Proud

Reed said to us a couple of Sunday's ago "mommy, daddy? I'm going to stop sucking my thumb.".  Fogg and I made a BIG deal of this announcement because as you may remember, we put a little pressure on him to stop before he turned four.  We laid off a little, but would mention it to him now and again.  This announcement came out of no where really, he just decided.  That night he sucked his thumb after fighting for quite some time to not do it.  But then the next day, he kept to his commitment.  Every morning he would announce to me that he didn't suck his thumb.  I told him that if went the rest of the week I would take him to the store and he could pick out a special treat.  He did it!  We went to the dollar store where he picked out an orange motorcycle toy.  The next week went by and sure enough, he's stuck to his decision.  His thumbnail isn't all floppy anymore, he doesn't do it when he watches TV or gets tired.  Separately, he asked for some new shoes.  He old brown DC shoes were getting a little small and he asked for some new DC shoes.  I asked what color he wanted and he said "all of them".  So I found him a cute pair of new DC shoes with "all the colors". I gave them to him last night and he was thrilled!  He kept saying thank you for getting me these shoes.  This morning, he got himself dressed "awesome fancy" as he said and put on his new shoes.  I asked if I could take a picture of him and his new shoes, this is the pose he gave me.  Love this kid!  He also pulled this shirt that he won at a dirt bike race out of the laundry to wear today.  This is the first shirt he has owned that he will pull out of the laundry basket to wear again (usually what goes in there, stays in there). I'd confidently say that this is his absolute favorite shirt (complete outfit really).

I'm so proud of Reed's commitment, strength and pride as he accomplished his goal.  I tell him all the time, it fills my heart up with pride.  I'm a PROUD proud mama!

More biking and teachers we love

Reed is getting really good at his bike these days.  His Grandma and Papa Fogg got him a new flashy one for his birthday, but it was just a little too intimidating for him initially.  Fogg found him a cheap tiny one at the thrift store for $3 for him to get comfortable on it.  He perfected his riding on the little one and now insists on riding his new flashy one.  I wanted to take a video for G and P Fogg to check it out.  He loves doing tight turns and riding all day long.  He loves to ride his bike!

Today was the first day of new classes for the kids, well, really just Reed.  Remember back when Reed's teacher Molly went away?  It was sad.  He had a tough time with the teacher after that, then we got into Miss Caitlin's class.  He really liked her and that was a great class for him.  Well, he has grown out of her class and guess who's class he gets to be in - Miss Molly's!  She has returned and is taking the older 4 year old class.  Reed was soooo excited this morning to be in her class again.  I didn't get a picture, but I will.  Here he is with Miss Caitlin on his last day on Friday.

Nora has long since moved on from Miss Max's class but every single morning, must go to her first.  She loves Miss Max!  Here they are this morning.

Sunday morning, Fogg went for a long bike ride, so I just hung out with my kiddos!  I made pancakes, we watched cartoons and then they both wanted to snuggle.  Love their cute faces!

DD

Not much happening here, but of course I feel super overwhelmed.  With what?  Nothing in particular.  I get in my head these this need to clean, organize, task and create.  So of course I'm feeling that pull (or push?) to get things done.  Those things are made infinitely more difficult because I work outside the home full time and when at home, I have two little mess-makers that require me to do twice as much work at half the speed to accomplish anything.  Good thing I love them to death!  

We got a new dunkin donuts in South Ogden!  Yay!  So yesterday, we took the whole family for a little after dinner treat.  The kids absolutely loved it, and frankly, so did Fogg and I!

This little girl is so cute!  She learned a little smile/cheese face, here it is:

 Boy, I love all three of these people!

Other than that, I got nothing in particular to say, so there you go.

Pontoon

This past weekend, my brother and his girlfriend came to visit.  Well, they didn't come to visit us, they came to Leigha's family reunion which happened to take place only miles from our house.  So they stayed with us a few nights, and luckily hung out with us a tad on Saturday and Sunday.  It was a mellow, warm and relaxing weekend. Basically, we spent the entire weekend on the lake. 

We rented a pontoon boat from the base and are borrowing a friends waverunner.  We just played in the sun and water all weekend!  Here are a few pictures from our time.

 Our sturdy (sort of) ship! By the way, that girl is not me in the picture, it's our friend Laurie.  Don't we look a bit alike?  I had to double take it myself!

 It actually pulled a tube.  It wasn't a wild ride, but it was perfect for the kids, they loved it!

 Mama and Me!

 Gordon brought his kite and entertained us all for a bit in the wind from the canyon.  It was really fun to watch, the kids (well all of us) were mesmerized!

 Lala kicking back watching Nora play near the beach.

 Fogg took the kids for rides on the waverunner.  Reed loved it! Actually, so did Nora.

 

Nora fell asleep sitting straight up.

 Reed got to the front of the boat and had a really fun time up there as we moved "fast".

 We sat on the beach for a bit, Nora loved playing there.

Nora was pretty upset about taking a picture.  The Fam!

Also, I got results and pictures from the 10K a few weeks ago.  See below! I was 63 overall at a total time of 1 hour 19 seconds. I was the 32nd female to finish and 9th in my age group.  The time between the 2nd place female 30-39 age group and me was only 6 minutes.  I bet I could improve upon that next time!  I'm going to do another at the end of September and I'm actually really looking forward to it!

 At the start with Kaytee, Sabrina and a girl I didn't know.

 Nearing 3 miles right here.

See ya later!

French Fry Fast

It's August! Boy, this summer is flying by!  We've been doing all of our activities as usual.  Here's a little catch up for you.

I decided that I'm going to do a "healthy eating challenge" each month.  So for a month, I'll cut something out of my diet.  July was my first month of doing it.  I started on the 6th, so today is the end of one and on to a new one.  For July, I cut out french fries - hence the french fry fast title.  I made it a whole month!  A few times it got really hard, more that there were fries for the taking and I couldn't take.  It was fairly easy to not order them but when Nora is shoving one in my face trying to share, it was super hard to not take it.  August will be no pop (soda for those of you that use that term).  No coke, sprite, cherry coke, vanilla coke... This is not only good for my body, but it's a good challenge for my willpower and confidence.  To show myself that I can do something if I put my mind to it.  

We went down to the Gateway mall this weekend and I wanted to go inside the Build-A-Bear (never been there).  Reed picked up this Ironman bear and asked that I take a picture of him.

These are moments that I treasure the most - every day things like taking baths.  Sometimes (more often than not) it's a challenging time of the day and the kids splash too much, cry, or just don't want to do it.  But sometimes they love it.  Last night, Nora took her bath by herself, Reed was out playing with his friends.  I just sat back and enjoyed watching Nora play quietly, looking at her perfect little body and treasuring this time of her life.  I love her long hair down her back.  I tried to capture her foot sticking out of the water, it was so cute to see her little toes stick out of the bubbles.

 Then she wanted to smile for me.

 Here's the kids the other night in the bath.  They were laughing and laughing so I looked up to see what they were doing.  They stuck this sponge in their mouths and looking at each other. 

I love when we get to catch up with friends.  We went out to dinner with our friends the East's.  They have two teenage girl's that babysit as much as I can get them.  They are seriously the sweetest girl's ever and I hope that Nora becomes half the sweetness of these two!  Reed loves Katelyn (on the left side of the picture) and Nora adores Allie.  Reed is starting to want to play more with Jack (their youngest son) cause he is into legos and spiderman and such.  Love this family!

That's all I got for now!
Cheers~