big girl bed

Several weeks ago Chad and I were talking about the future, as we often do. I reminded him of my friend whose husband just finished his residency in Ophthalmology. When they finished they had four kids and lived in a two bedroom apartment. Recognizing that our circumstances are unique and allow us to live in our great town house for a fraction of what most people pay we decided we would need to prepare for that type of eventuality. We decided that eventually we we were going to have to invest in bunk beds. This was a for the future, but my very skilled Craigslist hunter took it as more of a challenge. Two or three weeks later he found his smokin' deal, and we loaded up the van with the parts and pieces of our new bunk bed, and tied a couple of ma tresses to the roof. The timing also seemed convenient because it was just before Chad's brothers family and Dad would be staying at our house. It gave us two extra places for them to sleep. We decided to put Aimee and Porter in the same room for the weekend so that Dad would have a little privacy. As it turns out it has become a very permanent situation. Aimee and Porter love sharing a room! When Chad started rotations it completely changed the morning dynamic in our home. We had a great routine before and it was difficult for the kids to adjust to not seeing him in the morning before he left. This made everything better. Instead of waking up to two very sad little people every morning, I wake up to them laughing and playing with each other. Who knows maybe in seven years or so when Chad is done with residency we will have four or five cute little kiddos in one room, giggling and squealing with each other when I would rather that they were sleeping.

more tidbits

Where to begin? I am definitely behind on the happenings in the Williams house hold. First of all holy cow it has been hot! With heat indexes topping 115 degrees we have needed to find ways to enjoy outside and not have a heat stroke. The hard part is that so many of the kids friends have been out of town. While the pool hasn't been the party Aimee normally loves, she won't pass up an opportunity to get wet. I admit that I love that my babies love to play outside and be active, and Aimee's polka-dot, ruffle bum swimmy suit makes it even better. Plus, Aimee and Porter have spent the last month being each others best friend, and it has been so sweet to watch as a mom! I did manage to catch a funny video of Aimee leaving buddy mode and switching into her big sister mode. By this I mean she is my big helper, but also the one who calls the shots with the younger crowd.



Finally, I had to include a picture of Aimee's most recent shiner. This one happened while she was playing chase with Chad around the kitchen table. She turned to see how close he was getting and ran right into the corner of one of the chairs. I think she has a gift for black eyes. An older gentleman in Wal-mart asked me that same day if I was beating my kids. Between her hemangioma and eye she did look a little rough, but it didn't keep me from being T.O.ed at the guy for accusing me of something so awful.

nauvoo

Last weekend we had the special treat of having family out to stay. While we lucked into the visit due to location more than anything we were so glad to get the chance to spend some time together. Chad's brother Steve and his family are moving to Atlanta, Ga. We just happened to be the half way point. After a long day of travel, we became Hotel Williams. Aimee was sooo excited to see her cousins, and even more excited to see Grandpa Williams who was sweet enough to once again make a cross country trip to help one of his kids move. Aimee got to get out of bed the night Grandpa arrived to have him read her some books and share some Watermelon! Saturday morning we drove to Nauvoo. It was just under six hours with gas stops. We were lucky enough to get a room at a great place and then spend the afternoon seeing some of the more kid friendly sights. It probably would have been a lot more fun for everyone if Chad and I had had the foresightt to turn off the movie in the car so Aimee would have taken a nap. A tired Aimee had a run-in with an ox horn giving her a goose egg, and fell off her chair at dinner onto a hard floor and secured a big bruise on her cheek. Sadly, she was not up for all of the great activities at the Nauvoo pageant that night, and stayed at the hotel while Emily and I went. Sunday we went to church, walked down Parley street, and got prairie pearls at the blacksmith shop. It was a fast trip, but so great to be with family!


Below is Chad and Aimee making rope at the Family Living center, and then there is the video that the missionaries took (it was supposed to be a photo) right before Aimee got knocked in the head.

hiding

I love being a mom! This is just one example why! Anytime Aimee "hides" she asks, "where did Aimee go?" Then if we say, "I don't know," she will tell us. In this case she would say, "hiding under the blanket." Lately she has included Porter in the game, and he loves it most of the time. While he genuinely hates to have things on his head, he will make an exception if it means hiding with Aimee! When these two get going, sometimes it is a chore to get them to stop, but I love how much they love to play together. I am so blessed!

pioneer day

Normally there are parades and fireworks to celebrate the 24th of July. Well, they don't have that in Omaha. Even though this area is what it is largely because of hard working Latter-Day Saints. Instead we had "The Pancake Man." Our stake had an awesome breakfast at the Kanesville tabernacle that consisted of sausage links, diluted Sunny-D, and professionally produced pancakes (with margarine and syrup). While budget was certainly a factor, the pancakes were something to blog about. This guy had about a six foot griddle that had a rolling pancake batter dispenser that dropped four at a time. Then when they were cooked he would proceed to flip them in the air, behind his back, and in some cases over peoples heads to get you your plate full. It was really fun. When we got home from the breakfast we had planned to run errands and work on our "to do" list. Instead we accepted an invitation from our friends to go to Lake Manawa. While we were pretty skeptical that there could be a fun beach in our land locked area, it was actually really nice, and a whole lot of fun! Aimee couldn't get enough of the water. A couple of times the waves took her out and she ended up with a face full of water. Once she had her feet under her she would just charge right back out again! It is entertaining, and often scary, just how adventurous she is! Porter on the other hand found an entirely different way to keep me on my toes. Our friends had built a little baby pool of sorts that the waves only crested into. This produced a lot of foam in just the right amount of water to come just above Porters belly button. He sat in his private pool and attempted to eat as much sand and foam as he could get in his mouth. We had a sandy PB&J picnic and everyone but Porter (who I actually remembered to put sunscreen on about an hour before we left) got sunburned. With all of the sun those two kiddos see they fared pretty well. Aimee was only slightly pink and was completely unaware of anything being amiss. Chad and I are still recovering.

To end the day we attended the Baptism of our wards most recent convert, Brother John Summers. There were several pictures of baptism in Aimee's last issue of the Friend, and it was a great way to show her what it was, and talk about what it meant. I think the water idea got through. I'm not so sure about the promises/covenants part. It was a great day!

battle wounds

As many of you already know, there has been a lot of recovery at the Williams household. I guess it all started with me. Two weeks ago I started feeling like I had the flu. I really didn't think much of it until the next day when my mouth started breaking out in sores. By the next night I had a fever, the chills, nausea, and my mouth covered in sores. I had them on my gums, my lips, cheeks, tongue and even down my throat. I suspected I knew what it was, but living in such close proximity to many aspiring dentist, and current dentists I got a few opinions. The verdict: primary oral herpes. It was painful to talk, eat and even drink water. Friday I went to the doctor because I was also having ear pain. I found out I also had an ear infection. Luckily, I am married to worlds most protective boy. While I wallowed in self-pity, Chad did the laundry and made the meals. Just over a week after it all started I finally started to feel like a real person again. I tried a couple of times to take pictures of the sores in my mouth, but failed. I did get a picture of the beautiful flowers my Primary presidency gave me though!


Once I was back in the game, Aimee and Porter must have taken it as a sign that it was now their turn for a little attention. In two days, Aimee skinned her knees 5 times. She had a few mosquito bites that swelled up into huge lumps. She tore a big hunk of skin off her big toe, and has reopened the toe about three times since. This little girl has gone through nearly an entire box of bandages in one week all by herself (mostly because her Dad is a sucker for her tears and never-ending requests for "dan-daids" even when her knows it won't last more than five minutes) . Last but not least, Aimee ran into the edge of the kitchen table in one of our routine games of chase. She got her first black eye of the summer. All in all, a rough week for her. I have to say though, that since she was on her third or fourth black eye at this time last summer, we are doing alright. Porter man, also managed to get in a few bumps as well. With his walking skills getting better and better, he has also become more adventurous. While scaling our neighbors front steps he slipped and rolled down them. He got a pretty decent scrape across his head. The very next day, while I was sitting on our neighbors porch swing redoing Porters baby book, yes I have to redo the entire thing because it got wet and started to mold, Porter up and decided he was done hanging out with me, and wanted to explore. The next thing I knew he landed head first onto the stone patio that the swing was situated on. He scraped off part of the scab from the day before, and got a nice blue bump just below it. Good times! We have had about half of our neighbors go on vacation so maybe with less partners in crime, we might reduce the numbers of ouchies...

moving forward

With Summer break over, the kids and I are doing our very best to still enjoy the great weather. We started by going for a walk. Next we went to the Library where both kids were able to claim their first and second level prizes. They each got a free book and a packet of coupons that included a coupon for a free toy. Aimee also got her third level prize which is a pass to Coco Keys Water Park. Once Porter gets his we will definately have to put them to good use to spend some awesome family time together. Once we arrived home we were lucky enough to see one of our good friends/neighbors hauling out the swimming pool. It was a great way to spend the rest of the morning! Aimee and Porter LOVE playing in the water and the impromptu pool party was great. That is just one of the benefits of living in such close proximity to so many friends!

This was an expecially good weekend. Both kids, but especially Aimee has had a hard time with Chad suddenly bing gone again. He started his orientation on Thursday. It was a big switch after having had a whole month of Daddy being around all of the time. It was so great to have one more big weekend to ease into Chad being back to the grind. Because it was the 4th of July weekend. There were plenty of activities to keep us busy. We went to birthday parties (note one of the cute party favors that my family is sporting), neighborhood cookouts, fireworks, bowling, family walks and even just some good old fashioned games of Candy Land(Chad gave it to me on our first Christmas for our "future children"). We also had our awesome missionaries over for dinner. Aimee has a friend crush on Elder Palmer. This visit he and his companion built the church out of cups for her. She had a good time getting all of the attention during the lesson, and an even better time destroying the pyramid they built. It was so much fun to just be together and know that what ever this year of school might bring, we have each other, and we have the gospel to help us keep our priorities and goals in perspective.