Happy children

Today My children were all so happy. Of course there were "moments" that they were not the happiest but overall we had a wonderful day of smiles, laughter and playing well with each other.
I babysat my nephew Caiden. He and max played well alllll day, chasing each other, climbing up to furniture together and doing cute boy things together. It is so cute to see them so close in age and size doing all the same things and just being happy. Made me so content ad satisfied with my life.
I love being a mother and these "happy moments" make it so easy.
I took Braden, Mac, Caiden and a little girl I babysit in Fridays to Riley's school to see her receive her first award for good citizenship. It was so neat to hear her principal read off a list of compliments her teacher wrote on her award. I could tell how proud riley was and she even remembered to thank the principal after she got handed her award. (we talked about that specific manner this morning).
We ended the day perfectly. The kids got dressed up and we headed to Riley's school festival. Then we all went out to dinner at Denny's (Riley got a free meal with her award from school).
I love all days but I love these happy carefree days the most. I love being able to sit back and smile, laugh and just enjoy my children.

Time with my boys

Yesterday I had the chance to run a quick errand with just my two boys. They looked so big an cute sitting in the shopping cart together munching on one of their favorite snacks-pretzel rods.
After we made our purchase Braden made sure we doubled back to walk through the Christmas displays. He oohed and Ahhhed over the lit up trees, the moving reindeer for your front lawn and the huge ornaments.
It was so nice to be able to talk to them sweetly instead of this errand turning me into a referee breaking up fights between them.
I love seeing my kids grow up but I sure do miss them as babies too.

Blessings

I have not posted in awhile because its annoying to do from my phone but one again I feel I have missed so much by not blogging. So until I get over being annoyed by having to type a lot on my iPhone to blog I am going to try to post once a day listing a specific blessing or tender mercy (as they come) that I have noticed. I got the idea in a mini lesson during relief society this past Sunday.
I think reflecting on your blessings each day and then blogging/journaling/sharing them is a great thing to do and a way to remind yourself that Heavenly Father is everywhere and has a hand in everything.
Today is Riley's 5th birthday. There isn't a better blessing to write about today than her. She is AMAZING. Smart, happy, artistic, fun, nice, joyful,smiley, emotional, energetic, curious, cautious, inquisitive and so much more. I am beyond words grateful to be her mom and to have the opportunity to raise her.
She is my favorite girl in the entire world!!! We have a very strong bond I think mainly because she was my first born and I was able to spend so much one on one time with her. I strive each day to be the type of mom that will allow us to stay so close for ever.

Our house just got a little busier

Max started standing up to everything a couple weeks ago! It is very cute and fun to see him exploring everything better and seeing him grow.
It does give me more to do now, I'm constantly picking up whatever he topples over (kiddie kitchen chairs, our bin of recycled cans and bottles, etc) and I'm also busy kissing away all his owies!
Max is getting soooo big and I'm keep falling in love with him!

Riley's first day of school

Riley was so ready for school and I'm so glad she made the kindergarten cutoff by about a week or so. She wasn't really nervous at all, I think she was anxious to experience all the unknowns she'd been hearing about. Her class room, her teacher, playground, rules, schedule, friends/classmates, etc
I started a new tradition this year (completely inspired by Stephanie Nielson from the nienie dialogues) I let Riley pick her dinner and dessert and I had plans to make it pretty dang fancy. It was to be her "you are amazing" back to school dinner. Unfortunately about 1000house around ours all lost power so we headed to my mother inlaws to put some of our food in her extra freezer.
Riley picked BBQ chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, and smoothies or water.
My mother in-law came to the rescue and whipped up the dinner, josh made the smoothies, and I got to work trying to make this a special dinner. I wrapped her chair in white Christmas lights, made sure her smoothie was In a fancy cup and made her a crown to wear at dinner.
I made sure to tell her over dinner that she is amazing and can do anything she wants. That she was going to have a great, fun, happy school year and that she would learn so much!
It was a great start to a new tradition. I forgot to do like nienie dialogues and present a family theme for the year, I will be sure to next year!
The dinner was a hit!
The next day Riley was ready and excited for school, I walked her in, we explored the classroom and she was told to pick a seat and do whatever activity was at that table. I asked her if she was ready for me k leave and she said "yes!" with NO hesitation. I didn't cry, I am so excited to see her start this new chapter of life!
It is amazing to see my first baby now a kindergartner.

Potty training

I decided it was time to potty train Braden. 1.his diapers were disgusting 2. He didn't like when we had to change him 3. He was ASKING for a diaper 4.the straw that broke the camels back or however the saying goes-I found out he was screaming and fighting and KICKING our awesome babysitter when she tried to change him.
Not happenin' in this house, no way.
Sooo I tried about a month ago and he peed in his underwear and then pooped in them and didn't really tell us and I could just tell he wasnt quite ready. And cleaning out the poopy underwear sent me running back to diapers quick! BUT the day our babysitter told us he kicked her I was ready to try again and make it work. I struggled between forcing the issue and waiting till he was ready but my mommy instincts told me to just do it.
He screamed and cried and I had to FORCE him into his underwear. He was embarrassed to wear them for some reason. As soon as I got him distracted he was fine. We set up our system: if he TRYS to go potty he gets to put a sticker on the paper hanging in the bathroom that is JUST for him-so special with a B on it as everything. If he actually pees on the toilet he gets a little candy (3m&ms) or something. If he goes poop he gets the batman pez dispenser and pez that was sitting on our mantel.
With out giving you a totally play by play he had two minor accidents the first day (not counting diaper at nap/bedtime) then he had a HUGE accident for the sitter the next day. Then we went on a 3day vacation-bad timing.
Since we've been back he has only had two accidents. We even made it to the park and store in big boy undies but boy was I scared!!!
He is doing great and tell me every time he has to go-he even sits on he toilet to fart hahaha better safe then sorry! We will see if he has any setbacks but its looking good so far!

Ena!

Selena-i call her Ena- is one of my greatest friends. We met in college over 6years ago thru a mutual friend and we will be friends forever. Simple. We just have that bond, that type of friendship where we are comfortable with each other. We can be goofy-to the extreme goofy, but we often have serious conversations too.
She has so many talents, piano being my favorite talent of hers. She is good-REALLY good. She comes over and plays my piano for me and I just do dishes while I listen or sit on the couch and watch. You can name any song and if you sing her a few lines or if she remembers how it sounds she can play it within seconds!fl from simple songs to supeeeerrr complex sounding ones. No music sheets needed-it's genius, it really is. i don't understand how a person can do that! For example, there is his song called waterfall by John Schmidt i think, I played it for ena on my iPod and she figured it out on the piano in seconds! If you know that song then this makes more sense. It is a gift from above-she's worked very hard at it too and there are just no words to describe how amazing she is!
{and my favorite is when she makes silly faces while she plays. She whips her head around, has the most hilarious sitting poses and contorts that face of hers! Hahah} love you ena!

Family

I feel so blessed to have so much family so close by to us. Josh's parents and mine but live anywhere from 20min-1hr20mim away from us and I love it.
Today I felt like seeing my mother in law so Riley called and invited us over for dinner :)
It's so nice just to pop over whenever we want and know that we have family who will visit with us, feed us, and entertain the kids.
I love our family and am so grateful for all the little and big things they do.

enjoying summer

I can't say enough how much I love summer and all the heat. I absolutely feel soooooo GOOD in the heat. (the cold weather does come with its fun holidays and foods but I can't stand how cold I get) I wait allllll winter long just dreaming about summer. So now that's it's here I try to live it up each day.
Just some random happy pictures {hopefully in order-can't work his blogger app too well}
*Riley spent a few days with grancy and she even got to have her first real manicure!
*My mom lives for sunflowers and posed Riley in front.
*folding laundry with mom in nice cool summer clothes
*splash pad, it's free and it's THE BEST. Riley was a little bored this year with no friends there, Braden and max are hooked.
*just hanging out with my kids
*movie in the park, kids had so much fun running around, playing in the bounce house and getting their faces painted. We bought slurpees and brought popcorn from home
*max having his first bath in the sink, he had so much fun. He kept putting his entire mouth over the faucet then choking on the water haha

Can I brag for a minute?

Of course I can, right? Doesn't that come along with having kids?
So a couple weeks ago the young women went to our public pool to go swimming and I took Riley and Maxer along with us. This pool is great! Beach entrance with fun water spouting trees and such and two fun water slides.
The only requirement for the slides is that you have to know how to swim.
Riley can swim pretty good now, she can get around a pool on her own but is working on (or I'm working on her) not doggy paddling so much.
So I asked Riley if she would do it and with just a little convincing she picked the short, red,enclosed one first and then tried the tall winding one.
She did great on both and had a little look of shock after each slide. she said she liked them-she only did them once each but I'm super proud of my swimmer!

Max

Maximus, maxer, maxy {do NOT care for this nickname}, chubby, bubba, max the axe {his wrestling name given by yours truly}... At this point the nicknames are endless especially as he is growing and changing so quickly and his personality is expanding.
I can't keep up with this boy. He is just growing up and nobody and nothing is going to stop him. I try so hard to soak him up every chance I get and if I get lazy about it and, oh I don't know-say, read my book or look at pinterest while I'm nursing him, he reaches around for my book or phone and once he gets a good grip, shoves it down and away. Out of there. All the while never stops nursing and closes his eyes and gets back to business. Oh and he will grab my cheeks, chin, lips, or eyes until I look directly at him.
Little stinker.
So he is sitting up now and thinks he is just hot stuff. He likes to sit up and I place his bin with the baby toys in front of him, one by one he pulls them out after giving them a good gummin'.
He can sit up in a grocery cart now too. I think that just makes your newborn a baby now, it's a whole new phase in life when you can leave the car seat behind in the car at the store.
He recently figured out how to splash so today was his first time sitting in the baby pool and he must of splashed constantly for 15min straight before he gave himself a 5sec rest and back to splashing he was!
Should I be totally worried that as soon as Braden started spitting pool water max cracked up laughing?! Oh boy!

6 Years Ago...

Josh and I were sealed in the Redlands temple. We have a great big {huge, really} family and many friends that all came to our wedding and made us feel so loved. I was overwhelmed with the generosity of everyone. We received compliment after compliment and the gifts-oh the gifts, I really was blown away. Josh and I are so very blessed with our life and I try hard to not take things for granted, but I'm sure I do.
I remember not being nervous AT ALL that day-then it hit me "I'm not nervous on my wedding day! Shouldn't I be nervous? Does this mean that this isn't right?!" haha I was sooo determined to NOT be a bridezilla that all I needed was my soon to be husband and my dress. The rest was all just a bonus, I think thats why I stayed so calm. {looking back I wish I would've stressed a little more as I did not ABSOLUTELY love my makeup or hair. But whatever.
All that mattered was that I was lucky enough to meet josh, fall in love, realize quickly that we both wanted the same things and be sealed for eternity to him. I got so lucky with this guy.
I had great bridesmaids, they will all hopefully be lifelong friends, I haven't lost touch with any, some are closer than others but we all talk when we can. And anyone who can lift my husband like this rocks!
{see pictures 1,2 & 3}

We spent our anniversary with plans to go to the Griffith observatory (a trip planned by me as a gift to josh-you know learn about the stars and what not since we are married for eternity-I'm a girl and it's in my nature to turn any trip into something more romantic, sentimental, etc than it is) buuutty josh had driven a ton for work that week and wasn't up for it do we plan on doing it soon. Josh surprised me with a new pair of rainbows since mine are in beyond sad shape (my toes touch the ground-thru the leather). We spent the day relaxing, getting a few things done around the house, did a little school shopping for Riley and by the. I has a killlleeerrr headache so going out to dinner was out of the question. We got chilli's take out and enjoyed dinner at home.
It's been an interesting 6years, full of learning, playing, growing, changing but always loving one another.
I love my man, my supporter, father to my kids, my friend, Josh. Here's to 6more years!

Date Night

The kids got a ticket for a date night with me and josh from the Easter bunny this year (they are too young to figure out the logistics of that one). I got off easy and took Braden to fresh and easy for our date night. He loved it being just us two. On the way there he said "it's just you in the car and me in he car. And no one else is in here" I told him that I loved that it was just us two and he said "I love that too". My sweet boy took a ride on front the grocery cart and then finally settled underneath it-didn't have to fight over a spot, he helped me decide on the things to buy and I let him pick a treat. He picked dried mangos. His absolute FAVORITE! I need to find a way to take them to do simple errands one on one more often.

4th of July

We had a great independence day. We kicked it off by eating a pancake breakfast at Josh's parents ward to support the boy scouts then off we went for a full day of swimming. Riley and Braden had a blast at aunt Vickie's pool and even max got in and splashed around-he's at the stage where he can splash and it normally splashes his own face haha
Afterward we went back to Josh's parents and bbq'd. All the kids played out front on scooters and I sat on a nice blanket in the grass and just enjoyed relaxing and watching them.
I wanted to start a new tradition this year of having a little parade for the the kids so we decorated scooters in red white and blue and when all the family got there they circled the Cul-de-sac all decked out!
Then we all made our traditional homemade icecreame -so fun and good.
The highlight of the night had to be sparklers!!!One of Josh's cousins brought a ton and it was a first for my kids-they were terrified but did about ten of them! They like it once they were holding them but scared to see that lit sparkler coming at them!
We all loved the u of r fireworks, max could care less, he looked at some but didn't seem to mind either way.
My kids sat with us for a bit but mostly wanted to sit in the back of the truck with all the other kids, when did they get so big?!
Happy 4th!