Just Another Day in Paradise!

Well these days I'm just chugging along trying to be a mom to my two sweet beauties...and I'll admit some days are more gratifying than others, but nevertheless I am happy to be where I am in my life. 

I am still running 3-4 days a week trying to train for my 10k coming up. It's been really fun for me to have a goal to work towards, and running really is a therapy for me. I love the feeling when I finally hit my stride! It's making the early wake-up-call a little more bearable! I'm still probably the slowest runner out there but  I am loving it all the same. 

My garden is another amazing experience in my life! I've harvested at least 21 zucchini and 3 green peppers! 

And it rained like crazy last week so I finally did some much needed weeding while the ground was still wet. Everything is growing! It just makes me love my backyard even more :)

We went to the pool this week, we had a blast! The kids are really getting in to swimming and they love to jump off the sides and blow bubbles on the water...and they really love the slides when I can take them. Here's a couple gems from our swim day-I love thus one haha, Elsie's face is priceless!

Me and my sweet girl taking a selfie :)

Dallin soaking up the sun. 

 

And I didn't get any pictures but thanks to Amy for coming and keeping us company at the end! 

Other things you'll find us doing is reading--I swear storytime just keeps getting longer!

And we eat lots of Popsicles. This day was rainy so we had a Popsicle picnic. 

Life is good for the Hughes family! Living up summer and loving it!...for the most part, let's be honest, we could do without the box elder bugs and the tantrums. ;)

August is here!

The fact that I missed two months of my life on this blog is a little overwhelming! But i've never been very good at catching up… So I'll just start from now and see how it goes :-) one thing I do know is that keeping track of my life and the lives of my kids is important, and I felt that a lot lately, so I'm starting now and hoping to post more often even if it's just a picture or a little paragraph. So here goes. This is what the beginning of August is looking like for us! 

It rained! Every time it rains now, Dallin and Elsie always run to the window and ask if they can go out and play in the puddles, they will jump in every body of water they find! 

I signed up for 10K!! I've been wanting to get back into running for a while now, and I've been going out about once a week all summer… But I finally found a race that will work for me! So five weeks from now, I better know how to run 6.2 miles :-) this was the view from the lake this week, a gorgeous way to start my day.

We had a night this week! Ryan shoupe and the rubber band we're playing at BYU Idaho, so we got tickets and went! We had a great time, it was nice to get out. 

We've been working on making our house look a little bit better the last couple weeks, it's been a bit crazy and time-consuming, because the house is wood siding and we had all the paint was falling off... But we are making progress! It will probably be another two years before it looks the way I have in my head… But I'm happy with what it is right now. Here's the before picture ( what the house looks like when we bought it) 

Here's what it looks like now. (not totally completed) :)

Like I said, it's a work in progress haha! Someday I hope to have lots of bushes and flowers and the white paint all fixed up to… But that is probably for another summer :-)

All in all, life is good. It has its ups and downs, and it definitely has lots of children sibling rivalry… But I'm enjoying it for the most part  :-)

Picture update

Been a while since I updated, so for today here's a couple pictures of our happenings.

1. We bought a sandbox! The best purchase ever!

2. I've been weaning  Elsie over the last couple weeks in preparation for girls camp. She's starting to Like milk more and more and I'm starting to feel better about the whole weaning my baby thing...

3. Dallin loves peanut butter!… On a sidenote I tried to potty train him one day in underwear it only lasted three hours. He was not a fan--and I decided we needed to wait a while :)

4. We have the coolest library ever!! They have Safari animals all over our library this month just for touching. Dallin and Elsie love it!!...though I might love it more. So cool!

5. Elsie is sweet 

5.5. And she took her first steps!!!

6. Jared is working hard and exhausted! Can you tell? :-) he got a new job too! He starts next week and it's all been pretty crazy... But ironically enough it's here in Eastern Idaho so were sticking around!

7. Because of the new job we have to get rid of our razor… So we took it out for one last family ride to the river! It was so pretty...and yes the kids are stuffing their faces with muffins I brought along :)

8. Dallin loves our backyard, we play outside for a good 30% of our day--if he had it his way it would be more!...a lot of the time it is :) it's a good life!

9.Elsie tried her first piece of corn on the cob and she loved it!! the teeth coming in are crazy and just seems like it never stops!

10. I chopped my hair off! I know it's crazy but I just needed something different--an early life crisis if you must know :)  i'm still trying to figure out how to do hair when it doesn't involve a ponytail or bun haha, but it's a fun change :-)

We are blessed and life is good!

St Patricks Day

The Irish blood in me always sparks up when March finally comes.  St. Patricks Day was one of the most celebrated holidays in my childhood and I love sharing those traditions with my children.  I haven't been the best at creating traditions in my little family...but this year I was determined to try.  And Try I did. 

The Leprechauns came and died our milk green, and we ate green pancakes for breakfast!  

Dallin loves pancakes.  And he loved "geen pannpates" even more!

Elsie didn't care what color the pancakes were, she just screamed like a banshee until she got some and then was content. :)

And of course I found her an adorable St Patricks Day outfit at the thrift store, so she was decked out in shamrocks for the day.  It just made my heart smile every time I looked at her.  (sorry, I suck at taking pictures..so once again this is blurry)

I wont apologize for this picture...Dallin hasn't stopped moving for pictures in ages, so I consider this to be the best of the lot!  Sporting a green shirt :)

I was excited to make a vibrant green spinach quiche for dinner with some smoothies.  I made the pie crust from scratch and chopped all the veggies, shredded all the cheese and stuck it in the fridge until I needed to add the eggs and cook it.  When the time came, I opened the fridge and this happened...

Tears were shed...look at all those pretty veggies! and the cheese!  and my perfect pie crust!...all destroyed!!! Not to mention my only pie dish.  Waaaaaaaaaa!  

But as we all know, life must go on, and one really shouldn't cry over shattered quiche...so I swept it up and Jared got pizza on the way home, on which the only green thing was a couple wilted peppers...so my green meals weren't completely successful, but the pizza did taste good.

Not the most rewarding day in the world, but if a ruined dinner is really the worst of my problems I have nothing to complain about. 

"May your thoughts be as glad as the shamrocks. May your heart be as light as a song. May each day bring you bright, happy hours. That stay with you all the year long."

       -Irish Blessing

8 Months Old

Oh how time has flown!  I have not yet come to grips that my little baby girl is already 8 months old!  She is a light in my life, constantly showing me what true joy really is, and I'm just so glad she came to our little family!

Here are the facts!

-She LOVES every food I have put in her mouth.  She gobbles up everything I have and is screaming for more when she realizes that the food intake has stopped.  Although it's hard to peg a favorite, she does really like bananas, and will now eat them in little pieces instead of pureed.  She has always preferred to feed herself, be it with a spoon or with her fingers...and she ALWAYS makes a mess.  I have yet to make it through a meal without having to wash baby food out of her hair and ears, but her independence is nice, because usually I can eat right alongside her. 

-She is almost crawling.  In fact she crawls backwards with almost perfect form...but she hasn't quite mastered the coordination it takes to crawl forward.  Though, the way her brother tackles her, I imagine it wont take long...her survival depends on it no doubt. :) 

She has 2 teeth...going on 7!!  Currently cutting 5 teeth at once...ugh.  It makes all our lives a little tricky, but she is a trooper and still sleeps relatively well, and is always offering smiles to me when she wakes in the night. 

Other loves:

-bright toys

-her brothers toys, especially the little motorcycles, she loves to chew on the wheels

-being outside!

-bath time, she splashes the water until she can't see, and even then she doesn't cry.

-being thrown in the air by Daddy.

Dislikes:

-getting dressed.  She HATES having her arms put into her shirts.  There is always fussing and crying.

-her carseat.  More fussing and crying :)  But sometimes she'll fall asleep too.

-when her brother torments her.  She will look at me with a face that says 'save me momma!'  Her brother is pretty rough on her but I feel that she will be fighting back in no time...or maybe teaching him  how to be nicer! 

All in all, she is the sweetest, most beautiful thing to enter my world and I love her more than I can put into words.  My sweet Elsie Ruth. :)

Family Vacation

  Last Week Jared took the WHOLE week off and we took a little family vacation!  It was a wonderful week and we all enjoyed the break from everyday life.
Originally we were going to go travel somewhere warm, like St George, or California....but then we decided to spend half our vacation budget on a new TV, which was TOTALLY worth it...and so we rearranged our vacation plans to spend some of it in our lovely new house and enjoying southeast idaho. :) 

  First, Jared got up with the kids and let me SLEEP IN!!!!...It was an amazing experience.  I probably haven't slept til 8:30 since I was in High School! My husband is awesome! 
  Later that day, we took Dallin to a little playplace and ate some pretty awful pizza..which Dallin gagged on and threw up.  However, he did enjoy the little ride on toys, especially the galloping horse.  We also indulged in a little bit of thrift store shopping and found him an adorable 5 dollar suit and me some nifty colored shoes, and Jared some schnazzy new shirts. I know...we're very exciting. :)  But really, it was just nice to be able to hang out as a family and not have a schedule to follow or anything that needed to actually get done.
  Tuesday, thanks to my awesome sister, we got to go on a date while she watched the kids.  We did some bowling--I won.  And some mini-golf--which I also won, and played some arcade games--Jared definitely won all of those, and then we watched The Lego Movie. It was funny and wierd and we enjoyed it a lot.  It was fun to do those things together and not have to worry about what Dallin was breaking, or what Elsie was proceeding to eat off of the floor.

The next day we trekked to Logan...but in a new car beacause the night before we took our car in for an oil change and the person backed it up into another car and dented up the bumper--so we got to drive this ugly-colored Chevy Malibu the rest of the week.  All in all not a bad car, except for the the time that we rolled down the window and it wouldnt roll back up for a while...anyway...yeah.  It was all good.

Logan was fun!  We hung out with the parents, and I graduated my phone status from archaic flip phone to SMARTPHONE!  It was a pretty amazing experience, and my life is forever changed because of it. I already have a dependent relationship with it, no doubt. Though I took most of the pictures with it, and a lot of them turned out a little blurry so sorry for that.
The kids loved being with Grandma and Grandpa and we had a really great time.

Then we went to Provo to hang out with Emma and Ryan.  We went to their rec center which has an indoor water park, and we loved it! It took a little while to get the kids into it, but all in all they had a great time, as did I.

Elsie had so much fun she fell asleep :)

That night we went to some fun brazillian place to eat and then to a little dessert place called the Chocolate Moose--which served tiny little mousse pies in shotglasses.  It was delicious and fun!

Saturday was Jared's Birthday! (31 years!) and he really wanted to go do this Star Trek Simulation that he had done when he was on his mission...it took us a little while to find it, but once we got into it, it was a lot of fun!  Thanks mom for babysitting again so we could have another fun date! We also got to reconnect with Nate and Beka, which was fun.

 













All in all, an amazing week! 

 

Letter to Kathryn 2/16

Foer the sake of my journaling, I am copying my letters to Kathryn here because thats easier than editing and trying to rewrite things :)

Hey Kathryn!!!!!

Hope all is going well for you in good old England, it is so fun to read about all the adventures you are going through and the neat experiences too. You are truly incredible and I am so proud of what you are doing. We had the missionaries over for dinner this week, and they were so hilarious! They had matching metal old school briefcases( in which they were carrying their manuals, scriptures, a random toy for kids and some chocolate syrup haha), matching socks, and matching ties and they kept me laughing the whole night--lol, I forgot how hilarious 19 year olds could be :) We had them over a couple weeks ago too--but this week they must have been feeling goofy, because they were pretty funny. Anyway, I couldn't help but think about you and hope that you were having lots of fun times too.

Life is good here in Rigby ID. Jared got some super exciting news this week--his RZR showed up! It is like a hyped up four wheeler, and because of his job we get one for free :D he has been waiting for it for 4 months and was SO excited to get it. I will attach a picture. I have yet to get too excited about it, but we're going out riding next weekend, so that should be fun.

The kids are doing great, learning and growing and driving me crazy and keeping me sane all at once. Dallin moved to a big bed this week and has been sleeping better which is a gift from heaven for me. He currently runs around the house making revving sounds while he plays with any toys, and he loves to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in a tone deaf voice.

Elsie plays and coos all day, and loves to eat her solids, she prefers to feed herself. She is growing fast and is now 7 months old! I love her smiles and her rare cuddles.

I am surviving winter and dreaming of summer :) I succumbed this week and bought strawberries and mangos at the grocery store and they tasted like they came from heaven to me. I spend my days busily doing a million things I can't recall by the end of the day, but I can usually get dinner on the table and get the kids to bed without losing my mind or my temper, so for now I will consider that a success :) I am camp director for our ward and have been working a little on that as well.

I love ya lots and pray for you every day. God Bless