Cruisin for a Bruisin...

Zayne is a little daredevil. He has this plastic rocking giraffe and last Saturday morning I see him do this :

  I'm doing it mom!!

 I almost fell.....but I didn't!

 I'm going back up....

 no hands!!

 steady....

 steady....

 YES!

 back to safety!!

 should I? or shouldn't I?!

I'm going for it again! Every time he almost fell he would just was just laugh and laugh! Apparently this is typical boy behavior. Great! What else is in store?! We still love his sweet little face :)

Family Times!

We have spending a lot of time with Owen's family lately. I am so blessed to have good in-laws! Last week we went out to Christensen Pond in the Parma area and went swimming for his family's ward party. We had so much fun! My sister and her family came as well and they had an absolute blast. They said it was the best party they have been to all summer! Her kids keep asking her if they can go again! When we first got there Evie was in a mood.... - an awful one in case you were wondering. She kept telling me she didn't want to go swimming. Even before we left the house she kept saying "I'm telling you - I'm not changing my mind." I've been a mother long enough to know you pack the suit anyway. Glad I did because she FINALLY decided to get in the water. They have a fun water slide that she refused to go down so I carried her across the pond and up the small stairs and went down with her. She was laughing in between her objective cries all the way down. She wouldn't go again. At least she tried it once; even if I had to force her :) Then Owen took Zayne down...that was scary! He was going way faster than anticipated so he tried to grab the edge of the slide and totally sliced his finger open...yuck! Then they went FLYING into the water at a crazy fast speed. I was yelling "OWEN! YOU'RE GOING TOO FAST!!" I thought I was going to have to jump in and save Zayne. They went under the water...I was so scared! But they both came up just fine with Zayne screaming his head off. It's not that deep, but Zayne is so little. He must have held his breath. He didn't appear to have sucked any water in. So that was a relief. They didn't go down again! All in all it was super fun! 

 Zayne loved the sunscreen bottle while we were there and his little boat/floaty toy, too! He kept packing them both all around right before we left. What a little sweetie! He didn't get sunburned, it was just really hot out!

 I am one lucky wife and mommy!

 Owen's sister and her little family are moving to Alaska and so most of his siblings were around (from out of town) to visit with them before they took off for their adventure!

 Zayne has lots of aunts, uncles, and cousins that's for sure!

 As usual - we go to Owen's parents neighbor's house to look at their baby pigs when they have them! Evie didn't want to ride in the back of the pick up truck up the road - but Zayne got roped into it ;) Looks like he was having fun ;)

Evie and Cousin, Keegan with a little puppy. He was so darn cute! Evie didn't want to hold the puppy - she was content to let Keegan do it :)

 She didn't ride this four wheeler - I kind of doubt she would (she must be my daughter ?!) She just wanted a picture on it. Funny girl!

 That is a big mama pig!!

Evie attempting to get a little closer to the baby piggies. They were so cute!!

We had the opportunity to go to the temple today. We had a very nice experience. I wish Owen would have gotten in the picture - but he refused. Four of his 6 sisters were there and 2 of his 3 sisters in-law were there and my beautiful mother in-law! I love having the temple so close  :)

A wedding and a night to remember!

Ok. So the beginning of this post might seem a little....what's the word? Prideful. BUT that's not what I'm going for at all! So after reading my Body For Life book for women shortly after we moved to Moses Lake I started incorporating weight lifting into my workout routine. And I fell in LOVE with it! I usually only do 30-40 min of cardio a day and then I work two different muscle groups together and usually throw in some abs, too. Anyway. A friend of mine from high school got married this last weekend and so me and my other friend, also from high school, whom I am still close friends with, went together! How could we miss out on some photo ops?! So to connect the first part of my story to the wedding....When I saw this picture of myself I was so proud!! I actually have definition in my arm!!! I feel like I look pretty good - especially after having 2 children. I have been trying really hard to take care of myself. I always tell Evie when I'm working out that I'm exercising my heart and body so it can be healthy. I NEVER mention anything about skinny, fat, etc. I NEVER talk about my insecurities in front of her because I feel very strongly that we can truly shape the way our children feel about themselves and others. The word "fat" is a taboo word in our house and we plan to keep it that way. I felt good when I saw this picture because sometimes it feels like my routine isn't making a big difference - but this gave me motivation to keep going with it!

And my best friend from high school thought I was super hilarious through out the whole night! We had so much fun together - made me feel like we were back in high school; thankfully we weren't ;)

The sun was right on our faces! My friend, Aubrey, got married at the Botanical Gardens and it was absolutely beautiful! It was pretty hot, but started to cool off a little toward the end! My friends dress was really pretty! I had to get a shot of it - although the sun kind of ruins the pic. Believe me, it was beautiful!

They had a strict vegan dinner. I have never eaten vegan before, so it was a first for me! It was definitely different and i don't think I could convince Owen to eat that way; but hey - to each their own :)

It was a really fun night! Thanks for being my date, Jana! We have got to do more girls nights in the future!

Some thoughts on Marriage

I received a call from an old friend a couple of Fridays ago. I haven't talked to her in quite a few months. We were friends with her and her husband while Owen and I were in college. They got divorced a couple of years ago and although she is doing much better, she still struggles a little bit, they have children together, which has made the situation even harder. We were talking about marriage and relationships and she asked me: "Emily, what makes a successful marriage? Because at this point, I'm not sure anymore."
That question really got me thinking.....I replied with family/couple/individual prayer along with scripture study is very important. Church attendance and temple attendance - very important. Making your spouse a priority - extremely important. There is also one thing that strikes me as very important BEFORE marrying a person. Communication is key. You might think - isn't that obvious? I'm truly surprised when I find out that people have no idea how the other spouse feels about certain issues that should have been discussed at some point during their courtship. I'm saying there has to be a point in the relationship where you have a talk about future goals, expectations, etc. There was a turning point in mine and Owen's relationship, back when we were dating. We had broken up because he was being a jerk, I'm being honest here, and I told him that unless he shaped up - I was out of there. ( I later found out that Owen told his sister what was going on and she told him he WAS being a jerk and that he needed to fix it with me. Thanks, Rochelle!) Anyway - one night we met at the park and had a heart to heart, if you will. We talked about EVERYTHING. Did the other person want to get married? Did they want children, if so, how many? Would I work or stay at home with future children? Did we have testimonies of the gospel? Were there things in the past that the other person should know about? What were our educational goals? What were our occupational goals? Where would we like to raise a family? What were our individual thoughts on finances? How were we raised and what kind of rules existed in our families? What would we do differently or the same as our parents? Of course things don't always go as planned....believe me, we would know! These things don't have to be set in stone, but it's a good starting place if you are looking into furthering your relationship.

We talked about things that would exist in our future as a couple. We actually broke up for a month or two, after this little chat. We decided that we both had things we needed to work on individually. We got back together at the end of my summer semester and I was headed home for the Fall semester. Owen was on track for the Fall. So we decided to try a long distance relationship. We figured that if we could make that work, we could make a marriage work too, right?! So we talked on the phone A LOT! We got to know each other even more, because we talked :) We got engaged in November and were married in January.

I'm not saying our marriage is perfect. It is far from that. We have grown tremendously in 8.5 years together. Are we where we thought we would be financially at this point? Obviously not! Spiritually, family and happy wise? Absolutely! I always remember hearing that the first year of marriage is hard. At the time I didn't think it was, but looking back, it wasn't easy. We were both young and I would say, immature. But facing trials together has really helped us grow together as a couple and individually. I'm not saying that that any of these thoughts or suggestions are a sure fire way to keep your marriage together. We all have our free agency and we can't choose how another person will use their agency; unfortunately, bad things happen to good people - in all areas of life. But if I had one suggestion to give to people it would be to discuss those things with your future spouse. You can learn a lot about a person when you ask questions and listen to the answers.

I minored in Marriage and Family studies and read several of Dr. John Gottman's books through out several of my classes. One book we read was entitled: "Why Marriages Succeed or Fail and how you can make yours last." I would highly recommend this book - I still have it because I liked it so much! One of my favorite things in it that I have tried to apply to my marriage is his 5:1 rule. For every 1 negative interaction - there needs to be 5 positive interactions. This helps build an "emotional bank account" for when conflict arises. This has been helpful in our marriage.

Elder Russel M. Nelson gave a talk entitled Celestial Marriage and he said: "Harmony in marriage comes only when one esteems the welfare of his or her spouse among the highest priorities." I love this quote because it is a great reminder that we need to be selfless in our marriages. We need to quit criticizing our spouses and look for the good in them and remember all of the wonderful reasons why we married them!

I am no expert - but these things I have mentioned in my post have definitely helped us in our relationship. We have only been married for 8.5 years but we are hoping for an eternity :)

A few things...

Pardon the picture of my messy bathroom! Zayne loves to get into things - that's what babies do, and for the most part, they are good at it. We were putting that big pack of toilet paper in front of the bathroom cupboard to keep him out of it. It had Owen's hair clippers in it - what a mess. Zayne did pretty well for a while -  he couldn't move it because it was too heavy. So he would sit on it and he enjoyed that thoroughly until one day he decided to climb on it so that he could get into anything on the counter and EVERYTHING in the top drawer! He is so different from Evie. When she was a baby she never got into anything....or tried climbing on stuff. She didn't attempt to climb up on the couch until she was probably 2. Anyway, I eventually put anything in that cupboard that I didn't want him to play with, up in the closet, out of reach. He wasn't happy when we took his "step" away! 

 Evie loves to go with daddy and daddy happens to love to go to Cabelas. She knows this is daddy's favorite store! She loves to look at the animals and fish when we go. She wanted her picture by the polar bear :) Zayne liked the animals too. He kept pointing and smiling.

 A couple of weeks ago we got together with Owen's brother and his family to celebrate his brother's birthday. We went to Wahooz! We went bowling, which sadly enough, I didn't get any pictures of :( BUT Owen did take Evie on the Go Carts and she looked like she enjoyed it!

 I love our little family!

 Before we left the kids all played a race car game. Pretty fun!

 Zayne was content to sit and watch :)

 I know this picture is blurry - but I couldn't get a good one because Zayne moves so fast! He is basically running instead of walking now! We got these Mickey Mouse slippers from our friend in Moses Lake a while back and Zayne has really taken a liking to them. We also got those jammies from a friend in Moses Lake as well! He looks so cute and little!

 This little guy LOVES his blankies. Luckily, he has 4 of the same one. We also got these blankets from our friend in Moses Lake, thanks Annie - I love hand me downs! Zayne reminds me of Linus from Charlie Brown - he will drag his blanket all over the house. If he sees one of them in the laundry basket he will pull it out and snuggle it. These two pictures I took after his nap the other day. He wanted his blanket with him while he ate dinner. Usually I would have discouraged it, but he was still kind of sleepy and it was sweet. He's not big into feeding himself yet. Evie was at this age, but Zayne doesn't like the texture of stuff - only things like crackers. Mac n cheese, watermelon, anything kind of wet, is out. He is the same way when he eats it. If it goes in, more than likely he spits it right back out! I have to offer it to him several times, sometimes, before he finally actually gives it a chance. I'm starting to realize not all kids are the same. I'm really hoping he doesn't get too picky with his food - Evie is an awesome eater and I would like to say it's because we are awesome parents, but I'm not entirely sure that's the truth ;)

I took this picture last night. My sister bought a piano from my sister in - law and so they delivered it last night. Zayne was smitten with it! He loves his Aunt! Every time she comes to the door to drop my niece off, Zayne basically runs to the door to give her a big hug and a smile :)

Hot springs in the middle of the summer?

My sister in - law celebrated her 40th birthday at the end of June. We went to a hot springs on a record high temperature day. What were we thinking?! It was sooo miserably hot.

Everyone was trying to keep cool before the swimming.

Evie fell off the edge of the sidewalk (it was a pretty big ledge) and twisted her ankle. It put her in quite the mood for the rest of the evening...sigh. She refused to swim and kept sobbing and crying off and on. I think she was so hot she just couldn't handle it. Seriously, it was hot, people! Like 107 + The heat was almost suffocating....

Poor little fella....he was melting!

The pool was really pretty fun. Evie never ended up getting in and so I barely had the chance to get in. But the water was 92 degrees, so it was a little much for me. It would have been more enjoyable in the fall or winter or spring...not so much the summer!

Happy 40th, Beth! Glad we could spend it together as a family!