Update

Both my brother and sister, within 24 hours of each other, independently told me that I should get back to blogging. I consider that 2 witnesses- that qualifies as divine revelation.

I can add more photos and details, but for now, lets keep it brief, so I don't get too discouraged....

Natalie is excitedly looking forward to summer. She loves school and learning, is super smart and easily excelling in all subject areas, but is struggling socially/emotionally. She likes to be silly and make people laugh and get attention, but I think it's starting to come across to her peers as just obnoxious. She has lots of meltdowns and outbursts, gets disciplinary write ups routinely and is peeing her pants all the time. At home, she is volatile and swings between frenzied excitement, untempered destructiveness, and solemn introversion. Her favorite things to do these days are read, get super-jumped by Dad on the trampoline and make up craft projects/trash the office room. She is losing more and more teeth, giving her smile a jack-o-lantern-like appearance.

Angela is pretty sure that the world is out to get her most days. She perceives everything as "not fair" and 97% of her communications to me are in a whine. She hates every single things that I make for dinner and consequently goes to bed hungry most nights and wakes us up all night complaining of a stomach ache. She loves preschool and is very social. She loves watching and playing Frozen, her friends and dessert. Her hair seems to be recovering finally from Natalie hacking it off over a year ago. She is five now and got to celebrate by ice skating with a few fellow Frozen enthusiasts.

Emily is crawling all over everything, pulling herself up, climbing stairs and falling over and hitting her head. Her love language is mouth contact. She wakes up on-and-off all night long and refuses to follow a predictable nap routine. She likes being held and climbing the dishwasher. She passionately seeks out electrical outlets and chords and chases the dog. She doesn't like her car seat or eating anything green.

Micah is very busy. He travels a lot. He works a lot. When he is home, kids are in his face until we go to sleep. He recently saw a doctor about prolonged back pain and got to pay for an x-ray and mri to discover that he has 2 herniated disks. Doctor wanted to refer him to a surgeon, but he isn't interested in that and met with his doctor to discuss other options which he hasn't had time to tell me about. He is pretty sure the injury is from carrying kids, NOT from falling on his back during crossfit doing some crazy pull-up maneuver a few months back.

We are now 6 months past our initial insurance claim about our roof and have finally hired an attorney. We have several leaks, drywall damage, possible frame deterioration from prolonged water exposure, broken window seals and haven't even begun to consider the potential of mold. We can't make any repairs because of the possibility of needing another professionals' opinion about the nature of the damage. Insurance is claiming it is natural wear and tear or poor construction, but it is obviously wind damage from the last hurricane. No end in sight to this nightmare.

I am angry and perpetually exhausted from having to worry about everyone in our family and everything around us. The only thing that keeps me going is my absolute certainty that nobody here cares and deciding that "I can't take it anymore" will only result in more work for me in the future as all the cleaning and maintenance and lapses in discipline and order build up. So I just keep going.

General Conference