Reilley Reunion

If one weekend (Wednesday - Saturday) doesn't give you your mountain fix I highly recommend spending the next one in the mountains too. Because lookit.

Josh's step-dad's family had a big fat reunion up East Canyon and we were excited to join them!

I've never spent much time with the Reilleys, we go to big stuff (weddings, funerals, Christmas parties) when we can, but they are typically short, and crazy, and all of Frank's siblings look the same (Chris.....Ryan.....) and have the same name (Kari, Carrie, Kaylee) and frankly I can't keep the straight and that's embarrassing. 

The good news is that with 2 whole days I was bound to figure out who was who.

The other good news is that since Frank (Grandpa Reilley to my boys) has 2 brothers who may as well be his twins. And since Little John has a special love for Grandpa Reilley it was like buy one Grandpa get 2 free! 

Friday night as we were all singing around the campfire, John wanted nothing to do with snuggling on my lap and went in search of his one true love. He wound up on Chris's lap (or was it Ryan? See? I still can't tell...) and happily snuggled in for about a half hour. When Chris got up to chase his own kids and passed Little John to Grandpa the look on John's face was priceless. "Wait a minute...if you're grandpa, and YOU'RE grandpa...... TWO GRANDPAS!!!!!" He snuggled right back into Frank and went to sleep. 

In addition to that evening Grandpa had a shadow almost the whole weekend. Fortunately he's a good sport and managed to seem unannoyed by the extra (adoring) baggage. 

This is John learning about life from Grandpa Reilley.

This is John chasing Grandpa "ohm-pa! ohm-pa!" and blowing him kisses to lure him back.

Tommy on the other hand, simply couldn't be torn from the playground.

Side note: "camping" is a relative term here. We slept in a tent and cooked over a fire. But there was a swimming pool, a playground, a mini golf course, tennis, and trailer hookups & condos at this same resort. I'm still not really sure how to camp in that environment - it's a very strange mix for me. But I will say that buying ice in your campsite seems like a really great idea.

He ran the slides, the climbing walls and the swings straight into the ground trying to keep up with his sort-of cousins who he deemed "a little-bit they are". Because the response to "is that blue guy my cousin?" is "a little bit".

Tommy has recently discovered the joy of "swingin' that thing around like spinning and puking on your tummy". 

He's still working on the concept that everybody has a name and doesn't just go by the color of their shirt that day. He still thinks that his friends in the neighborhood Cole & Payton are "that blue guy and that red guy" because that's what color their shirts were. Since he'll only see these "little bit cousins" once a year, and his parents can't keep track of their names, I think we might embrace the shirt-naming theory. 

The Reilleys can be an intimidating clan, but sitting around talking with The Moms (which group I was easily adopted into since I didn't have my swimsuit) quickly assured me that these are some of the most real and lovely people I'll ever have the pleasure of knowing.

Alexander Lake

There is a secret in the mountains for Josh and I. It is a place of peace and refuge. And not in the tree-hugging-hippie-way. Or maybe it is.

Life here is stressful because I'm a stress-case. Life there is slow and calming and peaceful because things are filthy and the agenda is to sit around and I am capable of letting it all go.

Life here is chores and meetings and seeing people.

 Life there is family. Just family. 

Life here is gardening and weeding and harvesting.

Life there is effortless beauty with no gardener. 

Life here is "why aren't there 2 shoes that match?"

Life there is "pick a life jacket from the pile and enjoy".

Life here is bedtime and routines. 

Life there is late night campfires, sunsets & snuggling.

Life here is safely, carefully, and cautiously.

Life there is choosing and throwing anything you want.

I know it's possible to chill out in civilization - but until I learn that skill, I'll settle for regular sanity-saving trips in my very favorite places. 

This year's trip to Alexander Lake included 26 humans. 12 of those are adults. The oldest grandchild is 13 years old. Go ahead and tell me how awesome we are and I won't tell you how the 10-13 year olds are really the best child care on this planet.

This year was a bit different because we didn't get our "usual" spot - something about an entire scout troop not wanting to sleep with 16 babies. Whatever. Sissies. Though I will say we were all glad for the distance when their bugle call sounded at 6:30am. 

Camping in a different area on the lake was fun, a different "beach" different trees to sit on and different kitchen situation. Though I miss the giant rock tables in the usual place. 

The boys did relatively well, though sitting around the campfire listening to scary stories about murder and monsters wasn't really their cup of tea. It will be when they're older and they'll be glad those stories are familiar to them because their mean mom wouldn't let them wander into the dark woods alone.

The thing I really hope they learn though is about loving these mountains. And all the others too. I hope they are always content to sit and throw rocks for hours at a time watching the ripples and looking for the next big splash.

Joy

Now that Little John climbs AND eats AND sits wherever he wants he is a whole new kind of happy.

Pen Pals

Stella has cool parents who helped her mail Tommy a letter.

He couldn't believe that it "magicked right into our mailbox" and he simply refused to believe that the mailman (who we've never seen here) knows Stella.

He carried this picture around for a good hour, then decided to put it on his wall.

Tommy has become very aware of the camera.

He had a tiny panic attack when I suggested we color a picture to send back to her.

The boy hates to color. I mean he really really hates it. He is convinced he can't do it and he is the reason I know all the inspiration speakers who swear that "in kindergarten everybody is an artist!" are lying. Anyhow, his lack of coloring confidence breaks my heart because my own lack of confidence has seriously hindered some fun in my life. But I figure pushing him to do something he hates won't help, so we mostly just do other things.

But when a girl sends a letter....you gotta return. So I asked him what he wanted to color.
Iron Man. (duh)
and ALLLLLL the Squadies (duh)
So we printed a picture of Iron Man and decided to start there.

I got out the crayons and started to fix dinner hoping he'd just take it upon himself.

One straight line through the middle of the page and he started to weep.

I sat with him and we (I) colored and talked and finally it got to the part where he'd write his name. He wrote a T then turned the page over and dictated a story he wanted me to draw AAAAAND write.

I should have taken a picture. Because...wow. That was quite the story. I'm not sure he even knew what was going on - but it is clear to me that this boy is a story teller and not an artist and I love that about him. He's a happy-little-stress-case-talker-not-drawer like me.

Though he lacked confidence that the mailman would bring a letter FROM Stella, he was well aware of the mailman's ability to take a letter TO Stella, so back in the box it went.

Halloween

Remember how funny it was when I was worried that Tommy would be born on Halloween?

Then remember how I sortof didn't notice that John was born on Halloween because I was all excited that it was on Monday instead of Thursday?

Perhaps it's because really they're both Halloween babies on the inside, or maybe because I neglect Halloween in favor of Little John's birthday. Either way we celebrate Halloween year round around here.

Come to think of it we also celebrate Christmas year round.

I suppose we're just not so great with calendars. What with turning the pages once a month and all....it's a lot of work.

We are frequent library patrons and my boys just happen to gravitate toward Halloween books. The love the "kitty" on the spine (which is really an ugly black Halloween cat) and they love to say "boo!" and they love to walk around with blankets draped over their heads pretending to be ghosts. They love to sing about the "mean old witch mama with a HAT!" They love to look at pumpkins and to sing about spiders. They are lovely little Halloween monsters children.

That Lady

I've become that lady.

The one with all the oversized zucchini I can't get rid of. 

Plus I have 2 kids and walk out of sacrament meeting sweating like ''ve been wrestling alligators for 75 minutes. 

And I know how long sacrament meeting is because I count down the minutes until Primary.

Then I sneak into primary and cry happy tears over my adorable child laying on the floor pretending to be a "little seed lying fast asleep" before he bravely marches to the front of the room to repeat the words of his simple prayer straight into the microphone. 

Tommy & his cousin Daniel who bonded during church on Sunday

Weird how fast that happened huh?

Oh Little John

Little John has recently hit that age.

The one where he knows how to ask for something and expects to get it.
The one where if he doesn't get it he goes for it himself.
The one where he spends half his life on his knees burying his nose in the floor weeping because his mean-old-mom said no about the 50,000th glass of strawberry milk.

He's interested in things. And he experiments. And he does things.

Like today when he must have wondered what 2 boxes of bandaids & luke-warm water make.

Answer: soggy useless bandaids.

In other news he can open the fridge and the freezer by himself. Also he has mastered the art emptying pretty much every drawer/shelf/bin in the house.

Go Little John!

Family Night Stitches

There's nothing like motherhood to remind you of your weaknesses.

John was sick yesterday and I have a 24 hour rule (they must be feeling well - not barfing, not fevering - for 24 hours before real life resumes.) so I stayed home from work today.

By 2pm we'd watched 8 million shows and needed to get out, but could go anywhere because of all the germs (SOOO many germs). So, we decided to go to the church parking lot to ride bikes.

Before leaving I made Tommy show me how he knows how to turn left, turn right, start and stop the bike. He did great. His bike has training wheels. He loves it and it was well past time for him to have one so he picked it up easily this week.

So I put both kids (and Tommy's new little bike) in the bike trailer. and rode around the corner to the church. He got out and started to ride, he was doing great and John was getting bored so I hopped back on my bike to ride in some circles around the parking lot too.

Tommy rode North and South, then slowly started heading East. Here's the thing about East around here - East is up. Always. And after East come West.

He turned around and started riding down, I reminded him to "pedal backwards, put on the brakes, STTTOOOOOOPPPP!!!!!" but I was too slow getting off my bike (with John) and across the parking lot to rescue him. He ran straight into the curb and flew off the bike smacking his chin on the sidewalk.

He screamed. But here's the thing about Tommy. He is good at screaming. So it didn't sound any different from his "John took the ball from me" scream. So I jogged slowly across the parking lot to assess.

But then I saw the pool of blood and ran.

I checked his mouth, his nose and his head (he was wearing a helmet) and couldn't find the source. But it was clearly still coming and had a handful of it in addition to the puddle on the sidewalk.

Then I saw it. Sortof.

Right under his chin, I could see the blood still coming.

In case you were wondering blood, needles, skin openings, all of it makes me woozy. Unreasonably so. I am the world's sissiest mom. 

I stuck my hand under his chin, and picked him up and asked if he was OK.

"I really really biffed it mom!!!!!" he howled.

I hauled him up to my bike where John was still sitting in the trailer enjoying his goldfish crackers and tried to put him in so we could ride home. He was having none of that.

So I got John out and carried/walked/dragged both kids back to my house dripping bits of blood along the way.

When we got home and cleaned it up enough to see, I immediately called my mom to see if he needed stitches. She had no idea, but she came over to look anyway.

The concern for me was the stuff coming out of the wound. The non blood stuff. The guts.

We called the nurse at my pediatricians office (3 cheers for Alpine Pediatrics - again!) who made and appointment for me to come in and get him stitched.

Fortunately (for me) Josh came home before the appointment and we all went together. We talked about what they'd say beforehand and what would happen and he was amazing. Unreasonably so. He jumped right up on the table and showed his "biffed it" to the nurse (who fell in love immediately...because who wouldn't really?) he giggled at her jokes and smiled while she got everything ready.

And he let her clean him up while I held his hand and he watched The Incredibles.

After a while we were just waiting for the numbing gel to do it's job because when the Dr. (Brian something I think? We were never properly introduced...) tried to shove the guts back in they wouldn't go and he needed to "apply more pressure".

There's something slightly horrifying about seeing a kid lay on a table like that.

It took some convincing (and distraction) for him to let dad hold his hand for the worst part (the putting those guts back in and stitching them closed) but fortunately (for me) he did and Josh watched with amazement as he always does with things that make my stomach turn.

Once the Dr. got out his tools, needles, cutting things, and the "sterile environment" stuff; my baby was covered with blue sheets and looked like he belonged in an operating room I tried harder to be distracted. I couldn't even see anything and I had to turn my body toward the door and play finger games with Little John just to stay conscious.

They gave him more shots in the chin, said something about a bad bruise, and kept asking him if that hurt - I never heard a response from him so I assume that means no.

Josh said he was amazing. He just laid there and nearly fell asleep.

Tommy got to choose some prizes afterward and made sure to choose one extra "for Little John" mysteriously Little John's broke first. Either way, Tommy came home bouncing with pride and joy and had an unreasonably good time.

Josh said it was totally different from watching them cut someone you don't know open. But he still thought it was cool.

And I have vowed never to do anything even remotely dangerous again, because guts spilling out of faces ought to be a once in a lifetime event.

My mom told me I have officially entered the mom club now. So...there's that.

7 Years

When Josh and I got married (you know, back when we had all the answers and knew how to make a marriage work) we made a pact that we would never have the "you forgot our anniversary" fight in our marriage. 

The solution? We were both responsible for it every year and instead of gifts we would give each other an experience. We'd go somewhere, or do something. And we'd plan it together.

So for our 1st anniversary we went to St. George. In July. Because we're idiots. 

2nd anniversary we went on an Alaskan Cruise which I blogged thoroughly. Because we're geniuses.

We spent our 3rd anniversary mini golfing in the middle of the day. Because pregnant girls don't waste vacation time on anniversaries. 

On our 4th anniversary we went camping. And I learned that post-baby there is no modesty between Josh and I.

I think we likely skipped our 5th anniversary. Though I did write some memories of our wedding day. 

And of course last year we went to San Diego.

Earlier this week I started to write the date and recognized the familiar numbers and nearly had a heart attack. I gasped audibly, immediately picked up the phone and called Josh to tell him we were about to forget our anniversary! (remember our deal?)

He told me to chill out and that he had it under control and that all I needed to do was show up on Friday at 3.

So I got off work early yesterday, for megadate because Josh had to work today (our real anniversary). He somehow bribed his younger siblings to come and take care of our kids. Pizza? It's amazing what people who love you will do for a pizza.

First he took me to get a pedicure at a swanky fancy pants salon - which was supposed to be our date of the month a few months ago, but we didn't use it because we suck at DOTM. (Not the best pedicure, but even the worst pedicure is better than a kick in the pants...and most other things too.)

Then, since it was a special occasion, we ate at Panda Express. wha wah waaaahhhhh...... (I do not love that place.) Though eating out without kids meant a Teeny Tiny Napkin Stack which is just about as fancy as I could ask for.

We saw a movie (Now You See Me - so cool).

We window shopped game stores and the mall. 

And finally Josh pulled up to a random Hotel. I didn't know we weren't going home, so I was surprised with the fancy room (most comfortable bed on the planet) a late night swim and a relaxed night. 

But the biggest surprise was that spending the night somewhere meant Josh took the day off work today - megadate was 2 WHOLE DAYS! (Can you imagine? Me niether...) 

We bummed around and wasted our whole morning watching tv (we never do that) and trying to decide if we wanted to go somewhere. Then we learned that John had been barfing all day so we got lunch and came home. 

It's nice to be "away" and irresponsible for a day. 

And today it was especially nice to feel so happy about who I married and our life together.

Things I love about being a working mom

I have a really great job – and it worked out in the only way that would have made me a working mom right now.

I work every afternoon, and I’m with a real estate investor as an assistant – doing a bit of everything. And I really love that. It seems unpopular to say this, but aside from loving the paycheck and the functions of my job, there are things I really do love about being a working mom.

1. Getting dressed. I’m not a girly girl. I am a jeans & t-shirt type, and I’m totally not into fashion. But a required shower & get ready kind of job is good for me. I like getting ready and going somewhere that yoga pants aren't appropriate.
2. Personal space. This might be the hardest part of motherhood for me. The little people touching me constantly. They want my lap, they want to see what happens when they touch my nose. They pull on my shirt to make me follow them. They insist on being carried from the bathroom to the bedroom. They poke my eyes, and head-butt me when I do it wrong. They want to help me stir, cut, & move the food. Wrestle-mania is their favorite part of the day. They can't read a book unless they are sitting on top of me. Both of them. I feel like I’m going to split in two because they’re always always pulling on me. And I hate that.
   But at work (the sun just came out as I typed this...appropriate), I typically go 5 straight hours with no physical contact at all. Occasionally there’s a handshake, but nobody touches my face or my clothes and nobody wants to sit in my chair and nobody breaths in my ears. And that is a thing of beauty.
3. Air conditioning. This summer  could easily be the death of me if I didn't get my 5 hour fix of cool dry air every day. Coming home to my soggy swamp cooler house reminds me just how much I love my comfortable office.
4. I think. At home it's all letters, numbers, colors & shapes. At work it's all accounting, marketing, operations & summaries. It's not that I don't know my preschool information (though when Tommy asks me what yellow & purple make I wonder....is "gross" the right answer? Because it feels right...), it's just that I'm much better at doing the work stuff than I am at teaching the preschool stuff. 
5. Driving alone. I'm learning new songs, I know what's happening "out there" because of the 30 second news breaks. I roll my windows down when I want to and blast the a/c when I feel like it. Nobody whines or kicks the back of my seat. Nobody tells me they want an ice cream cone (though I often stop for one anyway) and nobody expects anything of me. For 12 glorious minutes/day I rock the minivan alone.
6. Coming home. It's true. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. And though I never get to enjoy John's nap or get anything done around here, it's nice to come home having missed my boys.

A Class = Success

In June I was to find & register for a class.

I've been doing a lot of education-y stuff, and I registered for yet another small group class in June. So I'm calling it a success though it isn't anything like I pictured.

This class is something I am totally interested in, and something I definitely need. I have high hopes of learning all kinds of useful information. So hoorah for a success finally!

How does your garden grow?

We spend a lot of time outside looking at our garden area and thinking it looks so great - then we go somewhere (my parent's house) and see that our garden isn't growing quite as fast as we think it is.

BUT it is growing, and it had a later start (because it took me forever to plant things) and it has less than perfect conditions (crappy dirt, spotty water, etc.) and so I still think it's looking GOOOD.

Peppers

tomatoes

corn

Birthday Party

Last week Garret (Tommy's current favorite person) celebrated his 13th birthday.

We had Spiderman cupcakes and a helium balloon to help him celebrate.

Which launched Tommy into full-on birthday mode.

"It's going to be my party soon!" he told me.
"In October" I said.
"Yes. Tock-tober!"

Then he started telling me who would be on the guest list.

"Garret.....
Logzeroo.....
remember your friend about your sister called Sarah?
and Garret......"

He was fully satisfied with the list but wasn't at all satisfied at the thought that we'd wait until October to invite people. So we called and left a message for my sister to tell her that Garret & Logzeroo were invited.

Then he planned the rest of the party (priorities people) spiderman treats. And balloons. And cars and toys and CAKE!!!

So...there's that. Look at me planning things MONTHS before they happen.

Mommy loves Daddy

Tommy must have learned about writing letters lately.

The other day I came home from work and found this gem in an envelope on my desk.

Dear Santa,
Tommy is a great boy.
Mommy loves Daddy.
Dad loves Mommy, Tommy , Johnny.
Mommy loves everybody. 

Tommy now comes up to me multiple times/day with a scrap of paper and a pen and asks me to write a letter for him.

It usually follows the same format.
Dear somebody important
somebody loves somebody else usually a comprehensive list of people we've seen that day.
then a picture.

Little? John

When we go out in public and call him Little John people always smile and tell me how much they love that. They'll likely never know how much I love it. And that's OK. 

But the bigger he gets the more I wonder how long I'll be able to call him Little John. 

He insists that he's ready to graduate out of the high chair and sit at the table like the rest of us. 

He is talking a little more, but the words he knows are not at all important to his ability to communicate. Everybody knows what he wants all the time. 

My favorite is when his eyes light up because he knows something fun will happen. Typically this is because Garret helps him out of the car, and he knows they're going to ride the wiggle car down the street. Bless Garret and his desire to be cool for the kids. It's totally working. They love him. 

Lately John just seems so very large. He walks around everywhere we go, he knows what comes next and he loves to sit around reading books. He's intelligent and engaged in things. He's a far cry from the (adorably mushy) lump of baby we brought home from the hospital a year and a half ago. 

And while I love mushy baby lumps, I REALLY love this learning growing BEING that he is now.

Moments

Because my life is crazy and hectic and so very full of failures, not-good-enoughs and "why isn't this working?!?!"s, I feel confident that when I post the sweetest, sappiest, most adorably perfect moments here, nobody (myself, my posterity, and my fan club - hi mom!) will think this is normal.

On Friday night Josh and I should've gone out on a date, but he got struck with the plague (and we had no plans, but the plague is a less commonly used excuse and a good one - I'd hate to waste it by taking the fall with my "no plans" excuse which is the one we use every other day), so I asked Tommy if he'd like to join me at the grocery store and maybe a date after. He jumped at the chance because it would delay bedtime and he has decided that he would balance out the first 3 years of his 6:30 bedtime with a 10:30 bedtime so that we could pretend his had a normal 8:30 bedtime.

So we went to the store. While we were there I asked him if he was having fun on our "date". He rolled his eyes and said "mo-om, THIS (gesturing the store) is not a date, this is just boring old groceries." Right-o.

We opted for ice cream afterward, and due to the great E.Coli poisoning of Lindon city water it took 3 stops before we landed at the local frozen yogurt bar.

He was the perfect gentlemen - he even opened my door and held my hand.
He was loads of fun - making goofy faces and showing me how to put the gummy worm from his ice cream over my teeth so I could match his smile.
And in the end I got a kiss.
He's totally my type.

At the end of this perfect date as I boosted him up into his carseat he kissed my cheek and sweetly said, "mommy, my heart is tellin' me I love you." and I melted into a puddle right there on the sidewalk.
I managed to tell him that my heart was telling me I love him too through my happy-mom-tears.
Then he smiled even bigger as he made the connection. "I guess our hearts just love each other huh?"

I guess they do.

And I hope we never forget that.

When I Grow Up

The other day we drove past some road construction and Tommy was fascinated by the giant hole the construction workers were digging in the middle of the road.

T: "What are they doin' mom?"
M: "Digging a hole."
T: "why?" (I equal parts hate and love the why phase.)
M: "because it's their job."
T: "to earn all the money money?"
M: "yep."
T: "why's it's their job mom?"
M: "because it's what they chose to do when they grew up."
T: "what I'm gonna be when I get a grown up?"
M: "You can be anything you want when you grow up. You get to choose."
.....thinking.......
M: "What do you think you'll want to be when you grow up?"
T: "A HOLE digger.
.....
or an ice cream guy!
.......
or a drive-er! Mom! I could DRIVE when I grown up!"

This child has high hopes - and who am I to shatter that kind of dream?

Salamander Flats

One of the best parts of being a nurse is the totally awesome schedule. Josh works Monday, Wednesday & every other weekend (Saturday/Sunday).

The worst part of my job (and maybe the ONLY negative) is that I work every day. Monday - Friday. It's only in the afternoon, but it sortof steals the awesomeness that comes with Josh's job.

But he refuses to let the awesomeness go to waste. Yay Josh.

We were planning to head up the canyon on Thursday night right after work, but we sortof forgot about the preparation part of going so by the time we were ready to go Thursday, we were slammed with that crazy wind storm and decided we may as well get a good night's sleep before heading up first thing Friday morning.

We drove up the canyon thinking it would be easy to find a spot (ba ha ha ha! - that was dumb.) so after driving up and down and in and out of anything that looked like a camp site we finally landed at Salamander Flats and rushed to set up camp so I could get back to work.

I left Josh with a set-up tent, 2 hungry boys (John starting to run a fever and hacking up a lung), and boxes full of gear.

I had stashed my wardrobe change in my car so that I could change before heading up the canyon, but I was in such a hurry to get up there, I mostly changed at red lights (and one pull over) on my way.

 

I believe in camp hair, so the do-rag is always the first part of getting ready. Dumb I know - but I don't do hair hair while camping.

I never really know what happens while I'm gone, but when I came back they had eaten all of the snack-food, almost none of the meal-food and they were all happy, hungry & filthy. So I call it success.

We made toastite pizzas for dinner (easy because I knew Josh wouldn't want to try making something time consuming while keeping the boys out of the fire).

Toasttites on the fire.

Pizza ingredients.

After dinner we headed out for a short hike. And by short I mean a couple miles. And by hike I mean walk down the curving canyon road. Because that was the only way I knew how to get to the water. We took a trail on the way back, which was much more enjoyable.

Josh had taken the boys on 3 short walks (but we were in the mountains, so hikes right? Full credit there.) earlier in the day, but they had failed to find a water source and we all knew we'd die if we didn't find a river or stream or SOMEthing in which to throw rocks, pinecones and people.

John rode on my shoulders, Tommy and Josh walked ahead of me and we found the water.

Of course we were enormously thrilled with ourselves. Though the young couple having an intimate moment across the stream were probably embarrassed to find our young family invading their space.

During our walk back we found a trail that was beautifully shaded and had extraordinary views of the mountains all around us.

John says  "booya!" 

 When we got back to camp the boys were happy to sit and watch the fire while we waited for the sun to go down so we could get out the glow-sticks grandma gave them for Easter.

It was glow-stick mania in our tent. And everyone was happy - for almost 10 minutes.

Now, you know I love camping. really. Honestly. And there's nothing like waking up with the cool crisp air and the sounds of nature all around. But the reason that sunrise at 6am is such a beautiful thing is that the night is so so long.

There are a lot of skills that you learn when you camp a lot. How to cook over a fire, ignore the filth, pee in the wilderness....the list goes on. I have learned most of these skills, but the one I've never quite mastered is sleeping.

I used to get cold, so I got a mummy bag.
Then I got claustrophobic, so I got a two-man bag to share with the human space heater I married.
Then we had kids, and cold and cramped were the least of my sleep problems.

Now that Tommy is old enough to sleep in his own bag (all night long without moving at all !!!!) John has taken over the feet-in-face, tossing-and-turning, whinging-and-crying, whimpering-and-coughing position in our family.

And that is why sunrise when you're camping is so so beautiful.

I also love waking up with my boys. They are beautiful in the morning, but I am rarely in a position to capture that beauty. While we're all on the floor snuggling (and rolling around looking for marshmallows to eat) I am glad I get to soak in their goodness.

After breakfast we packed up and headed home so we'd have time to clean up, water the yard, and do all of the regular Saturday stuff.

Camping is one of those things that always makes our little family love each other more. Here's hoping there's lots of it this summer.

Cleaning

There are a few reasons that weekly cleaning is no longer optional in my life.

• We live in a big old house now. It started dirty and it has stayed dirty. Even the new parts are dirty. New houses must be sealed better. Big houses are more likely (in my world) to stay dirty. Because I can close the door and go somewhere else and pretend it isn't that bad. Reminder to me. It is. It is that bad. 
• We have a yard now. Yards come with dirt. And grass. And bees. And weeds. And ants. And other general filth. Don't get me wrong, I never want to be yardless again. But seriously - filth.
• Tommy no longer wears diapers. Let me be clear. The term "toilet trained" is a lie. A big. fat. ugly. LIE. Kids go from "in diapers" to "not in diapers" - apparently "toilet training" is something that doesn't happen until much later in life and here's why:
  3 year old boys are capable of aiming. They are also capable of focusing (on bugs and boogers and explosions). But they are not capable of doing both at the same time consistently. That's why there is pee everywhere in that bathroom EXCEPT the toilet. He is capable of aiming "that peein' thing" but now when he's busy looking around at all of the interesting things in the bathroom. And as it turns out "that peein' thing" follows his gaze.
• I got a job. Something happens when I leave this house. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but the effects often look like a bomb. A "daddy was snoozing" bomb. In his defense, he only closes his eyes for like 5 minutes.....and I would too.

And that's why at 9pm I haven't showered, my feet still look like I just went for a hike in flip flops (because I did....12 hours ago) and the house is finally beginning to smell like pinesol. I think...have I mentioned that Josh and I are allergic to this place? No matter. It's probably better that way given the pee smell.....

Independence

These boys.

 

There just aren't words - and any mom of any child in any place or time will say the same.

Lately they've both been making sure I know that they don't need me which both breaks my heart and makes me unreasonably proud.

John runs around all day like he's the king of the world. He gets his own snacks and puts on his shoes and points to his belly button on command.

Tommy climbs into John's crib, pushes chairs and stool around to get the things that are "way too high so I can't reach them mom" and screams when we try to help him with something he can do by himself (including attempting to feed my sister's fish a fruit snack).

I realize these milestones are old news and maybe it's just a recent surge of sentimentality, but my babies aren't babies and they are so dang much fun that I can hardly stand it. I really love sleeping through the night (sometimes) and I'm looking forward to a world without sippie cups. I love that everybody who is coming to the store with me can walk on their own two legs. My babies are beautiful capable man children and I love them.