TWO

This month has not been a great one for blogging! I have fallen even farther behind than I ever thought possible and sometimes I just want to give up and forget this blog exists.... but I love it too much! It has replaced my scrapbooking addiction (for now) and is the place that I do the best about recording family events and all those moments I want to never forget. So, I will return... eventually.

Things are a little crazy at the moment. We just returned from my FAVORITE vacation ever where we spent 4 magical days at the Happiest Place on Earth and loved every minute! I can't wait to blog all about it.... But I took over 2000 pictures.... so it may take awhile.

We returned and ONE day later, Darren had reconstructive surgery to replace his torn ACL. I didn't think it was such a big deal, but it has been! I guess I didn't realize how much it would take him out and how little he would be able to do. And in return, how MUCH I have had to do. I have a very helpful hubby, which I probably take for granted WAY too often, and I am really starting to realize how much I appreciate all that help because I don't have it. It has been hard for me to keep up. The day of his surgery, I tried to be brave and make it through everything at the hospital, which is very hard for me. Ever since I was a little kid, hospitals have done something to me physically which frequently result in me passing out, or nearly passing out. Well... it happened again! I was SO close to making it through the day and as the nurse was giving me all the discharge instructions, I started to have THAT feeling. Maybe most people wouldn't know the feeling, but having passed out more than my fair share of times (including in sacrament meeting), I immediately knew the feeling and asked the nurse for some juice and told her what was about to happen and tried to put my head between my knees as I have learned to do, but my head didn't make it that far. It instead fell onto Darren's bed... unconscious... At least I warned them and I was sitting down! I then spent the next half hour puking in the recovery room and we had to call my little brother to come and pick us BOTH up because I couldn't drive home. Awesomeness! I felt so weird for the rest of the day and couldn't really recover. Darren and I were both on the couch while total chaos was going on all around us and the next day I realized how much damage was done! It left me so much to catch up on, especially since I wasn't totally done unpacking and because I had a birthday party to get ready for and NO hubby to help. Luckily, some friends were amazing and did a lot to help me and somehow, the party happened. And we got through the week. And I survived.

Which brings me to the REAL reason I sat down at the computer to post.... TWO years ago yesterday, this happened. Our sweet Avery came into our family and forever changed our lives, like all babies do.
Sometimes it feels like this baby was SO long ago, and other days, it feels like just yesterday. It is hard to explain, unless you have your own babies that grow up much too quickly, and then you know just what I mean.

Is she not the sweetest thing ever???
And... 2 years go by and she is practically a little girl! I can't believe how grown up she seems all of a sudden. She is talking SO much and even making full sentences these days. She loves her friend "Hal" and asks to see her just about every day. She is SO independent and says, "No, Avery do it" about 100 times a day, especially when it involves buckles, which she is somewhat obsessed with. She has started to love to really play with Logan and Rylee and I love watching them interact. When they are not fighting, of course. She LOVES to tease and has the funniest sense of humor and she now scrunches her face up and closes her eyes in just about every picture I have. She asks to "nuggle" and it melts your heart. She asks for "God" every night when you tuck her in, which means "I am a Child of God" and it is so sweet! She is the funniest little story teller and uses her hands and her facial expressions so cute. It just cracks me up! I just don't know what we would do without her! I will hopefully catch up and get all her birthday stuff posted...someday.... But, I just wanted to say how much we love our baby girl! Happy #2 Avery!!! Please stop growing up so fast!

And one more quick thing. I went to the Relief Society broadcast on Saturday and it was Fabulous! I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED Elder Uchtdorf's talk and really want to read it again soon. If you missed it, READ it! It is amazing! I loved the part about being happy NOW and about making the RIGHT sacrifices and his amazing testimony of the Lord's love for us. Truly inspiring stuff!

Kicking off the Summer...

I was doing SO good on posting for awhile, but I am falling further behind again! Here is one last post for June, which was actually going to be my first post, but somehow it got forgotten... It was going to be a bit of a recap before I posted everything else, but now it is a little bit of a repeat of other posts....
Here is how we started off our summer! June 1 - School is out for the summer!!! Logan on his LAST day of Kindergarten! How did that happen? They had snow cones and cleaned their desks with shaving cream and got into a shaving cream fight! He had a great day!
All the kiddos sending Logan off for one more day of school. June 1 - Here is a new summer project - A garden! Darren built and painted these boxes all by himself! Such a handy hubby! I love how they look! And we did have a lot of plants in them.... but almost everything broke off or blew away in a windstorm. We transplanted most of this from our little greenhouse garden, and a lot of it just didn't make it! So sad! We replanted a few more things and ended up getting a little bit out of our garden, but I guess it is a learning process... June 3 - Uncle Jeff graduated from high school! Way to go!!! June 4 - Miss Avery got her first big girl hair cut and is looking much too grown up! June 4 - My sister, Heather, announced she was expecting! Yeah for a new cousin!!! I think I was one of the first people to know. The kids can't wait. She just found out it was a girl, too. So fun! Rylee and Ethan after the big announcement. Logan was camping with Dad, so he wasn't there and Avery was asleep in the car for all the fun! June 6 - 10 - Logan went to British Soccer Camp and had so much fun...even if his World Cup team didn't win any games. June 7 - 9 - Rylee went to a fun Princess day camp and loved every minute! She had a great time dressing up and making crafts and going with her friend, Madi. June 9 - Avery fell asleep on one of our runs to pick up the kids from their camps. I think it is so funny when she sleeps this way! June 9 - Avery thought she was so funny with this hat and Rylee's necklace. She loves to try on clothes - especially hats and shoes and accessories - All girl!!! June 9 - We survived salmonella! Logan started with diarrhea and had a fever off and on for a couple of days. I took him to the Dr on Tues (and he missed soccer camp) and they had me take a stool sample. The results didn't come in until Friday and we found out he had salmonella! Poor kid! And by then, Avery had started and then Rylee started on Saturday. Luckily, the girls were able to get antibiotics right away, so they didn't have it nearly as long as Logan. I had no idea it was contagious until I talked to the Dr on Friday, so then we were on quarantine for a few days. Not the most fun way to start out our summer... We watched LOTS of movies and had several PJ days. We found out later we contracted it from our pet frogs! June 10 - I think this was one of our movie days. She cracks me up when she sits like this!
June 13 - Miss Avery decided she wanted some more cereal.... and made a BIG mess on the table! Good thing she is so darn cute! June 14 - I caught the girls eating their apples together on the couch. They looked so sweet! Sometimes they can be so nice to each other. Some times.... Avery LOVES apples! I love to hear her say that word - It is so cute!
June 16 - We finally got rid of salmonella and got to have a couple friends over. The kids were so excited and were waiting on the lawn for about 15 minutes before they got here. They looked so cute sitting out there together and it just looked like summer to me. I tried to sneak in and get some good pictures without them knowing... but they spotted me! This baby LOVES to swing!!! She stands by the door and can't wait to go out all day. She is really starting to like the big girl swing now, too. I just love where we live.... the view from our playground. It makes me happy! Logan and his little buddy - They have so much fun together! They were in the same Kindergarten class and got together to play a few times over the summer. They are cute little friends! And - he has a sister just Rylee's age. The first time Logan went to play at their house, Rylee was in the car in her Pjs, and their mom invited her in anyway. I was a little embarrassed, but she really wanted to play, so I let her go. She had a great time, and these 2 are now cute friends, too. Silly girls!
Going down the slide - It is finally feeling like summer!!! June 17 - Rylee had a little party, so Logan and Avery spent the whole afternoon doing sidewalk chalk. This is pretty rare for Logan because he doesn't really like to draw. He has been watching Nemo a lot lately, so he decided to draw pictures to tell the whole story. He got really into it and had so much fun! I loved watching him! Hard at work! Here was his little helper...
Kind of hard to see because of the basketball hoop shadow, but this is the start of his story - The anenome. The pink is the anenome and if you look close, you can see the little orange fish. I wish I would have taken notes because now I don't remember what everything is, but he did such a great job and couldn't wait to tell Daddy and Ry his whole story. This one has the pink jellyfish and Crush, the sea turtle and towards the end the whale spouting...So proud of his masterpiece! June 17 - Rylee went to a fun pajama party at her friend's house down the street. They got to watch a movie and she got her face painted! She LOVED it and she was SO sad when it was gone the next day. I guess she thought it would stay on forever!
June 17 - We went to Summerfest downtown, which is an art festival close to our house. We go every year and love it, but this year wasn't my favorite. We went on a Friday night and it was SO crowded! I usually am so excited for the food, but the lines were so long, we ended up going to Savannah's BBQ instead. The kids had a good time though. They love getting out and doing things. I think Logan had an emergency potty stop while we were doing pictures... He was there though. June 18 - We babysat my nephew Ethan for a couple of days while my sister and her hubby were in Disneyworld. It was so fun watching our little "twins" for a few days. They were so funny - They fought a lot, but they were also cute little friends. June 19 - We celebrated our wonderful daddy on Father's Day and treated him to breakfast in bed! He is the BEST!!!
June 22 - Rylee went upstairs after swimming and got in the tub in her suit and used mom's shampoo all over her legs while she was still in her suit - Little Stinker!
June 23 - Rylee drew this picture of Mom. Can you guess what the round circles with dots are??? Yep... She told me they were boobs!
June 26 - We did lots of celebrating of our Logan's 6th birthday. First, with a family party and a pretty awesome lightsaber cake!
June 27 - Then on his actual birthday with lots of presents, dinner at Chuck-A-Rama and a trip to the movie Cars 2.
June 28 - And finally with his fun friends for a Jedi party! June 30 - We spent a good part of June at the pool for swimming lessons for Logan and Ry. It was the last 2 weeks Mon-Thur. We loved staying after and swimming with our friends!
June 30 - And Logan played his very first season of t-ball with mommy as his coach. It took up a lot of our summer nights as it was every Tues/Thurs night for the month of June. It was a lot of fun and I think we both learned a lot! June 30 - Avery cheering on Logan at his last game. She is such a big CHEESE!
June 30 - We lost something on the last day of swimming lessons and had to go to the office to check lost and found. The kids found this Kyle Beckerman and had to have a picture. We love Kyle and Real Salt Lake!!!
I was surprised but Rylee wanted a picture, too.