miss molly turns 3

Molly's 3rd Birthday was on Saturday.

It is so crazy to me, every year on her Birthday, that she is as old as she is.  Even though she only turned three, it has just gone by so fast with her!  It is fun and exciting, but also a little sad to me.  I just want time with her to slow down.  It is weird to have my baby not be a baby anymore. 

We decorated the house the night before with balloons and gifts, so she could wake up to a fun filled house for her special day.

Her Birthday was on a Saturday, and she was a great sport to attend a flag football game and two soccer games.  Mary helped make sure she had fun.  She is a great sister.

In between games, she was able to open presents, play with her new toys, and celebrate with everyone at home.

Mary and I made her Birthday cake in between soccer games, and it turned out soooo cute!!  Mary did all of the frosting.  Molly just watched and happily ate orange frosting.  She is really good!  Molly loved her cake, especially the colors.

After all of the games, we decided to go to Trafalga.  We heard that there were fun rides and things to do there, and we figured it would be a great place to take Molly for her Birthday.

We drove to Lehi, and pulled up to a freaky, ghetto looking "fun park."  Within a few minutes of being there, police showed up because some dude was hiding somewhere in the place, and they needed to find him.  Nice.

Most of the rides did not work, and the ones that did, Molly was not able to ride because she was to small.

Needless to say, we left after about 20 minutes.

I felt badly that Molly's little fun event for the day was a total bust, but we got dinner, and came home and sang to her and had her blow out the candles.  She was happy, and had a great day, regardless of ghetto Trafalga.

Molly continues to be a very special light in our family.  We all love her so much.  She is so happy, goofy, fun, silly, loving, energetic and cute.

Fun facts about Molly:

She pees about every 25 minutes....no joke.
She drinks a sippy cup full of juice about every 20 minutes...go figure.
She LOVES gymnastics and jumping on the trampoline.
She really loves to play "soccer rocker" with her daddy outside.
Whenever we are in the car, she is always on the hunt for "diaper horsies."
She sings all the time, and it is adorable.
She has a serious sweet tooth.
Her best friend in the whole world is Beckham Sweat.
She loves animals, especially horses and dogs.
She likes to draw and color and play with playdough.
Her favorite way to relax is to crawl in my bed with "show phone" and watch shows and drink her juice (crystal light).
She is very playful and fun.
She knows how to give big kisses and squeezes.
She is a total daddy's girl, and about twice a week, we have to facetime daddy at work, because Molly is bawling from missing him so much.

Molly definitely completes our family in a very special way, and we all love her so much.

Love you Molly girl!!

new beginnings

Three kids started a new sport this month.  It has been exciting to see William, Luke and Molly try new things and join in the crazy fall sports schedule.  Fall is always extremely busy, but it is my favorite season, and I wouldn't change a thing. 

William decided that instead of soccer this fall, he wanted to try out flag football.  I missed his first game, because I was at another sports event (divide and conquer is our motto over here), but I made it to his second game. 

I love how in between each play, the teams huddle together, and the coaches actually teach them plays and strategy.

William's coach is awesome, and for each play, he lets the kids try a new position.  What a great way to let the kids try a little of everything, and see what is a good fit for them.

About half of William's team has already played before, and the other half, including William are experiencing their first season.

William is still trying to get the hang of it all, because it is a lot to learn and to grasp, but he is doing great!  His very first game, he ran the ball all the way down the field for a touchdown, but he stepped out of bounds, so it didn't count.  Rats!!  His game this week, he blocked the other player from getting the ball, and almost got an interception.

I can tell that once he gets the hang of the plays and the strategy, and can just play the game, he is going to do really well.

The most important thing though, is that he is having fun, which he is.  He is really enjoying it so far.  His only issue is that he just "really wants to be able to smash people."  ha!  Soon enough William, soon enough.

Miss Molly started gymnastics two weeks ago.  I think she thought the day would NEVER come.  The day I told her that I signed her up for "jump jump, " Mary gave Molly her leotard from when she was 3, and Molly put it on.  She was sooo excited all day! 

We walked into the rec center for her first class, and Molly got nervous.  Thank goodness Mary was with us!  She helped Molly get used to the idea of following the coach.  It was really neat to see Mary helping Molly.  It was 10 years ago, almost to the month, that Mary was her age, in her first gymnastics class.  Now, here she was helping her sister follow the same path.

Once Molly got over her nerves, it was all uphill from there.

Molly LOVED every second of the class.  She was so excited that she skipped to and from the different stations, and she was jumping in line while waiting for her turn.

When it was finally time for them to go to the trampoline, Molly looked at me and fist pumped the air!  I about died laughing.  It was great!

Molly had a blast, and is very naturally talented.  She definitely has a love for the sport, and some natural ability to go with it.

Luke had his very first soccer game this week.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect with him.  He is very athletic, and incredibly fast, but he can also hold back and be shy and not want to participate.  It could go either way.

He is the one that asked to try soccer though, so I was hoping that he would just go for it.

Within the first quarter of the game, Luke had stolen the ball three times, and had made several shots on the goal.  At his age, there is no goalie, but some kid on the other team was literally sitting in the middle of the little goal net, so there was absolutely no way to make a goal. It didn't seem to bother Luke though, so no worries there.

I didn't care about Luke making goals, or stealing the ball though.  I was just so thrilled that he was playing AND smiling and laughing!!  He was having a great time!

I love to see my kids being active, but even more so, I love to see them having fun doing something they like to do.

Luke ran as fast as he could through the whole game.  He is very speedy and could catch up to whoever had the ball pretty quickly, if he wanted to. He definitely has some learning to do, as far as how to play the game, but dang, he is good little soccer player.

I hope he has a really fun season, and learns to have a great time doing sports.

Luke is on the yellow team.  Easy to spot with his white hair!

His coach is awesome...and he was William's coach last year.

So, basically, this fall, our week is something like this....after the hour of 3pm

Monday:  Sam soccer practice, Mary tumbling, mom teaches 4 piano lessons, homework, FHE
Tuesday: Luke soccer game, William flag football game, Mary cheerleading, yard work, homework
Wednesday: mom teaches 2 piano lessons, deep house cleaning day, mutual, scouts, homework
Thursday: Mary cheerleading, Molly gymnastics, Sam soccer practice, homework
Friday:  FREE DAY!!!!
Saturday:  Sam soccer game, Luke soccer game, William flag football game, mom had her long runs, dad does a biking session
Sunday:  try to rest, regroup, and fulfill church responsibilities.

It is pretty crazy, for sure, but I really do love it. 

(for real, as I was tying this post, Ben just asked where Sam is.  I started calling for him, and then realized that he is at soccer practice!  Yikes!  I totally forgot.  I just got back from picking Mary and from cheer, taking Molly to gymnastics, and trying to feed everyone dinner. Ben is rushing over there right now to pick him up...good grief!)

Welcome fall!!!

small town america....nothing like it

 

 

My best friend, and next door neighbor, Karli, has a guy renting out her basement.  His name is Adam.

 

Adam's brother is a Green Beret Special Forces commander, and he has been serving in Afghanistan. About a month ago, Adam's brother was killed while going into a house that was booby-trapped.  It was devastating for Adam and his family.  It was in the news, and all of Utah was trying to help and support the family.

 

Adam keeps to himself here in Heber.  He is a nurse and works at two different hospitals.  He is a great guy.

 

Karli and I were talking one day at the gym about Adam, and Karli got the idea to post flags in our cul-de-sac, so that Adam could see them when he drove back to Heber after the funeral.

 

I got ahold of some flags, and we posted them up in our cul-de-sac. 

I had about 50 extra flags, so I decided to go out and post them along the main road in our neighborhood that leads up to our cul-de-sac.

 

This was no small job!!  The ground here is rock, and I had to pound in the rebar into the ground in order to keep the flags up.  It was hot, and after about 30 flags, I was ready to give up. 

 

At that moment, three truck loads of people showed up with even more flags!!!

 

They had heard about Adam and his brother being killed, and they wanted to help!

 

With their help, we posted over 200 flags throughout our neighborhood!

 

Unfortunately, Adam decided not to come home until the next day.

 

Flags have to be taking down at dusk.

 

So, we took all of the flags down that night, and decided to put them back up at dawn the next morning.

 

I got up early the next morning, and to my surprise, even more people and more flags were being posted.

 

Not only that, but I had tied yellow ribbons where I could, but I ran out.  People had bought yellow table cloths the night before, cut them up, and were now tying them everywhere!!!

 

It was an amazing sight!!

You could not drive through our neighborhood and keep a dry eye. 

 

The feeling in our neighborhood with flags and yellow ribbons everywhere was so humbling, to awesome, and such an amazing symbol of love, unity, community, patriotism, thankfulness and so much more.

 

The fire station got word of it, and they parked their fire truck in our cul-de-sac and hung a huge flag!

 

 

 

 

 

Luke

The police station also heard about it, and they were in Karli's/Adam's driveway when Adam pulled in.

When Adam drove up, he was crying.  He got out of his car and each police officer shook his hand.  There were neighbors and friends everywhere welcoming him home and letting him know he was not alone and that we are thankful for his brothers service.

Luke followed Adam as he walked the sidewalk taking it all in and crying.

It was an unforgettable day, not just for Adam, or me, but for our whole community.

I love small town America.

There was actually a news article written about this.  It is a wonderful article.  I will try to post the link here.
http://kpcw.org/post/heber-homecoming-adam-butler#stream/0

more summer happenings

This is going to be my last post about summer.  It is taking me forever to try to catch up, so I am just going to do one more loooong post, and then start in on current happenings in our lives.

One day, we were feeling adventurous, so I took the kids to Lowes.  It is an awesome trampoline park, that also has a trapeze, a climbing wall, a ninja warrior course, and a huge room set up for the younger kids.

The kids had a BLAST!!!  If it wasn't so expensive, we would go there every day.

Sam's favorite place this summer, here in Heber, was the skate park.  He and his buddies begged all of their parents daily to take them there.  They brought their scooters, and did some pretty cool stuff.  Sam is very brave!  I could not believe some of the stuff he would jump over and go around. 

William

Luke

Sam

 Of course, Molly and Luke did a lot of hanging out with their best friends, Boston and Beckham.

Luke and Boston building something

snow cones

Luke and Boston....best buds

Molly and Beckham....inseparable.

 

 

 

We went on a family hike to a place called Blood's Lake.  It was GORGEOUS!!!  It is named bloods lake because of all of the mosquitos.  They aren't kidding.  We got eaten alive, but it was really fun anyway.

 

 

I have been running a ton trying to get ready for my next marathon.  I had to take a break to heal up my IT band from the marathon in June, and I also got another steroid shot in my labrum in my right hip, to try to calm down the inflammation and allow me to make it through the rest of my training.

 

Some runs are better than others, and I was in a serious training rut last month.  Completely burned out.  Running in McCall helped pull me out of it, and some mental relaxing about running has helped as well.  I have had to force myself to chill out and just enjoy running again.  My 20 mile run a couple weeks ago was awesome!  I have a 21 miler coming up in 2 days, and I'm praying it goes well also.  After that, I start tapering for the marathon.  The worst of the training will be over!!!

I LOVE the view on my long runs

right along my running path

 

 

Luke was diagnosed with strep throat, and soon after we got home from the doctor, he was stung in the neck twice!!!  The poor kid!  After we got him all fixed up, he grabbed his guns and told me he was going to kill all of the bad germs and bad bees.  Go get em' Luke!!!!

 

Actually....he ended up being totally freaked out the rest of the summer, and refused to play outside if he saw a bee. Poor guy.

 

Luke dresses up almost daily.  His outfits are amazing!!  I looked outside one day this summer and about died from laughter.  I love this kid so much.

We went to the duck pond a couple times.  The kids love how the ducks eat right out of your hands!  Molly thought it was awesome, until they started chasing her...hahaha!

Luke and Boston figured out how to siphon water one day.  Unfortunately, they tested it on about 20 of our food storage water bottles in the basement...argh!!!

 

It was really cool though, once they took it outside.  These two crack me up!

 

Speaking of food storage.  Molly is a huge organizer!  She discovered our food storage, and her favorite thing to do down there is to organize the food storage.  Too bad it is already organized ON the shelves, and she likes to organize it OFF the shelves.

And last, but not least, our summer has been full of looking for "Diaper Horses."  Molly calls these horses diaper horses, and I cannot tell you how many times I crack up when I hear her say it.
Oh, she is so stinking cute!

Aaaannnd, that's a wrap for summer 2017.   Whew!