What's New?

Here I am again!  Sorry, I kind of took a super long break from blogging.  Life gets busy and blogging was not at the top of my to do list, but I figured it is time to get back on the horse, we will see if I stay on this time.  There are so many things to catch up on, we'll see if one post can handle all of it.  Let's see...Kai has had back surgery again.  This time we went down to Casper to get it done and the doctor there was so much better than the last one.  Now he is going to see if they can fix his mid back as it is causing pain too.  We actually head there tomorrow to do that.  Since then he has been busy going to physical therapy three times a week and just trying to keep the yard looking nice.  He tries to do as much as he can otherwise, but still needs to rest quite a bit.

I have been busy going to school.  This last semester was a tough one.  I made it through though with all A's amazingly.  I also have summer "workshops" where they condense a whole semester class into one week.  I have four of those and I have finished two already.  Then, I get to do my student teaching in the fall!!  I am so excited to be done with that and then...contemplating on getting my Master's degree.  What????  Yeah, I know.  I said I would never do that cause I never wanted to go to school that long, but it almost feels right.  Other than school,  I have been busy taking care of kids, TRYING to keep the house clean, and all that jazz.  Amidst all of that, we have tried to do some fun things this summer already, which I will share pictures in a bit.

Matthew finished kindergarten this year.  He absolutely LOVED it and he LOVED his teacher.  She was so good for him because he is quite shy and she just made him feel so comfortable in his class and apparently he has some excellent math skills.  I don't know where he got that from...wasn't from me.  They do a kindergarten circus every year and he got to be a bear.  We heard about the circus for a long time around our house.  He is excited for 1st grade, but he doesn't know his teacher.  He was hoping to get the same teacher that his cousin had, but she retired this year, so he has someone different.

Mason went to preschool and loved it there but is way excited to be grown up and go to kindergarten.  We don't know who his teacher is going to be yet, but he is hopeful that he gets the same as Matthew.  I foresee that he will definitely excel though because he is so smart as it is and he is such a social butterfly.

Kaydee is just growing so much.  I think she talks really well for a 2, almost 3 year old.  She is just so smart.  I think it comes from having two smart older brothers.  She loves to play with her older brothers, and take care of her younger brother.  We are trying to train her to know that she doesn't get everything her way even though she is the princess of the family.  It is so hard sometimes though because if she doesn't get what she wants, well, it is a total breakdown and sometimes we breakdown!  She's getting better though.  I believe that she will be super lonely when both the older boys are in school next year and I will be doing student teaching and gone for most of the day.  She'll get to bond with Daddy though. :)

Byron.  I haven't even put Byron on this blog yet.  He was born in August of 2012.  Almost 1 year old already!  He is a very big boy.  Growing like a weed and as cute as a bug!  We have been a little worried about him though because he wasn't using his arms as much as he should be.  All he would ever do was just lay flat on his back on the floor.  I took him to the Children's Resource Center and they did a screening.  They wanted to do further evaluation and so they decided from that that he needed to have some therapy done because of low muscle tone.  He has done that for about a month now and he has made so much improvement!  He has started rolling over and sits for longer by himself.  I told the doctor about it and he was a little worried so he referred us to a pediatric neurologist and we go see him in July.  I hope though that nothing to serious is wrong and that it can just be fixed with therapy.

Picture time!!!  Kai made a new sprinkler for the kids to run through out of PVC pipe and the kids love it so much!  This is them running through it!

 Matthew bugged and bugged me to let him do a lemonade stand and so one day we decided to finally do one and we had cousins come over to help.  It must be because of all their cuteness, but they made $34 all together!  I was impressed.

 We decided one day to pack up and go camping.  It was an experience to remember for sure.  It poured rain on us and it was such a lightening and thunder storm!  We all had fun though, even though we were a little scared of the bears that could possibly be there at the North Fork as they had had some there recently.

 At Matthew's school they run a marathon at the end of the year if they have qualified.  They all get a shirt and a medal.  He ran 5 times around the track and I was super impressed because I have a hard enough time walking that much! 

 This was Easter.  They were just so cute I had to share!  We weren't real big Easter people around here this year.  In fact, we never really are.  We just don't really get into the whole Easter egg hunting thing because that is not the reason for Easter.  But we try to let them have a little fun.

 This was part of the Father's Day present that we gave to Kai.  All the kids held up a sign of why they loved dad and I took a picture of them.  Since Byron couldn't hold a sign, I saw this super cute idea on pinterest and so I did this for him.  Isn't he so cute?

 We do a lot of last minute trips we have decided.  It was a free day at the Yellowstone Wildlife Rescue Center or whatever it's called in Red Lodge.  So we decided to pick up and go and although it wasn't the most exciting place, the kids got to see a couple of bears, a mountain lion, some elk, a wolf, and a bison.  After that we decided to drive over the Beartooths on the way home.  This is us on the Beartooths and if you cannot tell, I was really not wanting to be standing by the railing!  I am super afraid of heights and I was just fine taking the picture in the middle of the lookout, but there was a nice lady that asked us if we wanted her to take a picture of us.  So, I braved it.  Now it is documented that I got close to the edge.

 This was us at Beartooth Lake.  It was really pretty there!

 This was just a fun picture I took of Kaydee.  Already a supermodel! ;)  Such a pretty girl she is, I just had to share.

 This is Mason getting ready to run through the sprinkler that Kai made.  I had an individual picture of everyone else, so I needed to find one of Mason.  I thought this one was great!

 

Some fun things

I realize that I have been horrible at blogging for the past six months.  Well, even before that I was horrible.  I had a goal of taking a picture everyday of our kids and possibly blogging them during the summer, but...I haven't done so well.  I would like to blog about a few things today though to possibly let everyone know what we have been doing. 

We finished school for the year at the beginning of May.  I was super ready for it to be over.  I felt like I was being run ragged.  I am now officially working on my Bachelor's for Elementary Education.  I started on it in the spring semester of this year, but now I am actually taking all my classes from Valley City State University in North Dakota.  I have about 1 1/2 to 2 years to finish.  I am hoping more on the 1 1/2  years.  But, we'll see if everything goes as planned.  During this year I taught piano lessons to four students and we had our recital on May 4th.  It was good.  I have now officially taught a whole year of piano lessons and I know somethings I can do differently to be more effective.

Another thing that has been going on, is that, for those who didn't know, I am pregnant and due August 4th.  We are having another boy.  We are excited, boys are fun and even though they are a handful, we have realized that boys are easier.  :)  Sorry to all those who think that girls are easier. 

Kai's going to school for his Business Adminstration degree.  He went in March to Minneapolis with the college SIFE group for their competition.  I guess they didn't do as well as hoped, but it was a good experience anyway.  He has also been busy taking scrap metal up to Billings which is tough and frustrating work, and right now is kind of slow at the moment.  But he has been asked by a few people to do some welding projects for them, which he enjoys quite a bit. 

Matthew went to preschool during the spring semester and absolutely loved it.  He is ready for Kindergarten next year and all we know is he is going to Westside.  I am a little nervous, yet excited for him.  I hope to be able to go and volunteer as much as possible, but with as much stuff as I have going on next year, I don't know how much it will happen.  He also just had two cavities filled and did super well.  We have to go next week again to get two more filled and then he will be done.  I don't know if the "laughing gas" helped or hindered the situation, but either way, he still did super well.

Mason, is ready for preschool.  He struggled a little bit with Matthew being gone for three hours to preschool.  Other than that, he really is growing up and has quite the personality.  Sometimes, frustrating, but still as cute as can be.

Kaydee is growing up too fast, but is still our little baby girl.  She definitely is becoming independent and she talks a ton!  Maybe not to everyone, but when she is home, she talks almost nonstop.  She loves to sing "I am a Child of God" and "Popcorn Popping".  She absolutely loves her big brothers and wants to play with them all the time.  She was so cute before when she couldn't say their names, she would just call them Boys, but now she can say their names and is even cuter!

It has been hard trying to do much fun this summer as the weather doesn't really permit lately.  It seems like everytime we want to do something it gets cold and rainy. Sometime I suppose.

Below are a couple pictures of a few things we have been up to.  The other day the kids wanted to play with water balloons.  We have had a box of them since we have been married so I decided that since I "LOVE" trying to fill them up with water I decided to take a little bit of time to fill all of them up and let the kids pop all of them so I wouldn't have to do it again.  Now they are gone and the kids had a blast.  The only one that got wet I think was Kaydee as she would bite them and pop on her or she would squeeze them so tightly close to her that they would pop all over her.  The other two just would throw them to pop them.  It was fun though. :)

I have been doing a little bit more crocheting since school has been out and I found this super cute pattern for a sun hat and I finally finished it yesterday.  I think that it is super cute and that the girl wearing is also super cute.  So I don't know if I am showing the hat or the girl off more...either way.

Summer update

I suppose I need to blog about what we have done this summer since my last update.  We went camping a couple of times.  Once just over a weekend, and then we went on labor day weekend.  I am so bad at taking pictures, I didn't get maybe one or two of that.  We also took a very quick trip up to Havre to see Kai's sister Jade.  I don't even remember what weekend that was.  It was a very last minute decision.  We went the long way around and went sightseeing.  We went up through Kalispell and we wanted to go through Glacier, but our time ran short and our bums were tired of sitting.  So we just skipped Glacier.  That was our excitement for the summer.

Kai and I have been super busy going to school.  I am going to get my second associates in December in Elementary Education.  Then I will be going to attend Valley City State University in North Dakota.  NO, we are not moving to North Dakota!  They have an agreement with Northwest College and so I can finish up my degree here through Northwest.  Which is nice.  Kai is still plugging along with his Business degree.  He is enjoying it so far and likes all of his professors.  He has also discovered that he loves to write.  He is really good at it, even though he won't admit it. 

The kids are doing well.  They, I think, are kind of struggling with Kai and I always going all the time.  But they have a super good babysitter that comes to babysit.  Hopefully next semester won't be so crazy, and I will be  home a little bit more.  They are growing like weeds.  Matthew is getting smarter and smarter everyday.  He is super curious and loves to learn.  Mason is getting super smart too.  He is also a huge fit thrower.  But, that is beside the point, he is super cute.  Kaydee learning so much and she is starting to say quite a few words.  She says "Hello".  She plays peek a boo, and anything that the boys play.  She says "oos" for juice, "ooz" for shoes.  And she usually just says stuff out of the blue that you can totally tell what she said.  How blessed we are with such wonderful kids!

Now, for the picture show:

This is what the kids were for Halloween.  Mason was Ironman, Matthew was Bumblebee from Transformers, and Kaydee was a very cute witch.

This was one of our stops to Havre.  This A&W was in the town of Polson MT.

 This was also the town of Polson MT.  This is one town I would love to live in.  It is absolutely beautiful.  If you have never been there, go.  I wish we would have had more time to spend there and maybe take one of these boats for a ride.  But...they were closed and we didn't have time anyway. 

What I have been waiting for all summer!

Sorry, my picture is sideways, you will just have to crane your neck to look at it, but I have been waiting all summer for my flowers to bloom, and they finally did!  I have red, yellow, and an orangish pinkish color.  I was so excited for them to come out!  So I thought I would share the beauty of them.

 Last Sunday was Kaydee's first birthday.  We didn't celebrate til the next day as I was sick with something, but when we did celebrate we had just the grandparents over to celebrate with cake and ice cream.  Then after a nap, we went to the froggy pond.  It was fun.

 This is a picture of a gift I made for my friend for her birthday.  Don't know if she actually liked it or not, but I thought it was super cute and I had fun making it.

In other news, we got a new vehicle, as our Jeep got banged up.  We ended up getting a suburban for a really cheap price, and we like it quite a bit.  I finished my summer class and some how got an A- in the class, which was a suprise.  I, for some reason, just wasn't doing so well in the class and expected a B, but I guess she did a curve and that made it so that I got an A-. 

Kai has just been busy doing different odd projects with his friend and trying to build a derby car for this coming Saturday.  We'll see if it is able to get finished before then

We are looking forward for school to start in August.  Weird, I know, but I am ready to get this show on the road.  I plan on doing some piano lessons in the fall too, so we will be quite busy.

Some things we are looking forward to doing before school starts are, hopefully camping, and maybe making a trip up to Glacier National Park.  It seems as though the weekends are getting filled up before we even know it though, so I don't know if either of those will get done.  But that is what we hope to do.

Messages from the prophets

We have been contemplating a lot lately about what paths we need to follow in our lives and why we have to go through hard trials.  I have read lots of things and thought about lots of things that have helped me in our struggles.  I read something this morning before church in the June Ensign that made me think a lot that I wanted to share.  It's from the article "He Carried My Sorrows" by Jane Bleak.  She talked about the struggles she had one year when she lost quite a few family members and some others had major health problems.  She said:

"I gained strength by reading a talk by Elder Richard G. Scott of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles titled 'Trust in the Lord.'  He said: 'Just when all seems to be going right, challenges often come in multiple doses applied simultaneously.  When those trials are not consequences of your disobedience, they are evidence that the Lord feels you are prepared to grow more.  He therefore gives you experiences that stimulate growth, understanding and compassion, which polish you for your everlasting benefit.  To get you from where you are to where He wants you to be requires a lot of stretching, and that generally entails discomfort and pain.'  He said that questions such as 'Why does this have to happen to me?' or 'Why do I have to suffer this now?' lead us into blind alleys.  Rather, Elder Scott suggests asking questions like 'What am I to learn from this experience?'  'Whom am I to help?' and 'How can I remember my many blessing in times of trial?"

This was a source of comfort and also an enlightenment to my mind.  Of course they are things we are always taught, but sometimes forget, especially in times of trial.  I am grateful for this article that was meant for my benefit.  I hope that I can learn from my trials the things that Heavenly Father wants me to learn and that I can grow to become who I need to be. 

Getting stuck

To start the week off was Memorial Day.  And guess what it was doing on Memorial Day.  You're right, it was raining once again.  Ugh!  We finally decided that we should do something for Memorial day and headed out to the cemetaries that all of our family members are buried in.  Our plan was to go to Powell, Byron, Lovell, and Cowley.  We have some in Otto too, but just didn't think it was worth it to drive there in the rain.  We made it to Powell and Byron, then on our way to Cowley Kai wanted to go on a side road to look at something.  My response was, "As long as we don't get stuck."  "We won't," says Kai.  Well...we got stuck.  Yes, it was pretty bad.  The mud there was so slimy and slippery.  Our Jeep's four wheel drive is gone so we couldn't even use that.  Then the next day it was pretty dry and windy so we were able to get it out.  Come to find out, the whole ordeal put a hole in the power steering hose (if that is what it is called).  So, I had to drive the Jeep home with no power steering.  Yeah, by the time we get that fixed, I am going to be one buff women.  

 We found this bird just recently that had made a nest and had 4 little blue eggs on our garage.  The little eggs hatched yesterday I think and I really tried to get a picture of the mommy feeding the babies, but I wasn't quick enough.  I am always afraid to walk by it when I take the garbage out because I am afraid it is going to go wacko and attack my head or something.  She's pretty nice though, Kai has put his hand pretty close up to her and she hasn't done a whole lot.  The kids love to look at it and try to scare it.  That's probably why I get freaked out about it attacking my head all the time.

This is a project I have been working on for a while now and even though it has quite a few flaws, I absolutely love it and had so much fun working on it.  It is my new church bag.  I learned some new stitches doing it and it was...fun.  I had a hard time with lining it, but it still worked out.

 This was something else I had made to bring some spring into our home.  Crocheted flowers.  I had made some roses for my mom for Mother's Day and I think I like those better than these daffodils, but I think these are pretty too.

 This picture just cracks me up.  I looked into the kitchen one morning when Kaydee was being really quiet and I found her just chillin on hers and Matthew's blanket.  They have the same type of blanket that their grandma made them and both of them tease each other about stealing each other's blankets.  It's funny.  Mason has one too, but he isn't as big of a blanket person as much as Matthew and Kaydee are.  They are so funny though.

Well, that has been our week and now the sun is shining and hopefully will stay that way for a while! 

So far so good

I am doing ok on my goal so far.  Woohoo!  We haven't really done a whole lot this week because of the weather.  Rain, rain, and more rain.  And guess what it was today?  Rain!  Yes, we probably won't do a whole lot for Memorial Day because of the rain.  During one of the not so rainy days, I ventured and took the kids out to one of the parks in town.  They thought it was fun, until it got too cold.  I think that this park is probably one of the best in town because it is quite quiet.  I am not a big fan of going to park when there a lot of kids around.  Call me weird, but that is how I am.  I get really anxious about it...unless I know who the kids are. 
 

Another day, I let the kids play outside when it wasn't raining and I tried to get some cute pictures of Kaydee because she was dressed so cutely!  I really just want to get one that can go up on the wall, and yet, I don't think this one will, but I thought it was extremely cute anyhow so I thought I'd share. 

I thought I'd share a few funny things that each of the kids have said this week.  It is my favorite thing when they say funny things.  So for memories sake, I will share.

Matthew: At about 5:00 this morning he was awake and so I went and put him back to bed and was laying by him.  The birds were chirping a lot outside and I asked him if he could hear the birds.  He said, "Yeah, they need to go back to bed, it isn't morning yet!"

Mason: He was helping me make spaghetti the other day and I had opened the spaghetti sauce.  He was holding it ready to dump it in the pan.  He said, "Mom!  This looks like pizza, but it's not....it's spaghetti."  Now you have to understand, these are major sentences that Mason has been saying lately.  He has started saying things like that, connecting sentences with but.  I am so proud of him.  But he says funny things like that all the time.  Funny boy.

Kaydee: She can't say anything yet, but when she has a phone in her hand she puts it up to her ear and says very loudly, "aahhh!"  Like she is saying hello.  And she is trying to walk.  One step here or there,  she'll get it soon and then we will be in BIG trouble!