I love being a mom

The past couple of weeks the kids and I have been busy.  A group of girls and I go on an hour walk 3 mornings a week with the kids in tow, the other 2 mornings a week my friend comes over first thing and I get to go work out while she stays with the kids, then she goes while I watch her son. 

We have started going to library story time once a week, we have mommy and me once a week, and we are going to a KinderMusik class once a week which I love!!  

We still are going to parks, friends houses, outside on our play area, our neighbors come over and play, trips to the grocery store, and Wal-Mart to look at the toys.

But sometimes what I love most is just playing on the bed and putting a blanket over their heads and listen to them both giggling so hard they can't breathe.  I love that they now take a bath together and splash each other, I love that Colton crawls under the kitchen table chasing Mylee, I love when Mylee wakes up and as soon as she sees Colton she literally squeals in delight.

I love our little routine, the kids and I.

And I love being their mom.

We went to the fair a couple of weekends ago...they loved the animals!!!

Here are pictures of Colton and Mylee both at 8 months.  I found pictures where they looked a lot alike, I don't think they look THAT much alike anymore.

I attempted to take pictures of them in their church clothes...this is what I got.

I LOVE it!

I try so hard to get a picture of her sitting, but she moves so fast I always cut her head off!  (ps she has the GREATEST dimples)

She goes from squatting to standing (and has been doing so since about 7.5 months)  Where did my baby go???

I think he is the sweetest, lovable, most handsome little man...

And she lights up our world.  I can't believe what an unbelievably happy, smiley little girl she is.

I love both of them more than anything in the world (and their daddy)  I am a lucky girl to be their mom.

Yesterday

...was Matt's birthday.  He turned 28.  I usually don't write a lot/brag about him.  But, seriously, on his birthday, I can brag.

    He is a wonderful husband, dad, student, friend, person, etc. etc. I love watching him play with our kids...he is SO good with them. He will lay on the floor and let them climb/jump/crawl all over him and they love it and he loves it! He works so hard at school, he goes in early so he can come home early and spend time with his kids!   This year is a lot different than last year and he gets to spend a lot more time with us. We are all loving it and hoping it lasts!

     We started the celebration of his birthday last weekend-- Friday at about noon we decided to go to Spokane for the night. We left after Matt played basketball (ya, he had to play his weekly basketball game first) and got to our Hotel (provided by Matt's little brother Andy who worked at the Marriott and got awesome deals for us over the past year!!). Our friends Nate and Ashley came and we got a 2 bedroom suite! We headed out to dinner and the mall and then went swimming at the hotel! The next day we got up and swam and headed out for more shopping!!  First we headed to TOYS R US!  Colton was in Heaven!! I definitely have some ideas of what he wants for his birthday and Christmas!  It was so fun we spent over an hour in there!

 
We continued shopping, went out to eat, shopped some more and finally headed home for the day!  I couldn't wait any longer to give him his birthday present and it had arrived earlier in the day so we stopped off at Wal-Mart on our way home for our very first flat screen TV!  With the help of our parents and Wal-mart for selling refurbished TV's...haha, we got an awesome deal! 

    Monday night we had a little party for him at the park with some friends and then last night (on his birthday) we had a ward party, The Newlywed game (With babysitting provided)  Anyway- it has been a fun week and I hope Matt feels loved and appreciated, because he is the greatest!

Inspiring Story

      Yesterday, after I got home from 6 hours of church (It was ward conference for all the wards and we were in charge of all of the nurseries, hence, a long day :))  The kids were taking naps, and I really should have taken a nap but I decided since I hadn't had much "ME" time I decided to get on the computer and reads some blogs and look at my new love, Pinterest. 
    Anyway, my friend posted a link to another blog on her blog and sometimes I read them, sometimes I don't have time, but I had the time today and went and read this story    (don't skip it--its a good one)

After 10 minutes of reading, tears streaming down my face, I realized how much I needed that right now.  I feel like sometimes we ALL talk to someone who is in a bad mood and think, Wow, what was wrong with her today, instead of thinking, I wonder what she needed from me today?  Anyway, I wish we could even wear signs like the story that are as simple as, "It's been a long morning!"  I guess reading that story made me realize that YES, we need to be more caring, gentle, understanding, compassionate.  So, Thanks Rachel for posting it, and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did!

The weather

It is not even 9 o'clock and my kids have both been in bed for an hour...Matt is studying for the first night since we got here (please don't say this continues) BUT I have peace and quiet...and time to blog :)

I know this sounds all peachy and happy but life is great right now.  I have never been like this before, but I am totally neglecting my house (ok, it is still clean for the most part)  but usually I am crazy about constantly cleaning it.  The past 3 weeks, Nope!  I had laundry that I still had not folded for 5 days...and not just a little bit, but ALL of it!  Kids toys are everywhere, Mylee's and my own clothes are all over the floor, my hair stuff is out in the bathroom, dishes in the sink (ok-tonight they are done) and I don't even care.  We are going to spend every last minute outside while the weather is absolutely perfect.  When winter comes, I can fold laundry every day, and put away clothes, and make sure the house is spotless, but for now, we are going to go on walks every chance we can, go to every park in town, Walk to every park in town, have picnics, play at the playground at our apartments, sit outside on the grass just so we can be OUTSIDE! 

Anyway, if you can't tell, we are Loving this weather!

And to go along with loving the weather, I am loving these 2 kids.  I feel like SOMETIMES it might just be easier to have 2 kids rather than 1 (besides getting out of the house, bedtime routines, feeding, etc. etc. etc.)  But, playtime is great.  They are now bathing together and it is awesome! 

As long as there are plenty of toys and Colton gets to sit by the water faucet, they are happy :)

I'm not going to lie though, this little girl is a sneak.  She chases her brother around all day trying to steal his toys...look at her now, caught in the act. 

Love this picture...her in Colton's old pajamas :)

And here we are at the park (I have been SOO bad about taking pictureS)  We have been going to a park with a big grass field and throwing the frisbee and football.  Like I said, loving this weather!

Elk Creek River

Basically from the moment we arrived in Moscow, we were unpacking.  Our apartment was all boxes and we wanted to get all moved in before Matt started school.  We did some fun things in the evenings with friends, but were mainly trying to get moved in.  Our friends, the Frantz's invited us to go to Elk Creek River on Saturday for the day.  We almost didn't go because I still hadn't done laundry or moved a lot of stuff in.  But we are SOO glad we went!
We got there after a beautiful drive through northern Idaho and had lunch before we started hiking. It was a 2 mile hike to the river...Our friends have a little boy named Jay who is about 5 months younger than Colton.  Ever since we have been back they have been playing so good together!

We got down to the bottom and it was amazing!  The water was the perfect temperature and the men loved it as you can tell.  They went right in and started jumping off and got to sit under the waterfall. 

Katie and I were a little more skeptical.  We didn't bring our swimsuits because we had the babies and were too chicken to jump off the cliff..  Anyway, the husbands talked us into it finally, and I am SO glad we did.  I haven't laughed that much or had that much fun in a long time!!  Katie said she felt like we were doing the adventures on the bachelorette-haha!  We tried to swim from the rocks to the waterfall and could not, so we had to go around the edges on the slimey rocks and finally made it to the waterfall.  We played under the waterfall for a while and then jumped into the current and it took us back! 

So glad they invited us, it was awesome!

Our little family :)

After we went to the river we stopped and got some Huckleberry ice-cream, it was probably the best ice cream I have ever had!  Anyway, it was such a fun day!  We all came home exhausted, but it was so worth it!  This might be our last year here (we got into the Boise 3rd year program) and so I want to enjoy how beautiful it is as much as we can!! 

We're back home

We had such an awesome summer. I didn't blog much, my camera is broke, I can still take pictures but I can't see what I am taking the pictures of until I put them on the computer :) We celebrated my 27th birthday and our 5th anniversary this summer. Matt and I got to go to dinner and stay in a hotel all by ourselves! We went up to Jackson Hole, we went to Bear Lake and we just hung out with family, spent a lot of evenings outside and eating raspberries from the garden :) All in all, it was a wonderful summer filled with lots of fun memories!!

     Leaving Pocatello was So sad. Everytime I go home or live near home, as we are driving away I say, "why do we live so far away from family" (as I am crying) But, as we got closer to Moscow, I got excited to see all of our friends, our ward, meet new people, have new experiences, and those tears were dried right up! I still miss family but we really enjoy our little life up here.

    I was especially nervous about Colton. He LOVES his grandparents. He was a little bit older this summer and really got to know them and it broke my heart to take him away. For the first few days when we were up here if we would discipline him in any way, he would run crying to the door yelling, GA-GA (grandma). We would get in the car and I would say, where do you want to go, he would say, "GA-GA house!" And yes, he still does that every once in a while, but there are so many new kids around here, and he has all of his toys back and well, he is 2, life is good.

    We have been back for almost 2 weeks and have gotten all settled into a 3 bedroom apartment instead of a 2 bedroom, which is Wonderful :) After 7 long months, Miss Mylee is not in our bedroom anymore. We have met SO many new people, and have seen all of our Wonderful friends from last year and have actually played quite a bit!! I feel like life has been a party (minus taking care of 2 kids (one who is sick), and Matt having to go to school 10 hours a day :))

    Little Miss Mylee is 7 1/2 months old today. She has been crawling for a month, and is getting pretty dang fast.  She is also grabbing on to things and standing up...yikes!  She loves when I put her in Colton's room (the toy room) and they can just go at it.  The only problem is, everything he has in his hand, she wants.  He actually tries to be really nice, he will say, "Here baby" give her the toy, and move on to something else.  She will suck on it for a second and then head back towards him for the new toy he has. This process doesn't stop.  It's quite entertaining!  Mylee is now eating some solids.  She loves the vegetables, but will not eat fruit.  I have tried quite a few and she gets this weird look on her face and spits it all out. I even tried a real banana and just squished it up and she would not eat it! She loves juice so maybe someday she will come around!

     Colton is still my sweet boy.  He will sleep in until 9:30 every day and is happy all day (except for every once in a while)  Every day after lunch he says "nite-nite mom" and runs to his room!  He loves his room with all of his toys!  He is FINALLY starting to talk quite a bit more, but most people probably can't understand him that well, but I can :) 

    A lady in Pocatello gave us this high chair for Mylee, and well since Colton hasn't had a high chair since we lived in Germany, he LOVES it!  He won't eat up to the table anymore.  He is also going through the, My turn phase.  Everything, I mean everything that we do, he has to have a turn.  It's really cute unless we're in a hurry, or I'm trying to put Mylee in the car haha. 

Anyway, we are enjoying life!  So far, the second year of law school seems like a breeze compared to the first, but then again it's only the 1st week!  We shall see :)

I can't believe we have less than a week before we head back up to school!  The month of July has flown by!!  Colton and Mylee are changing and growing like crazy.  Mylee is rolling and scooting and basically getting everywhere she wants to get--she started crawling last week at about 6 1/2 months!   We went to her 6 month check up at 6 1/2 months- she was 17 pounds and 27 inches...75% for both!  

Colton went poop in the potty for the first time...he squealed and laughed, but I think it was just to hide that he was scared of it because it hasn't happened again!  We are excited to get back to school, not excited for Matt to start school, but excited to be back in our little life again.  We will miss family and have had such a wonderful time!  I have not taken enough pictures...but here are a few!