I Make Little Girls Cry

Since moving into our home in October our kids have struggled with finding kids to play with.  We live in a pretty small culdesac with just 10 homes on it. We're not a part of a bigger subdivision, just a small little culdesac in quite little Fruita. We love our home and MOST of our neighbors, the ones across the street are awesome and we've really enjoyed getting to know them. There are only two other houses on the street that have children at all, and one of them is a baby girl who just turned one. My kids are pretty limited on who they get to play with.

Outside of the neighbor boy who is 9 and the baby girl across the street, there is a little girl who stays with her Grandpa during the day while her mom and dad work. If I had to guess her age I'd say she's probably 6 or 7. She's a pretty sweet little girl, but she has some MAJOR boundary/manner issues. Over the summer she has managed to teach Gavin most of the "I'm Sexy and I Know It" song, explain to Gavin what "sexy" means, and ask if she can come in to "have a look around the house". She's also one of those little girls who asks "Where are you going?" every time we get into the car and "Why?" when I tell Gavin and Zoey that it's time to come inside. I'm not sure why that bugs me so much. Probably because if I ever did that as a kid I would have gotten slapped upside the head! I kid. I wouldn't have gotten slapped but my parents did a great job of teaching me that it's none of my dang business. She also manages to ring the doorbell EVERY SINGLE DAY in the middle of nap time. This is where the making little girls cry part comes in.....

Let me set the stage so you fully understand why I totally lost it yesterday. My kids have generally been fantastic sleepers.  They go to bed at a decent time and will most of the time sleep until I go and wake them up.  Gavin has a record sleep in time of 9:30am! Anyhow, lately Tanner has started getting up with the sun. Literally. As soon as the sun pops up over the horizon he is out of bed and wanting breakfast. This wouldn't be such a big deal if he didn't go to bed at 10:00pm the night before.  Don't judge me, this ONLY happens during the summer because it is still light out at 8:30pm. I promise! If he doesn't get a nap he is completely unmanageable. He will melt down over the smallest things and just sit on the couch and wail. It's not pleasant, to say the very least. So Tanner had gotten up pretty early yesterday, we had finished breakfast by 7:15. We had a pretty laid back day just laying but I had a few errands to run which kind of overlapped with nap time. He dozed off in the car so when we came home I hurried and ran him inside and lied him down. He woke up just briefly as I lied him in bed but quickly went back to sleep.  Ten minutes later I hear the doorbell ring. DANG IT! Tanner's and Gavin's room is just a few steps away from the front door and this little girl is LOUD. I was busy in the other room and heard Gavin say it was the neighbor girl and that he didn't feel like playing outside. I told him it was okay to answer the door and to tell her politely that he couldn't play right now. She asked him why and he told her that he was too hot to play outside. He also very politely asked her not to ring the doorbell again because his brother is sleeping. She said okay and left. As soon as the front door shut Tanner was out of bed and over nap time. I tried to get him to lay back down and he just screamed and cried. So I came to terms that Tanner was not going to get a nap that day and went back to cleaning the kitchen. 

Twenty minutes later or so as I'm working in the kitchen my dog starts growling and barking. We don't have blinds on our sliding glass door and he normally barks and growls at every cat that wanders through the field behind our house. I assumed this was what was making him go so crazy and hollered at him to stop. This went on for about five minutes or so before I went to get the squirt bottle. As I rounded the breakfast counter and headed toward the front bathroom I saw a little face peeking in the front door. Okay... I'm going to be honest here, she scared the CRAP out of me! My first reaction was to scream but it kind of came out as a yell "WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING?!"  (I know if I don't put this down my sister is totally going to rat me out... I didn't say heck... I said H-E-Double Hockey Sticks) she was clearly as scared as I was because she began to back out and head back to her Grandpa's house. I opened the front door and said "That's not okay! You don't peek in the windows, you don't open my front door. If you want to play you knock on the front door and if we don't answer you go home. And if Gavin tells you he can't play you don't keep coming back! You need to go home, now!"

Looking back I was probably a little more forceful than I needed to be. I mean, she's 6. But I can't stand bad manners on little kids. And she scared me! It was totally not my fault! She had it comin'! A few minutes after our encounter I was chatting with my sister and told her what had happened. She said "You cussed at a little girl?!" Now I feel like a terrible monster. To be fair, she didn't cry. She just kind of stared at me and probably called me a name once I closed the door. She most likely will never come to the door again and Gavin will be friendless. Way to go, Kim! Mom of the year right here..... anyway. I feel like maybe I should apologize. Thoughts????

My Best Friend's Wedding - not the story you're thinking of

Jon and I just got back from one of the most amazing weekends ever! It was absolutely perfect!
Let me start from the beginning!! THIS is me and my amazing friend, Cammie. We were dancing in the back of our young womens president's van. I chose to share this picture because I believe it truly captures the essence of our friendship.

2001

 My family moved into the area when I turned 9. I can't remember if Cammie's family was already there or if they moved in later but our families knew each other as we grew up. Our friendship became really strong my Junior year of high school when we had choir together.  Over the years Cammie has been the most amazing friend to me.  She is one of the most genuinely kind and selfless people I have ever met.  She NEVER gossips, something which I find extremely admirable because it is just so hard for me! More than anything Cammie has set the most incredible example of how to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Cammie served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints for 18 months of her life in Aruba. She wrote me several letters while she was away, each one filled with more and more encouragement and love. Each one sealed with her testimony of our Savior's love for us. I kept every single letter!

Not only was she an amazing friend to me, she instantly clicked with Jon. Even though she was attending school at BYU, she was right by my side when Jon and I tied the knot. Cammie graduated from BYU and went on to attend Grad school at Auburn University in Alabama. We kept in contact through text messages and facebook and got to see each other occasionally as she would come to visit family. Although Jon and I were raised in the LDS church we hadn't attended church regularly since we began dating in 2004. We still felt like we had a testimony of our Savior but simply lacked the commitment and motivation to make it part of our daily lives. With the examples of some dear friends, Cammie and a few others, and the birth of our youngest son quickly approaching, we knew that our lives were missing something. We felt the hole that could only be filled by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We began attending church again in 2010 and set a goal to become an eternal family by being sealed in the temple.  We were met with several challenges that year, physically and emotionally and when 2011 rolled around we were ready to finally enter the temple and become an eternal family. Most of my family had been inactive for several years and as Jon and I finished our last temple class I had a hard realization: none of my family would be able to go through the temple with us for our sealing. This was so hard for me to swallow. For those of you who are not LDS, the temple is where we as members of the church go to complete sacred ordinances that are required for us to have eternal life. Eternal marriage, or being sealed in the temple, is one of these ordinances. Because these ordinances are sacred and they are done in a sacred place, members have to meet certain requirements to enter into the temple. So, this was a huge deal for me and Jon and our kids and to not be able to have a single family member go through with us was very sad. A few weeks before our sealing I called Cammie to tell her the news that we had finally had our interviews with our bishop and were ready to through the temple. She happened to be planning a trip to visit family around that same time and was able to be by my side again as we became an eternal family. (My pictures from that weekend ended up not capturing on my camera so you'll have to imagine what we all looked like). Along with Cammie we had some pretty amazing friends join us for our sealing. Some of our ward family from Grand Junction made the trip over, my young women's president that was living in West Jordan,Utah my good friend James that was in Eagle Mountain, Utah and Jon's dear friend Tyler from the same part of Utah came up as well as Jon's Mom who was living in New York. It was so awesome to be surrounded by so many people who loved us when my family was unable to be there. I have been so fortunate to have such amazing friends in my life.

SO.... longest blog EVER?? To tie everything back into my intended post: Cammie is just the most amazing friend anyone could ever ask for. Everyone loves her! Cammie and her boyfriend, Chad, came to visit over this last Christmas. Because of our crazy schedules we were only able to visit for a short time but I enjoyed it SO much! Cammie just glowed around Chad. After just a few  minutes I felt like I had known him for years and that we were already great friends. He was obviously head over heels for miss Cammie, and for good reason too! She's amazing! Not to mention she's absolutely gorgeous! Jon was working out of town and wasn't able to meet Chad but as soon as he came home I talked his ear off about them. I said to him "Cammie's gonna marry that guy! They're perfect for each other!!" So in January of this year Chad asked Cammie to marry him!! We were blessed enough to be able to attend their reception here in Junction and also their actual marriage in the Manti temple on Saturday. It was SO beautiful and I felt the spirit so strong (I had to choke back tears so bad so that I wasn't a blubbering mess when we went up to congratulate them). It was such an amazing weekend and we were so blessed that Cammie and Chad asked us to attend. It meant so much to us!  I did take a camera and I got some super cute shots of this weekend BUT I took my SD card out of the camera and it is MIA. I'm sure it's in the car or tucked in a bag. I'll probably blast them all over facebook when I find them. Don't you worry! ;)

 I did manage to grab this awesome picture of the temple as the rain clouds were rolling in. I LOVE this temple. Everything about it is so amazing, including two spiral stair cases that have no center support beam. They span over 70 feet and each stair is supported by the previous one. AMAZING!

Anyway, to make a very long story short, I couldn't ask for a better friend than my Cammie. And I couldn't ask for a better husband for her than Chad. They are an absolutely adorable couple (stole this pic form their announcement) and I'm so grateful that Jon and I were able to be part of their special day. Cheers to the happy couple!

Independence Day

These last few weeks have been absolutely a whirlwind. I keep thinking "my life is going to slow down after ________" but then that event comes and goes and things are just moving even faster. Seriously. SLOW DOWN! I plan to blog all sorts of stuff but am waiting on some pictures and a few extra minutes to make it all happen. This post is dedicated to the tons of fun we had on the 4th  this year! Next year I totally plan to have a huge 3rd of July party with tons of cute snacks and stuff for the kids....but our plans had to change when the city of Fruita cancelled their fireworks display because of the fire danger. We still had fun!! I love the 4th of July!!!

My sister and I started this tradition a few years back where we either make or buy t-shirts for the fourth of July. I REALLY wanted to make another Captain America Shirt for my boys this year but it was so challenging last time that we decided to go with something a little easier. (By the way, I've become totally obsessed with Captain America since I saw The Avengers. Husband is aware of this fascination....so we're okay.) ANYHOW, my sister and I decided that we would get together and make tie dye shirts for all 5 of our kids. It was so fun! I have never really tie dyed before...  I had to google and youtube videos (yes I just used Google and Youtube as verbs) just to figure out how to do it. I felt a little lame but I'm really glad I did. We got some pretty sweet tie dye shirts out of the deal. I got a little fancy with Gavin's shirt and I ended up pretty much hating it. Luckily, the shirt we made for Tanner ended up being HUGE. We had expected it to shrink and then it didn't... so I bought Tanner a new shirt, gave Gavin his old one, and made a new one for Tanner. Jon and I also made shirts but had to use different dye that didn't really match and our shirts were HUGE as we also expected them to shrink and they didn't. The kids looked super cute in their tie dye but the only picture I managed to capture was Gav showing off his new GJ Rockies hat that my parents bought him. 

Zoey's Shirt

Gavin's shirt that I hated... I don't know.. ..it just looks funny

Gavy and his cool new hat!

Tanner's shirt that ended up on Gavin for the 4th of July

So our 4th of July was pretty low key considering our entire county (and most of the outlying counties) all had strict fire bans in place. This was the first year that I can ever remember Grand Junction not having a fireworks display. I've lived in GJ for 26 years now and even on the years where there was a fire ban they at least had a display at the stadium put on by the Fire Department. So instead of risking a $750 fine and a class 3 misdemeanor, we decided to get together for a (gas grill as charcoal grills have been banned) barbecue as a family and let the kids play in the water.  My sister spent the day filling up water balloons and the kiddie pool. We played this cool little game as a family where we drew a bluesy in the center of Jen's cul-de-sac. We each took turns standing in the middle of the bulls eye while the rest of the family hurled water balloons at us. The rules were the family could only throw one water balloon each and the person standing in the middle of the bulls eye couldn't move. Yeah... no one really followed the rules. By the time my Dad ended up joining us there was only one water balloon left. Jon was posted in the middle of the bulls eye and we were all trying to hit him. I guess my dad figured he only had one shot and he didn't dare miss, so he hurled the water balloon at my back. I was standing about 4 feet in front of him and had just launched my balloon at Jon. Didn't even see it coming!


So the kids played in the pool and water for awhile before it got too chili and we ended up heading home early. We were seriously home by 8:00pm. We popped Brother Bear into the ol' VCR and just had a chill night hanging out as a family. Not really how I imagined my 4th of July going this year but it was still good!