Super Monkey of the Week

Little D was chosen as the Student of the Week and since I have been failing miserably in keeping up with my blog (and updates on my kids) I felt like this was an easy was to update on him.

D was born in Pleasant Grove, Utah. He was the oldest kid in his family and
the only one to be born in the West Coast. D's first word was ball, his mom got
him to walk by offering him a soccer ball and he took his first steps running towards it!
D has always been good at sports. At 18 months, he was able to hit a ball that was
thrown to him and preferred that over a baseball tee. He could dribble a basketball
before he was 2, and made frequent trips to the mini golf course with his parents before
he was even in preschool! D has been able to play hockey, lacrosse, baseball, soccer,
basketball, golf, swimming and football with his 5 uncles and 2 aunts. He did not have
ANY cousins until last year when he got a little cousin named G.

D has lived in Utah, Massachusetts, Ohio and now Indiana since he was born and
has moved 7 times in his 8 years of life! He went to Preschool, Kindergarten and
1st grade in Ohio, 2nd grade at a Public school in Utah and 3rd grade (before he
moved here) at a Charter School in Utah, which means he had a dress code where
he could only wear red white or blue! He loved superheroes when he was younger
(Ant Man is his favorite), then Pokemon cards and Bey Blades. He has been to a
New England Patriots game, Boston Celtics game, golf tournaments, and lots of BYU games.
D loves to run and has even “run in” to cross the finish line with his mom in a couple of races!

Brigham Young University is the closest college to where D was born and was
where his parents went to school. D dad worked in the BYU Athletics department for a
few years while D's mom was a High school art teacher in Utah. D has one little sister
named A, who was born in Massachusetts, she is 6 years old this month. D loved taking
care of his baby sister and showing her how to play sports but he really wanted a little
brother, and almost 4 years ago got twin baby brothers, L&L. D also has a cat who will
be turning 11 this month. Sometimes it feels like everyone in our family has an April birthday,
because half of them do! But not D, who gets the whole month of July all to himself to
celebrate his birthday.

D has always been the most kind, friendly, easy going boy who loves playing with and
making new friends. He is helpful to his parents and very independent. Most of his life
he has had to help with little siblings and he is really good with little kids, especially babies
---Babies LOVE Dustin! He always knows how to make someone laugh either with a joke
or a funny face.

D's favorite color is green, 9 is his favorite number, and his favorite food is Ramen with
eggs which he knows how to make and has made for his family. Favorite movie is
Home Alone, favorite book series is Captain Underpants. Favorite fast food place is
Wendy’s 4 for $4 meal. He is an excellent artist who loves writing comics and reading
comic books. When he grows up he wants to be a scientist and study fossils. He recently
hurt his foot which is a shame because his favorite part of school is recess and his second
favorite part is P.E.

Our not so Little D is an awesome kid and we are so lucky to have him in our family!

Summer of '18: Little d

This guy has a love-hate relationship with summer... he loves not having school but he hates that his mom is too lazy to make him playdates all day every day!

 Thankfully I can manage to bribe him with hanging out with "just" our family every once in awhile

 he taught us how strong he is (he can carry any sibling across the parking lot!) and how to floss

 He finished up his sports trifecta (basketball, baseball, soccer) just in time to play more at home with us and regain his title as Resident Baby Whisperer.

 Those big teeth finally had to go!!! I have officially pulled all 4 of his loose teeth out, and each time he let them get so loose it was SUPER easy to yank them out! Flossing at its finest!

 He begrudgingly came along with us to thanksgiving point (I am sure he will be thrilled to know we did not get passes for the next year) and happily came with me to see Avengers Infinity war (after A LOT of debating about it), which was the highlight of his summer!

 he loved every moment and all the attention in Montana

 and oh my gosh this picture still makes me swoon... he is the most handsome and sweetest guy!

 he played baby whisperer again for a former missionary's twin girls (so cute!) and made out like a bandit on his birthday!

one of he habits he has developed this summer since his birthday is his love of reading both of the scriptures (he loves to read the ones with no pictures he got for his baptism from us!) and of chapter books. It has been fun to discover charlottes web through his eyes, as well as treasure island and a few other little books (diary of a whimpy kid has had a resurgence with the start of school!)

 and just like that he was back to school, albeit a new one, his third one in three years so we are really hoping this one sticks...

 We have loved reading together a chapter from a book of his every night and hope to continue that through the school year!

 this kid is just the cutest and the kindest and the sweetest and we are so lucky to have had him all to ourselves this summer!

on the night before little d's first day of third grade...

the end of summer and the start of the school year. surprisingly enough the first school year (about two years earlier than I anticipated) that all four of my kids will be in school for at least part of the week, and the first year little A will be leaving the house every day to go to school... transitioning from online prek to this is quite nerve wracking but I am grateful it is only half day, only barely more than my "limit" I have occasionally used at the gym childcare.

I know in my last post, I came off as quite negative. Things are always most difficult when you are looking down instead of up, and for that time that I was writing, I had spent far too much time in the past looking down instead of out or up. I was too caught up in myself and that was something I was trying to wrestle my way out of, something that I am usually able to do through creativity, in this case, writing. I certainly have a love/hate relationship with this blog and social media in general. It is too easy to showcase only the good (or only the bad, in my case, in an attempt to keep things raw and real for my own personal reflections) and not necessarily see all sides to what is going on in someone's life. I have certainly used this blog for my fair share of complaining or sharing difficult things, but I desperately want to make sure in this, the twilight of my "kids at home" stage of life, that I also share plenty of the positive. I am still working on keeping my praise-to-criticism ratio at a 5:1 and there is certainly no reason why I cannot attempt to balance the positive to negative in my blog the same way.

So. The night before little d's first day back to school, his third school in as many years and hopefully his home school for at least the forseeable future. I am filled with emotions as wild as a roller coaster. I am excited for him and all the new learning that awaits him at his first charter school, I am nervous about my decision to put him in this new school, I am envious of the friends and fun and experiences he will have without me (how dare he!)...but most of all I am looking back at the last 8 years and how relatively quickly they have gone by (the last 3 far faster than the previous 5!). 

My sweet boy has such a wonderful heart. He cares about me and his dad and his siblings so deeply. He has an incredible desire to do the right thing and to learn about the gospel. He is sharp and inquisitive and funny... oh how he can make the boys laugh in the car (even though most of the time it drives me crazy!), chasing after them around the house and leading them to play games on the trampoline. I love how he reads to his sister (not always willingly) and try not to show my stifled laughter when he tries (ALL THE TIME) to parent his younger siblings. I love his hugs and his back rubs, his eagerness to make a quarter even if he doesn't know what he's going to spend it on. I love his desire to make his sister happy, which he did when I told her she could only get one thing at the dollar spot and she couldn't decide between two things, so he offered to buy her the other one. I love to see him sharing his treats with his little brothers, help them in and out of car seats, and keep everyone out of the street and close to our car when we are loading and unloading. I thought last summer was going to be the hardest to say goodbye to him since we were so close knit as a family, not really having too many neighbors to play with. But I am happy to say that we still did a lot as a family, and I feel like the kids bonded just as much if not more than they did last summer, largely in part due to the fact that we spent a lot of time swimming, and he was quite the ringleader helping them get their feet wet, so to speak, and helping them "be brave". All 3 littles are like fish in the water now, even if they cannot swim, thanks to him. He has certainly played with friends a lot this summer, from all walks of his young life, but I feel like I have been able to mostly keep a sense of balance in not feeling like he was gone ALL the time. I hope to attain that same balance as we go into the school year. I hate feeling so scheduled that we are not able to enjoy quality time as a family, so I am hoping that I can fight at least while they are young to keep that quality time, daily if I can.

All this is just me trying to say how much I love him. I love my little d boy so so much and I am excited to get to witness so closely his progress and his love and his life. He has big things ahead of him and I hope to continue to encourage that. This week also marks sort of the end of an era with him and me and the gym... he has accompanied me to the gym since he was just a few months old, with the exception of when he was in school, but after this school year he will be old enough to "age out" of childcare and be able to do other things instead of herding around small children. Bittersweet is a good word for tomorrow and this upcoming phase. I am sad to be losing my baby boy bit by bit, but take heart in knowing he is growing to be an excellent young man, who will hopefully be babysitting for me within the next 5 years (!!) so Drew and I can have regular date nights again!

Now I need to stop looking through old pictures or I am never going to make it through tomorrow morning...