Summertime At Last

I don't usually go this long without a post, so there's a lot to update on here.

First, sadly, I've had another aunt pass away. Aunt Kathy, my dad's oldest sister (of 16 siblings) passed away Friday night of heart failure. My dad is young but he is the tenth of the children and this sister was old enough to be his mom. It's sad. I didn't know her super well, but she reminded me so much of my grandma on that side of the family. I can't seem to find an obituary for her on the internet, but when I do I'll post it.

Mothers Day was wonderful. Todd did a BBQ. Lainey started sleeping through the night the week before and it was the best gift she could give me! Todd got me an iPod and I've had tons of fun with it. I've never had one before. It's gotten me out jogging and biking on a daily basis. Woohoo! (That and the sudden good night's rest each night.)




We had a couple families over. First, the Jenks, who we've wanted to have over for over a year now and our schedules never lined up! But we had a great time with them and were happy to finally have them. The Arnette family came for Family Home Evening last week and we made home made ice cream for the treats. We just got the ice cream maker and experimenting with it was very yummy- as well as fun company for guinnea pigs!

Brielle graduated from Mrs. Heather's pre-school class this month. This was her second year attending it and she misses it already. They had a cute little presentation on Mrs. Heather's back porch for parents to watch on chairs in the back yard. It cracks me up when kids preform. So many impromptu quotes like, "Can I go to the bathroom?" while on stage. It was awesome. Brielle memorized her lines super fast. It's a talent, but also a little bit of a curse. When I try to teach her to read, she just memorizes the books as we go so that she can repeat them the next time I try to get her to read them. I used to do that too as a kid, only not so flawlessly or effortlessly!







After reading the Twilight series, I broke down and read my all time favorite movie's book, Pride and Prejudice. And of course, when I was finished, I had to watch both the Kiera Nightly version and the BBC version. They'll never get old! I love Jane Austen's stories. I want to read her other books now- I have all the movies of them. Time to read them.



Memorial Weekend was mostly a bust. It started out good. We started the Friday with a landscaping party with Todd's mom and brothers' families. We had a large portion of our yard full of weeds waiting for landscaping for quite a while after ripping out junipers our second year here. Now two years later, we finally finished it!



But we were out in the sun all day and I thought maybe Ashton got heat exhaustion because he threw up in his bed that night. The next day was one diarrhea diaper after the next.

Finally, on Monday, he seemed completely fine and we went to Todd's mom's house for the Memorial Day holiday. Brielle swam in her pool and Ashton played around the yard. The next day Ashton was suddenly at his worst. He threw up all over the kitchen at dinner time and was so lethargic from dehydration (he refused to drink all day no matter how hard I tried to make him, and he layed around on the carpet during all times that he was not in my arms) that we decided to take him to the hospital where they gave him an IV to rehydrate him. He lost about 5 pounds, but he's fine now as of last night. No more diarrhea or fevers. Lainey also seemed sick for a couple days but she seems better today. She's sure a happy little baby. She had her 2 month check up today- 75th percentile height, 90th percentile in weight. She's a cute tubby one!!!

I'm feeling more adjusted to my new calling. Once the reality of the amount of time required for it started to set in, I felt my nerves fray a little. I had to stop Physical Therapy cold turkey because it was just TOO many different appointments. But I feel great now and sure love the sisters I work with.

We got a little kiddie pool and set it up yesterday. The kids spent most of today in it and they are LOVIN' IT!!! I love summer time with the sunshine, the warmth, the flowers and green shady trees, the popcycles, swimming, biking, jogging, reading on the back patio, BBQ's, it's candy to the soul!!!

Finished Reading the Twilight Series

I finished reading Twilight! It took one week to read the first three books and one week to read the fourth! The fourth IS by far the biggest of the books, but I just had to get things done finally after reading at least half the day EVERY DAY for that first week. I LOVED the story. However, it still never ceases to amaze me how many people rave over these books- teens, mothers, and grandmothers alike... nearly anyone I've talked to about it. They're good, but WOW... there's CRAZINESS over these books!

Though the dishes were severely neglected and the laundry... and the kids' rooms... and we ate Schwans frozen dinners for a week (I chose to do this when Todd was out of town in D.C. and wouldn't mind so much...), I am happy to report a rekindled love of reading. ONLY in moderation from here on out. I'm starting Pride and Prejudice tomorrow. It's my favorite movie of all time. I can't count on my fingers and toes- or my whole family's fingers and toes for that matter- how many times I've seen it. It's just ridiculous that I've never actually sat down and read the book.

Lainey's Baby Blessing

We had a good weekend with my family here to visit. Lainey had her baby blessing on Sunday morning and they came up for that. My parents rented a hotel room as our space at home is filling up with our own kids! Brielle had a blast in the hot tub at the hotel with her grandparents and April. We all went to see the movie "X-Men Origins- Wolverine" on Saturday night.

Todd gave Lainey a beautiful blessing. The Sacrament Mtg. was a beautiful Fast and Testimony Mtg. and I enjoyed the opportunity to hear my dad bare his testimony. Todd and I also took the chance to share our testimonies. There were 4 babies blessed (2 more who could have been the the parents opted for other days/places to bless them) and the place was packed with visitors!


Following the meeting, we met up at home to provide brunch for all of the family who attended. Todd's mom gave me the idea (and recipe) for doing Quiche and she even made some to bring. They had asparagus in them and were AMAZING. Rachele and her boyfriend, John, and I whipped up fruit salad and muffins. It was a great turn out, a little scrunched in my house- just like I like it.

It's starting to hit me that Rachele will be gone soon. She graduates from TVCC in a month and is moving in June. I'm trying not to think about it, but I'll be the lone member of my own family again once she is gone and I've SO enjoyed having her here. Not just for the babysitting, but I've been given a second chance to really be around and get to know my sister who was so young when I left home. And I'm not at all ready to let her leave me. I'm so proud of the woman she's become. She's so beautiful and a wonderful person.

This is her boyfriend, John, in the picture with her.

Our family always takes family pictures whenever we're together because it seems so rare. Unfortunately this is not the complete family. My brother, Scott, was on contract to do his gig on Carnival Cruise and was somewhere in the other hemishere of the world, and Levi also had to work and couldn't come.



Ashton has lots of uncles between Todd's siblings and mine and he LOVES stealing their attention!

Also, this past week or so I received a new calling. I was actually called to be a Relief Society teacher about 7 weeks or more ago. I was gone from church to have the baby and was never sustained in church while I was gone. Nor once I came back. Then was general conference and then Stake Conference. Then, about the time I was really wondering what was going on, Bro. McCurdy came over and extended me another calling all together! I was called to be the second counselor in the Relief Society Presidency. The current president is moving to New Plymouth, a neighboring town. The new president is Denise Meyers, who I absolutely love. I'm very excited to work with her and the rest of the presidency. It will require more time and prayer than any calling I've ever had, but I'm filled with excitement to work with these particular women. And I LOVE the women in my ward. It's a joy to associate with them and serve them.

Easter

I love how babies will want to make sure you keep holding them by letting their little fingers find your collar and grab hold for dear life... or a draw string to your hoodie, or your hair... etc.



Easter Sunday was my first Sunday back in church in a while with the time off from having a baby and General Conference. It was also my first time attending Sunday School and Relief Society in a very very long time as I am no longer serving in the primary. Lainey Bug (her most recent nick name) was very good for me and slept through the whole thing.



After church we took naps. The kids woke up before Todd and I and did a number on the house with candy wrappers and sticky sugary fingers. They were plenty geared up to go to Todd's mom's where we were invited for Easter dinner and an egg hunt.

















We're getting a little bit more sleep around here. Lainey teased me for a few days with two nights in a row of 8 hours straight without waking up to eat at night. Now we're back to every 3.5 hours. I thought she was really there because Ashton slept 8-9 hours straight at night from two weeks old on! Here's to hoping she'll reconsider it!

I'm doing physical therapy and felt myself really wanting to amp up the effort lately. Today I worked up a sweat and really worked hard. For the first time, it actually felt like a work out more than therapy. That probably means I don't need to be there anymore! I went walking with a friend last night and it felt so good to get fresh air and know my body was actually enjoying getting moving fast for the first time since I was about two months pregnant. Do any moms have good advice on how to get exercise AND fresh air with 3 or more kids? I rode my bike with the kids in the bike trailer several times a week before I was pregnant. Now they won't all FIT in it!

Lainey got a professional photoshoot last Saturday from a great photographer, new to our area. Feel free to click on the link below to see her pictures! They turned out so cute! We lucked out to be invited to do a free photo session to help her build up her business in this area. She was fabulously patient and great to work with. She specializes in babies. If anyone is looking for a great childrens photographer around here I highly recommend her. Her name is Christie Peterson- 480-678-7413. More of her work can been seen on petersenphoto.net.

Brielle's Rainbow Birthday Party

I LOVE birthday parties. When Todd and I were first married, the Relief Society in my ward did an Enrichment Activity on birthday party themes for kids. I didn't have any kids, but went anyway. They had SO many ideas! Pictures moms brought of parties they'd thrown with all kinds of themes. They gave us a packet with a bunch of party themes and suggested games/decor. I was instantly hooked and couldn't wait to have a child of my own to do a party for.

When Brielle turned 1 year old, I couldn't justify inviting a bunch of other 1-year olds to come party together. But I invited extended family over to watch Brielle eat her first cake all by herself. And of course I couldn't hold back and I made a theme, a cake, and a pinata for the older cousins. Brielle obviously didn't care much, couldn't really even open her presents without help! But I had a blast doing it. Really these parties are the most fun for me!

When Brielle's Pirates and Princess party last year was over and everyone was going home, Brielle announced to me that next year she wanted a Rainbow party. I thought that sounded fun. In an earlier post I mentioned that it was a little difficult to find ideas on the internet for this party because of the life style often associated with rainbows. At least that is mostly what came up in my searches. I didn't want any parents to get the wrong idea from our party or be upset. Of course they weren't and everything was great.

I'm posting pictures of everything and explaining it in detail in case someone visits the blog by a search engine looking for Rainbow Party ideas for their kids. (You won't find much help on the net!) So if you normally read my blog, sorry for the lengthy details.

(Pictures of the invitations are in the previous post) The table was set with a blue tablecloth. I cut out white paper in the shape of clouds for place mats. The plates were one color, the cups another, the napkins, forks, spoons, etc. Between the tablecloth and dishes, we covered every color of the rainbow. We were going to inflate balloons with helium and tie them together in a rainbow shape but ran out of time. So we blew a few balloons up by mouth and let them drift around the house. We also used different colored streamers to decorate the room.

I drew a big rainbow on a large piece of butcher paper and taped it to the wall. When the kids arrived, they used crayons to color in the rainbow where the proper colors go. This worked to remain on display showing the proper order for later activities. They did a really good job! I like doing coloring activities first in stead of games because some kids are early and some are late, and this way no one has to feel like they missed anything, and no one sits around waiting either.

Once everyone came, we did a Rainbow Fish activity. I handed out foam fish I had cut out and drawn a fin and eye on. They sell these online pre-made, but it was much cheaper to buy a pack of foam sheets and make my own fish. Girls got pink, boys got blue. Then I handed out glue pens- very inexpensive way to allow everyone to have their own glue, and to keep from getting messy like large bottles of glue can be. They each got a handful of colorful buttons and glued them on their fish for scales. I like doing anything with glue early on so it can be mostly dry when the party is over.

Being a rainbow party, the nature of it was really about art and crafts. So our next activity was also of the creating nature. The kids made Fruit Loop necklaces. They each got a piece of plastic stretch string and a small bowl full of Fruit Loops. I didn't think to have a fruit loop tied to one end before hand, so the kids did have to wait for me to tie the end of each one to begin, so if anyone does this, I would suggest having that done before hand. But I did start the activity while most children were finishing their fish, so that's a thought too. This also takes the time to tie the end once they are done, so having a helper is a good idea. Todd was helping me. The kids LOVED eating their fruit loops, but we wanted them to save them to wait until the necklace was complete so they could actually MAKE one. So we sprinkled Skittles down the center of the tables for the kids to snack on while making their necklaces.

They had been sitting long enough and were ready, by this point, to get moving. So we did our hunt for the Pot of Gold. I bought my bigger pot last fall on Halloween's clearance from Oriental Trading (orientaltrading.com), advertised as a witch's cauldron. The small pots were from the Saint Patrick's Day clearance sale from the same web site. With the recent scares from chocolate coin candy, I opted not to do gold coins. I used Hershey's Nuggets (used to be called Treasures, but they are the same thing) and Rolos. The candy is delicious and both wrappers have a great golden luster.

There were 6 clues hidden around the house, each on a piece of paper, each a color from the rainbow. They knew to hunt for the orange clue after the red, and the yellow after the orange and so on. I chose to do it in the house. Not only are there lots more places to hide things, but it was possibly going to rain that day too. It was so cute to see all the kids bouncing up and down like popcorn popping in my bathroom pointing up at the tip top of my shower door when they found a clue there. They all scrunched into my small bathroom like sardines waiting for me to take down the clue. It was sooo cute, I wish I got a picture of it. This game was so fun for them.

When they found the pot of gold, I broke out the small pots and they all filled their own pots from the big one.

After that was food time. We decorated cupcakes with different colors of frosting and made rainbow fruit kabobs (minus blue- Walmart was out of blue berries the day before). The kabob activity came with all sorts of disclaimers from me. I told them they couldn't play with their kabob sticks because they could hurt someone, and they couldn't even touch the sticks until everyone had fruit on their table and I said "Go!" They were very careful with them and did great.

Last was present opening. The party started at 1:00 and the final present was opened at 2:58, so all in all, these activities took almost exactly 2 hours. It wasn't raining out, so the kids played outside in the back yard until parents came.

The kids each received a paper sack to take their pots of gold home in. The sack also had rainbow bubble gum balls in it and rainbow swirl suckers. They grabbed last minute hand fulls of skittles to put in their bags too.

It was tons of fun to do. Even having had a baby just over two weeks before. It's too much fun for me to pass up each year! Brielle loved her Rainbow Party.

Brielle lost her first tooth! We've been waiting for a while, it came loose a few weeks back. She was SO excited to leave it for the tooth fairy.





I posted a pic of Ashton at bed time in his pajamas and hat. Yes, he sleeps with that hat. He LOVES his hat. It's too small now and he still demands to wear it everywhere. He needs a haircut- his hair is long enough to make some serious hat hair with all that hat wearing. I guess it doesn't matter since it almost never comes off.

Brielle and I had a very peaceful birthday listening to conference and eating great food that my mom had prepared the day before to throw in the oven. Brielle got a bike and is excited to learn how to ride it. I got what I asked for :)-- a gift card to Lady Footlocker- my favorite place to buy work out clothes, and a heart rate monitor ring.





















I got Brielle's rainbow birthday party invitations finished up over the weekend and Brielle helped me pass them out. I'm excited to be doing her party this Friday. I'm feeling my energy come back and with most of the preparing done before the baby came, I think I'll be ready by then.