June 2012

 I promised Alice I would take her to get ice cream. I can't remember why, but we finally did it and the girls were being too cute.

 Wrapping up kindergarten. Going through Easton's journal was so much fun. This one says, "my favorite part of kindergarten was counting to one hundred." He learned so much and had a blast!

 So proud of this boy!

 School's out! First swim of the summer! LOVE THESE FRIENDS!!!!

 As soon as school was out, Ivy and I ditched the fam and went to Oregon. Just what I needed. This is me with my cousin Lindsay and her cute little boy Dylan.We hadn't seen each other in years! So much fun.

 The purpose for the trip was a Jolley family reunion. So fun to see aunts, uncles, siblings and cousins and celebrate the Jolleys. Pretty sure Bruce won this game of mini golf.

  One happy grandma. Babies Ivy and Harlow @ 3 months.

 Heaven.

 We celebrated our dad!

And I ran my first 5k. It was surprisingly fun. I might be up for another one.

Real Men Have Spit Up On Their Shirts

Three kids is so hard three kids is so hard three kids is so hard three kids is so hard...

...at least for me. I know several people who handle it beautifully, and handle more for that matter. I however, am struggling. So this is all you get. One of my favorite pictures from our recent (and AMAZINGLY therapeutic) trip to Bear Lake. One day I will return to my blog and have so much more to say. Promise.

The Big 3-0

I pretty much ate my way through birthday week. It was heavenly. I had absolutely no issues with turning 30. I was excited because it's a big milestone, but I wasn't depressed. I think it helped that most of my friends turned 30 before (or waaayyyy before) me, and I just wanted to be part of the club! 

The week before my birthday, Steve gave me my iphone. For the longest time I was convinced I didn't need one. I was fine with my old phone and didn't want my kids bugging me to play on a fancy one all the time. But then I had baby number 3 and all of a sudden I couln't find 5 minutes to sit at the computer to check emails, renew library books, play scrabble with my dad (I got in big trouble for this)or blog. The new phone has been so convenient...it does everything. Well, almost everything. If only it could make dinner and clean...then I could handle 3 kids a whole lot better. Anyway, the point is, all these pics are from the new phone.

 

Kara, Liz, Alison, Tara, Katie, me, Christi 

 Kick off to birthday week was lunch with my best girls. Katie and I have birthdays one day apart so we always get to spend them together. This time we went to Firefly and ate pretty much everything on the menu. It was all delicious and so fun to get together with everyone. We all seem SO busy now with a million kids and school in full swing...we don't get together as much as we used to. So grateful for all of them! 

Next it was a night out with my man. So grateful to our friends for watching all 3 kids so we could go alone. Dinner was Mesa Grill. My salmon was pretty yummy. Then we walked to Serendipity because I LOVE their chocolate peanut butter frozen hot chocolate. Tasted good especially because it was way hot outside.

 

Birthday swim!

 

 This is what's left of my birthday pizookie. Got this with girls from my ward this time. I used a plate so they would still be friends with me. Thanks girls! 

 And last but not least, on my actual birthday our good friends had us over for a yummy dinner and lemon birthday cake. I think I gained 10 lbs that week but it was all worth it.

 

3 kids at 30. I really like them. Usually. 

Sometimes I can't believe I'm 30. It seems like such a grown up age, but sometimes I still feel like I'm 18! I wonder if it will always be that way no matter how old I get.

May Visitors

After the blessing my parents stayed for a few days as well as Aimee. They went to the Donny & Marie show to celebrate their 36th anniversary (WOW!). When we dropped them off we walked around the flamingo for awhile. It was a nice day and pretty atmosphere and the kids loved the birds, fish and turtles. 

  

 I just think it's so weird that they stand on one foot.

      I love their heads in this picture. I can't believe this is the only picture I got of Aimee while she was here. Bad! She was so helpful. I know how hard it is to travel with little kids AND be pregnant at the same time. She made it look easy. Can't wait for her to add another boy to the fam!

                        Tyce was all about the baby swing. At this moment they were sharing. So cute.

Fun times at the splash park. Neither of my older kids really ever loved the splash park. Carly is always content to swing and E is running around doing other stuff. Tyce however had no fear and was loving the water. He was so cute and little but running all around with the bigger kid. Love it!

                                                      Loves chocolate just like his momma.

My good friend Sarina happened to be in town that week so she and her family stopped by for a visit. It was so fun chatting with her and seeing her cute boys. She has another one on the way as well. Goodness there were a lot of hormones in my house that day.

 Ivy is very chatty, here she is talking Sarina's ear off. I love the face she makes when she's jabbering.

I love how having a new baby brings the visitors. We have had so much fun these past 3 months getting to see family and friends. I guess it's back to real life whether I'm ready or not (I'm not).

Ivy's Big Day

 Here's our girl on her blessing day. It was so fun having both sets of grandparents and Aimee and Tyce with us. It's not exactly convenient for our family to get here so we really appreciated that they made the long trips to come. It was a great day.

 Here we are getting the cutie ready for her dress. Carly loves to help with her bath. I love this picture of her grandmas helping with her dress too.

 The whole gang! Thanks Kara for taking this picture and for spending the day with us! I'm sad I forgot to get a picture with your family, but we love you!

  

Sleepy heads. 

We're so happy to have our little Ivy Reese as part of our family. She's so fun to have around!

Playing Catch Up

 I have so much to write about and zero time and energy to do it. Obviously 3 kids is killing me. I'm going to try and recap the last month as best I can.

 This girl is crazy. She was potty trained, now she's not. She was in a big girl bed, now she's not. Ugh. She was my perfect angel, now she's not. Baby Ivy definitely shook things up around here and my number one priority is sleep. So that meant putting Carly back in her crib so she couldn't get out of bed and come wake me up at all hours of the night. Good thing she's cute.

 Ivy and I (and my awesome helper and travel companion, Sara) took a trip to Beaver to meet 3 very special people; Grandma Fern, Aunt Jenni, and cousin Harlow! I love this picture of Ivy with my grandma. And I love watching Jenni be a mom! It was a great day and I'm glad we did it.

 A surprise visit from my sister and her kids! They went way out of their way to come see us and I'm so glad they did. I love those kids and I never get to spend enough time with Mel. Thanks for coming!!!

 Easton is also crazy. He and Carly are CONSTANTLY fighting and 99% of the time he is the cause of it. I'm pretty sure it has a lot to do with the fact that I have sort of ignored them for 4 months and they have had to fend for themselves...but still, it's kinda ridiculous. He's almost done with kindergarten and I'm sad about it because it has been so fun. In this picture you can also see our awesome new van! I thought it would be so fun for Easton and I to wash it together, and it was...but the car looked way worse afterward than it did before. Stupid Vegas water.

 Ahh and Aunt Jill. She made the trip from Seattle and left ALL her kiddos behind just so she could come and spoil us. She played with the kids all day and snuggled my Ivy whenever she got a chance. A few things we (she) did:
* went to the park
* made crowns
* played legos/star wars/big scary bear/tea party
* rode the carousel (the one at the outlet mall. For you Vegas people, they closed the one at the District)
* girl trip to the Bellagio for gelato
*pizza party
* played lego star wars on the wii with Easton

I'm sure there's more. She's incredible and we had a fabulous weekend!

 And then there's this girl. She learned to smile and sleep a little longer. Emphasis on little. We love her to pieces. We just got done with her blessing and had more family come to visit for that. That will be a post of its own though. Probably next month...

We Love Grandma!

 I have a huge amount of catching up to do. For some reason I can barely find the time to sit down for an hour and blog. Well, I know the reason, her name is Ivy and she eats every 2 hours. But, I miss my blog and we have done lots of fun things that need to be documented.

But first: GRANDMAS!!!

My kids call their grandparents Oregon and Idaho grandma/pa. One time I told Easton something about Grandpa Bruce and he had no idea who that was, so we stick with Oregon/Idaho.

Oregon grandma came first. She got to our house the Sunday after Ivy was born. We were SUPER happy to have her here. I learned about how great grandmas were when I had my first baby. But now, after my third, I appreciate them a million times more. My mom took care of my 2 older kids all day, feeding them breakfast, taking them to the park, spoiling them rotten. They had so much fun. Plus, she was on Ivy duty in the middle of the night, and didn't even seem to mind it. She was so nice to let me get some sleep and take naps whenever I wanted. Oh how I miss those days. I didn't get enough pictures, so I made them all pause for a minute at mcdonalds before we took grandma to the airport. That's when mommy had her first meltdown. Good thing Idaho Grandma was coming the next day!



Steve's mom has been so nice and has come to spend time with us after all of our kids were born. It worked out perfectly with her spring break this year so we got her for a whole week...which means, another week of the kids being entertained, mom getting sleep, and not worrying about a thing but holding my baby. It was heavenly.

I just really can't describe the love I have for these 2 women. They are both giving, patient, generous and so loving. We are all so grateful for them and all they did for us while they were here. We love Grandmas!!!