Grandma Joyce

My Grandma Joyce passed away on Saturday September 28th, 2013. She is my Mom's mom. She lived a long and happy life until the age of 81. She even went through having Rheumatic Heart Fever, Diabetes and Parkinson's. She was a great example to me of enduring to the end. I know she's in a better place, but we will all miss her. My Mom always told me my middle name was "Joy" after her Mom's name. I remember Grandma making us silky panties when we were little. As a little girl, she would ask me where the "happy Heidi" was whenever I was in a bad mood. I loved eating her frozen ding dongs when I went to her house and watching cable TV (that was a luxury). Grandma Joyce was so supportive, always coming to birthday celebrations, sporting events and baby celebrations. I'm lucky to have her as my Grandma.

Grandma Joyce and Grandpa Bill in 2005

Four generation picture with Kate in 2005

I am lucky to have both grandparents live near me when I grew up. They came to a lot of family things. It was fun. Grandma Joyce, my Mom, me, Kate and Grandma Helen Gene (my Dad's mom).

Christmas 2005 at their house in Yakima.

An amazing 5 generation picture with my Great Grandma Lucy, Grandma Joyce, my Mom, me and Kate.

My Grandma Joyce holding Preston in 2007

At one of my Mom's birthday celebrations in 2008.

Grandpa and Grandma drove over for the day to visit Lindsey after she was born. It was nice of them to come all that way to see her. 

Visiting Grandma at her house in Kennewick in March 2012

I liked this picture because in the background you can see her talking to Preston. Yes, and you see Lindsey's lovely black eye. ha.

Grandma Joyce seeing Chelsea for the first time at Miner's restaurant in Yakima. We met up there after Jared's all-star football game in Yakima at then end of June. Chelsea was only like a week old. 

Stopping by to see Grandma at the rehab center. She was in there for a little while before returning home. 

For as long as I can remember Grandpa and Grandma Wright would always wave bye as we drove away from their house. This picture was in March of this year. We were having a girl's weekend at Jeni's house and went to visit them. And as we left they waved bye, of course. :)

(My Grandpa also used to wash my Mom's front windshield on her car before we left to drive back home to Mattawa. Oh the memories.) 

Tom, Jim, John, Grandpa Bill, my Mom and Grandma Joyce at our reunion this year in August.

Almost everyone! What a posterity Grandma Joyce has. :)

And I couldn't resist posting this picture of Chelsea's arm and Grandma Joyce's arm. This was at the reunion in August and Chelsea was reaching over to her. It was adorable. It made Grandma smile. I remember the last thing Grandma said to me the last time I saw her, "you have a beautiful baby." 

You are loved and missed Grandma Joyce!

One of Those Days.

It was one of those days. You know one of those days when it's hard raising an autistic child. One of those days where you think you're making forward progress and then feel like you're taking steps back. One of those days you're grateful for that child, but wish they could just be "normal" so you don't look like a bad parent or get really embarrassed. One of those days that you cry over simple things people say or do throughout the day because they are so kind. One of those days where you realize how short life really is. One of those days where you need to count your blessings.

Daddy Daughter Dance

Our Stake put on a Daddy Daughter Dance last Friday night. I guess it was a western theme, but not too many people knew about that. They had a craft for the girls to do, taught them some dancing and served a dessert. Kate was looking forward to this night. She was SO excited to go. Lindsey was excited to go too. She likes to do whatever the bigger kids are doing. Chelsea wanted in on the picture action and actually cooperated. She cried when they drove away without her.

I put a little bit of pink lipstick on Kate. She was in heaven. She begs me to let her wear lip gloss and I always tell her it's only for dress-up. She's going to be like me and try to wear makeup as soon as she can. I had to wait until I was 13 to wear make-up and 15 to wear lipstick. I sneaked out of the house wearing some mascara before I was 13. I got in big trouble. My sisters and Mom said I needed to wear some lipstick (like around age 14) to add color to my face, but yet they still wouldn't let me wear any because they had to wait so I had to. haha! Oh the joys of growing up. 

I loth my tooth!

Preston lost his FIRST tooth last week. He came up to me after dinner with a very worried look on his face (the look of "I did something wrong") and said, "My tooth broke." I looked at his tooth and it was super loose and bleeding. I asked him if he broke it on trying to bite off a lego (he uses his teeth all the time to take apart the lego pieces) and he told me no. Then it dawned on me that he was almost 6 so of course it's that time when he'll lose his teeth! I felt bad that he was so worried he was going to be in trouble, thinking he broke his tooth! I took him into the bathroom and got a kleenex for better grip on the tooth, but honestly all I had to do was barely pull it out and it came out! It was so easy. He didn't even cry. He just had a surprised look on his face because he was unsure of what was happening. Once the bleeding stopped, he checked out his new smile and stuck his tongue through the space and thought that was pretty cool. Kate was excitedly telling him that he can put the tooth in the tooth fairy pillow and the tooth fairy will come and he'll get money. He was adamantly saying that he didn't want to do that. He didn't want the tooth fairy to come. Once we were up in his room after bath time, I asked him if he was scared of the tooth fairy and he said "yes". Awww, I have never thought about the tooth fairy being scary, but it is kind of weird to say, "put your tooth in this pillow and the tooth fairy will come into your room and give you money for your tooth." He didn't want the tooth fairy to come in his room, that scared him. Once we told him the tooth fairy was nice he was okay with it as long as the tooth pillow was on the windowsill and NOT on his bed. ha! 

The next morning he came in my room and exclaimed, "Look Mom, I got a dollar from the tooth fairy!" He was all smiles and excited. I took him to the dollar store after Kate got home from school. He chose a green four wheeler toy. Here's to growing up little buddy!

School Report...after a few days

The first few days of school have been successful. Preston likes Kindergarten and is always so excited to say "hi" to his teacher Mrs. Hooper. He says it to her several times a day. :) He has come home with green and blue stamp dots (which green means he is ready to learn, blue means he did a great job, yellow is not good and red is bad). I was perfectly happy with him getting green and then he came home on Monday with a blue one and was so happy to tell me. I was happily surprised! I hope he keeps it up! I'm going to be helping out in his classroom every few weeks. A couple of my friends and I are switching off watching kids and volunteering. It will be fun to be in class with him and meet his classmates. I did it with Kate when she was in Kindergarten and it was fun to know who she was talking about and to see how the class was ran.

Kate had an eventful first day of 3rd grade. She had an incident at school that made her sad and embarrassed. Her teacher called me in the afternoon explaining what happened. It was partly the teacher's fault and so she was apologizing for the misunderstanding. When I picked Kate up from school I thought she would immediately talk about what happened and instead she asked me how Preston's first day of school was. Bless her heart! She wanted to know how he did and if he liked it. I was the one that had to bring up what had happened with her. We talked about it and she wasn't mad at her teacher. She was fine. I'm glad she is resilient and really glad she likes school still. She's nervous because her teacher is strict. Her teacher told the class this. So now Kate keeps saying how strict she is. She is definitely more strict than her previous teacher and their reading log is quite the process to fill out so I'm groaning over that. ha! But overall, I'm excited for her and what she gets to learn this year.

School Is In Session!

School started Wednesday Sept 4th for them. They were both excited to go. Preston had Kindergarten Orientation yesterday. The parents stayed in the classroom while the kids took a tour of the school and played outside. He goes today for his first real day. Preston is transitioning into general education Kindergarten. I'm nervous for him. I hope he listens and is nice to others and that others are nice to him. He is excited to go to Kate's school though. It's only a half day. He was used to going to all day preschool last year. I need to plan things for him to do in the afternoon. This half day might be harder on me than him! Kate will be going into 3rd grade and she will go an hour longer this year. She's a good student so I know she'll do great. 

I asked him to stand still so I could get a picture and he threw his hands up in the air the last minute. It was cute. Hooray for Preston!

He got to coloring right away. He loves his desk and chair. 

This is at Back to School Night on Tuesday night where we got to meet the teachers, get a free book and an ice cream sandwich. Preston wouldn't hold still for a picture with Ms Hooper. Little Stinker! I'm glad he got her as a teacher. Kate had her and she was great. I hope he does well and is good! There are two other kids from Church in his class, Wilson and Kali. I'm glad they are in there with him.

Kate has Miss Allyson Johnson for 3rd grade. She seems nice. Kate was relieved and excited. She was nervous because she didn't know Miss Johnson, but I reminded her that she didn't know any of her other teachers and she has loved them so it was going to be alright. 

Summer Finale

My Mom made the girls matching summer dresses. I love them. I'm grateful for a Mom who can sew! I call her my Vera Wang.

My Parent's were coming over to Gig Harbor to see my cousin who got home from his mission on Thursday night. We had friends going through the temple for the first time on Friday night and getting sealed as a family on Saturday so my Mom offered to take our kids so we could go to both. I was so excited! This was our 2nd time being without our kids overnight. I met them in North Bend on Friday morning and they took my car with my kids and I took their car. It was weird being kidless and free. I didn't know what to do first! It was exciting! My front room was so clean for so long. I actually had to go visiting teaching, buy Kate ballet stuff and make Relief Society handouts. So nothing too exciting. Then, I met up with Kyle down by his work. We went out to dinner to Cheesecake Factory then to the Temple. Kayla and Ethan Giles were going to the Temple. We were glad we got to go with them. After the Temple we came home and changed before heading out to an Improv Show in Seattle. It started at 10:30pm so it was a late night for us. Kyle was hesitant to go. He said we were too old for this stuff. I wanted to live it up! We went and had fun until one of the actresses fell during a skit and broke her ankle. She played along at first, but then they realized she was hurt really bad. She couldn't even stand up with help. They called 911 and sent us home. We got free passes for another show so maybe we'll live it up again sometime soon. The next day we did random things around the house and chilled. Then, we went out to lunch for Thai and went back to the Temple for the Giles' sealing. It was beautiful. Their kids were so well behaved. It was neat to be there. They had good family and friend support. We headed to Mattawa after that.

In the meantime...my Parents were brave and took our kids to the Ellensburg Parade and Fair on Saturday morning. They had fun and it was hilarious to hear their stories with the kids. Preston poured water on a stranger's foot, Kate cried when they couldn't ride the rides, Chelsea was squealing over something and I'm sure Lindsey did something too. haha! It was so nice of them to take our kids! They had a fun time seeing animals and doing different activities in the Frontier Village.

On Sunday, we went into Tri-Cities to go to Church with Dee Ann. It was kind of nice going to a ward with lots of youth and families. She made us a ham dinner with a fresh peach pie, yum. She gave the kids some new coats for school, which was so nice. We let Chelsea take a nap and visited with her. Then we went to visit Arlene. We strapped Chelsea in a stroller so she couldn't roam around and break everything. ha! We headed back to Mattawa and my Mom made spudnuts and caramel apples. Jeni & Kevin and Sara & Derek were there. 

We had our last summer hoorah on Labor Day at my parent's house. The kids swam and tested out the new twisty slide my Dad put up. My Dad, Kyle, Kevin and Derek went motorcycle riding on Monday up above Ellensburg. The rest of us hung out at home and Sara cut almost everyone's hair. She was nice to do that. We keep her busy with all the girls in our family. It was good timing for my kids because school starts this week for them. Sara ended up giving A-line bobs to me (I always have one), Kate, Lindsey and Paige. We were joking that the guys were going to get one too!

Camping Adventures

We went camping to Ensign Ranch with Jeni & Kevin and their kids and Marci. It would be an understatement to say we had fun. The kids were looking forward to this all summer. We had planned it back in March. My parents and Sara & Derek came out on Friday for the day. It was fun to have them and maybe next year they'll actually camp with us. :) We did lots. We rode bikes everywhere and called ourselves the Buttercream Gang (like the old school movie), we canoed, did the slip n' slide, rode horses, did the rope swing, did impromptu skits, swam in the river, played Mexican Train, ate lots of yummy food and got dirty.

Picture overload here!!! Thanks to Sara the photographer I had lots of pictures to choose from. It was hard to leave some out!

On Friday morning, we had the slip n' slide to ourselves. It was chilly, but we got used to the water. We went down the slide a lot and made trains galore. Kevin, Marci and I were the brave ones to go down the slide.

Lindsey and Hailey would sit in their little chairs and have cute conversations. My Mom brought back to school kits for the kids and so they had fun coloring in their little books.

We found a rope swing and the kids loved it. They went on it a million times.

Zane's face was killin' me in this picture. So serious!

We were loaded to the hilt! We had 4 bikes and a bike trailer on the hitch. Then the car was packed with kids squeezed in. Camping is a lot of work! So we make sure to go for 2 nights to make it worth it.

When Zane and Chelsea first saw each other Zane was giggling and it was so cute. Chelsea would stick her finger in his mouth and they had this baby conversation/interaction going on. It was pretty cute to watch.

Our Camp Home. Jeni and Kevin's tent is on the right, ours is straight ahead and Marci's tent is way in the back in the grove of trees that the kids found for her.

I was concerned I didn't bring enough clothes for Chelsea. The first 2 minutes we were there I changed her out of the romper she was wearing because of mosquitoes, then she ate watermelon and got sticky then fell on the ground. Thankfully, we made it through the weekend with enough clothes for her. :) We were laughing about it. She was all over the place though. She would climb on top of the tables and get into stuff. It was interesting! Thank goodness for the older kids that would entertain her or watch her so I could do stuff.

The kids were having fun in Jeni and Kevin's ginormous tent. I had tent envy. I wanted their big tent. haha!

Our tent, that I thought was big until I saw Jeni and Kevin's (ha), all neat and ready for sleepers. It didn't stay clean for long. The kids slept great at night. The first night I slept good and Kyle didn't. The second night I could not sleep and Kyle slept great. Gotta love camping!

Chelsea kept yelling for Kate and Kyle. She was trying hard to get to them.

I was trying to get a picture of our bicycle gang. It was fun to ride bikes everywhere and go exploring. We haven't brought our bikes before when we've come camping with Kyle's family (we just brought the kids' bikes) and I'm glad we did.

This picture of Preston cracks me up because first, he is wearing Kate's old pink water shoes, I didn't want to buy new ones. He didn't care. Secondly, he was stuck in the tube like this and couldn't get out. It was hilarious. He finally got the hang of how to go down and get out on his own. He is Mr. Independent.

Kate found a little frog in the slip n' slide water.

I love the picture of my Mom painting her nails while camping. I actually painted mine right before her. haha! Jeni and Kevin are in the background getting the grill ready for dinner. We had yummy food like BBQ bacon burgers, tri-tip and chicken shish kabobs, french toast, pancakes, grilled chicken BBQ wraps and croissant sandwiches.