Goodbye Preschool!

Kiara had her end of the year preschool program last week. She was so focused on following her teacher and sang each song loudly and clearly. We were so proud of her! She is quite the little performer and we love watching her.

Getting her graduation certificate from her teacher:

We are so proud of our little graduate and I can't wait to have her home this summer!

Kiara and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

Yesterday was a bad day. Like really, really bad. Kiara's hair has always been a struggle, practially since the day she was born, so yesterday I finally broke down and took her in to a salon to have braids put in. We were both really excited about this new change and the amount of time/energy/pain we would save on a daily basis by having the braids. I washed her hair right before her appointment and brushed/combed it as thoroughly as possible. This is how it looked when we left the house:

And here it is 45 minutes later by the time we got to the salon:

It's still so amazing to me how fast it kinks up and dries out. The stylist couldn't believe how much hair she had and how thick it was. She didn't believe me when I told her I had just relaxed it a week ago and told me that I'll have to start using adult relaxer on it since it's basically adult hair on a 4-year-old head!

My poor baby really tried to be brave but it hurts her so badly to have her thick, dense hair combed that within 2 minutes of sitting in that chair she started sobbing. Once the hair was all combed she cornrowed it and Kiara got a couple minute reprieve from the pain and we got a break from the screaming!

I've never seen fingers move as fast as this lady's did while she did the cornrows! She was amazing and I think the crying just motivated her to move even faster :)

Once the cornrows were all done she put the synthetic braids in with a crochet hook. To do that she had to go under each part of the cornrow which (understandably) hurt my sweet princess so much but it was pretty interesting to watch. To give you an idea of how much hair Kiara has, the stylist said she usually uses around 5-7 packs of braids and Kiara needed 11! Crazy!

Finally, after 20 2 1/2 hours of crying, screaming and bribery, we were finished and I instantly got my happy girl back. I've never been so happy to see her smile!

Before she cut the braids:

At home after the braids were cut:

She picked that doll out for her prize after enduring such a crappy day. I think she deserves like 10 of those things! In the long run I know these braids will be better for her and for the health of her hair, especially with summer and endless swimming upon us. She's already so excited that I don't have to use the brush or lotion every day and keeps reminding me that we won't have to do that stuff anymore. The best part of these braids is that they should last 10 weeks, and what a glorious 10 weeks they'll be!

Kiara-isms

It's been awhile since I've posted some of Kiara's funny sayings but she still pulls out one-liners every day. Here are some of my faves:

"Mom, Boston and I are laughing about fruit. Hey Boston, FRUIT!" Followed by fake, forced laughter from her and genuine laughter from me :)

"I can't tell you what movie I want to watch because I'm going potty and I'm not allowed to talk."

"Can I wear my Barbie dress that we got from I am a Child of God?" (AKA Once Upon a Child)

"Mom, why don't you just tell me when my pancake is ready." (Insert exasperated sigh) "I can't stand here waiting forever!"

"I don't need sunglasses, the sun's not ticklish at all."

I sure love my goofy girl!



Happy St. Patrick's Day!

From my little leprechauns to yours!

Picture update

I gave a written update in the last post so here is a picture update of the last few months. 

We had a fun playgroup at Jungle Jims. I was pleasantly surprised at how many rides Boston could go on. Kiara was in heaven and rode each ride at least a dozen times. We definitely got our money's worth out of the unlimited ride wristband!

Boston got his first haircut by mom. It will probably be his last one done by me too since I wasn't happy with the way it turned out (apparently it's hard to cut hair on a very active 17-month-old! Who knew!)

Before:

During:

After (please don't judge me):

I think Boss was happy it was over!

Kiara also got a new hair-do. The transracial family group I mentioned in my last post held a hair night back in January. I decided that was a good opportunity to relax her hair and I love how it turned out!

Before:

After:

She hated the actual relaxing process just because she hates anyone touching her hair and a guy that was at the hair night told her that he would give her $1 if she stopped crying. She stopped long enough to get the money and then started right back up again! She was very proud to walk in and show her prize to Ben though!

We've had so much fun playing with her hair since then and trying new styles. Before, however I styled it after I washed it was how it stayed until the next washing because her hair is too thick and dry to part unless it's soaking wet. Now we can change the style every day if we want! 

We have loved being back by cousins. We usually play with them 3-4 times a week. 

Kiara and Thomas are 6 weeks to the day apart and they are thick as thieves! 

 Boston and Taft are 6 months apart and play really well together.

 Tyler, Thomas, Emma and Kiara at the Safe Kids Fair.

 Kiara worships Emma and Em is so patient and loving with her. 

  And then there is Macy. Kiara and Mace are 6 months apart and are so similar in so many ways (creative, headstrong, independent) and so opposite in other ways (Macy isn't in to the princesses or Tinkerbell. Enough said!). They are so cute together though and I love the way they balance each other out. 

My goal for this next week is to take at least one picture every day so I should have plenty to blog about! Let's hope I can start a streak!

Going home

I miss the days of blogging regularly. I used to upload the pictures from my camera the same day I took them and then immediately blog about the pictures and the stories behind them. Then Boston was born and suddenly my free time was not as abundant. Now I think about blogging often but when I do have time to sit down and write I either don't have my camera nearby, have writer's block or I start reading other blogs instead. Today there are no excuses though. I have all of these cute pictures and stories of my kids' young lives and I want to remember them so no more excuses! 

Most people who read this blog (if there's anybody left!) already know but for the sake of having a written record, I'll give an update on our situation. Back in November when we were in Utah for Thanksgiving, Ben interviewed for a promotion/transfer with his company. The new position would be based in SLC and we'd be able to be back by family. On December 7th we found out that he had gotten the job and they wanted him to start at the beginning of the new year. We were already planning on driving to Utah on the 18th then flying from Salt Lake to New Hampshire on the 20th and staying there for the whole Christmas break. The only way the timing was going to work for him to start his new position at the beginning of the year was for us to move on the 18th. So 11 days after we found out he got the job, we emptied our house in to a moving truck and said some very hard (harder than I ever imagined!) goodbyes to many incredible friends who had become our California family. 

As we were driving past the very same spot in Stockton where we had been sitting in traffic 3+ years earlier, during our trip to interview with the Ports, my emotions overcame me. I remembered how scared and hesitant I was that day thinking about the adventure on which we were about to embark. With the exception of a summer in Montana in 2005, I had never lived farther than 45 minutes from my family and the Utah culture was all I knew. The thought of leaving everyone we knew and loved and starting over in a new state where we knew NOBODY was so frightening to me. I was sure I wouldn't be able to handle it and I'd be miserable. I was sure I wouldn't be able to make any, let alone the right decisions, without my brothers there to instruct me. And I was sure that I wouldn't fit in the California lifestyle and I'd never make any friends. 

Now, 3 years later,  as we were driving away from the place we had come to know and love so much I couldn't imagine not living there. I couldn't imagine what my life would be like or the person I would be if I hadn't had those experiences or made the friends I had. To think I could have gone the next 50 years without meeting Janie or Yannette or Kate or Eva! And now I had to go back to Utah and leave all of those people behind? Even though we were going "home" the thought was quite saddening. I suddenly wondered if we had made the right decision in leaving CA, though rationally I knew we had. Then I remembered something else about our trip 3 years earlier. I remembered sitting in church singing Hymn #89, "The Lord is my Light." The first line of that hymn says, "The Lord is my light, then why should I fear?" Later on in verse 3 it says, "The Lord is my light, the Lord is my strength. I know in His might I'll conquer at length." When I sang that hymn and heard those words back in 2007 I was immediately calm and I knew that no matter what choices I ever made in life, as long as I made them with the blessing of my Heavenly Father, I'd be fine. No matter what state we live in or what earthly family lives near us, He IS my light and He will ALWAYS be with me, right by my side, so I really don't have any reason to be afraid. That reassurance was definitely a tender mercy from a loving Father and was exactly what I needed at that point. 

Over the next 2 days we drove 21 hours (we had to go the long way through Vegas because I-80 was shut down through Donner Pass due to weather) through torrential rain and a little snow. Our kids were perfect and I was so proud of how patient and flexible they were with us throughout the whole moving ordeal. We finally got in to Salt Lake Sunday evening and were so excited to be here for good! It's now been almost 3 months that we've been back and we're settling in pretty well. Ben is doing great at his new job and just recently started classes for his MBA so we don't get to see him as much as we did with his old position but it just makes us appreciate the time we do have with him that much more! We are living with my parents right now while our house is being built and it's going pretty well, although we can't wait to be in our new home! I'm so excited to finally be settled and in one place permanently! 

Kiara loves being back here by Grandma and Papa and all of her cousins and we've already made some new friends through a transracial family playgroup that meets once a week. One of the biggest sacrifices of moving back here from CA is that we lost all of that ethnic diversity and we've had to seek out opportunities to meet families similar to ours, so we're grateful to have found this group. 

Boston is growing and learning more every day and his little personality is so entertaining! He's really starting to form opinions and isn't afraid to express them! I love hearing him try to talk and watch the little wheels turn inside his head as he realizes what tasks he's capable of doing himself. We've definitely got 2 independent little spirits on our hands but we wouldn't have it any other way! 

Life is good!