back to blogging... i know you missed me

We have moved to Virginia. We love it here. So much to do and see. The kids love our neighborhood. I love that I don't have to hover over them while they play like I had to at our home in Georgia. We have gone on more family bike rides than we ever have. Its great.

Since being here I have really only taken pictures with my phone and I haven't yet uploaded them. I could do it. I know its easy. I am really that lazy. Next time I will overload you with pictures of all our recent adventures. I promise.

Remember all the "fun" stories I have told about Jonas? Well Noah is doing his share of "fun" around here so look forward to the "the joys of boys" series. In fact right now he is climbing on the built in bookshelf knocking everything over and while writing this post I have pulled him off more times than I can count. Yay!

Anyway, sorry its not the update you were looking forward to. I am just letting you know that we are alive and doing fabulous. Right now we are looking forward to school to start. It wont happen until Sept 6th. They got out for the summer in Georgia in May. MAY! did you forget I said they do not go back until Sept. That is a long summer. 3 1/2 months. Don't you feel sorry for me? You should.

Well I promised chocolate chip cookies to Jonas like hours ago. I should probably go do that now. Plus chocolate anything sounds really good.

until next time....


p.s. sorry about the randomness.

thoughts for today

Today I realized that I haven't posted in a long time. What's up with that. It could be because I have been crazy busy with 4 kids and an even busier husband. We may have also took on more than we probably should have lately.

We are in the middle of soccer season with both Abby and Aaron. Abby has really improved this year. She has gotten a lot more aggressive which is great since she is still half the size of all the other girls. I have tried and tried to make it out to Aaron's games, but have only managed to make one and half so far. But he was pretty good from what I saw.

Abby is also still doing guitar once a week and she loves it and even showed off her new rock star abilities during a primary play a few weeks ago.

Emma is still dancing away every Wednesday with tap and ballet class and will be having her recital this May. (May 14th to be exact... grandparents... just sayin)

Jonas and Noah are becoming the best of buddies and just like predicted are beginning to plot against me. Jonas will help Noah get into things he knows she shouldn't. It's lots of fun. Noah is also always trying to wrestle Jonas and I am still trying to explain to Jonas why he cant sit on Noah like Noah sits on him. Ahhh Boys!!

Noah Is now 10 months. 10 MONTHS!! Seriously where does the time go. He just barely made it to 15% for weight and a whopping 30% for height (he is 18 lbs and I forget how tall). So he is more of an Abby than a Jonas for sure. I think he knows that and so he is already trying to show Jonas he isn't scared and tries to attack Jonas all the time. Also, big news for Noah he finally decided to on the night of his 10 month birthday to sleep through the night and has continued the trend for a week now (yea!!). This is a big deal for me and so I guess after a lot of prayer he just decided that sleeping sounded like a good idea. We put him to bed the same way and he just.... slept. It was AWESOME!! The best part was no crying involved. Noah doesn't have much interest in walking (the 3 others all were walking by 10 months), but im really okay with it. He has been such a good baby. Especially on Sunday's. I have to teach primary and with Aaron in the bishopric Noah always seems to get passed around the ward a lot. Usually he will NOT go to a stranger, but I think he just knows how it is on Sunday is just goes with it. So thanks to anyone who might have had to hold him for us. We really appreciate it!

We never really announced it, but since we got the actual acceptance letter in the mail not too long ago I think its safe to go ahead and let everyone know. Aaron was awarded a scholarship for Graduate school to to get his Masters degree. yea!! And because its a scholarship thingermajig his work is pretty much paying for him just just go to school for a year. So we will be moving to the Washington DC area mid July. We are so excited for this new adventure and cant wait!!

and since most of my pictures are now taken on my phone and I havent put them on the computer yet this one of some super cute brothers will have to do. I will post more later.... maybe in a few months

im in love

Jonas loves his tiny iron man action figure and yesterday just before bed time I showed him that he could fit perfectly in the pocket of his cargo pants (iron man not jonas). He was amazed and for an hour kept asking "where's iron man?" and then point to his pocket until someone peeked in and said "there he is!".
He thought it was so funny.
It was a good night.


This month has been a rough month.
I have found myself mean and grouchy.

I have dealt with sickness,
messy house,
laundry that reminds me of the two-headed monster that if you cut off a head two grow back in its place. except in my case it seems that at least 4 take the place of one...
and so on and so on

But tonight as I sit on the couch with everyone asleep. eating my own personal pint of ben & jerry's (yep, my husband loves me).
I cant help but remember that even though things are not going as I had once planned I am truly a lucky girl. I have a husband that loves me no matter how many melt downs in the last few weeks I have had or how many times he has come home to me still in my pajamas. I have four incredibly amazing children who can figure out just how to make me feel frustrated and pure joy all in a matter of moments. Dinner tonight was no exception. It started like every dinner... aaron and I trying desperately just to get them to take a bite... ONE bite. We sing "yo gabba gabba" songs, try to make it a game, threaten, time out, and try not to completely loose it. Then Jonas does something funny and we all cant help but laugh. Abby then somehow starts a starring contest and its HILARIOUS!
I cant help but look around the table and feel totally amazed at how great things really are no matter how hard the journey seems.

I am in love with life. my life. its amazing. and I wouldn't change any of it.

and here is another favorite moment of the month I thought I would share (just so it doesn't seem like it was such a horrible month after all)

we were fortunate at the beginning of the month to have some really nice weather and so we ventured out on a family bike ride. Emma made it maybe 10 minutes and then she just... stopped.





and our bike cart went from this





to this.


she makes me smile. they all make me smile. and these are the very small moments in my life that I cherish. and every time I go back and remember them I cant help but feel good. I have many many of these "little moments" and I need to remember them more instead of the not so awesome ones all the time.

the end.

This would be Noah.
Yep, still cute.

saying good-bye is super hard to do

Being a military family we have had to say good-bye to many friends, but this time was the hardest. The Davis family have been our friends (more like family) for a long time. We met when I was pregnant with Emma and she was pregnant with Lilli. Its going to be weird not having Shari just two doors down. I miss them so much already!!

Moses

On Monday Aaron had told the girls all through dinner that someone special was going to visit for Family Home Evening. They were so excited to have Moses come and teach us about the ten commandments!



paper beard and all!

This is Jonas

I was trying to get the boys ready to leave for the morning. I had to feed Noah before leaving and was doing that when Jonas decided it would be fun to take everything he could out of the fridge. So after feeding Noah and putting everything back I couldn't find Jonas... never a good thing. Found him in the kids bathroom.


He had taken all his clothes off and gotten into the tub and dumped out all the bubble bath. Which him being in the tub turned out to be very lucky for me since I have had bubble bath dumped out on the floor before and that has got to be the HARDEST thing to clean up. The more you wipe the more you spread and it just becomes a soapy mess. So I just decided that us going out that morning was not going to happen and just made him a nice bubble bath.



I know its not the best punishment, but when it comes to Jonas I have to pick my battles and sometimes its just best to make a good situation out of a bad one...laugh...and take lots of pictures.