Summer fun/update

Samuel has been spending lots of time outside! He's gotten really good at riding his tricycle. He cruises around the parking lot for literally hours a day. We've taken his bike to McCowin park a couple times this week and I'll run and push Eliza in the stroller while he rides his bike. I'll run ahead, leave the stroller there, then loop back around Sam, and so on. It actually works great because Eliza will sleep the whole time, Sam loves it, and it allows me to get at least a little bit of a run in. This morning we went around twice, so around 1.75 miles! He doesn't ever seem to tire of riding his bike. He wants to be out there by 7:30 am and often cries when we make him come in for bed. Speaking of crying, he is usually a pretty good boy but occasionally lately will throw some nasty fits. I never knew what people were talking about when they asked if he was in the terrible 2's yet but now I know! He plays a lot with Kaydence, Bailey, and Tanner (backyard buddies). He likes to pretend he's cutting the grass along the fence with his "weed eater" (potato masher) and help mow the lawn. He really likes letters and knows almost all of them now. 

 

 

 Sam's also really into scissors lately. Yikes.

 

Our Eliza girl is 4 ½ months now! She can roll both ways and scoots and turns every which way. She doesn’t just stay put anymore. She really likes jumping in the jumper that hangs from the door frame. She laughs when you tickle her and when she sees Samuel do silly things. At her 4 (1/2) month appointment she was in the 89^th percentile for height, 66^th for weight, and 30^th for head circumference! She has a tiny little head for her chunky body! It’s cute for now but hopefully it’ll all even out in the end. :) She was sleeping about 8 hours at night, then reverted back to 5 or 6, and now is sleeping around 10 hours straight! She doesn't like to just sit there and chill or cuddle like Sam did. She likes to move and be entertained and always has to see what's going on. She is so sweet and cuter everyday.

I feel like things have gotten easier in the last few weeks, maybe just because Eliza's getting older. She's been napping at the same time as Sam, for about 2 hours. That gives me a good break and allows me to get so much done! It's also nice that Sam is past the stage of running away when we're in public places (usually). He'll just walk by the cart or at least stay close by. That makes a big difference. My new favorite grocery store is Smith's because Sam will push all the groceries in one of those mini shopping carts and it keeps him entertained and helping the whole time!








Caleb left at 6 this morning for their Scouting high adventure. They'll be backpacking 8 miles in and doing lots of fishing. Should be fun for them. They'll get back Saturday afternoon. We're getting lots of moving to dos done. Then next few weeks will be pretty crazy but I'm trying not to stress and remind myself it'll all work out fine. I've been showing our unit quite a bit the last couple days and have some interest so now we just need to decide on who we want to sign with. It's always a relief to get it rented out! Sam's been helping me give tours... after watching me give one or two he started chiming in, "This is the sink, this is the toilet, here's the bed and a pillow" etc. It was pretty cute. :)

We got to go play tennis with Bishop Chatterton and his wife Trisha last weekend while their son Hayden babysat for us. It was so fun AND we beat them 2 sets in a row. :) We wished we'd not been so hesitant to get a babysitter and had started playing with them a long time ago.
Saturday I drove up to Rexburg to help Laura move, then we had the annual Melaleuca picnic. We had too much to do to stay for very long but we enjoyed eating with the Guneruds and Sam got to ride a mechanical bull and a (real) horse.
We picked up Laura Monday late afternoon and she stayed the night at our house. We had a barbeque in the backyard with everyone that lives in the fourplex as kind of a going away thing for us and it was a lot of fun. We’re lucky to have found good people to rent here so we feel more comfortable managing it from far away. Laura and I went shopping with the kids Tuesday morning and found some good stuff! Shopping with sisters is the best.

As moving gets closer I'm more and more sad! Before I was just excited but I really will miss so many people here and so many things about living here. With that we're pretty excited to move on too but it's been a great chapter of our lives.