Where Have We Been?

Well, where have we been?  Nowhere really.  Just living a busy life.  Ryan is in a new department at work and is working the night shift.  He works noon-9PM, comes home, studies for his huge upcoming test with a 15% pass rate, until like 2 or 3 AM, then he wakes up at like 10 or 11, gets ready and is off to work again.  I feel more like a single mom then ever, and am doing soccer games, trips to Costco, ward parties and more without him.  That is big for me, I do not like going to things like that without him, with 2 kids.  Annika just had her first track break, we filled it with a tour of the Sweet's candy factory, lots of Wii playing, last trips to the waterpark before it closes for the winter, playdates, and library trips.  I also baby-sat two older kids during the break, and 4 kids is a lot of work.  We are staying busy with life and here is a little of what has been going on.  

Annika started soccer.  It is so much fun to watch.  Some of the kids really get it.  Others, like Annika do not.  She stays in the back of the pack and turns her shoulder away from the ball when it is coming to her.  She can not kick it unless it is at a dead stop and the other day she asked me if they made shin guards for the whole body.  I am glad she is at least getting the chance to learn and play a little bit, but she does much better cheering from the sidelines.  She is really getting into music and I think we will start her up in ballet again after this.  I think that is more her thing.  She is so funny about songs.  Ryan is convinced she will be the girl who knows all the old music and we are doing our best to share that with her.  She asked me the other day if she could go to the Metallica concert coming to town.  She loves their songs.  Her two new favorite songs are Coldplay's-Viva La Vida, and Violet Hill which she sings along to.  She also loves Let it Die from Foo Fighters and lots of the Weezer songs too.  We love it!

Here she is at soccer!

Here she is getting her cast off, finally.  I am relieved that at least it was a water proof cast, so it did not slow us down too much.  She would not use her arm for the first 2 days, but now we are back to normal.

And, my Ashton.  My little guy is growing up so quick.  He is a crack-up to be around, everyone just laughs at him.  He has such great energy.  We went to an indoor pool with some friends the other day, and Ashton did the slide so many times, he could barely walk up the stairs anymore.  He would get up to the top, get dazed and confused, click back in and slide down and swallow more water.  He is talking a ton, but his favorite thing to say, or rather yell I should say is, "Go, Go!".  He is starting to ride Annika's old Radio Flyer trike everywhere and is such a doll with his daddy's smile.  He just had another ear infection, so bad that we had to go straight for the shot antibiotic so his eardrum did not rupture again.  He and I literally did not sleep on Sunday night.  We went for a drive at 2AM, and ate marshmallows and watched "Little Einsteins" at 3AM.  It was not a fun night.  This is his fourth infection in 10 months.  If we get one more before the end of the year, it will probably mean tubes for him, let's hope that does not happen.

This is frequently how Ashton wakes us up in the morning.  He plays in his room for a bit,and  knocks on the door, that he closes when he wakes up.  We open it and he has his dump truck full of as many cars, blankets and binkies it will hold, and he rolls it out, ready to play for the day.  The kid is insane with cars.  He lines them up and hides them behind the pillows on our couch.

A few weeks back we visited a get to know your city fair for Riverton, where we live.  Everything was free and they had big shredders to get rid of stuff.  That was nice because I had been holding on to stuff for years.  We brought boxes of old paperwork to save our little home shredder.  The kids had fun with free food, candy, games, inflatable toys and more. Later that night we went to a BBQ at some friends' house with awesome dutch oven and ribs-YUM!

Here is Ashton on the fire truck.  He loved going inside, seeing all the old cars on display and sitting in all the tractors.  Anything with wheels on it.  

Annika had to get her face painted.  She was in heaven, and she was the prettiest flower on the soccer field later that day.

So, after reading Cherine's blog a while back, I decided we should go visit Thanksgiving Point.  We did not have a ton of time last weekend, because we had a soccer game, but we had fun visiting farm country in the morning.  Ashton LOVES animals, so this is the place for him.  I am sure we will visit other parts of it soon too.  That night Ryan and I were able to get a baby-sitter and go out to dinner with some friends of ours from the ward-gotta love Wingers!  We even went to go see a movie afterwards, "Eagle Eye".  If you can get over some of the really fake parts, it is pretty good, even though it did not end the way I though it should.

My two cute kiddos by the ducks.

My beautiful girl sitting in the barn window-isn't she a doll!

Here are the kids on their pony rides.

Here we are on the hay ride as a family, minus the hay, just a horse drawn carriage.  Ashton really was enjoying himself, the grumpy face means he's happy.