New Trucks :)

I've always loved spoiling my kiddos, and even when we travel to California, I spoil when necessary. Which means that when we went to Once Upon a Child to see if there was anything cute, I got these two cute trucks!  They are originally $11-15 online, and these were only $4.50.  Awesome!!  I also got Grace three gymnastics leotards, and all three combined didn't cost as much as one outfit from her gymnastics center!  Wow.  

Amanda

Papa and the Yogurt

A super cute interaction with Papa :)

Papa was in the fridge getting his coffee fixings...

G:  Papa, I want yogurt.
P: You want yogurt?
G: Yeah...(she grabs one of the small containers and walks down to the table).
P: Ok, you have yogurt.
G: (After a minute or two) I can't open it, Papa.  Help me Papa!  (Takes it upstairs to him).
P: You need help?
G: Yeah.
P: Ok.  I'll help you.  Give it here.  (Grace puts it on the counter for him.  Papa opens it).
P: You ready.  I got it ready for you.
G: Okay.  I get a spoon.  (Gets a small spoon).
P: You got a spoon?
G: Yeah.
P: It's a small spoon?
G: (Grace looks at it).  Yeah, is a small spoon, Papa.
P: Ok, lets go to the table.  You coming?
G: Yeah, I going.  (I help Grace get in her chair...there's a pillow on it to boost her up).
Papa puts the yogurt at Dado's seat.
P: You come sit right here.
G: Nuh uh.  I at my seat. I want to sit here.
P: You want to sit there?
G: Uh huh.
P: Ok, you sit there.  Here you go.  Here's your yogurt.
G: Thanks Papa.
P: Your welcome.  You eat now.


How adorable!!  I just thought this was so darn cute I just had to document it.  I love when they interact so much :)

I love being here.  I love that Grace loves to see her Papa and Dado.  I love that they get along so well.


Love you all.

Amanda/Mommy

Visiting Project RIDE

Whenever we go to CA, I always make sure we stop by Project RIDE.  This place was such a godsend to me when I was in high school, and I know that if I hadn't met Brad, I'll bet I'd still be living in California with a veterinarian degree and working at that facility.  But boy that sounds so boring!!  I love having my kiddos and my family!  Here we are visiting the horses, Tina and Jean.

 For some reason Grace was really nervous to visit with the horses, and it was really hard to get her to want to pet them.  I didn't really understand that...but we just went with her flow and things went well :)

 Levi takes after his sister with his love of animals :)

And the gang :)  I'm so glad I have these two ladies in my life, and now in my kids' lives.  They are such blessings to us!  And my kids are blessings to them!!

Amanda

We're in California!!

We made it.  We finally got to California to see the grandparents!!  I'm so excited, and so are the two kiddos.  Grace was so upset when we had to wait an extra day since little Levi wasn't feeling up to par.  The first leg of the trip was pretty rough because we left midday so the kids were already tired and cranky, so it was a LONG 6 hours.  Once we got to the hotel they LIT UP!!  Levi crawled everywhere he possibly could, chirping and screaming in happiness, and Grace went to the first book she could find (The Bible) and started reading while she was standing up.  It was so adorable.  We were all settled about 9:30 pm but I had such a hard time falling asleep.  I think total I got about three hours.  Levi woke at 3 am so I figured we'd head out then because I felt awake enough, and he was SO UPSET about being awake and tired.  We headed out about 4 am and got to Dado and Papas house around 11:30 am.  The second leg of the trip was awesome because they slept most of the time!  HURRAY!  Pictures :)

We didn't get pictures with Dado yet, and we haven't done anything exciting yet.  It's just TOO DARN HOT.  More to come :)

Amanda

Grace's First Parade

Grace had a day where there were two things going on.  She could either be in a fun run and get a medal, or she could be in her very first parade.  So of course she chose the parade and I'm so glad!!  Here's my girl!

 This is the first time I saw her :)  She was SO HAPPY!  Waving like crazy, yelling to me, blowing me kisses, and was just all lit up.

By this point she was ready to get out and while she was still excited, she was ready to be done.  This is right around the corner from where they can unload, so she didn't have very long to wait.  I was so proud of her for being in the parade with her Journeys group, and WOW!  Hundreds of people got to see my beautiful girl!!!

Love you Grace!

Mommy

Kiddos

I love my kids.  They are so cute!  See...

We had so much fun playing together today.  We played with building blocks and made a house for the little stuffed animals we'd pulled out, and then of course we had to pull out the purses, credit cards, keys, pretend lipstick etc.  Levi LOVED the bag that held the bracelets :)  After we got tired of all this, we took the box of balls out to the living room and got to play with those for some time.  

Grace got to go to Bear World today!  She got to go with her therapy group and had SUCH a great time!  I asked her to pet a goat for me and she said she did :)  Hurray!!  

I'm getting things ready for Grace's 6th birthday party!  We aren't going to do a party at the cabin this year because Grace will have already started school and I really want to keep a good sleeping and home schedule for her.  Here's her invitation.

CUTE!!!  We're obviously having a rainbow theme.  We're going to take her to the Idaho Falls museum because they have a huge Pirate exhibit, and then we'll have her party at home and I'm hoping she'll have some little friends over!  And then maybe she'll want to wear her pirate outfit for Halloween.

All in all, a good day.  I love my kids.

Amanda

TIME FLIES!

I can NOT believe it's already been more than a week since I posted!  Nothing has really happened.  Gymnastics and therapies, the typical.  During the summer there isn't usually much to report.  We did go to the spina bifida clinic and Grace's bladder is spasming, which is something that shouldn't be happening.  Her bladder has grown some, which is fabulous, and can hold about 250 ml of fluid, so that's a good amount.  Now we have to start catheterizing because they want to see if we can't get her dry if we can train her body to hold it.  Yeah right.  So every 4 hours we cath, and if she's wet in between the cath periods, we go down to 3 hours.  I'm really hoping this won't last long because she HATES being catheterized, and I feel just the same about doing it.  

It seemed to take FOREVER to get there!  A blowout for each kiddo, a new outfit for Grace because of it, stopping for potty breaks, me sitting in the back most of the time, and constant noise...shew.

 Playing in the super awesome play room!!

 Grace's prize for doing so well with her CMG...bladder test.

Levi hanging out and waiting until we have a room available for the Spina Bifida Clinic.  Grace is off playing with a little girl that was also waiting.

And right when we got home, the kids went right to the books.  I love having bookworms :)

Other than that, there isn't much going on.  Oh, we're going to put her on some mood stabilizer/hyperactivity medication because it's gotten to a level that is seriously uncontrollable.  

Ok, so fun stuff coming up.  We're headed to California!!!  I can't wait!  I'm nervous just because it'll be me and the kids, but we should be fine.  Grace is super excited to be able to see Dado and Papa, as am I.  And I really can't wait for them to see how much she's grown and matured, and to meet little Levi.  I was wanting to take Grace to Bodega Bay because she's always asking to see the beach, but there have been discussions going on about a huge earthquake that's going to cause a tsunami and I really don't want to be watching it come in.  So I might just take her to a river around their house and call it a beach.  

Well, it's late and I'm tired.  Love you girly.

Amanda/Mama

Brother and Sister

Grace is definitely getting used to having a little brother around, and though there are times when the jealousy monster comes to light, she's a great big sister regardless.  Here they are!!

Cuddling during Levi's 7 month old pictures :)

Look at my adorable kids!

Levi did his silly crawl/army crawl all the way down the hallway and to this mirror so he could play with Grace :)

And here they are cuddling :)  A few minutes later it wasn't as fun, but that's ok!

Love to you both kiddos.  Love you both forever.  And so does your daddy!!

Amanda

We Visited Ciara!

It's been FOREVER since we saw Ciara.  The last time we saw them was when Allison, her middle child, was a newborn.  And now she's three and almost 4.  They were in Utah and so we just quickly packed up after I ran the Color Run 5k and went to see them.  Grace had such a great time with her nieces and nephew, as well as so many cousins!  Here's some pictures :)

Joseph Jr., 4 months old and Levi, 7 months old.  Crazy how much they match in size, right?

Allison, 3 yrs and Grace, 5 yrs.  They clicked so fast!!  Allison came over to Grace and wanted to sit by her to eat dinner :)

 Andrea, 5 yrs 7 months and Grace, 5 yrs 10 months.  I'm so glad they were able to meet :)

And the girls with Levi!  They each got to hold him but he cried and cried when Andrea held him.  Silly boy.  Granted, it was 10:30 and 3.5 hours passed his bedtime.  

It was a great trip.  VERY tiring because we left from Idaho at 1 pm, got there at 4 pm, and headed home at midnight, getting home at 4 am.  Shew.  Thanks to Brad for driving for so long.

Amanda

Cabin Trip

Well, I didn't take my computer to the cabin with me and realized that was a bad decision because then I couldn't update Grace's blog!  But anyways, we had a great trip but were happy to be home.  It's that whole, "glad to go but glad to leave."

Grace absolutely loves the cabin, and is always asking to go.  So she was really happy.  Brad was already there and that was a good thing because there wouldn't have been any room!  We got to have Kailyn and Elaine come visit and so we had a full car.  Plus, we had to pick up a huge load of beef from the butcher for all the work that he did at a cousin's ranch last year.  4 wheeler rides, going on walks, throwing rocks in the water and visiting family was what we got to experience :)  And one exciting adventure was when we took the (supposedly fixed) Razor out for a ride with Kailyn and Elaine and we were SO FAR AWAY from the cabin when it decided to stop working.  We hadn't told anyone where we were going or how long we would be out because we didn't know either of those.  It was just one of those random rides where you go see the scenery for however long you'd last.  So no one came for us.  We walked for an hour and a half, Grace walked the whole time, until a truck came down the road and gave us a ride home.  We were SO thankful for him!!  It was hot, the sun was so bright, and we didn't have any water.  Thankfully, I had the baby carrier and so Levi was covered by the sun and I didn't have to carry him in my arms, but poor Kailyn!!  She had to keep carrying Elaine from one arm to the other.  But the guy couldn't take us all the way up to the cabin because he had a large trailer he was hauling and wouldn't have been able to get out of the cabin driveway!  So we started walking the long way to the cabin but Grace was just SO DONE.  So she waited with Kailyn and the littles while I walked up to get Brad to pick them up.  They were eating dinner.  And of course, when Brad and Brian went to get the Razor, it worked perfectly.  If I wouldn't have just waited awhile at the Razor to let it cook down, it would have taken off.  But we were so worried about walking in the dark that we didn't think to wait.  Thanks to the ladies for trying to push Brad to come get us, but he said we were learning a lesson for not telling where we're going.  Grr.  Piece of junk Razor.  

The men worked and worked on the bunkhouse.  By the time we left, the roof was on the building!  Shew!  They worked so hard.  We also went to the 4th of July bbq but Grace was tired and her allergies were tough, so she was a little miserable.  I was as well!!  Our allergies were crazy bad up there.  

All in all, it was a good trip.  Levi is just about ready to crawl and worked really hard at it while we were there.  Grace helped him so much with tempting him with toys and things like that.  

Now we are home and today is actually quite a wonderful day.  Nothing to do, no therapies or anything else.  It's been so quiet and calm.  Grace sat on the couch and read her books for about 20 minutes, which is something she hasn't done for so long.  

Of course we had to play with pudding, right?

And then there was the whipped cream :)

And shaving cream, but that was just for Grace since the littles would eat it.

Amanda