teenage depression

August 2, 2015

CL0A4666 This photo. It means a lot to me. Kiana has had a phenomenal year, or even more than that – maybe eighteen months which followed a few years of some real trials. When she was thirteen, we moved to Boston. She was thrilled to be going on the adventure – embraced everything we were planning. Then soon after we moved is when I found out I had cancer. Now – looking back all of her struggles make sense. But at the time, it was so confusing to feel like a daughter who had always been a happy overachieving soul was struggling with so many new challenges. With puberty (something my girls go through very fast and early) she had intense migraine headaches that came on suddenly and wiped her out for sometimes a few days/week.

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our family at home

August 1, 2015

A month ago, Gabrielle Blaire of Design Mom featured our home in her Living With Kids Tour series. This was the second time she’s featured one of our homes – the first time was our Boston home. Here’s a few photos by Becky Kimball of our life at home that didn’t make the final cut – if you’d like to see the tour it’s right here.

SeeJane_BeckyKimballPhoto_01
SeeJane_BeckyKimballPhoto_02
SeeJane_BeckyKimballPhoto_06 Wellesley Baloo is so little in these pictures! She hadn’t had all her shots yet, so she wasn’t even being groomed yet! A fluffy little messy ball of cuteness!
SeeJane_BeckyKimballPhoto_13As some of you may already know I’ve been going through an anti-toy phase for a while.

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Lake Powell 2015

July 29, 2015

When Dusty and I were in college – I was in the Alpha Phi sorority, and he was in the Sigma Chi fraternity. Each spring his fraternity would “marry” my sorority and go on a greek honeymoon to Lake Powell. In the early summer of 1995 we went on our first trip to Powell together and mutually fell in love with the lake… while we continued to fall in love. Cheesy? yes.

Since that year I can make a rough guess that we’ve returned to Powell maybe a dozen or more times. When our kids were all young we spent years going on “couples” trips – we’d fill 1-2 houseboats with about 15 couples sans kids and enjoy the time away from parenting littles.

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Independence Day

July 27, 2015

July 4th – The pinnacle of summer here in Utah, our fourth was spent well. The holiday co-exists with our local Provo Freedom Festival which includes hot air balloon launches every morning for three days, a grand parade – LOTS of people stay up all night to camp out for good viewing spots and that includes most of the teenagers staying out all night, a 5K and 10K race, a carnival, and more…

I mentioned this on instagram, but will repeat myself here: This past spring we started watching home videos from when our older kids were little. We spent weeks watching them and Sela was the most obsessed – seeing what life was like in our family before her…

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Myla and I went on our first Ordinary Hero mission in June. I still don’t have the right words for the experience. I shared a few of the highlights on instagram @see_jane, and I created the video above to remember as many details as possible.

I find my greatest confidence as a mom in the secret language I share with my children. During this trip that included Myla squeezing my hand when she was overwhelmed with emotions as she helped a child. A quick glance I would give Myla as children ran to greet us. Good night hugs that speak volumes. We have ways of letting each other know we need more or we’re getting enough.

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20/52

May 17, 2015

patriotic teen via seejaneblog
teen repacking tennis bag via seejaneblog
tween skateboarding to pull in the garbage can via seejaneblog
little stylist via seejaneblog
Australian Labradoodle six month old puppy via seejaneblog

A portrait of my children (and puppy), once a week, every week, in 2015.

Kiana: This girl was chosen this past week to be on her high school dance company presidency for her senior year!!!

Myla: Softball season is over, so she spent a little time today cleaning out her bag and prepping her tennis bag. This week she starts more training and matches!

KJ: He comes up with some creative ways to endure his chores.

Sela: I surprised her with a new pair of sandals for summer, and walked in the room to see her setting them up with a paper towel behind them to take a photo!

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