Do You Remember Dancing in September?

A smattering of recent activity in the Jolley household:

1. I'm pregnant. If you are surprised, that makes three of us! Dan was so surprised that all he could manage to sputter was, "How did this HAPPEN?" He will be attending a local fifth grade classroom presentation to learn about this topic later in the year. Though we are surprised, we are grateful to welcome this baby into our home sometime in April. June never acknowledged that I was pregnant with Gwen, even when I brought Gwen home from the hospital. This time, she's getting it. She told me that the baby shall be called "June" and she has told her teachers several times that her mother is "really big."

I'm sure you're dying to know how I'm feeling. I'll spare you the literally juicy details by saying--I've finally lost the last ten pounds I gained with Gwen!! Luckily, my mom came for a visit and relieved me for a few days. Moms are the best, especially my mom. 

2. June had her first primary presentation. And it was to-die-for awesome. I had to really work to get myself to church that Sunday, but I'm so glad I did. We worked on her parts for four weeks. June is the most visual learner on the planet, so I knew I would have to make her parts into a picture-story in order for her to learn it. I came up with something that actually worked. Revelation is real!

She had four pages like this, and she hit it out of the park. I was a bit nervous going in to the presentation though, because the primary president told me that every time they practiced, June did her part, but always added a little something "extra" and it was always something different. One day, she went off about Wilbur the Pig, another day she would sing, etc. On the big day, June walked up to the microphone with her toy giraffe in hand (she has to have a wiggle toy to help her sit through primary stuff), and yelled into the microphone "TESTING! TESTING! 123! 123!" Dan and I were laughing so hard we cried. I have no idea where she learned to say that. But she delivered her first part perfectly! And then laughed really hard into the microphone at the end.

Though we practiced the songs quite a bit and June is a great singer, she just doesn't get how to sing in a group setting. So instead of singing along with the rest of the primary, she played with her giraffe on her teacher's lap. Fine by me.

Her second part contained several references to the Savior, and when she would get to the part where I had put a picture of Jesus, she would yell, "Hey! It's Jesus Christ! YAY!" and then say the rest of her part. It was a good day. What was the best part was all of my fellow ward members cheering her on. Dozens of people came up to Dan and me afterward and told us how proud they were of June for doing her part. People are good.

3. June had her first homework assignment. AKA I had my first homework assignment to do for June.

4. Gwen has a favorite dress. Understatement of the year. This dress gets worn, clean or dirty, cold or hot, day or night. June used to wear it too, and it's the rattiest, grossest dress ever and is way too small for Gwen. So we just put a pair of pants underneath.

Playing ring around the rosies:

At the end of the song, during "we all fall down!", June helps a sister out and just pushes Gwen to the ground.

Older sisters. Sheesh.

5. My girls have already decided what to be for Halloween this year and it may seem familiar.

 Isn't June just a natural when it comes to smiling for pics?

There's that dress again. 

June has it in her head that Halloween = ladybug for her and bumblebee for Gwen, and I'm not fighting it. I love keeping things easy. This will be her third year in this costume and Gwen's second.

Since I spend most of the day in bed being sick, I appreciate Gwen's ability to make herself her own breakfast, lunch and dinner. She just dumps a whole cereal box in her trick or treat bucket and grazes on it throughout the day.

I should probably rename this post--Parenting isn't my strong suit. Nah, too much work. Back to bed.

Success is Making it to Friday

It's Friday! We are getting this back-to-school routine down.

We are getting through car line by packing a bunch of snacks, as evidenced by my many chins. We also have some landmarks we enjoy seeing everyday. The girls get just as excited as I do.

These huge trucks are about 3 houses down from the school.

June really enjoys school and is doing quite well.

 If that's the way you get a smiley face in pre-k, June will have NOOOOOOO problems.

Gwen is adjusting to being by herself by making new friends. Like with this bottle of honey she gets out of the pantry and plays with. Every day. So sad.

The girls are finally getting what to do when I ask them to take a picture. Still hard for them to stay still, pose AND make eye contact, so each photo is usually one or two of those. Still a vast improvement. And that dinosaur shirt is June's fave.

Dan twisted his ankle at a sports night at the church this week. We are going to make up a heroic story about his game-saving dive across the gym floor to spike the volleyball. But until then, we will stick to the truth of a chest-bump-gone-bad. Poor guy has been hobbling all week.

And I don't know how much you guys know about me or Becks in general. But we don't really buy stuff. We were raised by parents who never bought anything extra when we were out. It was a given that we weren't getting appetizers at the restaurant, we weren't getting popcorn at the movie theater, and you can FORGET IT about the glow stick or other junky toy at an amusement park. I have proudly held on to that tradition with my own family, but found myself buying this CD in a Walmart parking lot this week.

Looks totally like my type of music, right? I don't know what came over me, but the guy selling it had an air of an entrepreneurial spirit about him that I appreciated, so I bought the dang thing. I SHOULD have asked if it contained explicit language BEFORE I bought it, but quickly found that almost all of the names of the songs listed on the actual CD contained words that I don't appreciate. Especially words that degrade females that I have NO patience for.

Still, the first few songs seemed to be clean, and I started listening to some rap music on my way home. Not immediately, of course, because "I Want to Know What Love Is" by Foreigner was playing on the radio when I turned the car on. I pretty must have a cardinal rule that you can't change the station on that song. 

As a side note, there are PLENTY of songs I turn off no matter what, even if it means I have to sit in silence because those songs ANNOY me. "Hotel California" comes to mind.

Anyway, I listened to about 1.5 songs until the CD stopped working entirely. Totally worth every penny.

The moral of the story--Don't turn off Foreigner for a bad rap CD. I also think there might be a lesson to be learned about not buying an unknown rap CD from a guy in a Walmart parking lot, but I can't quite piece that one together yet.

June's First Day of Pre-K 2016

This morning was the first day of school. I wrestled a bit with the idea of June going back to school. I truly like having her around. I truly do not like rushing around in the morning arguing about whether or not she's a dog, or a mommy or Junebug and whether or not she has to wear shoes. So while I was kind of sad about the summer being over, there was a faint, yet-ever crescendo-ing Hallelujah chorus playing in my ear.

Summer is so fun, but this Jolley clan does better with a some structure. We started off the summer with several fun activities and daily learning and physical exertion and slowly morphed into wild animals with no schedule, no idea what day it was and no desire to wear non-elastic pants. And by "we", I of course am referring to myself. My work schedule took over with a vengeance a few weeks ago and the girls have been sitting around a lot. So school is a good thing.

June is the only 4-year old I know that is on her third public school experience. She is attending her second year of preschool in an ESE (Exceptional Student Education) classroom for kids with Varying Exceptionalities. 

 

June picked out these shoes and would have no others. Even though there were gold-sparkly tennies available. June pointed to these over and over, and I'd say, "yes! let's get those!" and then i would be sneaky and say, "oh but look at these gold sparklies! they are so much cooler!" and she would tell me no. 3 separate times.

Dan helped me haul June's stuff to the school this morning, and it's a good thing he did. Pre-schoolers have a lot on their supplies list. Even between the both of us, our hands were full of bags containing glue, fat crayons, a box of diapers (don't you be jealous of my diaper-wearing 4 year old!), wipes, extra change of clothes, etc. We even accidentally left her nap blanket and a couple of things behind. I don't remember having to bring this much stuff, but then again, I don't remember anything about being 4.

When you're the mom, you get to post photos where you are the only one looking halfway decent. It's one of the rules.

Every once in awhile, the girls show affection toward each other. The End Is Near.

Not to be outdone, Gwen requested her backpack this morning too. And I luckily found it in a pile in the girls' room. Organization is key!!

We took June to her classroom, where she quickly busied herself with a puzzle. We chatted with the teacher for a bit, and then went to say our goodbyes to June. I said, "June, can you give Mama a kiss? I'm going bye bye." To which she gave me the brick-wall hand, and without looking up from her activity, replied, "BYE."

Parting is such sweet sorrow.

Summer Moves Faster than My Hips on the Dance Floor

16 days ago I decided to stop eating sugar for awhile. I say "awhile" because the thought of putting a deadline on the thing makes me nervous and the whole point of the exercise is to help control my anxiety. Some of you may be thinking, "Heather! YOU have anxiety? I never would have thought!" And to you people, I say, "Hello random person reading my blog from France. I've always wondered who you were."

Because anybody within a 3 mile radius of me knows that Heather Jolley knows how to boogey with the Anxiety Monster.

So sugar increases anxiety. But lack thereof increases crankiness. My family is going to have a vote this weekend to see which mom/wife they prefer.

In an effort to have a treat to look forward to, I have started freezing yoplait yogurt for popsicles. I realize that it sounds just about as good as that ice cream-made-from-bananas deal that health nuts are always trying to push you to make, but it is a bit better than that.

In other news, Dan's braces came off Monday! Happy Day! He wore them for 20 months and was more than excited to get them off. Especially because he is already quite youthful looking and adding braces to that beautiful baby face has meant that he has often been stopped at the temple and other places to see if he is one of the youth (ages 12-18 in our church) instead of an actual, bona fide adult chaperone.

Worth every penny!

Gwen turned 2 yesterday, and the phone on my camera decided it wouldn't focus for anything, so these pics are the best I can do unfortunately.

Gwen's nickname at our house is "Destructo". There is not a sand castle in the state of Florida that stands a chance of survival when she arrives at that beach. She does, however, like to help clean up toys, and that makes up for the fact that she has ripped up more library books and colored on more walls than I currently care to discuss.

She is sweet and cuddly and just likes to be included. She runs across the room just to throw her arms around my neck and wants to stay there a long time. It's wonderful. She hates being stuck inside and still loves to carry around a good stick when she can find one.

I've been lucky enough to sub in nursery the past few weeks, and typically we only have Gwen and her best friend, Aaliyah, come. It's a pretty sweet deal for me.

My nursery rules are as follows: no one hurt anyone and let's have two snack times.

June continues with swim lessons, and I totally enjoy the free show that comes with it. Her teacher is a saintly college kid who swam competitively for the best swim school in the country, and yet I don't think he's ever had as challenging a time in the pool as he does at 8:30 a.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays with June. She LOVES the water and LOVES swimming, but struuggglllessss following directions and leaving her lala land personality behind. He often asks her, "June, do you understand what I just said?" to which she replies, "Yes!" but we all know that she doesn't. It's comical. That being said, she's actually learning a TON and is a pretty darn good swimmer.

And the miscellany. Lots of trips to the store, library and playing in water continue. We were able to take a couple of friends to the library a couple of weeks ago, and the girls aren't as satisfied with the experience without them now. Dan is obviously the fun parent who goes out and does the fun things and I sit inside and watch. I wonder why the prefer him? I'll never know.

The Worst Part Was When They Closed Their Eyes

Today's winner receives $200 Heather Bucks for naming the movie the today's blog title comes from.

This summer has been terrific and terrible. Exhausting and exhilirating!! Great and full of His Grace.

First up, we had June evaluated by a child psychologist because she struggles in so many different areas. June is 4 years old and cannot use the potty, cannot jump with both feet off the ground, struggles in her communication and loves playing by herself in her own world. After debating back and forth for two years, we finally decided to have her tested for a bunch of different things. The verdict? June was diagnosed with autism. She's in good company because she has two cousins--Heidi's son Reagan and Steve's son Joshua--who also have autism. It wasn't much of a surprise when she was diagnosed. Oddly enough, it was a relief to hear a licensed professional say that she saw what I saw. I have literally been losing my mind trying to figure June out.

Now that the words have had time to settle a bit, I have moments where I'm sad. But there are so many things that June is super good at, and she's honestly the most enjoyable kid I've ever met. So I know I'm lucky to have her. She adds a lot to our family.

Shortly after finding out, we headed to a Beck Family Reunion, which is probably the best thing we could have done. Unfortunately, I never take a lot of pictures at important things, so this is all I have:

The drive from Tampa to Destin. We stopped in Tampa to hear a couple of Dan's young men give farewell talks. I don't know if I've ever seen him so proud. Even after all of the eating contests I've won.

The house my mom rented was divided into two parts, but she rented the whole thing. The downstairs crew used this staircase to come up to the common area where everywhere hung out. Downstairs crew included Heidi's family, my family and Steve's family. The party group, you might say. Or the loud group, you might more accurately say. I can see why we were placed in the basement.

And of course, we had to document this important moment in Heidi's life. Deflating a water toy during the last hurried hours of the last morning. The day that Heidi and I were really stressed out about cleaning everything up and moving everything out and our kids couldn't understand why they couldn't go to the beach and swim and mess everything up again. We are such meanies.

Other aspects of our summer:

Lots of time at the library. We brought a friend with us that day and he stretched out and read and June sat there and read and they were both content for a really long time. It was awesome.

Summer hours catch up with us quick. June has been found sleeping on tile at 6 p.m. more than once this summer.

Gwen's cute new haircut. The guy at Great Clips recommended an a-line haircut, and it's so adorable.

And plenty of time in timeout. For both girls. At 7 a.m.

Locked Out.

Today we set out for June's weekly gymnastics class. Or perhaps I should say June's/Rudolph's/Fluffy the Dog/Huey the Hippo/Figaro the Cat's gymnastics class, thankyouverymuch. I helped June put her leotard on, braided her hair and pushed the girls into the garage to get into the car. The car was locked, and I turned around to go back into the house to get my keys. The door to the house was locked too. What? I still don't know how this happened. I don't know how I locked the door in the garage without my key. At this point, that feeling sank in. You know, the "locked out of the house" feeling. It's quite similar to the "dropped my phone in the toilet" feeling, yet not quite as severe as the "showed up to the airport without my wallet" feeling. I think some people call it "hopeless doom."

I ran to the front of the house. Locked. I ran to the side of the house and assessed the fence situation. Not open-able from the outside. I dragged a chair from the garage (that we realllly need to take back to the church at some point) and set it up outside the fence so I could jump over it. In a dress. The chair sank 4 inches into the ground under my weight (which just added to my overall awesome feeling), and there was just no way that was a viable option.

Dan has a temple recommend interview tonight, and he was planning on working late to finish a project and then go straight to the interview from work. I knew that he would come home at any point if I asked him to, but I didn't want to ask that. It's really hard for him to have an open evening to schedule an appointment as it is, and I knew he didn't have another open night for several weeks.

I wanted to ask a neighbor to come help me, but nobody was home. I even thought about asking one of the neighbors waaay down the street that I haven't met yet, but I didn't know how that would go over. "Hi, you haven't met me but I promise I live nearby. Will you help me break into my house?"

So I made a plan. First, I called the gymnastics center and told them June wouldn't be coming. I'm pretty sure her teacher is throwing a party for the next several days in honor of this occasion.

Then I decided that the girls and I would walk to the park. Where we would die.

A bit pessimistic perhaps, but it was HOT outside. I was sweating like crazy. I figured we could go to the park for an hour and then walk about a mile down the road to a Walgreens or Subway for dinner/drinks/bathroom. And then hopefully a neighbor would be home. I knew that there and back was a lot of walking for the girls, but it's all I knew to do.

We started on the trek for the park. I didn't mention to June that we weren't going to gymnastics anymore, and she didn't seem to notice. Sometimes her oblivion really pays off.

On our way, a man working on someone's lawn stopped me. "Are you Mrs. Johnson?" he asked. I told him no, I wasn't. He explained to me that he was doing a job for her but hadn't met her yet. I explained to him that we were on our way to the park because we were locked out of house. And then he told me he used to be a locksmith and had some tools in his truck. And so we went back to the house, and he started working.

You can barely see what is happening here, but I didn't want him to feel weird with me taking a picture.

He didn't have all of his tools and our lock was tricky, he told us. He had been working for about 20 minutes when I told him, "I know you have another job to do. Don't worry about this. We will figure something out."

And then he told me, "Honey, I have all the time in the world to help people."

Man alive. Tears sprang right to my eyes, but more importantly, those words stung my heart. Stung, I say, because I rush too much. Helping people can seem a nuisance to me. 

It was about this time that he noticed that the hinges to the door were on the outside. "WHY DIDN'T I NOTICE THAT BEFORE?" he exclaimed. He ran to his truck, got out a few tools, and we were inside in 10 more minutes.

I feel like the Lord is really aware of my little family. We are pretty much a huge mess and rather consistently contentious and disorganized and whiny, but the Lord helps us every single day.

In other news, my girls continue to be nutso, in the good way.

June:

I did this twisty hairstyle on June one day last week and have never been able to emulate it since. I have made several attempts, but they have all been duds. I loved this first one though.

June had a pajama day at her school this week. She was very excited about her "pajama party", and I was so jealous that I managed to stay in my jammies a good part of the day as well. 

Gwen:

Gwen is SPUNKY. She's a definite daredevil and HATES being inside. And the average outside temp is 86 with tons of humidity. Ugh. We still manage to go to the park several times a week, usually first thing in the morning after taking June to school. She throws a fit every time we start to head back home.

My sweet, easy shopping partner has been replaced by this maniac who won't sit in the cart. She tries to jump out every chance she gets, or she tries for the oh-so-comfortable arms around Mommy's neck while still standing in the cart and while Mom somehow blindly pushes the cart around the store. She has recently discovered that she can ride on the outside of the cart but gives no warning when she is done with this position. She'll just jump down at any moment, seconds away from being run over by a cart. It's an exhilarating experience, complete with many disapproving looks from strangers who apparently just moved here from a planet where kids don't exist.

She also takes great pride in dressing herself.

Dan:

Dan has been spending a ton of time cleaning our crazy yard. We're in that awkward place where we don't want to be the junky neighbors on the street (though that's going to be a hard title for us to shake) but we also don't want to put a ton of money into our grass-less yard in a house that we don't own. We have raked about 40 bags of leaves so far, and Dan has done most of the work.

Me:

I'm really enjoying life in Jacksonville. I miss my Tampa peeps, and I really miss the warmer beach experience the gulf provides as opposed to the ocean. But my life here is calmer since I don't have to work so much. Plus, my husband is just the type of guy who likes making me happy. I don't know how this grouch won him over, but my Mother's Day was spent being pampered. I had so much yummy food and after church, I spent most of the day reading a book in bed. It. Was. Awesome.