Where are you Summer??

We had the most beautiful day of the year on Saturday! It was 68 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. However come Monday it is raining so hard and the sun is hiding behind some very thick clouds. The kids and I are ready to have the windows and doors open and soak up some sun.

On a happy note Isabella has finally relearned how to sleep at night. For about 8 months Isabella has had lots of trouble sleeping. Waking anywhere form 3 times a night to 10 times. Needless to say we were trying everything we could think of. We finally decided on a strict night time routine. We had always done similar things at night but this time we actually wrote one out and followed it to the "T". After several weeks of the night time routine she went to bed great. However she was still waking up all night. So we finally decided to lock her out of our room. We didn't want to lock her in her room for many reasons, but we could lock her out of our room and not have to worry. The first week she tried everything she could think of to get us to come out of our room. It was really sad and I probably would have had a hard time ignoring her except for the fact that I hadn't had a full night sleep in almost a year. So after a long hard week she actually slept most of the night. For the past week she has woken only once or or not at all. We feel that it is an answer from the Lord, because I was at my wits end. Now if she wakes we help her to potty once and make sure her bed isn't wet, then the rest of the night our door is locked and she has learned to stay in bed. YEAH!!!!!!

Totally different subject....Easter was great! Stan was the Easter Bunny. He made the baskets up for the kids and hid their eggs. Isabella got a memory game, and Isaac got an airplane puzzle. He has been so interested in airplanes lately. He hears everyone that flies by and when he can't see them he says I hear airplane. If you ask him where they go he tells you the airport.

For Easter I made my first turkey!! It wasn't actually that hard, and it tasted great. The gravy that I made from the drippings was fantastic too! I was pretty proud of myself for being able to do that on my own. Holidays are always hard to be away from family. However we had a great time sharing a meal with our friends the Wadsworths. They have 2 kids close in age to ours so we actually could have a dinner conversation because the kids played so well together. I am truly blessed with great friends!

Carefree...... Someday

This past few weeks have been especially trying. I have felt overwhelmed in many areas in my life. Feel as though I am failing in all my roles and responsibilities. I am not sure why I am not dealing with it as well as usual.... Today I just wanted to go home and be a carefree kid rather than a parent, leader, teacher, adule.... and all the other rolls that come with growing up. I know I need to change my attitude but haven't found motivation yet to do it. I am sure it will come.... until then I will just keep trudging a long.

Random happenings. This isn't in any specific order.

• Isabella is doing great in speech therapy, they think she has speech apraxia. She has a great therapist and we work with her a lot at home. In the past 4 months her language has bloomed. She can say so much now, and actually be understood. It has been so fun to see her personality coming out more and more each day. Her nursery leader at church commented that she has really been able to understand Isabella now, and just realized that she loves being bossy. It cracked me up, because Isabella is very bossy and now that she can speak she has to tell everyone what to do or not to do. She loves to tell Dad all about her day when he comes home from school. One day he was so excited because he actually understood what she had done that day, without my translations. I think it is still going to be a long process with her language but at least she can communicate and is much happier.... and so are we. Isabella get to go to her friends house for a preschool day every now and then. She loves it, and looks so cute with her back pack on. We are hoping to get her into preschool in the fall. She would love the interaction and the activities. I am hoping to get her in one that I get to help in the classroom 2x a month. I think it would be fun, and give me more ideas of activities to do at home.
• Isaac on the other hand talks all the time. He can say all of the words that Isabella practices and repeats what we are saying. He is saying sentences, and will be well on his way to talking over his sister soon. He is getting so big. He has surpassed Bella in weight and has enough energy to keep up with her most of the time. He loves to sit down and read and do puzzles and can be kept busy for quite a while. I have been trying to find activities that they can sit down to the table and work on. I got a book called What to do with Toddlers and Twos, it has lots of ideas of activities, and helps me be more creative with our days. It has been fun doing projects like painting, putting beans in glass jars, or milk jugs, making shakers from old pill bottles, pasta necklaces, play-dough, coloring.
• I participated in a Health Challenge for 60 day. I won second place! It really helped me get back to exercising. I try to run several times a week and was up to about 4 miles at a time. Currently I am planning on running a 5k so I am working on running 3 miles faster. I enjoy running and it is a stress reliever. I am the Young Women's president at church and enjoy working with the girls. The friends I have made in Portland have been such a blessing. I have made several through church and the community and they help keep me sane. Most of us have little kids, and busy husbands, and working off a small budget. It's nice to have friends with so much in common. I am so very blessed with the friends in my life. My Ellen has become such a close friend. The kids love her, she is like a grandma next door. She is helping me with my first quilt. I am to the stage of sewing all the squares together. She is a professional quilter, so I am soaking up her knowledge. It is so fun to have a project to work on when I get some free time.
• Stanley has been pretty busy with rotations all over Portland. This month he drives over an hour one way to work. He has really enjoyed his pediatric rotations, he had a chance to do OBGY and delivered a few babies. Currently he is working at a Psychiatric Hospital. The stories he tells me are so sad. I could never work in that environment. He really enjoys child psych and is hoping to be able to do both pediatrics and child psych. Hopefully in the next 6 months we will have narrowed down what he wants to do and where we want to go next May. He graduates in just over a year. The time has gone fast! No matter how busy he is he always finds time to play with the kids and spend time with me. We enjoy every spare minute we all get together. Last week we took the kids to a play place that was showing Toy Story 3. They got to play and have fun while Stan studied. It was a fun family date. Today is a beautiful day. Sunny and 60 degrees, so we are going to go to the Tulip Festival. I love being outside when the weather is so nice.

We like to take walks even when it is cold outside. Thankfully it wasn't raining this day.

Isabella, Abby, Andy and Isaac chilling out on Abby's cool bed.
Poor Isaac wasn't feeling good this day, so Isabella laid down by him and comforted him. It was sweet... even if it only lasted a little bit.
This was a cow they saw while visiting Grandpa Rhoton in WA. They loved to see it!
Isabella has so many little friends to come play. This is her friend "Annie" (Real name is Andy, but she has a hard time saying that. They are all rowdy and love running around and being silly. Isaac is getting big enough to join in on the fun.

I haven't been able to find our camera since December so thus the lack of photos. Life is great and we have been able to do a lot of fun things as a family. I love that the kids are getting a little older and are able to do more outings. Alaenya and Lila came to visit us for a few days. It was so nice to have my sister and niece. However everyone was sick most of the time, but we still got to try some fun restaurants and we went and visited Grandpa Rhoton in Washington. He was so exctied to see Alaenya and Lila. He hadn't sen Alaenya in over 10+ yrs. I wish my family lived closer so we could have more visits. I am so lucky because my sister comes to visit me once or twice a year. :)

At the beginning of March we got snow! The kids saw it out the window and wanted to play in it even before breakfast. This is their first chance of seeing it at home. We loved it!

We had friends over for Valentine's day and the kids decorated cookies.

Holidays

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving in McCall Idaho with Stanley's family. We managed to get everyone there for most of the week. The kids had a blast, and so did the big kids (us). Here is a link to some of the pictures.

http://animoto.com/play/v0lzjU8HO03PW90d0PXo0Q

My Mom was able to come visit us for a week and a half. We had a great time, and got to do lots of fun activities. We went to Tillamook, Seaside, Pikes Place Fish Market, made candy, dipped chocolates and just hung out. The kids love having grandma here with us....and of course so did I. It worked out perfect because Stanley had to work three or four 30hr shifts at the hospital while she was here. So I only had to have one night alone. Thanks Mom!

Christmas was less eventful this year. We stayed in Portland. It was our first Christmas away from family. I missed my family's Christmas events and family get together. However it was fun to enjoy a quite Christmas with just the kids. We did get a chance to do brunch with some of our good friends the Ronks. The kids had fun playing with the new toys and eating at Isabella's table. Kamaile and I made a yummy breakfast!

We called both of our families and was able to video chat so we could see them and so the kids got to see their cousins and grandparents. Thanks goodness for video chatting when we live so far away. This year instead of exchanging gifts with Stanley's family we exchanged service projects. Each family picked a service project to do for the season and wrote about it and sent pictures of the family working on it. Then we sent a copy to each member of the family to open on Christmas. It was such a wonderful experience to see how much good could be done by a few simple families. We have decided to make it a tradition!!

I was getting cabin fever after being at home all day so we decided to go out for dinner. I always thought it was weird that people went out for dinner on Christmas. Not having big family dinners to go to changed my mind on that subject. Went to The Kennedy School . We enjoyed the good food and a chance to get out of the house. Poor Isaac however seems to have gotten a pretty bad cold and maybe an ear infection so the rest of our night wasn't as peaceful.

Overall we have had a very busy yet wonderful Holiday Season. We are looking forward to a new year and the experiences that will bring!!

More pictures...

These are all pictures for our summer of fun. I tried to get them in order from most recent at the top and oldest on the bottom. Sorry I didn't label each one, it took long enough just to post them haha.