34

So, I'm 34.

three. four.

Ha I love Andrew in the background there doing his scootch over to me.

Me at 34.

 Well, I am way more overwhelmed with parenthood than I ever imagined I would be. That sounds so horribly whiny, but it's the truth. 

Of course I love it. I love planting my lips right into my babies' cheeks (all three of my babies). I hug them and cuddle them while they are pulling away, giving me the straight arm. 

I look forward to bed time.

I look forward to them getting off the bus from school. 

I want to hear about their day. They don't really tell me much.

I clean and cook and housekeep over and over and over, and do it again the next day. 

Oh but then they sit by me with a book...or they run up to me, happy to be with their mama. 

I am their mom. It's a special place to be, no matter how frustrating and...hopeless it seems at times. 

I want to do more teaching and one on one time with them. That is my goal this year.

 Because one on one is fabulous. I am a pretty good mom when I'm one on one.

This is us at dinner on my birthday. I made chocolate banana pie. 

In order to eat that pie with me, Avery had to eat (taste, nibble, lick...whatever. I don't care, just make contact with it!) her broccoli. 

For a good hour she did like this. Finally her tongue accidentally bumped into it, and we called it good. 

The thing is...I'll just say it. Little kids are awful human beings for the most part. 

They whine about the meal I just prepared them,

they fight over what COLOR plate they get,

they wake up at 5:30am,

they can't do anything for themselves. Get dressed, wipe, buckle a seatbelt.

They are born into this world wild animals, and it's up to me to tame those crazy gorillas.

But you saw what a job I did with Piper, right? That's pretty much what I've got going on with my kids.

Anyway, enough of this rambling. They are sleeping right now. I will go look at their sweet little faces and pet their hair. That always does the trick.

Yesterday, Avery got the camera and took lots of pictures of us. I love seeing what she came up with.

nigh night.

Aaron and Kim Adventure Tour

I have "post visitor let down", so let's reminisce via a blog post shall we?

We are lucky they were even able to come. Fog was in the forecast, so all day I was sure their flight would be cancelled or diverted or some such nuisance. 

As they were flying in I obsessively checked the weather and checked how far out they were. They landed at almost exact minimums and then minutes after landing, the fog made it illegal to land at all. Minutes! I was absolutely dying out in my car watching the show down. 

It was also Ashley's exact birthday, so we went home and put a candle in a muffin.

The next day we had a weenie roast on the beach and collected a lot of beach treasures.

It was cold, but the scouts were able to make us a fire. 

I always forget something when we do this activity. This time I forgot fire starting paper, and all the kindling you see laying around was wet...so it wasn't an easy fire to get going.

Rock throwing. 

The fog was kind a bummer. Hello...we can't see anything! It usually lifted in the afternoon though.

And it did assist us in that Jimi's flight was cancelled Friday. That was nice. 

So we went on an International Adventure Tour to Canada. 

This is about the time that Kim said "I will take the fog over having a puking child on vacation".

Cut to about an hour later and Dallin puked in the car on the way to Lynden. 

So yeah.

There is a street that one side of the road is America, and the other side is Canada. 

0 Avenue.

On the drive home from ice cream, the kids in our car were being so crazy. And Andrew was tired and crying for his bed. 

After the adults and babies took a nice little nap, we went on a hike through the forest.

Of course Kailyn takes her shoes off. 

Avery takes Wyatt to play in the log pile.

Jimi examines some beach debris from Japan?

The kids were a bit afraid of sitting on this giant log, but Kim assuaged their fears by telling them she's "never felt safer". Ha ha that cracked me up for some reason. 

Kids are funny creatures. But that is a whole other blog post. By "funny" I mean "crazzzzzy". 

Evan sounding the alarm: Captain Hook's boat!

The treasure tree. Take a treasure, leave a treasure.

Then we went to this restaurant that had great views and atmosphere...horrible food. 

You win some, you lose some.

Sunday morning.

When we got home from church, Jimi looked up their flight and saw that it was cancelled until the next day.

Despite being a bit stressed about the thought that maybe they will never make it home, we got to enjoy one more day together!

It's so fun having big kids around. They are so helpful and funny and you can have normal conversations. 

We went on a walk,

made roads,

painted fingernails, played dominoes, ate cornbread...

We had so much fun once Jim told us the flight was for sure a go the next day.

After all the kids were in bed, we were watching a diners drive in and dives about pizza places, so we got a craving for some good pizza.

The next day we went to La Fiama Pizza. 

They were tossing the dough back and forth...and dropped it. We made them nervous.

Then we hung out at a park until it was time to take them to the airport. 

I love having visitors! Come back everyone!

Sunbeam

Evan is a Sunbeam!

He did pretty good...played under my dress for part of singing time, cried for tap tap for a minute...

As long as another teacher (and not me) tells him to sit and listen, he does well.

 

Sounding the alarm: there's an airplane!

 

He is shooting out of all his clothes. The slacks he wore to Joe and Susan's wedding had to be hemmed (duck taped) up so that they were the right length. Now they are this close to being high waters.  He's a tall kid.

Andrew's Birthday

I have loved Andrew's first year. He is such a delightful baby, and has been since the day he was born.

He just sits and watches the world around him. Sometimes we "forget" about him because he just plays quietly by himself. 

He is making me want to do this baby business again. 

Just like my other babies, right at the one year mark he is sleeping all through the night. 

He likes his monkey pasi only when he's in bed.

You should see him scootch on his bum when he is trying to get somewhere fast (like over to Jim). It is the most adorable thing you've ever seen. 

His birthday was such a "third child's" birthday. 

His presents were from both Grandmas and Joe and Susan (nothing from me! yep.)

We didn't even have cake on his birthday...don't worry, we did the next day.

(I blame it on just coming home from Fallon the night before)

They all enjoyed opening his presents. He really loves those books too.

The next day we had some cupcakes.

Even though his "party" was low key, I have been thinking so much about this year with him in our family. He is such a sweetheart and everyone's favorite. 

PS who do you think picked out the strawberry pink cake batter?