Memorial Day and Birthdays

Well I'm way behind on all the events going on at the White House, but school is out now (Hip Hip Hooray!) so maybe I'll be able to stay caught up with everything that is happening.  It has been wonderful to be home with my girls and and be a mom.  I actually got my dishes done and my bed made the past couple of days, so I feel like I have accomplished tons.  

For the summer vacation I have several projects planned, so at the end of the summer I will have to see how many of them I actually completed.  The first is a throw for my couch that I am crocheting.  I really don't have that much experience crocheting besides a scarf that I made at Women's Conference this year, and attempts at a few hot pads during my jr. high years.  But I saw a picture of this blanket in a craft magazine, and it looked like a challenge I could handle.  So far it hasn't been to bad but I think that it will take much longer than expected.

Now to catch up on the past few weeks, Memorial Day Weekend was a nice break for us.  We got to spend an evening at Mark and Emily's house with Mike and Carly, and Phil and KaDee, and all of our little kidlets.  Visiting with all of them was highly overdue, and we enjoyed every minute.   Then on Memorial Day Ben and I ran from Grandma Smith's house to the Annual Paradise Breakfast, then had lunch with all of the Smith's and Grandma and Grandpa White.  We don't see all that clan often so we had a nice visit.  Kiya thought it was great to have lots of kids to play with and she even got them all to play Ring Around the Rosies on the trampoline for quite sometime.  Watching her tell them all how to play and what to do was absolutely hilarious, because they all did exactly what she told them.

After lunch we joined all the Bradfords for a pool party at my Grandma's house.  All day long Kiya had been telling us "My mouth feels sick."  I wasn't sure if she was getting more molars in or was car sick or sick.  But after eating a hot dog she confirmed to us that she really was sick when it all came right back up (sorry I tried to put that as mildly as I could), then like the trooper that she is she decided to go swimming any way.  What a tough kid.  Jaynie is going to be our little fish.  Once we get her in the pool we can't get her out,  she loves the water as much as her dad does.

Jaynie with Aunt Aubrey and Cousin Hayley

Kiya and Daddy

Last Friday was Tiffany's 23rd birthday and to celebrate we (Tiffany, Ben and I, my Mom and Dad, and Grandma and Doug) all went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner.  For a gift to herself Tiffany went and bought a camera.  Maybe I should take lessons from her and start buying myself a birthday present :)  After dinner we all went to Mom and Dad's house for Rice Crispies in the shape of a 23, instead of cake.  Tiffany has had that for her Birthday for as long as I can remember.  What a fun tradition.

Smithfield Health Days

On Saturday Ben and I ran our first official 10K (6.4 miles)! It was 3 miles up Smithfield Canyon, and then 3 miles back down with a small loop to get the extra little bit (which was up a super steep hill after 5 miles) to make it a full 10K. The temperature when we started the race was a balmy 33 degrees, which eventually warmed up to around 41 degrees by the time we finished. Ben completed his run in 56 minutes 24 seconds. Oh how I wish I could run that fast, but I wasn't too far behind. I crossed the finish line after 1 hour 3 minutes 19 seconds. We both enjoyed the run much more than we expected, and plan on running the same race again next year. It was the pick-me-up that we needed in our training to keep us going for the Wasatch Back in June. The sad thing is that I forgot to take my camera up so we have no pictures to show you, it was amazing to see over 200 people all geared up to go for a run. I'll have to remember for the next race that we do.

We did get our garden planted this past week.  Our garden includes things like tomatoes, peas, green beans, corn, peppers, zucchini, cucumbers, pumpkins, and my personal favorite eggplant.  We've never planted eggplant before and I don't think I've ever eaten it, but it came in a pack of starters that we bought so we'll see what happens with them.  Kiya and Jaynie had a great time digging in the dirt and putting the seeds in the holes, and getting their hands dirty.  They're just a handful of fun and make everything more exciting, because I even enjoyed planting this year.

Yes, I know I'm a slacker!

So I realized a few days ago that it was May. This means that I missed an entire month of blogging! I don't know how this happened . . . or maybe I do. First of all Ben had all these crazy bazillion page papers due for all of his finals in his classes and I was pretty much banned from the computer. Second my life is just plain busy and the time always go by way to super fast. Between being a mom, a teacher, and a Young Women's leader I don't get much time for anything else, so I am quickly learning to love a hectic life. If I don't love it I don't know how I could possibly make it through it (but that is why I love Ben, he is always so light-hearted and makes my laugh and smile at every situation we run into).
Sometime soon I will post of all the pictures that I have been taking, and update all y'all on what else has been going on with us besides lots of busy-ness. For now the following will have to do.

One night for dinner I handed Kiya and Jaynie their food on their brightly colored plates. One plate was a dark blue, the other was a light blue that night. Kiya turned to me and asked what color the plates were. So I told her they were both blue, but could see that she wasn't satisfied with my response. She pondered the answer for a moment and then told me they were different blues. I was surprised that her two year old brain could figure something like this out. So I explained that one was a light blue plate and the other dark blue. Then a few nights later I was dishing up dinner again and asked Kiya what color plate she wanted for dinner, this was her response: " The lightly blue one." Oh how I love the things she says like this.

And Jaynie is also talking amazingly well and learning more words than I can keep track of, she has an incredible vocabulary for only being almost 18 months old (only 15 more days until she is old enough to do to Nursury:). Lately every time I tell her that I love her she just looks and me and says, "Daddy loves and Jesus." I don't know if that means in addition to, or instead of me. Either way I am glad that she knows that she is loved.