Honesty

Nathan's dinner prayer went as such:

"Please help me have the spirit so I'll be nice 'cause sometimes I'm not nice. Like when I pulled down the blanket and it fell on Kamryn and I hurt her and didn't want to say sorry, but I did."

Oh man, I should have a camera going when my kids pray because I learn so much about them and because they say the funniest things. I love how honest they are.

8 Weeks Old

No. Stop. How has 8 weeks gone by so quickly? Joe is pure joy! Loving on him is easy to do.

He's become a near perfect pro at rolling over. Yes, at 2 months he rolls over just about every time we put him on his belly. The first time he did it he was 3 weeks old. He's super strong.

Things Joe likes and doesn't like:
-Loves to be held
-Loves his pacifier
-Loves to smile, coo, and spit up

-Doesn't like to fall asleep and is super cranky falling asleep
-Doesn't like a wet or messy diaper
-Doesn't like to be on his belly

At 8 weeks you pretty much still just eat, sleep, and poop, but.......your sleeping during the night is starting to show signs of stretching into the 5 hours of sleep at a time. Hooray! We're obsessed with you!

24th of July

In honor of the Mormon Pioneers, who settled in Salt Lake City 165 years ago, we went for a hike as a family. .

And went to a splash park. (Aaron took Nathan to a Water Park....fun daddy/son time.)

And ate some dutch oven cooking. And played games with the funnest people I know.

It was a happy Pioneer Day for some well rooted pioneer families. 

Silly is as Silly does

Sometimes when I'm tired I'm cranky. And sometimes when I'm tired I'm silly.

Just the two of Us

It's a tricky balance to find time for some one on one with my kids. So when Aaron asked if I'd like a "night off" the other day, initially it sounded great, but then nothing sounded more boring to me, so I grabbed Hannah and off we went! I've been wanting to take her on a bike ride and she's been DYING to try the rock climbing at Trafalga.

 Pictures along the trail. I love where we live!

I was so impressed with how well Hannah did rock climbing. It wasn't easy to get all the way to the top, but she was determined.

I loved just being with Hannah. She is such a sweet girl and LOVES the personal attention too.

This World is Crazy

Suzie with some of  her nieces and nephew

 7 weeks 

Mess makers

 Stealer of Sleep

I miss my husband. We are busy raising kids and I miss him. Sometimes I dream about dating him again. It's good to be raising our kids, but I miss him. 

 High's and Low's. Up's and Down's. Joy and Sadness. These are the emotions I've been having lately. To be expected, right? Probably.  I keep reading about so much of the sadness and madness going on locally, let alone in the world.  I find myself thinking, "this world is crazy" all too often. It's almost more than I can bare when I think of the parents who've lost a child recently (doesn't it seem like there's been many)? Or some of the other unspeakable acts that have happened recently. So, so sad. Like, so sad that I shouldn't think about it, but I do.

I have a desire to focus more on my family. Less on the media. Create more fun memories. Care less about a messy house and care more about meeting the needs of those humans of mine above. Read more books, or just finish one of the three I've started. Reach out to more friends. Eat more ice cream. Go for more walks. Call my mother in law more often. Call my own mother more often. Pray more. Ponder more. Sleep more. (not likely to happen anytime soon).

Sometimes it's good to stop and realize this life is all about people. I'm so grateful for the people in my life who love me and support me and buoy me up, especially when this crazy world can bog me down.

FaMiLy HoMe EvEnInG WaLk WiTh InStAgRaM

*We've been enjoying unusual chilly evenings the last couple of days. High 90's during the days, then wind and chill in the evenings. Perfect!

Flawless

I'm always just a little behind the curve when it comes to technology. It drives my husband a little batty when I ask him to help me with something that to him is so simple and that I won't take the time to just learn it myself. Eventually I do figure it out, but by the time I do something new has come out and I'm back to where I started.

Yesterday, while with my sister, I asked if she would take a couple pictures of Joe now that his rash has all but cleared up. She laughed and said, "don't you know that I can just photo shop that out"? Um....no I hadn't even thought of that. I forget that we can turn just about any picture we want into a flawless piece of art. It's really remarkable to me. I LOVE taking pictures of my kids. I love to capture them in action, whatever action it may be. My humble camera (right now my i-phone) isn't fancy enough to edit the flaws and I download everyone of them, even the terribly flawed ones because they are what's real to me. So, just to remember that we have flaws, and probably lots of them, here's some of my favorite "flawed" pictures because someday I will have a fancy camera and photo shop and will probably edit all our flaws as well.

Glare on Nathan's mouth that looks like he has a tooth.

Hannah pushing her "baby" Nathan in her doll stroller. Love this one even though it's blurry.

Sweet face with my knee in the picture.

Red eyes

coloring? shadows?

Crazy eyebrows

Joe spitting up

Skin rash

Too dark

Tongue in cheek and shadows

I could go on and on, as I really do have hundreds just like these and I love every one. I'm happy to be reminded that we have flaws but I'm also happy to know that I can have someone edit us when I want that "flawless" photo. Like this one:

I wonder how much editing my friend had to do to get this one just right. Sure love it!

1st Smile

 4 weeks old

Cousins

Van David and Emma Kate are here! My sisters twins are here, 5 weeks after Joe, and we are thrilled!!!!

Reuniting through Reunions

I've been home from my mission to Holland for 11 years! I can't even believe it. I know I've said it before, but not a day has gone by (at least that I can think of) that I haven't thought of my mission in one way or another. It was so very impactful on my life. An Elder from my mission was in town and he set up a reunion. How fun! So good to see old friends and talk about the mission.

Cali Cunningham: my trainer

 Andrea Holman: companion and Elder Sutherland: AP (and a flirt)

 Elder WEBB: an Elder from my MTC group. My favorite!!! So fun to see him again.

 The lovely Rachel and Juli. Gals I never served with but am dear friends with.

The whole group who could come.

The next day I reunited with two of my childhood friends. Oh I love these girls. There are too many memories to count. One of my favorites is when we turned 16 and were "dragging" state street while listening to church music! Ha! Love those days! or there's also the time we spray painted a huge rock and got caught by police. Nicest man ever! Let us off and told us to get home. Or how about the time we went skinny dipping gals! Remember that? Such fun times!

 12 kids between the three of us.

Happy days!

The Random

She's toothless! After days of her solo front tooth dangling, (and making me quite sick) she got up the nerve and pulled it out. This time we had lots of people offer to help pull it out. Neighbors, friends, family, all willing to help Hannah have the darling toothless smile. We even tried tying her tooth to Nathan's nerf dart gun, and I think we can give that credit to making it loose enough for Hannah to finish the job. Boy did we ever laugh watching her eyes bulge each time she would shoot the dart in hopes that the tooth would be taken with the dart.

Nathan has found a favorite finger to use when pointing. He now points at everything and although he's been using this finger for some time, it still catches Aaron and me off guard sometimes. There's been occasional times that we can't help ourselves from laughing when we see him pointing. We've casually suggested a different finger without explaining why, but I think he's already hooked on the middle one. Should we try to explain to him why this isn't the best finger to use? If we do, we risk him using it for the real reason adults use this finger......so for now I think we'll just let it go. But in advance, if Nathan should point at you with this finger, know that we are sorry. :o) And hopefully you'll laugh too.

We have been finding all kinds of ways to stay cool this summer. I can't say enough how grateful I am to live where we have a pool. I didn't expect to feel well enough to take my kids swimming, but we've already been a handful of times.

 Cute little bum!

The pool has already saved me many times this summer. We've also enjoyed going to splash parks and farm country.

All the while, Joe has enjoyed these outings from here:

 or even here:

On the days that were just too hot we played with art or hung out at Cabella's to see the fish.

I think we'll survive summer yet!