in his music practice for a class he’s taking. Maeli unfortunately still does not like to be left in nursery by herself, and she can get away with being so high maintenance because Eric is wrapped around her little finger. But she is also very sweet, and we love having her bring some balance to the family dynamics.

Daniel (5) is still our most physically active and coordinated child. Just the other week when we had family visiting for Thanksgiving, some of his uncles had him practice hitting a foam baseball (something he had never tried before), and he was a natural. He is enrolled with his big brother in a local Kyuki-do (Korean Martial Arts) club, but he insists on wearing jeans underneath his uniform so he doesn’t have to get dressed again after class. Danny is also starting to get much more excited about learning to read through our daily family scripture study time. He’s participating in home school kindergarten this year, though we sometimes think he might enjoy public school given his extroverted personality. He’s entered the questioning phase of his life, always wanting to know how things work.

Sam (7) is still loving the homeschool life.  It can be hard to get him motivated to get into his school work – but once he’s going it’s hard to get him to stop!  He reads like a maniac, and he is helping our family to read through the Book of Mormon before he gets baptized next year. We often find him with a book in bed long after he is supposed to have gone to sleep. He’s recently taken to chatting with his Dad and family on Google Hangouts to practice his typing and writing skills, and it provides some good breaks from the monotony of lessons. Sam also enjoys learning about any and all science. The family often has Youtube nights where we look at various science experiments and fun things that we can’t (or at least probably shouldn’t) try at home. Sam is also enjoying Kyuki-do, being a good big brother to his younger siblings, and following in his father’s footsteps by starting violin lessons this summer!

Brittny has finally bitten off more than she can chew.  In addition to homeschooling our kids she has two callings (Cub Scout Committee Chair & Sunbeam teacher), and is trying to keep her new business running – in addition to the regular duties of keeping the house in order, laundry done, everyone fed etc.  She’s just hoping to get everyone to start going to bed at a decent hour for enough nights in a row that she can have the time to make some breakthroughs with her application so that the business can start running itself a little more – or at least generate enough income for her to feel good about outsourcing more of her homemaker duties!

Eric’s life has made some significant changes recently. After two years of building a digital analytics program at LDS Church HQ, he found a new opportunity to do something similar at Western Governors University as the new Director of Analytics there. While he loved working on lots of cool projects for the Church, the fluctuation in resources leading to 80+ hour work weeks was not sustainable by any means. The new position offers a lot more opportunities to grow without destroying his work-life balance, and innovative educational models have always been of interest to Eric. WGU uses a competency-based education system that is not restricted by time, and so he’s planning on taking advantage of the included educational discounts and benefits to get his MBA starting next year. In the meantime, he still serves as the local pack’s Cubmaster, and he sings and plays violin as part of Church choir.