Monday, July 8, 2013

Happy 4th of July!

 
I feel like starting off this post by saying "There and back again.  A tale by Kim Slease."  :)  In the last month and a half we've been there and back again.  To Gunnison, that is.  We were able to spend 2 weeks (at least the kids and I were there that long) at my parents' house enjoying all we could squeeze into our visit.  But, wait, before I get ahead of myself. . .
 
 
We ended May by planting our garden again - something we said we wouldn't do again so long as we have littles.  But as the sun came out, I got the itch to plant something so we bought a few plants and had the girls help us put them in the garden bed.  They had a great time helping us dig the holes, put the plants in and water them.  It was all fun and games until about 11:55am.  At that point we should have called it quits. . . the next 20 minutes before lunch were all whining and crying.  They couldn't appreciate pushing through to finish the project.  Oh well, they did pretty well.  We planted broccoli, pumpkin, cherry tomatoes, zucchini, acorn squash and a free tomato plant from the nursery.  Luckily the girls like tomatoes.
 
In early June we loaded the van and headed out to my parents so I would have some help while Brad went to Arizona for work.  The kids and I kept my parents busy and we enjoyed a visit by my Grandpa (Great Ba to the kids) and had a great time being outside.  When Brad returned from his trip, we stayed another week and welcomed the Sullivan family for a few days.  They lived down the street from us in Denver and we have both upped our kiddo count to 3 since we saw them last.  We had a great time with them and Mom & Dad were great sports to host us and our 6 kids under 6.  :)  Who knew you could put 6 car seats in a Sequoia?! 
 
 
Since being home, we've gotten back in the groove of being tired. . . oh wait, I meant life with 3 kids 3 & under.  :)  Actually, William started going 7pm-7am between feedings so that has helped a lot.  If only I could get Addy to stop waking up at 3am to go to the bathroom, I'd be all set!  But that has been another milestone for our family, Addy is completely pull-up free now.  She's sleeping in underwear and has only had 1 middle of the night accident (knock on wood!).  One down, 2 to go. 
 
 
We had my great Aunt Evie for a visit a few weekends ago and we trucked her all over for a couple of days.  She's amazing!  At 91 she is so busy and in such great shape!  Her secret?  She exercises every day and always has.  She was a physical therapist and continues to do all the exercises she used to teach her patients.  If that isn't motivation to exercise, nothing will be!
 
 
We celebrated our 8th anniversary last week and enjoyed a yummy BBQ dinner and a 'porch date' once the kids were in bed.  In case you were wondering about the last post, Brad did it for me as a gift.  It was sort of a mixed bag though because he knows I hate that second song he used.  What a stinker! 
 
We enjoyed our neighborhood 4th of July celebration again this year (all except for the 10 minutes when we lost Elsie in the masses of humanity all wearing red, white and blue!).  We enjoyed the pancake breakfast, parade and carnival before having a BBQ at a neighbors and crashing for a nap!  After our naps we went for round two and had a college student over for dinner, fireworks in our driveway and the big Sugarhouse Fireworks display.  What a great day!  It was strange for Brad to go back to work the next day and both of us were pretty beat by Friday night.  We love our neighborhood.
 
I finally (mostly) finished a project that I've wanted to do since we moved in.  Our front flower bed only had tulips in it and once those were done, we had no color in the front yard.  It has always bugged me and finally we did something about it.  We planted a bunch of little perennials and so hopefully we'll get to enjoy them next year.  I say hopefully because Brad reminded me that now that we have a church we love and we've done our flowerbed it will be time to move.  :)  I hope not but that's how it went in Denver!  I'm not quite done though since a failed experiment with my tulips means I need to get a bunch of bulbs this fall and plant them.    Once I get those in, I'll be done with the front yard.  Next spring we'll be working on the back. . .
 
 
We've had a lot of hot days in Salt Lake but recently we've started having thunderstorms with a lot of rain.  The girls (and Brad) like to go puddle stomping in their puddle shoes (on bath night) while I clean up dinner dishes.  It's pretty funny to watch and I love seeing them pour out their rain boots when they're done. 
 
 
William is now 4 months old and has changed a lot since my last post.  He started rolling over both directions at 3 1/2 months (which is crazy early compared to the girls!) and consequently isn't being swaddled anymore to sleep.  Not long after that transition I stopped feeding him late at night and he's done pretty well with that too.  He occasionally wakes me up in the night because he's hungry but overall he goes 7 to 7.  He wakes up happy, too, which is so pleasant!  He's such a squeaker, and now he's screeching for fun too.  The dude needs to learn 'inside voice' already!  He weighs 14 lbs 10 oz and is almost 26 inches long.  It's funny though, he's got a pin head just like the girls did.  He's 25% for his head size.  :)  They are my kids!
 
 
Elsie is keeping up with Addy in all things physical like running and biking.  She remains my mamma's girl and always wants to be touching me.  It's cute, sometimes.  :)  Her vocabulary is growing so rapidly and she is in that stage of muddling words she uses like saying grasspopper for grasshopper.  I love that. 
 
Addy is so imaginative.  She's creating her own words to go right along with the stories she makes up.  She can play by herself for a long time just pretending.  This morning when she started playing I heard her say to her toys, "Ok, this morning I'm going to teach you to clean the floors."  You can guess what we were doing right before I put her in there.  :)  Yes, I'm trying to teach the girls to clean because I've cancelled our cleaning service and if they don't help me do it, it's just not going to get done!  We'll see how that goes.
 
So, we're doing pretty well.  We're getting in the groove of life with lots of littles and we're learning to have them help us with all the many things involved in keeping the house running.  They are helping us make Brad's shakes, cook, put laundry away and they keep their own toys and things picked up.  It's helping and it is amazing to see how much they really can do. 
 
I've started a women's Bible study where we are studying John Piper's book Battling Unbelief.  Wow.  So good.  Even if I have William with me bouncing on my lap and squealing through most of it.  I'm planning to do MOPS leadership again next year and I'm looking forward to doing Bible Study Fellowship.  I've also managed to start spin classes again since William is cooperating by taking a bottle when I'm gone.  Yeah! 
 
Brad is working on learning the liability side of claims at work and getting back into the groove of exercising.  It's hard to find time when his desperate wife will let him out of the house but he's figuring it out.  :)
 
 
I made a slide show of our last several weeks so you can see how big the kids are getting.  Enjoy!

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