The Beat Of Our Summer

This is a collection of photos from our summer.  Some of them are months old others just hours old.  These photos remind me of this quote my Aunt Val shared the other day.

I have a tendency to focus on things that hurt (because they hurt!) but I'm trying to teach myself to use that energy towards things that feel good.  Heavenly Father has blessed me abundantly and that is where I choose to focus.  These pictures capture some of the things that feel good! 

Our friends have property in Star Valley, Wy.  We've been lucky enough to go visit this area with them.  We went with a large group of friends and while there wasn't much sleeping it was still really fun.  Look at how beautiful it is there! 

FHE activity.  At the beginning of the summer Priya was terrified of sprinklers.  I would run through them with her in my arms and she hated me a little for it.  We kept practicing and now she loves them. 

It's not summer without snow cones! 

I made eggless cookie dough for dessert on a Friday night and she was obsessed right away!  Since this batch I've found a healthier recipe that the kids like just as much and it's good for them.  Love that! 

We bought this tunnel during Target's July toy clearance; the kids like it and it's great for Porter's occupational therapy! 

Porter and I may share a love of white cheddar cheese puffs from Gerber... yes, Gerber! 

Porter has started climbing into Priya's crib with her whenever he gets the chance.  Priya still hasn't decided if she likes this or not.  Porter thinks he's pretty awesome for it!

I know this was in a previous post, but it's such a simple thing that I'm re-posting it.  Made my heart sing!  Happy kids, happy momma! 

So not Priya's happiest moment but I couldn't resist messing with her a little during an emotional instability brought on by tiredness.  I sent this to Aaron and captioned it, "Angry Troll." 

Our makeshift sandbox.  This is Porter's current favorite pastime.  This is also really good for his muscle development for fine motor.  I keep finding small piles of sand around the house that were hidden in the kids clothes, oh well.

I really love my garden!  Aaron is also super cute about our garden.  He asks me most nights, "Is this from the garden?"  He gets really excited whenever I answer, "yes".  Watering the garden has become one of the kids' most favorite chores along with pulling weeds.  Just a glimpse at our future helpers.

 The garden is four times more luscious now.

When I picked our first tomatoes the kids were very interested in them.  I set them on our patio table and by the time I turned around the kids were splitting them up.  They were a hit with the littles.

Play, Play, Play.  That has been my hope for the summer.  Here Porter is helping me get some jello ready for a sensory play activity that our friend Addison joined us for.  

 more sprinklers

Messiest Eater of All Time, but oh. so. cute!

I FINALLY finished this little project and Priya thinks it's wonderful. 

Pretty roses from my prince charming!

Playing his Tupperware guitar. 

Here is my documentation that the kids actually do like the healthy cookie dough recipe.  He couldn't get it in his mouth fast enough! 

I took this just because she is so LOVELY!  This little dress she has on is currently my most favorite outfit on her.  The colors are just perfect.  So are her cheeks, smiles, eyes, and curls.  Love her! 

We needed a few birth certificates so I planned a trip to the State's Vital Records Office.  It's a state office and as such I expected agony in the process.  I was delighted to be surprised by very well behaved children and the most efficient clerk ever.  Once I got the paperwork done she had the records ready for me in less than 5 minutes.  It was a pleasant shocker! 

Newborn loves and family planning tangent:  I captioned the photo below on instagram: "We've got extra kids today.  This little bug is making me think about turning our duo into a trio."  To which Aaron quickly replied, "Yeah, I think I'll veto the trio thing for awhile.  She's definitely a cutie though!"  This is Paityn!  I got to cuddle Paityn for 4 whole hours the other day.  She's an angel!  She and her brother Braxton spent the morning with us.  The kids played so well together and Porter showed me that he's better with babies these days.  It was so cute to see; he just loved Paityn.  Priya also really loved having a "BABY!" in the house; until Daddy held Paityn then Priya was completely jealous.  She handles her jealously well though, she just gives nasty looks.  I often think about our family and when we may have another baby.  I always think about it after having a house full of extra kids for the day.  It's fun having lots of littles around!  I've gotten back into a phase of my life where things seem very manageable.  I don't know what it is about peacefulness that makes me consider shaking things up, but it always does.  We for sure know that our family is not complete, however, we're not ready to be out-numbered yet.  We know that our family's timing has been exactly as our Heavenly Father intended it to be to this point and we trust that it will in the future as well.  As for right now (despite Paityn's ability to bring a vicious case of baby hunger out in me) we know it's not time yet.  I kind of like that answer as well.  I love where we're at right now in our lives. 

Grandma Nec discovered Porter's go-to, never-fails meal.  Spaghettios!  He's a bit more picky these days.  Having something he'll eat every time hands-down puts my mommy worry to rest.

Again with the messy eater.  She wasn't happy about being banished to the tub, until I turned the water on.  

We're getting ready for preschool!  (Be still my heart)  We did end up changing Porter's private preschool placement to a school that's much closer to home.  We just felt much better about it.  This morning a school bus parked right outside our front door.  They were doing a practice run for next week when Porter starts Public Preschool...I was kind of wiggin' out inside... The bus drivers were so incredibly nice, which calmed my fears.  Porter is so tiny that they'll have a car seat for him on the bus. HeHeHe.  I do worry about this transition, but I'm also really excited for Porter; he's so ready to get back to regular social interaction. 

A milestone:  We were playing in our winter gear basket one morning when Porter wanted to be spun and unspun in one of my scarfs.  I got lazy and just tucked it up tight.  He looked down at his dress up outfit and said, "I'm a girl."  then ran away.  This is the first time Porter has made any reference to gender, it's a big deal! 

I got a migraine the other day and Aaron came to my rescue. I've got a good man!

Told ya that they play together more these days.  I really just soak it up when they play together.  It's such a blessing to have children that play well together.  If you have kids that don't have problems coexisting BE GRATEFUL!  It makes such a difference in my day! 

 Another project finished!  Built-in bench for our Breakfast nook!  We ALL love this new addition to the house!  Thanks Aaron, Randy and Me!

I took the pic below on Monday.  This is my last week before Porter goes back to school.  I made a goal to make sure it counted and to take the time to appreciate my beautiful boy.   On one of my niece's first days of preschool her mother wrote that there's no turning back once they start school.  It is so true, the next 20 years he'll be gone a lot and that just breaks my heart a little.  I'm so grateful for the amazing years I've had with this boy home by my side.  I can't wait to be here for him every day when he gets off the bus.  It's a new phase of life and I'm trying hard to be brave about it.  The one thing I can control in this situation is making sure Porter knows Aaron and I are always there for him, we'll love him no matter what, forever!  We are Porter's sure place and I'm excited to keep being that for my boy.

We went to the Zoo this morning and it was perfect!  Cool and small crowds, just the way I like it.  I really love spending time with my children and making memories with them is fantastic.  My kids are getting old enough that I find myself wondering, "Will they remember this moment?  Will they remember my smile, laughs and hugs?  What do they feel in their hearts right now?  Do they feel loved?  What will they remember about this moment?"  Then I try to absorb every element so I can remember the moment with them.

 When my kids are active and engaged they really aren't any trouble at all so I just step back and facilitate the activity.  At the fountain I had to just laugh (silently and only in my head) about the parents who were encouraging their children to play in the fountain only to loudly exclaim, "Stop it, you're getting wet!"  "Don't put your hands in your mouth that's disgusting!"  It just makes me laugh.  We all have to do what works for us.  I'm sure these same parents are laughing at me because my kids were soaked by the time I told them it was time to leave.

 This was the kids' favorite today, the Polar Bear!  Mine too, actually.  It's such an amazing enclosure that they have at the zoo and this Bear is the biggest showoff animal I've ever seen.  He loves swimming up right in front of the kids and they love him for it.  I've been hoping the last few visits to get the kids a front row seat to this and I was lucky enough to have good timing today.  They refused to leave their spot, so we were there a good 30 minutes or more.  I enjoyed the bear, but more so I loved my kids little hands pressed up against the glass, Porter's giggles and cheers, the occasional eye lock between the kids with an expression that just screamed, "Holy cow, did you see that?" and then they'd smile at each other.  I also giggled a little at the little pushes they both were hoping would fly under the mom radar and I let them since it was more about letting each other know they were together than aggression.  I am overwhelmed by what a blessing these little people are in my life!  So grateful! 

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Potty Success!!!

I've mentioned before that Potty Training has been a serious matter of prayer for me.  As I considered what I needed to do I scheduled a whole week for potty training.  The plan was to potty train Porter and Priya at the same time. 

Priya really, really, really wants to potty train!  She tells you as soon as she goes, she sits on the potty, she even brings me fresh diapers when she's wet and wants a change, "Put it on!" she says to me.  So with Aaron and my Mother encouraging to just train them together I gave it a shot. 

The first 4 hours of my potty week were enough to make me want to throw in the towel.  Let's just say I was damp.  I had done a lot of research in preparation for this week and had a game plan.  My well laid plan was not working.  Well my prayers kicked in and I was given the inspiration I needed to help Porter learn how to use the Potty.  He can not yet clearly communicate his need to use the potty so I take him every hour and adjust that time as needed based on our day.  I also take him to the large toilet every time.   He responded right away.  He was motivated because he sees us use the big toilet all of the time.  He was given opportunity and he did great with it.  We used tons of praise and positive reinforcement in the form of M&Ms.  The rest of my first potty day was pretty amazing.  Then the next day got even better.  Day 3 I needed to run errands (he broke a pair of glasses and they needed to be pick up, it was unplanned) and knew that I would have to leave the house which stressed me out greatly.  I slipped a pull-up on him and he went the entire day without an accident for the first time even with 5 hours away from home and having to use unknown toilets.  Porter is not 100% potty trained, but he is SO close!  It hasn't even been a week yet.  I so don't want to night train, but he's already showing interested in doing that as well. *unpleasant face*  He had a virus one day and was dehydrated, yet because he wasn't feeling well he had accidents that day.  Using the potty also gets harder when he's tired.  Like I said, 90% of the time he's got it and I'm thrilled with that!

As for Priya I put a diaper back on her after the first day.  She may want to be potty trained, but she doesn't have the muscle control to be successful.  If I could combine Priya's potty communication skills, with Porter's control We'd have a 100% potty trained kid! :)

I think we were all ready this time.  I was ready, Porter was ready, it just worked. 

Just in time for Preschool, YAY!

I refer to this as the Potty Treat Heist!  Dark Chocolate M&Ms are the only way to go!

A Priya Bedtime Story

Tonight after Priya was fresh out of the tub I started to brush her hair.  I came across a bad snarle that was hard to get out.  I was fighting to keep her in my lap and explain that mommy needed to comb her hair.  She got frustrated with me, spun around, put her hand on my cheek and said, "nice, nice momma!". I laughed so hard, agreed to be nice and tried again.  Apparently, I wasn't "nice" enough because she ripped the brush out of my hands, took my face in her hands, started to brush my hair and said, "Nice, nice". She made it perfectly clear.  I laughed so hard I had to hide my face from her.

This is exactly how I discipline our children.  A warning/request then a demonstration of what I'd like them to do instead of the unpleasant behavior.  Amazing what these littles pick up from us.

She's such a fun and sassy little lady!  I just adore her!

We spent the evening at Thankgiving Point Farmland tonight.  Priya got her first pony ride :). Aaron took pictures I'll try to get them up soon .

Worst Night Of Our Lives

We had another sleep study done once I got the approval from our ENT.  Porter kind of tricked us and set us up for complete disappointment.  Last time getting connected was the worst part.  With the IPad handy Porter was awesome and didn't even complain much while he got hooked up.  When he was ready to go he put up  a bit of a fight, but drifted off to sleep pretty easily.

30 minutes later he woke up and I have never seen him so irate in his entire little life span.  That's saying something because the kid has had to have some uncomfortable studies done.  4 hours later I asked the tech if we could PLEASE go home.  The tech convinced me to stay.  Porter feel asleep again and woke up again.  You get the picture... it was a long night.  I don't know if they got any useful information but we're betting he'll probably be on oxygen for another year.  We don't get official results for another week.  Oxygen isn't an inconvience to our life style at all, it's just hard on the budget.   We'll do what we need to to keep him healthy and well though.

We were so happy when the night was over.  Aaron didn't get any additional sleep because he wanted to get his work done before the evening.  I did my best to support him in that decision without showing how crazy I thought he was.  Porter and I were lucky enough to go home and sleep; since Priya's Aunt Dev watched her for us that day.  We crawled into bed for a few hours before we had 3 extra friends come spend the day with us.  This experience would have been unbearable without the help of Aaron's family.  Thanks you guys!  I'll keep you posted on this one.

2 a.m.

Completely exhausted

What a blessing that this is our "worst night" with Porter!  All thing considered we're blessed that he is so healthy. 

Working With The Youth

5 days after Park City I spent a Saturday with our Young Women at Youth Conference.  (My husband is so supportive and has done splendidly well in my frequent absence while I fulfil my calling, summers are the busiest and we've made it through this year's busy season with the youth.   I just had to mention his hard work before I continue with this little post.)  I got to have some neat experiences with my girls there and just want to document a few things about my role in this calling right now.  I probably feel this way because my good friend and our second counselor got "called up" to Stake YW presidency today at Stake conference, so sad.  I may have teared up when I had to sustain her.  Who knows how long I'll get to have this calling and I'd like to remember my role in the church during this time of my life.  So a brief list of highlight moments for me:

• Teaching out of the YW manuel, so uplifting. 
• Working with 3 truly remarkable women and now dear friends.  We've served together for a year and a half; were a stellar team. 
• The changing of ward boundaries and our group more then doubling. 
• Girls camp this year will always be a good memory for me.  I will always remember scripture study with our laurels it was like having the spirit of the temple in a tent.  The cookie dash was life changing as well.
• I have a good relationship with the girls and love to nurture them when I can, but I've kind of got a reputation as the leader who deals with discipline moments and tough messages.  I'm the tough love leader and I'm totally fine with that.  The girls love me still, it may take a day or two for them to come around but they do.  It also makes for some very enjoyable awkward moments and some good teaching moments as well.  
• Doing something scary and repelling off a 200 foot free fall.  Getting permission to go a second time and repelling fast enough to hear one of my girls loudly brag, "that's my leader!" 
• Getting to go to YW class during church is great. 
• Watching these girls change, grow and learn is really the best part of the whole experience.  It is such an important time in their lives and I'm glad I'm a part of it.  

I'm setting a goal on here so I'm accountable.  I want to earn my YW medallion again as a leader.  I've waisted a year and a half, time to get to work!  I'm excited.  Thanks for letting me share. 

8 Years Together

I felt like there were a few things I didn't give enough attention to in my Las Vegas post so just a couple additions:


Adjacent to the Monet Exhibit was a gallery by a photographer named Jeff Mitchum's.  While Aaron appreciated Monet he really loved this artwork.  It makes sense it's breathtaking.  We decided we'd have to combine Monet with Mitchum in our space so we could both have something we truly love to look at in our home.

As for phantom I grossly under played how fantastic it was!  It was spectacular!  It was like watching the movie but live which just makes it that much more amazing. Aaron saw it on Broadway once and said this was much better in Vegas.  The theater itself was awesome!

We were home just long enough to saturate our children in love and attention before we dropped them off at my Mom's and headed to Park City for 3 days away to celebrate our anniversary.  We privately rented a Condo from an Owner at Westgates Canyons Resort.  Having access to a kitchen saved us a lot of money and we had fun cooking together.  We planned to do the zip line, go for a hike, run on the great trails in that area, just be together and have fun.

Before we left we took the kids to Tucano's Brazilian Grill for lunch.  It's one of Porter's favorite places to eat.  He also had to ride the escalator several times and it was just so sweet.



I made this little game in a jar that was filled with random questions we could test each other's knowledge with.  We knew the exact same information about each other which meant there wasn't a winner.  The questions we couldn't answer about each other made for some good conversation.  

 

I ALWAYS come up with an excuse to not eat Thai food: "I'm pregnant and that smells terrible, I'm nursing it will upset the baby, The kids aren't going to eat that."  Well none of those worked on this trip so I wo-manned up and agreed to try it.  It was good and I can see why people like it.  I think it will take me a little while to acquire the taste, but I think I will.  

 Once we got our grocery shopping done, our food put away in the condo and I got a chance to relax it became painfully obvious to me that I was sick.  I ended up in the slowest clinic of all time (the staff kept sneaking off to watch the Olympics...DEAD SERIOUS!)  I found out that I had a Kidney infection and that was just sad news all around.  I was so ticked off at myself for not catching the infection before it reached my kidneys and I was in a lot of pain.  I'm fuming, just thinking about messing up our plans.  

There were a few positives to the situation however the biggest one being a compassionate and caring husband who didn't mind.  He just wanted to spend time with me and took very good care of me.  While I sat in the clinic for hours I kept trying to get him to go on a hike, but he refused to leave me.  I would have felt a little less guilty if he had gotten to do some of the things we had planned but it's also really nice to know you're loved like that.  The second perk was being able to nap and sleep without interruption.  It was a much easier going weekend then we planned, we still make the most of it though. 

 

We wanted to try a new dessert recipe together so we decided to try cheese cake, only to find we had to do it without an electric mixer.  It took hours to prepare, but opening ceremonies were on so we didn't mind.  Licking the bowl was so yummy. 

I forgot to pack a brush and with hair this long I really needed to do something to make it workable so I used what I had on hand.  A girls got to do, what a girls got to do. Aaron teased me about being Ariel using her dingle-hopper.  He was very assumed.  He bought me a brush later that afternoon. 

I was also surprised with this beauty after an evening swim in the relaxation pool...which was so nice.  We don't do surprises very often so 2 huge surprises in one week was a lot.  I was completely shocked he got me an Ipad.  It's something we've talked about doing for 2 years now, but we've never agreed that it was the right thing to do.  I was so excited when I opened it.  I love it and even more so the Kids LOVE it!  

 

We had a little time to kill before dinner on our last night and decided to go explore the Olympic park.  Where we got to watch skiers practice Aerial Skiing off the ramps and into the pool.  It was so impressive and we were lucky to catch them practising.

We had dinner at Loco Lizard and it was scrumdiddlyumptious!  It was also a very enjoyable patio dinning experience. 

They get major props for the bucket of chips instead of just a little bowl.

This is our first attempt at cheese cake... go ahead laugh.  We sure did!  It's so dang ugly!

But look at the middle.  We did a little trimming off the top and tada!

Tasty!  We'll keep working on this skill to see what we can do about our cheese cake beautiful .

Not pictured: 

We saw Chicago preformed by the local Egyptian Theater.  It was good, but oh so much racier then I remembered.  I was a bit uncomfortable through the whole thing. 

Once we got home we continued watching the Olympics and our lives are just getting back to normal now that the games are officially over. 

That pile of luggage right there is the worst part of coming home.  My mommy is awesome though and sent the kids home with only clean clothes, which was a huge help.

After only being home 4 days in 2 weeks I was ready to spend time with my little darling children!  Amazing what taking a little break from them did to renew my energy though.

I felt so spoiled getting so much time with my handsome husband.  It was so great to just be best friends.  We share lots of responsibilities in our marriage and just having a little time to just be us was really nice. 

8 years in a strong and happy marriage :) and I'm looking forward to many more with the one I love!