Changing Seasons

As I drive around the area to various practices & games, I see the leaves beginning to change. The beauty of our lush summer is giving way to the glorious fall in New York and makes me think of my children.
While I see some characteristics that are true to their ages, I get glimpses of the stages right around the corner.
Mykah, at 9, still shows that princess side that we all know and love, but is showing signs of being an athlete. Both are beautiful, as summer & fall, but distinctly different and equally awesome to watch. She seems to be the tree down the street that is half green and half red, stunning in it's indecisiveness. Mykah shows an equal balance of the child that she remains, but the young woman she is destined to become.
Max, at 3, is slowly showing signs of the little boy he is becoming and losing the traits that belong to toddlers. He reminds us of the pride that comes with accomplishing small goals and the frustration of not being able to successfully communicate all of our wants and needs. He makes us laugh every day-he is stubborn and loving and silly and dramatic and fills our hearts with joy.
Josh is 7 months already. He reminds us to stop and look around every chance we get. Beautiful things come in many forms through a baby's eyes and he inspires me to look again at things that I have taken for granted. He is a mover, that one! He shows signs of independence already. If he sees something he wants, he gets it and when he masters one task, he moves on to the next. He started scooting a couple of weeks ago (moving his arms forward, then dragging his body), but 2 days ago found out how much more effective crawling is, so he's already moved on. I know that in the blink of an eye, Josh will be Max's age and Max will be Mykah's age and so on. I wish I could inscribe these memories on the inside of my eyelids so when I blink I can remember. Since I can't, I blog. I share the memories so we can all remember together, so we can share smiles and tears and the bonds that remain between family and true friends forever.
Mykah is cheering for jr. tackle football this year and is also playing soccer for the first time. She will have to choose between the two next year, so she's pouring her heart & soul into both for now. She's even letting me play "dress up" with her when it comes to cheering, just in case this is the only chance I get to share a piece of my past! If it is, I'll cherish it, while eagerly looking forward to her finding her true self along the way.
The pictures of Max are from the game that Mykah cheered at. My friend, Diane, took them and they were such a wonderful surprise when I opened my email and they were there.
The pictures of Josh are from different days, but look at the light in his eyes as he discovers this world. How can you not smile?! His favorite things are the pantry and anything associated with Bodie. He's gonna get that dog one of these days. Until then he loves Bodie's bed, water & food dish, toys, etc. He'll pass by all of his cute, colorful toys to chew on a tennis ball that he saw Bodie playing with!



























This is actual video of the first time Josh crawled. I was showing Joe pix from Mykah's soccer game (soccer games are the same days as Cornell games) and he crawled a couple of "steps". Joe said to me "Hello, you're holding the camera...do something!" So I got a few "steps" then he went back to old reliable-scooting.


As Max says- "Ge what? I lu you!" Thanks for checking in. We love you all.

Vacay pix #4

These pix are from our last dinner with my family altogether (except Kay-we missed you!) before we came back home. Texas Roadhouse barely knew what to do with our clan!!

Unfortunately, we didn't get to see even close to as many friends as we wanted to, but here's the ones we were able to squeeze in! Darn families-they take up so much time!!!

Believe it or not, I only have 2 more slide shows from vacation...Next time I'll throw in some recent goings-on here in New York!

Vacay pix #3

Oh the Ross Park Zoo...you gotta love that cute little Pocatello zoo. Hey, when it's the closest one around, you take what you can get, right?! Here are some pix from that day. We had a great time with cousins Braxton & Heather, Uncle Rich and Nana & Papa. Here's proof:

Sorry about the nursing pic, but Joe thought he was SO funny when he "captured the wild feeding their young" that I had to put it on. And sorry about the cut-off captions. If you've ever done one of these slide shows, it's not worth going in to fix (you have to redo practically the entire thing!) And I know that all my blog readers are smart enough to finish the captions, right?! The only one you may not be able to finish is the one of Mykah & Braxton and she's holding up the peace sign-it's supposed to say "Peace, I thought it was How?!" Because they're in a teepee, get it?! Ha-Ha! Hey-if you can come up with better, be my guest!!!!

The next pix are from the 4th of July in Soda Springs. We did it all this year, from the 5K run/walk in the morning to the parade to the park! I haven't been to Soda for the 4th in 5 or so years, so it was fun to be there and see lots of people that I haven't seen in so many years. I also got to introduce Joe to a couple of high school friends- It's always fun for me to show off my trophy husband :)
Congrats to Joe & sis-in-law Kay for running the 5K in awesome times, but Mykah WON in her age category for the walking portion of the race. I was super proud of her, because the air is MUCH different at Soda's elevation than she's used to here in New York, so she got really winded right after the first mile. She kept her head up & kept on walking and I love her for that strength! Great job, Angelpie!!!
Now, the fireworks...any of you with toddlers know that the fireworks can go 1 of 2 ways. They either LOVE them and are adorable with their ooohhhs & aaahhhs or they HATE them with every fiber of their being. Well, my little Max fell into the latter category! He absolutely refused to come out from underneath the blanket. I guess he's not a fan of loud noises (he also hated the fire trucks during the parade) unless they are coming out of him :) And did you notice I said "blanket"? It was SO cold in Soda that night, but at least it stopped raining prior to the show...we were starting to worry that there wouldn't be one! All in all, it was a good day.

Thanks for stopping in...more in 2 weeks!!!!

Vacay pix #2

Here is round 2 of the many, many pictures from our trip to Idaho/Utah! While my parents & sister met us at the airport, we stayed to catch up with Joe's family first. We got to spend Father's Day (which was also Kathleen's birthday) in Kaysville with Joe & Kathleen and then stayed there for a couple days. They have such a great guestroom that we wished we could have stayed there the entire trip!
We crammed a lot of visits into those days and got to see Christine & kids, Kelly & kids, Laurie Jo, and Aunt Sheri & Uncle Phil. The other visit we had to make was to the cemetery. We always go to Shauna's grave, but this trip was to say goodbye to Mike, since Joe had to miss the funeral because Josh was about to arrive. Seeing the grave and seeing Mike's beautiful kids helped Joe move on.
We went on to Idaho for a week but then we went back to Utah on July 6th so we could see Jody and family, since they were baseballing the first time we were there. She threw an awesome bbq and we got to see Joe's whole family altogether. So here are pix from all the Utah visits combined.

The 1st time my family all got together was to celebrate Papa Max (my dad)& Gabriel's (Trevor & Kay's son, who turned 2) birthday. Since they share a birthday, it was the perfect excuse to have a party. One of the things I miss the most about my family is that we ALL get together for birthdays, so it was nice for us to just be part of it, as we have been in New York for 2 years and have very quiet birthdays!

More pictures shortly...

Bits & Pieces Through Time

OK, OK, OK!!! I'm sorry it's taken me so long to post something, but here's what's been going on. We got to go home for three weeks and I took literally hundreds of pix. So, with the help of my mom & my sis-in-law, Kay, I decided to spread out the pix over several weeks worth of posts instead of all at once. If you're like me, you don't have much time to check out blogs and I don't want you to be overwhelmed by all that I have to share!
I'm going to begin clear back before we even went out west and share the pix from Mykah's first go at softball. Joe got to be the assistant coach for her team and that made it even funner for her than it was anyway! I'll admit, I never thought Joe would have enough time away from football to coach anything for our kids, so I thought it was awesome! Mykah did a great job and learned alot in the process. Added bonus, I used it as my social hour (Thanks Heather, Diedra & Meegan!) so I got to be mom & Megan at the same time...these days I seem to be one or the other, not both simultaneously!
Please note: although Mykah was playing sports, she was true to herself and did so in a skirt!

Now, the next several posts will be slideshows of our trip. Since we spent our time between Utah with Joe's family and Idaho with mine, I figured the easiest thing would be to divide the pix into families and events. They will be in no particular order, so enjoy the surprise!
These pix are from my dad's house in Montpelier, ID. We took the long way (but most beautiful) from Kaysville to Soda Springs so we could stop and see my dad, Joel, and his wife, Carol. They made a great lunch for us and we had a wonderful time catching up and showing off the kiddos. Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedules, we loved seeing you!

Just in case you missed the captions, Max hates being still long enough to have his picture taken. Add that to the fact that it was around naptime (which he has decided he doesn't need these days) and we had NO chance of taking a nice picture with my dad, Carol & the kids. Max started being naughty and needed a time out, so Joe put him on the couch for his 2 minutes and I took the picture. It might not be the best picture, but it's a pretty good story to tell Max down the road!

So there's the beginning of my slew of pix! I'll try to update weekly now until I catch up! It's officially football season in our family because all the camps have started and Joe is back to work. That only means that I have less time with him, therefore, less time to sit at the computer uninterrupted, but I'll do my best. I'm not complaining, though, because I get to be home with the boys! Mykah is still in Idaho, so we're missing her like crazy. I'll be checking out the softball pix so that I, too, can see her sweet face! August 15th cannot come fast enough...that's the date that our family becomes whole once again.