Moby Love

So, we love the Moby Wrap.  I was so thankful that I had a moby wrap this time around with William.  It helped so much.  Sometimes the kids would help me out too by carrying William also!  So fun for them!

 This is totally weird, but this is my idol right now.  Robyn Openshaw (greensmoothiegirl.com).  She has taught me so much about nutrition and where I really want to take my children.  In addition, you can see William got to meet her too!  It was an amazing seminar and awesome to learn even more about nutrition.

 Mothers Day.  Always so bittersweet when you are alone.  However, my precious children knew I was tired from the many sleepless nights with the baby.  So Haylee and Trent woke up to make me breakfast.  While I very much loved them for it, I told Haylee she can no longer cook on our gas stove alone until I deem her old enough.  I love that they thought of me on this special day.

 And after church they let me sleep.

 I never post pictures of myself so here it goes...

Graduation

End of May always brings about graduation time.  May 2012, we travelled to Flagstaff to watch Loni's commencement from NAU's teacher program!  So proud of her

 Logan and Laycee graduated preschool as well.  They were attending a special needs preschool as "peer models".  Logan's teache does a fun, walk over the bridge when the kids move onto kindergarten.

 Laycee's teacher did a really fun party!  Laycee struggled so much in preschool and I was thankful that she was here in this preschool.  Because they were more accustomed to working with secial needs children, they were so great with Laycee.  She was intended to be there to be a mainstream model for the other children, but she needed so much help socially and behaviorally.  I was thankful for this program.

 The two who helped us through preschool.

I cannot believe looking back how much they have grown!  On Friday, they will be 6 years old and the time has just flown by!

Box Car Race

As previously mentioned, Trent participated in the box car race for scouts.  Let me tell you, this was SOOO fun.  The rules were a little sketchy, but it was still really fun for the boys.  Here are a few cars... Trents is the green one.

 He is off!

 Taking a pit stop between races

 He made it to the finals

 Frantically holding to his box as he runs!

 And he was victorious.  I hope his troop makes this an annual event because it was SO fun.

Randomness

Just some random day to day pictures from May 2012.  Will takes up the whole bed, thankfully, Dave wasn't home to care.

 This is silly but I debated for months about bedding and I saw this bedding in Walmart and loved it!  I spend hundreds less than at Babies R Us.  So this is really a picture of him in this bedding that I love.

 4 months old and loves his high chair.  He didn't start on food until later but he sipped my green smoothies with me.  To this day, he still loves them!

 Ahhh the best dinner ever!  Warmed kidney beans and raw corn.  Fresh red pepper.  Basalmic vinegar.  Delish!!

 Laycee and Logan started swim lessons.  It was only few weeks long, but great refresher and confidence booster for the coming summer.

 William eyeing Sassy

 He got her!

Nothing fabulous to say here.... its just life.

End of Year Projects

One thing I have noticed as the kids get older is the very annoying way that teachers wait until the last month of school to pull out some "creative" and time consuming project that must get done in a week.  The clearly do not think about the time it takes to care for a 4 month old, two preschoolers AND find time for extra projects alone.  In addition, I am not creative and have unfortunately passed on that trait to at least 3 of my 5 children.  However, projects are still assigned and completed on time.  Trent had to research an animal from The Great Barrier Reef.  We were both frustrated when the teacher sent home the assignment on Friday, so we worked on the paper portion over the weekend.  Come Monday, she sends home his assigned topic, NOT on the animal we wrote the paper about and he had to start all over, no exceptions (I wrote the teacher and asked).  I do say that thankfully it was a typed paper because that works better with Trent's dyslexia.  So we had 5 days to write a new paper and come up with a "display".  He built his hammer head shark out of clay and labeled the body parts.

 Haylee has the uncanny ability to choose the hardest topics ever!  She was very proud of how her Apache Tribe poster turned out.  She is getting really good at learning about research and how to take the writers words to make them her own.

 In addition to school, scouts calls!  They were holding a box car race.  The boys were required to build a car out of a box.  Here is his bumper and wheels.

 He is painting away.

 Part two of his shark project.

 His finished car and his mighty eye patch.  That is part of his lazy eye therapy.

 His finished project

Pictures to come of the scout race.  This was unfortunately one of those times when I hated Dave being gone.  Really the day to day of life was hard and extra school projects tipped me into the unbearable side of things.  However, the time passed, projects completed and memories made. 

4 Months and Peaches

Alright, Blogger has been on my naughty list for a few weeks.  I took the time to use Blogs2Print to finally print up year 2007.  I then took the forever time to delete the posts from here and then the pictures from Picasa.  Let me tell you, that was annoying.  I was so excited to blog and for once had a few free seconds to do so.  And what do you know?  Blogger is having issues with their post form!  I was beyond irritated and almost ready to switch to a new server.  But I love blogger and have documented so much on here.  Thankfully today (last chance!) it worked.  So here is me trying to catch up on the last year! 

 

William is 4 months old here.  One day I just laid him down to see if he could hold up his head and I was AMAZED!  Love his chicken legs too

 Last May we went to Schnepf farms to pick peaches.  It has become somewhat of a tradition.  We had a garage sale that morning and used the money to buy peaches.

 Due to the warmer winter, the peaches were rather small and really a pain to make into jelly or can.  But we did do it.  I am hoping since this winter has been colder that the crop this year will be better.

 William is not a thumb sucker but I love this picture where he was trying it out!  So cute.

 The peaches... dont know why they posted out of order.

Hopefully I will get in a few more posts before I run into more technical difficulties.  

Horseback Riding

Some months ago when my Dad was home on leave from the Middle East, my mom wanted the adults to take a night horse ride.  It was my first time leaving William, but we did make it through the evening.  Here are the backs of our horses.

 So I saw this "Good Luck" star in the bathroom.  Really?  What a way to make your customers feel confident in your horses!

 My mama

 The view on the way in

 My mom and Dad with their horses.  This was right after dinner.

As you can see, my dad's picture was taken before dinner because it was still light.  My mom's was taken after dinner because it was dark.  So we rode the horse in to a steak place that was DELICIOUS!  I don't normally love steak and since these photos, we have pretty much cut 80% of meat out of our diet, but this place made a really really good steak.  After dinner, we rode in the dark back to the start.  It was SO fun and such a great opportunity to try something new.  I loved it!

Almost 4 Months

I cleared up a little space on here, so here are some of my WAY behind pictures.  These were taken the last week in April, so William was almost 4 month old.  Laycee and Will are napping.  That is our normal Sunday afternoon activity and one of my favorites.  Laycee loves to nap and she loves it even more with me and William!

 

William rarely has a bottle at 4 months, but I was so surprised one day when I handed it to him and he could hold it!  Laycee and Logan couldn't hold their own bottles forever so I was shocked!  Also, he rarely laid in his crib either.  I just happened to get a cute photo!

 Some cute smiles

 His idea of helping with the laundry.... eating the clothes!

 William has always loved being with the kids and part of the family.  He was so happy to finally get to sit at the table with him!

So for now, I am able to put a few more pictures.  I just made year 2007 into a book.  So when it arrives, I will be removing 2007 from the blog and clearing up more space.  If you feel like reminicing the good ole days, now is your chance before the photos and commentary are gone.  I have been wanting to put the blog into a hard copy book forever, so this was my motivating factor.  With all of the social media options (that were not near as prevelant in 2007), I should do away with the blog.  But I just love to look back and see how we have grown and changed.  When I am down, I get to remember "the old days" and see pages and pages of beautiful smiles of my children.  I get to remember great times with great friends.  Our blog started when we were far away from family in a foreign country and how can I replace those great memories?  So... look back, enjoy the days now gone before they are REALLY gone from the blog!  Love you all!

Year End Review

I suppose since we are nearing the end of December, it is time for me to at least make one post from the past 6 months.  Unfortunately, I am having some difficulties with blogger capping their limit of photos for "free" so I am working on a solution for that.  It is very likely I will be using a 3rd party company to create a rememberance book by years and then delete those posts so that I am able to free up some more space on here.  Until then, I am a little stuck on blogging.  BUT, I felt like it was at least time to close out 2012.  Yes I know there are still days in December, but it's time to sum it all up.

First I would like to say MERRY CHRISTMAS.  This is one of my very favorite times of the year where I can ponder and think more clearly on Christ.  I am so thankful for my chance to be a part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and to have a knowledge of the Savior and our Heavenly Father in my life. 

Our year started out AMAZING.  We were so blessed to have Dave come for a visit from the middle east near the end of December.  I was past my due date, but we were blessed with a week of time with him before the baby was born.  In January, we welcomed our sweet William David.  What a joy that has been.  The following months proved to be more trying as Dave went back to the middle east and we continued life here.  Although, it was so great to no longer be pregnant!

The months passed by, William grew, learned to roll over, scoot, crawl and eat.  And in the summer, Dave quit his job and returned home.  We have been blessed to have him back.  He has been gone much of the last 3 years so this has been a welcomed change. Dave and I both became Certified Personal Trainers through The National Academy of Sports Medicine.  We opened our own company HigFit, LLC.  And we both went back to school.  He is studing strength, conditioning and personal training and I am studying dietetics. 

Haylee has finally found a passion.... music.  She started the piano this year and also started the cello.  She really has a talent in music and the dedication to practice often.  She has also taken the plunge to try sports again and is playing soccer this winter. 

Trent has continued to work hard in karate.  He just passed his green belt exam.  He has practiced and worked hard to achieve green belt.  He continues to struggle with his dyslexia and eye issues in school but he continues to persevere. 

Laycee has also found a love for music.  Many of her issues in the spring have been worked through and she is excelling in kindergarten.  Thankfully her teacher loves to sing and her school has a good music program where she gets to use music to process her emotions.  She too is finding a love for soccer.

Logan has always been a boys boy.  This year he played flag football and soccer.  He loves sports. He also loves kindergarten and is becoming quite the little reader.  I have been impressed with how quickly he picks up his educational studies.  He hates homework and that continues to be a battle here.

William is a pure joy to have.  The little man has grown so fast that I feel as though he was a baby for such a short time.  He is nearing 1 years old.  He learned to crawl by 4.5/5 months, then to walk by 9.5 months.  He took his first steps at 8 months.  He has learned to crawl up and down the stairs.  Onto and off the trampoline.  And onto the stool to open all of the kitchen drawers.  Thankfully, he is not mischevious, just BUSY.  He loves the dogs and his new favorite skill is dribbling the soccer ball while saying "kick". 

We hope you all had a wonderful year and if you didn't, we hope the new year brings more joy.  We are truly blessed and attempt to find blessings in the little things of life. 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Love,
US