January 2021

2021 had a rough start for our country.  My stomach dropped when we heard what had happened at the Capitol Building.  I can't say I was surprised.  We do, after all, live in a time of absolute moral degradation.  With all the corruption and violence that is out there, horrible things like this are bound to happen- as we saw pretty much all summer and fall in 2020.

I'll admit, we were in mourning for at least a week at the thought of how such an event would affect anyone who could possibly be construed as connected with those responsible.  It is a frightening thought, for we live in Orwellian times.  At the same time, obsessing over it did us no favors.  We both struggled to sleep which never helps with parenting.  After many conversations, Dane and I concluded that all we can do is raise our children with love and discipline, sharing with them our testimonies of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and teaching them correct principles.  That is the only thing within our control and we have to let everything else go.  Ha ha, and let's be honest- we can't even control our cute kiddos, as they love to remind us every single day.

In stark contrast to the events of January 6th in Washington, D.C., our home had a much happier beginning to the year.  Dane's cousin and her adorable family came and stayed in a nearby Airbnb so we got to spend the evening with them three days in a row.

Our families couldn't be more compatible.  The boys wrestled and played like crazy while we oohed and ahed over the baby girls in each family.  They even came one morning to participate in the American Heroes class I'm teaching weekly for several boys.  

It was so much fun and we can't wait to spend more time with them.

Look at this cuteness!

Saying goodbye was so hard!

The other highlight of our month was finally making it to Bearizona, a zoo found in Arizona.

The animals were amazing and so close!  We loved it and want to go again.

All of the animals were awesome but this had to be our favorite spot.  They have a black panther and jaguar that live together.  They played the whole time and came right up to the glass.  Atticus got a stuffed black panther to remember it.  Hinckley brought home a stuffed bear pillow.

Our Lucy-lou just keeps growing.

At her four month appointment she weighed 13 lbs, 13 oz. (in the 30th percentile) and was 24 and 3/4 inches (60th%).  With those numbers, alone, she is our tallest, leanest baby (but you can see that in the side by side photos I finally put together this month!)

At four months she had to get some shots and had a low fever for five days.  She was already teething (and has been, on and off, all month) so that was a pretty hard week.  Even after the fever wore off she still has had some rougher days with 20 minute naps that honestly have left me desperate for reinforcements by the end of the day.  So we've gotten less sleep this month but are trying to count our blessings- the little cutie always manages to string together at least 5 or 6 hours for her first sleeping spell.

She is just so adorable.  She has started growling every so often, in addition to her cooing.  She can grab at anything nearby (loves grabbing at lips, cheeks, etc.) and loves to chew on my chin.  She is now rolling back and forth (practicing this skill does, occasionally, keep her up at naptime...)

Above and below you can see her at exactly 4 months old.

Here she is in a sweater and booties that my Great-Grandma Eastman made.  We have a few pairs of these and a couple more sweaters that I just love.  It's funny how, though I never met her, having Lucy wear these so often makes me feel close to that grandma.  We were studying D&C 2 which is all about the "hearts of the children" turning to their fathers and it made me even more eager to learn about her.  

My sweet mom shared some stories that got us started as we learned about more of the boys' great-grandparents.  We discovered some letters that Dane received from his grandparents that were just treasures.  It was a great month for family history!

The last thing I wanted to record was how very determined she is.  She was on our little bouncer and she wanted to play with the toys on it so she scooted herself down so that she could play with one dangling toy with her hand and the other with her foot.  She looked so proud of herself.  

Atticus had an interesting start to his month.  He was involved in something outside with friends that sounded worse than it actually was.  (His description made it sound like he had clothes-lined his friend on his bike!  In reality it was quite tame.)  I, unfortunately, overreacted and grounded him for the first time.  It was a few days and I was shocked by how well he handled it.  

The part of the story I really want to remember, however, happened while he was trying to get the courage to go and apologize.  He felt so bad about the situation that he became really emotional- so much so that he felt completely out of control.  He was really distraught and, out of the blue, told me he wanted to go up to his room for a little while.  I thought he just wanted to be alone and calm down.  It turned out he was going upstairs to pray so he could feel calmer.  It was the sweetest opportunity to talk about how the Holy Ghost had prompted him to go up and how his prayer was answered.

In early January he had his 6 years appointment and he weighed in at 48 lbs and was 47 inches tall. 

After months and months of not having night terrors Atticus had a couple this month.  They have been the first ones where he has gotten up and ran around.  Fortunately, he didn't get hurt and we've now discovered that almost every time it's because he has to go to the bathroom.  The first time it happened little Hinckley woke up and asked, "Why is Atticus running around?  Is Atticus going to sleep after the monster leaves?"  

We love our little army man.  He has read two warrior kid books and we highly recommend them.  One Saturday he was so motivated that he got up early, cleaned all sorts of rooms in the house, worked out and kept asking for more tasks.  We'll take it!

Above you can see him doing a pioneer simulation with the boys in our heroes class.  Below, he's working on a science project.  He loves science!  But, honestly, he enjoys almost all of his classes.

He is getting so old that we only have a couple quotes from him this month.  It almost makes me sad.

Atticusisms:

"I'm going to watch Thomas and Jerry." (I ended up having to block youtube on his school computer.)

"I wonder if we have another kid up in Heaven watching us and waiting to come down..."

"I have super ears.  I heard you talking to Bobba and Nana the other night!"

"You be Batman and I'll be your pet cougar/anything animal." (Said almost every day to Hinckley.  It’s their favorite game this month.  Atticus usually calls himself "Razor mouth.")

I feel like I could write a book about Hinckley this month.  He is our Jekyll and Hyde.  So stinking adorable one second and a total monster the next.  I guess that's just how most three-year-olds are.  No wonder they call them "threenagers."

 

He is completely potty trained now (hooray!) and has actually elected to be potty trained at night.  He said the pullups were "scratchy" (more on the sensory issues later) so he has gone a good week without pullups for his naps and nights.  We're thrilled! 

There are, of course, problems that often come with this stage.  He will use almost an entire roll of toilet paper for one bowel movement if given the opportunity (he has clogged two of our three toilets so far) and he doesn't like to tell us when he's done.  He yells at us to leave so he has privacy and then suddenly we'll hear the water running, which means he thinks he is done wiping and is already washing his hands.  I won't bother you with details about his soap use.  Let's just say his hands are very clean afterward and I'm constantly running out of soap.  

 

He LOVES Dr. Seuss books (well, he loves pretty much all books) and has The Cat in the Hat almost memorized.  For weeks he would ask to read the entire book before naps and at bedtime.  While I like to sneakily read just a bit of each page it became a problem because he wanted to "read" it to me... and if he messed up sometimes he would start back at the very beginning.  I now have the book pretty much memorized.  Even on our road trip he was quoting the book at the top of his lungs.  So, so cute (and impressive!)...but so annoying when it wouldn't stop.

He keeps drawing squiggle pictures and taping them up around the house.  I'm not kidding, we have seven of them on one small wall in our kitchen and he probably has seven or more over his bed.  I've joked that his pictures remind me of the girl in the movie Signs who has glasses of water all over the house.  Maybe he knows something we don't...

It makes us laugh because if there's a fold in the paper or something goes wrong with his illustrations he screams and cries that it's "ruined!" even though... we can't see anything and when we ask what he has drawn he seems to be making up what is there on the spot.  It also cracks me up because a couple of times I've helped him hang up a picture and he'll gasp, outraged, "It's upside down!"  But I love how he expresses himself and his tracing tells me he's going to be a great artist if he can conquer his perfectionism.

Speaking of which, the problems he used to have with his Batman and Spiderman costume (about them not closing and fitting just right) are now spreading.  None of his shoes feel right now (he was saying they hurt so we're going to try buying some wider shoes) and a lot of his clothes just aren't right.  He wants to wear athletic shorts every day and we rarely fight him on it.

He is coming so far in his Joy School class.  He seems to behave well for all the other moms and he even did well when I taught, which came as a surprise.

This month I got to teach them and I so loved the kids' reaction to the gunny bag (it eats leftover toys.)  Some of them screamed and cried the first time they saw it.  Others would "feed" the gunny bag with toys or would take it and chase their classmates.  Hinckley yelled a bit when some of his toys were eaten but loves to sing the gunny bag song.  Now he tells me that the next time he’ll punch gunny bag “in the face!” 

Hinckley Speaks:

• "Watch this magic trick!" (Said before doing pretty much anything.)
• ("What do you want to be when you grow up?") "I want to be Jesus!"
• "Uncle Adam don't like me.  I don't like him."  (He started referring to a memory a year ago when my brother-in-law watched him while we were skiing.  I think he's intimidated by tall people.)
• "And Aunt Bobbie will come and take Baby Lucy again." (He still seems to think Lucy came from my sister who watched the boys while Dane and I were at the hospital.)
• "I want some oitmul!" (Oatmeal)
• "I want to play with my fyiends."
• "Mommy?  You'll come when the monstuhs come..." (Whispered through the monitor at Bearizona- we were in another room.)
• "If you wake me up again I'll slice your head off." 
• "Mommy, go!  It's going to stink!" (When about to poop.  He will hold it until we go now.)
• "If you do that again, I'll punch you in the face."  (It'd be funnier if he didn't have a punching problem right now...)
• "I'm going to stay here the whole night!" (To our sweet adopted Grandma Betty.)

Oh man.  Threenagers.   Here's to being one month closer to turning four!

December 2020

 December was wonderful.  I often get grouchy at the beginning of the month after Atticus's birthday.  The commercialism and stress of trying to show everyone we love that we love them was compounded this year by the increased shipping times.  Even though I ordered some gifts in November I had three gifts that I had a world of trouble over.  One never did end up making it.

Still, I was blessed with the opportunity of helping someone out early in the month.  It took guts for me but when I acted on the prompting I was filled with so much joy.  It helped me feel the Christmas spirit and that never left.  I don't share that to boast, only to remind myself of that in the future.  

Another thing that helped us feel the Christmas spirit was seeing Santa!  Our sweet friend had Santa visit her house and the boys were SO excited!  Atticus asked him for a Mandalorian nerf  gauntlet.  That was all well and good but there were NONE when I went to buy one for him.  The only ones you could find online were marked up to about 8 times the price.  We explained to him that Santa sometimes didn't make toys- he found them in stores to save himself time and since this one had sold out he probably wouldn't be able to get it for him.  He was disappointed but had plenty of other things he wanted in the Target magazine so we thought that was that. 

Then our sweet friend, Hillary, saved the day for our family again.  She ordered it through the BX and it came on Christmas Eve.  It was a Christmas miracle!  It totally distracted Atticus from the fact that he didn't receive the "Intendo Switch" he had requested in his final letter to Santa (which he stuffed in the mailbox with no envelope or stamp.)

He added that "N" to "Intendo" at my insistence but he is still calling it an "Intendo."  I love it!

Another Christmas miracle was that anyone who wanted to attend church was given permission to do so the Sunday before Christmas.  The 9th Circuit Court ruled that the caps given on church attendance were unconstitutional.  It was nice to have a win when it comes to our civil liberties.

Our little Lucy-Lu-Who is just the sweetest.  

At her 3 month well visit at the beginning of the month she was 12 lbs 5 oz and 24 inches long.  She has started laughing more often.  It's still very rare but she smiles all the time.  

She is starting to enjoy peek-a-boo more.  Just today on January 2nd she seems to have discovered her hands.  She kept holding them together all day long like she was praying and she was staring at them whenever she could.  She even grabbed my bowl at dinner for the first time.  Hinckley broke at least one plate so I'd better start using plastic.

She is, without a doubt, the best gift we could have asked for.  And she also gives us the gift of sleep.  She slept through the night many times through the month of December.  When she doesn't go all night she always gets at least 5-6 hours in a row.  It's incredible.  I had heard that babies could sleep like this but had a hard time believing it.  We are so grateful! 

We think a big reason she sleeps so well is her ability to self-soothe.  She is a total thumb sucker!  I love it.  It's like having a binkie that you never lose.

Here she is wearing a little Christmas outfit that Dane wore as a baby.  So darn sweet.

Here is Dane in that same outfit at roughly the same age.

She is doing great at tummy time.  She'll stay on the ground for 15 minutes or more sometimes.  

In the photo above she had just turned 3 months old.

We love our little angel baby.

As I mentioned last month, Atticus had a birthday party on December 5.  It was an army themed party and we had a blast.  Here are the boys beating on a pinata that Atticus and I made together.  We had an obstacle course, practiced marching, played "Drill Sergeant Says," and outfitted the boys in as much military gear as we could.  Atticus and Hinckley even wore some war paint.

Even Lucy wore camouflage for the occasion.  It was a party to remember.

Above you can see a to do list Atticus wrote.  I had written my shopping list and Hinckley insisted that he needed a list so we wrote one together (you'll see it below.)  So Atticus wrote this one above all on his own.  ("Math," Work out," Go for a run," "Good food, never eat treats.")

Though he didn't actually end up working out that day, he does love lifting the weights his dad just recently brought back home from his office.  In fact, one day when the Clancy girls came for a visit he grabbed a couple weights from the garage and came around the corner of the house just so he could lift weights where they could see him.  And he was even grunting as he lifted them.  You couldn't have scripted it better.  

He may still drive us crazy sometimes but there's no question that he has a good heart.  He is just wonderful with Lucy and when there's an emergency he rises to the occasion.

One such time happened just a couple days ago.  Hinckley was in the bathroom and I went upstairs to feed Lucy.  Atticus ran upstairs to tell me that Hinckley had broken our glass soap dispenser and the glass was everywhere.  Hinckley was barefoot and Atticus wisely worried he would get hurt.  I asked him to just hold Hinckley in one place until I got down there.  While I was coming down he not only obeyed but problem solved, putting Hinckley's shoes on him and then keeping him in one spot. 

He wasn't done helping.  As soon as I put Lucy down so I could deal with the mess he started playing with Lucy.  He didn't need to be asked.  He knew I needed him and kept her happy the whole time (and it took some time!)  I was so grateful and so proud of him.

I may have mentioned before that Atticus has a sweet little friend that he just loves (we all do.)  Well, he has started calling her his girlfriend.  He can often be heard saying, "She's in love with me!"

He definitely has no problem with this.  In fact, when some of his friends were teasing him about her and saying, "Maybe she won't marry you!" he challenged to fight all of them at once.  He fought very bravely and lost very quickly.  Bless his little heart, he came in crying and so embarrassed that he buried  his head in my shoulder.  He hadn't done that in at least a year.  

While I'm talking about his special friend I have to record a conversation I had with the two of them.  She told me, very matter of factly, "I'm in love with him," to which Atticus sheepishly admitted, "I'm in love with her, too."  

She then added, "And we already have a baby!" 

"What?!" I said, speechless.

"It's our raccoon!" she laughed, pointing at Atticus's stuffed raccoon, Trasher.  

Phew!  

Atticusisms:

• "You don't see that every day!" (When he saw me riding my bike while walking Max.)
• "I'm going to hit you in the nut!" (He had just heard the term "nuts" from a friend.)
• "I'm going to work.  I'm just finding bad guys to arrest." (As he walks out the garage door.)
• ("Atteekiss, this is the best day evuw!") "No, I think we've seen better days, Hinckley."
• "I'm going with what Daddy says." (Any time he hears us disagree.)
• "Dad!  You got a President Trump statue!" (On Christmas morning when he saw the punching bag his grandparents got for Hinckley and him.  It is orange, after all.)

Hinckley had a much better month.

He has gone a couple weeks of pooping exclusively in the potty.  I'm sure there will be a few more setbacks but it has been wonderful.  Hooray!

He's so funny.  He told a neighbor friend that she was his girlfriend (she's eight!)  He still wears his Batman mask a lot of the time (just not all day, every day like he was.)  

His memory is outstanding.  He can quote quite a bit from his favorite books (The Cat in the Hat, The Night Before Christmas.) Our favorite is probably the nativity book we have.  I  recorded it for family members because not only can he tell the Christmas story but he'll sing several Christmas songs along with it.  He was so confident that we had him do it again on Christmas Eve.  He led us by telling the story and then we would join him in singing the first verse of the songs.

He has been surprising me with his questions and understanding about Jesus.  He was struggling to understand the connection between Baby Jesus and Big Jesus but now he can explain it.  It melts my heart and builds my testimony every time.

Now, don't get me wrong.  As hilarious and cute as he is, he is still a really difficult child.  He was just awful on the car trip to and from Utah (he never naps, whines, needs multiple bathroom trips. Ugggh!) and he is SO stubborn.  He seems intent on learning every lesson for himself (he touched a cigarette that was smoking in a parking lot and didn't even want to tell me that he had done it.  Poor thing!)  He is starting to make up stories and blame other people when we ask him about the messes he makes.  

Still, we love our cuddly little Hincker-Stinker.  He is so sweet and methodical.  He loves to take his time.  For example, on Christmas morning he was still munching on the same chocolate he found at the top of his stocking.  Meanwhile, Atticus had blown through his stocking and was ready to move on to his presents.  It was comical to see the stark contrast between the two of them as we tried to slow Atticus down and speed Hinckley up.

Hinckley Speaks:

• "I'm going to use the fowus." (Puts his hand out and it starts shaking- he was trying to get a treat from the middle of the counter.)
• "Mommy, use the fowus." (He wanted me to send an object to him across the room.)
• "I went skiing and I bwoke my leg." (On the way to church.  He must have been thinking of my brother's ski accident and dreamed it was him...?)
• "I'm going to woh. ("war." He had grabbed a bunch of wooden skewers.)
• "Mommy, my wongs are washed away." (While in the bathtub.)
• "This is the Best Chwismus evuw!"
• "We don't use potty language!  Yeah!  Only with Mommy and Daddy, otherwise they'll get mad!" (A conversation he had some Legos having with each other.)
• "That's why." (Said after any explanation or statement- crazy as some of them are.)
• "And then I/he will die?" (Often asked after receiving a warning.)
• "I'm a howus." (While wearing a Cowboy hat.)

Here's a gingerbread man Hinckley decorated.  Below is a nutcracker that he painted.  It's horrifying.  He even pulled off its arm.  Poor nutcracker.

For Hinckley and his Joy School friends they put on a little Nativity play.  It was so stinking cute.  Hinckley was a wise man, just like Atticus at the same age.  We were short on children so I asked a reluctant Atticus to help out.  

 

While he wouldn't smile for me he loves the other Joy School moms so I was still able to get some smiles from Hinckley.

Here is Hinckley's to do list.  Most of the items were my ideas but pooping on the potty was his.  That made me happy.

Here is the Bobba Fett picture Atticus drew for Dane for Christmas.

Christmas morning.

The day after Christmas we drove up to Utah.  We lost a lot of sleep and the trip was short but it was so, so sweet.  

Oh yeah!  I had a birthday right before Christmas.  Dane got me an awesome present (see the kettle bells below.)  I got a pedicure and had a friend watch the boys for a couple hours.  It was the best birthday I've had as a mom.  

Goodbye, 2020.  It was a crazy year and my heart has hurt for so many.  For our little family, however, it has been a very good one.  I put together a little placemat using some of my favorite Christmas cards and it summarizes the year perfectly.