Briner Reunion in Cali

Shopping at the skate shops

Mia got picked up on by this Ninja Turtle

Stacks Pancake house was awesome! Yummy coconut syrup :)

Getty's 13th birthday at Ninja Turtle's grandpa's Mexican restaurant.

An ear infection for Cam...

This is what happens when Mom is distracted.

Knott's Berry Farm

Aunt Megan and Uncle Scott PDA

 Grandpa Doug with Cam

A break for dinner at Cheesecake Factory

Giant Swings

Getty skim boarding

Sand castles with the cousins

Uncle Nate and Morgan

Leaving our beach camp

I love this pic of Avery in all her glory ;) Britt says she makes a point of wearing her sunglasses high above her ears—a trendsetter

Getty showing MK the ropes

Cam's birthday celebration at Chilis, "What?? How did they know it's my birthday??"

Mia met up with Ninja Turtle at the beach.

Dinner with the adults by the pier:
[l to r] Patrick & Jen, Doug & Mom, Nate & Morgan, Craig & Britt, Rob & me, Scott & Megan

Raging Waters was packed, but the kids had fun.

This is a locals' surf beach that we had no business being at. We sat in a line of cars waiting for cars to leave the beach—one car leaves; one car proceeds to the beach. Cam got cut up by the rocks in the first 5 minutes.

Update: Ninja Turtle moved to Utah last month and drove from Payson with his grandpa to see Mia. I'm not sayin' he moved to Utah for Mia, but um.... ;)

Good Grief: month 5

Rob has told me for months he feels empty. Today he tells me he's feeling worse.

He's mad.

Not at Heavenly Father or anyone in particular, just mad that this is our story. Mad that she's gone, and we can't have her back in this lifetime.

I am so tired of crying.

I was still in love with Elle when she died—that stage that mothers go through with each of their babies/toddlers. I was still there. I mean, just look at her. Her popped knee, hand on her hip, sucking on her juice box, posing for her mom. She is my definition of adorable.

"When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight." —Kahil Gibran

Elle was my delight for the four + years of her life. And now it feels like I will cry for every hour I spent with her. 

Elle's self-portrait :)

I still keep track of 6 kids in my head. I'm still surprised when I look behind me in the car on vacation and see only M&M and the boys. I set out clothes for church, and I'm done before I should be. I'm not doing enough laundry—where is it all? At the dinner table—where is everyone? I'm alone in the house again?

For the first time in 18 years, I'm not keeping track of a baby or toddler. The freedom is uncomfortable. I feel like pacing. My youngest child now is 7 and in school full-time (!). I have a daughter who is away at college (—how can that be?). Mia will be driving and dating in October. As of July, I have a teenage son. Cy is in 4th grade and playing tackle football. Suddenly the kids seem to be slipping through my fingers. They're growing up too fast. I know it's premature, but I'm starting to panic about my life after kids. What am I going to do with myself? I don't have dreams and hobbies and aspirations I can't wait to launch into when the kids are grown. I've been living my dream. I wanted several kids, so this phase of life would last longer. When they're gone, I can always volunteer, go overboard on my church calling, read, go to the temple whenever I want, work out on my schedule, have a clean house, be able to find my nail clippers and house phones, but seriously—is that any way to replace motherhood? What job is going to be nearly as fulfilling as raising someone you love dearly to be happy in this world?

Jeffrey R. Holland, in speaking of Lot's wife, sums up my struggle, "... her attachment to the past outweighed her confidence in the future.

"She doubted the Lord's ability to give her something better than she already had. Apparently she thought—fatally, as it turned out—that nothing that lay ahead could possibly be as good as those moments she was leaving behind....

"To yearn to go back to a world that cannot be lived in now; to be perennially dissatisfied with present circumstances and have only dismal views of the future; to miss the here-and-now-and-tomorrow because we are so trapped in the there-and-then-and-yesterday—these are some of the sins, if we may call them that, of ... Lot's wife."

I cried as I read in black-and-white some of my most poignant emotions expressed so clearly. 

And I was grateful for this reminder "... faith is always pointed toward the future. Faith always has to do with blessings and truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives."

I can trust in the promise of a very distant tomorrow, but I hope to do better than that. I hope I can trust in the here-and-now and in what Elder Joseph B. Worthlin referred to as the Law of Compensation. I have seen it come into play already in our lives, and we're just getting started. 

First Day of School, 2012

4th grader: the sports fiend

1st grader: the professor

7th grader: the reformed maniac.
(Getty's first day of middle school.)

Sophomore: the spicy one.
(Mia's first day of high school.) She left at 5:45 a.m. for practice that morning, so I grabbed her after school.

College Frosh: the friend magnet.
MK sent me photos of her first day of school at BYU-H:

Good Grief: month 4

I don't have nearly as much control over my life as I thought I had. This is news to me.

I figured, get your education, you'll have some security. Work hard and be careful with money, and you'll be self-sufficient. Work on yourself and your marriage, and you'll be happy. We wanted to have several kids, and we were able to get pregnant easily. If I could have, I would have chosen the exact gender order I got. I understood these things didn't always work out for people, but they did for us. Not that I thought we were more deserving (probably less!), it was just our experience. In reconnecting with friends and college roommates I haven't seen in years, many learned this lesson ages ago through infertility, divorce, unemployment, wayward kids, health problems, etc.

At dinner with high school friends. We ate dinner at 4 
(with the senior citizens :), and four and a half hours later, 
finished up. I guess we had a lot to catch up on?

Soccer friends and college roommates

So, we have either no control or very limited control over some of the biggest factors in our lives: Life and death. Health. The economy. Husbands (luckily I got a good one!). Genetics. The job market. Teenagers :)

This is life.

I signed up for one more low-functioning pregnancy with Elle. She was born in November, a tiny 4 lbs. 12 oz., so I kept her home from church for 6 months because of the threat of RSV (she got it anyway at 6 months).

I would take pictures of her sleeping and couldn't get over how cute she was when she sucked her thumb.

I called her Puddin' because her cheeks looked like they were loaded with it. When I had fed her enough, she'd turn her head.

I potty-trained her, read my favorite childhood books to her, immunized her, and made sure she didn't have too much sugar or screen time.

I would dress her up for photo shoots around the house.

I loved hearing her awesome laugh as she slid down the front stairs or down the hill in the backyard in sleeping bags with Cam.

I would give her piggy-back rides to bed and taught her to pray at bedtime (mostly she would beg me to pray for her so she could suck her thumb and smell her blankey tag). I figured how to work around those two chunks of hair choppings while they grew back in—one where her bangs should be and one underneath in the back.

I would put her in time out and then watch her familiar tantrum—dumping the stair basket out on her way to her room and then kicking her door shut. I would wrap and re-wrap my scarves around her like sarongs because she wasn't satisfied that they were modest enough. On her bedroom floor, I would pick up 3 or 4 outfits she changed out of almost daily. I would watch her dance in her pink gymnastic suit or swimsuit costumes year-round.

I would crack up when she did her mean-girl growl and her ninja fight moves at the boys yelling "hi-YAH!!"

It was all a privilege, and I got that. I raised her for 4 years, 3 months, and 2 days. But that's where my mothering has to stop. And there is nothing I can do to change that. I put in all the effort and love and thought and time I could to be what I considered to be a good mom, but I don't get to raise her. That will have to wait until another lifetime.

"We're not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be."—C.S. Lewis

I'm reading a book about a family whose 5-year-old daughter was run over by her older brother in the driveway. Their father is a successful Christian ministry songwriter and performer. He wrote these words following his daughter's death:

"This is not how it should be
This is not how it could be
But this is how it is
And our God is in control

This is not how it will be
When we finally will see
We'll see with our own eyes
He was always in control

This is not where we planned to be
When we started this journey
But this is where we are
And our God is in control

Though this first taste is bitter
There will be sweetness forever
When we finally taste and see
That our God is in control"

—Steven Curtis Chapman

This is not how it will be. How I love that line.

Ultimately, I know we have control over the biggest factor in our lives—how we choose to respond to those events and circumstances. I just hope I can follow this counsel:

"Therefore, dearly beloved... let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed." —Doctrine & Covenants 123:17