Utah: Great's

We stayed Saturday night in Mapleton and then on Sunday evening we went to my grandma's and grandpa's for an extended family party.  Oh how my heart and soul misses these.  Somethings happens to my spirit when I am around my whole family.  I love them all so much and haven't seen some of them in years.  All my little cousins have or our getting married and I got to meet a lot of their spouses.  I am so glad we could do it at my grandparents house. 

We had homemade ice cream.  It was the best!

And hung out on the deck

The kids played in the yard and the orchard

My grandpa's garden

One of the main purpses of the get together was to take this pictures.

My grandparents and FIVE great-grandkids born to them last year.  Aren't they all so adorable.  My cousin, Hayden, is a very talented photographer and offered to take some family pictures for all of us.  We did it in my grandparents 100+ year old pear orchard.

My kids with their great grandparents

All of their great grand kids except for my two nieces, Addie and Maya - they live in St George now.

Utah: The Driving

The kids and I (Jason had to work)  went to Utah for the 4th of July.  We hadn't been in almost a year.  Dane had never been in the car for more than 20 minutes (from one side of Highlands Ranch to the other) and had never slept or napped in a place other than his crib.  So needless to say I knew this was going to throw him through a loop.  But I knew it would also be good for him.  We did a "trial" run 2 weeks before we left for Utah and took a day trip up to Rocky Mountain National Park - 2 hours away.  Dane screamed the whole way there and the whole way home.  WE were all pretty defeated and just imagined doing that for 7 hours straight.  

We left Saturday and Dane went right to sleep.  It was supposed to take us 7 hours becasue we were staying the night in Mapleton at Jason's parents house.  I knew it would take longer.  I was hoping for 8 or 9.  But I had NEVER traveled this far with a baby so I really had no idea.  Dane slept for about 30 minutes until we hit traffic - but was happily in his car seat until we hit Veil - we stopped in Veil for dinner and to nurse.  Veil should have taken us 2 hours but because of traffic it had taken 3.  We were all so thrilled with Dane.  we couldn't believe he had been so good for 3 hours!  We were feeling good about life, and then...

We got back in the car and he screamed from Veil to Mapleton.  That would normally be a 5 hour drive - but we stopped, seriously, at every town trying to calm  him down.  Nothing worked.  At 10 o'clock I called Jason from Green River telling him I wasn't above calling it quits and getting a hotel room.  Fortunately his screaming made my blood boil and I was quite on edge, so I wasn't at all tired.  We rolled into Mapleton about midnight.  It took just under 11 hours and he cried for 8 of them.  It was intense.  We DID find out that he would be quiet for a little bit if we BLASTED some songs that Jason normally sings to him with a strong base line (If Praying Were Horses and Bound for the Promise Land).  We listened to them on repeat for about 2 hours straight.

The BEST part though was the kids.  Talk about selflessness, long suffering and love unfeigned.  They weren't upset that he was screaming - they only cared about how to help him.   They worked together, got creative and switched seats a lot so that they could all take turns trying to help him.  Not ONCE did someone complain about the crying.  It was amazing.  THIS is one of  the reasons I wanted to have more babies - to teach these qualities to my kids.  There are some qualities best taught in home and family.  And these are they.  

Just so it's not all about Dane.  I also want to documents some other pretty cool things about our driving.  1) The Bishop challenged the young men to memorize The Proclamation over the summer.  Brock hadn't really started so we listened to it over and over again while driving.  We all now have the first 2 paragraphs memorized.  2) I was wondering how we were going to do Come Follow Me while on vacation.  Would we just skip?  Should I try to do it everyday?  I didn't know.  We had a lot of time in the car - not just the ride there and back but also all of our adventures.  I would put on a chapter and we would listen to it and talk about it in the car.  It was perfect.  I think it was one of our best weeks ever of CFM.

Here we are on one of our pit stops.

It really took us all 10 days of our trip to be emotionally ready for the trip back home.  But amazingly he was wonderful!  He slept a ton and when he was awake he was happy!  It was delightful.  The 7 hour drive took us 9 hours.  We stopped twice for an hour each to nurse Dane and let him have a break.  Stay tuned for (hopefully) a post a day on our Utah trip.  There are about 12 posts.

Fathers day

Megan loves her daddy.  She took it upon herself to ensure that Jason had a wonderful fathers day.  She woke up VERY early to make him these waffles.  She made him a cake out of play dough and paper flowers for the table.  I spend most of the afternoon making him shrimp egg rolls.  We are pretty lucky to have him!

Exercise

First off - After tomorrow's post I am all caught up, sort of.  I have lots of pictures - but they will go into posts at the end of the summer like "hiking" "swimming" and "park days".  I still have to to our Utah trip. So that will be next week.

I realized about 2 weeks ago that I am VERY VERY out of shape.  Nursing didn't jump start my metabolism like it did in my 20's.  I am tired a lot and not very agile.  I realized if I added another pregnancy on top of this things could look pretty bleak at 36 or 37.  I had been feeling like I needed to start working out - but I said to Heavenly Father "show me an hour a day where I have time to do that".  Challenge accepted.  One day I saw an hour.  Dane "wakes up" and nurses at 5:30 or 6:00 am and goes right back to bed.  Jason doesn't leave for work until 7:30 or 7:45.  I could go then.  Instead of putting Dane back to sleep I could just stay awake and go.  I wouldn't have to sacrifice anything else - just some sleep.  I started this week and have gone everyday.  It feel amazing (well yesterday I felt sore).  My days are much more productive.  I feel happier.  I seem to have more free time.  I also eat a good breakfast.  I am not eating crap during the day.  I am not tired.  I also get a lot more done in the mornings since when I get home I just hit the ground running.  I really hope I can keep this up once school starts.  That might be a more Herculean effort. 

Jesus essays

When cleaning out my kid's backpacks I found these. For their end of school essay the kids were supposed to write about a person that is important to them.  Completely independent of each other - Megan, Brock, and Noah all wrote about Jesus (I don't have Brock's picture I guess).  That's pretty amazing. 

Dane - again

Can I even go a month without a post of just random Dane pictures.  I don't think so.  But he is just so dang cute and we love him so much!

I LOVE having a video monitor.  Sometimes I just watch him sleep instead of do my stuff.

Jason is the sweetest dad.  Dane was having a hard night and Jason cuddled him and sang to him. Our children love him deeply.

End of School

Here is what our yard looked like on the second to last day of school.  And this was at noon when it had melted - there was about 5 inches!!  We have had a crazy spring and summer!

Anyways - the last day of school came way to fast.  I LOVE summer and always look forward to it.  I love having my kids home all day.  But this year I was dreading it and then I felt all this guilt for dreading it. But regardless of how I felt - the last day of school came... So Dane and I had to jump in with both feet... ready or not. (This is written mid July - Summer has been awesome and I don't want the kids to go back to school ever).

Also... my oldest...my first born was leaving elementary and going into Jr high.  And then its over, I had them all so close together and I KNOW that as soon as Brock does one thing its just boom, boom, boom they have all done it.  Truth be told I am very excited for him going into Jr High.  I think it will be great for him and I think he is ready.

They had a 6th grade "clap out".  Madison got to leave class and join me and Dane.

Here we are driving to school on the last day.  I will be taking Brock and Lincoln to Jr high next year and hour early so this is it.  The last time we are all in the car before school.  Last time I can tell them a story from the scriptures on the way to school becasue we didn't have time for our morning scripture study, last time we can say a prayer in the kiss and go lane, last time I have them altogether before I send them off into the world.  This view is my whole world and I hope that it was enough.

Some last day of school pictures.

We kicked Lincoln out for a family picture

Below is their first year all at Trailblazer together in 2016 (K, 1, 3, 4) and above is their last day at Trailblazer together (2,3,5,6)

Lincoln felt like Dane should be in the pic

First day of school at Trailblazer in 2013 (First grade and Kindergarten)

First day of Kindergarten at Mountain Shadow Elementary

Last Day at Trailblazer Elementary.

Megan's teacher let her leave class to come to Brock's graduation

Now, here is where the story get's good.  The 6th graders got to go home after their graduation.  So at 9:30 Brock was done for the day.  The other 6th graders were doing a bunch of different things.  Some were going to Jump Street, some were going swimming, some were going to lunch - Brock got invited to all of them - but he said no to them all.  When I asked why he said, "I want to just hang out with me and you on my last day of 6th grade."  WHAT!!  I actually very vividly remember my last day of 6th grade and the party that we had at Katrina's house.  We planned it for months.  I was ALL ABOUT my friends - I was blown away and very humbled that he wanted to hang with me.  So I got a babysitter for Dane and we went to a movie.  I hope he stays this sweet forever.

Then when all the other kids got home we had a neighborhood ice cream party.