D&D Update - Wed, Oct 7, 2:48 PM
Hey Family! We've loved seeing your letters! We wanted to provide a quick update on what is going on with our little family. :)
The girls are loving horseback riding and go every week for an hour. Two of them ride at a time, and the other sticks with us and walks around the farm to look at the goats, pigs, ponies, peacocks, rabbits, chickens and marijuana. True story. The horse areas are surrounded by several hemp fields with rows and rows of mary jane. ;) There are MANY signs posted near all of these fields that announce in bold font that these are approved and legal hemp fields. This is a very public farm, so I'm sure the state has gotten some calls. We're learning a little more about hemp through our weekly visits to the farm. :) Poor Layla was riding bareback on the most stubborn horse (Monte) a couple weeks ago and he bucked her. She fell really hard and had dirt all in her eyes, mouth, nose and all over her clothes. She was adamant that she wasn't riding anymore, but she's over it now and back on the horse. She's a tough girl!
Speaking of Layla - she started American Ninja Warrior Training a couple of weeks ago from a guy in our community who has created a huge course in his backyard. She LOVES it and is really good. We'll see if it sticks, but if so, if might be a fun sport for her. The dude who built the course has two boys who are super into it and go to national and world competitions. I think it is new enough (as a sport) that there isn't a ton of competition so it's fun that his kids have national rankings for their age group. I'll post some pics of little Layla doing her thing. :) Layla is reading really well and is falling in love with reading books. She also loves inventing her own hair-styles. ;)
Ani is so responsible and is full-pre-teen mode now. She earned money this Summer and bought her little scooter and has loved riding that around. She is starting to babysit for us, and loves to watch movies with us after the younger kids are down. If any of you have ideas of movies for her to watch with Danielle and me, let us know! Finding movies that are appropriate for her can be challenging! Ani is doing great in school and is doing Reflections this year. She is very creative and loves to make movies, art, photography -- all things creative. Ani finished all of the Harry Potter books this year, as well as several other multi-book series.
Noe is our little buddy at home. With her sisters in school she hangs out with Danielle all day, while doing her pre-school homework online, and learning to read. She is super bright and we're having a hard time keeping her challenged! She loves to help Danielle cook (which is funny because the other girls have ZERO interest in cooking/baking), and she LOVES all things body-related. We think she's going to be a doctor. She asks us to watch "inside body videos" which are instructional videos on different systems. Not kid videos mind you - she wants college-level videos describing the circulatory system, and she watches with total focus. Haha!
Danielle's brother Jake and Sister-in-Law Regan (who live in Yakima WA) just had their baby boy Charlie a couple days ago. We love that little guy so much already! It's been 4 and a half years since there has been a baby on her side, so we're all wanting to hold him. Her parents are headed out there today to see them. We will meet Charlie at Christmas. :)
Danielle got invisalign (like braces, but clear aligners) through my friend Brian - to address her bite and hopefully fix her nighttime clenching. I'm so impressed with Danielle's ability to stick to things despite the pain. These aligners have been painful, but she is sticking with it. She sticks with everything that she starts! She has worked out every day for 4 years, and is so consistent! I go from one thing to the next and struggle to maintain consistency! I'm trying to be more like her! I decided to start DuoLingo to practice my Portuguese this year and I've been consistent for 130 days - it's helping and I feel much more confident than I felt before.
I've been running and hiking the hills by our house in an attempt to lose weight. Turns out though - you have to change the way you eat, and I'm bad at that!
We've been busy with home projects! We re-did Noelle's room with wallpaper, new lighting, and this cute bear that we made from scratch. I've heard it said that "constraints drive creativity," and we're trying to apply that with our home projects. We're trying to improve creatively without spending a lot of money, and it's been fun to have the constraint of "we need to use what we happen to have in the garage." Scott had brought us over a box of backsplash tiles last year that were left-over from a project, so I hung those in our laundry room during Conference. I built a laundry room shelf out of old wood that we had lying around. Danielle had this cute idea for "window shelves" in my home-office, so I built those out of scrap wood, and I'm using some leftover green paint from our front-room to re-do my home office (now that I spend 10 hours a day locked away in this room!) But I'm mostly proud of the bear in Noe's room. Danielle found this cute bear sticker that is holding a balloon that is the moon, and said "okay, that's adorable." I've come to take her saying "that's adorable" as a personal challenge for me -- can I make that? She showed me the bear sticker on Pinterest and I said, "I'm pretty sure I can make that - let me get my tools." :) I grabbed a piece of wood, and drew the bear, then cut it out with a jigsaw, then stained it using old stain that we had on, hand, then finished it off with a sharpie. It's adorable. ;)
Hope you're all doing well and staying healthy! We love you all!
Love,
D&D&A&L&N&R
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