A CLOSE FAMILY

Cousin Pictures from Summer 2019

I forgot to post these but I took some pictures of all the cousins when they were here in July. Cute, cute kiddos!

Dad/Grandpa Bleak's Retirement

My Dad retired from working for the church for 25+ years. He has been working on designing temples for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for many many years. It was so neat to go to the reception at the Church Office Building in Salt Lake City and really get a feel for the eternal impact he has and will continue to have in this world. He took part in about 40 different temples, many of which he was the main architect on those temples. There are people all over the world who get to participate in temple worship and essential ordinances because of the work he put in. Even President Henry B. Eyring of the 1^st Presidency of the church came to congratulate him. When Lucy met President Eyring she said matter of fact “I don’t know him!” He was nice in response to that statement J. I am so proud of my amazing Dad and all of his countless hours he put towards building God’s kingdom. Cade and my brothers talked about how it’s not often you have that kind of impact in the world after you retire and especially the eternal world. My dad can look back and know he did his best. He does always give everything 110%.

Jane 8 months old!

Tomorrow Jane is 8 months old! And I feel I haven't posted about her cute face enough on here so I need to do an update!

She is such a blessing to our family. She is happy, calm, content, and so much fun! The girls absolutely LOVE having a baby in the home. Even though she is 8 months old they still often fight over who gets to hold her, talk to her, or entertain her. Feeding her bottles isn't a fight anymore for them...cause she is SO active and wiggly and so feeding her can be a challenge.

Jane loves to move and be active and can't hold still for anything. Changing a diaper can be quite the feat...she can't stand to be on her back and not moving around. She is army crawling all over the place and has gotten quite fast at it. She has to be exploring and finding new things around the house. Jane has also learned how to pull herself up to things which makes her so proud and me very nervous. But she pulls herself and just stands there until I rescue her because she doesn't know how to get back down.

Jane still loves sleeping. She sleeps about 12 hours at night (still has to have one bottle in the middle of the night) and then sleeps at least 5-6 hours during the day. It makes it quite difficult to go anywhere since she starts getting grumpy if she is awake for more than a hour and 1/2 at a time. But its' a problem I will definitely take.

After we traveled to Arizona for Thanksgiving, she got her first cold and ear infection. Cade and I tried to wait it out and use essential oils to help it clear up, but after 8 nights of screaming, we needed to put her on an antibiotic. We tried so hard to avoid it because Lucy got her first ear infection at 8 months old and we went on a 2 year journey of screaming every night all night (ear infection after ear infection which led to many antibiotics which led to really bad silent acid reflux). Jane's crying at night almost did me in because of PTSD. I hope and pray she doesn't have to go through what Lucy did.

Then after recovering from her ear infection, I fed her eggs and she threw up for hours and hours. She threw up so much she hasn't really wanted to touch food for weeks (she very hesitantly puts things to her mouth and takes teeny tiny bites). Poor thing. I felt so bad for her. I stayed up with her until 1:30 in the morning until the barf was finally finished. I hope she grows out of an egg allergy and that we don't have to deal with that again.

She has been healthy for a couple weeks now and sleeping like a champ. Her newest thing is a scrunchy face and blowing in and out of her nose. It's so dang cute! WE love are sweet Jane SO much!

[At her 6 month appt she was:
15.7 lbs- 33 %
26.5 inches long- 70%
Then at 7 1/2 months old she weighed at 16.5 lbs]

Pictures from 3-6 months old:

Picutres from 6-8 months old:

Cade's Fishing Trip- San Diego

Cade and Trevor Tooke flew to San Diego and met up with Cade's dad and uncles/cousins for their almost annual fishing trip. Unfortunately this year there wasn't much fishing going on at all...so they called it their expensive cruise :). They still had fun and LOVE doing it.

Girls Night Out!

Girls night out are the BEST! My sisters and my Mom and I went to Sundance to ride the ski lift to see the beautiful fall (which things weren't quite red and orange yet...boo). Then we went to R&R BBQ and to Steph's house to just talk and giggle. We had so much fun! The funniest part of the night is after dinner we got into Kristen's van when it was dark and her night vision camera comes on automatically. There was a "ghost" in the picture that we had NO idea who it was because for some reason it changed the color of her hair and sweater and everything white...it was Mom but even she didn't know who the strange figure was. We were dying laughing. It was SO funny.

I just love spending time with these women. They are truly my very best friends and I love them dearly!!!!

Summer Queen for a Day & GOALS!

Every summer each girl gets to be "queen" for a day and decide what we will be doing for that day. They get to pick one activity that we have to pay for and then everything else during the day needs to be free. So we did a hike up the canyon (Reese is my girl!), rock climbing at Funtopia, frozen yogurt at FroYo, and playing at the Provo Beach Resort. We had lots of fun building forts, watching movies, making snacks, and of course eating lots more ice cream.

Also, in 2019 our stake was one of the several stakes around the world to pilot the new youth program that the church would be implementing. I have loved it and am so excited to teach my girls how to make and keep goals that get them closer to Christ. There are 4 areas of life that we get to make goals around- Spiritual, physical, intellectual, and social.

What we have been doing with our girls is printing out pictures that represent their goals and putting them above the words "You Did It" on our mudroom wall. Then when they accomplish that goal they can put their picture beneath those words and we also make a toast to them at dinnertime. Some of the goals they have accomplished are cooking, reading, building a fire, prayers, scripture study, typing on the computer, memorizing the baptismal covenants and much more. I am so excited to see what my girls accomplish through this new program.