It's Been A While

Boy do I have some blogging to catch up on! 

But for now, I think I'll just post a couple pics of this cute boy!

He completely melts my heart.

Rexburg Rapids

 We took the boys to Rexburg Rapids last week for our first swim of the year. Josh was a little fish, with no fear of the water at all! He loved every second of it and insisted in swimming in the section of the pool that was 3 feet almost the entire time. Benson cried for the first 45 minutes, both in the water and out. He was less than amused, but he did warm up to the idea and ended up really loving it. There was no stopping him once he decided to join the party.  

I didn't take many pictures because it took both Beau and I to keep track of the boys going in opposite directions, but here are a few. 

Paint in a Ziplock

Super fun activity for the boys! Josh practiced writing letters for hours, which he's never had an interest in, and it even entertained Benson for a long time.

This Week

Not a lot to blog about this week. I had plans for a very fun, active week, and then Josh got really sick. He fevered for about 24 hours and felt yuck for another couple of days, then just when he was feeling better Benson came down with the same thing. His fever finally broke this afternoon, but the crying never did stop. I think he cried nonstop from 9 this morning until I put him to bed an hour ago. The only break came when he was sucking on a popsicle. He had at least 4. I took him to the Ready Care this morning to make sure he didn't have an ear infection and found out his ears are fine, but he's got a virus, I don't remember the name, that's given him ulcers in back of his mouth and throat. The dr. had me look at them, and they looked SO painful! I felt really bad for him. On top of that he's cutting 4 teeth all at once. Needless to say, this weeks been rough.
I did read a couple books this week. Both were seriously fascinating, but depressing. I'm going to the library tomorrow to check out the sappiest love story I can find.
We decided it's time to start looking seriously for a place to rent in southern Utah, since we're moving in 4 WEEKS! It's super frustrating. They charge ridiculous amounts for the smallest places down there. The way it's looking, we're going to have to pay about the same as we're paying now, maybe a little bit more, for a house less than half this size. Kinda hard to swallow. I'm still looking forward to getting down there though. I'm just so excited to live by family and friends again! 
My family is coming to visit in a week! Between that and moving, that's basically all I think about lately. They're coming over the 4th of July and then we're all going up to stay in a cabin in Island Park for a few days. It's going to be a blast!
Beau only has 3 weeks left of class work and he'll be a college graduate! Holy cow...I can't believe it. We've been doing the full time student, full time work thing for so many years I can't imagine life any different, but I'm looking forward to it.
That's all for now. Lets hope we have a better week this week.

Today

A conversation between josh and beau today.

Josh: I need a tie so I can be a studmuffin....
Josh: what do studmuffins say?
Beau: hey good lookin how you do'n?
Josh: hey food lookin how you do'n?

The Hungry Hungry Caterpillar

I've been trying to come up with different activities for the boys and I to do together to help us not get so bored. Lately, I've notice that Josh is acting uninterested in his toys, and doesn't really know what to do during the day. I find myself constantly listing off toys he should go play with, or stuff he can go do, or telling him to go outside, but he doesn't want to...I think he's just sick of doing the same things every day. I've always been pretty good about getting the kids out of the house at least once a day to either do something fun like go to the park, zoo or library, or sometimes we have to run an errand for me, but even with the 2 hour outing, there's still so much time to kill in a day!  I think that has always been the hardest part for me about living away from family. There are SO many days when I wish I could call someone up and say, "we're bored, wanna play?" Josh has always just had me... And I think that's sad. I wish he had cousins and friends to play with on a regular basis. THAT is what I am most excited about moving home for...Josh to have cousins close.
Anyway, that's not what this post was supposed to be about. I just started typing, and I'm sure those run-on sentences didn't even make sense, but that's alright.
My point is, I've noticed that Josh is bored a lot lately so I've been trying to come up with things for us to do together. I got the idea that I was going to find books that I could do an activity with, so I made a list and went to the library.
Yesterday we read the book The Hungry Hungry Caterpillar and made caterpillars out of an egg carton and pipe cleaners. Josh LOVED the book and asked me to read it three times while he was painting and then he asked Beau to read it to him twice more when he got home from school.  He's always love painting, so he really enjoyed making the caterpillar, and Benson even got to paint for his first time. I was seriously impressed with how well he did on his own! 
This little project was definitely a success!

Saturday

 Saturday morning we got out of the house bright and early so we could hit up the farmers market and spend some time walking around downtown while it was nice and cool outside. I love the farmers market here. This time of year the produce honestly isn't the best (although later in the summer it's to die for!), but it's the atmosphere the I like the best. I love hanging out, listening to live music with the hippies, and just watching the people around us. It almost feels like you're in a different part of the world. 

After the farmers market, we walked a mile or so down the river to Civiten Park and let the boys play, then walked back and spent some time at the library before it was time to go home. 

In my opinion, there's no better way to spend a Saturday morning.