How I miss having a camera! I did catch a little bit of moments on my TAB….

When the girls went off to their first day of school I noticed something was really wrong with Shae. After a couple of hours of her acting really odd, Tyler took her to the doctor. He came back with medications and informed me she was sick from the “red tide.” You are supposed to stay away from the beach the first week and last week of the rainy season. You should google red tide, such an odd thing. Good thing was Shae was better in no time.

Abby got her hair chopped off. She has been asking and asking for this. She also has been begging to get her ears pierced, so we finally told her when she turns eight, it is time.

I loved this time out. I drove myself to a grocery store and bought a bottle of sparkling JUICE (juice, juice, juice, juice) and chocolate nuts. And I sat on the edge of a cliff over looking the ocean and relaxed away. It probably did not look like a bottle of juice to passers.

I love that she is getting happier day by day by day. Some days are setbacks but overall she is improving. And crawling! And somewhat sitting, and has six teeth.

I love date nights with Big Pops.

I love hanging out with this chick. She is easy to please and goes with the flow. All she asks for is cookies all day. And then when you tell her no she points her finger at you and screams, “NOOOOoooooooOOoooo” in a really low scary voice.

I love overcast Costa Rica days, the rainy season out here aint too shabby.

Whenever we come back home and I get settled in I am going to get to cooking. I want to invite people over and give them some good Tico Soda food.

I love peeking out the window in the morning to check on my husband. He always looks so peaceful out there reading, watching the monkeys, or the macaws. Or sitting with one of his girls or just with his dogs. I love seeing him so happy and peaceful.

Let me preface this by saying that homeschooling moms, you are wonderful. Those of you that do it well (oh and there are so many of you) BRAVO. I believe your children are incredibly intelligent, well-adjusted, social, talented, and much more. Oh and so are you. I angers me that people stereotype homeschooling so awfully. It angers me that parents pass on their biased generalizations down to their children. And that your children can be hurt by it. You don’t deserve it. Homeschooling can be and is in lots of families just wonderful. And you need to go buy yourself a cupcake and foot the bill to me. 

Tyler and I have gone back and forth with the idea of homeschooling for years. It is so funny because I would read one book that would sway me completely away from homeschooling. Then I would read another one that swung me the other way. I wanted to give school a shot too so I put Abby in kindergarten. Which wasn’t too painful because she was only gone a couple of hours a day. It was a great experience. But we still really wanted to try homeschooling in our home. We thought maybe it was an option our family could do and do for years. After homeschooling the girls for one full school year (like I promised with myself I would), I have come to a conclusion.

It is not so. And this is why it is not so *right now* with *us*. Now do you notice those stars around those certain words? And did you read my preface? Ok allow me to continue on… To put it all in a nutshell this is why I have discontinued homeschooling. I do not believe it is the best for our family dynamic. It does not make me a happy mother. It has ruined the other creative things I love to do as a mother (crafts, special projects, reading with them, fun snacks, parties, playdates, etc.). It is very hard with the two babies and I feel like they have been neglected. It isn’t good for my mother-daughter relationship with them. Even though I have tried…oh goodness the things I could list…to keep their days interactive, social, and full with other children. It has not gone as I would have liked it too. Homeschooling does not immerse us in the culture. I could only get the basics done and did not have time for being a fun teacher, which they deserve.

Here enters the mom guilt. I know my husband (though he wouldn’t dare say) would rather me be able to do it and enjoy it. I do not like Abby gone for that long during the day. I believe school is at least two hours too long. Right now she is in the, over tired, I just started 1st grade, stage. The first day of school out here she came home and fell right asleep!

Sometimes I allow that mom guilt to take over and eat at me. Then other times I tell myself these things. They are even happier now, they are making so many friends, they are learning from many adults. Also they are having bad days at school which teach them things. They are having great days of school that boost their confidence and make them beam. They adore almost everything about school, it suits them. Then of course the mom guilt comes back and eats at me because…why couldn’t *I* give them that?

So as we travel from place to place, and when we settle down in a few years. My girlies will be in school, I am not a homeschool mama. I do feel as though a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders. I did not cry when I sent them off to school, I only felt relief. Now I am learning how to balance things in a different way. How to connect with them after a long day, how to still have my house be a home of learning, how to still have loads of family time.  (Like so many of you moms do so well that have kids that go to school)

Costa Rica has taught me many things about myself, my family, my girls, and our life. I feel so blessed that we got to have this “time out”. To re-evaluate our lives, what direction we wanted to go, fix relationships, tweak relationships. It has been heaven sent and I think Him everyday.

I will be sure to tell you what it is like to attend school out here and share some pictures. Not to worry grandmas!

Finca La Florita is a dairy in Esterillos, Costa Rica (very close to Jaco) that makes their own yogurt, milk, cheeses, chile sauce, sour cream, and cream.

Oh I had the most beautiful pictures of this place and our experience, just picture it! I have figured out how to do screen shots of my video while it is playing on Tyler’s computer. 

Dairy Farm in Esterillos Costa Rica from Vanessa Brown on Vimeo.

If you are in the area, YES you should go visit. If you are the area, YES you should buy their products. I don’t have the energy to turn this into a review but yes yes yes do it.

Tyler and I really enjoy understanding other businesses. We love hearing about how they do things. I think it must be because we feel a connection to them doing it ourselves. It is like a comradery between ourselves where we find ourselves rooting them on. We want to know every detail of their business and are mesmerized hearing about it.

The day was chalked full of new experiences; milking a cow, riding a water buffalo, being licked by sweet baby calves, enjoying our time with the owners, teaching the girls more of where their food comes from, and sampling all of their products.

Such a wonderful experience, out here in Cocoristo. I did learn once again that communities need to support their local businesses more. I believe if people understood just a little bit how much heart goes into businesses, how much harder some of them work to make your products better, and how much higher the quality is. That people would make changes; in their mindset, or moving our their budget numbers a bit, or quit buying unnecessary things at Target…to help out local companies. I wish, I hope, you should. 

I am a real grown up.

Time to change the name of this site to: I didn’t wanna, but I grew up.

I had a rough few days leading up to my 30th birthday. I had a back injury years ago, a decade ago, that was pretty painful for me. My limited college days were spent standing up in the back of classes because sitting down was excruciating. I trained my body to walk in a way that put all my weight on only one foot. Because 10 years ago I had three herniated discs that would jolt a nerve every time I walked. It was like hitting your funny bone but so bad it was painful. Spasms would start in my back and then shoot down one of my legs. I spent many afternoons in physical therapy. But after awhile all the pain went away. When I started having babies I worried it would come back, but it didn’t. When I started running it was short-lived because I have a ruined foot and hip. I still walk—and run and put all my weight on one side of my body. The doctors told me I will have my hips replaced probably in my 40s and that running long distances is not for me. When I was visiting California while pregnant with Reagan the pain came back. But I thought it was something different and had to do with the baby. Thankfully after a couple of days it just went away.

But about a week and half ago it came back and the pain was so extreme I was on my stomach for almost three days. I crawled downstairs a couple of times to get myself something to eat. Tyler helped over conference weekend as my horrible attitude got worse and worse. A couple of days in I realized I had to cut it out and I dropped the nasty attitude. General Conference weekend will fix you like that.

We had plans to go ziplining and leave the two babies at home with a sitter. I was worried because even though every day the pain was better I wasn’t sure about ziplining. But I decided that it was my 30th birthday and I wanted to break my back in style I guess.

But when my camera and computer were stolen and some other things to do with that happened the day before, I didn’t want to do anything. We decided to postpone my birthday celebrations for a couple of weeks until I was feeling more like myself. It was a big blow and my heart hurt for awhile. It still does–but not as bad.

We did leave the house to go out to lunch. Where I felt like a superstar for feeding myself, the baby, and a toddler all at once. Also with my two other girls squished up against me. They wanted to be really close to me because it was my birthday lunch. There is this fun place called the Taco Bar where you build your own tacos with the menu. You can sit at the bar on swings. That never happens because I am sure if my family did that in about 10 minutes two kids would have split open knees or heads or lips or whatever.

I am glad we canceled our plans. For a couple of days I woke up crying and went to bed crying. Listen, pictures mean a lot to me, it is hard for some people to understand. But they sure do.

Then on my birthday I walked into church a little down. This past week was the first time I really missed my ward–well any ward for that matter. I just needed some sisters, I needed a Relief Society for ME. My branch is an hour away, everyone lives out there, and no one owns a car (or is able to drive a car). I wanted sisters to come help me during the week. And I am not one to ask for or plead for help. But if I had been anywhere else I would have over the week. I just wanted someone to run up to me and say HAPPY BIRTHDAY! But no one knew it was. So I sulked for the first few minutes of church. And then I got over myself. Life is good. I looked around and knew all the physical heartache people are going through around me. My problems were very miniscule compared to them. So once again, my attitude flew away.

So on my birthday I enjoyed a normal, chase two babies around, finally give up and play in the water spicket, kind of Sunday.

Finally yesterday after lunch I decided I felt up to going somewhere and doing something. So I called our babysitter and we went out for a night on the town on a Tuesday night. Tyler and I went to my favorite restaurant int he area and a walk on the beach. Glad I waited, it was such a beautiful night.

I had my mom send me pictures of each of my “decades of life” so I can look through how far I have come.

I showed my baby picture to Tyler and said, “People say my girls look a lot like me but I don’t see it!” He replied by looking at me like I was crazy. Why can’t I see myself in my girls?

This is when I was 10 years old, look at that! Can we say, early 90′s?!

The next picture is of my wedding day, this is my favorite picture of that day.

Look at me now, it has been a busy decade. I married a good good man, my very best friend, and was given four smart, full of personality, beautiful girls.

What a beautiful 30 years I have had. Happy Birthday to me indeed.

Shae I think spent her second birthday not sure what was going on. Why she was wearing a crown, why she was getting all this extra attention, and why there suddenly was a party in her house. She didn’t seem confused by having cupcakes, that part seemed perfectly normal to her.

Her morning started with me scooping her right out of bed as soon as she began to stir. I whispered happy birthday to her and smothered her in kisses. I put on her special birthday shirt adored with a number 2 and balloons flowing from it. I had ordered this bright pink felt crown that had velcro on it to make the numbers interchangeable. She wore it with pride and we ran outside to take her birthday pictures. It was very early in the morning, I wanted to get it done with the light was perfect and everyone in the house was still sleepy. Shae wouldn’t let me take her bunny from her so all of her pictures had her clutching him while grinning.

I thought about how much I loved her. I thought about the day I stood in the store waiting for my bread to be cut. And I looked down and went to pick up a baby from the cart that was not there. While standing there I knew that she was to come and soon there would be a little sweet thing for me to pick up from the grocery cart. Who knew she would dazzle me so? With her reflection pool eyes, perfect rosy lips, adorable grin, and a swoop of perfectly placed freckles. I spend every day disappointed that I cannot hold you more and give you even more kisses. So some nights you stay up with me so I can just hold you and love on you. Daddy and I always whisper to each other, “That one, that one is our favorite” while we both look at you. That is probably awful for parents to say, but you sure are a dazzler and at the perfect age. Old enough to not be too needy but young enough not to sass.

I remember asking all your sisters, “What would Shae want to eat during the day for her birthday?” Everyone jokingly said cookies, cupcakes, sugar, chocolate, something sweet! So I bought you a box of really gross Cookie Crisp for your breakfast and made your favorite smoothie. You also Skyped with both set of grandparents during the morning. You opened your gifts from them and also from your sisters. Cameron was so excited to give you a tea set and Abby was excited to give you a blow up frog chair.

Then Daddy took you to the farmers market all alone so we could set up for your party. For a few nights before I worked hard on re-creating Yo Gabba Gabba characters to hang on the wall. I wanted them to be poster sized and for you to squeal in delight when you saw them.

We put some color coordinating fabric on the table, tossed some candy everywhere, and placed out your cupcakes. Boy did they taste horrid but they went along with your favorite show and music: YO GABBA GABBA!

We began your party with a performance. When you were gone at the farmers market your sisters and I practiced it over and over to get the timing just right. Each of us had a character shirt on from your favorite show. I was Muno, Abby was Broobe, Cameron was Plex, Reagan was Toode, and you were to be Foofa. I had the soundtrack to the opening music in the show and we hid in the hallway. As the music played and each character was introduced we came out from behind the wall. We swung around your shirt during the music. Then when it was over we put the shirt on you and did the dance again with you.

Oh it was so perfect!

You opened your presents from us; something to play with was some Yo Gabba Gabba pool squirters, something to wear was Foofa Vans, something pretty was some Yo Gabba Gabba rings, and something to read was two Yo Gabba Gabba books. Obviously as you can tell, you were in Yo Gabba Gabba heaven. The Foofa shoes were your favorite, you have not stopped wearing them since.

We blasted Yo Gabba Gabba music the whole time and did some freeze dancing and hide and seek. Your sisters made a special accessory for each of the characters on the wall. Then we used them to play “Pin the crown/wand/hat/etc. on Foofa/Broobee/etc. Your sisters had such a ball helping with your party.

Baby girl, your birthday ended sadly. But as Poki always says, “No Matter”, no matter is right. I am sad that my camera and computer were stolen. I don’t like what happened, or how it happened, or anything. I am sad your day ended like that instead of you getting to stay up with me and be cuddled to death. Like I do with all my girls on their birthdays. I am heartbroken that I don’t have pictures (other than these grainy backwards TAB photos) to document this day. But “No Matter” I have written all about it and love my dazzling girl more than I can say.

Happy Birthday my love.

shaes2ndbday from Vanessa Brown on Vimeo.

Family pictures included some catastrophes with hair, children being swept under a wave, not being able to fit into my dress (I wore a different one), and bruises healing just in time (ok that last one could be taken the wrong way, I was referring to Shae’s huge bump on her head).

But it made for some wonderful family pictures. I told myself, I am not going to dwell on the fact that I am not as thin as I would like. I just had two babies in a row these past couple of years. Maybe in a couple more years I can talk my husband into pictures again. But he said yes this year and  this is only the second time we have had family pictures taken. I jumped on the fact that he said yes and got them done as fast as I could (ok that last one could be taken the wrong way as well, he despises pictures, it wasn’t that I needed to ask PERMISSION to do something).

Ok enough of me talking, here they are:

We had heard that there was a beautiful little town high up on a mountain where the breezes were cool, farms were there, and a good place to eat. So one day we decided to head on up and check it out. On the way up it started getting steeper and steeper and we soon got worried. The only people driving up and down the roads had four wheelers or big trucks. So when we stopped by a beautiful waterfall just 10 minutes into the drive we were lucky. We just made that our ending point and let the girls play away in the water.

That is one of the beautiful things about Costa Rica, *FREE* beauty is everywhere. Unstructured nature play is easy to come by. This is also something I miss about Utah, the mountains, trails, and different nature. You Utah folk are pretty lucky too.

This last picture is of the girls pretending to be dinosaurs. We are learning a lot about water this year in school. And ever since I told them about the water cycle and that we use the same water the dinosaurs do, they talk about it all the time. So they thought that this looked like a perfect dinosaur water fountain!

(Note: obviously I now know that she is too big and wiggly to be in this alone and on a table in her bouncy chair)

I love that…I love that I love her. That I love her when she screams, when she doesn’t sleep, when she won’t calm down. I am glad I have a lot of love for her, because she is a toughie.

I love that we are making friends. Slower than I would like, but it is happening. We live in a little town outside of the town and in a section of this town with no kids around. We love the house so it is a trade up I am willing to give. But it just makes it a bit trickier. But you know what? Things are still moving along and progressing. Which makes me smile to see.

I love coming outside to find real life Lamanites/Nephities in my front yard! All the trees, bushes, and flowers get put to good use by these four girlies.

I love holding my babies, I love them cuddled up against me. Lately I have been worried that this stage of my life is going to go away too fast. I don’t want it to.

I really love babies in sun hats.

I adore the sound of macaws flying overhead. It is a very loud distinctive sounding squawk. And if you look up you always see them. This day there were 8-10 of them just soaring above my head. So beautiful, I adore these birds.

I love that Abby has a new hobby that fulfills her. She tells me sewing calms her down, gives her a break from her sister, and makes her feel good. This was her first sewing project, a little pillow with some embroidery on it.

I really love how much the little girls look up to the big girls. How they smile at them, reach for them, and try to be like them.

I love how relaxing in the pool hasn’t got old yet. How could it?

I love this firecracker, this is her in a new dress she got the other day.

We all love waking up to monkeys jumping in the trees behind our house. They are such fun to watch and it is one of Tyler’s favorite things.

Pura Vida friends!

Abby is my buddy when I want to go out at night to eat, walk the marina, do an errand, etc. Cameron is more of a homebody and just likes being there. So Abby will try the new food with me or be adventurous and go to a new place.

When we go out I am always struck by two things: #1 Abby is getting older and #2 Abby is still a little girl. She always puts a lot of effort into her outfit and accessories when we go out. She swishes her hair in this special way, talks to me differently, and acts like we are girls on the town. But then after about an hour in she starts acting like a little girl. She gets tired, fidgety, I have to remind her where we are and to sit down. But I do it all with a huge grin because I love realizing that she is pretty little still. And every time she falls asleep on the way home. So I roll down the windows, turn up the music, let the cool jungle breeze blow on our faces, and fall even more in love with her.