A screamin good time

Family time tonight consisted of; drumroll...screaming contest.

The overall winner, and the one Jed and I both thought had the best set of pipes for the job, was Chase.  That boy has always had a good scream on him.  Lily was a close second.

After all the excitement subsided and everyone sat around lightheaded and glazed eyed with the occasional throat rub and throat clear, we told the kids that they weren't going to have voices tomorrow. 

After explaining laryngitis to Bayli, she burst into tears.  Very hoarsely she said, "I won't be able to talk?!!! But I love talking!"
There were more tears shed when we couldn't hold back our giggles.  That girl really does love to talk.
The remainder of the evening Chase smirked proudly that dad chose his scream for his ringtone, Lily kept asking to call dad's phone, and Bayli used a notepad to communicate, terrified of losing her voice. 

One of the best spontaneous family activities of all time!

That roof is gone!

Yesterday was a windows down kind of day, hurray!
While heading down the road, Chase observed that lots of other vehicles had their windows down too. 
"Look!  Everyone has their windows down today!" 
We were stopped at an intersection  and with much excitement and astonishment he said, "Mom, look at that car, it has its roof off!!!"
Ya, I'm pretty sure that was the first time Chase saw a convertible. 
The fascinating conversation that ensued was quite comical. He likes to know every detail in the mechanical workings of things, just like his daddy. 

Blinged up

Favorite thing over the weekend:
Bike shopping for Chase with the family.
Chase tested out a few but then a gold flashy one caught his eye. Not a muted flat gold, that would be tolerable.  No this was bright shiny sparkly gold on the entire frame and hubs. Jed said, we could get him a gold tooth to match it.  Jed and I bit our lips to prevent the bursts of giggles from coming forth. 
We pointed out some others and Chase would nicely say that they were nice bikes. But after each he would get back on the gold one and say, "I really love this gold one!"
Thank goodness he is a kid we can easily side track.  We were able to escape without purchasing that hot mess. 
Alas, the hunt continues.

little runner aspirations

I am convinced that Lily will be a runner.  Evidence you say?

1)  She sees workout clothes and asks if the wearer is going running.
2) She is often found trying on everyone's running shoes.
3)  She is fascinated with the treadmill.
4) No matter how entertained she is, she stops what she's doing to watch someone run.  She points out runners in the car.
5) She asks if she can come run too.
6) She always wants to wear her "fast" shoes.  Or she tells you that the shoes she is wearing are fast, even if they are big pink snow boots.
7) She always convinces her siblings to have a race.
8) She is close to beating her brother in said race. And after said race she walks up to an adult slouched over with arms hanging and says "I'm tired" or "I'm dying."  All the while, trying to hide the huge grin on her face.
9) Her cadence is at least triple anyone she's walking with.
10) She runs/trots everywhere. With hard floors all through our home, we definitely know her location.  We even get reminders of this at 1:30 in the morning when she gets up to get a drink.  You jolt awake thinking there's a problem... Nope just Lily moving about.

shocked

Lily came up to me with her sweet face on and said, "turn the damn TV on!"
I wasn't positive if I heard her right.  She restated her request.  Followed by her sweetest smile.  
Needless to say I was left with my mouth agap and lost for words.
This girl is going to be the end of us.

Lily's potty journal, an EPIC journey.

Lily woke up Friday and announced that she finally wanted to be a big girl and wear panties and do her business on the pot.  Of course, only Lily would pick one of the busiest times of the year to make our house turn upside down.  But, knowing her little personality we knew that it was now or never.  So it began.

She did really well the first two days.  Minus the incident on Saturday where she thought it was a good idea to remove her diaper at nap time and pee on her bad. 

She had her first "outing" in panties on Sunday, and asked to take a billion trips to visit the toilet and drain a whole teaspoon of urine.  Then made a puddle on the nursery floor with only 10 minutes before going home.  Pretty successful I would say.
 Then, her demon within decided to have a little fun at naptime again.  But this time it wasn't with pee.  She painted her bed, rails, floor, door handles, arms, hands, and arms (front and back) with poop!  Not cool at all!!!  What a fun family moment playing clean up.

Christmas Eve  (Monday) was MUCH like the day before.  Only she gave the walls, teacups, spoons, rocking chair, and little kitchen sink a visit from the Poop Fairy.  We then decided to call her Poo Bear instead of Bear.  I have an internal vomit from within every time I visualize  her tea cup full of poop with a spoon sticking out of it.  Knowing Lily, one taste wasn't enough!
Needless to say, she received three cold showers at clean up time. 

The threats of cold showers must be working, because the Poop Fairy hasn't visited again. 
And wetting herself 2-3 times when out at family parties was nothing to sweat about.  There is always something worse that our little imp could come up with. 

Special

This is my "special" little lady.  She makes us laugh every day.
Yesterday she decided to sport all of this awesome swim gear to look her best.
She cracks me up.

Today, she decided to break into the fridge to get some cheese.  All while mom was busy bathing big brother.
Well, her plan went awry when she decided that climbing up the fridge shelves was a good idea.  Mainly, the shelf containing all of our fresh eggs (our hens aren't laying so well and Grandma Carol's are so she sent some our way) all in all close to two dozen.  That and the left over pie from Thanksgiving.
One can only imagine the mess that she found herself in, rather that I found her in.
She has never had such a long time out.
Not so special. 

School Starts

Everyone got back to school haircuts including this little gal.  It was her first official cut done by a professional.  We knew that she would be a handful, that's why it took us so long to get it done.  Cookie Cutters was definitely the best choice.

Bayli started 2nd grade, we can't believe how grown up she is.  Our summer has been so busy with family vacations and swimming.  I will admit that I am still having a hard time getting back into the school schedule.  Not to mention, 2nd graders start getting busy.  Between homework, swimming, and violin, she barely has time to play with her friends.

Chase had been waiting all summer to start school again.  He was devastated when Bayli started before him.  He loves going to preschool.  But, he hates homework.  We started the reading program that we did with Bayli.  He does not love it like she did.  I guess it's a good thing that all of our kids have different personalities so that we can be challenged in new ways our selves. 

swimming and our greatest gift

Bayli's swim team started their summer training sessions this week.  She normally trains for an hour in the evenings, which she was just getting used to the last few weeks.  Now, the classes are an hour and a half (mornings or evenings), with the exception of Tuesday and Thursday mornings which are two hours.  Seriously, I know!!! 
We knew that with all of the changes and new situations she has already been facing with her swimming, we better not tell her.  So the first session she attended was on Monday evening.  Chase had lessons half way through so we were unable to watch all of the goings on.  When we returned for the last 15 minutes, Bayli was swimming along pretty slowly with a kick board.  After her series with the kick board, she could barely pull herself out of the pool to put the board back.  She got back in the water to start the next series of laps.  I immediately recognized that she was beat, in the I am about to have a mental breakdown kind of way.  Her coach saw it at the same time as I did and pulled her to the side to talk with her.  I overheard their conversation and it broke my heart.  Her coach asked her if she was tired and needed a break.  She told her to sit on the bench and get a drink.  Bayli was fighting back tears, my poor little softy.  She hadn't seen me yet.  She told her coach, "I think that I just want to find my mom."  They turned around and saw me and she immediately ran to me and started crying in my arms.  I felt so bad.  I hadn't prepared her for this. I hadn't told her that it was okay to tell her coach when she was too tired and that it was okay to stop and take breaks.  Her coach was wonderful and told her that she would never be angry with her if she couldn't finish swimming and that she wanted her to tell her if she ever felt like it was too much. 

Bayli had a pretty good little breakdown on the way home.  We talked about all of her accomplishments over the last month.  We talked about her wonderful coaches who have been so great in figuring out her abilities.  We talked about her love for swimming. 
She decided not to swim the next day as she had planned.

Yesterday she went to the evening session again.  She was better prepared, we had a game plan.  She put her towel on her team bench rather than leaving it in the bag with me. I would watch the first 35 minutes and would leave to take Chase to his lessons.  She knew to listen to her body and tell her coach when she needed  a break.  I had told her that if she needed to stop that it was okay, I would be back for the last 15 minutes either way.
From the warm up I could tell that her coach had thought about the kids' abilities as well.  She had geared things down a bit and was having them work at a slower pace. I love the coaching staff!!!
When Chase and I returned, Bayli was still swimming.  She looked tired, but was still pushing herself.  When she finished, she walked to us with a big grin and said, "I wanted to see if I good go the whole time, and I did!"  Then she said, "my legs hurt SOOO bad!"
We did some serious rolling and massaging on her quads, she had worked her hip flexors pretty hard.

Her original plan was to attend the following 7 am  session (2 hrs)  because they do dry land activities and she didn't want to miss that.  So we worked out her kinks last night and told her that we would see how she felt in the morning.  After a rough night with Lily, no one wanted to get up.  But, Jed had set his alarm and was prepared to take her.  We had to wake her up at 6:15, she was pretty tired.  But, she was eager to get ready to go. 
She had a blast today.  She did an hour of dry-land activities (running, strengthening exercises, and weighted balls)  then swam for an hour. 

It is so amazing watching your children develop their talents.  I have loved this journey with her.  She has been able to decide her goals for herself, with a bit of guidance from Jed and I, but mostly from herself.  She has grown so much over the last month.  She has gained so much confidence already.  And, she has discovered that it is okay to do your best, work hard, and take a break now and then.
Her journey has helped us as well.  It has helped us to know when to tell our kids what to do, when to guide them, and when to let them figure things out on their own.

As exhausting as this swimming thing is on all of us, I don't think that any of us would trade it.  It has strengthened our relationship as a family.  Even the little ones can sense that, they are just as eager to be a part of Bayli's swimming.  Chase told me the other day, "mommy, when do I get to go to swim team?" 
Whether it is swimming or something else, I hope that Bayli (and all of my kids for that matter)  will always know that their family has their back and will be there to support them no matter what, because that is the greatest gift of a family. 

May, where did you go?

Because all that we ever seem to be doing lately is going to the pool, May flew by.

I am officially a swim mom, I think a title that is much more involved than a soccer mom.  At least compared to my past days as a soccer mom.
Swimming takes up every available evening that we have.  Not that we are complaining, we are thrilled that Bayli has found something that she LOVES and is pretty good at.
And Chase is finally starting to love it as well.  Although we tease that he will be a Clown Fish forever (the lowest level).  But at least he is willing to do most of what the teacher asks without screaming. 

Bayli's first few weeks of swim team were...terrible.  She was pretty much an emotional wreck up until she had actually swam a few laps.  She would cry through warm ups and be uneasy about getting into the pool.  She is a nervous Nelly that expects herself to do the very best the first time.

After being her shoulder/leg to cry on, we finally came to a pretty good turn.  We just had to explain that every kid is nervous to start something new, you are here to learn not do things perfectly the first or 100th time, your coach is there to help you so ask all of the questions that you need to, and you are going to make lots of new friends.
Seriously as soon as she starts swimming, she calms down and is fine.  With a bit of bribing, Jed was even able to get her to sign up for her first swim meet.  June 22nd is coming up pretty fast.

I did the Red Rock Relay in Moab with some of my girlfriends.  Seriously, it was so hard. 70 miles of Moab awesomeness.  We were all pretty proud of ourselves.  We did a lot better than we thought that we would.  I was runner #1, so I had a difficult time sleeping the night before.  Not to mention the fact that I was battling a cold.  My first leg was nearly 8 miles.  I knew right when I hit 5.5 miles, my IT bands started getting twingy.  Even with all of my rehabbing, I have only maxed at 6 miles.  But my PT drilled it into my head, don't go past that point or you will give yourself some serious setbacks.  But in a race, you just keep going and run through the pain.  So I kept a reasonable pace, knowing that I had another 3 miler later in the day and it was steep.  Otherwise, I would have pushed my pace and tried for a better time.  I averaged about a 10:30 min/mile on my first leg. Then I puked and peed my pants because running is so fun...Rock on!!! 
My second leg was insane.  3 miles, 6500 Feet elevation with a 1000 feet increase.  Nuts I tell you.  I never saw a single runner run that entire leg.  It felt SOOO long.  And my knees were in so much pain, every step hurt, no matter how I would change up my form.  Even walking hurt, which I did the most of on this leg.  Oh, and it was so dang hot!  If it wasn't for my team mates, I wouldn't have been able to keep going.  I love my Mother Truckers, no girl could ask for better friends. 
We finished about middle of the pack with an overall time of 11 hrs 45 min with 10:50 min/mile average. 

Chase finished off his first year of preschool.  We have loved his teacher Miss Karen.  She picked up on his personality pretty quickly, and figured out how to deal with his grumpiness as well.

I have some new additions to my yard, that my cute little neighbor gave me last year.  Only 4 of about 25 iris' bloomed this year, so next year will be an even bigger surprise I am sure. 

This little cutie is one that my very own plants, with the help of the pollinators, produced on their own.  It looks like a hybrid of my purple and someones white Japanese iris. 

Took advantage of the opportunity to use my bug lens to check out this guy, so glad that Jed knows how much I love bugs and plants!  I have loved the new lens. 

I used it to check out the tiny blooms on my smoke bush as well, lovely.

We have been so couped up lately, that any little or big excuse to get out in the yard is snatched up quickly.  I call our illness basement-finish-itis.  A seemingly never ending project that is making us ill.  Hey, but we are painting.

Last week, Jed came up with a couple of BIG excuses for us to not work on the basement one evening.  Of course it was on a swimming night, meaning that we aren't home until nearly 6:30 and the kids are starving.  Not to mention the fact that Jed had just been diagnosed with a pretty serious sinus infection that had been plaguing him for about two weeks (he was not functioning on his normal brain level, I don't think that he would have undertaken this task if he had been, at least not that night).  At least he has a wonderful brother that answers the call.

He brought home four trees, three of which were replacements for my Blue Atlas Cedars (RIP you lovelies in Arbor Heaven, they hadn't fared well since the blasted freeze of Fall 2010).  As much as we LOVE the cedars, we knew that our location was just not meant to be, so Jed looked to his buddy for some better ideas.  He came up with Norwegian Spruces.
My nearly 103 year old Grandma is Norwegian, so they must be a good tree.  Of course we did a bit of hasty research just to make sure, then pulled the trigger.  We treat every plant in our yard like a marriage.  We have to love nearly everything about it, and commit to it.  That is probably why we are so passionate about every plant in our yard, they each make up a piece of our "marriage"  and commitment to our yard, the extension of us.
He also brought home another London Plain Tree, the one by our playground is looking a bit on the ill side.  So we decided to get it a friend just in case it decides to kill over.  We had ordered a 2 inch caliper tree.  It ended up being  a 3.5, which in tree language is ginormous.  The root ball alone was over a yard wide.  It was quite the undertaking.  I wish that I had taken a few pics of that beast before it got into the ground.
A few days later we also added an Autumn Blaze Maple to a spot we have been holding for just the right tree in our front yard.  This Maple is a cross between the Silver Maple, which does terrible in Utah, and good traits from the Red Maple.  We are hoping for success with this one.  Everything that I have read about it sounds pretty good.  And the fall color will be beautiful.  Hopefully it does better than other Maples!

The ginormous tree that better never die dang it. 

One of the Norwegian Spruces.

  Bayli's spark for bird watching has been spreading to the rest of the household.  She has got me on a pretty steady process of adding things to our yard to attract new birds and attempting to identify them.  Our latest little friends who have been frequenting our hummingbird feeder and who we are faithfully putting out oranges for are our Bullock's Orioles.  Not being a huge birder, I would guess that this is a pretty rare treat.  Everyone is in love with them, I wish they visited more often. 

We have also been loving the Say's Phoebe that squawks at us every evening and the other visitors we have spied just a few times, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Western Kingbird, and the family of Goldfinches. 

33 years of wondering why...

I was sitting casually on the couch with Lily.  I was attempting to read (I have no clue why I keep trying). 
Lily was working on getting her cute little socks off.  She was muttering, very quietly, "kok aw" (sock off).  I smile to myself because I love hearing her chatter on.

 A few minutes later, I notice her carefully bent over her little bare foot.  I smiled at how proud I was of the big things she is doing.
Then I take a double take as I see my cute little baby carefully work her little fingers between her toes, pull something out of between them, and pop it in her mouth. 
I almost couldn't believe what had just happened until I see her repeating the same motions with the next toe. 

EWW GROSS!!!  Just when we think she couldn't do anything more disgusting, she surprises us. 

Now I know why my mom always called the lint and junk between your toes TOE JAM.

Funny Chase

Chase, just emerging from the bathtub (he has been obsessed with his penis lately):

Me:  Chase please don't touch your penis
Chase:  Mom, what's this? (Now holding onto his scrotum)
Me: (very uncomfortable at this point)  It is your scrotum.
Chase:  (pause)  Oh, a scrotum penis?

almost dejavu

 Just like her brother.  

Frequently found packing around a water bottle.  

Can't leave home without it. 

 Pees up a storm.  (Now we have two little bodies whose pee we will fight over when we are trapped in a desert.  Just in case you needed to know.)

Has to have a straw.

 If packing a water bottle was the only behavior she was picking up from her brother, life would be a lot less difficult.  

We could definitely do without her need to vocalize in the same manner as her brother...LOUDLY with high pitched ear piercing screeches.  

I think that he is beginning to wish that he hadn't taught her those skills as well.

all day

Summer's over ... it was fun
Now it's time to get things done
Catch the bus and be on time
Standing straight in all those lines

Getting homework every day
Do it quick and then go play
Early nights and days so full
Following those school time rules

Do your best and you will see
Life will go by so quickly
For one day when you are grown
Your lessons written all in stone

You will know that in the end
These the best days you will spend
Sharing knowledge doing well
Your future has a lot to tell.

~Francine Pucillo~ 

Next week, Bayli is headed back to school.  Not just school, First Grade.  A VERY big deal.  

I am going to miss her terribly.  Honestly, I have no clue what I will do without her, and for over 7 hours!!! 

I know that she is going to have so much fun learning, making friends, eating lunch, playing, reading, writing, crafting, etc.

But, that doesn't mean that I have to love her being gone.  I will miss:

her contagious smile

her "organized" mess

her endless questioning

her busy as a bee-ness

her beauty

her helping hands

her silliness

her imagination

her inquisitively gorgeous eyes

But most of all, I will miss HER.

I love you little peach!  You are growing much too fast for your sensitive mamma.  

You are so intelligent and creative. 

I can't wait for you to tell me all about your day and how much fun that you had learning.  

You are going to be a super First Grader!

sweet

You know that outfit that your kid wears that you love and hate all in the same moment?  

It is cute but non-functional.  

The straps always seem to slide off their shoulders.  

They kneel in just the right spot, pulling down the front, all while trying to stand up.  

A series of events that indefinitely leads to anger, frustration, and a near miss face plant. 

  

And always in this love/hate attire

a tag seems to peak out

drawing you closer to HATE.  

Through the day you battle with the outfit, constantly telling yourself, 

"why did I put this on?"

Then when you are nearly ready to give up,

strip it off, 

and make life easier, 

you read the tag.

You feel your frustration melt away.

And you go about the remainder of the evening

trying to catch a glimpse of that little

sweet in all its happiness. 

A little reminder 

that its the sweet things in life 

that make all of this worth it.