I forgot

I just remembered we have a blog. Wow. I never thought I'd say that. For so many years (nearly 8 to be exact) I've been fairly regular with posting on this blog. With every kid I've slowed down a bit. I wish I could make this blog my priority- but in reality I totally can't! Instead our lives are mostly documented by photo posts on Instagram.

These gorgeous babies of mine all celebrated their birthdays in May turning: 3, 5, 1. We went to Atlanta for Memorial Day weekend to hang with the Westerns. Since Addilyn finished preschool in June we have been keeping busy by going to the pool, playing in our small pool at home, and hanging out with friends. I was called to serve in Young Women's in our new ward at church. (maybe that's where all my spare time is going?) My mom flew in the day before my birthday and stayed until this past Tuesday. While she was here we spent a week in Savannah Georgia. And while we were there Scott's parents and two youngest brothers stopped while they were on their way to a cruise. Pheww. Now July is half way through. I love summer. Especially for the fact that my kids love the water as much as I do. Now we look forward to getting back to a regular summer schedule, VBS, and getting ready for kindergarten. I know. I know. Hold back the emotions people- I have enough for all of us.

Oh you know, it's only April

This sums up my awesome life. This year we have gone to Disney World, (this was at Daytona Beach), and NYC. We've changed wards at church due to a ward splitting and getting sucked in with boundary changes. We have lost some friends due to moving, but have gained new ones in other places of our lives. We've had opportunities to serve those in hardships and been overwhelmed with blessings. So if I'm not blogging, it's all good. Because we are. Good that is.

whooops...

I SO wish I could go back and dedicate a blog post to all the exciting and fun things that we have done since my last post. Life sorta got in the way a bit I suppose! Let me do a run down of what has happened the last 4ish months/last of 2015...
August:
-We did as much as we could before our new schedule would start up for the fall. Things like swimming, games, museums, basically anything and everything. 
-Addilyn started PRESCHOOL. I totally melted watching her leave and made Scott SWEAR to me that he would take a picture of her every move going to the school and going into her class. He appeased me and maybe over did it...
-We joined the YMCA (huge deal for me...)
September:
-We drove down to Atlanta for Labor Day and crashed with the Western fam. We went swimming, met their newest addition Tru, went to a crazy parade in downtown, and the cousins played all together. So fun.
-We started painting our house. Ya. we did. But we got so rained out that our 6 week plan got washed out and we have to finish it in the spring. bleh.
October:
-Addilyn had a fall festival at her school that was so fun. They road horses, held a bird, and played carnival games.
November:
-Scott's birthday I surprised him by doing this totally cool ropes course. It was EPIC and totally fun. As he put it, I totally win at birthdays and put him to shame. bahahaha
-My dad flew in from Seattle the Thursday before Thanksgiving. It was so great having him here. He met Ryder for the first time and spent plenty of time playing with the older two and then holding Ryder. While he was here Addilyn had her first preschool program about turkeys. It was adorable. The highlight of his trip here was all of us going to the Renaissance fair. It was so cool. The best part was the jousting. The kids loved it all including the magic shows.
-We dropped my dad off and continued straight to, you guessed it, Atlanta again! Shirley's oldest daughter Olivia got baptized and her youngest Tru had his baby blessing. There was lots of family there!
-Ryder turned 6 months Nov. 26th
December:
-Addilyn had her Christmas program and she was the CUTEST THING IN THE WORLD. But really, her costume was the best. She was a dove.
-My mom flew in from Seattle and while she was here our project was potty training Levi. Which was a success.
And now here are pictures that I threw in to help boost this posts interest a bit. 

Jamestown (Grandma part 3)

My navigator

We stayed in Williamsburg, Virginia the last weekend my mom was here. We left Thursday afternoon and stayed until we left Sunday afternoon. It's less then 4.5 hours from our house so it wasn't a horrible drive. Our first day we went to Jamestown Settlement.

the size comparison to us

Jamestown is where the first English colonists arrived. The actual location is an archeological site. It's a tragic story with these people because most of them died. A famous colonist who came at this time was John Smith. It was one colonist who came who planted the tobacco plant and discovered that it did incredibly well. Here they have a recreation of a Powhatan Indian camp.

grinding the corn

making a canoe

can you spot Levi?

They had all these "stations" where you could learn about different parts about the Indians and how they did things. Here they showed us how they made baskets, rope, and other things with these fibers.

These buildings were amazing

Levi thought they were amazing too

It was so neat to see how they used all the parts of an animal even in their homes. The "fan" Levi is playing with was made out of hardened feathers.

Levi fanning me

Replicas of the ships that came

cook's quarters

 The stairs were really steep

cannon!

Our kids think we went and saw pirate ships. I mean, really...look at this "colonist". I'm sure he was really just a pirate pretending. Addilyn wasn't so sure about taking the picture with him.

 They had three different sized ships there that had different purposes. One was to go back and forth to England, which is the one we spent the most time on. The other two were for navigating and exploring around America.

We spent the afternoon/evening at Jamestown river. It was super warm, like bath water. It was also very shallow. The picture below we are sitting.

(back inside the museum part of Jamestown, out of order)

Grandma Jadwin Part 1

Arriving after the airport- Ryder's not too sure

muskrats

Grandma Jadwin flew in the day after my birthday, June 24. It was a late night- but did that stop us in the morning? NO WAY! We went and spent the first part of the (hot & humid) day at SciQuarium in Greensboro. We started outside in the zoo area to try and "beat the heat" bahhh. 

Grandma pushed while I carried Ryder in the front pack

Levi & a lemur!

aquairum

We watched the scuba guy clean and then answer questions from the water. The kids were all sitting on the ground in front and the scuba guy came right up to Levi and put his hand on the window. Levi didn't know what he was doing until he saw Addi high-five him. Levi caught on and did it. It was pretty special for him!

She's finally brave enough to do it on her own!

These pictures are uploading weird!

A very large tortoise

Finally eating the cake Scott made for me!

trying to catch him smile

While Grandma was here, Ryder started smiling just slightly. You had to egg him on a lot to get him to do anything. There's a lot of photos of the maybe smiles.

Then one day we went to the park...and Ryder had a BLOWOUT of all blowouts. He hadn't pooped in many days so it was a ticking time bomb. Thank goodness my mom was here because it was everywhere. 

It was a family event.

upload

her face is just priceless...

Addilyn had her first dentist appointment. We left Ryder and Levi with Grandma. I went first so she watched everything. I wasn't a very good example because one of the lovely "side effects" of pregnancy is bleeding gums due to the extra blood that's pumping through your body. Since I was only about 4 weeks post-partum, my gums still were bleeding. Poor girl thought it hurt! That's why she's laying on me, she wouldn't by herself. After she said it tickled. Then they painted on the fluoride and she thought that was the best part. She now thinks the dentist paints her teeth.

Clean teeth!

youtubin' with Grandma

downtown restaurant

Whenever my mom comes, we always have some sort of project to do. A couple years ago we canned dilly beans, another year we watched a bunch of VHS home videos with the intent to put them on DVD. The first year at our house we were painting our ceilings after we had removed the popcorn...You get the picture. This year we canned chicken. It was my third time using our pressure cooker that she got us a while ago. I bought 40 pounds of chicken and man...it was time consuming. My mom cut all of the chicken and we tag teamed filling jars and prepping them to cook. We were successful. Even though I couldn't stand to eat the chicken until all the smell was out of my house-it's been awesome to have!! 

And another activity we did- we went to SciWorks which is by Scott's work. They have a new exhibit and it is awesome! Half of it was sports themed and the other half was construction stuff. The kids went nuts in there.

This green screen showed us kicking and blocking soccer balls from a goal. It was pretty cool. And the kids obviously though it was awesome.

Big sister

painting...

In the summer the theaters around here do summer movies at 10am. Depending on where you go, they range from free to just a couple dollars. The place we frequent is free and you can buy popcorn for $1. Grandma tagged along and we saw something...I don't remember now.