On the move

Grace is crawling! Actually she has been for about 2 weeks now, but here's a video of her early stage.

 

 

The last few months have been so crazy. Moving (in Utah again!), a trip to Arizona for my nieces baptism, and lots of canning (peaches, pears, dehydrating, and fruit leather). Canning is so time consuming. Good thing I've had my mom to help! Next I'll do applesauce and call it good for the year. In the meantime, Grace is crawling, Caleb and I are doing regular preschool and lots of playing with grandparents, cousins, and Aunts/Uncles.

Family...isn't it about time?

I've been so excited to post our family pictures! Thanks to my talented friend Hiedi, we have some new pictures with our growing boy and newest addition. She did a great job!

What a stud

Isn't New Hampshire beautiful?

More kissing. Caleb is looking at us and was telling us to stop. Haha

Caleb's face says, "Ewe, do I have to hold her mom?"

I absolutely love this one!

I posted almost all of them, it was too hard to pick just a few. The really hard part is going to be picking which ones to hang on the wall! I sure love my family.

Surprise!

Last week I surprised Miranda (my sister) by showing up at her doorstep in Arizona for a 9 day visit. You should've seen the look on her face! She burst into tears, it feels good to make someone feel that excited. Thanks to her husband. Brent had the idea to fly us (me and the kids) there using his frequent flyer miles. It was a much needed trip for myself and Miranda. Sure love my sister(s)!

Caleb had SO much fun playing with his cousins. He and Aiden fought and played like brothers. And if Caleb didn't get along with Aiden, he'd play with Taylor. Miranda put her life on hold to entertain us and we did lots of fun things. I'll let the pictures tell the rest.

Popsicles outside after a water balloon fight

Aren't these two adorable? Taylor was showing Caleb how to work an iphone.

Marshmellow guns for FHE. Caleb loved this!

Movie at the theatre

one of many attempts to get Caleb to have a sleepover in the loft.

 

Aiden is behind the pillows.

So cute!

Playing in the rain

The Children's museum. So Fun!

Feeding the birds at the Ostrich Farm

Aiden didn't appreciate the birds on his back

So hot!

Feeding the goats

Feeding the Deer

...and Donkeys

Feeding Grace. Check out Taylor's face, she was really focusing on getting that spoon into Grace's mouth.

Even Miranda enjoyed the Children's Museum. Nice tower sista

I got to sleep with this kiddo...somewhere

Thank you to Miranda and Brent!

Sunday School

For as long as I can remember  I have never enjoyed Sunday school. The lessons were never that interesting. Two years ago we were called into the primary and I was happy not to have to go to Sunday school for a time. I enjoyed the time I spent in primary, we had the best group of girls in our class. But with time I found myself missing Sunday school lessons. Weird. Being in primary was wonderful but I wasn't being spiritually fed. Now that we have moved to Ohio we get to attend Sunday school again, and I couldn't be more happy. I have thoroughly loved being back in class. I have gotten so much out of the lessons and I feel so much better after church having been able to go to class. I can honestly say now that I enjoying going to Sunday school!
Yesterday for the first time in my life I studied the Sunday school lesson prior to Sunday. It made the lesson even more enjoyable to have studied the topic prior to class. I was able to add to the conservation and I felt like I had a much greater understanding of the subject than I would have from just attending class. Todays subject was about not being deceived by Satan. There are so many subtle ways that Satan tries to lead us astray. He is very good at his job and if we are not constantly on guard we will fall into his enticing's. For the past 2 months Amelia and I have been involved in a health competition that covers both physical and spiritual health. As part of the competition you received points for daily scripture study and morn/eve prayers. I have struggled the past few years to be consistent  in these two areas  but this challenge has really helped me. Since getting back on track with these 2 habits I feel stronger in my spirituality and I know that I can recognize and withstand the deceptions or Satan better. These are little things that aren't that cumbersome yet their rewards are so wonderful. It is my hope that we can all be a little more stronger in our faith. Lets do the little things so we can keep Satan at bay!

one, two, three

I just realized in the midst of all our moving I never posted about Caleb's 3rd birthday. Happy Belated Birthday to Caleb!

Can you believe he's 3 already? I remember when he was this little:

2 Days old. (I don't know why this is side ways...)

1 Year

2 Years

Caleb is past the "terrible twos" and into the "thinking Threes" he is constantly asking, "why? Why? why mom?" I don't have an answer for everything and sometimes I'm too annoyed that I respond with a "don't worry about it." But most the time I do my best to teach him why the sky is blue and why the birds like to eat rice from his rice box, why those kids are riding their bikes, why I have to make dinner, why there are water towers in Ohio, why fish swim, why he can't fly, why the old man in the ice cream truck drives around...

He's curious and energetic. He's a boy! I think in his mind he's thinking things like;

what will mom do if I throw this ball at Grace's face?

oh she cried and mom told me to stop

what will happen if I do it again?

hmmm the same thing, interesting.

How about a third time?

Caleb loves to get play time with his dad. He loves to wrestle on the floor, play trains, and sneak into our bed at 4AM to cuddle with dad. Caleb keeps us laughing, with phrases like, "I told you three times mom!" and "you tell me that all the time!". Sometimes Caleb is so much in his own world he wouldn't hear a bomb go off. Most of the time he just wants a play mate. He steals my heart and my time when he asks me, "mom will you just play with me?" Yes! Soon he'll be fifteen and won't be asking me to play with him. I love when he asks to hold Grace. I'll sit her on his lap and he always asks me to take a picture of him with his sister. Caleb can get Grace to laugh at any moment. I could do kart-wheels for Grace and only get a smile. He gets me laughing too.

I sure love this kids. He brings so much excitement, character and love into our family.

3 Years

And believe it or not Grace is already 5 months old. It really seems like yesterday I was bouncing her on the exercise ball as a tiny 7 lb baby. Now at almost 14 lbs. she's smiling and laughing, rolling (sometimes) and getting close to sitting on her own. This smile melts my heart!

 

And this is Caleb at 5 months. Just a comparison.

This is actually about 4 1/2 months.

All boy

Caleb is all boy, just for the record. He loves to wrestle, play with balls, collect sticks and rocks, throw everything in sight, he pays little attention to detail...sound about right for a boy? So with that being said, on occasion he is very interested in the girl things that I do. Can you blame him, it's fun being a girl. We get to do all kinds of fun things and we get all kinds of attention for looking pretty, twirling in dresses, flipping our hair and having a shoes collection that could fill a whole house.

Caleb likes to paint his toe nails. Once again, can you blame him? It's not ok to color on your clothes, you can't on your body, don't, don't, don't, but you CAN paint your toe nails. Enticing? I'd say so. But Paul hates it, "he's a boy and boys shouldn't have painted toe nails!" We've had the discussion many times both with each other and with Caleb. It's hard, I don't mind it, he's 3 not 13. It's temporary and he's curious. He's not going to be gay just because I let him paint his toe nails every once in a while.

This morning Caleb noticed I had painted my toe nails last night after he went to bed. He REALLY wanted to paint his. Paul said no, and I did my best to support that. But you should have seen Caleb's face! He was so sad, a frown across his face and he almost burst into tears but was trying to be tough.

I was still in bed when Caleb came in a few minutes later whispering and holding a bottle of polish, (mind you he had to climb up the toilet, then the bathroom sink to get that polish out of the cupboard)
"Mom! I sneaked and got this so daddy won't see. Can we do it!?" HAHA I laughed and his face was lit up with excitement!

Alas, we convinced Paul to allow it as long as Caleb doesn't wear his sandals while it's on his toes. At least he chose blue over pink right?

Got a minute? You'll need 30.

Life happens! Goodbyes, packing, finals, starting clinical work, 21 hour drive, moving to Ohio and the list goes on.

While I am excited for Paul's schooling to be almost over and that our life is moving in a forward direction I'm happy about I was REALLY sad to leave behind beautiful New Hampshire and my friends in it. It's amazing how I look back 2 years ago and see what a blessing it is that we ended up there. It was a close call, we really debated going out there for school. Thanks to Paul listening to the guidance from the Lord we packed our things and left.

Our car with everything we took to New Hampshire.

 We all have great memories of our 2 years in NH that we'll be talking about for the rest of our lives like:

Halloween 2011

Our trip to Canada

Trying to fit Caleb's pack n' play in the bathroom of our hotel.

right after this museum in Canada Caleb fell out of his stroller and chipped his tooth.

The many events we attended at the Joseph Smith Memorial (birth place of JS)

The alpaca farm we visited.

Our first Christmas away from home. Filled with both joy and sadness.

Sledding and ice skating outside.

Our trip to Washington D.C. to visit...

our favorite girls ever!

The D.C. temple. One more checked off our list.

The few and far between dates we got without kids. It's good to be silly and stop being so responsible sometimes. ;)

We LOVED the Maple Sugar House tours. 2012

Maple Sugar House 2013

We'll miss these friends.

Hikes in the beautiful hills and trees...

exploring new bugs, new animals, and new plants

I'll never forget the squeals of excitment when Caleb experienced his first feel of sand.

We got to check "go to a Red Sox Game" off our list.

The Boston temple (another off our list)

Our favorite ice cream shop/farm. And how Caleb is terrified of the 'mooing' clock here.

Turning 2 Years

And turning 3 Years old

Awe yes and camping in New Hampshire; no sagebrush and never a shortage of firewood.

The excitement when I came out of the bathroom jumping for joy and yelling, "I'm pregnant!" Caleb giggled and giggled even though he had know idea what that meant.

Our first (and hopefully not last) experience as a "ma" and "pa" on Trek. The never ending rain in New Hampshire made this a memory of gratitude for those saints. Such a different experience than when I went on Trek as a Youth in Utah. These youth taught me to appreciate the blessing of growing up with hundreds of others in my high school that believed what I did, when many of them are the only members in their school. They couldn't wait to go to college at BYU and be surrounded by mormons.

Camping with these cuties...

and these flirts.

Canoeing down one of many rivers just outside our home. There are so many options for water sports!

The visit from my most treasured people, my sisters and mom! Girls trip 2012

Can you tell we like this family? Hiking

I was reminded of the amazing abilities of my body and the true joy that comes from baring children.

Snow

and more snow.

Our one of many pizza picnics in pajamas

The Lord put a lot of thought into who would witness and who wouldn't witness (the midwife) Grace's birth. My heart is filled with gratitude that my dear friend educated me on home birth and introduced me to my midwife.

the joy of watching siblings meet for the first time.

I'll never forget the joy and happiness I felt when we made the decision for me to stay home with these cute feet!

Bouncing on this ball for HOURS!

2 Months and growing

Dying Easter eggs..

Thanks to the ward, I finally got the motivation to do 72 hour kits!

Oh how I love cooking dutch oven, I mean watching Paul cook dutch oven.

And getting dirty with friends

The way Grace loves Caleb.

Blessing Grace. We've learned the blessing of friends. Without family around you really have to depend on friends. Thanks to those worthy friends Grace was blessed in a circle of wonderful men.

Bike rides around downtown NH.

Snuggling in bed with this beautiful angel.

And the bitter-sweet moment of loading our truck to move on.

Our time has been well spent. We have new friendships, new memories and a new love for family. Thank you for the last 2 years.