My girls have been so sweet these days. We have rough moments, but mostly I'm just loving and drinking in being their mom right now. Willa is still independent, stubborn, and a little self-conscious, but I also see so much growth and maturity. The other day we were hurrying to get going and she was putting her socks and shoes on by herself. Trying to hurry us up, I surreptitiously started putting the sock and shoe on the other foot hoping she wouldn't notice. Well, of course she noticed but instead of totally losing it, she said, "Oh, you remember Mama, that's my job." It was such a calm response! In still in shock a little bit about it.

She's got a lot of love to give and a lot of excitement for life. I hope she always stays excited and young. I love that right now she's more interested in Octanauts than in My Little Ponies right now and that she loves Dr. Seuss books and Mo Willems. They seem much more innocent and childlike than Barbie books or princess books. Of course she likes those too, but she forgets about them pretty quickly and loves to come back and back to Pigeon and Elephant and Piggie. In fact, she has all of them memorized so that she can "read" them with us. She probably has over fifteen books that she can recite to us at any given time. Of course, she's extremely frustrated whenever we get a new one because she tries to read it right away, but doesn't know the words and gets angry if we try to help her. I've noticed that she's started recognizing and trying to sound out words. She'll get the first letter and then guess at a word that begins with that letter. I can't believe that she's figuring these things out!

Here we are at Savers having just found her new bicycle! ( Ignore the transition lenses on her glasses!) Ryan and I were talking this morning about whether not she wishes she had a new bike or even knows the difference between a new and second hand one. I'm sure if she saw them next to one another she would know, but I like to think that we're still creating good memories with shabbier things. I hope she looks back fondly on driving out to the second hand store to find her a bicycle and how excited we were when we found a purple one that was just the right size. I'm not against buying new things, I love new things, but I also love deals and it feels great to pay $8 instead of $80.

Willa has been really into making these crowns. She draws them, cuts them out, and then decorates them. She even came up with the idea of taping a strip of paper around the back.

Willa rides a bike!

Willa sure is having a lot of experiences lately! This past Wednesday she learned how to ride a bike. The Thalmans were coming our direction to see Kim's grandpa in the hospital so they dropped off the children and their bikes at our house. Willa has been asking for a bike "with pedals and no training wheels!" For quite some time and had even mentioned it earlier that morning. I have just put her off, thinking that we might get one for her fifth birthday in October.

Even when the Thalmans unloaded their bikes I didn't think Willa would try it, but then Kim plopped her on Bridgett's bike and the rest is history. She has been very steady on her strider balance bike for quite a while, so when Kim put her on the real thing she balanced fine but didn't realize that she needed to pedal. As soon as we told her (and kept reminding her) to pedal, then she was off. The first time with Kim, Kim wasn't really holding on to her, just touching for reassurance. On her second try I helped her, but again it was really just touching for reassurance and reminding her to pedal, I even took my hand off a second or two. On her third try, I let go and got out my phone to video it. She was a little stressed when I let go, but got really happy when she realized that she was doing it.

I texted Ryan the video and he replied, "What? Without me?!" It was almost without me too, it happened so fast! Ryan was excited to get home and Willa was more than excited to go out and show him what she could do. They spent some time out practicing together and by the end of the evening she could start up on her own, make turns, and was basically just biking laps up and down the street.

The Thalmans were leaving the next day for California, so they graciously left Bridgett's bike with us so that we could have something to practice on. The next morning, I put off a long-procrastinated trip to Savers. We took stuff to donate that had been sitting in the garage because they give you a 20% off coupon when you donate. I wasn't expecting much, but low and behold, there was one, small, purple bike there! It was $10, then 20% off :). It's definitely used and one of the pedals is a little broken, but I figured it would do us for a while. If it was really horrible, it was only $8 lost. We got home, took the training wheels off, pumped the tires up, and Willa was off! The bike still needs a tune-up from Rob, but it was worth $8.

Ryan came home during his lunch that day to ride with Willa. Hooray for living six minutes away from work! She was having the best time and still loves, loves, loves to ride her bike. I can't believe how steady she is! She's actually much steadier than Bridgett, who has been riding for a few weeks, but learned from training wheels. I was 100% convinced on using a balance bike before, but now I'm 150% convinced, if that's even possible. Learning to ride was a total joy, no tears, no falls, no frustrations. It made it the happy experience that we all hoped to have when we were little but that we never did because we all had training wheels first. It was such a difference to have her hop on that bike and already balance it, whereas with training wheels once you take the trainers off, you still have to learn to balance and ride it.

This is a video from the second day when Ryan came home during lunch. You can see how steady she is!

Ryan and I were just so happy for her. We both remember when we first learned how to ride a bike. It's a seminal experience of childhood and she's had it and it was positive! It's also so strange to us that she could be making memories right now that she will actually remember. So, three cheers for Willa and three cheers for balance bikes!

Willa starts piano

Willa started piano lessons at the beginning of March. I've hemmed and hawed for a long time about whether to start her. In Suzuki, you can start as early as three, but sometimes it feels like those lessons are more exercises in sitting still. I kind of wanted to delay also to save money since I knew she would progress faster when she was older anyway, but sometimes progression is not the main point. I finally decided to start her because she is bored and would enjoy some more enrichment. She misses the kindergarten deadline by fourteen days this fall, so we have a whole extra year to have her home. I feel like piano is something we can do during this year (and beyond) that she will enjoy and be challenged by. It will also be nice to get in the habit of lessons and practice before we are locked into the craziness of a school schedule.

Our stake choir pianist used to be the president of the Las Vegas Music Teachers' Association and is really involved in pedagogy and the music community here. She usually takes five year olds, but said she would take Willa at four since she can sit and focus well. I decided to put Willa with a really good teacher opposed to someone who just teaches in the ward for several reasons. First of all, I wanted someone experienced because Willa is so young. This teacher knows how to work with young students. Second, I want Willa to have a solid base. She's not necessarily going to become a prodigy and go on and do professional piano for the rest of her life, but if she loves it and wants to continue on, this is the teacher to start with. If she doesn't care for it as much as she grows, we can dial it back and go to a less demanding teacher, but it's difficult to go the other way (from poor teacher to better) after bad technique and practice habits have been formed. It's so much more fun as a harp teacher to get a new student who is kind of a blank slate. It's hard and frustrating (especially for the student) if they are coming from a less demanding teacher and I have to slow them way down to fix hand position, fingering, and other bad technique. It's just better to start well then to spend the whole time fixing.

This teacher holds regular recitals and organizes her students into piano duos, trios, and quartets which will be so much fun. I think it's important to have group lessons with other students to be motivated and also to make friendships. She also emphasizes a lot of theory and it's naturally worked into the curriculum, which is so important. She won't be totally lost in college theory and dictation if she sticks with this. Our teacher says she has her students reading two full octaves by the end if two months, which really well. If/when we do harp later on she will progress very quickly. 

Which brings me to the last question: why not just start her on harp? I feel like piano is a basic life skill. If you can play piano, you can always help and serve others. You can always make basic music. Most places have a piano, you can own a basic piano fairly inexpensively, especially with all the great digital pianos there are these days. Even in college, other music majors have to take a basic piano skills class. Harp is more of a specialty instrument. The harp is also very physically difficult as far as technique goes and it's difficult for little kids. I was originally thinking of starting her at five, but now with piano I might wait an extra year or two. Growing up in my house, I always felt like I could quit harp, but piano was non-negotiable.

Her teacher wrote her name and the date of her first lesson in the front of her book. Isn't that cute? I'm excited that now we'll always know when she started and how old she was.

Lessons are going really well. It amazes me how much coordination it takes and also how well she progresses. We'll have several days of not getting it, not getting it, not getting it, and then suddenly she can do it. It's so difficult to have good articulation with your fourth finger and to have it move independently. In the beginning, she could not move it and then it would move when she was trying to play her fifth finger. We made a joke about it and would scold her finger saying, "Four! It's not your turn!" Willa thought that was hilarious. Then one day the finger just did it. It was exciting! I also feel like her behavior has improved a little the past few weeks, less defiance and meltdowns. It might be my imagination, but I think having the one-on-one time to practice everyday is good for her. She craves one-one-one and practicing together is something that fulfills that and that we have in common together, just the two of us. She loves to practice and will ask to do it several times a day. Some sessions are more effective than others, but sometimes she will sit and concentrate for thirty minutes at a time. Other times, we have to take a break after five minutes, but she's always happy to do it again later.

Here's a little video from her first lesson.

At the end of January, Ryan was flying to Ohio for his dad's birthday, so I decided to drive up to St. George for the weekend to see my brother's family and their new house. It ended up being their anniversary, so my brother took his wife to Vegas for a getaway weekend and my parents came down to watch their boys, so we had a fun weekend with grandparents and cousins but missed Curtis and Jenn. The girls had a blast. The house was so beautiful and the area was perfect. I think St. George would be a very nice place to live.

The house has a little putting green.

And a pickle ball court!

Cousin love at the dinosaur museum

More cousin shenanigans

The girls love their Grandpa Knoles. June especially follows him around and then climbs up next to him on the couch to snuggle. Whenever we Skype with my mom or pretend to call her on a fake phone, June always asks for grandpa.

We are so happy to have more family living nearer to us and can't wait to go back for another visit. With my brother down here, half the grandchildren are now further south, so we get a lot more grandparent visits, which is always very, very, very fun for us. As the girls are getting older, they constantly want to be visiting grandma's house or have grandma visit them. There has been a lot of construction of new houses around here, and one of Willa's friends is moving to Utah so we've had discussions with her about what it means to move, etc. She asked this week if we could move to a house by grandma's house so that we could live close. It was so cute. I tried to explain that daddy's work is here.

Willa starts dance

Willa has been talking about dance lessons for a while now. I'm not sure where she got the idea from, maybe Katerina Kitty Cat? I finally got my laziness onto the computer to sign her up for a ballet/tap combo class at the Rec center. One thing I really disliked about Houston was that there were no local Rec centers. If you didn't have a neighborhood pool, you had to pay big bucks to join a gym in order to have a place to swim. (By the way, should Rec center be capitalized? Probably not, but it looks so strange and insignificant as "rec center".) Or, if you wanted to do dance or anything fun like that it was through a private and expensive studio. Luckily, Las Vegas has plenty of Rec centers that offer lots of classes and fun things (I'm even planning to do preschool next year at one).

For the cool price of $30, I signed Willa up for six weeks of dance class. Here is a little video of the day her tap shoes came in the mail. She was SO excited!

First day of class, SO excited!

The class is worth about the $30 we paid. They do a little ballet history, a minute or two going through the positions, and then a few minutes stretching. Then they follow the teacher as she dances in different styles to different music: classical, hip hop, etc. The teacher is a mystery and I'm not quite sure that she actually knows how to dance. She's not great with kids and left Willa high and dry once when she broke a nail and rushed to get a band-aid to try and save it, but all the girls in there are having a blast. I figure that it more of a body awareness class. Usually they try a grande jette and some other tricks each class and it's hilarious watching the girls try to figure out how to get their little bodies to move. It's tricky to run and then jump in the middle, or to jump and twirl and land on the other foot. It's a whole hour and Willa has a blast every time and June follows the teacher with her eyes and tries to imitate all the movements as she stays by me.

It's perfect for now and if Willa shows any special affinity or promise, then we can kick it up a notch and find something a little more professional. I doubt that will ever happen because I'm pretty sure she inherited my problems with spatial awareness and Ryan's unflexibility (the other girls are almost doing the splits and Willa's poor legs are totally bent to 90 degrees even with the teacher trying to stretch them out). So, we're just enjoying having some girly, no-pressure dancing going on!

Here's an unrelated photo of Willa with some new glasses on! She got her new prescription and Costco had some really cute frames. I love Costco and I'm excited they have an optical department, but as you see Willa holding our ticket in line, you can imagine that I also love the intimacy and service of a great stand-alone optical shop where you go in and immediately have two or three people assessing your needs and serving you. That definitely beats pulling a ticket and waiting with two rowdy girls in a shopping cart until your number comes up.

I've been scarce on the blog lately, I know. I was going to pick right on back up, but I decided to share what's been going on. A few weeks ago, I had a panic attack. At least, that's what I'm assuming it was. It was a combination of factors, but I think what happened is that I came off of a great visit with friends and feeling so happy and uplifted, then I got a little bit of a shock of not as great news from another friend that kind of put me in a tailspin. I think the combination of the high and the low concerning people who I love and care about just really set me off. When I went up to bed that night, my mind was just spinning and spinning and I could not get off the merry-go-round. I felt physically ill, I was nauseated, I was back and forth to the bathroom all night. It was pretty miserable and I hope I never, ever, ever feel it that badly again and I would never wish that feeling on my worst enemy.

Finally morning came and when Ryan woke up, I was able to talk to him - sometimes it's just so helpful to have someone to talk to! He gave me a blessing and that helped. Still, for the next several weeks I just could not shake this anxiety. In the beginning, I was anxious about a specific thing, but then as time wore on, I was just anxious. I constantly felt on edge, like the feeling before a big trip or airplane flight when I've packed everything, and I hope the girls will behave, and I hope our timetable works out, and I just really need to get started on the trip and be doing something rather than fretting. Except, there was no trip. It was the worst feeling. Running helped, prayer and scripture study helped, fasting and the temple helped, but it was still there. The best thing was just going about life and not thinking. Getting to the park with the girls and being outside helped.

It was just a vicious circle, I'd think, "Wow, I'm feeling so good. What was I feeling bad about before?" And then all the memories and emotions would rush back and I'd be back in the never-ending loop and feeling sick to my stomach. I even lost my appetite for several weeks. ME! I love food, the thought of not wanting food or wanting to eat was a foreign concept, but when I sat down to eat I could only force a few bites before I wanted to throw up. The good news is that I lost almost ten pounds, the bad news is that every time I stepped on the scale and a lower number would pop up, I'd freak out again and remember what was causing it all. Don't worry, my weight is heading back up into normal range now :) thanks to Valentine's and Easter candy and let's not forget that it's Girl Scout cookie season.

Anyway, I just couldn't get on the blog during that time. I just couldn't do it. I've calmed down now and feel mostly like my old self. The feelings are still there but I'm able to ignore them and move on with my life. Honestly, I think my feelings were illogical, but I'm not even at the place where I can look at them to evaluate them right now. I just need to let them go so that they don't take over my life - which is a pretty darn good life. I started reading a book on Mindfulness and doing some daily meditation, which I also think is helping.

I'm not looking for pity or comments or anything. I just want this blog to stay an honest place. I don't want to present a picture that everything is perfect all the time, because it's not. I'm not always going to get into the nitty gritty details of everything, but I want to share when things are rough. I'm not sure if this whole thing was hormonal, or if it was because now that our life is pretty calm and there is nothing to worry about, then my psyche will make something up, by darn. I just know that I've always been a worrier and I'll just give one example. When I was about twelve I got the stomach flu - the first time I'd ever gotten it. Well, for almost a year afterwards, every single night around the same time I would start to feel sick to my stomach. I couldn't shake it and I would start to worry and worry that I was getting sick again, which would make me feel sicker. I could only calm down and relax if I drank an alka seltzer, which is so disgusting, but it was my magic pill. So, there you have my neuroses, and it seems like I'm still the same person even as an adult, and it's just that the magic pills are harder to find. Don't worry though, things are going well and I hope to be back to regularly blogging again starting now.

June is two!!

We are having a little party tomorrow, but I just had to post quickly to commemorate today. When June woke up this morning, I carried her downstairs and she laid her head on my shoulder and snuggled a little. I felt the Spirit and strong emotion. June made us a family of four. She is such a joy and delight in our family. Ryan, Willa, and I tend to be a little in the serious side and June balances us out with zaniness, high-jinks, and vocal determination. A month or two ago I went to get her up from her nap and she was just jumping up and down and being silly and I just thought, "Who is this little spirit that was sent to us?" Honestly, it was the first impression I have had with my children that they were individual spirits sent here with their own personalities. I mean, I believed it before, but this felt more like a spiritual confirmation of it (I'm a little dense sometimes).

June talks, talks, talks, talks, TALKS! She repeats the last word of everything you say to her. The last two months she has been working hard to string two and three words together. She surprises me always with what she has observed and picked up. For example, in preschool two days ago we talked about whales. Today, there was a whale on Sesame Street and she immediately called out to me its name. Yesterday Willa was riding bikes out front with some neighborhood boys. One of the boys got called home and June came up to me and said, "Where Naphan (Nathan) go?" I barely remembered his name, but she knew it!

June has become quite the couch potato and loves television now that her attention span is a little longer. Her favorites are Elmo, Bo on the Go, and Daniel Tiger. When I'm searching for the shows on Netflix she will call out, "Tiger, 'ere are you?" She will call out this phrase at the grocery store for whatever food we are looking for. "Yogurt, 'ere a you?"

June loves her big teddy and also demands to be spoon fed her breakfast/lunch/dinner from teddy while watching a show. She's the Queen of Sheba. I've put up with it because it was the only way, but now she is getting incrementally better with food so hopefully we can be back at the table soon. I should add that I don't mind her not eating, I'm not trying to force food into a child who isn't hungry. She is actually extremely hungry in these situations and just stubborn enough to have a major tantrum and go to bed hungry (and then wake me up in the middle of the night) rather than to eat what and where she doesn't want to. For my own sanity, I've just had to give in. Now that she is more vocal, it's a little amusing. I sat her down with us at the table for dinner, she looked down at what I had put on her plate and said, "No."

Here is a little photo from our trip to Utah last week. She's a joy to be around and a terror too. She's also still the prettiest little girl and her hair is halfway down her back.