I finally updated my blog. I don't even have a good excuse. But I decided the other day, I just might want a blog book since I have become awful at scrapbooking. So, if you have a day, there are quite a few posts. But don't worry, if you only look at the first post, I understand, there's a lot there and a bit of a bore. And I only updated through August! :)
No surprise, a Lighting McQueen race track for Parker's birthday. He loved his b-day. He thinks every birthday is now his birthday. Livvy had a fun summer outdoor party with a tie-dye cake, water fun, and tie-dye shirts.
Kayla started the day before Livvy. Kayla is now a big 4th grader and Livvy is an August birthday, so she is one of the oldest kids in the kindergartner class. The bus comes at 7:23 so they are up and at it early. Miss Livvy has always needed more sleep so this has been a struggle. I think we have only missed the bus twice, but I pretty much dress her in her sleep.
This is Livvy's first little best friend, Jacey. We spent a weekend with them at Bear Lake before they packed up and moved across the country. Livvy was so sad to see her leave. It was so sad to watch. One Sunday after she left, Livvy came in crying that she didn't want to go to church. She missed Jacey. We sat down and said a little prayer to help her and to help Jacey find new friends. Luckily school started and she has stayed so busy. But just the other afternoon we were going to watch a barbie movie and Livvy said, "I miss Jacey." I was thinking the same thing. Barbie movies were their favorite. They were such a great little pair together.
Jared and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary this year. We went camping, I know, almost as good as an exotic vacation. But we did leave our little 4 month old baby home with Grandma and planned on leaving for a few days. We went up to Lava area. On our first day of camping we floated the river. We sat and watched people for awhile and it seemed like people were barely getting wet. So...don't let a 100 lbs of weight difference go down first on a double tube on a big rapid. I of course, popped out. The river was less than a foot deep in that spot, and I got dragged across the rocks. Jared spun around to try to help me and he really twisted his neck. He got hurt much worse than I, I only had the evidence of being hurt. I was scraped and bloody from my shoulders to my toes. And to top it off, I was wearing my favorite, most comfortable (notice I didn't say cute here), no longer made Smith sunglasses. I am still sad about this as I write about it. And of course Jared enjoyed the show of watching me angrily look through the water saying my favorite cuss phrase (which he says doesn't make sense) and glaring at every person that I saw afterward because I knew they swiped my sunglasses out of the water. So anyway, that night we went back to our trailer, didn't have any desire to make dinner, Jared thought we better have a fire and a marshmallow because that is what you should do, we both took some Tylenol, and then on the night of our 10 years, we went to bed (and to sleep) very early.
Bring on another 10 years!! I can't wait to spend it with him. As those who know us 10 years ago, you know we were a very unmatchable pair. Everyone we ran into would tell Jared how lucky he was. He was a wild child. But somehow 10 years later, I am the lucky one. I don't think anyone else could put up with me. I'm demanding, I'm a slave driver, I always have some great plan on some new tedious project. And he puts up with me. All the time. He cans peaches with me at 1 AM, he makes me laugh, he tries so hard to be good enough, as he would say, for me and the kids. He is wonderful. I'm by far, the lucky one.
Here's some adorable summer t-ball. This is Livvy's first year. It included drawing in the sand, all the kids racing for the ball, running the wrong way, but actually, Livvy has a little bit of a competitive bone in her. She did pretty good. This was her last game. At first base she had told her coach she needed to go. By the time she was running to third she was running with wet pants and straight legs right into the dug out. Ahhh...t-ball. So cute, even if she peed her pants!
In the spring I signed Kayla up for baseball just like I normally do. In April we received a phone call letting me know when practice was. For all of you who think competitive sports are extremely important, what the heck are you thinking? What competitive sports meant for me was, practice or a game every single week day. I wasn't ready for this. In fact, 2-3 hours of practice, a coach that yelled at the kids, and not to mention her team didn't win one game and she was the littlest, petitest (I think I might have made that word up there) thing in the outfield.
Paxton update: He has been such a sweetie. He has the biggest eyes and biggest smiles. He also has cried more than any of my other babies. At 10 months old he doesn't sleep through the night, this is a first for me. He has 8 teeth. He is a mover and a crawler. He has mastered getting to the top of the stairs, which I had no clue he could even climb one stair. He is not cuddly. He loves to look around constantly. He doesn't want to lay right next to me. He wants to be bouncing and seeing what everyone else is doing. I've included a few older pics (I actually have this folder that I have had for a long, long time that says blog). After I get updated I'll put some newer pics up of him. When he wants me to pick him up he crawls over to me and bangs his head into my legs. He is adorable. And he is so lucky to have a big brother, it's been fun to have two little boys. Well, I hope he is so lucky, Parker still isn't quite so sure about him. According to Parker, I am only his mommy, not Paxton's.
Have you ever held a hummingbird in your hand? I actually haven't. But my kids have. My good friend called one day and said, "you have to take Kayla to this, she would love it." So we took a little drive out to the mountains by American Falls where a hummingbird study opened up to the public for a few days. They catch the hummingbirds and do their tests on them. The hummingbirds are basically in a little shock and then they wake up on the kids hands and fly away.
Kayla has been clogging now for the past two years. I couldn't decide whether she actually liked it or if she was just doing it because I was a clogger and she was just appeasing me. So this year we took a break from it. But this was a fun competition at Lagoon. Except none of us wanted to leave the rides and actually get on stage when it was her turn.
Kayla entered into a little dog show at our local pet store this spring. But there were many more entries than I had expected. She was so cute and shy. She walked in front of the judging panel as fast as she could. She had to come back and do it again. They got 4th place, which of course I would say this, she should have gotten first. The other dogs were dressed up in these silly costumes. But Kayla and her puppy were adorable without any costumes.
