L is for Lake

We have only been out on the lake a few times this year, but boy oh boy do I love the water.  I love lakes! 

I love when the babies fall asleep in the boat.  It's always amazing that the loud roar of the engine and the rocking of the boat can lull a baby to sleep easier than the silent room at home.

I love snuggling my Allie girl on the boat.  Sometimes it gets a little crazy because she is all talk about the things she wants to do on the boat, but then she gets scared.  We have to toss her onto the tube and make her cry.  I think she likes it in the long run?

Mike is getting to be more of a fan of the boat.  We have had several fun trips and haven't had a stressful breakdown or worry in a while, so it's getting better for him.

Jake is a tube junkie.  He loves speed and he loves wild and crazy.  He could stay on there for hours.  He wants to learn to waterski this year.  I think we'll try it at McCall on grandma's boat. 

This summer is going way too fast!  I can't believe that we are almost into August and the warm sunshine is going to turn on us soon.  I am not ready to say goodbye to the lake!

K is for Kiss

Come on...who wouldn't want to kiss this face?

J is for Jacob

 Jake! What a lucky momma I am to have a boy like Jake. 



This boy made me a mom 6 and a half years ago.  He has always been my little snuggle buddy.  He is kind hearted and good.  I love the life that he lives.  He loves to play outside with his friends. He loves to ride his bike and to follow Mike up the canyon on his little motorcycle.  He loves to learn new things.  He is good to his brother and sister and a great help around the house. 
He has always had a quick smile and a happy disposition.  He can get a little mopey when he thinks things aren't fair and he can be a picky eater, but the sadness never lasts too long.  He is tender hearted and I have to make sure I remember that when I am disciplining him. 
He loves to play games on phones, computers, wii, and x-box.  He's a little gamer and if he was left to it, he could play all night.  It's a good thing he is willing to be limited.  If it were a fight, I wouldn't let him play at all.
I just love this boy.  He's starting to grow too big for my lap, but he doesn't care...he sits there anyway.  As far as I'm concerned, I'll always find a way to make it work as long as he's always willing to snuggle me.
Here he is at each birthday...

My how the time has flown!  I love you sweet little Jake boy!

I is for Imagination

I love my Allie girl's imagination. She is so fun with all the things she thinks to do with her spare time.

A piece of lumber turns into a diving board...



Or a plank on a pirate ship aarrr!

P.S. Note the hair from the earlier "salon" session.

We took the left over balloons from my nephew's wedding and Allie was sure that if she held on tight, she'd float high up in the air.  When that didn't work, she wanted to attach her Barbie...that did work.

I love all the sand box dinners that she brings me to eat.  This one is her baby's first birthday cake.

The other day she got a water balloon.  It became her baby.  She walked around like this quite a bit. 

 Then the baby was born and she started to take care of it.

What a good little momma...till she accidentally dropped the baby off the back deck :( 
Note to self: never allow Allie to hold Nathan on the back deck.

Anyway, I love to look out my window and see what new game she has started to play.  I never had an imagination as a kid.  In fact, when the kids want me to tell them a story, I can't ever make one up.  I have to have a script, a book, some memory.  I can't just pull ideas out of my head.  So it's fun to see that in my imaginative Allie girl!

4 Months!

So the boy is 4 months old!  I can hardly believe the time is going by so fast.  I love this boy!

Nate is laughing more and more every day.  I think he's a little thrill seeker.  He laughs when I pretend to drop him, or when I lift him way over my head.  He also smiles when Allie comes around, and the way she treats him...that's daring :)
He is rolling from front to back and back to front.  He is grabbing at toys and attacking his fist with his mouth everyday.
Allie thinks she is teaching him to walk.  I don't have the heart to tell her that it's just instinct to put one foot in front of the other when it feels like someone is about to drop you on your face :)
We took him to his well baby check and he is 15.9 pounds and 25 1/4 inches tall.  Those are both the 75%.  So even though I feel like he is huge, I guess there are bigger babies out there.  I honestly expected him to be off the charts :)
Anyway, here are the comparison pictures.  They sure are cute!

Jake 13.15 pounds
25 1/4 inches

Allie: 14.6 pounds
24.5 inches
 

And Nate...

 I was taking some pictures pretty consecutively trying to get him to smile...I got much more than a smile...

       Gross! 

And just so we don't end on a curdled milk smile, here are some other random pictures of my cute Nate boy...

It might look like I have stuffed a baby in a bucket, but he absolutely loves this thing.

This stroller has been around for a few years :)

Breakfast entertainment

Happy 4 months Nate Nate!

H is for Hair

Is it really possible that Nate could have gone from this...

To this?

To be fair, that picture was taken at then end of June and now he has a fresh crop of hair that has started to come in and he is looking better.  I don't know why I thought Nate would be immune to the hair loss that affected the other kids.  I guess he just had so much at the start that I hoped.  Oh well, he's got a few stray hairs that are long, but other than that, it's a fresh start now :)

While I was looking for a good hair picture, I came across these.  Wow, these 4 months have flown.

G is for Growing

G is for Growing.  It was going to be for gardening.  I went out yesterday and took a few pictures of my pitiful garden.  I was going to talk about our yummy raspberries that are finally doing okay this year because the dog that used to trample them has gone to dog heaven.  (No...we didn't have anything to do with it).
I was going to talk about our new strawberry plants and write about how excited the kids get to find a ripe strawberry that hasn't been half eaten by some creature in the night. 

 I was going to show my precious apple tree and talk about how it recovered from the deer attack only to be munched again.
I was going to talk about how my kids don't know that deer are just plain deer. To us they are "darn deer". (That's actually the kid version of their name. The one that Mike and I use isn't "PG".)

Looking for apples

I was going to do all those things.  Then I went to the library for story time and a whole new world was opened to me and I had to write about it. 
We were watching our neighbor friends Carson and Lily, so we had them in the car with us.  I was using my dorky mom voice to get the enthusiasm level up.  I was so excited to be going to story time.  I love story time.  The gal at our library does such a great job.
In my excitement I yelled "aren't you glad we get to go to story time together?"  The girls yelled "yes!".  Then came a surly "no" from the far back seat.  The conversation that followed was one that totally shocked me.  There was lots of talk of "we're too old for story time" and "I already know how to read".
Is Jake really too old for story time?  I have watched him grow with mingled happy and sadness.  I am grateful to see him learn and progress.  I do love to see him try new things and come to new stages. 
Until now, we have still done our normal things and he comes along and enjoys it.  He still loves to sit on my lap and read books.  He still loves to watch kid cartoons.  He still loves all the same things he loved at age 2.  So it was a complete shock to find that he is and will grow out of enjoying some of the things we have just done their whole lives. 
I looked around at the crowd at story time and sure enough, mine were some of the oldest kids there.  Even Allie was standing out as an older kid.
I got a little sad about it, but then Nate made his cute little noises and reminded me that he is still here.  I guess that's another good thing about my sweet Nate boy.  He's still little and will be for a while. 
So the boys suffered through story time and were easy to get back in the car to go home.  Allie and Lily enjoyed themselves and complained about going home.
But then we got home and things were back to business as usual. Jake and Carson started playing in their "water trap". (That tree stump mud pit that they created a few days ago.)
The girls made the rounds looking for ripe strawberries and raspberries. Then Allie and Lily set up a little comfy spot where they could watch the boys do their tricks on the tramp. They were back to being little kids. Maybe they aren't so little that story time is the coolest thing in the world, but at least they are still kids for now. I am trying to enjoy them in every stage and not mourn too much that they are doing what kids are programed to do...grow.

F is for Fist

There was a time in high school, where the fact that I could fit my entire fist in my mouth was a conversation starter.  It looks like Nate will have a lot to talk about...

Yummy fist...

E is for egg

Egg Salad Sandwiches!  I'm sure there are many things that start with E that I could have written about, but as I sat down to type, I started to crave an egg salad sandwich...so there you are.  Since I will frequently refer to an egg salad sandwich, I think I'll dub it "eggss" from here on out :)
I don't know when I had my first eggss, but I do remember hating them.  I think it's because we primarily used Miracle Whip.  Now, I don't know what kind of "sauce" you like, but I don't like Miracle Whip.  In fact, I hated all sandwiches that weren't PB&J until I discovered mayo.  After that, everything was better.  I'll never go back.
I was pregnant with Sam and it was around Easter, so the eggs were on sale.  I bought 5 dozen and wondered what I would do with them.  I made the family bunsteads for dinner.  What are bunsteads you ask?  Tuna, cheese, pickles, eggs, and mayo toasted on a bun.  They are yum...but most people don't like them.  In fact, Mike wouldn't touch them for years.  I finally made him try a bite and now he eats them too.  Allie can't get enough.  Jake is still adamant that he isn't a fan.  Maybe some day.
Anyway, I had all these boiled eggs and decided to make an eggss.  It hit the spot.  I was at the point in the pregnancy where I had to eat or I'd be sick, but nothing sounded good.  Well eggss sounded good.  So I ate one daily.  I looked forward to lunch time when I could have my sandwich...every day. 
When we had to start going down to SLC for doctor appointments, there was a time that we were going to be there during the lunch hour.  Mike was rushing me out the door and could not believe that I was wasting valuable time making eggss for lunch.  I insisted and I still remember how good that sandwich tasted on the way down to Salt Lake.  How's that for crazy?
I went through so many eggs that pregnancy.  I took a small break from the sandwiches after Sam was born.  Not that I didn't like them, I just didn't crave them like before.  Then I got pregnant with Nate.  Needless to say, more eggs were consumed.

Eggs were on sale last week.  I bought a bunch, so today was egg salad sandwich day.

So, there it is...e is for an excellent egg salad sandwich!

D is for Dirt

You can't really see it, but their feet are sinking in the mud.

Making mud pies and leaving them on the stump to dry.

These kids can be so dirty!  Jake and Carson have so much fun.  Many fun filled days have included some serious messes.  In the spring, they were up the canyon every day playing in mud.  Jake came home caked in it.  He'd have to strip off his clothes on the front porch and I'd carry him to the shower.  The only remotely clean parts on him were his arm pits :)
Yesterday they got playing with this old tree stump in the back yard.  They started out smashing the ants that were crawling all over it.  Then part of the stump broke off and left decayed wood to play with.  When they added water, it was quite a mess.  They played with it all for hours.  They dug out a hole at the bottom so they could spray water down the top of the stump and watch it go down and through holes to the pool below. 
I love the life these kids have.  I get so much joy by looking out my window and seeing them involved in some great activity.  Clothes can be washed.  Hands can be cleaned.  Dirt can be dirty, but that's okay...they are living a great life.