Rainy Days and Sunflowers

I love, love, love rainy days. They make me homesick for the great northwest. I'm currently training my kids to love rainy days too. I tell them that rainy days are for watching movies, snuggling in blankets, and baking cookies . . . cuz that's all anyone does on rainy days, right? We had a couple of those wonderful rainy days last week.

One of those rainy days turned into a stormy night; the kind that require you to get your kids out of bed and take them out on the porch to appreciate the crazy display of lightning and thunder. In the morning after this particular stormy night, we woke to discover that all the super tall sunflowers in our garden didn't quite survive.

That's okay. The storm was worth it.

Beach

Found a hidden piece of heaven the other day. Ten minutes from our house. Wow.

 Utah just got some major bonus points in my book. Wow.

Dentist Visit

I know, a dentist visit probably shouldn't get a whole blog post in the journal of our lives. But kids are so darn cute when they're at the dentist (when they're not crying and screaming, that is). I just had to post these pics.

Porter wasn't so sure about the chair until they showed him the video games on the ceiling. He sat there like that, smiling, for 2-3 minutes before any of us adults looked up and realized the game hadn't been started yet!

Lucy stayed stiff-straight through the whole cleaning and even when the hygienist put the chair back in the upright position. It was so funny!

My Little Swimmer

We put Porter in swimming lessons this year. I loved the opportunities it gave him to face his fears and make himself do hard things and feel successful.

First, he was so scared to actually go. We signed him up a month before the lessons started, so he had a month to tell me how scared he was and how he didn't want to do it. When the lessons started, he was so nervous and he held my hand so tight as we walked to the pool. But after his first lesson, he was in love with it and didn't want to leave.

One of the things he had to master was putting his head under water. On the first day, when his teacher asked him to do it, Porter got scared and said he couldn't and started walking toward me at the side of the pool, ready to give up. But with a lot of encouragement from me and his teacher, he finally made himself try and he stuck the tip of his nose in the water.

The next day, he tipped his head the other way and got his ears wet. The next day, he stuck his whole face in the water. And finally, the day after that, he bobbed his head all the way under the water. He did it again and again and again. He was so proud of himself!

 I'm so incredibly proud of this boy!

Long Lost Photos

My memory card filled up the other day while I was snapping photos, so I desperately started searching through my camera bag until I found another card hidden in one of the pockets. When I popped it into my camera, I discovered a whole bunch of hidden gems from over a year ago.

I'm always so overwhelmed with how cute she is right now, that I often forget how cute she WAS.

I love those two little teeth.

She is the cutest.

Cascade Springs

We took a little day trip today up into the mountains. The drive was beautiful. Our walk around the springs were heavenly (minus a little bee sting incident where I may or may not have overreacted a little bit . . . I have a very low pain tolerance!).

My mom and sister joined me and the kids on our excursion. For some reason, Brian doesn't like me taking the kids into the mountains and other remote places to hike on our own. Crazy, right?! ;)

I'm so lucky to have such great family around who like to do these things with me and my crazy kids.

I love little trips like this. It's so nice to get away from all the stores and houses and cars and people every now and then. And I love every chance I get to put my kids in nature. I so wish they had more chances to play in woods with sticks and mud and wildflowers. That's what childhood should be, in my opinion.

Ancestors

Lately, I've really gotten excited about learning more about my ancestors. I've visited my grandma to try to get her to tell me stories, I've spent hours exploring my family tree on the familysearch.org website, I've taken the kids to pioneer villages to see how our early ancestors lived, and I was even assigned to give a talk in church about family history, which led me to do lots of research about the importance of family history in general.

So I was pretty thrilled last week, when my grandma told me about a small cabin-turned-museum in a nearby town that had once been the home of her grandfather. Monday just happened to be one of the few days of the year that it's open for tours, so we loaded up the kids to go see where their great-great-great grandfather had lived.

Here's my good ol' great-great grandpa, Ezekiel:

The kids ran and ran back and forth through those two doors. Brian pointed out how crazy parents must have gone back then, living in a ONE-ROOM house with energetic little ones. Yikes!

What a blessing to find such a big piece of my personal history so close to where we're living. 

June memories

I take tons of pictures on my phone that don't necessarily need a whole blog post written about them. But these are the little things that make up our lives and I don't want to forget all the little memories that prompted me to pull out my camera. So get ready for a picture overload. Here are some little things from June . . .

 Rooftop Concert, sporting the free t-shirts Provo City gives away at the event each month. They are a huge hit and we love them more than anyone because these kids' daddy designed them all.

Here he is, giving his shirts away at the booth. I love when I'm out around town and I see people at grocery stores, museums, etc. wearing his shirts. He's a pretty awesome designer, if you ask me.

The books the kids choose from the library each week go into the car seat pockets for the kids to read whenever we drive anywhere. I think it's one of my more genius ideas. It gets them more reading time AND it keeps me from losing library books and paying late fees. Win, win.

 Dance Party in the Trunk. While I cleaned & vacuumed out the car one day, Porter and Lucy wanted to play in the back. Porter turned music on with my phone and they seriously danced back there for over 20 minutes. Apparently, Porter took some funny videos and snapped a few pictures too. This is the least blurry photo he took.

Lucy took off her pants before we left the house. Mommy didn't realize till we were already out. Oops.

Failed attempt at snapping a photo to send to Grandma. But I'm including it because this shows our life. I feel like we're constantly running errands. My kids spend way too much time in grocery carts. 

 First swim of the season. Cutest swimmers in the world.

I bought the beach towel and swimsuit at separate times. I did not plan for them to match. I guess I just really like navy stripes. 

Provo Temple. Awkward Selfie. Rare pic of the two of us together. 

 Porter & Lucy helping Grandma plant flowers in Great-Grandma's flowerpots.

Touring Grandma's old elementary school (now a museum).

 We actually went because of the quilt show taking place at her old elementary school (museum). This was a classroom. My mom explained that the little door on the left was a garbage chute that took their trash down to the basement. Convenient? Dangerous? I don't care. I want one.

 Porter found his favorite quilt. Everything is awesome.

Brian surprised me one day with a fancy, new picnic basket. He told me he thought I would like it because it seemed Anne-of-Green-Gables-ish. Was he ever right! Of course, we had to pack it full of pb&j sandwiches and sparkling lemonade and go try it out. Perfect evening!

 Lucy, being cute. As usual.

Lucy loves babies so much, she often tries to act like one. Actually, this is probably because she likes swings so much . . . and bouncing. Either way, I'm not sure how much longer this thing will survive if she keeps doing this. But she loves it so much, it's hard to say no.

Porter sleeps with 3 stuffed animals every night. Hop, Rockwell, and Big-Head-Bear. It's a pretty crowded bed. And every morning, he comes into our bedroom carrying all three. He drops them on my floor or on my bed. It drives me crazy that I have to pick those up and put them back in his room every day. But I love how stinkin' cute he is with his arms full of stuffed animals every morning.

this girl is two! . . . a month ago

Last month, this little girl doubled her age. I finally got her birthday post up on her journal blog. I'll just share a few highlights here . . .

We strayed from traditional cake & ice cream and had BYU mint brownies and BYU sparkle sherbet for her dessert. She refused to get messy last year . . . we had no problems with that this year!

I love traditions. And we have more than a few of those for birthdays. On Lucy's first birthday, all of her pink balloons got loose and floated into the sky just before her party. Porter cried and cried and still talks about the sad day when all the balloons floated away. This year, we made it a tradition by sending them off on purpose. But when we went back into the house, we found Porter hoarding 4-5 balloons in a corner! Poor kid. Some of our traditions may be a little traumatizing, I suppose.

A few things about you at this stage . . . {from Lucy's journal blog}

• weight: 27 lbs (65th percentile)
• height: 36" (96th percentile)
• at your 2-year check-up, you screamed and sobbed when the nurse took your temperature and measured your height but didn't even flinch when you got a shot
• you have the cutest, sweetest voice I've ever heard
• you can recognize the color pink
• you are a picky, picky eater
• you LOVE to dance 
• your favorite bedtime lullaby is "Twinkle, Twinkle," you call it "Toink, Toink"
• you sleep from 7:30pm-7:30am and you nap around 1:00-4:00pm
• you like to sleep on your tummy
• you put yourself in time-out when you do something wrong
• you like to snuggle
• you love to jump
• you want to be held all the time
• sometimes you go off by yourself and play quietly or read books on your own
• you are a perfect little mommy to your dollies- you feed them, give them naps, and take them on walks
• you love being outside
• you don't like to watch television
• you can say prayers all by yourself
• nicknames: Loose Goose, Lucy Goosey, Sweetsie Lou, Lucilia Gracious, Sweetheart, Lula Bell, Lucy Lou Who, Sweetie Pie, Sweets (we use nicknames a lot around here!)
• you love to wear jewelry
• you love friends and like to say hi to everyone (except when you're feeling shy)
• you always say "thanks" when you get something
• you say "helpful" when you're being helpful
• you climb on everything- you are fearless on playground equipment and stubborn about climbing into your carseat or onto the changing table all by yourself
• you love doggies
• you often refer to yourself in the third-person, and you call yourself "see" (the last syllable of lucy)
• when you want to go outside, you always ask "see side?" (see for lucy, side for outside), and mommy and daddy always make a joke about you going to the seaside instead, we think we're pretty funny
• you love to wear sunglasses and you call them "eyes" . . . "see's eyes"