Thinking about my babies

I was looking through old photos of my girls and put a picture together of all of them at ~ 1 year old. Mia is not quite there and neither was Hailee but the other two are right on.

Might as well update the ol blog

So we have had an eventful December thus far. I grabbed Kim and Mia and stole away with them on our Anniversary to Seattle. I had a great time with my beautiful wife of 9 years and Mia actually slept well for the first time in a long time. We went to dinner at a great restaurant on the 2nd and the next day we just hung out in Seattle. We walked downtown and ate at a seafood restaurant.

We came home and have really enjoyed being around family. Mia is back to her old sleeping habits so I have been trying to let Kim sleep as much as possible but some nights it gets to be too much.

The kids are doing well in and out of school and I am so excited for our older two who are in piano. I love the sounds of the piano in our home.

I have taken up a new sport and am decent at it until I get tired. I tweaked my back playing it but still live to play squash. For those who don't know it is a bit like raquetball just on a smaller court, with a smaller squishy ball that doesn't bounce and a racquet that is smaller but longer. It is a lot of fun as a winter sport but I miss boogie boarding. I love the snow but summer is great.

We are looking forward to Christmas and have come up with ways that we can serve others this year. I love the way that Kim's family takes an active role in serving and I look forward to this time of year just for that reason.

Busy as life gets

Life has been nuts lately. I was gone last week after hurting my back. I drove 7.5 hours in pain last Sunday and I was in Spokane for 5 days. I drove 7.5 hours back Thursday night. I have been home 3 days and am headed to Phoenix for 3 days starting tomorrow. As much as I enjoy work, I am tired. I sit here in church after hours of meetings with my back still hurting. I miss my wife. She is at home with sick kids. I want to take a break for a few days and just spend time with her. Then I want to take a few days and just do stuff with my kids and her. Money and time takes away from me being able to do that. My girls are growing up and I miss out on it.

Hailee got chased by a dog the other day while she was riding her bike. She is such a funny girl. She was so excited to tell me about it.

Abigail is growing up so fast. She is learning to control her emotions. She makes me laugh when I tease her and she gets mad and comes at me swinging. She likes to wrestle me and I never would have figured that a year ago. I am proud of her doing well in school.

Natalie is a little tank. She gets mad and drives her mom crazy with her super scream but it makes me just want to cuddle her more. She is getting so smart and loves racing to help out.

Mia is getting bigger and sweeter. She still likes held but she is much more content. It makes life easier.

Kim is my world. She struggles with me being gone and I feel horrible. We are working on a few ways to get her off of her paper route. I enjoy every second that we have to spend together and I relish the opportunity to be a better man.

Girls will be Girls

We took the girls to the fair and were showing them the cows getting milked. Abby so gently asked why our milk doesn't taste like barn. Not sure how to answer that we went and looked at all the animals. We had fun at the fair, but were lightly afraid for our lives with all the scary tube tops and mullets. Rooster shows up to my office today and Kim asked me if I liked how she was dressed. I looked at her and thought, "Holy Cow, she really needs to start caring what the girls look like before they leave the house. Nice snow boots in August Rooster.

Mia has been WAY better, but has been really touchy while she sleeps. She will wake up and scream every 15 minutes if you don't stay on top of her. She is sure getting cute. She smiles at me every time I get home from work. It gets me so much that I have to sit there with her for a while. Abby and Hailee are about to start school again and I am excited for that. I really hope that Hailee continues what she started last year and I hope that Abby stops with her gang building skills. She is the biggest ring leader I have ever seen. She teams up with other girls and picks on the boys. I see it every day when I get home because she gets all the girls all pumped up and they jump on me almost every day. Rooster is getting so smart, we are starting to be able to have conversations but she also realized a few weeks ago that throwing a fit is somehow fun. She throws them so much now that I can hardly stand it. Kim is still Kim, the best woman in the world. Sorry all you other women out there reading this. It is true, you have no chance at taking that title away from her.

CUTE GIRLS

We just got the girls pictures taken and they turned out great. Good thing you cannot see me behind the camera because I was pulling out every trick in the book to get them to stay in the picture and look the direction of the camera. I wasn't even asking for a smile, a smile was a bonus. Natalie had a bottle of bubbles in almost every picture, but she would scream and cry if we took it away. Hailee was my big helper with the baby. Abby was tired and hot...it was very hot that day so I completely understand the grumpiness. Mia was a good sport. With all of that...Christie did a WONDERFUL job. We are getting ready for school to start and are very excited. It will be nice to get on a regular schedule. Hopefully. We have had a fun summer. The girls are lots of fun and make me laugh a lot all the time.

At least I didn't die!!!

So I went on my first High Adventure as YM President and let me tell you, at least I didn't die. We left at 6:30 from my house. I had been up since 2:00. I drove all the way there and felt SUPER tired, but at least I didn't die. Steve Davis and I were both swerving all over the road while the boys in his car rested, not knowing how tired we both were, but hey, at least I didn't die.

We got up to McCall and stopped at the store for some stuff, when we left McCall I made it as far as Warren Wagon Road (outskirts of McCall) and I started feeling stomach cramps and a HUGE urge to throw up. I kept driving in hopes that it would go away...it didn't. At least I didn't die!!!. We got to the end of Payette Lake and I had to stop at the Restroom there. It took a while, and a woman almost bursting in on me since the door wouldn't lock, for my stomach to settle. I went out and walked around for a bit to make sure that I was good to go. We all got back in the car and I made it just far enough to make it stupid to turn around when my stomach pitched a fit.

We got to camp and got it all set up and I ate what I had for lunch, which was a sandwich from Boise that had been sitting in my car, not sure that was the best for my stomach. Anyways, after a few more minutes in the restroom I came out and the boys were ready to go on our bike ride. I decided not to be a pansy so I got ready to go. One of the boys had a horrible flat tire, so we attempted to fix it and finally got it working and we took off. The 2 mile warm up was nice and then we got to the trail that was / <== that steep most of the time and sometimes | <== that steep...at least I didn't die. :) According to the Forest service, the trail is a beginner level 10 mile course that should have looked like ==> --~-~ that.

After grinding my brakes, having everyone but two leaders eat it and having my legs lock up from cramping, we were half way to the half way point but at least I didn't die. Cliff and I ended up taking up the rear and walking most of the hills after that. The downhills were nice, but somehow most of the trail was uphill. To make a long story short, we got to the lake. No one felt like going back on that trail, that is except Steve. He was like an Iron Man. So we talked to some people and they told us that we could go out to the road on an easier trail and then ride the road for ~10 miles. We did that trail and it was WAY easier but by that time I could barely move from the ride in and so Cliff and I took our time. Oh, and at the lake we had 3 flat tires, one that I thought was irreparable. We got past two major hills and the rest was downhill. That was TONS of fun. We were about a mile from the campground when I saw a huge amount of tire SLIME© in the trail. It was Hayden's tire again. He blew his rear tire out completely and we found him pushing his bike not too far down the trail. Let me just say this one thing about SLIME©, it is great for small punctures, but not when your tube gets wrapped around your chain and gets shredded. It just didn't work that well in that scenario. I was extremely proud of Hayden for not throwing his bike into the bushes and walking away. I would have.

We get to the camp and Cliff hitched a ride with some gentlemen back to camp and we all took off riding to try to meet them half way. We felt like we had done that when I rode up on all the boys sitting in the middle of the road. We sat and sat and decided to push on, we made it 100 yards and sat some more. Then we saw Cliff and Gaylan driving up to meet us, at least I didn't die. YAAAAAY!!! was the cheer from all of us. We made it back to camp after our 10 hour bike ride.

Upon arriving we were met by a pungent odor from the RV hookups, at least I didn't die. We dealt with that all night as we ate and had our FHE (Family Home Evening) from the boys. I thought that FHE was very well thought out and put together, good job boys. They talked about Leadership in families with an emphasis on fatherhood. I thought it was a wonderful take on Leadership. Then we played Mafia and I was the Mafia 80% of the time. It was great. We went to bed and I still have a favorite quote from that evening thanks to Conrad Davis. I am sure that he had already fallen asleep and had a thought go through his mind, "What about Breakfast?" I heard him tiredly say, "If someone could get up early tomorrow and make some breakfast that would be great." It still makes me laugh.

So the next day we were going to hike to a lake and go to the hotsprings. We did and it was a great day for two things. Car sized boulders being pushed down a hill, off a cliff and into the water. Ok, I need to add one more thing, Davis' tennis ball canon that Conrad shot, empty of course, directly into my face with no ear protection, at least I didn't die. The boys thought it was so funny but I can still hear my ears ringing slightly. We went to the hotsprings that night and got eaten alive by all manner of biting fly. I am hatching baby horseflies from my back right now, but hey, at least I didn't die. It is kinda funny cause they look like me. We then went back to camp, ate (I don't like to brag about my cooking but it was pretty stinking good), and had a few spiritual discussions. It was definitely good to hear the boys testimonies and know that they are good kids from the inside out. After that it was a blur. I remember a little more Mafia, me being the Mafia a few more times and throwing a fit when I was Mafia to get a new card, but everyone wanted me to die anyways so they claimed I was Mafia right off the bat. That is fine boys, you all have interviews with the Bishop on Sunday.

Sleep :-P Steve snoring in 5 seperate patterns at once. Wake up. Eat, pack, leave.

Rafting!!! That was very fun, but I think the award for most fun has to go to Gaylan. The oldest and wisest of us all knows how to have fun on a river. We had him standing up in the middle of rapids, chanting, boarding the other boat to throw people off and initiating huge water fights where our whole boat stayed dry and theirs was soaked. Cliff has to get the award for colateral damage since I was trying to get everyone in our boat wet and he was always in the way. I am surprised that he didn't attempt to have me walk the plank. The thing that I enjoyed the most was seeing Steve and Garrison get ejected from their boat over a rapid, the second most enjoyable was getting to float the last mile or so in my life jacket. It was so relaxing, and at least I didn't die.

That was our trip. Pictures will come when I get them.

It's my turn Mitch

Well, I guess it is my turn to publicly express my love for my little hot momma. Out of the next 10 days I will be gone 8 and it got me thinking this morning about how I don't always appropriately say goodbye to my wife. So here it goes:

Kim, you complete me. I see life differently when you are around. You are my glue and my sanity. You have been with me for 9 years and I have been your husband for 8 1/2 of those. Those years have been the best of my life. I have never been so committed to anyone else's happiness. I dream about you almost every night. Not those kinky, dirty dreams but dreams about us just hanging out. I adore your laugh and just being near you. You are the nicest person that I have ever been around. You never think about yourself even though I wish you would sometimes. I know that you care about me more than anything because you show me. You are always there to help me out when I haven't had time to eat or when I have been working out in the yard you always have a cold drink there for me. You are patient with me when I have a bad day. You support me and what I do 1000%. Yes that is one thousand. You don't question my dreams, you just listen and say, "Let's make it happen." You don't know how much that means to me as a man and as your husband. I hope that I give you even a fraction of that. You make me who I am. You make me want to be better, To treat you better, to be a better dad, to care about others more.

I love to read your love notes. I still have all of them. I have one hanging in my office right now. I read it when I am having a tough day. I cannot think of being with anyone else and am entirely happy to have found you. I found love in you. I thought that I knew what love was. I thought that I loved before you. I was wrong. I see my love for you like one that that is eternal. My mind and my soul are bonded with you. I would go farther for you than I would go for myself.

You are the mother of our children. You have the ability to create life and what a group of wonderful lives you have created. You have turned them into the cutest kids ever. I see little parts of you in all of them. Hailee has your commitment. She loves being around me because you love being around me. She sees how you treat me and she wants to do the same. Abby has your sassyness. She is so cute and knows how to get her way. She sees how you are a strong woman and knows that she wants to be like you. Rooster has your sense of humor. She loves to be around you and get tickled and she comes running when you laugh. She wants to see what you think is so funny. Mia has your indecision. She can't make up her mind if she wants held or not, if she wants a bottle or not, if she wants to go to sleep or not. I see you in all of them and they LOVE you.

You are my wife and are truely my best friend. Most guys say it but when they get around their friends, they forget about that and just want to hang out. I usually cut my hanging out short just to get back to you. You are my heart. Without you it would cease to function. I'm forever grateful for your love and proud to be your husband. I will see you in my dreams as I am away.