Sisters.

Living far from all of our family members is hard, and it requires us to lean on each other more... since sometimes we are all we have! These girls have become even better friends because of this move, and I hope it's something that will last!

Love these sweet, spunky, silly girls!

My baby is ONE.

Yep. It's true. Wesley turned one year old yesterday! Here he is last year just minutes old.
He had a pretty good day. We started off the morning with his favorite breakfast, a banana.

Then before Brian left for work we gave him his present from Naunie and Grandpa (well, they sent $$ and this is what we bought off craigslist with it) Wesley was very excited about the wagon and spent a lot of his day playing in it.

The girls were out of school for the day because of a teacher inservice so we went to the zoo with some friends and had a fun time. No pictures since I had my hands full already. Then we had our neighbors, the Osmans and some friends from our ward, the Schaefer's, over for dinner and cake and ice cream. The kids had a great time playing together and Wesley got a UW shirt and basketball from the Osman's and a Toy Story 3 plate, bowl and cup from the Schaefer's.

Then we had cake! Wesley wasn't quite sure what to do with his cake, he kept poking at it and grabbing handfuls of it and lifting it up in the air.

Soon enough the older kids helped him by eating it off his hands! (Oh, this is our friends son, Jake, who is Sophie's age and apparently has decided to marry Sophie, and is going to take her on their first date once they are both 16. Sophie gets kinda dreamy when we talk about him!)

What he really wanted was a cupcake! Our hometeachers brought over cupcakes for Brian's birthday last week and we let Wesley "practice" for his birthday by eating one. He remembered it of course and once the cupcakes came out that's all he wanted! So we traded.

Me and my sweet baby boy. I love this little guy so much.

A few things about Wesley:
He's been walking really well for about 3 weeks
He's got rhythm and will bob up and down with any type of music
He loves to eat and will get in the cupboard and bring boxes of food to me and sign "more"
I weaned him a few weeks ago and he is doing great with sippy cups
He is an early bird and is usually up by 6ish
He usually sleeps through the night {finally!}
He has 8 teeth
His big cheesy smile (like the one above) reminds me of Nora at his age
He loves his bink
He can wave and say "Hi!", although it sounds like "Ha!"
He loves going for walks in the stroller
He can say "dog" and "nana" (banana) and "hi" (besides mama and dada)
He loves going up and down our stairs

Remembering...

Today is a day of remembrance for my family. My dad passed away 13 years ago today. 13 years!! In the past I have posted this, this and this. Last year I didn't post anything because I was 8 days over-due with Wesley and either was too highly emotional that weekend or just too tired. Today we looked at a scrapbook I have of my dad and showed it to the kids. It's so fun to introduce them to their grandpa and teach them about the amazing man he was. Sophie was very interested this year and was so sweet and wanted to read everything and look at every picture. Two years ago I wanted to start the tradition of posting a memory I have of my dad so it can be recorded, since I missed last year I will do two this year.

1 - My dad was spontaneous. I have many memories of being waken up in the night and loaded into the car with my parents saying, "We're going to grandma and grandpa's, just go back to sleep and we'll be there when you wake up!" or, "We're going to Yellowstone!" or "We're going to Denver!" This was all exciting being a kid but now that I'm a mom I can sympathize with my mom having to get us all ready so quickly. And it's quite possible all of these trips were carefully planned out ahead of time by my parents because they didn't want us kids to bug them about when we'd be leaving! As a parent I can totally understand that as well. :) Also, before any trip (not taken in the middle of the night) we had to stop up at the school at my dad's art room. I'm still not sure why we did this and it seemed like it took forever - especially the times my dad had to scale the building and climb in the window because he forgot the keys - but without fail we would stop at the school and my dad would have to go in and get or do something before we left.

2- My dad could fix or build anything. It may not be the most professional job, but my dad could come up with a way to fix just about anything that needed fixing, or build anything that he decided to build. He built me a cedar chest for my 16th birthday and we finally moved it here with us and I'm so glad I have it. This was a great skill because I don't know that I could count how many times our cars broke down on our many road trips! Mostly in the middle of nowhere Wyoming on our way to Denver. I remember one drive in particular where we drove a big white van that had beds built in the back and no inside carpeting so it was all this yellow bubbly insulation and we broke down and my dad hitch hiked into the nearest town to get the part to fix it. We were crying and saying, "Daddy don't go!" when some people pulled over to use the bathroom and offered him a ride. When he came back later he was with a guy on a motorcycle. I think we spent 8ish hours or so in the Wyoming desert that day with a broken van. It must not have been too bad because I remember us playing on some rocks and naming one of them "elk poop rock". My poor mom! Another time I remember someone having to pee in the radiator because the car was overheating.... I won't mention any names but it wasn't me. :)

Here's a cute picture of my mom and dad!

Birthday Daddy

The 14th was was Brian's birthday. We had fun celebrating as a family. He came home from work and opened presents:

He got a fun game from the Seedall's (we've already played it and it was really fun!) and some stuff for the new bike he is looking for. He's getting a road bike as soon as we can find a good used one with a good price tag. Then we ate dinner and went Miniature Golfing as a family! Ideally it would have been a date and we would have had a babysitter for the kids. But what dad doesn't want to take his kids miniature golfing for their birthday, right? It was a bit cold but still pretty fun, and something we've never done as a family before!

Wesley being adorable.

I think Nora enjoyed it the most out of all the kids, or at least she showed it the most. :)

The place we went was very kid-friendly and had slides and lots of fun stuff for the kids to climb on, over around and through!

I was there too!

Birthday boy. I got three goofy faces before this one and had to beg him to look normal for one second. Thanks honey!

Miles was a natural. :)

"Seriously people I'm freezing! Can we go home now?!"

Then we came home for fruit pizza and ice cram. We think we're pretty lucky to have Brian, he's pretty awesome in every way.

So it begins...

The girls started back in school this month and we were all ready for it. They've been adjusting pretty well and are enjoying their new school, new teacher and new friends - though they still really miss their old ones. We live just 1/2 a mile from the school so we get to walk, which is something we've grown to love doing, so that was a pleasant surprise when we found out we were in the walk zone for the school (I may feel differently in the winter!)

Nora - 1st Grader

Sophie - 3rd Grader

In front of their new school.

The boys in front of the school waiting for the girls to get out.

Me and Miles waiting for the girls. Miles is so funny, on our walk home from dropping the girls off he will often ask, "Are my girls home?" or "Where did my girls go?" He calls them "his girls" and it's so adorable. We are all enjoying the new routine and schedule that comes with being in school!

Nora turned 6!

Our Nora Gracie-girl turned 6 last month! I think she had a pretty great day. We went to the community swimming pool that's just a few blocks away and she got to go on the slide! They didn't allow anyone to help or wear life jackets so Nora had to come out of the slide and swim to the edge all by herself. I realize there are kids who are able to do this at a much younger age, but since we've only had the girls do one round of swimming lessons each, this was a big thing for us. And she did it! I stood by the edge of the pool (just in case) and watched her do it. And was she ever proud of herself! So cute. I think she went on the slide 27 more times after that.

We made this GIANT pinata. Maybe too giant? I think the candy we added came up to where Nora's hands are in the picture!! But it was fun. And very sturdy.

I love that both my girls are such planners. Nora and Sophie planned the games they wanted to do and I let them :) I'm not exactly sure what they did, but they had fun doing it. I know there were balloons involved.

Since we just moved here we don't really know anyone so the party was nice and small. We had our neighbors over and their sister-in-law happened to be over at their house so she came over as well. It was nice and low key.

Weird thing happened - after the pinata aftermath there was actually candy left over in the grass. What? I finished picking it up but I guarantee that never happened in the 4 years we were in Michigan! I think it was because my kids were the oldest ones there, our neighbors kids are Miles and Wesley's ages so once everyone had some candy they stopped searching. (That's the house we are renting in the background)

Yellow cake. Yellow Frosting. Yellow sugar polka dots. Yellow candles. Yep, she likes yellow!

Cake time.

We love this girl! Happy Birthday Nora!

Owie!

On August 1st Miles was climbing into our kitchen sink to use the sprayer and cut himself on a glass! As you can see it was a pretty good cut. We were loading into the car to take him in to the doctor when we decided to look at it closely to see if we absolutely had to go in - the kids insurance expired at the end of July! Luckily he had stopped crying and it had stopped bleeding and since it was cut on a clean glass and hadn't cut anything major we decided to use some surgical tape and not take him in to the hospital.

We've kept it clean and with a sock on for a few weeks and it has healed up very nicely. He'll have a scar, but that's no biggie. We're thankful it all worked out so we could avoid the cost of the ER!

Here he is right after I patched him up. With a new hotwheels and gummy bears to distract him from the cleaning and taping of his cut. Cute little guy.

Summer Vacation Part 8: Road Trip Home!!

On our way home to Wisconsin we stopped at Martins Cove in Wyoming. I had never been there before. We got there kind of late but the couple missionaries were so nice and still let us see some things, and even drove us up in their golf cart type vehicles so we could see the cove. I wish we could have spent a lot more time there, but since we'll probably be making the drive from Wisconsin to Utah a lot in the future I'm sure we'll have the chance to stop again.

Kind of a funny picture with me showing some leg and Brian looking like he needs to go potty, but it's all we have.

Such a beautiful place with a wonderful spirit there. And if we could feel it with four kids there, you know it must be amazing!

My cute mama rode home with us!

The blacksmith shop. This cute man made the girls "prairie diamonds" from nails and he put Sophie's on her finger for her and said now they were engaged. The look on Sophie's face was pretty funny. Our next stop: Mt. Rushmore!!
Very impressive!
Miles crashed half way through.
Nora's idea of heaven: lots of shiny rocks! We had been telling her our entire vacation that she could get a bag of rocks at Mt. Rushmore. She was beyond thrilled.
The girls standing by the "Wisconsin" pillar, with the ice cream Naunie bought them.
The girls with their bags of rocks. It was a neat place and definitely worth stopping for. It will be fun to go back again when the kids are older and we can take our time to read all the stuff we wanted to in the visitors center. There is also a place nearby called Crazy Horse that is an Indian on a horse being carved out of the mountain. We were going to stop there but it was 20 bucks to get in so we opted out of that. We could see it from the road anyway! The Black Hills were beautiful. So fun to see a different type of country. We also stopped at a place called Wall Drug that was awesome but it seems I didn't take any pictures. I'll have to get some from my mom if she took any. Mom?
We made it in to Wisconsin the day before our stuff arrived, which was nice for cleaning/painting, but not so good for sleeping on hardwood floors. We did have quite a few blankets and a crib mattress in the trailer we hauled,we were nice enough to let my mom use the crib mattress. I'm sure she slept like a baby on it. :)
Doesn't this look comfy?
We put my mom right to work painting two bedrooms, the living room and the dining room! I'm not sure what we would have done without her here. It's quite possible we'd still be in a mess!
Hi Naunie! Looks like your almost done. No lunch until this room is painted!

Sophie cleaning her and Nora's room (this was before painting).

Painting the boys room!
Gotta love living in a mess.

Nora wearing a dress of mine from when I was little :)
Our stuff came!

We did let Naunie relax occasionally!

Lots of playing outside. It was SO HOT AND HUMID while my mom was here. And our house doesn't have air conditioning. Sheesh. It was HOT. Funny thing, the day my mom left it cooled off significantly. Wesley cooled off by taking a dip in the cooler.

We are settling in and getting to know our new place. We have some great neighbors who have two little kids and it's been so wonderful to have them next door. Our house is just a few blocks from the library, the pool, lots of parks and the girls school. We think we're gonna like it here.