I've heard my mom talk about this book so many times. She's always been very against inductions for personal reasons. (Meaning women who want to be induced to fit their own schedule/desires instead of waiting for the baby to come naturally. Obviously this doesn't include needing to be induced for health reasons.) As my due date came and passed and I got more and more ancy for Tanner to come I decided to finally read it. It's a true story about a woman who's husband died in a drowning accident while she was pregnant with their 6th child. It's a quick read but VERY powerful as the author shares spiritual experiences she has and a visit with her husband beyond the veil. I'd highly recommend it.
Weston getting his baby cuddles in.
Tanner is a water baby. Loves his bathes. This Puj tub was a handy gift that was perfect for the first couple months.
When you drop a jar of salt and it shatters. Ugh.
4th of July golf game with the boyzzz.
We may have not made it to our wards 4th of July breakfast but the kids are all in patriotic colors.
And Olive even got her nails painted in red, white and blue. If you asked her to show you her nails she would emphatically say, "Aaaa-merica!" in a sing/song voice while wiggling her fingers.
We met my family for lunch at Matta's then went swimming! Well, THEY went swimming. I nursed Tanner and watched a cooking show.
Having a baby in the summer is fuuuun.
We went to the temple to watch the fireworks which was perrrrfect because you know DQ is right next door!
Landon! Bahahaha. This is the best picture.
Oh baby stretches!!
I missed out on the rest of the boys' dive meets for the summer but Travis video taped them all for me. I thought they did really well for it being their first try at it. Collin started off being super nervous about hitting his head on the board. He would NOT do a back dive. It took lots of coaxing and practicing, but by the end of the summer he could do it! Weston treated it all like it was no big thang. He would do whatever they were asked to do.
Happy 11th anniversary to us! After we were married we had nothing to do between the morning ceremony and the evening reception so we met some friends at the movies to see Pirates of the Carribean II. On our way we went through the Chick fil A drive through. It was my first time eating it and I remember not liking it at all and wondering why that place was so popular. I didn't try it again for probably 8 years. Now I love it. I realize now that it probably wouldn't have mattered WHAT I had eaten that day.... it wouldn't have tasted good to me. My stomach was in too much trauma over the state of affairs with my family. Anyway, we decided it would be rather fitting to eat it as our anniversary dinner. Now, if words could just do justice to how much I love that man sitting across from my chicken sandwich.
Olive playing Little Red (yellow) Riding Hood with Tanner's blanket. I told her she looked more Arab than storybook girl. ;)
My mom watched our kids that weekend so we could have an anniversary date! How 'bout that?! We've never gone on a date alone after having a baby. Not living by family, I just couldn't trust a teenager with my baby until it was at least a year old. This was new (nice!) territory for us.
I booked an indoor skydiving flight. Ifly opened up in Scottsdale and I'd heard good things. We paid a little more to do 4 minutes instead of just two. They split it up into 2, 2 min flights. You do some training beforehand, put on the gear, then wait in line with your group. It was kind of intense. I felt like it took a lot of strength to keep your body parallel to the ground like they teach you. After a minute I was wishing I hadn't paid for the extra minute! Then we paid even a little more for "high fly" ride. Which means on your second flight, your flight instructor (the person who works there that trained you) grabs onto your arm and leg and takes you up to the top of the tube and back down again several times. That part was definitely the most fun and a must do if you ever try it. Overall it was a cool experience and fun to go do something a little different for a date. I don't think I'll ever jump out of an airplane so this is as close to skydiving as I'll ever get.
They call me mellow yellowwww. I bought a Groupon for this place so we went there next. After we paid and left, Travis remembered the Groupon.
Doh.
I'll be honest. I've always been a little judgy of the women who stay home from church with their babies the full 6 weeks or even longer. Just always seemed excessive and an excuse to get out of church callings longer. Welllll, now I get it. I stayed home the full 6 weeks. And I would have stayed home longer if I wasn't feeling super guilty about the rest of the Primary presidency having to do my work. It was SO NICE having Travis take the kids out of the house for 3 hours every Sunday. Let's be honest, it wasn't long enough. Alas, it was finally time to suck it up and go back to real life. The kids were ecstatic. To have Tanner there. Not me. At all times they had to be touching at least some part of Tanners body.
Shelley invited us over for dinner one night and swimming. We need to get a pool.
Rachel posted about this website that teaches kids how to draw. It's amazzzzing. All summer, the kids had a pretty lengthy list of things to do before they could watch TV, and drawing for 20 min. was one of them. I certainly didn't have to twist their arm for this activity! It was really cool to see what they could draw too.
I guess I really needed to go to Costco. So I braved it with 4 kids. It was going really well until the very end. We got some pizza for lunch and as we were finishing up, Tanner lost it. I was trying to get the kids back in the cart when Olive's primary teacher, Natalie Eralie, saw us and took over. She pushed the cart while I took care of screaming Tanner and walked us all the way to our car and loaded my groceries in while I got the kids buckled. I've never had someone do something like this for me! My goodness. I was so grateful. Her son was with her so he took their cart to their car on the opposite side of the parking lot. It was blazing hot, crazy crowded and I know, super inconvenient for her. My Good Samaritan Costco angel.
While eating his pizza, Collin got really excited and announced, "Mom! I've discovered something way better to dip your pizza in than ranch! GREASE!!!" As he swipes his crust in a big smear of grease on his plate.
My birthday was on a Friday this year. I feel like the kids have been so patient with me and having a new baby in the house. Meaning, they sit at home a lot and watch exorbitant amounts of TV. So, for my birthday I decided I wanted to just have fun with my kids. I told them that we were going to build the biggest fort in the history of ever. Well. Biggest for us. They were pretty stoked and immediately got all dressed up to play in their fort.
We read our book in the fort too!
Olive loves to do puzzles with me. Especially these princess ones.
We made this gak/slime stuff and it actually worked! Like, really worked. Better than anything I've ever bought at a store.
Look what Karen, my visiting teacher, dropped off for me!
I had more plans with the kids, but Travis got home from work early and instructed me to go get a pedicure and go shopping. I asked him if I could just take a nap instead. Collin found this request to be absolutely abhorrent. Why would anyone want to sleep on their birthday?! Travis tried to explain that when you're an adult, sleeping is wonderful. To which he proclaimed, "Being a grown up is BORING!" He's sort of right. But boy, I enjoyed my nap!
Travis did good! As usual, he pays attention to the things I talk about wanting and got me an Instant Pot. All I've heard about this thing is that it's life changing. Bring it on! Frozen chicken breasts cooked to perfection in under 30 min? Woohoo!
That night we met my sisters and their husbands and David and Abbey at Nicos for dinner! My sister in law, Karen, offered to watch Tanner so we go kid-free. Super fun to celebrate all our birthdays together. Austin was cute and brought all sorts of birthday paraphernalia to the party.
Abbey got us skirts from Downeast, Marcie gave us cute "S" necklaces that are tilted sideways, Shelley got us sandals and I gave out Nothing Bundt cakes and big bags of specialty chocolates from Costco. I felt spoiled, happy and very very full.
We took the kids to see Despicable Me 3 the next day. In it, Gru meets his twin. So naturally, us twins needed a picture in front of the poster.
Gecko Grill for the win. Always.
Andddd swimming afterward. These cousins are pretty darn lucky to have each other.
Cake is not my favorite treat. But Nothing Bundt Cakes is not cake. It's heaven. Turning 34 was pretty snazzy.
I have been seeing these enlarged Family Proclamation and Articles of Faith prints around and really wanted them. The ones I found online though were $160 a piece. So to get all three (including The Living Christ) was more than I thought I should spend. So I bought the designs on Etsy for like $20. Printed them big through an online company for about $30. Then sent Travis to Home Depot to get the wood to make my heart's wishes come true! Sanding and staining the frame pieces was probably the biggest annoyance since it was too bloody hot outside for it to set properly. My kitchen floor had to do. Travis helped me glue the prints down and then used a nail gun and glue to piece everything together. I LOVE the finished product! Like, love love. I almost couldn't believe it turned out just as I wanted. And with the wood being so cheap, we made all three for about $75 instead of the $500 it would have cost! Ok, ok, so Travis did use this as an excuse to buy some pricy tools he's been wanting for a long time, but I'm not counting those! ;)
Fussy buckets! You'd think by baby #4, I'd have this figured out, but I most surely don't. I heard about this lady named Cara who teaches Sleep Training (takingcarababies) classes here in Scottsdale. I bought her online webinars and was reminded of some things I knew and learned some things I didn't. It was definitely helpful, but didn't solve my problems all at once. I think the best thing it did was remind me that crying babies are often overtired babies. When a baby cries, it's easy to automatically think they are just hungry. But it's also very probably that they are tired and need to be soothed to sleep. The first couple of months of Tanner's life he cried a lot. Not as much as Collin and Olive, but more than Weston. Enough that I felt exasperated a LOT and frustrated and cranky very often. I'm writing this as he's about 5 months old and he's sooo much better. I think because I've become vigilant about watching the clock and making sure he goes down for a nap before he's been awake longer than an hour or hour and a half.
Girls can be super heroes too!
I was trying to be creative and do pioneer type foods for dinner to go along with my FHE lesson about pioneers. We had Johnny cake, bacon, fried apples and milk. It tanked. The kids hated it. I mean, the point really wasn't to give them a delicious meal. It was to teach them that the pioneers often didn't have much food and a piece of bacon would be a huge luxury. Regardless, it made for a lot of complaining and I think they basically went to bed hungry. So maybe they did get a pretty realistic pioneer lesson after all.
Pioneer games!
Oh my sakes!!! The potato sack jammies have always been my favorite.
Trying to eat healthier. Zoodles aren't so bad. I mean, they aren't so good either, but whatever.
Miss Sassypants whenever I take a picture. I love this hair style!
Travis was in California for his birthday present of going to the Real Madrid soccer game. He was gone Wednesday through Saturday. I took the kids to Xtreme Air to pass some time.
And met the Goodmans at Pizza Pie Cafe for dinner one night.
I swear, this is EXACTLY what Collin looked like when he cried.
How cute is this card that Collin wrote for me? He gave it to me right after Jenna died because he felt so bad that I was sad. That boy is so thoughtful.
The Friday night that Travis was gone, Shelley, Marcie and I took the kids to Grandma's to go swimming. We ordered Mi Amigos take out.
It was delish but we were all kind of stuck by the pool with the babies so poor Casey kept having to come in and out, bringing us drinks, sour cream, chips and salsa, napkins, etc. We started calling him our pool boy.
A few pictures from Travis's guy trip! Bron met him there and they went to the game Wednesday night, hit up the beach on Thursday, went to a Dodgers game and much to his chagrin.. went shopping. Hehe. Bron likes to shop and I guess even likes to shop at Forever 21. This goes to show how laid back Travis is. He'll do whatever. I was laughing so hard when he told me though and had to tease him that even though he was on a guys trip, it wasn't much different than a trip with me. ;) And can we all take note of the fact that he took TWO food pictures! I am rubbing off on that boy. Real Madrid lost but he said it was a good game. He wouldn't stop thanking me and telling me how much fun it was. I was sooooo happy he had fun. He never does stuff like this so it was long overdue.
Meet the Teacher Day!!
Collin is in 3rd grade and got Diane Hill. She was SO nice. Very organized and happy and seems like a wonderful teacher. I'm really grateful he got her. Just sad he isn't in Bryson's class anymore!
Weston is in 1st grade and got Sarah Erhart. We kept hearing all over how she is the coveted 1st grade teacher! Yay! She was also super nice and seemed like a fantastic teacher. What a relief!!! I was on cloud 9 walking away from the school. My heart couldn't have been happier to feel like the boys were going to have a great year with competent, sweet teachers! Hooray for school!
