Tony Grove

We went camping last week,

but a couple of weeks before, when Josh and Alicia were visiting from Vegas and Sarah was home for the week, we took a day to go to Tony Grove.

Because it's our favorite place in the whole wide world.

It was beautiful. So green. And the wildflowers were to die for.

Being up there for the day just made me so excited to come back and stay. I truly cannot think of a place that brings more peace to my soul. 

As we packed up that morning for the day, 

I didn't bring my kids' swimsuits or swim diapers, because I thought it would be too cold and Christian wouldn't want to get in the water.

Ha. 

When we came up over the bank from the parking lot and Christian saw the lake for the first time,
he stood still (!) and his mouth dropped open and he said the sweetest little breathy
"WOW."
Then he looked to the left.
"WOW."
Then he looked to the right.
"WOW!"

Then he took off running into the water.

After standing in the water for a few minutes,
he plopped himself down and sat.
In that icy cold mountain lake.
Then he started to scoot on his bum.
Inching farther and farther into the deep.

He didn't stop. He just kept scooting,
until the water was up to his chin.

That's when I intervened and attempted to bring him closer to shore.

He didn't love that plan.

Also? What in the world did our own mothers do without swim diapers? These absorbent monster diapers are ridiculous!

For camping the next week, I definitely came prepared for some serious time in the water with this munchkin.

Mommy Mornings

My kids have been going through a couple of rough phases.

Now, they're good kids. Really good. And I think sometimes we don't acknowledge that as much as we should. Maybe sometimes we expect too much of them.
But they're smart. And we need them to know that we expect them to be the very best they can be.

Anyway,
Kent and I have been working hard to help them get through these issues lately.  We spend most of our time together in the evenings just talking and researching and praying.

The idea came to me last week,
that my children might benefit from more attention. I'd already cut out all phone time/social media/internet browsing for me during the day, but maybe there could still be more I could give them.
As I was praying about it,
I had a thought that I should start doing something.

Enter, Mommy Mornings.
Nearly each morning now, we wake up, have breakfast, get dressed,
and then I spend fifteen minutes completely alone with each child.
We can do anything they want. They take the lead, and I am theirs, completely, for fifteen minutes.
It has become my favorite 45 minutes of the day.

Nicholas often chooses to just cuddle together on the couch and talk. We ask each other all sorts of questions. Then we'll jump up and play tag in the living room or hide-and-seek. 
Ellie loves for me to play princess castle with her. We also color together, read, or go outside and paint rocks.
Christian mostly just jabbers away while I follow him around the house. We wrestle and tickle and give big slobbery squeezie kisses.

It's only 15 minutes, but it sets the tone for the day and lets them each know, on their own, that mommy loves them and cares about them enough to spend time just with them.
And that's turing out to be a pretty great thing.

The Fourth

Over the Fourth of July, my whole family got together up in Logan.
Because we were all there together,
we took some pictures of the whole group.

I struggled with the lighting,
and struggled even more with my children.
(at one point I actually bribed Nick with $5 if he would just smile. $5! I was that desperate.)

Getting Christian to cooperate involved a lot of tickling. For the big group shot I would set the timer, scoop Christian up, and race back to our spot. He thought it was the most exciting game ever.

By the end, the littles were getting pretty tired,
but this yawning shot of sweet Avery? I just love it!

weekend report

The Parade of Homes finished up this weekend. Because we had a house right across the street from us in the parade, we knew there would be lots of visitors. Nicholas and Ellie (but mostly just Nick--Ellie still lacks in dedication/patience/desire for this sort of thing) sold drinks and chips.

They made $45 in about 6 hours of selling. Seriously good money for a 6 year old!

Nick was the most adorable little salesman. He'd ask people if they wanted their drink "really cold or just normal?" and when he got the waterbottle from the cooler he'd say things like "oh this is a really drippy one!" and "now make sure this doesn't drip in your car!" and then "have a nice day!" At one point he told me he had been giving the chips away as a "buy a drink get chips free" sale. I also overheard him complimenting people on their "nice new car!" 

It was "blazing hot" out there, according to Ellie, but Nick was impressively dedicated. It made all the set up and arguing discussing beforehand worth it. (The day before, Nick was adamant that he sell his drinks for Two Dollars and Three Cents. It required Kent and I working together, all day, to convince him that the three cents part was a particularly difficult to execute idea.)

Quirks, revisited:

I've noticed a few more since my post about my kids wacky habits.
Christian. He is at just the right height to reach Ellie's underwear basket in her closet. He takes out one pair at a time of her clean underwear and places it somewhere else around the house. I am constantly picking Ellie's underwear up out of the bookshelf, the toy basket, the kitchen drawers, the stairway, etc.

This pair made it into the shopping cart with a pony. 

Ellie is completely convinced that eating tortilla chips gives her the ability to taste any other food without actually tasting it.
For example,
"Ellie, I need you to at least try one bite of your meatball."
"But I don't have to, because I ate a tortilla chip so I already have the taste of meatball in my mouth!"

She thinks they're magic. We cannot convince her otherwise.

We're chicken-sitting for some neighbors, so we get to pretend like their backyard belongs to us too for a few days. If you're looking for us this week, you can find us sprawling on the grass in the shade.

Nick gave me a coloring book for my birthday last month, and I think it's one of the most thoughtful, great gifts I've ever received. I didn't know it before, but I love coloring. And the kids like to color with me, so it's a perfect "we're-spending-time-together-but-everyone-is-silent" afternoon activity. I make a copy of a page from my book for them, then we sit in the living room and color together while Christian naps.

Kent finished up the drywall in the basement (wahoo!) and we passed inspection, so next step is to find an (affordable) taping/mudding/texturing/painter. We're only finishing two rooms right now, the playroom and the entertainment room, but gosh it's going to be awesome when they're done.

In the meantime, while Kent was working on the drywall on Saturday, I took a few hours and cleared out one of our empty unfinished bedrooms and converted it into a makeshift temporary playroom. 

Their bedroom upstairs was getting CROWDED and it was time to give the toys their own home. It took some work to clean up the wood shavings, nails, splinters, and dust left over from construction, but I think it's ready now for them to play down there without my having to worry about them. At least until Christian starts climbing those totes and falling through the unfinished wall.
Not that he would do that.
Yeah, just kidding. He's going to be climbing those probably by next week.

Speaking of climbing, this is the current arrangement of our dining table and chairs.

A few days ago, I was cooking and Christian was just hanging out in the kitchen with me, walking around and pulling things out of drawers. I turned to the stove for a moment, and then when I turned back, he was in his high chair.

I did not put him there. Kent wasn't home. The kids aren't even close to strong enough to lift him that high plus they were in the other room the whole time.
The only thing I can assume is that he climbed onto the dining chair, walked across the table (which he has a habit of doing,) and then scooted across his tray(!) and down into his seat.

So.
Now the kitchen chairs are pushed far away from the table when not in use. I tried laying them down on the floor for a few days, but I got really tired of stubbing my toes on chair backs.
I'm sure that in a few more days Christian will realize that chairs are mobile and start pushing them back over to the table so he can resume table-walking, but for now, this works.
Motherhood is all about going with the flow and changing your methods, sometimes by the minute.

Now that I'm in the Primary presidency, Kent's flying solo with the busy busy 15-month old during the second and third hour of church. And it's naptime. Of course.
Yesterday I tried to help their time together go more smoothly by taking Christian out during sacrament meeting, finding an empty classroom, turning on a white-noise app, and humming him to sleep. He slept, sweaty and sighing, in my arms for twenty or thirty minutes, and I loved every minute of it. 

That belly! That drool-stained tie! Those dimples where his knuckles should be! Don't grow up, baby of mine. Please don't grow up. At least not yet.

Our Father's Day was super low-key. Kent requests we don't make a fuss about holidays/birthdays that are about him. It is hard for me, because I want to celebrate this man, so we compromise by doing just a little. I gave him a package of bacon from a local butcher shop (we'll never go back to grocery store-bought bacon, guys!), and the kids made cards for him. Ellie made two cards, actually. On one card, Kent is a prince and Ellie is the princess. On the other card, Ellie has a pig nose, and Kent is "a potato with lady lips."

Sometimes I think I want to get inside my children's brains, even if for just a moment, to figure out what in the world they are thinking.
But maybe it's funnier when we don't know.

a few weeks in

With how early Nick got out of school this year (kindergarten is awesome,)
we're a few weeks into summer by now, and we've got a good chunk of these bucket list items crossed off so far,
with lots more fun to come.

And we've had our fair share of working through the "kinks" of having both the big kids home together all day every day (I'll never understand why, with over 3000 square feet of space in this home, my kids want to spend their time fighting over whose foot gets to be in one square inch of carpet...)
but overall, it's been awesome.

 We visited my parents while Kent went to California over Memorial Day weekend.
The weather---to die for. So green and perfect outside. I think we officially spent more time outside playing on their lawn than in, 
which was perfect for us since our backyard is still a pile of rocks and dirt and our front grass still looks like this:

But 0ur city's main water supply well broke last week,
and they've asked us to stop watering for the next five weeks.
We tried to figure out a way to keep this brand-new grass seed alive, and now they're letting us water once every five days,
but it's probably not going to survive this summer heat. Such a bummer in timing--if only we'd waited until fall to plant our grass!  

Last weekend Kent's dad and uncle came to help us get the drywall put up in our basement. 
What a gift of service! Their help was invaluable, and now we have walls in our playroom and movie room! 
We were also so happy to have Grammer and Papa here to stay with us for a few days while the guys were working. 

 (Christian does not like to be held in one place....he's a crazy man and always on the go.)

 We're seriously dying for a real yard. 


The house across the street from us is in the Utah Valley Parade of Homes this year, and as a sort of sorry-about-the-craziness gift, our builder gave us a couple of tickets,
so we traded babysitting with our darling neighbors, and 
Kent and I got to go see some houses.

Most of them are ridiculous (awesome, but ridiculous,)
like this one with a full-size bowling alley:

 But I found the house of my dreams, guys.

 This is the laundry room. I think I would spend my whole day in there.  

 Also, speaking of dreams, I found the desk of my dreams. 
I love it. Just not the $1300 price tag (eek!)

Kent and I have been pretty busy,
he's got a big deadline at work and has been staying long days,
and our ward was split four weeks ago so we have a brand new ward and
brand new callings--Kent is the Assistant Ward Membership 
Clerk, and I'm now the Primary Secretary.
And our dishwasher broke. And is still broken.  
To all of you who live without a dishwasher, I applaud you. This is not an easy thing.
But in between I was able to find a little time to switch out some things to freshen up the house for summer.

 I love looking at these beach prints (St. John on the left and San Diego on the right) and remembering the sand and the sun.

And speaking of being busy,
our littlest one lately has been 
a handful.
Or maybe an armful. Maybe. 

He's our first climber in the family and
holy exhausting!

And yes, those chairs are on the floor because otherwise he'd be on top of the table.
It's gotten to the point where, when I see him up on top of something that isn't exactly a place you typically find babies,
I have to evaluate the surroundings and determine, 
if he falls from there, will he get really hurt? Or just a little bumped? 
And if the answer is just a little bumped? I let him be. 
I tried following him around at first and getting him off of everything, but who has that kind of time?
So for now, we'll keep things soft and padded and always always remember to lay all the chairs down.

If you need us you can find us slurping popsicles, finding places with real grass to play on, climbing, and reading lots and lots of books.

Happy summer!

welcome to summer

Monday was Nick's first day of summer.

I thought,

let's make it a super fun day where everyone is happy and we go to the farm and just have fun.

I should have realized what that would actually translate to.

Kent's mom calls it the "Jurassic Park Syndrome." Where you have this great idea with your kids and "ooh, ahh, this is SO fun and great!" and then before you know it it's screams and terror and people are getting eaten alive.

Nicholas and I had to get up early and get to the school for his end of year Kindergarten review testing. 

Which meant that when we got home, Nick was ready ready ready

and the other two kids were not.

So we spent the morning attempting to get the other kids ready to go while Nicholas questioned my abilities as a mother and very loudly wondered why we weren't leaving yet?!

The farm is part of a museum we used to visit lots when we lived in our last house. Now that we're down here, it's about a 35 minute drive on the freeway. 

Three minutes into the car ride Ellie started asking if we were getting close yet.

We made it to the farm 

and it really was really fun.

Christian wanted to live with the bunnies.

He circled that rabbit pen for a good forty minutes, squealing and stomping with excitement.
Nicholas asked me if he can get a pet rabbit "maybe when I'm 18, Mom?"
He knows me well.

There were baby goats, baby calfs, a baby pony, and of course the pony rides are always the highlight.

We really did have fun at the farm.
But by this point, it was past lunchtime, and Ellie hadn't eaten any of her breakfast (oatmeal was suddenly the worst) and things were about to implode on us, so we quick grabbed chicken nuggets from Wendy's.

The kids' meals came with frosties this time (has anyone else noticed that sometimes they give them and sometimes they don't?)
I'd told the kids before the farm that we could get cookies at the bakery nearby after the farm.
But now we had ice cream too.

Trying to be a good mom and not let them eat their own weight in sugar each day, I suggested that the kids decide if they want to eat their frostie or if they want to get a cookie.
Nicholas chose the cookie.
Little miss instant-gratification-Ellie chose her frostie.
So we ate in the car outside the bakery.

And then Nicholas needed to use the bathroom. RIGHT NOW.
But Ellie was NOT going to get out of the car with us. She insisted she was old enough to stay in the car all by herself. 

So much sadness/screams from the four-year-old, panic/potty dancing from the six-year-old, and screeching/wriggling from the one-year-old who was really thinking he'd like to run out in front of traffic at the moment instead of be stuck in mom's arms.

We made it inside, Nick used the restroom, and we waited in line and bought Nick his cookie. 
At which point Ellie decided that actually, she wanted a cookie instead of her frostie. I'd just paid, and now there were approximately 25 people in line.
No deal, Girly. 
Who thought that telling your child she has to eat her ice cream would make her wail in the middle of a restaurant? 

Whew. This story is longer than I realized. There's still more. Stay with me. It gets better/crazier.

After we finished our food and treats, we needed to go to H&M. (Boy do I miss living so close to the outlets! If we still lived up there I would have called it quits at this point and taken all the crazies home for some rest. But it's a 40 minute drive, so the shopping had to be done now.)

The kids were delightful as we walked and frolicked and skipped down to the end of the outlets and into H&M. 

H&M has an escalator.
I had a stroller. 
Nicholas wanted to go on the escalator. So I let him. By himself. He waited at the top for me while I took Ellie and Christian up the elevator. All was well.

We shopped. 

Then we finished. Nicholas wanted to go back down the escalator. 
So did Ellie. 
So I sent them. Nick got on, 
Ellie did not. She froze and stood at the top trembling and at her just-about-freak-out level. 
So I suggested she ride the elevator with me. She did not appreciate that suggestion.
Because I was tired and they were tired and we just needed to go home I decided to attempt taking the stroller down the escalator so I could help Ellie.

Christian and I got on the escalator. I reached my hand out for Ellie, 
and she didn't get on. 

So now I'm going down, with the stroller, away from Ellie. Nicholas is laughing at the bottom. Ellie is crying at the top, watching her mom leave her. 

I shouted back up at her to just "wait there! I'll be right back up for you!" took the elevator back up to the top (We had to open the elevator twice because Nick couldn't decide if he wanted to stay at the bottom and watch Ellie or if he wanted to come with me), and I finally retrieved Ellie and dragged her screaming back down the elevator so we could pay for our things and 
just. leave.

Then, when we got home, 
Christian managed to get into the toilets five times before bed.

Yay summer! 

(And in case you're wondering, I already find this whole story absolutely hilarious. My life is nuts in the best way possible.)

quirky

Sometimes, as the day goes by, 

I find myself wondering how I ever kept myself entertained

before I was a mother.

My children are darling and sweet and good and smart

and 

odd.

In the most delightful ways.

I don't want to forget some of these quirks.

Nick:

often yells in his sleep

also sleepwalks
anything that is broken, missing, or dead was suddenly his "Very most favorite!" in the whole world, worthy of much wailing and tears.
Loves to get his hair cut, as long as it's not me that's cutting it---

creates sock "nests" (groupings of four or more balled-up socks) behind the bathroom door

uses a fork to eat peas. Refuses to use a spoon.

pronounces "piano" as "plano" and "basket" as "bastick"
Is a terrible liar. Wiggles his tongue around inside his cheek and can't hold back a smile while he tries to lie to me.
Loves to write notes and cards for people
Believes that any home with a Wii is the best house ever. (aka, not our house....)

Ellie:

often asks for a cheese and tomato sandwich for breakfast
sings to herself all day long
requires me to put her tights on inside out so she can't feel the seams
Hates the wind
forgets that she likes chicken Every. Single. Time. I serve it to her. Until she takes the first bite and remembers "chicken is the best in my tummy!"

spends a surprising amount of time frolicking. For reals.

too often uses her toothbrush to scrub the bathroom sink

takes off her pants (and sometimes more) before buckling herself into her carseat

likes me to put her hair into "piglets"

is terrified of kittens

needs about 4 hours of cuddling a day

names every character in her games "Ella."

once stuck a straw into the closet and blew into it, claiming she was adding more air to it.

 Christian:
does not say "mama," "dada," "ball," "milk," "dog," "cat," or "hi." But he does say "spider," "outside," "shoes," "train," "thank-you," "tickle," "fish," "cheese," and "delicious." I'm not even kidding.
Throws things into the bathtub or down the stairs, over the safety gate, and isn't upset at all that he cannot reach them. Just looks at them for a second and then walks away.
is a total water-magnet. ANY amount of water, even the teeniest puddle, MUST be played in.
closes himself into our rooms and then patiently knocks until we let him out

has zero interest in staying near me. My other two were glued to my hips at all times. This kid will wander across five acres without looking back.
spins in circles and falls down just for the fun of it.
knows exactly which bite of food he wants on his fork, but can't get it on by himself
comes running when he hears the phone ring--he wants to talk--he'll jabber away as if he is answering and having a real conversation
brings us our shoes several times throughout the day

and slobbers. a lot. so much so that teeny doll plates can get stuck on his chin.


Moral of the story? My life is awesome. And crazy. And I wouldn't have it any other way.