San Diego

We recently returned from a 10 day vacation to San Diego. For any of you that have never done something like this DO IT. Plan it now and go. It is by far the funnest thing we do all year. We stay in a condo on a cliff overlooking the beach. We play, and laugh, and eat, and play, and eat, and swim, and eat, and dig HUGE sand holes, and build sand turtles and catch sand crabs and go to theme parks, oh and did I mention that we EAT lots and lots of good food? I only mention this because I gained 6 POUNDS while we were there. No worries I have been on the HCG diet since we got home. I am now fitting into my pants again. :D

My kids loved it... LOVED. We actually though about leaving them this year and enjoying a vacation by ourselves. However the mom in me won out and I am glad it did. They are spoiled rotten the whole trip and to be honest I don't remember ever seeing them so filled with joy.

Notice the sand EVERYWHERE on this little girlie? Yeah well this is probably the cleanest she ever was. She loved to dig in the sand and get it on her face and legs and.... well everywhere. Also notice she is holding a chip in that sand covered had. Did she eat this chip you might be wondering... absolutely along with about a pound of sand a day. Luckily sand isn't lethal.

Here is Taycee in the bottom of the huge hole we dug. It was so deep that we struck water and had to keep bailing out buckets.
Some of the crew at the beach, we are inside the hole. This picture doesn't do it justice. It was almost at deep as I am tall.

Grandpa buried Kaden. He thought it was pretty cool. When we told him to get up he lifted up one limb at a time and growled like a monster, my little Frankenstein.

Did I mention she really liked the beach? She had no reservations at all of the water or the strangers or the huge wave that knocked her over.

We spent one day at six flags. This picture really has nothing to do with the rides or anything. I think Chris was talking to the kids who were at sea world with grandma and grandpa. I just love how happy he looks. And I love him too.

All I can say is... we are buff.

Aunt Kelsey taught Kaden this neat trick... Thanks Kels.

Happy times

I loved watching her go, it was like she took all of her 20 mo. of bottled energy and released it. I also love the little tiny foot prints everywhere in the sand.

Love them.

If I could pick one picture to describe my emotions for Sand Diego this would be it. JOY and EXCITEMENT a 10 day non stop whirlwind of family and play and love and happiness. I am telling you... DO IT.

Kaden thought it was so fun to Jump the waves. Taycee wanted to try to so grandma took her out.

This game is called Ninja. If you haven't played it before you should. It is pretty entertaining, playing in the sand adds a whole new dimension.

The whole San Diego Crew. (Well everyone in our condo at least) This was Sunday before we went to church. We don't spend our days at the beach in dresses ;)

Before we left for San Diego Lisa had a bridal shower. Taycee very very much enjoyed the chocolate cupcakes.

Chillin out on the beach with a sucker. Who could ask for better? Notice also that his shirt is off. This was the very first day and I am not sure why but somehow his swim shirt got taken off. This resulted in a slight sunburn for the rest of the week. Luckily it wasn't too bad, but it was enough to irritate him at night. :( Poor kid.

That sums up the trip. And although there are 20 pictures on here I really really did narrow it down. I think I started with like 150. And to make it even better I did not spend hours editing them. In fact I didn't edit any of them. I also didn't lug around my 20 lb camera for a week. I bought a simple little point and shoot that fit in my pocket. I am telling you... it really was a vacation.

To top it all off the kids stayed with grandma for the week. So not only did I get a week vacation in Paradise, I followed it with a week of no kids. More to come on that....

Happy 4th

I love the 4th of July. It was always a day filled with fun growing up. For the last couple of years we have been in San Diego over the fourth so it was a lot of fun this year to be able to go up with my family and participate in the small town traditions I remember so well.

The 4th started with an early morning breakfast. Does everyone still look a little tired?

Then on to the Honeyville parade. (10 floats long... the perfect length)

Kaden thought he was the man....

The kids were all dancing in the street before the parade started

Kaden really wanted to ride this ride. I really didn't think he would like it. It takes you all the way to the top and then lets you drop. He insisted so I let him go....

He actually did ok. He didn't cry, but he sure didn't want to go on it again.

He like the slide MUCH Better

Another Honeyville tradition is the fish catch. Kaden thought it was the greatest thing ever. He just kept squealing with excitement

No worries. He didn't catch one. We ended the day by goin to the demolition derby in Ogden and then to fireworks. Chris had never been to a demo derby and I think he liked it quite a bit. Kaden also thought it was pretty cool that all the cars could just crash into each other and no one was getting in trouble.

Side Note....

The other night Chris asked me to look at his eyelid because it was bothering him and this is what I saw.....

Gross...no? Anyway good thing his dad is the eye guy. He was told to put a hot press on it and then try to clear out the clogged pore. Yuck.

Growing Up and inadequacies

Can I say that I hate that my kids are growing up. I still call Taycee my baby, and yesterday when I put her hair in a pony tail for the first time the rude realization hit me... she is not a baby. She is a little girl. She talks like a little girl, she has strong opinions of what she does and doesn't want, she carries a doll around constantly and calls it her baby and she thinks she needs to take her purse with her when she goes somewhere. A baby doesn't do any of those things. :( WAAAAAAA ( am I allowed to be a baby about losing my baby?)

Being a mom is hard. Maybe it is not hard for everyone, but it is hard for me. I am constantly questioning my adequacy and capabilities. These doubts arise a lot when it comes to Kaden. The nursery in our new ward is VERY structured there is a set amount of minutes for each activity( puzzles, snacks, singing, toys, lesson..) this has been very hard for Kaden. Our old nursery was pretty much 2 hours of non stop free time. He was one of 3 kids in the nursery and one of the others was Taycee. Now he is one of 12.

We stayed with him in nursery this last week and it became very apparent to me that Kaden is not like the other kids. The other kids sit quietly and play with their puzzles, Kaden throws pieces and wants to run around and play games. Now I think part of this is because he is use to nursery being run any way he wants it, but I also think he has a hard time structure. At home I do not have a set structure for every day. We wake up eat breakfast and then play the day by ear. I don't make him sit down and do puzzles if he doesn't want to. I don't have a set "learning" time each day. Pretty much sleeping and eating are the only set routines every day.

I left church on Sunday feeling like I had failed as a mother. Do most moms have their 2 year olds on strict schedule through the day? Should I be making Kaden sit down with me 4 times a day for 20 minutes learning letters and words? Is he still struggling with his speech because I somehow am just not doing it right?

Kaden has always been behind with his speech. The doctor contributes most of that to the fact that he had constant ear infections from 3 mo to 2 years. He didn't hear the way most kids do. All of his sounds sounded like they were coming from underwater. Once we put tubes in his ears he started improving, he makes great improvements each month, however he is still not where most kids his age are. This is hard. It is hard for him and it is hard for me. Because of his speech he has a hard time explaining himself and reasoning the way most 3 year olds do. As a result his actions and behavior also seem a little behind. I want to help him but I find myself at a loss of knowing what to do. We have taken him to 2 different speech therapists all who say that he is behind but now far enough to need speech therapy.

Why oh why don't children come with an instruction manual. For trouble in speech see page 98. For fixing your inadequacies as a mother see pages 99-210.

So as of this week we are on a schedule at our house. We have a set time for learning activities and craft activities and singing time and outside time. There is still free time because I just can't accept that my 1 and 3 year old have to live the life of an adult. I think that kids should be able to be free and have fun and play with marbles if they want and then go play in the dirt if they want. But I also realize that the world is changing and kids are expected to know more sooner.

If anyone has ideas for me I am more than willing to hear them. I feel sort of like I am drowning and grasping for something to keep me afloat.

Here is to schedules and learning to talk!

Dirt and weeds

Before we moved into this house we decided we would pretty much tear out everything in the back and redo it. If you notice in some of these first pictures whoever lived here first put in this HORRID rock pad. Basically they laid down a bunch of rocks into a square and cemented them all together. It was a major safety hazard for little feet trying to navigate around. You can also see a run down fountain in the corner next to the tree. We didn't really want a big tub of water for the kids to fall in so we decided that would have to be torn out to.

We went to Home Depot one night and rented a jack-hammer. ( That's right, I actually ran a jack-hammer and it was sweet) We tore up the entire patio in one night. Next we moved on to the fountain. What we hadn't realized about the fountain was that it went 3 feet into the ground and it was solid cement. We had already returned the jackhammer so Chris had to break it all up by hand.
about 12 hours later the back yard now looks like this...

These are the piles of rock and fountain and cement built up on the side of our house.... we need to get a truck to haul them away.

The kids have spent some time outside with us as we work on this project. Unfortunately most everything is dirt right now. We are finishing up the sprinklers before we lay sod and seed so when they come outside they usually end up looking like this...

As you can see Taycee doesn't like being dirty. We were watering the yard with a sprinkler this day. The kids thought it was great fun to play with the water but then Taycee did a belly flop down the dirt hill and ended up one big muddy mess. Thank Heavens for bath tubs.

We are hoping to have a green fun yard for the kids by end of July. Wish us luck.