My kids are growing bigger and bigger and I just cant believe it. Every night after we put them to bed we just talk about how much we want to go hug them and how much we love them and miss them already even though they are just on the other side of the wall and we saw them five minutes ago.
Today I am doing a little flash back to the end of June/beginning of July and then I'll tell about our week this week. :)
This little boy has picked every one of my tomatoes off right before they began to turn red. He also just pulled out my bean plant from the roots this week. He is such a delight in our house and is such a tornado of energy! He is constantly moving, even at dinner time we can't get him to sit down in his high chair because he knows how to escape. He usually just squats or eats standing up, in the high chair... I know, we are so safe around here. When Tommy gets excited about something he does this little running in place thing only its on his tippy toes. And he is usually yelling when he does it. He loves to growl and his favorite things on the entire planet are cars. "Ca-Car!" he will shout as we drive down the street or get into our car or when he gets his diaper changed and he doesn't have one in his hand. How do boys just know that cars are something of their nature? Does gasoline just flow in their veins? (I guess that would explain about their gas problems hehe) Every night at bed time I take a few minutes to ask each of my kids how their day was, even though Tommy can't really talk yet I still ask him. And every day the first thing he says when I pull his pacifier out of his mouth is "Ca-Car!" and I always say, "Yes, you played with cars today." The above picture is of him watching the cars drive by below our back porch.
Here is a fun picture of the flowers Logan sent me, the leaves from the bouquet of flowers Logan's parents sent us when we moved here in February that are still to this day living and in a jar on our table, and the flowers that my kids picked for me. :)
So Logan decided we needed to take on a new responsibility if we are hoping to one day have a farm... oh wait. I haven't told you about that recent development in our life goals... yeah, we want to have a little mini farm someday now. :) We want to raise pigs, and breed Labradors (only that's not new, I've wanted to do that since I was younger - we used to do that at my house growing up), and have a chicken coop, and of course bunnies, and maybe I guess a cat even though I don't like those. And a big garden. Yep. Anyway, Logan said if we wanted that we needed to start being responsible now so he took us to get a fish tank... haha... In the course of three months of our having said tank we have killed like six guppies, one tetra, a snail, and probably three neon tetras... and I haven't been able to see our sucker fish named Shark for a week or two so I don't know if he is still alive either. We have a small group of survivors now and haven't lost a fish in like a month so I guess we figured it all out. But I have taught Elsy to salute the dead fish as they go down the flushing toilet, just as my father taught me. Oh, and we still have never cleaned the tank. We are so responsible now that we have a tank its insane and we are so ready for a farm.
At the end of June we had a scare with Elsy. She had had a mild cold at the beginning of the week and I thought it was gone but then on Sunday she was really clingy. We went to church and she didn't seem to be feeling very good. She fell asleep on me during sacrament meeting which she never does. I could tell she had a fever so we went home after sacrament meeting. By the time we got home she was screaming uncontrollably about her neck hurting her. My aunt had meningitis when she was little so I have always been a little worried and keen on that one. Elsy's fever was very high and her neck was hurting her bad so we decided to take her to the ER. It was such a sad experience. I feel like if I had had a minute to just sit her in that bed there and talk to her about everything around her and what they were going to do to her it would have gone better but its the ER, right? So they are just really fast about everything and so she was scared to death, in pain, and just cried and cried. So, so sad.
Luckily they announced to us that she had a bad, double ear infection and that was all. They kept us there for an hour to monitor her and gave her some antibiotics. We felt a little silly for bringing her to the ER for an ear infection but were pretty relieved and its like they say, peace of mind has no price.
However, the next day she was still doing pretty bad. She came to me and asked if she could have breakfast in my bed so I let her, she didn't really eat much though. :( Just sat staring out the window. My heart just broke for her.
After a few hours I started to get concerned again. Even on pain meds she was in a great deal of pain and had a pretty hot fever. She would lay like this and just cry. She would say her neck hurt and would hold the back of it and when I would touch her ears she would say they didn't hurt but she wouldn't let me touch her neck. I was still worried about everything, so we decided to take her into our pediatrician again.
One of the great things about Logan's job is that he can get off whenever he wants basically. So he came home a little early and decided to come along. It was good to have him there to help her feel a little better. They said she was fine, just having muscle tension from the ear infection. Not fun but I was glad she didn't have meningitis.
Tommy love, love, LOVES to watch the fishies and feed them. When I'm cooking sometimes I let him lay on the counter and put his face right up to the glass.
So, I can't remember if I've told you about this yet so I will again but we started doing this thing called "Bedroom Play Time" at our house. Its basically where we lock the kids in their room and don't let them out. Just kidding... its a little less intense than that. We put the gate in their doorway so we can still hear them and if I'm showering or something I can even turn on the baby monitor so I can still hear them. It totally rocks because I just tell them its bedroom play time in the mornings and I can do anything now. I get showered, ready for the day, read my scriptures, make grocery lists, have uninterrupted conversations with Logan, do chores, you name it. It is the BEST! I just was so tired of the kids following me around asking me to entertain them all day and I realized they never played with their toys. Logan brought up the idea of bedroom play time and he did the first couple times. At first the kids hated it but they got used to it. It slowly got longer and longer and now they will do it for like an hour sometimes. I'll put on some Disney music for them sometimes and they just play, fight, and start playing again and it is just about the most awesome thing ever. You seriously need to try it. DISCLAIMER: Your child's room will probably end up looking like the above room after.
We went home for the 4th of July weekend to watch the fireworks at my parents house. We also got to celebrate Carl's birthday, he turned 17 (which is totally crazy). When I think of him I still think of his little nine year old self. I can't believe how much he has grown and changed since I moved out of my parents house and left for college. I love that brother of mine.
I also saved my birthday money and Logan and I went shopping and I got a new shirt and some shorts. Yayah
I love going to my parents house, and yes I would move to Tri-Cities in a heartbeat if that were an option for our family...which its not... at least not yet ;) Here is Elsy picking up the peaches that Grandpa is pruning from the trees.
Summer is just perfect there. The sky is so big and blue, the grass is so green and soft, and the time just slows down there.
This little Elsy girl, boy does she have our hearts. She is such a chatter box and I just wish I could remember all the funny things she says each day. She has such an energy and is so bound and determined to do things on her own. Even if she is in tears and frustrated she will refuse my help to get a stuck shirt off her head or the sliding glass door closed. I always say she just sparkles and she just always is. She is always sparkling from head to toe. Her favorite colors are pink and purple and her favorite animal is a unicorn. She will play playdough for maybe an hour straight, loves to color and paint, and is so helpful. She loves to stand on a chair next to me and help me scrub dishes.
My parents had an Independence Day BBQ at their house. And of course my kids basically just ate Cheetos.
Something I love about Tri-Cities is that both sides of my family are there, almost all of my aunts and uncles from both sides are there and all my cousins. Even a lot of my married cousins live there too. I just love the closeness of family.
Every year my parent's neighbors spend thousands and thousands of dollars and almost all of West Richland gathers in my parents yard and the neighbors yards and all down the street to watch one of the best firework shows you will ever see. A few years ago areal fireworks were legalized in West Richland and ever since then they have gone to town. This year they even hired flame throwers! Haha! It is so cool because you are so close to the fireworks and it is as good of show as I have ever seen at any stadium I've been to.
It is always hard to come home from vacation and get back into the swing of life but we do it anyway. I just get so cabin feverish that I have to leave the house every morning and almost every evening. We go all sorts of places like parks, children's museums, the gym, stores, visit Logan for lunch, etc. Here we are visiting the library. Every time I go to the library (I just went yesterday) I think, that was a lot more stressful than I remembered! Elsy and Tommy always want to be on the computers but are both still to young to really know what they are doing so I keep going back and forth and then when we do books, Tommy pulls all the books off the shelves and onto the floor or runs away and I can't find him, while Elsy pulls all the books off the shelves and puts them all in the check out bag!
So Logan sent me this picture while I was at a meeting. He had to put the kids to bed and here he is trying to read them the scriptures before bedtime haha.
And another of those two kids and the fish tank, eating blueberries this time. The novelty still hasn't worn off with them.
My friend Laura made us some strawberry jam and said she got the berries from Remlinger Farms. When she told me how cheap it was to pick we decided to go on a weekend to pick. We decided to do raspberries instead and we got the mother load.
The kids ate and ate...
And ate some more! They were the tastiest raspberries I have ever had! I told them at the pay counter we should pay them for how much the kids ate but they said that was all part of the experience. When we came home we didn't know what to do with them so we invited some friends over and made a big raspberry cobbler. It was delicious!
And now for this week of fun!
Elsy had her first day of Joy School this week! She really has a hard time looking at the camera...
unless she is wiggling and/or posing. She looks like she is ready to start a race in this picture. I just hope her years of education aren't going to race by. :/
I was grateful she wanted me to come in with her for the first few minutes. But once she saw they had one of those toy roller coasters she was sold! We got together with four other moms and have a weekly rotation having Joy School at our houses. We don't have a real curriculum, just doing a letter a week kind of thing. I was so glad when I went to pick her up that she shouted, "Mommy!!" and ran into my arms and gave me a huge hug. This weekend while she was drawing in her notebook she started to draw some letter "A's" so I am pretty excited about that!
Tommy and I missed Elsy while she was gone but also were productive. We went on a run together and can I just say it felt so nice to only run and push just one kid around Yellow Lake instead of two!? Tommy really misses Elsy when she is away. His name for her is "Za-Za!" and he kept wandering around asking for her and even crying for her. They are such good friends.
And here is "Za-Za," eating her jam toast and looking like the joker.
So I always try to cook with the kids and they have now learned, as I did, the true meaning of cooking... and that is snitching bites and licking spoons and beaters.
Tommy has such intense eybrows.
Logan's work allows him to work from home twice a week and this summer he really started taking advantage of that. We have been trying to grow closer as a family and his work being so flexible has been super helpful with that goal. Some days he can only work a half day from home and the kids get so excited when he comes home. Tommy loves to 'drive' Logan's mini, and he even has a little toy Mini Cooper just like Logan's.
We always try to do a fun family outing on the weekends but yesterday I was cranky and it rained all morning and then was super windy all the rest of the day. Logan decided we should go out to fly a kite and that was just what we all needed. It was so windy and the sky looked amazing and the kids had a blast. Tommy let go of the kite a few times and sent Logan running. Logan likes to bring an old sheet of paper and rip off little pieces and fold them around the kite string. The wind will send them shooting to the top of the kite. He says that he is sending wishes. Anyway, by the time we were done there was a ton of little paper rings up there in the sky flying around with the kite.
Elsy loved learning how to hold the kite and keep it up.
And right as we were about to leave the kite got treed. Logan has been working out all summer and has started to climb everything again. (When we were dating he would climb everything and everywhere, it was a hobby of his to climb roofs). So he climbed right up into the tree. He has been climbing all over the outside of the jungle gyms at the parks we go to and it just fun to see him doing that again.
Tonight as a family activity we painted... well Tommy ate the paint and crumpled up his paper.
And Elsy only painted in shades of pink. I got her a little wooden bird house for a dollar at Michael's to hang in her room and we let her paint that too.
This week I finished reading the Book of Mormon. I started it at the beginning of June and the goal was to finish by the end of summer. I am a little late but that's okay. It was such a great experience! I have such a strong testimony of that book, even more so now. This time I read it I tried to pay particular attention to the parallels it has with what is going on today, in society, in the church, etc. I can not believe how many things there are in common. It was so uplifting for me to read but it also has brought a sorrow to me for the way things are in today's society. How there are persecutions, how people allow themselves to be deceived because of the easiness of the way of the world and how challenging (but rewarding!) the way of the gospel is. How the pride of the church members can cause others to doubt and question, how we need to be humble in all that we do. How electing unrighteous leaders can cause the downfall of entire nations, and how righteous leaders can keep everyone stay mindful of what is right. As I read I felt a strong and intense need to be prepared for the future. To not only stay close to the Lord but I felt an overwhelming need to get together a year supply of food storage and put together our family's 72 hour kits. It was interesting because I was talking to a few people about this and every time I mentioned this prompting they would say that they had the same intense prompting. It was startling to me and has made me work all the more to save and prepare for any disaster that could come to our family. So here is another plug from me: Read the Book of Mormon! What a powerful book of scripture.
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