Father's Day

We love this DADDY!

This was a bit of a hard day because we were hit HARD with a nasty flu bug at our house.  Mark got sick the night before and was not feeling well all day Sunday and I followed by Sunday afternoon.  But we hope that this man of ours knows how much we love him.  He is the rock of our home and is a steadying force for all of us.  Mark is a wonderful father and these three are so lucky to have him.

Happy Father's Day!

CTR Challenge

Every first FHE of the month this year we have been doing a "CTR Challenge".  We got the idea from The Friend and it has been great.  Maybe not quite as fun as last year's Scripture Hero but we are still having fun with it.  We talk a WHOLE lot about choices in our house and so it is great to have an easy way to talk about good choices.  For our lesson, I usually tell them a story from The Friend that has to do with the topic and we talk about different ways we can choose to live that principle.  For example, this month we talked about taking care of our bodies.  We talked about eating good foods and treating our bodies with kindness (aka not running into walls and pinching one another!) and exercising to keep our bodies strong.  

These kiddos are pretty amazing.  I am in awe sometimes at what they pick up on.  They are such special spirits and I am so grateful to be their mother.  They are just good kids and I know that they will make their part of the world a better place.  They already make our home a better place.  I love you three - and keep choosing the right!

6 Months

How is this little man six months old?!

Benjamin is just perfect.  We love him to pieces.  He continues to grow.  He is 26 inches in length (36%), 16 pounds 2 ounces (27%), and a head circumference of 43 cm (30%).  He is still in six month size clothes.  He drinks four 7-ounce bottles a day and is no longer having any bottles at night.  Can I get a WOOT WOOT?!  He is taking two naps a day, each about two hours.  

I cannot believe how much Benjamin MOVES!  He rolls everywhere!  It never fails to amaze me how quickly he can get anywhere by rolling and pivoting his body.  He loves to be on the go.  

Benjamin continues to love people.  He is so content when there are people around him - especially his big brother.  I love their relationship and Jacob is so good with him.  

We are FINALLY sleeping through the night.  We are so excited and it has been wonderful!

Benjamin also started eating solid foods this month and he has been an absolute champ!  He's liked everything so far, though he did take a little longer to eat his squash at first.

We love you, Benjamin!

Lot

This has been several months coming but we FINALLY have a lot!  We have land to build our dream home and we are so thrilled.  We fell in love with this property from the moment we saw it and are so grateful that things have come together for us to have it.  Let the home building BEGIN!!!

Memorial Day

We had a wonderful Memorial Day!  We started yesterday by going to the Garden City Cemetery and showing the kiddos those that have come before us.  The cemetery looked so beautiful and I am glad that we did it.  

This morning we had some blueberry waffles and then headed to the park.  We played and walked down the boardwalk to the lake.  Then we went and looked at the parade of homes.  I have never been before and we figured if there was ever a year for us to go it was now since we are trying to build our home.  

The kids did really well and it was fun to see how space was used and other aspects of the homes.  

We came home, had some lunch and the kids all crashed for some naps.  After naps we played hard outside, playing in the water table, swinging, playing some baseball, going down the slide, and just running around!  It was a beautiful day!  

We had our Memorial Day dinner and Mark told us about his Grandpa and Grandma Webber.  I love being able to share these stories with our children.  It is so important to us that they know where they come from.  

What a beautiful day!

Preschool Graduation

This last Monday night, Jacob graduated from preschool!

Grandpa and Grandma Berning came up and we had a nice dinner before heading off to graduation.  Jacob adores his grandparents and was so happy to have them there!  

The graduation combined Jacob's morning class with the afternoon class and so there were about twenty kids total.  Teacher Jen put together such a wonderful program and I definitely laughed and got a little teary all in one.  

She had each of the kiddos stand and introduce themselves and say there favorite thing about preschool - snacks was the definite favorite!

Each of the kids also were able to give a "talent" during the program which ranged from facts about Batman to singing songs from Moana.  Jacob decided to sing the ABC song and he did a great job.  He told me afterwards that his favorite part was talking in the microphone!

Each of the kids were brought up and given an individual award as well as a diploma for graduating from preschool.  Jacob was given the best penmanship award!

I cannot tell you how proud I am of Jacob.  He loves to learn.  He constantly amazes me how quickly he picks up on things and enjoyed doing "homework" that came home from preschool and also doing a workbook that we had here at home.  He knows all of his letters and their sounds and is beginning to read words and learn how to sound things out.  He counts like a champ and is really good with patterns, colors, and shapes.  I hope he never loses that love for learning.  It makes me so happy to see it.  

I also cannot say enough good things about Jacob's Teacher Jen.  This preschool was exactly what Jacob needed this year.  It was structured so perfectly for him.  It was a great mix of academic and social skills.  And Jacob adores Teacher Jen.  The part that got me teary-eyed the most was afterward when we were getting a picture with Teacher Jen and Jacob told her he loved her and gave her a kiss.  It was so sweet.  She was so perfect for Jacob and really understood him and his needs.  I am so grateful for how much she has done to help Jacob this year.

The other kids in Jacob's class were all so sweet and it was so fun to watch them go up to one another and have them sign each other's graduation bears afterward.  

Jacob was on cloud nine the whole night.  We are so proud of him.  He has grown in so many ways this last year.  I am still holding on to wanting him to stay my little boy forever.  I am so proud of who he is becoming and (although I never want him to grow up) can't wait to see where he goes in life.  

We love you, Jacob. 

Marina

This last Sunday was beautiful.  We had stake conference at the beautiful Paris Tabernacle in the morning, so after afternoon naps (which we got to take because of early church - WOOT WOOT!) we decided to take a walk down to the marina.  

Seeing as this next weekend is Memorial Day, things around here are going to change quickly, so we knew this was going to be our best chance to just enjoy the surroundings without a crowd.  It was perfect and the kids had so much fun running around the docks - and Sarah totally freaking us out!  Luckily we all stayed out of the water and we had fun looking at the fish swimming below.  Although, I think the highlight was finding a frog on our walk there!

I am grateful for these simple moments in our family.  I am pretty much reminded daily of how tiring a lot of this stage of our life can be, with so many young kidlets, but it's also a really beautiful time too.  There is a whole lot of sweetness with these three beautiful children and we are so grateful that they are ours.