Happenings at our House

Summer is beginning to wind down at our house, especially as I prepare to return to work to teach Jump Start. We've continued to just enjoy being home and spending lazy time together.

Along with the rest of the world, I've started making things with sourdough. We decided to stop buying store bought bread (unless we feel like it) and are going to be making our own. 

I also made masks for us when we return to school. It was a lot of sewing, but thankfully, they were easy and I feel good having them prepared. Micah's masks are missing from this picture. 

Joey loves to pretend to sleep in our bed.

He also loves to "play" the piano.

Finally, Joey LOVES to jump on anything! Our bed, the kids' beds, the floor, the couch, the chair, seriously anything. So we decided to buy him his own personal trampoline. 

Brighton took fishing lessons this summer. He didn't catch anything, but he had a great time learning what to do and trying it out for the first time, and he had such a great attitude. He's looking forward to future fishing trips. Lila enjoyed coming along and spending time at Utah Lake. 

He's also getting bigger and bigger! He lost one of his front teeth and then, only a few days later, lost his other one. I love it!

After waiting patiently for more than a year, Lila FINALLY got her ears pierced. She was so brave and I was so proud of her! 

She also cut off her long, beautiful hair, and is donating it for the second time in her young life. She's such a sweet and thoughtful girl. 

One day we decided to do a family read-a-thon. We pulled out blankets and had snacks and all read together. It was nice to just be together and enjoy each other's company.

I'm going to miss these simple days!

In the words of Joey

The thing with Joey is, he has been quite unlike his older brother and sister when it comes to speech. Where Lila and Brighton were saying all kinds of words and phrases by the time they were only one, Joey didn't say a single word until he was 18 months old. At one year old, he did say "mama" but it never seemed to really stick and wasn't always related to me, so I don't know that it really counts. At 18 months old he started saying "no" and it has stuck ever since! 😏😁 We started talking with our pediatrician about it and he wasn't yet concerned. Joey would be considered speech delayed, but there wasn't anything to be done yet. He was still so young and had plenty of time to still grow. Thankfully, by the time Joey got to his 2 year appointment, he was saying all sorts of things and is now no longer considered speech delayed! Yay! 

Here are the words of my little one:

mom

dad

daddy

Brigh (Brighton)

Lala (Lila)

no

k?

bite

what's that?

ew

go

'mon (come on)

Aw man

ok

teeth

mine

kie-coo (cookie)

ball

baby

dod (dog)

ears

mouth

hair
ligh (light)
toy
fan

nose

head

knee

eyes
feet

bb (belly button)

fi-fi (flip flops)

shir (shirt)

p (pants- he always has to say this twice and point to a leg one at a time)

ba-pa (back pack)

lay down

shoes

shoc (socks)

err-err (water)

ow

t (pick me up)

towel

p-low (for pillow and blanket)

tide (outside)

meow (kitten)

jump

play

nigh (night)

na (snack)

bum

poo

oh

woah

dee, do, duh (3, 2, 1- when he launches himself off our couch)
'gin (again)
fi (fix it)
back (put it back)
gon-gon and phone (phone)
Cho (Joey)
Doo Doo (Baby Shark)
Piku (Pikachu)
Oh wow!
un-uh
sheet (sit)
lee (polar bear)
hot

**I'm sure there are many other words that he says that I can't think of right now.**

Our Happy COVID Birthdays!

Because of what's been going on in the world, our birthdays this year ended up being very different from those of the past. COVID-19 has turned our world upside down, in many ways. I'll do a separate post about the COVID stuff later on, but I wanted to do a post acknowledging all 5 of our birthdays this year. Mine was definitely the most different, but again, that experience will get it's own separate post. 

This year, the number one thing my kids got were letters from their family. I knew we wouldn't be able to get together and have a big party like we normally do, so I asked my family to send in letters instead, so that it would still feel special. I'm still thinking of a creative way to save them as this year's "birthday book". They did a great job and two of my sisters even sent birthday box surprises to them! Lucky ducks! 

Let's start with Brighton. He turned 7 this year at the end of 1st grade. I can't believe he's already so grown! He's super obsessed with Pokemon right now, so I decided to make him a Pokeball cake. Don't mind the scary eyes of Pikachu. I'm still learning! Haha. 

Lila's 9th birthday was a fun one. Just knowing that she's now 9 and going into 4th grade is crazy! I can't believe my baby girl has gotten so old. Where did the time go?! She has loved unicorns for a few years, but the obsession is still there, so she got a unicorn cake. :) I attempted to do a checkerboard pattern inside her cake. It worked out, but I'd definitely like to improve on it, because it made the cake itself a little crooked. 

Joey is 2 now and what a big boy he has become. He didn't speak until he was 18 months old, but now he's spewing all sorts of stuff. Admittedly, a lot of it is still gibberish, but I'm really proud of the progress that he has made. I'll do a post on his progress, later on. Because we had Brighton's and Lila's birthday cakes not too long ago, I decided to make homemade doughnuts for Joey's birthday. Yum!!! He hasn't shown any preference for a toy or show or anything, so I didn't feel too bad not giving him something themed like I have with the other kids. As he gets older, a lot more of the will happen. 

*A quick little story about his new carseat(s). Now that Joey is finally two, we wanted to get him forward facing carseats. We were so excited that he was finally old enough to be in one. We didn't think ahead and so Micah went the morning of Joey's birthday to get the seats. Turns out the store only had hot pink ones. Okay... I guess. ;) Anyway, later we went on a short family drive to look at some different things and allow Joey to try out his new carseat. Guess what?! He threw up all over! Another child that easily gets carsick. So, we've since moved him back to his baby carseat (which he hadn't outgrown) and are going to try his other seat again in the future. I guess we didn't have to have hot pink carseats for him after all. Oh well. Haha!

We had been trapped inside our house for months by the time Micah's birthday came around, so he really only wanted one thing... for me to go shooting with him. It was a lot of fun, and even though I haven't shot any of our guns in years, I didn't do too bad. I hit my targets most of the time. :) I also made him a chocolate dulce de leche cake. It was delicious and my first time making Swiss buttercream. 

Finally, we had my birthday. Because of other events that happened the week of my birthday, it was pretty uneventful. We couldn't go anywhere, but Micah did a great job of making some yummy meals for me and one of my favorite desserts... brownies and ice cream! It was an incredibly laid back birthday, but it was also really nice.

BIRTHDAY SEASON IN OUR FAMILY IS FINALLY DONE FOR 2020. 

Time to take a little breather!

Back to Business

    It's clearly been a while since I've really blogged about our family life. I've done a few posts here and there, but the reality is that I haven't really blogged in three years! I'm hoping to come back to blogging. I plan on going back and posting things, but they won't be like my regular blog posts as a lot of time has passed, but I'd still like to include pictures and some notes as I use this as a type of journal. My goal is to blog at least once a week, but I've had that goal before and it hasn't happened. Who knows, though? 2020 has been a year unlike any other. Maybe this is the time? I guess we're going to find out together.

Duck Creek Village

This past weekend, we had the great opportunity to go on vacation with my side of the family. We headed down to Duck Creek Village in southern Utah on Saturday. It was such a fun trip! 

We stayed in a nice cabin that had plenty of room for all of us, but tons of common space to allow us to have good, quality, family time together.

The first day for our family was just about getting there, getting settled in, and start out by relaxing. The following day was when the real fun began. We started out by hiking the Queen's Garden Trail that was supposedly little kid and elderly people friendly. Sounded like my kind of hike. It was really fun, and the kids did just fine, but I don't know that I'd say it was super kid friendly. 😂 We all did have a great time, though. I felt really accomplished by the time I was done. It's been awhile since I've done a hike like that. Joe was strapped to me the whole time, but he did really well and was asleep for most of it. I was really anxious at first with the heights. I really had to talk to myself about staying calm, as I am absolutely terrified of heights. Lol. I didn't let them get the better of me, though. 

It was BEAUTIFUL, and the hoodoos were so awesome. We saw what we thought was the Thor's hammer hoodoo, but it wasn't it. It's pretty similar, though. 

Lila was hilarious! She loved looking at all the different shapes and sizes, and at one point she exclaimed "Mama, look at that huge Doodoo!!!" It was so adorable. We all had a good laugh with that one. I did tell her what it really is called. :)

The kids were able to pick out a souvenir. Lila got some cool, shiny rocks to add to her collection, and Brighton got a pocket knife. He was obsessed with it the rest of the day. Immediately when we returned to the cabin he started cutting grass and bugs (I know, gross), and began stabbing the ground, "whittling" sticks, and all sorts of other adventures. Micah talked to him about knife safety before we cut him loose, and he honestly did very well, considering it is his first knife.

The rest of the day we relaxed at the cabin. I wasn't feeling super great in the afternoon and evening, but karaoke was going on, and I had to hear the great talents of my family. The kids went first, and were super cute. Lila won the kid category and got a sparkly blue microphone. She couldn't believe it! It was everything that she had been hoping for, and the microphone really made the vacation for her. Brighton did a really great job, too. I was honestly so proud of both of them for just getting up and sharing their talents. Micah even got up!

The rest of the evening was filled with games, and sleep a little bit earlier on.

Monday was our family's last day there, as I had work the next day, but it was still filled with lots of fun. The morning was another hike. This time we went to Cascade Falls. It was amazing! I loved the hike!!! Again, the kids did amazingly well, and Joey even stayed awake on this one! I think he loved how peaceful it was being strapped to his mama and being out in nature. 😊😉

After the hike, we once again headed back to the cabin and enjoyed the afternoon being lazy and playing games. 

It was a really great vacation and I'd definitely love to return some day. The kids did such a great job and had so much fun! Micah was such a good sport through all of it, and definitely helped me to have a great time.

We hope to see you again, Duck Creek! 

The only real hiccup, was actually right at the very end of the trip. The kids honestly slept 95% of the time on the way home. It was amazing! We thought it was going to be a super smooth end to our wonderful trip, when just after we passed the last exit before ours, we got stuck in a traffic jam. Then, when we finally made it to our exit, it turned out that the direct path to home was closed due to construction, so we had to take a detour. It ended up adding 15 minutes to the end of our trip. Not a big deal, but it was so funny how everything else was perfect, right until the very end. Isn't that how it goes?!

I'm putting all of the pictures at the end, because it's just easier that way. :) Also, they are in no particular order. More will be added as I get them from fellow family members.