My Cup Runeth Over

I just came down from putting my daughter down for the night, and I'm on cloud 9! I love my children so much, and they delight me in so many ways. Every night, my daughter just smiles at me and lets me hold her so sweetly. She wraps her arms around me, and gives the best hugs and kisses. Today she put her arm around my neck and started patting it, saying, "ok? ok?" She smiles at everything at night, and loves it when I squeeze her tightly giving her kisses. She is so hard to put down sometimes because I know all too well that this time will pass quickly, and in just a short time, I won't be able to do that anymore. Tonight I laid her down in her bed, and she looked at me and said, "appy?" (translation, "happy"). She wanted me to sing I've Got the Joy Down in My Heart, but I know that she was also saying that she was happy. I am happy, too, and I'm so thankful for what God has given me!

Life Since Utah

It sure is great to be back home! Two days after we got back from Utah, the kids and I left to visit my Mom's house, and ended up staying until Wednesday, August 3rd. My sister's boyfriend, Dave, was in town, and it's always nice to visit with him when he's around. We basically did a bunch of nothing; but it was nice to just enjoy each other's company. My Mom bought a water table for the kids, and even though it was 100 degrees outside most days, the kids loved it.

Since we've been back in our own home, we're starting to get back into our routine. Aubrie really seemed to miss her bed, because the first morning back, she just laid in her bed and kept looking around and falling back to sleep. I think she slept until 9:30 that morning, on and off, just enjoying her room. It took Evan some more time to readjust to his room, though. He kept yelling for us if an airplane got too close to the house. I think he was scared that it was going to hit the house, or something. But he's been fine for the last few days, and I think he's adjusted back to the sounds.

There are some things that we definitely miss about Utah; one being the weather. It's just SO hot around here, and it makes it hard to do anything outside. Chris and I have plans to put in some shade in our backyard soon, so hopefully that will help a lot and we can be outside more often. This is going to sound strange, but we also miss the recycling. It feels so wrong to throw out some of our trash when we know that it could easily be recycled. It's just so much harder to do that around here. And, of course we miss the company of some great people! Evan hasn't mentioned Ansley as much as I thought he would, but I hear him whispering her name, or saying something about Bud & Joy's house, when he's playing to himself.

Now we have to get ready for another school year to start. Chris is already hard at work again, getting ready for his first year as a Head Band Director (alone). The girls (Kaytlynn & Delaney) will be coming in another week or so, and my kids will start Mother's Day Out again at the end of August. I will hopefully be able to start up my lessons again very close to the beginning of school, but we'll see how that goes (there have been some crazy scheduling going on with all of this education stuff happening this year). But we are happy to be home, and ready to start another fantastic year!

Evan's 39th Month (3 years, 3 months)

I just realized that I hadn't written any monthly updates for Evan in 4 months! Wow, how time flies!

The biggest change in Evan over the summer, is that he is now fully into the "why" stage of life. For example, this was a conversation he and I had yesterday in the car:

Evan: Why is that Daddy's truck?
Me: Because Daddy is driving it.
Evan: Why is he driving it?
Me: Because it's his truck, and we're following him in case his truck messes up (battery issues).
Evan: Why is he in front of us?
Me: Because he drove off first.
Evan: Why did he drive off first?
etc, etc, etc.

Chris and I feel so lucky to have the kids that we do, because even on their worst day, it's not really that bad at all. They are still cute and sweet. I have to admit that I feel like I'm pretty good at dealing with them when they are having "one of those days," but sometimes I need a break, too. Chris is amazing when he comes home from work and can tell that I'm on a short leash with all of the "why" questions. He just picks it up from there and lets me have a little space, which I definitely need! I don't want to fly off the handle with Evan just because I'm feeling tired of answering his legitimate questions. I know that he needs to ask them in order for his development to be on track, but sometimes it's hard to answer the same thing 15 times. (Love you, Chris, and Evan!).


We haven't been making him take a nap for the last few weeks, and I'm still not sure how I feel about that. In my heart, I know that he probably still needs a nap. But he actually does alright until we put him to sleep at around 7:30. I can tell by 5:00 or so that he missed his nap, and he consequently gets into more trouble because he's tired. He's also been waking us up early to take him to the potty (which is awesome!), but it makes for one tired kid. I think I'm going to try and put him down around 1:00 today and see how he does.

Speaking of potty training, he's doing really well! I think that I am the lazy one when it comes to his training, because I feel like he should already be in underwear (except at night). But he is doing really well most of the time in telling us that he needs to go. He's doing great when it comes to pooping, so that's nice not to have to change any of those kind of diapers anymore! We'll see how it goes, though.