Back to Josh Ritter's Reality

Back to our rhythm!

Saying goodbye to the Miners was sad on Tuesday, but knowing we get to spend a week with them in May made it easier.  

Jet lag didn't seem to hit us so hard after this trip, which we're both really grateful for.

Westin loved baking lots of cookies for his youth activity this week. We have a big bake sale coming up to earn some money for camps.

That same night Bennett loved going on a nature walk with the Activity Day crew. They saw wild turkeys, deer, eagles, and even a bull snake, and they were all stoked about it.

I saw Meg and Olive in Shrek this week and Robin in Catch Me If You Can. These girls are talented. Young Womens is the best. I love being in YWs with such good friends.

Asher did soccer on Friday with Reece and he sure loves it. Camden loved it on Saturday, too. He always makes a break at some point to score a good goal and it's so fun to cheer him on. I need to get it on video but it's tricky to time! His little team is so cute. Those Hot Dog Rockets.

Saturday night was Josh Ritter with the Gregorys, which is just the best. We got Middle Eastern food first and then went to the beautiful church he was playing at. I love his concerts so much. Carrie said, "I forgot he was such a cherub of a person," and she's right. What a joyful man, and I love any chance we get to go hear him sing his songs.

View from the swing

Making cookies for our youth bake sale

Activity Days nature walk -- complete with eagles, snakes, turkeys, and deer!

Back to the Environmental Learning Center the day after the Activity Days walk to see if we could find the bull snake again. Success!

These boys loved watching this snake for a while.

I took Westin to piano and came home to these three rolling a ball to each other and laughing.
Pretty sweet kids.

Meg and Olive were great in Shrek at the middle school!

Asher has loved starting soccer this spring.

The boys built this teepee with friends.

Soccer Saturday!
Camden is a great sport. He usually gets a good goal in but his team has quite the losing streak,
and still he just loves the experience every Saturday.

Beautiful concert venue in Denver

Josh Ritter! In a church! With the Gregorys!
Saturday of my dreams.

The Great Flood of 2024

This week... fun times and not so fun times!

We caught up on things at the beginning of the week, then Kelbre watched the younger boys Wednesday while we took the older to down to Denver to meet cousins and go to dinner and Frozen. Such a fun night out with them! They really loved the show. We hit some serious traffic on the way down so getting there was a little stressful but I laughed noticing how Westin and Bennett felt zero stress. It's good to be a kid.

Thursday we went out with two other couples for dinner and trivia night. But one round of questions in and we got a call from our babysitter that we never get a call from... she told me that there had been a flood in our half bath on our main level and there was about an inch of water through the entryway, hall, bathroom, into our piano room... she was putting the younger two to bed upstairs while the toilet just ran and ran. We rushed home, her mom had helped clean up the water that was there, but we knew it was totally wet where we couldn't see. The guy who installed our flooring quickly sent me a contact for someone that does flood repair, and he came out that night and pulled off baseboards and some floorboards up and drilled some drywall out of our ceiling basement so we could get fans going all those places all weekend. Sooooo painful, in so many ways. We were chatting about kids (he has 5 around our same ages) and I told him our second kiddo caused the flood. He said, "My second would've been the one to do it too." Haha birth order, man. We hope we can get our house put together before we take off to Florida but my hopes aren't very high.

On Friday we met a few other families at the park and the kids all ran around while we all took turns playing pickleball. I loved seeing lots of friends that night, summer has felt so fast and busy. Asher took a football hard to the head that night and Meg got her leg stuck in the playground railing, but, those were the only casualties :)

Saturday was our second (and last!) swim meet of the summer, and the boys really had fun doing their races. Camden did not have fun being a spectator for almost 3 hours. Many snacks were had. Then Saturday night we had the same babysitter from Flood Night (brave girl!) and went to play pickleball and eat dinner with the Dimonds. We had so many fun plans this week because it felt like we'd all been traveling all of June and now we're all back in town. I loved catching up with Colby and Diane.

Sunday we watched lots of Euro Cup and Copa América games, then made rolls and salad for a ward linger longer. We had a little incident at the end of linger longer that will forever instantly remind me how much work four little kids are, and I won't write it out here because someday they'll be four big humans... but when I read this, I'll always remember. Sometimes Michael and I just literally look at each other and say, "What is our life?" But we also say it out of love :)

The day after he taught himself to ride his bike, he couldn't wait to get back on it.
He rode it up and down our street for literal hours. Probably over four.

Ice cream after dinner, but protect it from the dog at all costs.

Bike to work day!
Even thought none of these people are going to work today.
But will ride for Chick-Fil-A sandwiches.

Camden's face was being particularly dramatic about this haircut,
but he wasn't whining or complaining at all,
and the combo was just making me laugh.

Asher's curls! He skipped the last couple haircut rounds because I just love them.
But, he was so sweaty after all his bike rides.
Time for a fresh cut before Florida.

Sometimes I wait for naptime on Wednesdays to run my errands for a little solitude.
These three heard my plan and wanted in on it.
So we found solitude together :) :)

We turned around at dinner in Denver and spotted these cousins at the bar hahaha.
I thought it was hilarious that the bartender hadn't kicked them off. They were watching Mr. Bean haha.

First big show!
They really loved it.
Thought Bennett asked during intermission if they were real people, so,
I think the whole concept was just kind of blowing their minds.

A fun night in the city with our cute older boys.

A free concert with Dr. Noize and noisy he was.
He had a song unknowingly go number one on a Satellite Radio kids station,
then got a call asking if he did kids shows and he said yes.
He hung up and his wife was like, "No you don't?" And he said, "Now I do!"
Haha he was very entertaining and the kids loved it.

Got this picture from our cute neighbor down the street.
They have a sign in their window that says S or NS 
(Snack or No Snack)
So the kids know when they can knock on the door and ask for a popsicle. 
They're so cute.

Dinner outside to skip the clean up.

Oh that dear new floor.
Didn't think we'd see our old floor so soon.

And some new holes in the new basement. This flood was a total pain.

These fans were so loud. We had about 5 running downstairs and upstairs from Thursday night to Monday morning.

A Friday guided nature walk.
First sighting of a rattlesnake in the wild!

I loved that this was mostly older people and my kids.
Everyone had such a nice time.

Asher wanted to kick a pinecone with me the whole.time.

This guy was fun to spot.

This ranger found and preserved a bighorn sheep skull,
and she loved telling the story. The boys thought it was so cool.

Bennett met his swim goal this summer! Date night with mom.

His goggle ears and his banana snack were just making me laugh so much.

So then he embraced it.

Michael timed Lane 1 the whole day and Westin had that lane for his first race.
"Dad, shave off 10 seconds!" Haha.

Our sweet hoarder.
This post-date night check made us both laugh,
so many little pieces of his life surrounding him. SO many :)

My rolls rose :) This was cracking Westin up.

Feeling More At Home

 

Michael:
has been at work for 4 weeks! That feels like a nice little benchmark to hit. It's going really well. The boys love that his schedule is pretty standard now and they don't have to keep relearning it all the time! He took me on a date Saturday and it was so fun. A bike ride on the trails that run from our house, by the elementary school, to the Power Trail, which is a bike trail that connects just SO much of Fort Collins. We rode a couple miles up to a farm-to-table restaurant and then walked around afterwards to check out their gardens and chickens. They also had lots of other stores around to look at, and it was such a cute area. Then we rode our bikes on home through the trails again, with tons of bunny sightings and chatting about all the things three boys don't really let you chat much about. Dates are the best. He also took us all to tour some gardens earlier that day, and then we went to a local ice cream parlor that a neighbor had given us a gift certificate to. It's been around for a while. Westin won with his Huckleberry ice cream order, so delicious. Everyone wears masks here and takes social distancing seriously. So, even though we're finally getting out a bit more, there are always reminders that life is not normal right now. And I know we're all getting more and more anxious for knowing when it won't feel like that anymore.

Maddie:
had two afternoons this week where the boys played at our neighbor's house while Camden slept, and I painted away while watching Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist. Painting requires a special kind of show -- those ones that you don't need to give your full attention to but you need something going on to keep you company. Enter Fuller House. I had been listening to a podcast about book publishing because things are gearing up with my project with Kindal. That is honestly my number one motivator -- tied with the fact that Camden will soon be mobile -- in busting out projects as quickly as I can and then moving on to more important things. Kindal and I have spent countless hours for countless weeks on this book and I'm so excited to see it get off the ground soon. We're aiming to get it in Easter baskets next spring! Our date this week fueled my soul more than I can even communicate. We need to get better at weekly date nights. School has always been a hold up with that because I felt guilty paying a babysitter so often. But honestly, we're to the point that I'll feel guilty for being the mom that comes around who doesn't go on date nights more than I'll feel guilty about the babysitting investment. Priorities, people.

Westin:
is a bike-riding, connect-four playing, reading machine! He doesn't want to read books to me, but I don't want him to lose all his awesome progress. So, he reads a book to me to earn 5 games of Connect Four. He also wins more of those games than I'd like to admit. We're to the point that if I'm playing Connect Four while thinking about furniture purchases and painting projects, he wins. But if I'm fully invested and thinking about Connect Four, I can usually take him. But he's five, so... not sure what that says about our future. We went to the library for the first time since March and the boys loved picking out some books. We'll probably go weekly again even though it'll just be returning and choosing books and no story times or hanging out. But it's something. Ok, I don't even know if I'm supposed to write this but I'm going to because I keep laughing about it. Westin has reached the age where we're feeling like he should be fully independent in the bathroom department. He's a perfectionist, and hates change, and hates when his hands (or anything...) is dirty, so... he'd much prefer an assistant rather than taking care of business by himself any day. But we just told him what needed to be done and that he's on his own for all jobs that involve toilet paper now. Well, the next few days he'd get really grumpy every time he went to the bathroom. "This is the worst... I can't believe I have to do this..." (Similar to many, MANY thoughts I've had while changing diapers or doing exactly what he's doing. FOR THREE LITTLE BUMS A DAY, EVERY DAY, just saying.) As a side detail, Westin is super birthday-minded. Always talking about whose is next, what dessert he wants, what meals we'll eat for our birthdays, etc. So, yesterday, during a moment of particular grumpiness coming from his unwanted independence, I heard Westin yell from our bathroom, "Ugh, this is the worst... -- 'Mama, when it's my birthday you have to wipe my bum!'" And we just died laughing. 

A new family birthday tradition?

No.

Bennett:
Oh Benny boy! You love cooking with me, so much more than usual lately. Yay for kitchen islands, it's all I dreamed it would be. Especially if it had barstools. But I'm learning my purchase cycle is a week or two of really thinking about it, a week of searching, then a week of knowing what I want before I actually just bite the bullet and buy it. Give or take a few weeks for each step. So, no bar stools yet BUT he loves pushing a chair over to the island. We've made cookies every Sunday because our ministering lists are pretty long and those boys are huge helpers. Who needs to get the Bosch out if Bennett holds the mixers while Westin holds the bowl and I just keep adding ingredients? It's great! They're in it for the cookie dough and honestly, same. Bennett loves the bunnies in our yard, loves playing at our neighbor's house, loved going on a date to Costco with daddy on Saturday, and loves to bring me tons of rolly polys (potato bugs, if you're from Southern Utah and I am) and have me count them with him. Counting is a slow and steady milestone with this cutie. I just want to put it on record that I've given more patience than I ever knew I had to this teaching process. Let it be known, this is one of my current shaping experiences. He calls seven "eleven" every time and misses 8 and 9, but other than that we've about got to 10. I think we're learning what else is going to maybe come with his speech delay but I just don't want to do anything more than our best efforts each day with lots of love right now. We can learn more about what we need to worry about later, but for right now, families are all just doing what they can to get through this weird time.

Camden:
my cute baby boy. He screamed from his crib because he'd rolled onto his stomach and hated it and couldn't get back over this week. His mobility is really behind but I look at his progress and not where he's at, and I see steady progress all the time. It's just slow and on his own timeline and it's ok. Bennett looked at some family photo albums this week and thought all the baby Westins were baby Camdens. They really do look so much alike, I love it. Camden started a new thing this week where he just screams when I try to nurse him before bed, so I don't, and then he cries and cries at midnight for a late night feeding. Uncool. I'd be happy to drop the bedtime feeding and be down to mornings only, but if he's going to wake up in the night again I'd rather he just nurse before going to bed. But slowly and steadily we're finishing up our nursing journey.

How many times have I said slow and steady in this post. Speaks volumes about this stage of life.

The House:
I want to start documenting what we're accomplishing step by step, so the house is getting weekly shout outs now! First two weeks: All kitchen cabinets painted and shelves lined. Next week: Right side of family room done. This week: Finished the left side of the family room shelving and cabinets, plus the trim on that side, plus the walls of my entry way and hallway and part of our mudroom. After I paint the wall behind the shelves, reinstall them, paint the final wall and some trim, the kitchen/living area will be almost done! We also ordered a table/chairs for our eat-in kitchen spot, and a bed for our room. Our room is the most un-done spot in the house -- currently just a mattress on the floor and we're living in the guest room, which is where all our bedroom furniture landed in the move.

Oh moving. It's a process... just so, you guessed it, slow and steady.

Butterfly House

Wannabe Stowaway on Camden's Stroller Wheel

You can barely see it, but the sun looked like such a crazy red dot with the smoke from the fires near us.

This salad was so good! I ordered it all because the menu said it had pickled watermelon rinds in it,
which had me like whaaaaaat,
but then those weren't in it and I never even noticed because it was so tasty.