My 31st and Mother's Day

I thought I just turned 30 but I guess another year has gone by leaving me at 31. A year ago, I spent my birthday getting to know my 2-day-old infant who is now a year old! It is unfair that the first year with each new baby goes by faster and faster. The first year seemed to go by so slowly with Paul. I remember looking out the window starting at 4 pm just done with the day hoping my husband would get home early and relieve me of my motherhood duties. Maybe it was because he was a fussy baby and I had no idea what I was doing. Either way, it doesn't seem possible that I've had 367 days with my Zoey. 

I remember thinking as a teenager that people in their 30's were so old but now that I am in my 30's I feel like people in their 30's are still so young. I wonder if teenagers look at me and think, "wow she is old." It is funny how perspectives change as we hit different points in our lives. I know I don't look like I am in my teens anymore but I still feel young and hope that the next 15 years of my life doesn't fly by like the last 15 has. 

Before my husband started school, he used to take work off on our birthdays and we would spend the day together doing something fun. Because of school, he has very little days to take off and had to work on all of our birthdays this year:( If Paul doesn't take the day off, it's kind of just a normal day around here. I watched my friends kids in the morning, Little Paul had school in the afternoon and then his best friend from school had a birthday party at Chuckie Cheese that we couldn't miss out on. After school, the whole family went and played at Chuckie Cheese! Paul got a sitter for us when we got back and we got to go have a quiet dinner and dessert together. It was nice to get away since it is rare these days. When we got home, he rented The Vow (romantic comedy) and actually stayed awake and watched it with me. If that's not love I don't know what is. It was dark but I think I even saw some tears coming out of his eyes a couple of times during the movie. 

I got a couple of gifts this year. The first was a week trip to Michigan to visit my parents. I'm so excited to see my parents. The only catch is that I have to fly there by myself with 3 kids. I don't know how much of a gift that part is. I leave early tomorrow morning so I'm going to need lots of prayers that we make the flight without everyone on the plane hating us. The second gift was the nicest email sent to me from my husband. I went to dinner with some girlfriends the night before my birthday. My husband wrote the email while I was out and sent it to me late that night so I would read it first thing birthday morning. It was better than getting any material gift (except for maybe diamonds). He will probably get mad I am blogging about this but here is a part of the letter I really like:

"I feel like your sarcastic humor has grown since we have been together.  I don't remember it as much early on, but certainly you developed a unique blend of being funny and frankly, putting me in my place.  When we went up to Coit Tower a year or so ago and the guy in the elevator looked at you shocked when you dryly said something about him hitting one of our kids on accident I knew you were being funny but I felt like I needed to step in and let the guy know as he squirmed in discomfort.  After he described you as spunky or something to that effect and said to me, "Good for you!"  I completely agree, good for me!  I love your humor and love that you have an opinion and that you are bright and that you complain (sometimes).  My whole life I wanted a "real" life and a "real" relationship and "real" love.  I have all of this.

It really boils down to this:  I can't imagine having any other life partner and eventual eternal companion than you.  You are the love of my life, the mother of our children, my personality flaw moderator, my single biggest source of happiness, and my reason for living."

Now onto Mother's Day. Whoever came up with Mother's Day is the smartest person alive or dead. It is nice to have a day to get spoiled and use as an excuse to get your spouse and kids to do things for you. For example, "Paul, will you please go upstairs and bring me my phone. Don't forget it's Mother's Day." Yep, works every time. It is also awesome to have your kids sing you songs and make you all kinds of crafts including self portraits. At Paul's school the other day, the kids did a fashion show and dessert for all the moms. How awesome is that? It was so cute. 

Well, I woke up and did a little workout in my room undisturbed. Then I took a shower and walked down to heart-shaped pancakes, strawberries, a blueberry bagel with cream cheese and a cup of raspberry Emergen-C. Now is the time to be jealous. 

After Church, we had a picnic dinner outside in the backyard and then had some birthday cake. Couldn't have asked for a better day!

I can't express how excited I am to see my own mother tomorrow. She is one of the hardest working and most giving mamas I know. She lives for her children and I hope I am half the mother she was and continues to be to me.

Thank you to all the other mothers in my life that have shaped me into the wonderful person I am today;)

My baby is 1!

 It had been a little while since we took a trip to the beach so last weekend we took a trip to Rio Del Mar Beach with some friends. It was 73 degrees and sunny at the beach. The water was freezing but all the little people didn't seem to mind. I had forgotten how difficult the beach is with a walking baby. Zoey loved it but she was covered in sand the whole time we were there. I tried dusting off her face and hands every so often but gave up after a couple of hours. She ate a lot of sand. I mean a lot. 

Paige loves to play in the sand

Zoey loved hanging out in this little tent a friend brought. Notice the sandy face. 

My little beach boy spent the day running back and forth in the ocean

Notice the face and hand in this one

Mom and Zoey

Paul lost his body in the sand

Zoey loved knocking down anything the others built

My baby turned 1 today! Today I wished I could keep her a baby forever. I don't think it will come true but you can't blame a mother for trying. 

Everyone knows Zoey as "the walking baby" because she started walking at 8-months-old and is now practically running. She is on the move all the time. She loves to climb up and down the stairs, climb on top of our train table, pull out everything from the cabinets under the sink, pull out all the play toys from the play kitchen, empty any drawer she can open, put her hands in the toilet, unroll the toilet paper, jump on the beds, ride around in our toy cars, clap her hands, wave good-bye, dance and sing. As you can see from the above list, she keeps me very busy. She loves her older brother and squeals in delight when he is around. She loves her older sister as well but screams when she is around:) Paige smothers her with love and it is too much for Zoey to handle;) 

We didn't do anything fancy for her birthday. We just had a little family party for her at home. It was nice. She didn't know it was her birthday. She doesn't know what a birthday is. She doesn't know how to open presents. She doesn't get that the presents are hers. She joined the sugar club today. She likes sugar. Welcome to the club Zoey! We love you! 

Good morning! 

We got her a shopping cart and she loved pushing around the box. I almost didn't want to open it she was having so much fun. 

She liked the shopping cart as well even though it's almost as tall as she is. 

She loved sitting in this inflatable pool. I just left it out all day and she kept getting in and out. 

So happy to be 1!

Loving her new kicks. Thanks Auntie!

Zoe with her cake.

She had to dive in. With 3 kids, there were lots of fingers in the frosting and lots of retouching. 

Vanilla cake with strawberries since Zoey loves strawberries so much. I did the flowers with candy melts. We had lots of cake left over and shared with our neighbors.  

Sugar is so good!

I love holding Zoey while she sleeps. I know it won't be long before she no longer will fall asleep in my arms so being the creepy mom that I am I've been watching her sleep. I've also been snapping some photos. Please don't judge me. I just love it and I know I will miss it. 

Hiking with kids

We thought it would be fun to go for a hike at Quicksilver Park last weekend. Hiking with my kids is a lot of work. It seems like the older the kids get, the less they want to walk. How does a five-year-old boy run out of energy? After about 10 minutes of walking, he is tired and has to sit down every few minutes to take a break and whine. Paul says walking is boring but if we say we want to race then he gets all kinds of energy. We did a lot of racing on the hike. My husband carried Paige on his back the whole hike up since she was a little sick and I carried Zoey on my front. A couple times on the way up my husband asked if we should just head back. I wanted to finish the hike so we pushed forward. Paige got down near the end for a few minutes but of course she fell and scraped her arm. We were glad we made it to the end because there was a super pretty view at the top. Little Paul agreed it was beautiful and even though he complained almost the whole time he said he wanted to go on this hike again someday. We will keep trying and hopefully someday everyone will walk on their own and enjoy it. 

Paige riding on Dad's back

Paul on one of his many breaks. It didn't help that he chose to wear the thickest longest socks on a warm day.

Paige's scrape on her arm

Zoey napped on the way up but woke up when we got to the end. 

Yay! We made it!

Zoey happy to be outside

Paul just being Paul:)

Using my nursing cover as a cape 

I've decided my kids have the most fun doing things that involve getting wet or dirty. They had such a fun time together in the backyard yesterday playing with the hose and watering plants and then coloring on the concrete with chalk and jumping/rolling around in it. 

Spring Break

Little Paul had spring break from preschool the week after Easter so I decided to take the kids to Salt Lake to visit Aunt K and cousins. I have to admit I was a little worried about driving 12 hours alone with 3 kids. I was especially worried about Zoey since I can do very little to entertain her in the car. I packed a ton of snacks and toys and decided to split up the drive into 2 days. We drove 5 1/2 hours to the small town of Lovelock, Nevada the first night and stayed in a motel. That worked out great because I could just pull up to the door and carry each kid right in. The next day we left first thing for Salt Lake. It was 6 1/2 hours the second day. Zoey was getting a little antsy with a little over 3 hours left so we found a really fun park in Elko to play at for an hour. It was a beautiful day and the kids loved running around. We finally got to their new house in the late afternoon. The older kids did great with very little whining. Zoey was done being in the car at the end of each day but she did so well. I am glad I split the drive. 

It was so nice to see everyone! We lived in Salt Lake for 5 months prior to moving here so for 5 months we got to hang out with this family a lot. We really miss them and hope we can live close to them again someday. In the meantime, we are all going to have to get used to driving 12 hours to visit each other:)

Picnic in the backyard

Baby Rocket tripled in size since we last saw him at Christmas! He is such a sweet baby!

Paul and Annie swinging at the park. I love that Annie still had her helmet on:)

The kids loved this merry-go-round and played on it for about an hour straight! Paul and Annie got spinning really fast and didn't want to stop. It made me sick to watch them go round and round. Ia see why we don't see these at parks anymore. They are pretty dangerous but also totally awesome. 

Even Zoey loved it.

One of the highlights of the week was driving down south to visit Great-Grandma! She made us this awesome lunch of homemade mac and cheese and the most divine rolls! It was so good and to top it off she gave us all popsicles! We miss Great-Grandma and we were so happy to be able to spend some time with her:) The kids love her house. On the way back, Paul said he wished he could visit Great-Grandma all the time.

Eating popsicles on the front porch

Great-Grandma with the moms and babies

Great-Grandma with our family

Zoey enjoying one of the yummy rolls

We had a couple of beautiful sunny days. However, we got rain the last couple of days. We decided to go to the Church History Museum in Salt Lake on one the of rainy days. It wasn't raining when we left and for some reason we didn't bring anything to shield us in case it rained. Of course, it was pouring when we got there and we had to park a little ways away from the museum. With one little umbrella, we ran with 4 kids and 2 babies in the pouring rain to the museum. We were soaking wet! The museum was fun but then we had to run back through the rain to the cars. Rain + kids - umbrellas = an awesome time. That day was actually comical because nothing went right. Every time something went wrong, we would just laugh. 

Paul turns everything into weapons these days including these carrots he found

Jane loved the hens/chickens

Paige listening to some church jams

Fishing from the arc

Paul playing with Rocket

Sam had school everyday but at least we got to see him in the afternoons and evenings. 

The two babies

 We had such a fun time! I was so sad to leave:( I loved the time I had with Aunt Kris. I miss these people so much!