Land of the Rhododendrons.

Well I wrote a whole blog post on my trip to Washington that I thought I had saved... apparently not, ugh. I can remember little snippets here and there of what I had previously written, but I think instead of trying to rewrite the whole blog I will just give a little overview and just narrate the pictures as best I can, or this post will never happen! 

I always like to go to home to Washington during the summer (yes I still call it home.)
Kc's little brother Greg was spending the month of August at my parents house because he was doing a rotation at the University of Washington so I thought it would be a good time to go despite the fact that  I usually like to come in the month of September because that's when the blackberries are ripe (yes that's how crazy I am,) but seeing Greg won out over the black berries (barely) and I was blessed with good karma because they were ready early this year and I got to enjoy in their sweet goodness anyways! I was trying to convince all of Kc's family to come because who doesn't love to share the things they love with the people they love, and I succeeded in getting Kc's older sister Angie to come with her two cute girls June and Simone. Olive absolutely loves June and even though she lives in California and Olive doesn't get to see her much she still talks about her all the time. Greg's wife Heidi came for the second two weeks he was there too and I loved being with her and their cute baby Ezekiel, he is only a few months younger than Elijah and I am so excited to see them grow up together. 

We stayed a couple nights on Orcas Island. I have always wanted to do that but it's so hard because when you come home there are already so many other things you want to do and my parents house is so fun anyways you never want to leave! I was glad we did it though, it was so fun and we made some good memories. Kc left after Orcas Island because he had to get back to work, so he missed out on the rest of the fun. When the week was over I didn't want to go home and was very close to changing my flight. If it hadn't been for work I would have! I think next summer I am going to stay for a whole month. I just love it so much out there, and my kids love it too. 

Olive loved collecting the eggs in the morning, and I loved cooking them (Olive loves over easy eggs too, I've brain washed her.)

 Look at how yellow those yolks are! Delicious! 

My parents have the most abundant garden.

 Fresh berries, Figs, Pears, Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Apples... really anything you could wish for, it's divine.

This picture makes me so happy. This is our horse Hilary and she is really old and most likely will not live much longer. She has been very good to us, my mom loves her. I think Elijah will be my last child to sit on her so this picture is special for multiple reasons. 

My dad is THE BEST at fires. 

He can't resit an urge to start one, and does almost every night (and if you remember my posts from past years I showed his massive wood supply.) In the summer it's so perfect, and I don't even mind smelling like camp fire the whole time I am there.

For our birthday's my mom got us a ride on a hot air ballon which is something on my life list. It was so beautiful, I loved it. Our pilot said we peaked at about 25,000 feet. This last picture is the best I can do to get a picture of us "in" the balloon. I would definitely recommend it to anyone

I love watching the dynamic between these two grow. Sometimes Olive gives a little too much love, but she is slowing embracing his place in our family and showing more tenderness and patience with him. We went through a really hard frustrating stage where this mamma wanted to tear her hair out but we are already starting to come out of it, and it looks pretty sweet on the other side.  

One of the hidden gifts of having babies that make you get up early is that you get to see the world like this and have quiet peaceful moments collecting rocks and sea shells and thinking about life. 

I love picking blackberries as much as I love eating them (sometimes more.) I get a thrill out of climbing or reaching in places to get the juiciest ones that are just out of reach. As a child I would pick, and as quickly as I would pick my sister would eat them out of my bowl. We always joked that I'd pick for hours and have nothing to show for it. These kids are no different. I climbed down by a river bank and waded in some muddy water to get these berries, and boy were they worth it! So good! These kids gobbled them right up, Elijah loves them just as much as Olive. He would scream at me if I paused for even a second before giving him the next one. They had these blackberries all over Orcas Island so we pulled over and somehow were able to keep enough to make my favorite blackberry cobbler. Just thinking about it now makes me smile. 

The view from Mt. Constitution on Orcas Island. You could see all the islands around and it felt surreal and isolated and just really cool, like out of a movie or something. 

While babies sleep, we play.

Swimming at Cascade lake in Moran State Park on Orcas Island.

 Half the island is a park, and it's so beautiful. 

The water was cold but in a way that felt good and calming. Angie and I enjoyed a short swim together and it made  me want to try to do a triathlon. Someday. 

Well this was one of the best dinners Ive ever had, and I will think back on it for years to come. That's how much I love food, especially seafood. 

I remembered my friend had a sister that lived in the San Juan Islands because she once brought us some crab from her. I called my friend up and she said her sister lived on the neighboring island and would love to take us crabbing! Because you can only crab on certain days, it didn't work out for us to go with her but she did bring us some of the fresh crab they had caught the day before and it was just SO GOOD. Paired with the salad and corn that kc's sister made it was really the perfect dinner. We were in a good place, with good people, and you add good food? That's how I want to live my life. 

Orcas Island has a funny shape, kind of like a kidney bean or horse shoe. 

He we are in the center of it. 

We don't board to ride the ferry without our huckleberry ice cream. No matter how close you are cutting it ;)

My very good friends live on a little lake close by our house. We love to visit them because they are always so fun and welcoming and wonderful people to be around. Olive jumped off this tramp 50 times, no matter how terrified she looked when she came up from the water she wanted to go again, ha. This girl likes fear a little too much. I love this last picture. We miss June. 

Farmer's Market bouquet for my Mamma for $7.

Greg and Heidi wanted to see the troll under the bridge, I wanted Olive to come but she was having way too much fun at Grandma's and refused to come haha. I am sure she had more fun there, I just always want her coming on adventures with me for my own selfish reasons, and I mean I do think she would have loved it! Next year.

 We toured University of Washington campus. It is so gorgeous, I loved looking at the old buildings and the beautiful greenery. You can't beat Washington when it comes to that. We couldn't resit taking pictures of these two cutie pies. We miss them.

We had a wonderful summer. Every year seems to get better and I love seeing my kids enjoy things and get old enough to look forward to events and have memories of spending time at Grandma's house. I think someday we might have to move back, a piece of my heart will always be in Washington.

Sisters.

My sisters and I have tried to make it a tradition to do a girls trip to Bear Lake each year. My oldest sister owns a little house out there next door to a little house her in-laws have owned for a long time. She bought the house in the past year or so after her husband's grandmother (who had been living in the house) passed away. She was in her late 90's! It's a small 3 bedroom home in which she had raised 9 (I think) children. The house has so much character and I love hearing stories of things that happened there. It's a place that makes you feel humbled, grateful, and happy. 

My youngest sister Kaylee is still on her mission in California and won't be back until December, so she was the only one that couldn't be there. I am excited for her to get to come with us next year, she is so fun. I loved being there with my Mom because she grew up in Preston Idaho, a small town just like Bloomington (the town in which we were staying) only about half an hour away from the cabin. There are all these old original appliances in the house and my mom who was raised on a dairy farm would tell us all the uses for them. It was fun to watch her light up as she told us things like "oh and this is how you make a block of butter!" I loved going with her up a long dirt path on the 4-wheelers, she looked so happy and free. She always has so many things and people that she is trying to take care of, but you can tell she let go of all of them while we were up there in the mountains. 

We packed in as much as we could in a day and a half. 4-wheel trips up the mountain, a hike up to Bloomington lake to jump into the frigid water, renting a boat out at bear lake, the Bloomington rodeo and carnival, Juanito Bandito at Pickleville house, and all the fun things in between like roasting hot dogs and marshmallows over the fire and getting burgers and raspberry shakes in Garden City. It was so fun. Being childless for a day is something in and of itself, and then getting to spend that day doing fun things with my sisters, you can't beat that.

We tried really hard to get a decent selife on the ATV. 

Obviously we were not too successful.

Beauty.

Taking the back seat.

Bethany does everything with more style than the rest of us.

This about sums us up all the time.

My mom being cool and having the time of her life.

She grew up driving a boat around with her best friend and water skiing with her.

The lame sisters who wouldn't jump ;)

I'll figure out how to lighten this picture, but I just love our faces in it.

Two of my favorite memories from this trip are trying to make Bethany (who is terrified of livestock) touch a cow, and standing in the kitchen while my mom is telling us what each tool does and my sister Bethany pointing to something and confidently and completely incorrectly informing us what one the tools was used for, after which my mom replied "oh, no no, those are for shearing sheep." 

Can't wait til next year!

My mom was Utah/Idaho because she was in town for a wedding and since she planned to return home after Bear Lake I decided to capitalize on it and head back with her. It was a little stressful to have to pack everything for my kids before I left because my husband was just going to come down and meet us so we could all head to Washington together, but it was well worth the wonderful weekend I had with my sisters and the awesome week in Washington that followed it. Look out for my next post on my stay in Washington!

Olive turned 3!

I am so far behind on all my blog posts. It's so hard in the summer! I have made it my goal this weekend to try to catch up on all my little projects. One of them is this blog post about my little Olive, because now she is 3! 

Olive turned 3 on July 29th. For her birthday I told her she could give a little tour for her friends and family at the BYU museum of paleontology. It is only like 5 minutes away, small, very casual, and free! Olive was very excited about this. She loves going to that museum, we went there yesterday (we go there or thanksgiving point about once a week if we can.) She also requested an orange brachiosaurus cake. I searched pinterest high and low and found an example I was pretty happy with- a cute little arrangement made out of cupcakes. She was so excited when I was putting it together and was fixated on each cupcake I added to form the dinosaur. It made me so happy that she loved it so much cause making cakes is always way more laborious and time consuming than you think it will be. Olive's party was fun, she loved it and got lots of dinosaur presents (of which she was very protective.) After everything was said and done she informed me that for the next day she would like a T-Rex cake... ooooohhhh really Olive.

I was so busy I never got a good shot of her cake :( 

This is the best shot my sister got of Olive and the brachiosaurus cake (the feet had melted a little from the sun.)

This was taken outside the Museum of Paleontology. 

Olive has been three for a month now and it's crazy how mature and old she is getting. I love our conversations, we love to talk to each other about all sorts of things. She has started to love Elijah, she will tickle him, play with him, or help him. She says "mom, elijah likes me," or "mom elijah likes it when I tickle him" (not always Olive.) At the same time she gets very frustrated with him. Elijah likes to scream for attention or if I am not feeding him fast enough (good grief child I can only shovel food in your mouth so fast,) and I'll admit, it can get very irritating. Olive will say "mom, elijah is being mean to me" or "mom, elijah took my toy." It's just a hard stage because he is crawling around and grabbing things and I can't discipline him, he's just a baby. At the same time I feel so bad for Olive who constantly gets told that Elijah is just a baby, he doesn't know, and please share Olive. I try so hard to give her her space and tell Elijah, "no no, this is Olive's" (even though he doesn't understand) just so she feels defended- but it just is what it is. Despite him grabbing her things and her getting upset, and her grabbing them back and him getting upset- there are these moments I walk by her room and see them happily playing in there together with each other and my heart goes aaahhhhhhhhhhh. I know this is just a hard stage and it will get better (and probably worse in some ways.)

Elijah was quite pleased with himself that his older sister had lifted him to the couch. His momma... not so much. 

Olive gets up several times a week and comes and crawls into our bed. When she first started to do this I was very strict on putting her back into her bed, but then I got tired :) She's got a great set up because she either comes in before kc has come to bed or she comes in after I have left for work and so she usually gets half the bed to herself, and we don't even notice most the time that she has crawled in. However, if we are both in there and she is moving a lot, I will definitely put her back into her bed. Ain't no one got time for that. 
She loves to be really goofy, which is ok because I like to be goofy too. We like to talk to each other in these silly deep tones where we are pretending to yell to one another. Sometimes we do it in gibberish. She loves to giggle. She has the hardest time keeping a straight face, sometimes she wants to be mad at me but I give her a silly look and she breaks immediately. She has this little mouth half open look she does when she is trying really hard not to laugh. She is never successful. 

She loves to eat eggs. She knows how she wants the eggs and in the morning she asks for over-easy and in the afternoon she asks for hard boiled. No matter what kind of eggs she asks for the most delicious ones are whichever ones you have made for yourself to eat. She doesn't always eat all of her plate, but she can devour a plate in seconds that I have made for myself. She walks up to me multiple times during the day and says "You wanna play with me?" in the cutest tone. It's impossible to say no, and so even if I am busy I always say yes because I love hearing her say "ok." If I need to get something done I try to sneak away while she is playing, but I have such a hard time saying no! And even when I do say "no, mommy is busy doing dishes" (or whatever) she will just ask again as though I didn't quite understand the question the first time. She says little words funny and I always want to use sentences with those words because it's my favorite to hear her say them. Her backpack is her "pack-pack" and she calls a popsicle a "pot-stickle" and granola is "gra-wa-wa." She loves being with her daddy more and more, but she is still a momma's girl, and I think (hope) that will never change. 

I've been a little bit harder on her than I use to be, and I think that's good because she is getting older and she is starting to learn that sometimes the things she does hurt others feelings, even mommas, and that sometimes we don't always get what we want, or what is fair- but we try our best. I've thought a lot about motherhood, and I had some thoughts that I had wanted to compile into a blog post but I haven't really had the time to because I've got so many things on my plate and I only see things getting busier in the near future so I thought I would add some of these thoughts in a shortened version to the end of this post. 

I recently read a post on facebook titled "Why millennials don't want to have children." The list stated very obvious reasons that would be a concern for anyone considering having children. Money, time, responsibility, and just an overall change in personal lifestyle. All legitimate concerns, of course. The saddest listed however was just an overall loss of the desire to have children. I think back on all the blog posts and articles I have read on motherhood and they mostly talk about how having children is really hard but it is also really gratifying. This is most definitely true, but what I don't see (although I am sure it is out there) is articles on how becoming a mom makes you a better person. 

Now I know there are not many people that read my blog, it is mostly for my close friends and family, but I thought I would state for the record that I don't think that people who are mothers are better than people who are not. There are lots of people who can't have children, and those people are often the strongest of all because they would have children but can't and so they go out in the community and change lives and sacrifice in so many ways without it being an immediate force on them everyday, and those people are the highest form of self sacrificers. Also I really don't care if other people have children or not, if you don't want to have them, then don't. I only wanted to share my personal experience on how motherhood has facilitated me to become the most caring and compassionate version of myself. 

Before I had children I cared a lot more about clothes, my hobbies, personal travel... more about myself really. I still do care about those things I just care a lot less about them and I do them with the thought of someone other than myself in mind. You see the number one complaint about motherhood is that many people feel you have to give up yourself, who you are, all those things that make you tick. But to me, this is the most beautiful part. Once you give birth (really once you get pregnant), it's not all about you anymore. Don't get me wrong, everything in life requires balance and moderation. I have carved out time in each week for my personal yoga or little things here and there that are really important to me, but really the biggest beauty of motherhood (in my opinion) IS that you have to give up so much of yourself, and giving up part of ourselves in the end is what makes us a better person. Caring less about ourselves is the result that comes from caring more about our children, our spouse, our neighbors, our friends, and ultimately caring more about God. There is nothing in this life that will teach you more than self sacrifice.

I've had so many thoughts on this subject, and I feel I could go into great detail- but I just haven't had the time. So if I don't do a short version, I just won't write anything!  This is one of the many small things I am always trying to carve out time for but there is always something more pressing, and ultimately, more important. Currently giving my baby a bath is one of them, and cleaning the floors, and making baby food, and doing the dishes... (also ten knitting projects and 20 other small projects I have on my back log.) I think I just wanted to write something because I was so sad after I read that article because it sounds like there is rising generation who is starting to care more about themselves than about others.  A generation unwilling to have children because they would have to give up too much. And this type of world seems like a darker world to me. I wish I could put this in a way with more eloquence, the thoughts and feelings are there but they are not flowing out of my fingers onto the page- but if I wait for that then I think the thoughts may be gone so I present here the few coherent (I hope) thoughts that I do have on the subject. 

Being a mother is hard, but few things bring you closer to seeing through the eyes of God than being a mother. 
I love my children. I love what they have taught me and who they have helped me become. Nothing will allow you to love more than putting someone else's needs, whoever they may be, above your own. Nothing.