Family PIctures

A few months ago my sister-in-law took pictures of the boys for Aiden's 3 year pictures and Patrick's 5 year pictures but we snuck in a couple family pictures as well.  I love, love, love how they turned out and I'm so excited to hang these pictures all over our house.

Fall Randoms

It was teacher appreciation day at school so both boys dressed up in Grandpa Clifford's ties.

 Picking plums at Grandma's house.  The boys liked pretending that they were picking berries for gummy berry juice.

 We went for a walk and Aiden thought he was so cool looking through his noculars.

 Karolyn was singing at our piano and Aiden went over and sang Child of God with her.  Sooo cute.

 We draw a good couple of hours every single day.

 We've also been working hard finishing the room above our garage that will become a yoga studio

 Patrick's kitten died(one of the saddest days of my life, and definitely Patrick's saddest day every) so we went to Four Paws and rescued it sweet cat there.

 One Sunday we decided to drive up to the Palisades Dam and it was beautiful.  Patrick literally cried because he wanted to see more cool trees.

 Carving pumpkins!

 And later, painting pumpkins.

Piano lessons

Earlier this year, I started the boys on the violin.  While Patrick liked it, Aiden really didn't and honestly, it took more patience than I had at this age with the boys.  And I decided to take my own advice that I've always given parents and start the boys on piano before starting them on any other instrument.  It was a great decision and it's so sweet to see the boys play the piano.  Both are catching on and exceed any expectations I had.  I couldn't help smiling when I heard Patrick say, "Mom!  I want to have piano lessons!  You didn't give us lessons yesterday.  Can we do it right now, please?"  Mom joy when my kids ask me if they can do their homework and piano lessons.

The day I took these pictures, I was able to play a duet with both boys and it just made me happy.

Aiden at Pre-school

This year, we are having pre-school in our house.  Grammy Blackburn wanted to start doing pre-school again and we had extra rooms so we did it here.  It's been sooo nice to just have Aiden go downstairs to school.  Again, he's 3 and pretty young so technically he doesn't need to be at pre-school yet but he loves it.  I love it.  I make it sound like I want my kids out of the house all the time and I can't say I don't like getting time alone to get things done, but also my kids really, really love the whole school environment.  I can't say how grateful I am for that.  I don't know where they got their outgoing genes from, but between always wanting to socialize, not being scared to talk to any adults(most of the time), bearing their testimony every fast sunday and everything else, sometimes I can't believe they're my kids.  But I love it.  Anyway, here are a couple pictures of Aiden at preschool(Patrick joins in sometimes so he's also in some of the pictures).
                                                 

Aiden, you're such a sweet little kid.  You have a feisty and stubborn side but man do we love you.  You are and have always been our little peacemaker and it's exciting to see you growing and moving into new phases of life.

Kindergarten

I'm really behind on updating about our life for the last couple months but I'm going to try to catch up in a few, hopefully not too long, posts.  So, Patrick started kindergarten.  Guys, this was a struggle on what to do.  Patrick is the youngest in his class.  He only turned 5 a couple weeks before school started and I'd heard so many stories about why I should wait and how boys do so much better waiting until they're six.  I get it.  Jon and I spent so many nights/days talking about what to do.  Patrick's young but he'd already been to preschool for 2 years and his teacher said she thought he would do better going to kindergarten.  Patrick gets bored at home and honestly I'm not that mom that comes up with a million crafts to do with them, or plays endless amounts of games with them.  We play but honestly, when it came down to it, mommy instinct said that he would do well in kindergarten and honestly, our relationship would benefit from him getting out and socializing with kids for a few hours.
And it's been great.  Even after putting Patrick in school, I went back and forth on taking him out but he's loved it and after talking to his teacher at parent teacher conference, I was reassured that we made the right decision.  Patrick loves to learn.  If he could go all day, he would.  He loves being around other kids, the teachers, going to the library, recess, PE and every other part of school.  From day one, Patrick has been a go-getter and I keep trying to think of him as different than he is, but he constantly reminds me that he's ready for things and that he's becoming an independent, intelligent, social, fun loving kid.  He's not perfect.  I'm not perfect.  No one is, but man, that kid surprises me all of the time.  Enough rambling, here's some pictures from his first day.

Patrick's kitten was sick so he took her to the vet with me before school.

My little stud.

Patrick, some day you'll hopefully read this and just know that I'm so proud of the young man you're becoming.  We have rough days but I'm so grateful you're our first and such a great big brother, son, student, grandson, and everything else.  We just really love you.

Patrick turns 5!

While I'm on a roll, I might as well post about Patrick turning five!  His request was that his party was purple and pink with superheroes...cool.  I can totally do that?  I changed it up a bit with doing navy and plum colors with batman decorations hanging everywhere.  His response, "that's fine.  I like blue too."  He kills me.

This was the night before when I didn't have all of the food out.  His other request was to have ice cream, cookies and pop.  And then when he went to his cousin's birthday, he decided blowing out candles was needed as well so he settled for a cheesecake.

Aside from the food, I wanted to keep things casual and EASY so we threw a pool party.  We broke out multiple pools, filled up water balloons, bought water guns and let the kids go crazy(although somehow the adults ended up as wet as the kids).

Opening presents before the party.

 Overall I felt like he had a really great day.  Aiden got a little jealous and as he put it, "this is not the greatest day ever" since Patrick kept saying it was the greatest day ever. ha

A few things about Patrick...

-He wears his emotions on his sleeve.  This one is soooo hard for me.  I've always been one not to wear my emotions on my sleeve, and I've always struggled with people who do.  Passion is not my strong point.  He's teaching me to have patience with it and I love how deeply he loves

-He is the most social kid I know.  He would play with others all day, every day.  We just had a garage sale and he would go up to people and say, "Are you finding everything alright?  Anything I can help you with?  Did you see the stuffed animals?"  It cracked us up

-He's soo excited to start kindergarten

-He loves art and puzzles

-He started violin and piano but piano is the one that stuck.  After 17 years of teaching, I can honestly say he will be my favorite student

-He plays hard.  And when I say hard, I mean really hard

-Nothing is half way.  It's all or nothing.

-He can be my biggest helper in the world and I've actually come to rely on him a lot.

-He can be extremely hyper and has a lot of energy.  Another thing I struggle with but it brings a great dynamic to our family

-He loves to read/look through books

-Everyone is his instant friend and if someone calls him a friend back, he is over the moon happy

-Sometimes he's so intense he scares other kids away which is so sad for me to see

A quote that stands out this years:

P: Mom, can I brush your hair?

Me: Not right now, bud.

After several times of him asking I give in so he starts brushing my hair and looking at me in the mirror 

P: I want to brush your hair because every girl deserves to be a princess, mom.

Where does he get that from!?

Man, we love this kid.  He has definitely been a struggle, particularly for me, but I step back and see he's teaching me sooo much.  I love him with all my heart.  Truly.  And I can't wait to see him take that next step in life in kindergarten.  Ahhh!!  That's a weird thought.

Hi.

Where do I even begin?  It's been awhile.  Like, all summer and I have holidays and birthdays to catch up with.  Patrick's birthday will be in a separate post but let's start with a recent photo of the boys saying hi. :)

We've been so busy playing out in the sun so sometimes we look like this:

The best $10 we ever spent provided hours of entertainment

And somehow Patrick convinced us to get a kitten(he's super cute with her, though)

And because of that, someone apparently thought our house was the drop off for spare cats

So now we have two.  Although this cat is seriously the most chill, sweet thing ever

And then the 4th of July happened!

Aside from Christmas, I think we successfully convinced them that 4th of July is one of the greatest holidays ever.

And because I'm always up for an adventure, we went up with my family to West Yellowstone

I LOVE that this little boy still wants to hold my hand all the time

I decided we needed an art wall so we got naked and broke out the paints

Sometimes we are on top of things and remember to do family home evening.  This particular Monday, we decided to talk about temples since Patrick had been asking a lot about them.  I was in a particular crusty mood but 3 seconds on the temple grounds and I felt really peaceful.  And the boys think it's the most beautiful place ever as well and Patrick has since asked if we can go to ALL the temples.  We'll sure try, bud. :)

I've had friends leave the church...I've had my own doubts in the church but seriously over the last few years I've developed such a love for this gospel that nothing could turn me away.  I would literally be lost without the peace the spirit brings and without the knowledge the gospel brings.  I don't even mean that lightly or generically when I say my life would literally have fallen apart without the light of the gospel.  It's made me a better, wife, mother, daughter, and person all around and logically...it does all make sense.  :)

And lastly, I want to remember this little boy's fascination/obsession with green and blue.  Even to the point of having to have one blue sandal and one green sandal.

Man, he just brings joy to my soul and heart.