Decisions, Updates, and an Afternoon Outing

 I have a really hard time making decisions. Seemingly simple things like, what kind of ice cream to buy, what to make for dinner, etc. can be really hard and take a long time!! It's not something I like about myself, I just don't know how to be so confident in knowing exactly what I want and what to do at every moment of life. There's a lot of big (for real big) life decisions we're having to make right now, and it's stressful. If it's not keeping me awake at night, they sneak into my crazy dreams, haunting me all day and night. I understand it's part of being an adult. And I know at some point I actually DO have to make a decision and go with it whole-heartedly. But sometimes I just wish somebody would just tell me exactly what to do and when. I'm pretty good at following directions, just not making decisions.

I haven't talked about the kids specifically for a while, so I'll do a quick update. You know, for family journaling.
Kelsey: She is so ready to potty train. Before she would just sit on the toilet fully clothed and yell "Moooom, come and wiiiiipe me!" (just like Madison does). But now she's actually taking off her pants and diaper and getting on the toilet. I never enjoy potty-training. But it looks like I need to bite the bullet because she really wants it. And heck, I want it to, I just dread the process of getting to no diapers :). I've never had the older child be potty trained before the next baby came. I've also never had one be 2 years old before the next one was born, so I'm very excited at the thought of only one in diapers.
Whenever I tell her, "Kels, you're so cute." She says, "No you're so cute!" And we go back and forth telling each other "No you're cute!" haha. It's a fun game. But now she ends it pretty quickly by saying, "We're ALL cute!" :) We took her crib down the week I left for Utah. Not because I was rushing to get her out of a crib, but because she was climbing out of it every night and getting on the bunk bed with her sisters. So we decided it was safer to just get rid of it and have her sleep there anyway. Obviously that's what she wanted. It's pretty cute because she is a snuggly little girl and will sleep right up close to (or on top of) whoever is on the bottom bunk with her. She is often playing "kitty" and crawls around the house "meow-ing". She likes to sit up at the table with us in the morning and she asks me for "school work". So I give her an old workbook to color in and she feels like a big kid.

Madison: Another milestone in the family, Madi has recently crossed over into not needing pull-ups at night anymore! I'm so excited about this! The only thing is she will wake up during the night crying because she needs to go potty and is just delirious and not fully awake. But I'm proud of her. She is very excited about a new baby, and often tells me how big my tummy is. She's entering a new phase of being very defiant. She's normally a very sweet-natured and easily-persuaded child. But lately she's decided she has a mind of her own and things should operate on her schedule and by her ideas. I recognize her desire and need to have a little more control in her life, because it's often over little things that she reacts so horribly about. So we're working on that. But she is very sweet and is concerned about what Heavenly Father thinks about her behavior. One time after she had thrown a big fit about sleeping with Brynlee's blanket instead of her own at nap time. She had finally calmed down and she said, "what is Jesus saying now?"
She's a big girl and is always just one size behind Brynlee. So she just inherited all of Bryn's 4T clothes, and Brynlee is now in 5. Now that's she's a little older and more capable of keeping up, her and Ty and Bryn make up quite the trio and have a lot of fun together.

Brynlee: Her love language is so apparent and strong I never have a hard time wondering what she needs. The way she expresses and needs love is through physical touch. She still snuggles right up next to me or puts my arm around her and lays on me when I'm reading books to everyone. She needs lots of hugs every day! :) Sometimes that's one good thing about having a dog, is she can go to him to snuggle when I'm busy or not available. But our dog is pretty stupid and not always nice, so it doesn't work as well as I would like it to. That was one of my reasons for getting a dog--but Jake is sort of a dork. Anyway.
For the longest time I struggled teaching Brynlee. Ty was always so easy and picked things up really quickly, and even enjoyed doing school stuff. But with Bryn and her very short attention span, I have had to learn a whole new approach. Everything needs to be very light, and in a game-form. I was often so frustrated with how much I tried and tried to teach the same things over and over for months, and seemed to be getting nowhere. But lately we seem to have somewhat of a break through and she is all of the sudden ready and interested. Before she wouldn't (or acted like she couldn't) read from a paper or book. But whenever I pulled out the bananagrams and we just made up words for her to sound out, it was a fun game and she could do it. We're finally making our way through our Bob books and other beginning readers and she's slowly but steadily progressing. I still am careful to not push too much on her. She has just a very carefree and flower-child spirit. She will make believe and play happily all day long. I just try to sneak in teaching things without being too formal. She's now doing piano also from me, and that is kept very short too :).
One funny thing about Bryn is that she is so small and skinny, but yet she is probably our heaviest walker. She just stomps around as if she weighed 3 times what she does. I can't figure out how one little girl can be so very loud! Lol
I helped her count her money in her piggy bank the other day and she said, "I have enough to buy a whole tractor!"

Tyler: He is one of my "big decisions" I talked about earlier. I don't know what to do with him next year. I was so certain I was going to put him in public school. But I go back and forth every day. Mostly because he doesn't want to go. He is practically begging me to not make him go. I think he would like it if he were there, because he loves other kids so much. But he's concerned that he won't have the time he wants to build Legos, and do his artwork, and play outside. Which is true...but I don't know. When it's the long, dark, winter days I am dying for him to have something more to do. And heaven knows we have long enough winters here in Alaska. But when the sun is out, like it is now, I just don't know if I'm ready to give up our freedom and be so tied down to a school's schedule. He is doing great though, and is not behind in anything so I know this is working for him. We'll see...
Some funny things Tyler said lately: He held something up and said "look Mom! This was made in China!" I said, yeah most things are made in China. He said, "Why? Is it because China is so awesome?!"
Kenny and I are immature and still think "your mom" jokes are funny. So we still say it to each other a lot, jokingly. The other day we were looking at an ad on craigslist and I said, "It sounds pretty sketchy." Kenny: "Your mom's pretty sketchy." Tyler: "It sounds like you guys are always comparing your parents." Hahaha.
Last one. Kelsey was jumping and almost fell off the couch and Tyler says "That was so scary I almost had a heart attack in my brain!"

Here's some pictures from an outing to our favorite Beluga Point yesterday. As soon as we round the corner and I can see the water and those gorgeous mountains I just instinctively take a deep breath. We love it there.

Looking for whales. Brynlee made all sorts of claims about all different varieties of whales :).

Sketching the mountains. He finished it in the car because it was so windy and cold.

This rock looked like a heart to me.