Moving!

The time has FINALLY come!  We are moving today, three weeks later than expected BUT six weeks earlier than our contract so I guess we came out on top still.  I don't know when we'll have our internet up and running but I'll keep you posted! :)

A Day With Kody

On Monday morning my old neighbor Tina called me to see if I could watch her boy Kody while she went to work.  Charlie was so excited to have Kody come over!  Charlie and Kody were born on the same day November 16th, almost four years ago and they've always played great together.  Well Monday was no exception, they entertained each other all day, from 10:00 to 5:00 and I got so much done!  It was so wonderful, there was  not one fight or argument they played house, built forts, crashed cars, for hours.  It helped that Kenya took a four hour nap too!  What a great day!  Hmmm....When did being able to do 2 loads of laundry folded and put away, and clean and organize all day become a great day?! :) 

After I took a picture of the boys I turned to Kenya and said "Kenya say cheese!"  And right on cue she did this with a little "ba da da!"  
Charlie has loved building forts lately so this was what they came up with.  That stuff on the left is insulation!  Later they were both saying how they were "so so itchy!"

My Little Kenya

This little girl puts a smile on my face all day.  Even when she's doing naughty things like dancing on the table or turning the TV on and off, she is so cute and does her little evil laugh that it's hard to be mad at her!  She is so happy all the time, doesn't seem to be effected by lack of sleep (unlike Charlie) you'd never know she was tired until you look back and she's zonked in the car seat. :)  I love when I pick her up and she puts her little arms around my neck so tight and wraps her legs around my waist, I can completely let go of her and she's hanging on to me, it's so cute just like a little monkey.  She's starting to say a couple things like "all done" and she'll put her little hands up for the sign language.  She'll do "mo mo" too with sign language for more.  She says "hi" to everyone I walk by and waves and "ba ba" and blows kisses.  I just want to squeeze her all day!  I can't believe she is 16 months old.  Love you baby!

Here she is in high chair mode.  She sometimes gets really stiff and sits in a trance when she's in her high chair.  Notice the hair, an attempt at piggies.
She loves bath time!  She throws a tiny fit whenever we take her out.  Charlie loves playing in there with her, unfortuately it doesn't last too long before he starts picking on her a bit.  

 
Here's the difference in Charlie tired and Kenya tired.
Nothing I love more than snuggling a clean baby in jammies, a hubby too. :)

Top Of Utah Marathon!

I did it, I ran a marathon!  When I told one of my friends that I was running a marathon she was completely shocked and said "I thought you didn't like to run?"  Yep, I thought so too until I really started doing it!  I never thought I had a desire to do a marathon, still wasn't sure about it a couple months ago!  But I'm so glad I did it and I can cross it off the list.

We stayed up in Logan the night before so that we wouldn't have to wake up at 3:30 at drive up there to be there by 5.  Well, we might as well have done that because I got no sleep!  It was so awful. I am usually such a good sleeper but I could not shut my brain off.  I was so nervous and anxious.  I think I finally fell asleep somewhere around 1:00 am and woke up at 3:15 and couldn't go back to sleep!  I was trying not to think about it and let it get in my head, it's all mental right? Well I could tell a huge difference in my run.  I was about a minute per mile slower than I usually am and just couldn't keep up with Cami when we've been running the same pace during training.  My ipod died after about two songs so at mile 15 Cami gave me her ipod and left me in the dust, which I of course didn't want to slow her down.  I was just bummed that we didn't get to finish together.  Anyway, I made it through, I was too nervous to push myself too hard for fear of not finishing at all!  The last mile I got a boost of energy when I saw Mark and Charlie and Charlie handed me a flower.  I was so happy to see them, the thought kept me going.  I finished in 4:37, I wanted to finish for sure by 4:30 and hopefully by 4:20 but that's ok, it leaves improvement for next time (well I need to know how it would be on a bit more sleep don't I? ) The important thing is I finished!  Yay!

Here I am crossing the finish line with the little flower from Charlie that he picked off somewhere. :)
Here we are after the race, if it looks like I was crying it's because I was!  I crossed the finish line and saw Mark and just started crying!  I was an emotional wreck!  Cami did awesome and finished in 4:16.
Love Charlie in this picture.  Thanks for all of the support sweetie!

Preschool

Charlie started preschool a few weeks ago and loves it!  He has a great teacher and the preschool is right by our new house so that'll be really nice once we've moved in.  These are pictures of him on his first day, Kenya is excited to have him go to preschool too. :)

We put the kids to work later that day sweeping the floors at our house.  

Charlie's preschool went on their first field trip to This Is The Place Heritage Park.  I've never been there before so it was fun to go and see all the pioneers homes and learn some things.  Charlie was excited to meet some pioneers and loved petting the sheep and riding the train of course.  Kenya also loved petting the animals, she just followed them around and screamed with excitement.  She also loved this little playhouse.  She kept opening and closing the door and going in through the front door and out through the back.  She was quite entertained.  

Capitol Reef

Yay! Our computer is back!  Now it's catch up time!  All my pictures and video are lost though, most of them were uploaded to Kodak Gallery but not all (like our cruise pictures, Lynette and Paige, help!) So learn from me, if you haven't backed up your pictures do it now!  

Over Labor Day we went down to Capitol Reef with my family.  I haven't been there since I was a kid and barely remember that and Mark has never been there, actually never experienced too much of Southern Utah so it was a fun trip.  We got some little cabins at a nearby campground, just big enough for two beds but it had electricity so that made all the difference! Much nicer to have walls surrounding you when you have little ones.  It poured when we first got there but that didn't stop the kids from running around outside.  Kenya splashed around with little Knox while Mark set up the little TV with bunny ears and watched the Utah football opener (couldn't miss that now could we! :)) Another plus of the electricity.  We ate our tin foil dinners cooked in the rain by Amy and Eri and my bros and that was pretty much the end of the rain.  The next day we took a drive down to the park and through the park.  It was gorgeous.  We got to do a little hike to a waterfall before we left.  This was great to do before the drive home, my kids slept the whole 3 1/2 hours home.  So maybe the night time cold medicine I slipped them helped a little. :)  They were a bit congested.  Anyway, we had a great trip.  When we got home Charlie said "Mom, when are going camping again?"  A 3 year olds dream!

Here we are at the end of the hike.  1 mile seems a lot longer with kids and wading back and forth between water.  Kenya is hiding behind Mark's back.  See that little fleck of white hair?

This was at the end of the scenic drive.  It was so beautiful we were winding right through the bottom of the red cliffs.  

There's the little monkey peeking out.  She loved the back pack and was content the whole time.  That's the beautiful muddy waterfall we hiked to.  Small but cool.
There was a beautiful orchard among the red cliffs that you could go pick your own apples and peaches.  It was a beautiful setting and the kids loved it.  I never appreciated all those fruit trees we had when I was growing up.  I hated picking those peaches, now I would love to have fruit trees!

It's been so long for me to not do a post! I do have two excuses though, one-our computer is not working, Mark thinks it's the hard drive, I'm praying it's not since I have all my pictures on there and haven't backed all of them up yet! We have to make an appointment to get it looked at so until we can find the the time I am computerless, I do have my dad's but it does this weird thing when I'm typing, where ever the arrow is from the mouse it moves the cursor there after a few seconds and it makes it a pain to type! Number two is that I haven't had too much to blog about! August has been pretty uneventful for us! We've been busy with our house, it's got about a month left and we've just started painting the rooms we didn't want to pay the painters for. I figured I painted our whole house before, what's a a few more rooms right? Wrong! Way harder to find the time with two kids and when you're not even living in the house! So I think we'll look into hiring some cheap labor if anyone has any suggestions! :) Charlie got to meet his preschool teacher this week, he keeps asking everyday when he can go to preschool, we are both extemely excited for that to start! Kenya is officially down to one nap now, it took me a while to let go she was still so young to go to one nap compared to Charlie but I had to face the facts and nap time is not such a struggle anymore. She also has a full mouth of teeth! Yay! no more teething! Still to come, bye bye binky...