Aidan & Maya’s Field Trip-Black Island Farms!

Aidan and Maya had their 1st Chinese class field trip today! It was so much fun and we were so lucky to be able to go as a family. When we loaded on to the trailer for our tractor ride to the pumpkin patch, a guy explained what we would be doing in English and then one of the Chinese teachers translated it into Chinese for us. Good thing because I was confused;)

That is my friend, Tami, in the middle of both of my pictures. Haha!

 

Then we were off, driven by the “Corn Cop”.

So much fun!

Arabella looked angry in every single picture, today.

Then, it was time to pick out a pumpkin, from an actual vine! That was a first for us. You were supposed to look around and pick your pumpkin and then raise your hand for the “corn cop” to come and cut it off of the vine for you.

Maya had a knack for picking out ugly pumpkins. She seemed to gravitate towards the ones that looked like they had warts or were discolored or partially rotten.

So proud of her sad yellow pumpkin.

 

Picking out the tiniest, partially rotten pumpkin.

We eventually helped her pick out a nice one:)

Daddy found a perfect little pumpkin for perfect little Arabella.

Here are my pumpkins with their pumpkins!

Back on the tractor with our pumpkins.

I LOVE THIS PICTURE!

We took our pumpkins to our car and then we were off to see the animals on the farm! The kids all sang a couple of songs, counted pumpkins and even named the animals, all in Chinese! One animal in particular was getting a little frisky with my friend Tami. The llama was literally trying to kiss her and she kept having to back away from it. It was so funny!

The kids favorite part was the huge hay slide. They would climb up the back, which took Arabella about 5 minutes to do, and then slide down the giant slide.

 

Pumpkin patch, we will see you again soon:)

Baking Baker’s

You know what I hate? Cooking. You know what I love? Baking:) I haven’t always know this about myself. Not until I became a momma and was faced with the daily, dragging chore of having to feed my family. When I saw this posted on Facebook, I laughed so hard because it describes how I feel to a tee:

Hahaha! I love it! So, I was saying, I discovered that I love baking when I found myself always signing up to bring dessert to church functions and always offering to bring dessert when invited to a friends house. I would sooooo rather whip up some delicious brownie marshmallow bars than cook anything.

I’ve always felt a little guilty when I would hear about mothers that would let their kids bake with them. I always thought to myself, “That would be a disaster with all 3 of mine!”. I felt like a bad mom. Not any more! Our new place has this awesome big, wide kitchen counter that the girls love to sit on and it has actually made baking with the kids SO. MUCH. FUN!

We’ve made brownies, muffins, tortillas, cupcakes, cupcakes and more cupcakes…

Making cupcakes for Maya’s preschool class on her b-day:

 

 

 

Success!

More baking:

 

I love that the kids love helping me bake. Now, if I could only get them to cook.

Finally…A Date

At last, a date! It has been a whole 3 months which is a loooong time when you have 3 little ones. ‘Crazy momma that is about to lose her mind if she doesn’t escape from these kids for a night’, was about to come out and it wasn’t gonna be pretty! I remember when we were newlyweds and every night was like date night. Oh, those days are long gone and have been replaced with the occasional getaway. In Florida, we had a sweet setup with a couple of great friends where we would do a babysitting swap. One night one of the couples would watch all of the kids while the 2 other couples went on a date and we would rotate every Friday night. We were getting 3 dates a month and it was free:)

As we’ve been getting more settled I’ve been itchin’ for a date! So, I called up my good friend, Tami, and proposed a babysitting swap! She was so excited an all in. She has 5 year old twins and a 2 year old. Our kids LOVE each other! She volunteered to babysit first so Rich and I got to have our 1st Utah date!

We ate at the coolest restaurant:

Everything was delicious but my favorite was the bread and honey. I’m noticing that Utah is all about honey. Everywhere you go they sell local honey. Mmmmm, so yummy!

The cool thing about this restaurant was the tables. Each one was like a covered wagon! I had our server take a pic and of course it was blurry:( Happens every time.

It was really quite romantic having our very own covered table with a dimming light. I really loved the atmosphere and can’t wait to take Rich’s parents there when they come out.

Leaving Prairie Schooners we ran into a couple of friends;)

 

Afterwards, we went to a movie, Taken 2. It was really good but I told Rich that the next movie we watch needs to be a chick flic because these intense movies are giving me more anxiety which I just don’t need! haha!

I checked my phone after the movie and had received a couple of pictures from Tami. Apparently, she had decided to make it a girls night out and took her daughter, Maya and Arabella out to dinner while the boys stayed home with dad and bbq’d burgers and hotdogs. She spoiled the girls rotten with chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate!

It made me feel so good to know that the kids were in great hands having so much fun and being spoiled to pieces! Tami is so awesome!

After the movie we were planning on going out for ice cream…..until we walked outside. Holy freakin’ cold! I know that this winter is going to kill me, and it’s not even winter yet! So, change of plans. Ihop for some hot chocolate? Yes please!

Just looking at these pictures makes me so happy! We so enjoyed our date and were completely content and ready to go pick up our kids. As it turns out, the kids were not ready for us, though! The moment we walked in the door Maya started crying because she knew we were there to pick them up and didn’t want to go home. Aidan told me that I wasn’t supposed to pick him up until he woke up in the morning. Yeah, we were feeling the love.

I’m grateful for new, great friends, dates and loving kids;) Things are getting so good.

Aidan The Crack Up

Aidan, Aidan, Aidan. My sweet boy can be such a challenge. I guess like any kid, he has his off days. Today was one of those days. From the moment he got home from school he was an endless whiner. I’m talking constant, unceasing  whining. For the most part I was able to ignore him. I would send him to his room to play and he would come out 2 minutes later, whining. I would put a show on for him to watch and it was “boring”. The boy could not be entertained!

So, I was in the kitchen desperately trying to cook dinner without loosing it, when after about 5 minutes in the kitchen with him sitting at the counter whining, I had had enough. I had reached my limit. Up until that point I had completely ignored him and I hadn’t even looked up at him. I was focusing on keeping calm and making dinner. So when I reached my boiling point I was ready to, not so calmly, tell him that he needed to stop complaining and leave me alone! When I turned around with all of my built up anxiety, this is what I saw:

Seriously?!?!? How could I possible be mad at that? I couldn’t! I just died laughing and that is why he is scowling at me in this picture. He didn’t appreciate my laughing at him. I love this kid to pieces. He drives me bananas sometimes but a funny nose and a mustache makes it all ok;)

Our Journey To Utah

While looking through my pictures I realized I never posted about our journey to Utah. I let Rich convince me that it would be a really fun drive to Utah if we took the scenic route and he was right! Instead of making the drive a 2 day drive, we made it a 3 day drive and I’m so glad we did.

Day one was long and boring. We drove through Missouri and Kansas and then arrived in Limon, Colorado that night.

 

Day two marked the beginning of the amazing scenic drive. Wow! I have never seen this side of the country look so beautiful! We drove through the Rocky Mountain national park which I didn’t know would be worthy of being on my bucket list. Pictures simply do not do it’s beauty justice.

 

This is what they do when daddy wants to take a pic with them…

This is what I get.

We took a little detour to go to Leadville, CO where the elevation is 10,000 feet. Rich hopes to run in the Leadville 100 someday.

Then, we continued on to more gorgeous Colorado sites!

Come day three the kids were ready to jump out of the window of our moving van. They actually handled it very well until the nausea started. Maya was so good and just hung out holding a plastic bag which she would puke into when needed.  Arabella caught me off guard when she started to vomit which set Maya off. We were driving through the coolest tunnel of the entire drive and I was glancing in my rearview mirror watching both my girls vomit! That was a moment.

While we enjoyed the drive and our many stops along the way, we were all so excited to arrive in Utah. That was our journey, the rest is another post;)

Those Moments

You know those moments when the stresses and struggles of parenthood suddenly become SO WORTH IT? Ah yes, I had one of those tonight, a couple of times actually. Tonight I took Aidan and Maya to their first tumbling class. They loved it and did a really great job. The moment came as we were loading into the van. After buckling the kids in I sat in my seat when the sweetest little voice came from behind me and said, “Mom you are pretty.” My heart completely melted. Aidan made my night.

Moment #2 happened tonight when I put Arabella to bed. I gave her a kiss on the forehead and she reached up, grabbed my face and gave me a smacker on the lips. My girl loves me. Also, while I’m talking about Arabella, she is the best! Every day, at some point during the day she will say to me, “Mom, I’m soooooo happy!” I love it! Last week when she fell off of our back deck she said as we were driving to the ER, “Mom, I’m not happy!” As the night went on and she started feeling better she snuggled with me and once again said, “Bella is happy again.” Tell me that is not the cutest? You can’t because it is!

Motherhood. So worth it.