Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful mothers and women out there. Where would we be without our mothers? I feel so lucky to have been raised by such a loving and sweet mother who drove me countless hours to and from ballet because I had such a strong, burning passion for it. She has always been my cheerleader, and my confidant. She has been a shoulder to cry on and a singing partner to the radio in the car. I love my mother so much and truly feel that before this life we must of chosen our family members, particularly our mothers. I knew I needed her in this life. I hope I can be everything and more to my kids. I want to be their cheerleader, their best friend, their therapist, the one who always embarrasses them in all the right ways, their teacher, and someone they look up to, love, and have amazing memories with. When my time on this earth comes and goes, my legacy will be passed on through my kids and I want to be remembered as a wonderful, strong mother who helped them hold to the iron rod, even dragged them back to the iron rod from time to time to assure they all stay on the straight and narrow and end up back to our heavenly home all together. That is what I strive to be and that is the mission I will strive for each and every day of my life.

I am also so blessed to have such a wonderful mother in law. Seriously how did I get so lucky? I hear horror stories about friends and their relationships with their mothers in law, but I can honestly reply to them that my relationship with Kaye is wonderful. She is another wonder-woman in my eyes... I mean 8 kids?! She had 8 kids! I can hardly handle the 3 of mine, and she almost triples that amount! I have never seen another person truly magnify their church calling as Kaye does, and she is an example to me. Part of the reason why when I was called to serve in Young Women's I wanted to complete the Personal Progress program again (finished it 4 times total in my life!) was because of her example. Above all I am grateful for her influence over Kyle when he was a kid and growing up. She raised a great guy who now is a great husband and father to me and my kids. 

Perhaps the best Mother's Day gift (aside from being able to sleep in and Kyle delivering breakfast in bed to me even though he wasn't feeling well) was the fact that Brayden got t go to Nursery for the first time today! I thought this day would never come. He is finally 18 months (well will be in just three days), and can now officially start nursery at church. That means I only have to roam the hallways at church during Sacrament meeting. The other two hours he gets to go to class to sing, play, and eat snacks with the other little kids. I think he is pretty excited about it as well cause nursery is way more fun then just pacing the halls with mom. We made sure he had a great breakfast and was all ready for nursery because we all know how "hangry" he can get when he is hungry. Hopefully he is a good boy today.

Just a couple days after Mother's Day I celebrated another birthday. Yes, it is the first time I turned 29. I plan to remain this age for the rest of my life and am in denial about turning 30 next year. How am I saying goodbye to my 20s and entering the world of my 30s within a year??? I am in denial, but at least I have one last year to live it up before I become "old." All I ever want for my birthday is Costco cake, so this year since we are Stateside we could make that request happen. I love Costco cake so much! It's huge, and has a ton of frosting, my favorite. I also got birthday money from both my parents and my in laws. I decided that before I get anything for myself I needed to get Connor a big boy bike. Poor kid has been riding a little trike for the longest time, he needs a big boy bike and helmet. We went to Walmart and picked out a nice red and black bike (his favorite colors), and now he rides around the neighborhood with his sister in style. Just seeing his big smile while on his bike is enough to make me happy. I am more than happy to spend my birthday money on my kids anytime cause I love them so darn much.

Well, the pool is coming along. Slowly but surely. We were expecting it to be done by now, but alas it isn't there quite yet. They are saying now that they hope for it to be completed by the beginning-middle of June. I hope they are right because we all can't wait to jump in and start swimming. It will be so nice and convenient to have a pool right in our backyard. Till then we will just live with a giant hole in our backyard.

Since we don't have our pool just yet, we have become master "pool/splash pad crashers." We have checked out several community pools and park splash pads. Our favorite splash pad is the Goodyear park one right next to our house which is nice. It's only about a 5 minute drive, and it has a lot of fun water features for the kids to run around and play in. Brayden absolutely loves it! The water is actually quite cold, but the other day it got up to 109 degrees so it felt really nice and refreshing. This summer is such a dramatic change from our last summer in Japan. Japan doesn't ever really get warmer that 80 degrees, and most of the summer it is foggy and rainy due to the rainy season and Misawa being right near the ocean. It does gets quite humid though and so we often would feel sticky, but it never really got hot. Here in Arizona I feel as though we are melting, literally melting. When its getting up into the hundreds I don't even bother putting on makeup because I know I'm going to sweat it off just in the walk from my house to the mail box. Its extremely bright and dry here that I feel like It always looks like I am crying cause my eyes are always watering trying to provide some relief, and sunglasses are a must with how bright it is here. We have discovered that having a pool is literally mandatory if you have little kids. When it's that hot there is only one thing you can do outside without passing out from heat stroke, and that's swimming. Don't get me wrong, I rather take this melting heat any day over cold freeing temperature, so I am happy to endure a couple months of extreme heat for beautiful year round weather.

We are finally starting to make friends here! There is a family in the ward, the Udalls, and they have three little girls (with girl number 4 on the way), and their kids are practically the same ages as our kids. Her name is Melissa and I really enjoy spending time with her. I just feel like we are very similar in personalities and in the same stage of life. Her husband just got done with residency, and now is a doctor in the area. I also just found out that Abby and Hannah, her daughter, will be in the same Kindergarten class next year. I applied for Abby to be in this program at school called "traditional class." It's quite competitive and they only offer one "traditional" class per grade level. basically this class offers a  little more structure and moves at a quicker pace than the other normal kindergarten classes. I really am hoping to push Abby this up coming year and want her to have the best educational experience. Almost everyone I know is applying to the program, so when I found out that Abby was accepted as well as Hannah, I was ecstatic. She will now get to start Kindergarten with a little friend already in her class and I couldn't be more relieved about it, and the fact that she got accepted into the program is truly amazing!

It's been nice to live so close to the Udalls and to have them as friends. She will watch my kids and let them come over to play while I go run some errands, and I watch her girls from time to time while she goes to her OBGYN appointments. Now my plotting plan is to have Kyle and her husband, Craig, become best friends and then we finally have found our "couple" that we do everything with. No matter what, I am grateful that I have Melissa in my life and to have someone I relate to, get along with, and truly enjoy our time together, not to mention that our kids all love hanging out as well. Hooray for friends. That's the hardest part about moving so much.