Happy Birthday Maya!

My darling girl is five years old and will go to kindergarten this year. I can't believe how quickly she is growing up. I want to dedicate this post to my sweet Maya Ruthie.

 This year Maya had her first friend party. We threw a carnival party in our backyard and thanks to lots of help from family it was a huge success (there were twenty four kids!). We played lots of games, got our faces painted, ate popcorn, cake, and ice cream, and just ran around!

   

 The Birthday Gang

  

   

 "Clownie" the Clown (Maya Named me) 

 The last couple of months have been filled with recitals and preschool graduation. It is so fun to watch Maya grow up and be involved in things.

 

 Maya with Mrs Boni at her preschool graduation. Their program was adorable, now off to kindergarten she goes!

 

Maya with Mrs. Gigi at her "Play a Story" piano recital. She decided to quite this class because "it's SO boaring" she claims. I was a little sad because I loved the program and thought she was doing great. I don't want to force her (she's only five:)) so maybe we will revisit the piano in a few years.

"Indian Lands" dancer in Peter Pan. She had a wonderful performance and loves to dance. Watching her dance makes me so happy and proud. I loved every minute of my dancing days and hope she will too! 

 I'm so grateful for our little surprise baby! She is growing up to be a very beautiful, caring, loving, friendly, busy, and sassy little girl. I love her more than I can say. Happy Birthday love-a-bugga! 

 (P.S. I haven't posted in so long I can't end without saying a bit about my little co-boy! Isn't he so stinkin' cute!? This little man is so fun. He's full of energy and is so sweet. He loves cars, balls, running outside, jumping, and basically anything he can do to move. Those of you who know him know he is full speed from sun up to sun down. I love you Cohen!)

Happy Halloween!

Maya and Cohen both got the whole idea of Halloween this year and had a blast. Cohen was an adorable little puppy (which is perfect for him, he LOVES dogs!) and Maya was the cutest witch/princess (last minute costume change, thank heavens for dress-ups!) around. This was also the first year we stayed in our own neighborhood and it was great! Cory took the kids out trick-or-treating while I passed out the candy. So fun to begin new traditions with our little family. Hope your spooky celebrating was just as fun and memorable.

Pumpkin, pumpkin, who wants a pumpkin?

We had a fun family outing to Pack's Pumpkin Patch a couple of mondays ago. We ran around in the hay maze and then strolled the patch for some great pumpkins. Maya and Cohen both had a great time! I love that Cohen is old enough to really enjoy things like this, he was running saying "puntkin, puntkin!" until he face planted in the vines (not so fun). Needless to say it was a fun night enjoy the pictures.

P.S. It is hard to get both children smiling and posed at the same time for pictures....I did the best I could!

St. George

We spent Labor Day weekend in St. George with our little family and Papa and Grandma Leslie. We had a blast! Cory and I wanted to go on an inexpensive family vacation this year over the holiday weekend and thought St. George would be perfect...thanks to Ron and Les for letting us crash their weekend down there! Our time was filled with LOTS of swimming (sorry no pics), hiking, zooma rides, seeing The Little Mermaid at Tuacahn, and spending time together. What a fun weekend, hope all of yours was just as fun.

Maya and I were thrilled to have Grandma Leslie join us to The Little Mermaid. The show was AMAZING and Maya loved it! It's so fun she is getting to an age where she and I can go to things like this together, I love them and I have a feeling she does too (Me, "Maya did you like the show?" Maya, "No I LOVED it!")!

At the bottom of The Narrows getting geared up to squish through. Cohen did awesome he only freaked out once with a "Hold me Hold me" when things got a little tighter. It was so fun to do this as a family last time we were in St. George Cohen and I got left behind for naps...not anymore!

A Day on the Harley

Cory and I went on a day trip to Bear Lake on his Harley. We had a really good time just being together. Our little group consisted of Ron and Leslie, Brandon and Marinda, and Joe and Kim. All I have to say is I do not envy Cory's annual bike trip that lasts a week, one day was plenty for me!

Growing Pains

Maya 4 years old

Cohen 21 months

There are lots of things you learn when you are a mother. You suddenly find yourself the holder of a variety of titles; chef, laundry service, maid, friend, the referee, problem solver...etc. the list can go on FOREVER! One of the biggest things I've learned is that life never stays the same and neither do your children. As soon as you begin to feel confident and proud, like you have it all figured out and you are understanding your children perfectly, the curve ball hits and your onto a new stage/phase of your child's development. Then, once again, you find yourself thinking okay, okay what do I need to do differently and how can I navigate through this? I have come to believe these changes are Heavenly Father's way of keeping us mothers (or maybe just me) on our toes and constantly learning. These moments are my growing pains.

I recently experienced one such episode of "onto the next phase" growing pains that was so hard for me to figure out. I felt like I was in no man's land and had no idea what I was doing or how to even address certain situations. That week was full of several, "Um...how do I even respond to this" moments. I hated feeling that way. I find myself just wanting to talk about my frustrations when I am in these moments of mothering. Cory is great, he listens and gives his advice but, let's be honest, it is much harder when you are with your children ALL DAY and they are not. What seems so big to you maybe doesn't seem that big to them. Then there are those times your "I don't know what to do" vents to others are met with criticism. That's the LAST thing any mother needs, aren't we tough enough on our selves? So, in the middle of feeling frustrated I decided I just need to pray and turn to our Heavenly Father, He won't judge me and He will help me. What I learned was so significant and has made such a difference in my perspective of "growing pains". Our Heavenly Father has given us these special little spirits to guide, teach, and love in a way they are just on "loan" to us for awhile. He wants us to ask for help even if we think it's silly to ask. Maybe that is not a new revelation for some of you but it was for me. I can always ask Heavenly Father to help me think of things to get Cohen to eat more vegetables or how to react to a sassy little Maya (or what ever the current hard thing is). I am so grateful for His love and His influence in my life as a mother. I'm sad it took me so long to realize He does care about all our "little" worries but that is something I will never forget! So here's to all those mom's out there who ever experience frustrating times in raising children, keep it up we're doing the most important work of all!

Home Sweet NEW Home!

We've been in our new house for almost one month and still can't believe it's ours! Building was so fun and stressful at the same time. There were so many decisions to make and things to pick out. When it came time for the interior to be finished I was just hoping everything would look good together, and it does! One of the best things about building is you get to make your home exactly the way you want it. Cory and I are so happy we decided to take this route, we absolutely love our new home! The best part of all is knowing we will never need to move again (married for five years have moved four times) because there is plenty of room to grow (hooray for our final/grow old together/grandchildren come visit us at house!).

Along with a brand new house comes an unfinished yard with lots of dirt. Needless to say that is way too much temptation for a four year old and twenty one month old. I gave up on day two from trying to keep the kids out of the mud and just decided to let them enjoy it. One of our favorite activities in our fancy dirt filled yard is to fill the kiddy pool with water and have fun "working" in the dirt and making mud. The dirt fun will end tomorrow (bitter sweet) because the yard is getting put in! I'm looking forward to many more memories in our backyard.

Maya and Cohen "Working"

Maya was "shaving"

Cohen's cute muddy feet

So, with our new house also comes uninterrupted internet access. Hopefully that means I can stay on top of our family blog. No promises but here's to trying!