Fun Run/ Field day

I'm so proud of my boys! They did the fun run today for their school and they did awesome! Zach came in second for all of the kindergarten boys! It was very very close, but Nate came in 3rd for the second grade boys! They did so amazing! Jackson, their cousin ran with the 1st grade boys and, although he didn't place, he ran hard and we are very proud of him too!
I helped out at Zach's field day with the kindergartener's and man, I am exhausted. I didn't know I would be helping out until yesterday and was then informed this morning that I got to design and run the obstacle course station. I was able to use the school's equipment and come up with an obstacle course. I had four groups of between 10-14 kids that came through the rotations. When I designed it, I didn't realize I would be actually doing it as many times as it did. Between the design, demonstration, and then races with some of the kids who didn't have a kid to race against, I probably ran it about 20 or more times in an hour and 15 minutes. Man, I am still exhausted. It was fun though and I just adore these kids. Kindergartener's are such fun. I've been helping out in Zach's class on Mondays for the last few months. There are a couple of the girls in his class who will randomly come up and give me a hug. Very sweet.
I did the same thing with Nathan's classes in both kindergarten and first grade, but his teacher this year has two aids and I didn't get to help except for the Halloween party. Man, I really love this school. Nathan is in 2nd grade and his is already doing multiplication. School has gotten a lot harder then it used to!

It's amazing what you can do!

Once again, as with everything on this blog, this is a post for me. Just to put my own thoughts down. 
It always amazes me what you can do when you have to. Maybe it's just drive and determination, but it's always amazing to me what you can push yourself to do if you have to. As I kid a ran track for a couple of years and did distance running. I mainly did the mile and 2 mile. I remember pushing myself with running thinking, "it's hard, but I can make it to that intersection", or to that tree, or to whatever I could see. When I got there, I thought, ok, it's hard but I can make it to the next spot and then I'll be ok. I think it's the same with life in general. It's hard and I'm tired, but I can do this, or I can do that. Same thing with cleaning up all sorts of things with my kids. Ok, this is hard, but no one else is going to do it. I can do this. I think that's just learning how to endure to the end. Yes, this is hard, but I can do this, and then I'll be better and done if I can make it here, or make it there. I think that's my attitude about life in general. You know, I can do this. Life is just the same right now. No major events. We're just plugging away. I think this is my life motto, is it's amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it!

Zach came home from school today and one of the first things Addi asked him was "How was school today?". Love it!

Addi's best friend

Last night I was jumping on the trampoline with Addi while the boys were playing at friend's houses. I asked her what her favorite color was and it has not changed from pink to purple. That's a big change since for a while she was all about "Pink, pink, pink!". She loved the book "Pinkalicious". I also asked her who her favorite friend to play with is and she said, "Nathan!". I asked her if she liked to play with Nathan more than, Maya, Clayton, Caly, Zach, Mom, and even Dad. Each time I asked her, she said she liked to play with Nathan more. She loves and adores her big brother and he is very sweet with her. There are times where she is upset about something small like sitting in a certain spot and he will get up and move so she can sit there. There have been a couple of times that I have to tell him that's very sweet, but he needs to not let Addi get her way all of the time. He goes out of his way to watch out for his little sister. I love it!
One of Nathan's friends is Jake McArthur. I seriously think that Addi has a crush on Jake. In a lot of her prayers, she will pray for Jake as well. I asked her who loves her, thinking that she would say Mom, and she says Jake. I'll also ask her who do I love, and she says Jake as well. Jake is also sweet with Addi when he is at our house. It warms my heart!

My sweet Nathan

My sweet Nathan. The two youngest kids went to bed earlier and I let him stay up a little bit later. I kept telling him that he needed to go to bed and he was being pretty slow about it. He was giving me more hugs and kisses and I told him he needed to go to bed right then. He said "it's just that I love you too much. My love is bigger then outer space". He's just a sweet kid. Not sure how I got so lucky.

Soccer practice

Tuesday night the kids and I were at Zach's soccer practice. He was playing hard and the two other kids were at the nearby playground. I was sitting on a bench talking to my friend when Addi, who is two, wanted to play with my phone. The phone was locked and she was in the mode where she could make an emergency call. I didn't want her accidentally calling 911 so I took the phone away and told her we were all done with it. Keep in mind, there is a PLAYGROUND 10 feet away for her to play on. She got mad and yelled at me at the top of her lungs "I"M TELLING NATHAN" (her eight year old brother). It had been a long day and I didn't want to fight anymore, especially at the park, so I told her to go ahead and go tell Nathan. She proceeded to climb on the playground equipment, found her brother and said, in a sweet voice, "Nathan, mommy is being mean to me". Not surprisingly, Nathan didn't do anything put me in a time out. Yes, these are the kinds of things I deal with all the time. We are attempting to tame her spirit. I love her dearly, but MAN, sometimes I don't know what to do with her other than love her.

Grown-ups

Ok, so technically I've been a grownup for a long time. I graduated college and got a job in my career field. I have now been there for almost 12 years. I've been married almost 12 years. We purchased our house, as of this month, 10 years ago. We have paid cash for numerous home improvement repairs including a furnace, water heaters, windows, flooring, roof, bathroom remodels, kitchen remodels, and all sorts of stuff. We have three amazing children and have made numerous decisions on their behalf for the last 8 years. I've technically been a grown up for a long time. However, I don't always feel like it. every once in a while I have these moments where I think "Holy Cow!! I'm a grown-up!". I've had these moments a lot lately. As mentioned before, we did out "jump into the unknown" and Jeff has been working as an independent contractor for a company since September. We have known that we needed to set up some kind of a business for that work for a variety of reasons for some time. We finally did it and have recently registered the business with the state of Utah, written our articles of organization, got our federal tax ID number, set up a business account, and now I'm trying to figure out how to do payroll (done!) and then I get to file forms with the state of Utah and the IRS. It's really not a huge deal and there are thousands of people who have done this before. However, every once in a while I still get the "Holy Cow, I'm a grown-up!", overwhelming feeling. Just had to write it down for my own sake. So, onto new adventures. Hopefully this will be great!