Surgery Day

Surgery day (#1) is upon us and I couldn't be more excited (and maybe a tad nervous)! Definitely no more babies after this, I'm having my tubal ligation in approximately 3 hours. I've been looking forward to this for about a year now. We knew when we decided we were done having kids I'd have this surgery and then the following year I'd have my "mommy makeover" tummy tuck (to fix my abs and hernia) so I'm excited to get this one checked off to do my other one next year.

It's been a hard process to get this surgery, unfortunately. I tried for 3 weeks to get my consultation appointment. When I finally got in they found out it was the wrong kind of appointment and they'd cancel that one and put me on the calendar for the right kind (the one I went in was for if I was looking for an ablation to help my periods instead of being on birth control). I went in and they said I needed to have an appointment within 30 days of my surgery (this was back in early July) so I assumed that meant my surgery would be in July. They told me they'd call me to schedule it at my consultation and when they finally did call they told me the earliest surgery date they had was the 31st of August (UGH!!!) so I asked if that meant I still had to do an appointment within the 30 days and they said yes, unfortunately, so they scheduled that for the 22nd. Luckily, I had that day off already so I booked that. I was totally fine, excited, and looking forward to getting this done. Then, for some reason, last week I just started to get so nervous that I'd go under and not wake up. 

I swear having kids makes you develop ridiculous fears...apparently in my case. As the week has gone on I've been doing everything I can to make sure to soak up as much family time. I mean, sure, I make jokes about this being my last week alive (so I'm not wasting in sleeping and I'm having as many snacks as I can haha), but there is a part of me that is quite nervous. Luckily, we've had an amazing week, the kids have been so sweet and loving and cuddly this week, which is very much helping my momma heart. I've been more patient and soaking up ALL moments with them. I have a lot I need to get done still so I have no intention of letting this take me from my family and great life. I have today off, even though my surgery isn't until 12:10 (I haven't been able to eat since 11 last night so I intend to have a great big meal afterwards), but I do go back to work tomorrow so hopefully my recovery is quick (I'll keep ya posted...assuming I wake up haha).

August Activities

This month has been an active one that's for sure. Aside from my family reunion, back to school, and my exciting day I have tomorrow (see tomorrow's post for that), here's what we did this month:

-Stace had to get her car repaired in Utah so she stayed with us for a couple nights early in the month. It was a bit chaotic (since I still had to work), but I was glad we could make room for them and make it work so they didn't have to pay for a hotel. We had a lot of fun the Friday night playing cards (Larry, me, and her all played and it was SO much fun!), we did masks, we talked and talked, and just had some good girl time (with Larry a little bit).  We also took the kids to the Utah County fair on Friday night. It ended up being kind of a dud, but at least we got out of the house!

-I finally ordered organizers for our activity closet that were actually useful. The closet isn't exactly where I'd like it to be, but it's SO much closer and so much easier to access. I still need to find room for the paper cutter, some wood projects I have, and my silhouette machine (that I never use), but other than that I've found a way to squeeze everything in. While, it's still a work in progress and there's more I can get done, this is HUGE progress for this closet! 

-While taking time off of work for the first week of Gwen and Cara being in school I decided to also attempt to potty train Lucy. She kind of started doing it on her own a few months ago so I thought this might be easy, and it turned out it was! She basically took care of it all on her own. We printed off two trackers (since she filled out the first one by the end of the first week). She kept requesting rainbow underwear so this last weekend we found a set that had rainbows at Smith's so we got her those. She has filled out the 2nd tracker and so we're planning on taking her to the dollar store to get a toy and let her switch from pull ups to the underwear. I'm so excited she's taken to this so easily. We only had one instance where she went potty in her pull up (that wasn't from nap time or bed time) so I'd say that's a success!

-Last Saturday, we met up with Marie and hit up the Loveland Aquarium. It was her first time going to this one and it ended up being a hit. We were able to see everything just before it closed (we saved the sharks for last and we were there when they announced it was closing in 10 minutes so we cut it pretty close). We then headed to nearby park/playground to let the kids play and eat. Unfortunately, Marie got stung by a bee there so that was pretty sad, but she handled it like a champ and said she was feeling better the next day. We definitely had (mostly) a lot of fun that day.

-Football preseason has started and the Packers have been ROCKING it so far! I'm so excited for the real season to start up!!

This month just zoomed by, it was so nice! But I know the next month is going to go just as fast and then we're into the holiday so it'll practically be February by the time I can slow down so here's to having a great rest of the year!

Back to School Time

I am coming to love Back to School time. Not because I look forward to my kids being in school and dealing with drop off and pick up (not to mention having one kid in all day school and one in half day so that's so many pick ups and drop offs), but I love shopping for school supplies, I love planning lunches, and taking first day of school pictures (and picking out first day outfits).

This year my mom and I took Cara and Gwen out shopping on the 12th. We only had to hit up Target and Kohls and got everything we needed (we did end up hitting up Barnes & Noble too, but that was a personal one for me and I ended up getting more books than I expected). We got way more than the girls needed, but it was fun. 

Unfortunately, lunches aren't that exciting, yet. Cara is pretty picky and has only had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (I do try and put a few snacks for her, but she's just pretty basic) and Gwen doesn't have lunch at school. Maybe I should be grateful it's easy so far.

The first days have been great. Picking out outfits was so fun and I, of course, had to do our traditional questionnaire for both of them. Cara started last week (the 16th) and Gwen started today. So far both have loved going. In fact, going to drop Cara off (with Gwen) they had their heads out the window yelling "this is the best day in the world!" and Cara (I think she assumed everyone else was going into 1st grade as well) kept saying "first grade is the best" and telling everyone hi. Both said they weren't nervous for their first days, which is a nice surprise.

Gwen was so in the zone when I dropped her off. She has to hold onto this rope line when I check her in and once she grabs on, I no longer exist, she's in preschool mode. When she got out she was so excited and said she had a great day. She seemed so excited for recess the most. She's already asking when she gets to go back again haha.

Either way, I'm so excited they are having great years so far. I look forward to them having more fun and learning more. Their teachers are so nice so far and I think it's going to be a great year!

Family Reunions

When I was a little girl I remember doing family Christmas parties with my great aunts, uncles, and great Grandma. I used to hate going all the time, but it was a MUST GO every year. When my great grandma passed away the Christmas parties stopped and it got a little sad that we weren't going anymore and I kind of missed it.

Well a few months ago my great family (easier than specifically labeling the people) decided they'd like to start it up again and had it planned for this weekend. I became very excited. I'm sure it'll be boring for my kids and they'll dread them, but I don't care, it's a great tradition to have growing up. I love having family around. PLUS they had the reunion at Wheeler Farm next to a playground so the kids actually had fun.

It was so nice catching up to the people I see online and seeing new babies and seeing all the people from when I was a kid. As a bonus, one my great aunts brought a big box of really old family photos and we got to dig through it. I was determined to find something of my Papa and we found a couple photos of him as a little kid. I totally teared up (I miss him SO much still it's insane). It was so great seeing his cute little boy face!

My Papa as such a tiny boy!

After spending a couple hours there, eating sandwiches, visiting, and taking some photos we decided to head home for nap time (Pierce was DONE and luckily went right to sleep once we got home). It was so nice visiting and I very much look forward to the next ones!

These pics are only the tip of the iceberg of how many people were there, but it was silly fun!

July Activities

We/I had such a fun month this month, I am loving summer this year! 

• Early this month (on the 8th), I went with Mom, Will, Grandma, Andy, and Rachel to see "Top Fun" at Desert Playhouse. Rachel works there and gets us cheap tickets (plus discounts on their food...I had to try their lava cake haha). I love that they are an improv show and they make it pretty interactive. It was such a funny show (they broke character a few times and that makes it more funny haha). It was such fun, I noticed they had a Grinch Christmas show next year that I have every intention of bringing Cara and Gwen to. We even had them do a birthday shout out to Grandma and she was SO surprised and seemed to love it. 

• I crossed off a huge to-do that I've been wanting to do for a few months: I finally cleaned & organized the kids toys & all our sheets (finally!). I found a good storage system for our sheets (I found some storage bags that are about the same size as the zipper bags that the sets come in) and it has been SO nice having those set better.

• I also organized the kids toys into 7 containers so we have one for every day and it's easier to clean them up each day (rather than having ALL toys out all the time). It's not EVERY toy, as some we just left out to have them be able to play with at any point and are easy to clean up (like dress up stuff) and I still need to do something with the basement toys, but maybe that'll be a plan for next month haha.

• Another HUGE check off is we got our backyard patio and outdoor toy storage projects done. I've been looking for a good storage system for our side yard (it's not big and it starts out wide and gets more narrow as it gets closer to the yard, which makes it hard to find something that fits AND we can walk around). We went to Costco one day and I saw these storage boxes that would be PERFECT! I just wasn't sure if they'd be the right size so we went home and I measured and saw they would fit so the next day we went to Costco and...they were all gone (ARGH!). So we drove down to the American Fork Costco and luckily they had them so we grabbed two and very, VERY carefully drove them home (they barely fit in the van with all the kids and I ended up having to drive us home because the driver seat had to be set SO close to the wheel). We got them built and put on some pallets (on top of our big rocks that I had Larry move because the side yard was a much better place than our front square). I loved getting the outdoor toys more organized and put away so they don't blow away or get destroyed in the elements.

• We scoured so many concrete people to get out back patio poured so we can finally have an outdoor dining set (not to mention a LOT less dirt blowing around outside as well). After so many of them telling us it was too small of a job for them so I finally turned to KSL and looked at the services section and found some concrete people to reach out to. One finally reached back out, was within budget, and was able to get the job done within a day (sweet deal to us!). I think we may have to reconfigure our back porch steps for the new area, but that's a job for another summer haha.

• This month was Gwen's turn for 1:1 dates. She ended up picking going swimming at a Rec Center Pool and, of course, the other kids thought that sounded so fun we made it a family date. We were going to go to the one in Lindon, but it was SO packed  (and outdoors while the temperature was over 100 degrees and Larry wasn't feeling being outside) we went to the Lehi one and it was SO much fun (and indoors)!! They had so many fun areas and the kids LOVED the lazy river the most. I'm honestly hoping to go back again because it's so much fun!!

• On 7/11 we got our free slurpees during nap time. It was VERY hot to it was really nice. I'll never pass up a free slurpee (plus they organized the line so it wasn't so bad).

• On the 16th I was craving ice cream so we decided to check out the new Handel's in Saratoga Springs. Larry and I both got the 4 scoop sampler and the kids all got a cone with 3 scoops of their choice of ice cream. It was SO yummy (I'm pretty sure ice cream is my favorite dessert). It was a nice treat in the 100 degree weather and I didn't realize it was National Ice Cream Day until afterwards, so that was nice haha.

• We also have been doing plenty of fun nap time activities while it's summer break. At first it was overwhelming, but now I'm more used to it and I love the more personalized time and breaks from work I get to spend with the girls.

• On the 22nd, we went to this float preview event at the Mountain America Expo Center (it was free, indoors, and they had free face painting for the kids). It wasn't the most exciting things for the kids, but it was really cool seeing the detail in the floats and the video time lapses. Some of them even had little scavenger hunts that the kids could do (they also had candy that I think was their favorite part haha).

• On the 29th one of my work friends, Jeni, got married and we got to go to the reception. The kids were all dressed up and looking so cute. The food was great and Jeni looked so gorgeous in her dress.

So that was July for us. Pretty eventful and exciting. Our last full month of summer break. I'm looking forward to school starting next month and going back to school shopping for Gwen and Cara. Hopefully we can keep it budget friendly haha.

Also, a MOVING UPDATE: I know I posted that we'd be relocating with Larry's job last month. However, after looking and doing the math we realized that housing interest rates are just too insane right now. We'd pay less in gas and car maintenance than we would on just the interest of a new home. So until rates are more favorable we've put a halt on moving. It was a hard decision to come to and we're hopeful moving is still part of our future, but right now it doesn't fit and, luckily, we're happy with where we're at.