Books, Kindal, and Grandparents!

Books are out the door! Kindal's flight was delayed until Tuesday, and we spent Sunday and Monday shoveling and shoveling, and after we shoveled the driveway we shoveled the road. Haha I was determined to be able to go get Kindal on Tuesday morning!

The boys loved the snow. On Monday they went sledding in our front yard while we shoveled in the road, and our neighbors came and helped us clear a path to the plowed road at the top of our cul de sac. Their kids had fun sledding with Westin and Bennett and it's just the best to live in a friendly neighborhood.

Michael's work was cancelled Monday and Tuesday and he is always home Wednesday, so he had a pretty chill week with us! Which mean his little shadow, Camden, kept a close eye on him and followed him constantly. I picked up Kindal Tuesday morning and her checked bag full of our thank you notes/matching games felt like the final piece to this years-long puzzle. I was just prepping my brain for that bag to be lost because, I feel like there have been some unnecessary hiccups along our way! But... it came! And she came! And all went well!

We just hit the ground running and shipped for hours Tuesday and hours Wednesday. She even had us take a quick break and drive out to a snowy field where she snapped some family pictures for us, and on the way home we listened to Irish accent lessons so we could be fully ready for our corned beef and cabbage dinner. That was..... not my favorite dinner. But, it was appropriate for the day. The boys had a leprechaun visitor who peed in our toilet and left some Lucky Charms. The leprechaun helper had to go to multiple stores to find gold coins, never succeeding and settling for Rolos, which were, it turns out, not individually wrapped in gold. So the helper tore the wrapper of the roll into pieces and haphazardly wrapped the Rolos and made a trail from the green pee scene to the fruit rainbow and Lucky Charms offering. Westin loves holidays... this is what drives those silly things.

My parents got here Wednesday evening and they played with the boys while Kindal and I had one more day to get things done before she left Thursday evening. Website planning, side order packaging, media kits to Costco and Deseret Book and Brigham Distributing sent, signing the books for the people that wanted them signed, and just some general planning together. It's amazing how much more we can get done when we're actually in the same state! She's the best and I was so sad to take her back to the airport... 

We went to Fossil Creek Park and Fossil Creek Reservoir with my parents on Friday and Saturday, and had a Mary's Mountain Cookies taste test (chip-a-doodle was the Cinderella story, chocolate chip always the winner no matter what though), and Michael and I went on a boring grown-up date to a fireplace store and an Amish furniture store (that one wasn't boring though -- prettiest furniture! We're going to get some pretty nightstands because kids never ruin nightstands. I hope those aren't famous last words...). 

On Sunday my parents stayed with sleeping Camden while we took the older boys to our 2pm Sacrament meeting. Usually we switch off since we can watch it online anyway, so it was fun to go together. We've made it through a quarter if the year maintaining nap time with this oh so late church schedule, so feeling pretty good about that.

Busy, happy week!!!

First autograph!

That sneaky leprechaun...

Such a helper!

Bennett probably stuck on 200 shipping labels. So cute.

Can you tell which pictures Kindal takes and which ones I take? Haha. 

First half! Mailman picked this up on Tuesday afternoon.

Sneak peek! She's building our whole website right now but edited this one pic as a little preview of the photo shoot. She's so fast!

Camden loved handing Michael books, one by one.

The rest! Second day's pick up.

This is the "Send me your address!!!" pile. And I have no idea how to get them to send me their address, so.... hopefully someday they do!

Be good to them, USPS!

We love a good taste test.
Also our first use of our bourbon barrel serving tray that Michael's dad made!
On top of the table he made.
He makes such fun and beautiful projects!

Blizzards and Ending the Kickstarter

Michael:
finished (almost) his first week of trauma call and it was quiet. He was in charge of cleaning the church this week and Westin was so excited to help him. He took us to the church again on Saturday to run around and play basketball since we were about to be snowed in all weekend. Camden is SOOOOO obsessed with Michael, it's so cute. We shoveled together SO MUCH on Sunday. I've never shoveled more snow OR heavier snow. We have snow mountains surrounding our driveway now and the boys were loving loving that. He took me on a date Wednesday to another spot on our long list of restaurants to try here -- the hardest part of date nights in Fort Collins is we already have some favorite spots we want to go back to, but we have too many we feel like we need to try before we start repeating! Lots of yummy food around here.

Maddie:
closed up the Kickstarter! I told Michael that I'm describing that Kickstarter the same way I described pregnancy just before having Westin -- life keeps happening, but you are never not aware that you're pregnant. There's always some random symptom or preoccupied thought going on. That's how the Kickstarter month was -- so many things Kindal and I learned and had to figure out along the way, with so many fun parts too. Life kept going but we were never not aware of our Kickstarter and this or that that needed our attention. Our blizzard this weekend has delayed Kindal's flight and we are itching to get these books out the door! It'll happen soon, we're doing all we can. On Friday around 3pm I decided to finally unbox all the padded mailers that we're sending our paperback versions in, and when I opened every single box of shipping supplies I realized the company we'd purchased them from had forgotten all 1,000 mailers in my order. (My boxes were all full of our other supplies for our hardcover version.) From the time I discovered that that to a frantic ten minutes later I had woken up Camden from his nap, put my kids in the car, grabbed a pack of graham crackers because I knew Cam Cam would be real unhappy with the next two hours, called the company that is thankfully in Denver, and drove an hour south to pick up 1,000 mailers, calling on my way to ask them to please set them aside for me and stay 30 minutes passed closing time so I could get them before the weekend/blizzard. I was so bothered that all those nights for the last month when i thought "I should stuff my paperback books into mailers," I never did, because now I know why -- I should have known so long ago that those mailers were forgotten in my order! We were home just in time to meet Michael to clean the church because Westin started crying when he realized we might miss it. "Did you know that's my favorite thing to do, besides going on trips?" 
No kid. I definitely did not. But now I feel immense guilt and will take you to the church even though we're 20 min late.

Westin:
is such a cute helper. We had a good parent teacher conference with his teacher where she said he was absolutely kind and relatable to every single kid in their class. She said the kids who tend to irritate other kids on purpose don't irritate Westin, because he doesn't respond to that and can just keep a level head with anyone, so they just don't bug him. She said he is super curious, thinks deeply, works fast with math, reads at a great reading level, plays with different kids at recess each day, and is really funny. "So sweet with the right amount of spice." We just love this kid. I know I expect too much from him sometimes as the oldest. I am trying to be more aware of that. He was so happy to help me put books in envelopes. He loves any and every holiday -- all about pi day this week and he kept asking why we have pi day. We tried to explain it pretty loosely to him and he said, "And doesn't that number have something to do with circles?" This kid and his memory and observations. He also very promptly observed that the sun was much brighter when we put them to bed at 7pm Sunday night than usual, and a quick explanation of Daylight Savings Time kind of rocked his world, and we said good night just as we could see his wheels turning realizing that he was in bed one hour early for no darn good reason.

Bennett:
Plays with Camden a lot and holds his little hand to go on walks around the house, which is Camden's very favorite thing even though he really doesn't need a hand anymore. Bennett's parent teacher conference was also really great. His teacher said he is branching out more with friendships and initiating play with others a lot more. His teacher said Bennett is pretty quiet but will once in a while have a little mini outburst of something that makes everyone laugh, and a friend who works at the school told me that all the teachers there just love Bennett. He's got such a big heart and sweet disposition. He's working hard on his speech and counting and they said that he concentrates really hard on one activity at a time and probably would be happy to never rotate during centers and just do one thing, but that he enjoys each thing when it's time to try something different. I noticed today when he was helping shovel snow that was so heavy for such a little guy that he is just a focused worker when he turns on that skill. We love to rest together in the afternoons lately, because I didn't know he would still fall asleep if we did that and now that I know he does a couple times a week, I want to try to do it more to make sure he's getting the rest he needs. He's such a chill, happy guy, and lately really gets his feelings hurt more easily than he ever has. We love him.

Camden:
is saying lots of new phrases: More, All Done, Night Night, Bye Bye, Mama, Dada, Kitty Kitty, and my favorite, Ok. He says ok in a perfect little voice even when he doesn't understand what he's saying. My favorite was putting him to bed this week and saying, "Good night sweet Camden, no whining tomorrow, ok?" And a perfect little "Ok" from his crib had me and Michael cracking up. He's starting to be more patient with diaper changing, and even pointing to his diaper sometimes when I think he's peeing -- potty training this summer, but not before then! He also goes all the way up and down our stairs now which is terrifying. I'm trying to teach the boys to go up and down behind him so he has a spotter, and they're really good about it. He's pretty steady but still always in footie pajamas because it's cold, so I just feel like he's a slippery little risk taker when he does it. We have a four-hour insulation inspection this week to see why our house gets so darn cold in places. 

It took me three hours to inefficiently write this while we caught up on This Is Us which always has me crying about how fast my kids will grow up. On the same day I counted down to bedtime because noises and messes sometimes just really get to me. Oh the emotional circles of motherhood :)

I hope next week when I write I'll be able to say that ALL our book orders are out in the mail! Here we go! 

First Book Orders!

My boys were looking at the book before school this week. When they got to this page Bennett said, "That's Jesus... He loves us, right brother?" And Westin said, "Yeah he really does."
One of my favorite moments of this entire project.

We've brought back afternoon rests and with this kiddo and it's my favorite.

Can you spot the guy up there cutting limbs?
We took a pic on our way home from Bennett's half day because we knew Westin would like seeing that.

Kickstarter is DONE!
What a month! So much love and support in so many ways.

Our branded tape came! It makes me super happy.

Camden was a little extra content in his typical pantry exploring when we realized he had just bit full force through a wrapper of a valentine candy and was taking the good with the bad.
He's offering some to Bennett right here haha.

Cutest little bedtime bundle.

He's hiding from his toothbrush-holding dad...
So funny.

Pre-packaging some orders while we wait for Kindal with a few more of our shipping supplies!

But..... the blizzard delayed her flight :( :(

Snow helpers

He only loves watching us shovel from the stroller for so long before it's time to go in for snacks.

Camden discovered our train track and kept giggling when the cars would go down the bridge part.
So cute to see them explore their world.