a new leaf

Isaac turned 5!  He loves loves loves to play video games and go crazy with friends.  He usually has a little troop of 4 or 5 boys to run around with that live on our block, that he is constantly trying to keep at our house (sob for cleaning) because he is a homebody and will only play other places if I am not at home, or there are video games involved.  This drives me crazy, especially on days when I feel that he is punishing me for saying no to video games, and I will find his face, our bathroom sink, and various places on the walls smeared with blueberry juice from him pretending to be a zombie chasing his friends.  It is true that I sometimes plan with other moms to say that I am not home so he will play somewhere else.

I have been procrastinating keeping this blog up.  I put it as a goal to update and start working on my blog book for 2014, 2015 and 2016 - my first 3 year book.  Not much happened until I talked with Liz, whose office was unearthed to make room for her boys' new bedroom. After a discussion about preserving life history, I've decided to start a new chapter for how I do things.  More history, less description.

The kids continue to ask to visit National Parks, so we added Bryce Canyon to the list.  Ada escaped past this fence once.  She makes me quite tired most days. Jackson loves to be crazy - I love this picture catching that face.

 On this trip Lily was whining.  A lot.  We had a bag of precious swedish fish, and Adam finally said "You can have a fish if you are quiet for 5 minutes."  She lasted her characteristic 30 seconds before she started whining about how horrible that deal was.  A typical blip of the next 40 minutes would be Lily whining about something, Adam saying "LILY PLEASE!!!" and me attempting to give a sermon on being grateful, followed by "See?  Jackson is getting ANOTHER fish because he is being quiet!!"

A day in Salt Lake, so wonderful to be in that place full of memories.  After this picture Ada unplugged a nearby cord from the wall (router maybe?).  Really tiring.  This weekend we were experimenting with Adam working away from the office (future summers in Mexico! in my mind, and Montana! in Adam's. We are really different.)  It went well until he tagged along with us to Salt Lake (no pressure from me!) and missed an important call (like swearing important, he was so mad). Hopefully those traveling dreams aren't completely gone.

If I could have had control over one thing in Lily's life set up I would have planned her to be surrounded by girl cousins.  She is alone a lot, her nearest girl cousins are +/-2 years away.  If she gets my phone during family visits I spend a lot of time sifting through tons of photos and long monologue videos.

 This was such a fun weekend staying at Ashley's house. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I LOVE visiting other families and seeing them in action, and see what little habits work that I can maybe implement in our home.  Ashley is quite amazing and I left with a ton of ideas!

I included so many pictures of the pony ride, because before this day Ada was always mentioning "baby horses" and so was SO EXCITED!  All of the kids were, although of course Lily and Jackson fought over the largest pony and Jack ended up sulking off to the side and I had to take him back later.

Isaac is always up for a thumbs up and winking smile when he sees the camera.  Ha!

 Jackson really is super sweet with animals.  He stroked the pony's neck the entire time.

 Isaac started preschool.  It was not fun.  He was so happy the first day we went together for a little tour and treasure hunt.  Then the second day he would not go in without me, then started crying when I would try to leave.  Ada of course was being a busy bee the entire time, so I was trying to make sure she didn't create enormous messes while I was trying to help Isaac be brave.  When they went to just play with toys, I thought that would be a good out, but no.  Isaac clung to me sobbing while I was ripping toys out of Ada's hands, who then started crying because she didn't want to leave.  Super frustrating.  Luckily he eventually went after 2 days of this when I bribed him with a snow cone.

Ada as Owlette.  Adam refuses to let me reuse our super expensive Halloween costumes.  Lily had so many cute ones!

Isaac as Spiderman.  I admit to still being bitter that Amanda GAVE AWAY the Spiderman suit I let her borrow 3 years ago.  I convinced the kids to sell their candy this year to the dentist by saying I would triple their money (ha!).  It was wonderful, although I probably should see it for what it is; the kids realizing that nothing makes mom get into raging anger faster than them eating candy instead of food.

I can't get enough of sleeping babies.  Not necessarily in our bed but it happens in cycles and it won't be forever.  At least that's what I tell myself when I'm getting kicked in the face by Ada from 5 am to 7 am three nights in a row.

We didn't get to the park nearly as often as I would have liked following that boiling summer, but we DID finally make it to Snow Canyon and Jenny's Canyon.  Lily loved the hole covered walls.

Jackson refused to come with us on this excursion.  I am always torn between making him come with us because I know he will enjoy it, or letting him stay at Liz's where he can just relax with his cousins (the only times I regret this is if he comes home grumpy.  Hard to return from fun and nice mom heaven!  Yes he has stated how much nicer Liz is than me.  Don't know how she keeps that compassionate, letting kids run through that house all day long.

Ada thought it was super funny to run away from me on the top of this ridge.  She has so much energy.  I can't wait to see what she gets involved in when she's older.

Lily is still her lovely independent self, desperately in need of a self-thought project or idea, and would rather be around people than alone.  Not sure how to teach the value of quiet/alone time to her.