Camping!

Picture overload, but hey I like to remember it all.

Shelby helped David set up the tent

 Shelby loves how to find little critters and somehow she finds them everywhere we go

 Kadence only wanted her caterpillar on a stick

 But then she got brave enough to hold it

 The girls are learning to take pictures

 Kadence sat for quite some time tying grass and leaves to sticks to make a scroll

 They loved throwing sticks in the river

 Love him!

 Love them!

 I brought my ipad for music and the girls loved playing "freeze dance"

 Ready for s'mores!

We all enjoy camping so much and loved being outdoors.  We are also excited we found a new favorite campground that is only about 20 minutes from our house which is even better!



So Blessed!

This day was simply supposed to be when we crossed "wear dresses" off of our summer to do list but it was exactly what I needed to snap me out of a funk I've been in.  It's been hard to move.  It's hard to feel so far away even if I didn't see most people very often.  Just knowing there was a distance between us has been hard. Its harder to have to pretend its AMAZING for your kids.  Its exhausting.  I love our new home, I can already see many positives about this move but its still tough.  I know that it was the right thing to do and will be so great for our family.  The honest thing is that often I have to repeat "Only 3-4 years....only 3-4 years" over and over to cope.  As negative as this may seem, its the truth.  Then add to that trying to clean the old house, about 2 trips average that we've gone to Ogden a week, the need to unpack, get registered for school, find jobs, etc.  I was struggling but yesterday I hit a breaking point.  I looked at our menu and saw "French Toast" was on the menu.  I did NOT want to eat French toast.  I am a food person and having to eat something I don't feel like seriously ruins my day. (I know that is ridiculous, but again its the truth) I knew our deposit should be returned soon and was really hoping it was in the mailbox so that we could just get take out instead of eating French toast. Well, instead of a deposit we got a letter from our insurance saying they have denied coverage for Kadences neuropsychological testing.  We feel it is really necessary, the dr also felt it was needed but according to the insurance company it isn't medically necessary.  So....we get to pay for the testing and I have to eat from the menu.  That might seem so small but it was just enough to push me over the edge.

 

Enough of the negative though.  I only post it to try and let everyone know that I am real, honest, and my life isn't perfect and doesn't always go as planned.  I get down.  I need support.  When I am quiet, that's when I need it the most.  Well, today was the day when I got a dose of how incredibly blessed I am.  It started as planned with the girls getting in their dresses.  They were new ones just to make it more special.  I loved watching them get so excited.  The excitement was almost too much to handle as they had to decide which jewelry they would wear so they could look just perfect.  It was an amazing morning with two of my favorite people.

 We then welcomed our first visit from friends.  We have lived in Logan for 3 weeks and have had Jeff, Ashley, Breanne and Sherri visit.  Not that family isn't fabulous, it was almost 3 weeks ago that they came.  (Except Jeff but he isn't able to stay as long as he used to which is a bummer)  Well, yesterday I got  a text from Megan saying herself, Dave and Odessa wanted to come visit. Yay!  I was so excited.  I saw her like 2 weeks ago, but again the distance between us makes it seem like longer.  We had a great time.  She gave me the most perfect Bday present ever and I absolutely loved it.  I mostly loved that she was inspired by a visit we had to Rainbow Gardens when I said that I liked something. She recreated it for me and knowing that she made it makes it that much more special.  Not to mention, I usually think about presents for so long.  I put so much effort into finding the absolute perfect gift for people.  I try to make sure I have paid enough attention to what they like.  The problem is that most of the time people don't notice what I like.  (David tries super hard and is getting better but I rarely say I want anything so its hard) That made this gift double perfect.  We went to Chilis, went to the playground, played, chatted and I thoroughly enjoyed the time they were up here.  After they left I asked the girls what they wanted for dinner.  I was still full from lunch, David wasn't too hungry and I didn't want to cook a full meal just for the kids.  Shelby said she wanted "Hot dog cereal" which made me laugh. David and I weren't fond of their ideas so we just hung out in the kitchen listening to youtube videos and the girls and I were singing our little hearts out.  When I watched them sitting there, coloring, singing  I realized just how lucky I am.  I literally had to hide the fact that it brought tears to my eyes.  They are the most precious things in this world and I love them more than anything.  We decided that we would pick "teams" and head to the store with a $10 budget/team for dinner.  Shelby requested we went to a store with little shopping carts so she could push it.  Luckily, Lees has them and is right up the street.  Shelby was so fun to watch as she pushed the cart around and tried to stay in the budget while getting a meal.  David said that Kadence would stop her cart and tell people "you go ahead, I'm not in a hurry" which was just the cutest thing.  We came home with interesting dinners but it was so fun and I loved how excited the girls were about it.

Shelby and my meal:

 Kadence and Davids meal:

 They were so incredibly proud!

 I loved my yogurt, juice, mac and cheese and donut.  I saved my sucker for later.

David enjoyed his bowl of sausage, apple, corn and Cheetos.  They saved their cookies for later.

 

Shelby then came up with different buddy rules.  Buddies have to stay together, buddies have to snuggle, buddies have to play together, etc.  It was way cute.  It was again exactly what I needed.  As if this wasn't enough, David came home from the storage shed with these:

(You can see my present in the background)

I don't love getting flowers all of the time.  I don't love getting them on the usual days like Valentines and our Anniversary.  I love to get them rarely and randomly.  NEVER after a fight either.  It was the nicest surprise to end the nicest day.  Every once in a while I get in a funk.  I'm unable to think positively.  I'm unable to look at my life and see the positive.  I'm just simply a rotten brat.  Then I have a day like today that snaps me back to reality and I realize just how incredibly blessed I am.  It recharges me and I'm able to continue through life positively.  I'm able to be excited for the changes in my life and not just fake the excitement for the kids sake.  I love my life.  I am so lucky to be surrounded by the people who love me and those whom I know I can rely on.  I am so blessed!

Summer

I have been leaving my electronics home or in the car often so I don't have pictures of all our summer adventures, but here is what we have so far.  The girls made a summer to-do list and we are going to try to accomplish all of them.

"Climb on the roof"

 "Popsicle Day"

The girls picked their favorite popsicles and we ate them all day long

 "Scratchers"

Daddy might have added this to the list

 Jeffy came with and won much more than we did.  Ha!

 S'mores

Wasn't on the list, but it was fun!

 The girls decorated "Cinderella's" grave, Kadences dead guinea pig.

 Shelby kept asking if we could catch a cricket because we can hear them all day/night at our house.  David found one in our garage one morning. (Thus the crazy hair) 

 We tried to go paddle boarding but David didn't realize he packed the fin until we were already up there with the paddle board. So the girls played for a minute instead. We'll have to cross that off another day.

 This is what we found right where the girls were playing, sheesh!

I'll have more summer posts as we go on and hopefully I'll remember to keep taking pictures as we cross stuff off their list.

ER visit

We moved up to Logan on Thursday but didn't get done until well after bed time so we didn't get a chance to explore.  Friday we finally got that chance.  We went to eat with Sherri, Ashley, Breanne and Jeff at Firehouse Pizza. The girls have ben so worried that we won't have a good pizza place like Ogden Pizzeria.  They were very happy with Firehouse and loved that they got ice cream sandwiches after their pizza.  Once we got to our house to show everyone the new place, Shelby very persuasively talked us into going to the community playground.  The very first thing Shelby wanted to do was Underdog on the swing.  She loves that! The only problem is that she leans forward when she gets nervous.  I have just been waiting for her to fall off.  Well, I pushed her clear up high and turned around to see her face.  To my surprise she was flung clear back onto her face.  (She leaned forward and let go) I almost died laughing! I seriously thought I was going to pee my pants.  Luckily David was composed enough to see if he was ok.  She was fine and the girls went off to play.  Kadence was a little traumatized though because she always says "Will you push me, but I do NOT want an underdog." All us adults were chatting when all of a sudden Shelby dropped to the ground screaming.  She had rolled her ankle.  I'm the queen of "You're fine" and tried to tell her that.  This time was different though she was really hurt.  I picked her up and loved her as David checked her ankle.  It seemed fine enough so I set her down and made her walk.  She walked with a limp which I assumed was because it was sore.  After everyone left we went to Lees to get gogurt and string cheese.  While we were walking in I noticed that Shelby was limping.  I got my "She might really be hurt" face on and David and I put her in the cart to ride while we shopped.  When we got home she went upstairs to go potty and I all of a sudden heard crying from the stairs.  The poor girl couldn't put any weight on her foot and was trying to hop down the stairs.  We debated just waiting until morning to take her to the dr but knowing my luck she would really be hurt and I'd feel like a terrible mom.  (I hate when I tell them they are fine and it turns out they aren't) David said we may as well bring her in.  So basically less than 24 hours in Logan and we toured the ER.

 Once the dr got there, she was totally fine.  She tip toed, hopped, etc.  She did everything he asked.  He didn't even xray it because she was obviously fine.  The discharge nurse asked if they could have popsicles.....sure, why not?  I mean yes it is 11pm but I also just paid $250 copay for nothing so I may as well get happy girls out of the deal.

They were THRILLED with the popsicles and Shelby was fine from there on out.  She would tell me it still hurt for a couple days but overall she was just fine.

Moving

I am NOT a fan of moving we can just put that out there right now.  We moved May 30th, but we still aren't all the way finished moving our things out of our old house and cleaning it up.  Hopefully soon we will be done because driving back and forth is really wearing on all of us. 

 

On moving day we had the help of Aaron, Curtis, Sarah and Kylah.  Here are the girls playing in the Uhaul

 Here's the family getting ready to head up to Logan

 It took the biggest Uhaul, Aarons truck, a flatbed trailer and a few more trips with the Jeep/trailer to get our stuff.....that is a lot of crap!

 The girls were SO good.  The just played all day in a tiny corner and didn't complain at all.

 Around 9pm Kylah decided enough was enough and went to sleep for the night

 About 11pm we finally were able to eat dinner.  We rewarded the girls with some McDonalds and I was glad there was a Jimmy Johns not too far away because I didn't want a nasty hamburger.

 The next day the girls got to go in the "time out spot" or "Harry Potter closet" Its a storage space under our stairs that I told them I would shut them in if they were naughty.  They have been dying to go in it so we let them before we covered it up with the phone booth.

I tried really hard to get the girls rooms and the tv/toy area completely unpacked and set up as soon as I could so the girls could feel like we were at home and be more comfortable.

TV area:

 Kadences Room:

 Shelbys room:

 The master bath/closset:

 Toy area:

 Another view of TV area:

 Sitting at the bar on new bar stools Grandma and Grandpa Gerry bought:

Kitchen:

I'll try to remember to add more pictures if I remember once we get the rooms completed.