What a month!

I can't believe it's already been a whole month since little Rachel was born! And what a month it's been, too! I noticed the other day that the memory card on my camera was full. That seriously never happens. As I started scrolling through the pictures, I was amazed at how much we've done this past month! I'll post a few pictures to recap the past month, and then I'll just put the rest (well, my favs anyway) in a slideshow if you'd like to see more of what we've done.

We brought little Rachel home on the 1st of June. She wasn't too keen on her new carseat. (And still isn't, come to think of it.) That week was full of firsts--first ride home, first (sleepless) night home, first bath, first time to meet Grandmas and Grandpas, Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins!

Brooke had her Birthday on Friday the 5th. Her special 8th Birthday! (I still can't believe she's 8 already!) It was pretty low-key, unfortunately. I would have loved to have a grand party, but under the circumstances, it just didn't happen this year. But she got presents and a special cake, and she was happy, and very sweet about it.

I wavered back and forth, but finally decided we'd go ahead and do Brooke's Baptism on Saturday, June 6th. She was so excited, and I hated to have her wait. Looking back, I'm still not sure it was the best thing, but I'm still glad we did it. What an amazing experience to see your child making such important, righteous decisions! It was a very sweet moment. I remember one of my Mom's favorite scriptures is "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth." I see now why it's such a wonderful thing to see your children making wise choices! I'm so blessed!

We also decided to bless Rachel that weekend as well, since family came all that way, it made more sense. But we opted to do it at the Stake Center just after Brooke's Confirmation. It was nice having it in a more private setting. Although, I'm still sad I didn't get the full chance to "show her off" to my ward friends. Selfish reason, though, I know. I have to say, both girls looked so beautiful all dressed in white!

We had a big family "party" at our house after the Baptism. I have a wonderful Mother and Mother-in-law who took over and put it all together for me since I was busy with a new baby. I'm so grateful for them and all my family that helped that day. It's always fun to be with family.

The next week was a bit quiter. My sister, Mary, was here visiting from CO so my kids spent a lot of time at Grammy's playing with cousins, which gave me a chance to rest a lot. Then Grandma Marjorie came down from Montana. Vince ran a 5k race in our city early on Saturday morning. Then the kids had their final soccer games and got their medals. Then it was off to recitals! Whew! Another crazy-filled, tiring day.

Grandma Marjorie stayed that next week to help me out. As it turned out, her helping out mostly came in the form of painting! We've been trying to scramble to finish our basement for months now, getting ready for Baby's arrival. And I was silly enough to schedule the carpet to be installed that Thursday. So we spent the next week doing all the painting for the basement! There were a few moments we all wondered if we'd reach our deadline, but we did! But only with lots of help from family! Couldn't have done it without them. And now it looks WONDERFUL!

Grandma left on Friday morning, and decided to take Brooke and Evan back to Montana for the week. I have to say, the house was SO quiet! It gave me the chance to organize the kids' room, and move their stuff downstairs to their new rooms in the new basement. It was a nice week being able to spend with just Vince and Rachel, but I was so ready for them to come home again.

Our last big adventure was last Saturday. Vince and I decided to do a fun 5k on an easy course. And I even got my Dad to do it with me! (Remember, he was in the hospital just 5 months ago recovering from open heart surgery! What an accomplishment!) Speedy Vince ran out and back in 20 minutes. I ran/walked with my Daddy and was able to cross the finish line with him in under 40. Not my best time, but one of the best 5ks I've ever done! Vince got 3rd place for the men 18-55, and my Dad got 1st place in his age division! Way to go, Dad! So proud of you!

So there's out month in a very loooong nutshell. Now I need another month to recover! Guess the only thing left for us to do is to take a very looooong nap!

Easter Joys

First of all, YIKES! I realize it has been a very long time since I last posted. My apologies! We are in the thick of things with the basement, trying to finish up before the baby comes. It's so fun to see things coming along so well! So exciting. But my blogging has suffered because of it. Sorry, sorry! But I actually took some pictures of our fun Easter festivities to show you all we can still have fun, even when it's busy! I sure love this time of year. I just love the Spring!! And I especially love when we can celebrate the life, Atonement, and Resurrection of our Savior!


We had our traditional coloring of Easter eggs. I really think Vince enjoys it just as much as the kids do! Here is everyone with their favorite eggs! They're all so typical of each person, too. Brooke's is purple with a pretty butterfly. Evan made his into a death star (of course--has to be Star Wars)! And Vince colored and dyed, and colored and dyed his egg to make it into a gorgeous globe! He's so artistic!

Here the kids are looking for their eggs and candy! So much fun!

The kids have Spring Break this week, and Vince was out of town for work as usual. So I decided to take the kids and head up to visit Grandma and Grandpa Hogge for the week! Of course, we're the only crazy ones that leave town and head NORTH for Spring Break instead of SOUTH where it's actually warm! We were welcomed into town with a snow storm! And it's been the same weather since! But at least we're more welcomed by the warmth of the Hogge Home than the blizzard outside! We love being here, and the kids have non-stop fun!

Grandpa took the kids for a four-wheeling ride, and taught them how to drive (aak)!! They were both timid at first, but were whippin' around after, oh, 30 seconds or so!

Look at those smiles!

Then Grandpa had to "smooth out the horse poop" as Evan put it. So he taught them how to "drive" his pickup! Sheesh! They learn everything here! You can kind of see Evan at the wheel on Grandpa's lap here. Apparently Brooke got those turns pretty well!

We've also been swimming at the YMCA and to the pizza buffet and arcade place they love to visit. We've played games and eaten s'mores with marshmallow bunnies, and watched a movie on the big projector! Whew! And we've only been here 2 days! Sure is fun!

And to finish off, we had a wonderful photo session in our backyard on Sunday with the kids' Easter outfits Grandma made. Don't they look adorable?! (Thanks, Grandma!!) I sure love these kids!

Of course, Brooke wanted to take some "silly pictures" and yup, pretty silly!

Evan wanted to pose just like Brookie:

Aw, good friends!
Standing by the apricot tree! (Look, it really IS Spring!)
I love this picture! So typically Evan!
And doesn't Brooke look like a sweet little angel? What a great girl!

And yes, because you know I was feeling huge before. Well here I am MANY weeks later and even huger! (Do you like the lovely expression on my face in the first picture?)

I'll be 33 weeks tomorrow! Woohoo! And I've already gotten the comments about how I look like I'm ready to have this baby any day now. But I still do have another month and a half. The baby was measuring bigger for about 6 weeks. They were concerned about a couple of things, so I've had two more ultrasounds. She went through a bit of a growth spurt, but seems to be evening out and she's right on track now. I'm still measuring about 2 cm bigger, but not as big as before, so that's good. Now we're trying to finish the basement so we can get the baby's room situated upstairs and all ready. I've got the big box of newborn clothes to wash and put away. That was fun to go through those old clothes! Haven't done that in many many years! We're all starting to get excited and anxious to see her! And I wanted to add that the best part about last week's ultrasound was the technician actually saw HAIR on her head! I had no idea you could even see that on an ultrasound! But she showed me, our little baby has a head of hair! Can't wait to see it in person!

Nice New Toothless Grin

Brooke lost her 3rd tooth yesterday morning. This was the first of her top front teeth. She had it wiggled so much that we could see the top of her tooth on BOTH SIDES (front and back). I finally just looked at her and said, "Brooke, for Heaven's Sake, just pull it out!" One good yank and it skittered across the bathroom vanity. I think we should decorate a special pumpkin this year that has the same goofy grin. And I'll admit, I love watching her gab because I love to catch a glimpse of her cute smile. I told her she now has 2 months to wiggle the other one free so she can "With you all a Merry Chrithmath."

The Sweet Moments of Motherhood

I love being a Mom! It is seriously a wonderful job! It was reiterated to me several more times in the past week and a half that I am a lucky, lucky woman.

After Evan came home from Kindergarten on Friday, during lunchtime, we got into a discussion about our bodies. Evan's had a bit of a cough, and during lunch he asked me, "Mom, why do we cough?" So, being the good mom that I am, I started into a long discussion on different organs in our body and how they work. We talked about little germs that get in our lungs and that we cough to get them back out. We talked about how the lungs fill up with air like a balloon and take oxygen to our heart, which carries it to our muscles so they can move. We talked about the two holes in our throats that go either to our lungs or to our stomach. We talked about how sometimes if we swallow wrong the water goes into our lungs and makes us cough a lot to get it back out. "Mom, but what happens if air goes down the other tube?" "Well, when air gets into our stomachs, then we burp," I told him with a smile. Evan thought this was hilariously funny and laughed about it for the next few minutes. And I had to stop after our conversation and say a quick prayer of gratitude for being a mom to such an inquisitive, bright, delightful little 5-year old boy!

I admit, I'm not always a great mom. After a long few days of working extra, trying to get into the new routine of school and work and practicing piano and homework, being a hormonal woman, having Vince in Vernal again for a few days, and having grumpy tired children and being a grumpy tired mom, I snapped one night at bedtime, frustrated that my children were being silly instead of going to sleep. I lectured them on why we need to go to bed on time so we're not all cranky the next day, and that I was tired and needed it to be quiet. They got the picture and were silent again when I shut the door. Relieved that it was finally quiet again, but having a pit of guilt in my stomach, I returned to folding laundry. I found a dress that needed to be hung up, but I didn't have any more little hangers. So I quietly opened the door to the kids' room to hang it up. In the dark, I caught a glimpse of my sweet Brookie, kneeling on her bed, eyes closed and head down. I stood for a minute watching her finish, thinking that in the chaos and hassle of getting kids to bed, I'd forgotten to remind them to pray. She looked up and smiled at me in that sweet forgiving way only children do, and said, "I was just saying my prayers. I say my prayers every night." A few tears filled my eyes as I hugged her and told her how proud I was that she always remembers to pray, and that hearing her say that was the best thing that had happened to me all day. That night I knelt by my own bed and expressed deep appreciation to my Father in Heaven for sending me such wonderful children who, even amid my shortcomings, are cultivating a relationship with Him. I am so grateful. I may not do everything right, but it is a great comfort to a young mom to see them learning good things.

First Day of 2nd Grade

Man, oh, man, does time fly by, or what?? Here it is, middle of August already, and Summer Break is over and School has begun! Today was Brooke's first day of 2nd Grade. I still can't get over the fact that I have a 2nd Grader! Woo. Every year she likes me to put her hair in sponge curlers the night before. I remember doing that when I was her age. I ALWAYS wanted curly, curly hair. Alas, mine has been straight as straight for as long as I can remember. Brooke, on the other hand, had gorgeous curls until she was about 3 or 4 when she got her first haircut. And we cut the curls all off. *Sigh* Maybe they'll come back as she gets older. But at least for now her hair holds the curl really well. Much better than mine. I remember spending an hour curling it and within a half hour it was a little wavy at best. But when I put curlers in Brookie's hair, she looks just like Shirley Temple! I love it! She's been boing, boing, boinging around all day.

I'm so glad my kids love learning and love school. Well, Brooke does. Evan will find out next Monday when the Kindergarteners start. But from how excited he is now waiting around for it to start, I'm pretty sure he'll be a great student too!

And, as a side note, I just had to show you how lovely their room got. I didn't take before pictures (thank Heavens!) but you can see how wonderfully sparkling clean the kids room was while they were playing with Grandma and Grandpa Hogge. It took me 3 days (several hours each day) to fully organize, de-junk, and shine up their room. But it was worth it!

And organized bins in the closet. Ahhh. It feels good.
And the pictures are to remind me (and my two messy monkeys) of the room's potential. I just wish it could stay like this forever. No...I take that back. I'm sure in 20 years when there's no one around to make the messes, I'll be wishing they were messy again.

Childless Today

I'm feeling a little sad, and a little lonely today. My wonderful Mother-in-law took BOTH our kids up to MT to visit them this week. Which means I'm childless for the next 4 days! It's been very quiet around here. I've been looking forward to this for weeks, and yet when it was time to say goodbye, I still shed a few tears! They were fine, but I was sad because I knew how much I'd miss them. I'm sure they won't even have time to miss me; Grandma is way too fun for that!

The good news is that I've got all this free time to get my projects done that have been on my list all Summer! Today I'm tackling their room, since they won't be around to cry when I throw away their favorite trinket they got in a kid's meal 2 years ago! I LOVE it when I get in the "toss-it" mood and just want to chuck every little piece of junk. Good thing they're gone and they won't know what's missing!

The other nice thing is that Vince's parents also let us have the use of their boat for the week!! So, does anybody want to come skiing with us?!!

She's Ridin' a Two-Wheeler!

We were up visiting Vince's brother who lives a few hours from our house. His wife left for an author's conference and my Mother-in-law stayed to watch 6 grandkids. So she asked me to come along to help her out! So I took Brooke & Evan and we went up and stayed for several days. We had so much fun. While we were there, Brooke kept asking me to take off her training wheels on her bike. I told her we'd wait till we got home so Dad could do it. Then it dawned on me--"I'm perfectly capable of working these tools! I may have no idea what this one is called, but I can turn it like a pro--remember, 'Righty Tight, Lefty Loosey', okay I'm good!" And before we knew it, the wheels were off, and so was she!

She wiggled and wobbled for about 45 minutes. Then we decided she needed more space, more than the narrow sidewalk she was working on. So we all took our bikes down to the church parking lot a few blocks away, and by the time we got there, she had mastered it! It happened so fast! I thought it would take several days of working on it, but she was so good. She had a few really good crashes and scrapes, but she jumped up every time and rode away.

So now my little girl is all grown up! Yes, I know she's already seven years old, but it's amazing how time flies. They start out so little, and you turn around and they're riding off on their own, reveling in their new-found independence!