March 2017

There is no shortage of pictures of our sweet Livvy, clearly we are smitten.

Bryan tried a new workout and everyone was a big fan

First taste of food!  We gave her pears and she was skeptical at first but caught on quickly

They love this little hiding place at the library, makes me so happy!

So lucky to be surrounded by these girls

Bethany came to visit during her Spring break!

The YMCA does Parents' Night Out once a month and we dropped  off our big girls a couple times and went out to eat with Livvy.  This was my first time trying pho (also, this picture shows my horrible haircut that I've been working on growing out for the rest of the year...err)

I love Mattie and her sass

 Matching stripey tights!

Some friends gave us their American dolls they weren't using anymore and they immediately became the favorite toys

After waiting all winter we finally got a snow day on March 15th!  We were so excited

Jilly wrote us a Morning Message- "Dear Mom Mattie I am glad at I cna sey home Love Jillian"

We spent our second snow day at the pool at the YMCA

Taking care of her baby ;)

Trader Joe's opened!!!!  We walked there on opening day and have loved having it so close

We have a Fancy Nancy book where she does a spa day for her mom.  One day I convinced Mattie to give me a foot bath like Nancy.  She loved it, and I loved it even more!

chubba wubba!

Seriously?! This girl is the sweetest

I love all of Jilly's little messages

Mattie and her love for lipstick!

Mattie got new sneakers that she loved and was totally convinced they made her faster

We were getting ready for a trip and Mattie told me she was all packed up- just the essentials!

Livvy's first ride in the cart at Costco

Books of 2017, Part One

I listened to 15/19 of these books so that is definitely the best way for me to squeeze in reading these days!  I am so in love with audiobooks- they make menial tasks so much more exciting, listening gives me great motivation to exercise, hearing the story in my head makes the book really come alive for me, and sometimes a book provides desperately needed peace on road trips (last week I drove home from Richmond with the girls and Livvy screamed for about half of the 3 hour drive but I just tuned her out and enjoyed my book.)

Excellent
1. Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns - one of my favorite books ever.  This was my choice for book club and I was so pleased that everyone loved it.  It's charming and sweet, but also has some really neat insights.

2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter forever!  I bawl every time when Harry heads into the woods.

3. A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman - So charming.  Lighthearted and funny, but also made me want to be a kinder, more patient person.

4. America's First Daughter by Laura Kamoie and Stephanie Dray -  With all the hype about Alexander Hamilton I feel like Jefferson has become the bad guy, but I grew up loving him so much.  In this book Jefferson's story is told from the perspective of his daughter Patsy, which is just so fascinating.  It is historical fiction, but very well researched.

5. A Mother's Reckoning by Sue Klebold - This is a memoir by the mother of one of the Columbine shooters.  It seems like it would be creepy, but I found her story so interesting and enlightening.

6. Black Matter by Blake Crouch - This was a real page turner; I could not wait to find out how it would end.  It's sci-fi with some pretty intense action and some language, so not my usual book but it was fun to read.

7. One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid - This is no great literary feat but was SO fun to read and drew me in from the first page.   On their first anniversary Emma's husband is lost in a plane crash.  Three years later, she has picked up the pieces of her life and moved back to her hometown and is now engaged when she learns that her husband has been found- alive.  She now has a husband and a fiance and lots of questions to answer.  This is the perfect summer read in my opinion.

Great
8. Girl in the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse - This was a great YA novel about the Dutch resistance during WWII.

9. I am Malala by Malala - Fascinating.  I've since watched a few interviews with Malala and she really is an amazing woman.

10. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank - After reading Girl in the Blue Coat I wanted to read this again.  I hadn't read it since high school and it was so much more heart-wrenching as an adult.

11. It's What I do by Lynsey Addario - This is the memoir of a conflict photographer.  She travels all over the world taking pictures in war-torn areas, and was even taken as a prisoner in Libya.  Her stories were interesting, but mostly I was fascinated by her explanation of her choice to live this dangerous life.

12. Summerlast by Ally Condie - This was a really well-written YA novel.  Cedar, her mom, and brother move to a small town soon after the tragic death of their husband/dad and son/brother.  They learn a lot about themselves, friendship, and supporting each other.  I thought this was a beautiful portrayal of grief and trying to move on after the death of a loved one.  And the characters were so real and likable.

13. The B.F.G. by Roald Dahl - We got this to listen to during all our time traveling to summer adventures.  It's not my favorite book but it's narrated by Natasha Richardson (the mom from Parent Trap) and she is fantastic.  It was so relaxing and pleasant to listen to this instead of fighting in the back seat.

Good
14. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead - This was very unique and interesting take on the underground railroad/race relations throughout America's history.  I just wish it wasn't so depressing.  I think that was his point, but it just made me discouraged and I wish it had been a little more hopeful.

15. Echo by Pam Munoz Ryan - This is a children's novel that weaved together three stories of children suffering through difficult periods in history.  It was good, but also very cheesy and all wrapped up a little too perfectly in my opinion (but I am very much alone in this opinion, it has gotten many really great reviews.)

16. First Comes Love by Emily Giffin - A good fluff read.  I always really enjoy Giffin's books when I'm actually reading them, but the stories are often a bit absurd and are quickly forgettable.

17. One Hundred Summers by Beatriz Williams - I was totally into this story and dying to find out how it would be resolved...but then I got to the end and it just felt kind of dumb and pointless and wrapped up too neatly.

18. The Other Einstein by Marie Benedict - This is the story of Mitza Maric, Albert Einstein's first wife who was also a physicist.  It was really an interesting book, and I especially loved the parts about her background, but when I finished and researched more I was disappointed to find that it was a very fictionalized story.  I'm sure parts were based on truth but the author definitely took a very negative view of Einstein which felt so harsh when so much of the book was not factual.

Unfinished
19. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi - I've read a lot of memoirs this year!  This one is from a female professor in Tehran.  Her stories were interesting but so, so wordy.  I was in the throes of newborndom and not sleeping nearly enough so I had to give up.

20. Serafina and the Black Cloak by Robert Beatty - I was looking for something to read before we went down to Asheville and found this little series about a girl that lives at Biltmore.  It was fine, but not good enough for me to worry about finishing when it was due back before I finished.

Emilee

I met Emilee soon after moving to Baltimore.  She was fun and friendly and sweet and I liked her immediately.  She was in primary with me and her little boy Miles was a year younger than Jilly.  That fall she told us she was pregnant.  She was super super sick with her pregnancies so she wasn't able to get out very often.  I took her dinner 1-2 times a month and stayed to visit and have the girls play with Miles.  I loved getting to know her this way, Emilee was THE most gracious person and wrote me a thank you note every single time I brought dinner.  In May she had Emerson and she was so excited to finally feel better and have her sweet baby there.  Just a few weeks after Emerson was born we went out to Cheesecake Factory with a few friends and it was SO fun.  I remember thinking how lucky and grateful I was to have these Baltimore friends, and we had lots of fun plans for the summer/fall.

One morning that August I got a text from Emilee that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer.  I was shocked and so, so sad.  I asked if I could bring dinner that night and she said that would be great.  I cried the whole way there and had no clue what to say to her.  She gave me a huge hug, it felt like she was comforting me.  Em would always always say "it's all going to be okay."  Just a couple weeks later Emilee and her boys left for treatment in Utah.  All of her family lived there so she could get a lot of help.  We'd get updates from her family, texts from Emilee when she was feeling up to it, and her husband Brad was still working here and visiting Utah every two weeks so we had him over for dinner often.  All year long we prayed for her and followed along as she did her treatments.  In June she had finished her chemo and radiation and had a scan that found no cancer, we were expecting her home in the fall- hooray!

But in July they found a tumor in her brain that they removed quickly then did some more radiation.  We all crossed our fingers.  Then in the Fall the cancer returned again and was very aggressive.  We'd get updates from our friend Alli who lived in Utah, and often the updates came very late because of the 2 hour time difference.  I was up in the middle of the night nursing Livvy, who was just a few weeks old, when I got the most heart-wrenching message- the cancer was spreading quickly and there was no treatment that would give her any quality of life so she was going to spend the rest of her time at home with her family, they expected her to live for about 8 more weeks.  We were devastated.  We wrote down memories and letters to send to Emilee and her family, and we made videos for her.  Emilee was too sick to respond but we'd get updates from her family and from Alli.

On December 10th we were at our Ward Christmas party and I got a text during the opening prayer.  It was Brad, telling us that Emilee had passed that day.  My friend Erin was across the room and I could tell that she hadn't seen the message yet.  I made my way over to her and she said she could tell from my face what the news was.  We cried together for a minute before leaving with our families to go caroling.  The next week was kind of a blur, the Christmas message seemed extra sweet, we held our kids extra tight, and talked A LOT about Emilee and what an angel she was/is.

It's been a few months now, but I think about Emilee all the time.  She was a wonderful, patient, kind, lovely person.  She was full of faith and optimism no matter what.  She's helped me to be more grateful and patient and to remember to find joy in all circumstances.

(This is sadly the only picture I have of Emilee, she's the one at the very bottom)

February

Mattie is WAY into makeup these days and had no trouble convincing her friend Vera to put some on with her

I found this picture on my phone, one of the older girls must have taken it (probably the owner of the little toes in the corner)

Livvy became so smiley in February, and she found herself in the mirror, which she found thrilling

Another amazing park day in winter

Disney on Ice!  We gave the girls tickets for Christmas then we counted down the days. Bryan stayed home with Livvy so it was a special treat to take the girls downtown to see the magical show.

The morning after the show we hosted a sugar cookie decorating party.  A lot of our friends ended up getting sick that week so it was a smaller party than we'd planned for, but any party with cookies, frosting, and sprinkles is a good one!  I wish I had taken a picture with her friends, but I guess we were too busy!

We saved some cookies to decorate later with Jilly and Bryan.

Jilly made these valentines for all 20 kids in her class, they were a labor of love by the end!

We don't get the best sunsets thanks to all the trees around but this night the sky was beautiful

Valentine's Sunday - not sure if that's a real thing or something I just made up, but we're going to keep it going!

Matching heart sweaters from Nana.  I took the little girls to Jilly's Valentine's Party at school.  Her teacher is SO nice to always let them tag along.  They were great and it was a fun little party.

The girls had ballet on Valentine's Day so after their class I picked up Happy Meals for them at McDonalds.  Bryan picked up dinner for us from Carabba's (where we also went on the Valentine's Day when we got engaged.)  I thought takeout would be a fun way to have a nicer meal, and it was fun, but definitely not as good as it would have been in the restaurant since it was all cold by the time we got the kids to bed, then we still had to clean up after ourselves!  Lesson learned ;)

Mattie is constantly asking me to take a picture of her hair-do so she can make sure I did a good job ;)  We rejoined the Y in January after taking a maternity break and started going a few times a week.  I went to a body sculpt class with friends and we also liked to go swimming as much as possible.  Livvy was SO good, she'd just sleep in her carseat or hang out in the swings in the Child Watch.  

Haircuts! We finally got a kids' place close to us and stopped there after school one afternoon.  Mattie got a little trim but Jilly got about 4 inches cut!

Between August and November of last year there were 7 baby girls born in our ward!  It was so fun to have so many baby girls around at Play Group.

Jilly lost her first tooth!  It had been super wiggly for about a week.  Finally one afternoon it was really driving her crazy so I told her I'd try to get it out.  I started to pull but she said it hurt so then she just yanked it out on her own!

Then the very next day we were down in Richmond and while we were swimming a ball bumped her in the mouth and knocked the tooth right next to it out!  

Livvy rolled over for the first time at my parents' house!  She was laying on the bathroom rug for a minute while I washed my hands and she plopped right over.

A beautiful day at Maymont

Mattie got a blister on her foot so I held Livvy and she rode in the stroller like this 

It's fun to see Mattie and Livvy in matching dresses that Jilly and Mattie wore

President's Day- I sat in the sunshine holding sleeping Livvy and watched these big girls play

I thought it was so funny that the temperature was almost the exact same every place where we have family living.

The girls' ballet classes are at an Elementary School and Mattie loved to ride these little scooters in the hall during Jilly's class.

Jilly came home from school one Friday and crashed like this on the couch.  I was very suspicious that it was strep throat, and we found out the next day it was!  This girl shows the exact same symptoms every time- no sore threat, high fever, and total exhaustion!

The Russell's host The Newlywed Game every year and it's one of my very favorite things.  So much fun this year, even though Bryan and I did pretty horribly (we'll blame the sleep deprivation!)

And that was February!