Some Updates

Totally odd, I know, but I'm busy. Who would have even thought that a mom of 2 who is also a full time student would get busy?! I did want to take a minute and update (mostly myself so I don't forget later) people on what's going on in our household. So- here are the things that either you're DYING TO KNOW- or couldn't care less about!

1- We are "moved in" to our house. We love it. It's gorgeous and we are so incredibly happy. The boys RUN AND RUN and it makes us all of happy that we aren't living on top of each other anymore. Some of my favorite things about our new place- my sink. It's so deep. Do you ever have a sink that is about 3" deep and even 1 fork in the sink makes it look like you haven't done dishes in months!? Ugh- I hate that. But our sink is super deep. I also love our fridge. It makes me happy. I also love having COUNTER SPACE! Every time we'd go to move to another rental I would swear that I would only say yes to a place with lots of counter space. Never happened. But now we have it and I'm in heaven. Ah- the simple things!

2- I'm pregnant! Remember? haha  This pregnancy has been strange (different) from the beginning. While I feel like I still got sick, and did for just as long- it was a different kind of sick. I am now WELL aware of how to control the morning sickness, but I think the controlling just made me sleep all the time at the beginning. But being in school has actually seemed to do wonders for me. I walk all over. I'm in a water aerobics class. I am at the ropes course every week (and my midwife said I can climb it if I want to... I'll be doing that on Wednesday night... pictures to come). My body is responding very well and I'm feeling great. It's funny to see people's reactions when I don't let my pregnancy "disable" me. There are is one particular woman who is pregnant in one of my classes who is only a week behind me, and she uses it to get out of EVERYTHING we do that is remotely active (like stand up for more than 30 seconds). She's even said that she's just lazy and tired. Um... I'm tired too. ANYWAY- I feel great. On Tuesday I will be 29 weeks along. We're getting close! I'm starting to panic a little about that fact that there is life after being pregnant, and for me, that means 3 kids. WHAT!? I am so focused on school that I hardly ever think about the baby OUTSIDE of me. Anyone else like that? Oh well... life is good.

3- School. I love school. I was never fond of it before. For me, deciding to uproot my small family, take my husband away from any other job that could benefit us NOW or in the near future, and landing back at BYU-Idaho, it all changed my motivation. I want to do well. I never really cared that much before. If I didn't study- no big deal- I deserved the grades I got. Now I actually TRY because my motivations have changed. I'm in school to learn, not just because it's the next thing in life to do. I'm sure that sounds strange to most of you- but it took me this entire time to LIVE that lesson. I knew it all along- I just didn't do it. Grant is also in school, and he is LOVING every minute of it. Because he does pre-school through BYU-Idaho, we get to sit in their observation booth and watch as he learns and plays. It's so interesting to see how he does. He is still crazy, but his teachers are amazing and can handle his craziness very well. He loves everything he is learning, and it's sticking. We love learning in this house!!!

4- Ben and Henry. These two are awesome. Ben is Mr. Stay at home dad during the week, but is still working hard on getting things lined up. He has already played with his band and other bands for a few shows. Ben played at i-Cover (the equivalent to Guitars Unplugged from a while ago) last night with one of his bands- and they ROCKED IT. Really- it was amazing. They were the ONLY band ALL NIGHT LONG to get more than 5 people interested in what they were doing. He is so amazing. I love him. Henry is a funny, crazy, silly, smart,  and a sneaky little boy. He loves to play with Grant and the two of them are becoming such great friends (when Grant is not punching him in the face! who does that?!?!). Henry loves sugar. Holy Cow. He is always asking for donuts, cookies, cupcakes, etc. And it's not like we always give them to him! Oh well- a typical kid, I guess. 

So that is life right now. We're learning the science of having no A/C in our home- and so far- so good. We forgot to leave the windows open last night, so our house was already 10 degrees warmer today that it was yesterday. Oh well... We'll stay in the basement today. We hope everyone is having a great summer. We miss all our friends and family!

Love Us.

Excitement

Things I'm excited for this week:

Spending time with my family here:

Sleeping under this cool ceiling and fan:

Having my clothes hung up and folded here- and not in my suitcase on the floor.

Aaaaaand soaking in this:

But not so excited that our new neighbor's sprinkler is broken and causing the first lake in Rexburg in our new backyard (well, it really is only crossing part of the property line.

Can't wait for this week.

Happy Mother's Day!

I love my mom. I don't know of many people who don't love their mom- but mine is pretty awesome. I'm amazed at the size of her heart. She loves each one of her 100 kids equally and just as intensely as the next. She also has such an amazing love for her grandchildren. She has 9 of them- and each one of them, no matter how far or near, know that they are loved by a grandma who makes them each feel like they are the only ones that matter. I think that's an amazing talent! She also has a huge heart for everyone else! Today, on Mother's Day, she took some flowers and cookies (or a treat- I can't remember) to one of her friends who was alone on Mother's Day. She's just selfless like that. Happy Day to YOU, MOM!

Also, I have such a great little family of my own. I have an amazing husband who makes me proud to be the mother of his children. I'm also so blessed to have such crazy and amazing children. Grant and Henry are the LIGHT of my life! Being in school makes me realize how much I love them even more. I always want to talk about them because not only are they MY kids- they're also HILARIOUS and super smart. Still wondering where they got those two traits from... must be Ben :) 

Today we successfully drove to Mesa Falls- and we had some fun! 

Here are some pictures for your enjoyment!

This kid cracks me up- "CHEESE!"

 Smiling at the Mesa Falls Overlook. Holy cow- it's just going to get harder to get us all to smile at the same time!

 What a good brother! Grant is "gently" trying to get Henry to NOT run away.

 Why hello there! Have some wrinkles. haha

 Ugh- I love my boys- all 3 of them! They were SO EXCITED to see the waterfall.

 Fun picture.

 Ben- what's up?

 HAHAHahahaha. Nice.

 Ben took this cool picture. Love it.

 Peek-a-boo!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to every female out there!

Family Recreating

I'm taking a class right now called Family Recreation. It sounds more "light heart-ed", but it's actually an awesome look at the research behind recreating as a family. I'm trying to make sure we are actually doing things that will help our family unit grow in communication and cohesion. I'm able to see where we are lacking and where we are succeeding. While we love doing things together, I'm already learning so much more about the whys and hows of family recreation. Everyone should take this class!!! With all that said, I hope that this blog will be a place where I can document the things we're doing! Enjoy these pictures of some awesome fun we've been having lately.

A couple weeks ago, we thought we'd drive all the way to Mesa Falls. After driving nearly 40 miles, we were only 3 miles away, and the road was closed. Awesome. So we went to this little river where I spend time back in the day. It started snowing (strange) but we had a good time checking out the future spots for our little family to hang out. Please disregard the chubby pregnant face.... I'm working on it (via my water aerobics class!!).

Flying Kites! I think we're friends with everyone who looks at this blog on FB, so forgive the redundancy of some of these pictures/events. We flew some kites and it.was.awesome. We have a $1 kite from Target and a more expensive one we bought when we were dating. The cheap kite kicked the other kite's butt. At one point, Grant was flying a kite (Henry is pictured below) and let go of the huge spool we had attached to the kite. The kite took off and Ben had to go run 100 yrds or so to catch it. We laughed SO HARD!

 And my pregnant self flying our cheap kite (that spool is from Chile- Ben bought it on his mission and we attached it to the cheap kite... ahaha).

 This was so fun- thank you to Pinterest- we made this "water bed." It's made out of duct tape and painter's tarp. We didn't do a great job sealing it up (but we learned our lesson), but the boys jumped on it ALL DAY LONG! I can't wait to re-make it.

 Most of the time- we just laid on it like this:

 Grant had so much fun- you can see the ripple from when he jumped up.

 And of course- what water bed is complete without dad chucking the kids on it?!

 Good Form! haha

No one ever seems as excited about planes as the boys in my little family. Ben is OBSESSED with airplanes- and likewise, both boys love planes. We decided that we'd go to the local airplane museum to check out all the cool planes. We were LOVING the tour (they let us go behind the rope and stuff!) when our tour guide (Dave) pointed out the Mustang that a pilot was about to take out for a spin. We decided to go watch that. The boys were in heaven as "Ole Yeller" took off. Then another pilot walked by (the son of the first one) and Ben said to Grant, "Look Grant- that's a pilot!" Just then, the pilot walked up to us, got down to Grant's level and I thought he was going to say Hi or "what's your name", but instead he said, "Do you want to go for a ride with me?" We all about wet our pants!!! So Ben and Grant got loaded up (with in minutes of him asking) in this old plane and went for a ride. I guess this museum just acquired this particular plane, and this pilot was taking it out for his first time. He did some fun (and scary!) tricks/maneuvers made Ben feel like an excited 12 year old. I was just as excited to watch this all go down. How fun for GRANT!!!!!! Look at that smile on his face :)

And here they are- up in the sky! Henry, of course, was so upset he couldn't go, and he cried the entire time. Poor kid.

So we're already having a blast, and I can't wait for us to do MORE fun and awesome things together, as a family. If you want to come have fun with us- we'd LOVE TO HAVE YOU COME VISIT!!!

Our Days

School starts next week, so we're trying to find things to do- I feel a little helpless just sitting here. Here's what we've been up to- Enjoy!

Our little rental here has a little swing set. The boys don't play on it much, but I got a good shot of Henry right off the slide! This was our Easter afternoon!

 This was really funny- Ben was being the second half of the see-saw and this was right before Grant fell off of it. He was having just as much fun on the ground as on the toy!

 While it was super warm out, there was some snow that wouldn't melt (in the shade), so the boys spent Easter Sunday throwing snowballs at each other. Awesome-sauce.

 Have you ever played Kubb? It's really fun! Look it up- but that's what Ben and I did for a good hour or two on Easter.

 What's Easter without a snow angel?

 Then yesterday we went outside (75 degrees) and filled the play pool and let the boys go crazy. Here I am being held up by a blue plastic water gun that hardly works.

 Again- being held up (Henry can't quite putt the trigger yet).

 The favorite toy? An old milk jug with holes punched in the lid. Grant was kind enough to water the grass.

So we're trying to kill time before we start with daily schedules next week. I hate not being in a permanent place where I really don't have much to do- bah. We're trying to figure out what our immediate future holds for us, and I hate the uncertainty. At the end of the day, I have a family that I love- and that's all that matters.