Random May

She won't potty train for a while, but she'll sit on it and read occasionally. 

Normally we'd wait until birthdays to buy gifts, but we're old and wanted her to have it early. She played with it a few days and now it lives outside. ;)

Steven has joined me for a lot of my workouts and I've appreciated the company. Audrey also joined us and gave moral support. 

Audrey proves the old adage of "Under Foot". I love this little rainbow baby of mine, and she loves me. She shows it by making sure I'm never without her. 

Sarah drove home with my family and spent a week in Colorado. We missed her like crazy and were happy to get her back. 

Memorial Day 5k

 The family joined me for a 5k on Memorial Day with Team RWB and the Run of Remembrance. Adam took off and Steven and I stuck together. Sarah didn't want Mike to be alone, so she stayed with him while I pushed Audrey. We each ran in honor of a service member that had died in service since 9/11. I ran in honor of Hilda Clayton, an Army combat photographer that photographed her own death from a mortar explosion. Steven ran in honor of Connor A. McQuagge. Adam ran in honor of Jeriad P Jacobs. The boys did great and finished in under 30 minutes. I don't have Adam's exact time since he left us in the dust. 

At the beginning they had each person running for someone else tell a little about the servicemembers. It was sobering and a good experience for my boys. We normally pack together for pictures, but everyone kept their distance due to Covid. 

"Home School"

It is July and I'm trying to play catch up. It isn't that I haven't had free time, but my free time has been spent on things other than blogging. The kids have been home every day since March, (Friday the 13th) so our schedules have changed. Towards the middle of March the schools shut down and all learning went online. Teachers and schools had to scramble to move all of their curriculum online, and it was...interesting. Some teachers felt like the most important thing was teaching what needed to be learned, and some teachers still insisted on busy work. At home. We bought an extra computer for the kids to use, so they'd each have their own, and it was still a challenge. It made me grateful to be a stay at home mom, and aware of how "lucky" we've been during all of this. I saw a lot of parents upset and frustrated. Parents would have to work full time and then come home and try and do online learning with their kids. I imagine there were a lot of tears. Here's a picture of the kids on March 18th. Don't they look happy? ;)

A month or so into it the school sent out a new format. For Adam it was so easy it was almost laughable. He had to do a daily "Bingo" of his choice where he chose five areas to study. He'd be done in about an hour. At the JH, the school limited how much work (mostly busy work) the teachers could assign. This cut their time in half. I thought they'd want to get ahead during the week and take Fridays off, but they liked to limit the amount of time sitting at a computer each day. I thought I had more pictures of them glowering while doing school, but apparently I don't. Good times! One of the upsides is that Sarah has been 100% cured of her desire to be home schooled. She may be a home body after school, but she realized she appreciates the social aspect of school. 

It's now August and it's time for me to post this. I thought I had more pictures of them doing school, but apparently it was so painful I didn't want any more remembrances. (Kidding, it wasn't that bad.)

The Wonderful Week of Wiz!

Okay, Wiz=Liz, in case that wasn't obvious. ;) Today ends an eight day celebration of me and I want to write about it before I forget, because it really is something I want to remember. (When I'm even older than I am now and have completely forgotten everything.)

Last Sunday was Mother's Day, and it was one of the best I've ever had. I'm not sure why my family chose this year to up their game, but I'm not going to complain. Steven made delicious eggs and Sarah made blueberry muffins. I'll have to take pictures of the cards they made me to add to this post. They then gave me the perfect day which consisted of me going on a run in the morning followed by some mask making and gardening. My family was always around me, BUT, and this is the important part, I wasn't in charge of anyone. I didn't make meals. I didn't change diapers. I didn't have to answer a million questions. I got to exist with my family but not be as much as a mom as I usually am. ;) (I hope that displays the correct sentiment) It was a really peaceful day. Mike even woke up early to clean the main floor of the house since it was a little cluttered. He earned some serious hubby points.

A couple days ago was my 40th birthday. I won't go into what it's like to be this old yet, but my birthday was pretty amazing. (90% of it at least) As I'll mention in a separate post, Audrey broke her leg the day before my birthday, but we didn't know it was broken at the time. Mike and I started the day by hiking to the Herriman Flag. I wanted to make sure we were there on time, so we left early, but it ended up being WAY earlier than necessary. It was chilly on top so we hung out for a bit and then decided to see it rise as we walked down. Unfortunately it was cloudy and we ended up missing it when it actually rose above the mountains. (Sunrise was at 6:15, but it didn't poke up over the mountains until 6:40 ish) Sarah called us when we were almost down to say Audrey woke up sad, so we took her in and found out her leg was broken. I cried. Of course.

We got home and started on our day. We cancelled our reservation to Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point and planned to hang out at home. While we hiked Sarah had woken up at 6 AM and decorated our house with amazing 40th birthday decorations. My doorbell range and, "Surprise!!!", my sister Ashley and her family had driven from Colorado for my birthday. I was so happy I cried again. A few minutes later the doorbell rings and, "Surprise!!!", my parents had driven out as well. I hadn't seen them since March and really missed my family. It was the perfect birthday gift.

The weekend was spent eating WAY too many Rewhipped and Crumble cookies. I had a steady stream of friends bring me treats and cards. Mike's parents came over and brought cookies. It was sugar coma heaven. Having a house full of kids is chaotic, but I loved it. My family did an amazing job of making me feel loved and I feel so blessed to have them.

Now, onto how I feel about being 40. It's honestly odd. Forty is kind of old. I don't feel 40. I don't feel like how I viewed 40 year olds when I was 20 or even 30. I'm in better shape than I was at 30, although my skin has lost some of its elasticity. ;) I've heard the saying, "Age isn't anything but a number", but didn't think it until now. Lets me honest, forty is old-ish. I don't feel old. I forget things and I'm tired, but I'm also no longer young and broke. It's a nice place to be.

Thank you to everyone that made Mother's Day and my birthday so special. It was an amazing week and I'm so thankful for each and every one of you. I love you! 

I was blessed with a lot of cards for my birthday and Mother's Day. 

I told you so! - The one where my baby breaks her leg

 I doubt anyone ever likes being told, "I told you so!" I know I certainly don't. We've wanted a trampoline for a while, but Mike always said no because someone would break a bone. I bought one while he was deployed and "surprised" him when he got home. (for the record, I wouldn't have secretly bought this if I didn't know he was okay with it) That was last March and our kids (and neighbor kids) have gotten a ton of use out of it. We have strict rules about its use, especially with little kids. If a little kid is on the trampoline, the big kids don't jump. Period. The kids would take Audrey out and let her "jump" while they sat and watched. The day before my birthday they had her out there and one of them lightly bounced and SNAP! Audrey's leg broke with a compression fracture through both of the bones. She seemed upset, but not in a great deal of pain. We put her down for a nap and she slept great. We thought maybe she'd rolled her ankle or something. We gave her ibuprofen at night and she again slept well. When Sarah called us on our hike and said Audrey woke up sad, we decided to take her to the Dr. and they did an x-ray. Sure enough, she'd broken her tibia and fibula. BOO! Poor Baby! She did pretty well getting her cast on. They asked if we wanted a soft cast we could take off, or a hard cast, and we opted for the hard cast so we didn't have to worry about her re injuring it. 

 

She had the soft cast on for about a week and then we took her in for the hard cast. They said they needed to wait for the swelling to go down. She doesn't like seeing people in masks, but she did pretty well and the people knew how to do it quickly. It took Audrey a weeks weeks before she learned how to walk on it. 

Cast came off June 18th. Finally!

Thanksgiving Point fun

 We'd planned on going to Thanksgiving Point on my birthday, but due to Audrey's leg we obviously couldn't. We went the next day with the Miller's. We started at The Farm and there was a cute baby goat with a cast like Audrey. 

After the big kids got bored we headed to the dinosaur museum. 

We tried to show Audrey the fake Megalodon mouth, but she freaked out. Poor baby didn't want to be fish food. ;)