Yin Yang Siblings

It's no secret that sibling rivalry is real.  My kids are no exception to the rule.  We have certain dynamics in our family that just are.

When we are going on an airplane, we put Elise with Miles.  Monet with Simone or Soren.  Or Elise and Monet together.   The rule of thumb is that Miles and Monet are not the ones to group together for the sake of all those who have to sit by them.  

They were just the cutest little pals when they were little.  Monet would want to be touching Miles at pretty much every second.  So much so that when we put Miles in his carseat, he would automatically stick his hand out for Monet to hold.  She hang onto his leg with one hand when I was carrying him in the sling.  She loved to be touching him pretty much all the time.  She would climb in his crib to entertain him when he woke up.  She was so adoring of him and he let her mother him.  They invented all kinds of creative games and played so great together.  

But somewhere along the way they became opposites.  Miles has a love of teasing.  Monet expects rules to be followed and values fairness.  They have to share a bathroom, this can create conflict.  So basically, they bug each other regularly.

I know they love each other and will be just fine in a few years.

It seems those years are coming more quickly than I anticipated.  Monet's guy friends LOVE Miles.  Last weekend they were playing Xbox with him and this weekend they invited Miles to come to the store with them.  They tell Monet that "following your brother on Instagram is the best thing ever."  And yesterday they invited Miles to come hang out with them.  They are amused by his music and pretty much all the random stuff he's into.  They think he is hilarious.

All I know is that those guys just became my favorite friends of Monet's.  It will be interesting to see how this develops.  So far Monet seems amused.  

Miles's ally Elise is going to be moving out soon.  So I'm hoping these two can find their harmonious yin yang.  Because Elise has been a real stabilizing force for the positivity of the sibling relationships in the family.  

2022 Update:

Monet and Miles are BFF's and go to all the BYU games together.  Sometimes she finds that Miles has been invited to hang out with her friends, instead of her!  Its funny how dynamics change.  These days Simone and Miles are the ones that can't be combined although they seem to be turning a corner.

January gets away from me again

How can it have been like six weeks since I updated the blog?

Thats crazy.  January wasn't nearly so busy as the past few years, but still, it was.  And it kinda sucked.

I had to ask myself why we decided trips in January were not a good idea?  By the end of the month I was really needing to get out of the gloominess.  The weather has actually been pretty good. But my motivation for doing anything healthy left me in December and I am really needing to get a handle on this.  For whatever reason, I just didn't feel good.  Don't even know why.

But the good news:  No more vertigo episodes!  Yay!  Since the beginning of February I've felt really good.   I'm not taking anything currently and they are just gone.  I wonder what it was that made them come back.  Stress, food sensitivities, I wish I could pinpoint.

Here is what we've been up to:
Basketball games!  BYU Games, the girls rec ball games, Lone Peak games, we love them all
College applications and essays.  Yes the BYU application had 6 essays and multiple interviews and required lots of phone calls because who knew we created a login for her when she was 11 and attended basketball camp.  What a pain.  But its done.
Birthday week, Anniversary, Valentines Day.
The start of Track and Lacrosse!  Super excited for both of these!  Monet ran a mile indoors at a race last week and she got 5:32.  Wow!  So happy for her.  Taylor got 5:36.  So incredible because she has only been running for a few months.
Dominican Republic Girls Trip with Deb!  She was nice enough to let us use her buddy passes and booked a little getaway for Skye's annual b-day trip.  It was so relatively cheap and fun!
I'm determined to get fluent in Spanish.  I'm working every night on my Spanish and I'm loving it!  I'm using the Duolingo app.
Miles had girls over.  And we figured out a way to make him stop being so annoying to Elise and Monet's guy friends when they come over.  He loves to embarrass his sisters and say rude/embarassing things when he is trying so hard to be funny.  He actually is pretty funny most of the time.  But we have to keep him in check.  So on Valentine's Eve we told him that any time he embarrassed his sisters we would deliver fake valentines to girls and say it was from him.  Lol.  It scared him.


Elise started Track.  She didn't really want to go the other day.  Its hard to go to track when you really just want a nap before lax practice.  But I convinced her to go and said if she went and ran the 3 miles, I would run three miles at a 9:30 pace which is actually hard for me right now since I'm way out of shape.  She did it in 24 minutes and surprised herself and I did it in 28:34 and almost died.  Lol.  It was way hard but I really loved the challenge.  This week I really need to get a solid 5 days of working out in and get back on track.

Valentine's Day

He really wanted to try the tomahawk steak!

Valentine's day has been a kind of family celebration around here since we have our anniversary the week before.  But our kids all had plans this year!  And I was traveling home from DR on our anniversary.  So this year we went to the Jazz Game and Ruth's Chris.  We had Acai Bowls for breakfast and I gave Jared and the kids the kind of Valentine's that dad used to give me.  Soren was so cute and just loved his "love letter" and wanted me to read it with him again the next night.

He's been making the family love cards for a few months and he was disappointed when no one gave him one in return.  We just didn't know how important it was to him.  So Valentine's Day was a great day for Soren too.  He's the cutest!

Dominican Republic Girls Trip

This was so much fun!  My friend Deb works for Jet Blue and gets some great deals on flights .  So for the past couple years she's taken Skye's friends on a trip in February when the flights are not as full, since she has to fly standby and that can be tricky with a group of kids.

She invited me to come along this time.  I wasn't sure because the timing was such a busy week, but when I told Elise she said, "oh come that would be so much fun if you came" and I was so flattered that she wanted me there I decided to go.

It was a blast!  Deb and I found a place in Punta Cana on Bavaro Beach.  Such a fun airbnb!  Great price too.  We even rented a van, which I probably wouldn't have done on my own.  But the roads weren't as scary as in some Latin American countries.

DR has some incredible beaches!  Macao was our favorite.  Great food, restaurants nearby.  We like the Wacamole and D'Angelos Pizza place around the corner from our place.  Citrus also looked good but we never made it there.  We also liked Joy Nutritional Popsicle.  Lol such a funny name.  But the Passionfruit popsicles were THE bomb.  I don't recommend the acai/smoothie bowls.  Basically it was a picture of a smoothie bowl loaded with fruit.  But what they brought me was a runny smoothie with corn flakes sprinkled on it and one SLICE of a strawberry.  Hahaha!  It was lots of fun practicing my Spanish when I went to complain.  Donde estan las frutas?  Solamente una fresa!  No me gusta.  Lol.  According to my Duolingo app I'm 36% fluent!  

Deb and I were a little nervous about the crappy locks on our airbnb and all these beautiful girls we were traveling with!  There were lots of guys hanging around the buildings.  But there were also lots of security guards.  We had a weird cement foot doorstop and the house rigged for intruders.  We felt like we were the security detail all week.  Any guys get too close the mamas (Deb and I, the Dominicans kept saying, "you the mama?") moved in on them to shoo them away.

The girls loved surfing at Macao!  The beaches there have perfect beginner waves.  Deb rented a couple surfboards and the girls headed into the waves.  Pretty soon the surf instructor guys were helping them just to be nice.  Wink.  When we arrived at Macao, the guys selling things swarmed us.  But after a few minutes they move on and we had the beach mostly to ourselves!  It was so nice.  We loved the real pina coladas in a pineapple.  There were several people that wanted to take pictures with the girls.  I felt like I was traveling with celebrities.  It was pretty funny actually.

We played codenames at night and watched movies.  We found the Super Bowl and it was quite a challenge to change all the settings and find the right channel so we could watch it in English.  But we finally figured it out.

Bavaro was fun too but windy.  It was nice at nice and the perfect temperature.  But it wasn't as nice as Macao.

We wanted to explore a little more and go to church but our tire was flat Sunday morning and we had to stay home.

If we had a few more days we would have ventured to Saona Island or Catalina Island.  Both are incredibly beautiful but we just didn't have the time.

Superbowl Sunday!  We were proud when we found it on the TV in English

We were mocking the girls.  :)