Ashley

Ashley turns 7 in 8 days! She can ride the motorcycle by herself, swim like a pro, and ride her no training wheels bike with amazing speed. She also loves to run on my treadmill and can go a full mile. She loves playing webkinz, rock band, reading Junie B. Jones, and playing with her friends. She is planning quite the party with 3 of her friends and Katelyn. We are going to Build a Bear, then coming home to eat pizza and watch a movie. She can't wait. She gets to have her actual birthday in Bear Lake and so we are buying a cake for that one. She is a great help to me and I absolutely love having her home from school. She loves playing with babies and dressing them up. She really really loves catching bugs. She has at least 20 ladybugs in her bug catcher and she goes daily to the reflecting pool to try and catch water bugs. Then she spends hours creating habitats for them and looking them up on the internet. I have all my tupperware being used as bug habitats. I need to buy more... She is an amazing artist and really has a gift for it. She is debating trying gymnastics again, hence the gym camp tomorrow. She could be a contortionist she is so flexible. She can do a great crow to headstand and I love having her do yoga with me. She has memorized the first 5 articles of faith and loves coming to activity days with me. She can keep up with any 8 year old any day!!

We love Ashley!

Katelyn

Katelyn was a beautiful ballerina in her recital. It was the best recital ever because from waiting in line to get in to leaving was less then 30 minutes. Perfect. She did a great job and wasn't shy or scared. She loves to wear make-up. She is a great big sister to Mia. She takes her for rides in blankets, sets up obstacle courses for her, and helps her on and off the trampoline. She is really into webkinz. She loves her pink ice earings. She is happy to be out of gymnastics for the summer, but has been practicing in the basement on our pull-up bar (13!) and can still stick her landing on our balance beam. She is excited to go to gym camp tomorrow and to start hotshots again in the fall. She is really excited for Kindergarten at Ashley's school. She's going in the afternoon and we've already started to pray that she gets Mrs. Meyers like Ashley did. She loves to jump on the trampoline and can do a front flip. She likes to make jokes still and is definately the life of the party. She is a great swimmer and is our girl that can eat her weight in ice cream. Ask her to do her booty shake. She'll give you a smirk that is priceless.

We love Katelyn.

Justin

Justin is really into poop right now. If I do something he doesn't like he calls me a stink butt. Everything is about poop. It's lovely.

He is still into bikes and rides constantly. He's faster then Katelyn on his Thomas bike now. He can ride the full 2 mile loop with minimal complaining now as well and I am so happy about it! All 3 of my kids riding so fast I have to run to keep up. It's great. He also got a lightning mcqueen hat and adores anything cars. He asks most of our babysitters "Do you like Lightning AQueen better or Sally?" He asks with complete sincerity and interest. It's the cutest thing ever. Last week we had the missionaries for dinner and when I told him we were having them for dinner he looked at me and said "That will be yuck. Will we stir them in a pot with a lid?" He has all sorts of questions for everyone he comes in contact with. He is not shy at all. I love it. Hans took him on a field trip to the motorcycle shop and now he is saving his pennies to buy a big pink 4-wheeler. He is still the younger brother to 2 sisters. He can play babies with the best of them. And he will occasionally tell me that when he grows up he will turn into a girl. I have to explain that growing older like his sisters won't turn him into a girl, but it's confusing. He is SO logical. He has great reasoning skills. He still has a million friends and begs me to call his friend's moms and ask them if he can play at their houses. Anywhere but here.

We love Justin.

Mia

Mia charms us all still. I wonder sometimes if I feel this way about her since she is still my baby. I'm used to having another baby by now. I wonder how her personality will be different and if it even will be since she is our baby. She is almost 21 months old. She is 19.5 pounds and finally graduated to her 12 month clothing. She is still my petite gal. She LOVES to eat. She can put it down. I just finished feeding her a gigantic bowl of ice cream and she had to drink the melted stuff out of the bowl. She can eat her weight in pancakes for breakfast and can eat 2 green yoplait yogurts in a row. Just so you know I'm not starving her to keep her small to meet my baby needs. She loves wearing Katelyn's old leotard and jumping around the couches. The girls are constantly taking her for "rides" in their blankets and swinging her around. They make her obstacle courses and paper airplanes and pretty much whatever she wants. Justin loves to ride bikes around with her. I love seeing Mia and Justin wrestling and giggling. She is talking a lot more now and I love hearing what she has to say. She spends most of her time dancing and singing "la la la" or "eieio." She loves do as I'm doing and dancing to any music on the radio. She is way into babies. She sleeps with 3 of them and won't let Katelyn have one of her babies back. It's hers. She lets us all know this over and over again. She loves to "see daddy" and asks about him constantly. She is definately a mommy's girl. She refuses to go to nursery. She begs at my counter daily for "cookie and cangy." She wears pretties in her hair and pulls them out immediately, drops them, comes to me and says "prebby go?" as she holds out her hands in a questioning gesture. She can point out all her body parts, but calls her ears her eyes. She does patty cake and piggies. She is a particular girl. I love Mia. She is not particular about which color ring pop she gets and tells me "dis pop a nummy, pop a nummy." She'll tell everyone who will listen how nummy her pop is. She asks for a pop the instant we walk into the pool since I save them for there. She loves Eden and tries to feed her cheerios and her bottle and steal her binky. They are cute to watch. Eden is 9 months old and is the same height as Mia when they sit.

So that is my Mia!

Summer

I am so grateful that summer is officially here - meaning the weather has finally warmed up. We have been spending our days playing outside with friends, swimming at the pool, going on bike rides, hiking, going to the zoo, playing in the rain, drawing with chalk, and just having a wonderful time. I love summer. I love everything about it. I am not anxious AT ALL to send my kids back to school. Especially since it will be three different school schedules to work around. I love the freedom of doing whatever we want whenever we want. Except for Mia's nap. We pretty much always work around that. I have been getting lots of babysitters. I've been hiking the incline once a week, which is great fun. And going on bike rides 1-2 times a week. I took Ashley to see UP and Hans and I saw Star Trek. I went to see the physical therapist for my knee finally. He says my knee hurts from my IT band and told me not to run for 2 weeks. I think he knows I won't listen, but I will at least follow his advice to lay off the incline for the 2 weeks. I feel heavy on my feet. I've slowed down and my knee really hurts after 2 miles. They told me my tummy troubles are not from gluten, as far as they can tell, so basically I have to just figure out what bothers me and doesn't. So far I know it's wheat and dairy. But I am fine with Ezekial bread. It's annoying to not really know and really annoying to pay the bills for it all. I'm glad to have ruled out anything serious.

The girls did an art camp for 4 days, which was all morning. They loved it and came home with quite the portfolio. They were proud of themselves. They start a gymnastics camp tomorrow for 3 days. They are excited. It is strange for me to just have Mia and Justin for the mornings. I don't even know what to do. It made me realize that they demand my attention, but the activities we do are definately for the girls. This week will be spent getting ready for our trip to Utah and Bear Lake. We leave soon and are so excited! I am grateful that Hans is driving me out there so I only have to go one way on my own. Bear Lake is a lot of packing. I'm trying to figure out a way to fit all our stuff and the kids bikes, without feeling too packed in the car. We'll see how it goes.

So that is what we have been doing. I will post pictures next.

Anyone want to come?

Anyone want to come on a week long bike tour of Italy with me?

Some pictures from May

Mia loves to swing and ride on the motorcyle. She is a mover and a shaker. Notice Hans and Elizabeth's matching bows.

Notice Ashley's earings. Hans eating ice cream. Katelyn shares Hans' enthusiasm for ice cream.

Justin is tired from all the end of school year activities. Any guesses on how this nap ended?

Ashley was a star soccer player this year. She is much more aggressive on the field then you would imagine. She is a great runner.

Katelyn gave a great performance as a fox in her end of year school play.

Pictures from our April SLC trip

We had such a great time on our day with the Egberts. We sat in the hot tub, played with Uncle Sam's paintball gun, rode on Grandpa's 4-wheeler, held Tarmy's new baby, ate pizza, and had a wonderful day. It was great. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Another Update

This week was fun. I am more excited about summer and realizing that it is going to go too quickly. I love having Ashley home and it is really nice to not worry about activities. We are super flexible and I am loving that. We can jump on the trampoline at 7:30 in the morning and not get ready for the day. We can watch a movie in the morning. We can do crafts. It's been great to not rush them into clothes and brushing teeth and making beds. We make our own schedules now. We crammed a lot of summer fun into this week. Sunday we had Stake Conference and ate lunch at fox run park and played. We ran into some friends there so that was fun as well and we ate delicious smoked brisket some other friends made. Yum! I'm so glad that summer means grilling. Monday was busy for Ashley. She had a birthday party where they got manicures and pedicures and went to lunch. I wanted to tag along. Then she went to a playdate. When she got home we had a fun family home evening trying to re-inforce house rules so I don't lose it without structure. Tuesday we went to little Biggs which is a great place. The girls love playing the games with tokens and the babies like playing with the toys. Mia loves the merry go round. She refused to get off. She slept for 3 hours when we got home. We ran some errands in the afternoon. I discovered, thanks to Melanie, this awesome whole foods type market that is just opening and got some great stuff. It sells all sorts of gluten-free since at this point I was still trying the diet. The doctor's office told me to start eating gluten since I have my endoscopy on Friday. So I have been eating donuts, french fries, chocolate chip cookies, kit kats, and ice cream to get my fill...just in case I can't ever eat them again. I learned it would be a good thing to be forced into not eating these things anymore. I am so much healthier without them. Wednesday we went and signed up for summer reading, went to storytime, and met Melanie at the YMCA. She let me be her guest. We worked out and did yoga. It was really nice. Thursday we went to the pool. It was freezing cold. But they had a good time playing by the pool. Then Hans did motorcycle rides for everyone. Friday we had Katelyn's last ballet and went to focus on the family. Saturday we had a primary activity and went to the pool again. Then we collected daddy long leg spiders out of our window wells. Hans did his triathlon and went to the temple. He did amazingly well at the triathlon. He also turned in one of his ugly ties to Krispy Kreme donuts for a free dozen of which I promptly ate 4 before going to hike the incline. I love hiking the incline. So far I have made it weekly. It is challenging and fun and beautiful. I am so grateful to be able to be exercising outside again. Hans put the training wheels on the motorcycle and the girls have been riding it up and down the street. Katelyn is too busy checking to see if anyone is watching her to actually watch where she is going. Ashley is great. Even Justin can do it now. It's fun to watch. Mia calls anything that moves a "vroom." So I think that was our week. Ashley has been reading at least an hour every day and has managed to get the first three prizes from the library already. She has lofty goals. We are excited for the rest of the summer.

I will eventually post pictures.