fun in the sun

Isaac wants me to put a movie on for him (it is 9 am).  I am cleaning up and trying to get him to help me.  He just said, "You driving me crazy!"  Ha!  Right back at you, buddy.

Mom:  Does anyone know where my purse is?
Lily:  Oh....sorry Mom.  It's in my closet.
Mom: Why?  Ada is sleeping and now I can't get my camera!
Lily: It wasn't my fault.
*pause*
Mom:  Could you please explain whose fault it was?
Lily:  It wasn't my fault!  I wasn't thinking when I did it.

We went to St. George to spend time with Amanda and her kids.  Here we are at the Crack!  Isaac even went through, and I couldn't keep up with Lily, Jack and Henry they were so fast.

 Home free at the top!  This is one of Jackson's favorite places to explore.

 I wasn't a huge fan of the drop off that Isaac was next to....hence his grumpy face at me telling Henry to hold on tight!

 The caves are the most fun!

 Lily and Jackson letting Mom get a few extra minutes of sleep.  Ada loves them so much.

We went to the sand dunes one morning at 9 am....the kids lasted about 10 minutes, it was SO HOT!!!

 Then I went home and left the kids for a long weekend.  I tried to get the boys room painted but it was also the World Cup (i.e. no help from Adam).  Pretty nice break anyhow.  I was pretty mad at myself for leaving Isaac - it was a last minute decision and I missed him like crazy!  He is such a handful but such a cutie.  Nathan, Alicia and Eve got to St. George and Nathan texted that they would maybe steal him because he was so adorable...Adam and I got a good laugh at that!  Adam said he just needed to wait a few hours.

 Pedicures!  The previous week Amanda was saying that we needed to get a babysitter because she wanted to go shopping and then get a pedicure.  Lily quickly interjected "No!  It has been so long since I had a pedicure!  I need one too!"  Ha!

 McKay bought a boat, and Mimi took the kids the first day.  They loved it, and were so excited to tell us about tubing.  Amanda went to Vegas with Tyler for their anniversary and asked us to watch their kids.  Adam and I discussed taking Peter and Henry boating and I said "but Amanda will say no" to which Adam answered "Why do we even need to ask?"  So we didn't, and Mom watched Sam and Ada while we went out for a while.  The boys loved it!  I was so glad, as I was pretty nervous they would freak out from being scared.  They even got on the tube, and Henry twice!  Very impressive.

 Fireworks with cousins at Nate and Audrey's.  That was an awesome show!

 I noticed Jackson climbing down the rocks - who needs stairs?

 S'more's afterwards...

 Jack wanted his picture taken with his yummy treat.

 A few days after getting home (with the usual whining of why-do-we-have-to-go-home-it-hasn't-been-that-long, to which we answer "YOU HAVE BEEN HERE 3 WEEKS.  WE ARE GOING HOME!") Britt and her family came to visit.  Although we gave them a stomach flu for their ride home, it was so fun to see them.  The kids were happy, and the adults even got to go on a kid-free date!  Score!  We went to an Indian restaurant that Adam wouldn't have gone to with me alone, and reminisced about their last visit when Adam was working and we took all 6 kids so Kurt could feel like a polygamist.  Pretty funny.

 Good bye photos.  On top is before I offered Gregory 75 cents.

 And after!  I only knew of a dime I could offer Eleanor, and that only got a teeny tiny smile from her, I wasn't quick enough to catch it.  Gregory had a neat bank he had won at the Nickelcade.  In St. George Nathan got a WiiU that triggered Jackson's brain big time.  So lots of money saving talk, which promoted:

 Lemonade Stand!  Jack was asking every day about doing a lemonade stand to make enough money to buy a WiiU.  Lily offered to sell her bed (she still isn't happy about us selling her birthday present when we moved....).  I resisted as long as I could - was I nervous their hopes would be dashed?  Probably.  But we finally just got it done.  I went out and was their first customer.

 So cute.  Lily was holding the sign.  And the first real customer stopped!  It was pretty exciting.  I was hiding inside hoping it would be soon.  They set it up again the next day (Saturday) and made $8.50.  I was impressed.  But really, we do have a great street for it - a lot of traffic.

 Now if we want them to do something we offer them money (outside of normal chores and good behavior).  Hopefully it will get them reading more and trying new foods.  Jackson is pretty desperate to get a WiiU!

Here is our happy baby girl.  At her 6 month check up (she's 7 months now), she was a bit over 19 lbs.  Adam wanted to know how much Isaac was and he was 24 with clothes on.  She's growing!  But also she can get around anywhere, so should be thinning out soon.  Such a gorgeous girl.  She is still super content if her belly is full.  Although she gets really mad whenever I leave a room.  Which can get old.  She got her shots, so when we got home Isaac pointed to his head and said he had an owie.  There was a bump there (he gets bonks so often that Adam says it's 'perma-bruise') and I put a band-aid on it.  He was cuddling with me a little later and said "I have owie.  I bonk my head.  Doctor said no more jumping on the bed."  Super cute.

I realized we have been in this house under 3 months.  Although the garden areas are an absolute disaster, we have done so much work inside.  I am excited for things to slow down in the home improvement area.

summer time!

 Summer started yesterday.  It's times like these that really make me realize how low-effort my mothering really is.....Good thing I have these kiddos.

 2 1/2 year olds.  The bane of my existence.  So darn cute though, although I feel like I am going to go crazy - like super crazy - 3 or 4 times a day.

 Jackson graduated from Preschool Express!  He was pretty shy when they asked him what he wanted to be when he grows up.  He said policeman.  I can't believe he will be going to Kindergarten in the fall.

 We sold Raymond.  On our closing date I went to meet a plumber there to fix the kitchen sink so it would drain better.  The flowers were so gorgeous.  That was just a wonderful house!

 Here is a close up of the lilac bush that Adam gave me on my very first Mother's Day.  Can't wait to start another one here!  Such a sweet smell.  I would park the car right by it so I could smell the blossoms whenever getting in or out.

Right after I took this picture I ran out the door to get to an appointment I was late for.  I had set up a babysitter and she said she was on her way - I called her in the car to make sure she got in, and she said she had.  Once my appoint was done 50 minutes later, I looked at my phone and saw all of these texts saying there was a mix up, etc etc, and she had gone to a different home - I figured she made it to our house pretty quickly, but then saw a text that said "Do you still need me to watch your kids".  Cue heart dropping, holy smokes.  I high-tailed it out of that building, yanked off my high heels and sprinted across the parking lot to the van, then sped all the way home (luckily it was like 2 miles away).  I ran in the house and called for Lily, she came around the corner and said "MOM, GUESS WHAT.  DESI NEVER CAME!"  I held her and could tell she had been so worried and stressed!  Poor girl.  So grateful that nothing happened while I was gone.  And such a crazy circumstance that the girl totally thought she was talking to her neighbor and not me - I even said my name at one point but she didn't understand me because she had dropped her phone or something?  Crazy.  Lily sure is growing up though.  She had put Ada down for a nap and put a show on for the boys.  She'll be an awesome babysitter some day.  And now one of my biggest fears has come to life - I have had nightmares about that happening.  Again, so lucky nothing happened, nobody came to the door....so many ifs.

although she isn't pictured...

We blessed Ada the week before we moved.  I was pretty determined to do it in this ward - although quite a few people asked why I didn't wait until we moved since we had to cram in about 25 people at Raymond for the dinner afterwards.   And with all of the packing, I packed quite a bit of our 'party' stuff (serving platters, etc), which would have been nice to have access to. There was plenty of people from the ward that asked when we were going to bless her - I always answered "Don't know.  I have enough to do on Sunday without adding something else!"  So once we were almost gone and Betty had taken over a bunch of the work, I figured it was time!

My presidency after we were released.  Marjorie Moffett, Betty Johansen, and Michelle Harward.  Feel incredibly lucky to have been able to work with these women for the past 6 months.  It was one of the hardest things to let go when we decided to move.  These women put the "relief" back in Relief Society.  That was a rough go before they came along!

Whenever Isaac is bored he will grab my camera.  I have a lot of random shots from him.  Luckily he captured his cute feet in this one.

 This is my view when doing dishes.  I love it.  Janet said our place is like being in a treehouse.  I agree!  It is so fun.

 Zoom in to see Adam and Isaac on the trampoline.  It is a big yard.  The previous owner let us keep the trampoline for $20.  Yippee!

 Lily and Jackson have been taking gymnastics since January.  Pretty fun to watch them get so excited about the "Olympics" they do before summer.

 Jackson kept his medal with him the next few days, and took it to school for show-and-tell.  I am interested to see how things go once he turns 6 and is in the big boy class instead of the Littles.

 Lily is 6th from the left.  She did a routine on the bars, the beam, and a floor routine.  We like this place.

She wears her leotard for fun.  I think it will be pretty worn out after summer....

saying goodbye to raymond

7 years and 2 months.  We moved in when Lily was 3 months old.  I brought home 3 babies from the hospital.

 We made so many wonderful friends.  Had so many growing experiences.

It is so strange being there, in such a familiar place but missing the feeling of it not being where we live.  Seeing Isaac struggle to open that crappy screen door, the same way Lily and Jackson had to learn when they were small.  Coming up the stairs into that open space with the front room and kitchen.  It was such a neat house!

 And the backyard was so fun.  Nice and enclosed with all of the trees, and I still think it is so funny Adam wanted to get rid of the playset - the kids spent so much time playing there and miss those swings.

 Our front door which I loved but hated that anyone could basically see our entire house from the porch.  Going throughout the home when it's empty is crazy.  I feel bombarded with so many memories.

Isaac didn't get big enough to learn to climb those trees.  This was my view the 20 times a day I would peek out and check on the kids playing in the front yard.  They loved that place.

And here we are with our spring flowers coming out.  I am going to miss a lot of things about that house.  But not the weeding on those little slopes.

madness in march

 We decided to move.  We found a house we liked with a yard we liked in an area we liked.  It's been about 6 weeks and I honestly don't know how some people do it as often as you hear.  Not fun!

Luckily Amanda spent her spring break here to help me get started with packing!  No doubt she saved my sanity.

Finally got good use out of this floor gym.  She loves it!  Lego gun courtesy of Jackson.  He was pretty excited when she would hold and try to eat it.

 Last day/night in the bassinet.  All 4 of my babies slept in here next to us.  I listed it on KSL, and had someone ask about it.  I ended up not being able to give it up!  Thankfully we have enough room to store it in this house.  And hopefully it isn't the start of keeping too much stuff....

 Ada and Sam with Amanda.  Did I mention how lucky I am that she came and helped me.  She makes everything fun.

 And she makes everything yummy!

 Luckily we moved before this 2 year old started being terrible....

 Lily taking a selfie.

 Chubby thighs!  So far she has passed the other 3 in packing on the pounds.

Jackson taking a break from the Wii.  Because that is all he was doing while I was packing.

all about ada

Not really, but scrolling through the pictures you would think so!  I am trying to be much more diligent in taking baby pictures - she has grown so fast!  We bought this car seat when I was pregnant with Lily.  Adam took me to a fancy baby store in Salt Lake and insisted on getting a super nice lightweight one.  It sure does show the wear, but it really is small and easy to carry - especially awesome when I need to carry Isaac with my other hand.  I almost forgot to take a picture of her in it, since I have one of all of the other kids.  It will be trashed when she's done with it.

This picture makes me happy.  I love my kiddos - love this time of life - love that I get to stay home with them - love each of their cute and awesome personalities - love that I don't freak out about little things (like being late for meetings or school) since most of the time I can recognize they are little things - love love love love.  It is pretty easy to remember that it seems just yesterday that Lily was three months old, so I know I need to enjoy these days that go by so fast!

Dad came up at the beginning of February and took us skiing (Adam stayed with Isaac and Ada).  We put Lily and Jackson in ski lessons so we could have some time on the slopes; such a good idea!  It was SO NEAT being on the ski lift and having so many memories of my childhood come back to me.  All of the little things like racing to the bottom and spraying snow on each other with big stops; bunny ears with our ski poles so we could keep track of each other; tucking our poles under our arms to go faster; getting Nibs on the ski lift with Dad; turkey sandwich lunches packed by Mom.  So much fun to reminisce with Dad for a little while.  It was basically the first time I had exercised since getting pregnant though, so I got beat pretty quick..... The kids did awesome.  When it was time for the lesson to start, I was saying goodbye to the kids and noticed Jackson wipe his face a bit; he would move his skis back and forth super fast to try to move but would instead fall down.  I kneeled down and realized he was crying, and asked if he wanted to go inside or have Dad pick him up or what.  He said no, and I asked if he was frustrated because he kept on falling.  He said yes, he didn't want to do the lessons, he just wanted to ski!  It was the cutest thing ever.  He was so determined to get going, and he worked hard during the lesson and both he and Lily were able to take off the ski tip connectors by the end.  I was very impressed.  They just went up the magic carpet and skied down over and over again.  We pushed them a bit too hard and Lily ended up in tears she was so exhausted, but overall it was a wonderful day.  I am so grateful that Mom and Dad just made it a fun thing - it really was an awesome part of growing up and I love that in a few years we could go as a family!  Pretty exciting.

The next day was a big turning point for me and Lily.  Ever since Jack was born I have struggled with remembering she is still a baby/toddler/little girl/big girl, and not older than that, just because of her younger siblings being the comparison.  She was upset about something and throwing a tantrum and I was about to just leave her alone to calm down, but with the memory of how I was brought up so fresh in my mind from our ski day, I asked myself what my parents would have said to me.  So I told her how much I loved her and what a special girl she is and how proud and happy I am to be her mom.  It was a wonderful exchange we had and I feel I am doing better with how I handle our relationship with that experience in mind.  Still a lot of work though!
This picture was taken during the International Festival at her school.  She decided to do her report on Canada, and was so cute telling all of the facts about it.  She was quite sad when Isaac ripped it up the next day....in my defense I was in the bathroom.  He loves Ada and so instead is expressing the transition of not being the baby anymore by being super destructive.  Thank heavens someone started a playgroup in the neighborhood!

 Here are some shots of our smiley girl.  She LOVES being talked to and will gurgle and blow bubbles and give huge smiles whenever she gets attention.

And I think I finally got a baby with some Dabney genes instead of Bird ones.  She is growing quite a bit faster than the others, and I got out the 6 mo clothes the other day.  Unfortunately we haven't put Isaac in a bed yet so he is in the crib and Ada still in the bassinet.  Mom was visiting last week and described it as a sleeping bag for her: "Do you think it is cramping her personality?"  (Adam agreed when I repeated the question to him.)  It's true there is only about 4 inches left of wiggle room....

Also when Mom and Dad were here Lily set up this little town, made invitations for people to come watch the show, and put on a little performance with barn animals and toys.  She was pretty excited - maybe a bit too much as one morning she woke up at 5:30 a.m. to start working on it because Mom and Dad had arrived the night before when the kids were sleeping, and she wanted to do it before school started.  She was kind of silly with her 'plot' but it definitely had potential and reminded me of when Amanda and I were little and we would make little movies of simple silly stories.

Lily loves to take pictures of her sister, and will set up things like this.  She thinks it's the greatest thing ever when Ada is sitting up.  Cute girls!  I mentioned Ada loves it when people talk to her - especially Lily!  Lily will stroke her cheek to get her to smile, and loves to show anyone around what a happy baby we have.
This post was all smiles and happiness!  Probably because it's a lot easier to blog happily about your kids when one is in school, one at a playdate, and two sleeping; and not one whining about how hard school was "I work so hard in school and then I come home and you want me to work hard by putting away my clothes that you folded and placed on my bed!  It's not fair!", one either playing the Wii or throwing a tantrum because you turned it off after an hour, one crying to be held because he just woke up and didn't sleep long enough but it was too loud from the whining and tantrum throwing, and one crying to be fed which involves you glued to the couch (a.k.a. cue kid #3 to wonder around the house looking for toys to throw down the stairs, toothpaste to smear in the bathroom, etc.  or just stand next to the couch screaming to stop feeding Ada).  And Adam coming home in 20 minutes, with not a dinner plan in sight.  Still working on those tough afternoon hours - I need to be better organized in the morning.....