father's day

What a roller coaster! We started out with breakfast, which if you know us is a pretty big deal. Chad leaves early enough most mornings (including Sundays now) that we usually just stick with cereal. A little preparation and we had German pancakes as a family before Chad headed off to meetings. It was a ward council Sunday, so the rest of us got moving. When it was time to go we had a problem. Keys. That could almost be the biggest problem in our marriage. Chad took his keys and my keys to church. He said when he walked into ward council and saw that I wasn't there, he knew something was wrong. Truth be told, I had to remind myself that it was an accident, and that it was Father's day.
We all made it to church. Aimee sang for the first time in Sacrament meeting. "I'm so glad when daddy comes home!" Truer words were never sung! I'm pretty sure that was Chad's favorite part of the day. Aimee helped me decorate a Daddy cake. It was part joke, part real. It included "flowers" that Chad had used last year on my cake, and bone sprinkles in honor of Orthopedics. Aimee loved making it! We had a great dinner, and Chad got the game Operation from the kids. We enjoyed Skyping our awesome dads, and just enjoyed being together.

Chad is an amazing dad, and my kiddos are some of the luckiest kids in the world to have him. I have never met a man who craves his family more, and they know that. If ever there was a dad who deserved being celebrated it is Aimee, Porter and Pratt's dad!

the big 2

Porter man made it to his second birthday. Some days it was tough to believe it would be possible. Not because he has a problem with gravity like his big sis, but because life can be so hard for him. He has turned into a kid that can dish it, but he can't take it. This is funny since he really is no match for anyone. Not long before Pratt was born, a switch flipped in Porter. He went from being very meek and mild to loud and mischievous. Some days it drives me crazy, but most of the time it is pretty fun. Chad has loved it because Porter loves to be thrown around and tickled. He also tries really hard to keep up with all the big kids outside. He is so little for his age that it looks especially funny to have him tagging along with Aimee and her friends. He loves to catch Holy Polies with Aimee and has had a lot of fun playing with all of the water toys outside in the heat. Grandpa Williams gave him one of those Velcro balls with the mitts and he and Aimee are actually starting to do it pretty well on their own. He is back to looking like a beach bum with his blond hair and super tan skin. he definitely has the looks going for him.

Anything that Porter lacks in size, he more than makes up for in intelligence. To hear him talk you would think he was three, and I often have people ask me if he and Aimee are twins when they hear them talking in the cart at the grocery store. He loves to read books with me and count. We recently got some foam letters for the bathtub and he loves them, and is getting pretty good at them. For his birthday Grandpa Darrell and Grandma Alice gave him a toy that says the letters and their sounds and it surprised me how long it holds his attention.
Chad had his shelf exam on the 17th, so we waited until after it to celebrate. It is nice that kids really don't know when their birthdays are. Porter loves choo choos and having a choo choo cake was the only thing that he wanted. The funny thing was that once we made it he just went from car to car picking the candy off the top. This was the first birthday we have had that hasn't been in Idaho, so we invited all the kids outside to help us get rid of the cake. It was a lot of fun, and now Aimee is getting excited for when she can blow out the candles next.

pie eating

Ever since Chad and some of our guy friends did their gallon challenge we have talked of the girls doing some sort of eating contest. Chad thought it would be funny for us to eat smoothies so that we would all get brain freeze. We opted for a less painful contest. I admit that it was my idea. Two summers ago on the fourth of July I was the lone girl in a pie eating contest with several guys who were known big eaters. I won. However, I touched my plate with my hands, and so Chad has always taken pleasure in telling me my win was invalid. I wanted to prove my domination. Several of us bought pies so that the pies would all be equal. We had planned to eat quarters since none of us wanted to ingest an entire cream pies worth of calories (give me a break, I'm a girl, and I have baby weight to loose). Sadly, all the pies except one were still frozen at some level when the time arrived. I wasn't the only one who didn't know they took so long to thaw. We ended up having to carefully cut the one pie that wasn't frozen into eight pieces. There were seven girls who committed to eat. While I felt pretty confident that I would win, I was a little nervous about a couple of my friends. In the end, there really was no contest. I beat them all so completely that I could have tripled my helping and still won! I even licked my plate clean! It was a ton of fun, and defiantly something I would be willing to have a rematch at!

3 months

Oh my little Pratt man! I feel like I say the same things about him over and over. He is just such a happy, sweet little boy, and I love every second I am with him! He makes my life so much easier, and I feel like the luckiest mom in the world to have such an amazing little guy! He just turned three months old on Saturday! This last month has been so much fun. Not only is Pratt incredibly content, he is also incredibly happy. He smiles and coos all the time. Even when I put him in his swing (which he loves) he will just look out the blinds and jabber to himself like nothing in the world could ever go wrong. Pratt is super ticklish. He just about goes crazy when I start poking and rubbing his sides, neck and feet. He is even ticklish enough that Aimee can get him going. That may also be because he adores Aimee. She is such a sweet big sister to him and he pays her back with smiles and spit bubbles. I know Porter loves his "Crapman" too because he is quick to tell people that Pratt is his baby when they are near, but for now he is happy to just let him be. Occasionally all three kids will make enjoy a tubby together, and then Porter loves to try to egg on the kicking and splashing that Pratt does. It is pretty cute. I wish I had some official stats to share, but that will have to wait until next month. I am still just hoping for average, but only time will tell.

kid fun

Last week was a great week to be a kid at Village Green. The weather is just starting to get to where it is hot and muggy, so the water came out to play. After a BBQ on Monday (Chad only had to work for a few hours!) our friends blew up lot of water balloons for the kiddos to play with. Chad was also around quite a bit in the late afternoons, so he took the kiddos to the play ground a lot.

This is Pratt swinging outside for the first time. The poor little guy looks a little stoned, but I think he had fun.

Friday we got a big group together and had Cafe Rio at the institute and made good use of the sand volleyball pit. So did the kids. As we were leaving that night, I buckled Porter into his car seat and gave him a quick kiss on the head. I chewed on sand for about ten minutes after that.
In this photo, Chad was planting some flowers for me in the back and found this toad. Luckily for the toad, Chad doesn't believe in animal cruelty, and managed to get it away from Aimee and Porter before it's life was cut short. Just a couple of days before our neighbors also caught a huge toad, and it got stuck in a cooler for a couple of days in a "habitat" constructed by a five year old. And summer has just begun!

grandpa's visit

One of the best parts about Chad getting called to the bishopric, was that his dad came out to ordain Chad to the office of a High Priest. We had fulled expected that the next time he would come to Omaha would be when Chad graduated next year. This hiccup in the plan was an awesome bonus for us! There were also a few other hiccups in Grandpa's travels. His connecting flight was canceled, which delayed him for a couple of hours, and his luggage got lost. He ordained Chad in a suit we borrowed from our friends that live nearby. Grandpa was a pretty good sport about the whole thing though. That Sunday we got to spend some fun time going to the temple and the Trail Center. The kids and I got to enjoy the visit the most since Chad still had school, and we drug him to a few of our favorite places. We went to the zoo, the botanical gardens, and went to see the trains. I didn't do a great job documenting the visit, but we had a wonderful time, and the kids can't wait to go to Idaho to see him again!