sand between her toes

Monday (July 7th) was a day of several FIRSTS :)  Her first set of pigtails, which despite being a little crooked, looked so adorable on her!  And her first time on the sand. We packed a little picnic and headed to Joe Pool Lake for family night.  The lake is only 5 minutes from our house, so I have a feeling that this will become a regular outing.  She loved the sand, and she really wanted to eat all the rocks, haha.  I bought her a sand bucket with sand toys a few months ago, and she liked to scoop the sand, and comb Daddy's hair with the rake, haha.

We had to put our toes in the water, then Daddy took Brooke all the way into the water. The temperature was perfect, and it felt nice and cool from the breeze off the water.

Fourth Of July

The weekend before the 4th, we met the "Arlington Gang" for breakfast at Cracker Barrel.  I think we were there the first year they started this tradition, but missed a few years due to our time spent in Florida.  Last year, we attended with our tiny baby girl, who was not so tiny this year!!

As we were walking up to the restaurant, I had to laugh to myself about being all dressed in our red, white, and blue, and it wasn't even the Fourth of July, haha.  We had a wonderful breakfast, then spent probably another hour outside sitting in the classic rocking chairs.

All the kids!! (Well, except the Crumptons, who were sick.) Cooper was pretty excited to hold Brooke, and his smile is priceless :)

On the actual Fourth, we headed up to Flower Mound to go boating.  The lake was packed, but we enjoyed being out in the sun and Brooke did awesome on the water.

This girl melts my heart!!  She didn't nap at all on the boat, so I was a bit concerned about how she would do with the fireworks that didn't start until 9:30.  But Kevin, Brooke, and I sat in the bow of the boat, and enjoyed watching 6 fireworks shows around the lake.  It was a perfect night!  Bev and I headed back to the house while the boys cleaned the boat.  I need to get the pic off my phone when we arrived back at the house, Brooke looked so exhausted!!

Our Trek Experience

Introducing Ma and Pa Meador :)

Back in January, Kevin received a phone call from someone in the Stake asking if we could meet the next morning before church.  My immediate thought was that they were going to ask us to go on Trek.  A lot of people in our ward are involved in Trek, so it is talked about quite often.  I was terrified and told Kevin that I hoped it was something else because they should not ask a new mom to leave their baby, right??  I worried about it for hours, and sometime around midnight, I remembered that at our last Presidency Meeting, the YW President had mentioned that she submitted my name to be the Trek Liaison for our ward.  (That basically meant I would be in charge of all the paperwork for the kids.)  I immediately felt a wave of relief, assuming that that was it!!

Well, that was not it, haha.  When we walked into the meeting, Brother Gaudy started talking about how much President Porter loves the youth of the Stake, and how he would like us to be a Ma and Pa for this year's Trek.  It was an emotional experience, we said yes without hesitation (I am not sure why), but I just had so much fear in my heart about leaving Brooke.  I knew Trek was in June, but wasn't sure the dates.  If I had to miss Brooke's birthday, I was not going!  Thankfully, the Trek was planned for June 12-14th.

One of my biggest concerns was the fact that I was still nursing Brooke, and although I only planned on nursing her until she was one, I wasn't keen on having such a strict cut-off!  I called my mom that afternoon, and her first reaction was that she would come and take care of Brooke.  It would work out perfectly because they would also be here for Brooke's first birthday.  I was grateful for my Mom's willingness to help, but I was still unsure about the whole thing.

But, we began our preparations.  We were asked to make individual sacrifices, and a "couple" sacrifice to help prepare ourselves spiritually for Trek.  We needed to prepare ourselves physically as well, so we justified getting fitness bracelets and I ordered the T25 exercise program.  Over the course of the next few months, I got into en exercise routine, and we worked on our sacrifices.  I became more at peace with the idea of leaving Brooke, although the nursing thing was still an issue.  I couldn't really wean her completely because i didn't have enough stored milk to do that.  In the end, I just cut back to morning and evening feedings, and pumped a bit here and there to have enough frozen milk for the 3 days we were gone.  This meant that I would have to "pump and dump" on Trek, so with a manual pump, this is what I did.  It was not ideal, but not that bad either.

Overall, the Trek experience was amazing.  I was worried about how we would do with the kids in our family, and since we had never been on a Trek before with our Stake, there was a lot of unknowns. We were told to prepare lessons, spiritual thoughts, FHE, and games to fill any time we might have.  They warned us that sometimes we would only have 10 minutes as a family, but other times, depending on our company and how fast we were trekking, we could have an hour or more to fill.  That was kind of stressful for me, but in the end, it just worked.  We had THE BEST family!  We had 11 kids assigned to our family, and although we had one kid that was a bit of a challenge, the rest of the kids were amazing.  That one boy, who is in our ward, just has some social issues and was quick to complain, although he was hardly helping with the physical pushing and pulling of the handcart.  We were told that he was placed specifically in our family because he needed someone that could be patient with him, especially a patient Pa.  Well, hahaha, he definitely tried out patience, but in the end, actually helped bond our family in a way because all the other kids were trying to help us with him.  It was amazing to see the 3 older boys in our family really take it upon themselves to encourage him, and take him under their wing.  I never imagined teenage boys being so loving and patient with another boy who was less-than-enjoyable to be around at times.

The first day, which was a bit cooler from all the rain in the morning, was exhausting, but good.  When we stopped for lunch, we were all super grateful for those PB & J sandwiches, haha.  They never tasted so good!  Our company missed the shortcut, so we trekked 9 miles that day.

Early in the day, we were stopped along the trail and presented with a rice baby (Eliza) and asked if we would carry her to Zion.  She represented an actual child on the trail whose parents had died.  So, one of our boys, Liam, reached out and carried her for a majority of the day. He was adorable with her :)

Once at camp, we set up tents, and prepared for dinner.  We had our first family discussion (of sorts), which went really well.  We talked to the kids about sacrifice, which seemed fitting after a tough day!  Those 3 older boys were invaluable with the handcart, but a few of our girls were hardcore too.  We brought a "Family All-Star" plate to award to one of our kids at each meal, and we decided to give it to one of our girls the first day.

That night, we had a devotional with our company, and as we were standing up to get dessert, "the mob" ran into camp and we had to just grab our handcarts, throw our buckets in (we had to pack all our belongings in a 5 gallon bucket), and head out of camp.  We couldn't use our flashlights, and we weren't allowed to talk.  After we walked maybe 10 minutes, we could see off in the distance Moroni with the gold plates.  They had music playing, and a few minutes later you could see Joseph Smith receiving the first vision, followed by a group of pioneers singing, then a silhouette of the Salt Lake Temple, and finally a picture of the Savior.  It was a really neat experience, and brought to light not only the history of events that occurred, but why those events were important.  The pioneers were trying to follow the Savior.  As we reached camp again, we sang a few hymns, then enjoyed dessert :)  We had a family devotional before bed, which Kevin led.  Throughout the whole Trek experience, I felt so grateful for Kevin.  He seriously did an amazing job in his role as Pa.  He always seemed to know what to say, was able to bring the Spirit, and found opportunities for teaching moments with the kids.  I really felt like the weaker link in our parenting duties to those kids, but was so impressed with  Kevin.  After the devotional, Kevin asked the kids if anyone wanted to volunteer to lead our family scripture study in the morning.  Two of our Priests volunteered, and stayed up late that night, sitting outside their tent, preparing to lead.

We crawled into our super hot tent and attempted to wipe ourselves clean with baby wipes.  Did i mention that there was no running water??  I have never been so stinky and gross for so many days straight!  I then had to pump, and try to fall asleep in the heat.  That was the not so great part, but due to exhaustion, we slept!  The second day started out with an amazing scripture study from our boys.  I was seriously so impressed, and kept picturing those boys as missionaries.  As the rest of the company was getting their breakfast, we finished our study, and none of our kids complained at all.  They all recognized what a great moment we were having as a family :)

We trekked till lunch, then President Porter arrived, and announced that the men were called on missions, so all the men left, and us women were told that we would need to continue on our own.  I was a little worried because a few of our girls were overweight and were struggling to just keep up, let alone help with the handcart.  I hadn't helped at all with the cart because our boys told me that Ma does not touch the cart.  See, best kids ever :)  Well, I wanted to help because i felt useless the first day, and i think the girls realized they would need my help!  Before heading out, they asked that we all kneel in prayer.  So, in that field, we knelt together and said a prayer.  It was a really emotional experience, and even more so later when Kevin said that from where the boys were all gathered, they could look down and see us all kneeling in prayer.

So Kascy and I jumped in the yoke, and two of my daughters were pushing from behind.  Another daughter held baby Eliza the entire time, which was about 2 hours, and one girl walked along side the cart.  We were really happy actually because we were the first handcart, which meant that we were never stuck behind families.  I am not going to lie, those 2 hours were rough, but really great at the same time.  We were blazing a trail through poison ivy, pulling the cart over fallen logs, and such, but we made it!  After about 2 hours, we had a small devotional, then headed back on the trail.  Probably 10 minutes later, we saw our men walking (and running) towards us!  Our guys said that they were so proud when they saw that our cart was first :)  The boys jumped in to help, and we then trekked for several more hours.  It was SUPER hot that day, and I think we were all feeling it.  When we finally made it to camp, we were beyond thrilled.  We had dinner, then did pioneer games and square dancing (which we had been practicing for a few months).  The kids all had a great time, and it was a nice break from the hard work we had been doing all day.

That night, I felt so gross, and so hot, that I couldn't bring myself to pump.  I tried wiping myself with the baby wipes, but i was sweating so much in my tent, it felt useless.  So, i just tried to sleep!  The next morning, after breaking down camp, we had scripture study, which was led by two girls who volunteered the night before.  One of the girls, Meredith, had shared something very personal with our family the evening before.  She hadn't been to church in over a year, but had wanted to come on Trek.  (Why, I don't know, haha.)  She was talking about her experience so far, and basically ended up bearing her testimony.  The Spirit was so strong, and then Kevin spoke to the kids about recognizing the Spirit and taught about how the Holy Ghost can bring all these experiences to their remembrance.  Again, I was so proud of Kevin, because I feel like whenever I am feeling the Spirit strongly, I just am an emotional mess and am unable to express myself or capitalize on those teaching moments.

After breakfast, we headed out on the trail.  We had trail scouts who were supposed to keep us on course, but we ended up going the wrong direction for about a mile, then had to turn around.  (In total, we trekked 22 miles over the course of 3 days.)  So, after several hours of trekking, we were stopped to let our family know that our baby Eliza had died, and that we needed to bury her along the trail.  As Ma and Pa, we were forewarned about this, and had brought a shovel with us.  We were also told that we should share our testimonies with the kids at this time, since the testimony meeting later would be just for the youth.  So, along that trail, we huddled as a family and talked again about the sacrifice those early saints made, and Kevin asked one of our boys to say a prayer.  After the prayer, the kids all took turns helping to dig a grave.  I was a WRECK!  I just could not imagine having to bury a child along the trail.  I was able to pull myself together enough to share my testimony, then Kevin did the same.  It was a very emotional time for our family.

After trekking another hour or so, we came to a bridge, and our Stake Trek banner, which all the kids had signed before leaving.  Months before leaving on Trek, all participants were asked to think of who they wanted to trek for.  We made dog tags with the names of those people, and as we arrived at the banner, we then signed the name of the person we trekked for next to our name.  This was just to symbolize that we made it!  We trekked in their honor.  This was a special moment for me, as I had chosen to trek for my dear friend's little girl who passed away in utero at 30 weeks.

We trekked the last quarter mile, and were greeted by Stake Leaders and pizza :)  Following lunch, we had testimony meetings by company, and again, I was so proud of our kids who shared their experiences on Trek. After that, we were given sodas and candy bars, then loaded the bus for the 2 hour ride back to the Stake Center.  Kevin and I were super tired, but the kids seemed to be energized, haha.  We played a few never-ending games of Signs, and several of the girls in my ward (who were not in my family), kept saying to me, "You have the best boys in your family", which was totally true :)

We were greeted at the Stake Center by all the families waving white handkerchiefs.  We then hugged all our kids goodbye, which was bittersweet.  I really think those kids will always have a special place in my heart!  Several of the girls even brought their parents over to meet us, which was sweet.

On the 20 minute drive to our house, we called my parents and tried to FaceTime with Brooke :)  I was really worried about how much I would miss Brooke while we were away, but due to how busy we were and how exhausted we were, I was able to keep my mind off of missing her.  But that didn't mean we weren't super anxious to be reunited with our little girl!  She looked super confused when she first saw us, then gave us lots of hugs, and became super clingy to me, haha.

Mom and Dad had such a great time with Brooke though, and told me several times that night (and since), how much they enjoyed that one-on-one time with her.  They taught her to play "chase", which is adorable, and she seemed so happy!  They said she slept great, did great with her bottles, and even tried cow's milk once and seemed to like it.  Success :)

We were so thankful for the wonderful opportunity we had, and are happy to report that we have our first Trek family get-together scheduled for August 23rd!!

Baby Brooke is ONE!!

Our little sunshine Brooke turned one!!  I had several secret pinterest boards with party ideas, but in the end, decided that a sunshine party fit Brooke the best.  I ordered the invites from an etsy seller, and was super happy with how they turned out.  Here are a few pictures from Brooke's big day...

She was in heaven with all those kids around!  I had to get a picture with Brooke and Ellie Hawkins because Ellie always loved holding Brooke when she was a newborn.  Makes for a fun comparison :)

I don't have pictures of all the guests, but the following people were in attendance: Grammie and Grandpa Clark, Jeffrey Madi and Ellie Clark, G + G Meador, Melanie Jeffrey and Kinley Peacock, Ryan Peacock, the Sturgill family, the Smith family, and the Hawkins family.

Brooke's GIANT cupcake :) She is sitting in Kevin and Melanie's old highchair because I thought it made for cuter pictures, haha.

Kevin and I were so anxious for the cake!  I really thought she would dive in because she likes sweet things (no surprise there!), but she was very dainty in her little tastes.

Kevin recorded the whole thing with his GoPro camera, which he still needs to turn into a little movie.

After cake, we opened presents, and Brooke was spoiled rotten.

We then headed over to the pool, where we discovered that Brooke can touch the floor in the kiddie pool when she is in her floaty.  She was cruising all over that pool, haha.

We had a cute sunshine pinata all strung up in the garage (Daddy's idea), but didn't end up doing it because we simply ran out of time before guests had to leave.  So, we are going to host an after-party where we will bust open that pinata :)

Brooke's actual birthday was the next day, Sunday, so I snapped a few pictures of her by her birthday sign.  And Grandma bought her a special birthday girl outfit, so we needed a few pictures in that as well. The tutu shirt was too cute :)

It was so great to have family and friends share this special day with us.  It is amazing to me that a YEAR has already passed, but it has been so full of wonderful memories!  This stage is so fun, and I love to see her learn and grow every day.  I am sure the next year will hold lots of new adventures as well.

Cousins :)

Jeffrey and Madison brought Ellie to Texas, and we were thrilled. Even though we had seen them at the end of April, Ellie had changed so much already!  My favorite thing was the adorable smiles I could get from her.  I would just say her name from across the room, and she would flash her gummy smile.  It seriously melted my heart :)  It was so fun to have them here and to watch the cousins together.  I had to constantly be on guard though because Brooke was very interested in being close to her cousin :)

Cutie girls in bucket hats :)  It was impossible to get them to both look at the camera, but at least they were both turning their heads in the same direction, haha.

See, adorable!!   The first of many cousin baths I am sure...