D is for Diva

Yep, I said it. My daughter is already a diva! Brinley is right about 4 months old now, and she is so fun. She is such a happy baby- but only if she has things her way! She is a diaper snob, a diaper rash cream snob, a formula snob, and a nipple snob. She only uses regular Huggies diapers- the other kinds give her a rash. She only uses Burt's Bees rash cream- it is also the kind I used for Hunter because it works so well. Since I was only able to breast feed her for 5 weeks, she is on formula. And she only drinks milk based formula- goat's milk and soy formula make her constipated. And she only takes a certain kind of bottle nipple- which I had to find on ebay! And no binkies. She's never been a binky fan, and absolutely knows the difference. Oh yes, we are in for trouble with this one! She knows what she likes and that's that! But we sure love her anyway.


Here are some of the things she's doing now:


She loves to sleep in her swing, just like Hunter did. She takes all her naps during the day in her swing, but she sleeps in her own bed all night.


She sleeps pretty well at night. She goes for about 5 hours the first stretch, and then after she has a new bottle, she'll sleep another 5 hours or so till we get up.


She loves to kick her legs. She kicks them down so hard, but she's always so happy when she does. She'll also kick like that when she's really tired in her bed, as she's going to sleep.


She loves loves loves to dance! And she loves to be sung to.


She talks all the time. She'll talk to anyone who'll listen, including checkers at the grocery store!


She can roll over both ways. She rolls back to front mostly. She can roll front to back too, but she doesn't do it very often. She did it once and scared herself so bad she hasn't done it again since! It was pretty cute!


She is SO chubby! Her cheeks are so big, she looks like a chipmunk! And she has rolls on top of rolls on her legs! We weighed her a few weeks ago and she was 14 pounds!


She loves to be outside. Especially if there is a breeze. She gets so happy when the wind is blowing her hair. A lot of times I blow in it, and she smiles so big.


We got her a Bumbo chair a few weeks ago, and she loves to sit in it. I think she'll be starting cereal soon, because she likes to sit with us at the table and have little tastes of everything.


The other day I caught her sucking her thumb. So cute!


She loves the bath! She gets so excited when she hears the water, and she kicks and splashes so much.



Her hair is starting to fill in, but she still has the funniest bald spot in the back!

Family Fun Day

We decided to take the kids out for Family Fun Day one Saturday last month. We had been wanting to take them to the Atomic Testing Museum for quite a while, so when I found some super cheap tickets online, I jumped on them. The museum basically chronicles the test site- why and when it was made, what they did out there, some things anyway! ;) and stuff like that. Cahl's grandpa Del worked out at the test site for many many years, as well as Cahl's mom, dad, and an uncle at various times. The boys were really excited to go, and it was really neat to see what Grandpa did. During the building of the museum, people could buy a sponsorship brick, and grandpa and Cahl's uncle both bought one, so the boys were also pretty excited to find those. You're not allowed to take any photos inside, so we were pretty relieved to find that the bricks are outside!

The boys sitting around Grandpa's brick

Grandpa's brick

Uncle Dan's brick

After the museum, we went to lunch and then on to miniature golf! There is a place here that is indoor, and all under black lights. So it's pretty cool. I was hoping the pictures would show how it looked with the lights, but they just came out regular. We didn't keep score, but the boys all had a great time!

After mini golf, we hit the bowling lanes! We played 2 rounds, and we all had a lot of fun. Well, except Tristan who pouted because we wouldn't let him bowl with bumpers up. And he did just fine without them! Jasen did amazing! He bowls both right and left handed, and he came in second place! Hunter had a grand time! This was his first time bowling, and Cahl helped him use the little ramp thing, and he also insisted on doing it without a few times. Personally, I like to think of bowling like golf- the lower your score the better. So in my book I rocked!! But of course, I lost miserably! But I don't mind. As long as your having fun right??

Wow! I actually hit one!!

Cahl helping Hunter

Check out Jasen's form! Pro in training!

Tristan

Swimming

Last month we went over to Cahl's uncle Dan's house for an afternoon of swimming. The boys of course had a blast, and Brinley also had fun. It was her first time in a pool, and she did really well. She sat in her floatie ring for a while, and then she swam with both Cahl and I. She wasn't in too long, since it was so hot, and when she was done she went and sat with Aunt Gail in the shade while the rest of us swam a little longer.

Brinley and daddy

Hunter

Tristan

Jasen

Scouts- Raingutter Regatta

The annual Scout Raingutter Regatta was held on July 13 this year. Tristan made his boat all by himself this year, with only a little help in the spray painting department. He did really well, taking 2nd place overall. Cahl was asked to provide treats, and he set up an awesome snow-cone station! He made 6 home made flavors, and it was a hit with the kids and adults!

Whew...

What a crazy month this has been! I am a little ashamed that I have not posted anything for over a month. But, to be perfectly honest, things have been pretty chaotic for me. I have sat down countless times in the last month, but have never been able to bring myself to post anything. Every time I sit down, I am filled with mixed emotions- I feel overwhelmed, angry, sad, disappointed, stupid. And so I just get up and walk away. But now the time has finally come for me to let it all out, and get back on track with blogging.

Here is what's been happening in the last month. It's a long, boring story, but it's mine.

When we got home from San Diego, (on Sunday) I was crazy busy trying to unpack and get everything cleaned and reorganized. Things were going pretty well, I was able to make pretty significant progress and I was thankfully able to blog our entire trip. The following Saturday, Cahl's mom came to town to visit and she stayed until the next Wednesday morning. It was nice that she came, and the boys were very happy to see her, but we were getting ready to leave for Salmon the day after she left- Thursday. Now, normally I am crazy busy the week leading up to our Salmon trip every year. I am a huge planner, and since this is our one big vacation that we take every year, the planning is pretty extensive for me. I have to plan and pack for 6 people for 10 days. And since this year we took a motor home to Salmon, I also had to plan and pack food and other necessary items for that. I also normally clean my house like crazy before we go on any trips, I HATE coming home to a dirty house. There is always so much to do when you get home anyway, the last thing I want to do is have to clean my house on top of everything else. So anyway, because of our busy schedule and company, I wasn't able to clean the house like I would have liked. And I only had Wednesday to clean the motor home, pack the motor home, do all the shopping, pack for 6 people, and get everything completely ready to go super early Thursday morning. I was very overwhelmed to say the least! But, not to worry, we made it to Salmon Thursday evening with no problems. Traveling in the motor home is by far the best way for us! (There will be more posted about our Salmon trip later.) So after a nice trip, we came home Saturday July 10, getting home just before midnight. So we spent the following morning doing nothing but emptying out and cleaning the motor home so that we could return it to Mike's house. And once it was returned, I went to work cleaning the house and cleaning and putting everything away from our trip. The boys went back to school and started swimming lessons the Monday after we got home. So we just dove head first back into our regular routine. In all, it took about 4 days before the mess was cleaned up, laundry was all done and put away, and things were somewhat back to normal. That also includes all the regular house cleaning that had to be done when we got home. The Thursday morning after we got home, our main computer crashed. It took us all day to get it up and running, and when we finally did- nothing. Everything is gone. All of our family pictures from the last 3 years have been erased. All of Cahl's and my schoolwork, all of my saved Christmas newsletters, calendars, worksheets, internet favorites, everything- is gone. The only pictures we have are the ones on my blog, facebook, and any that have been printed and scrapbooked or framed. That's it. A tiny fraction of the thousands of photos. Even as I sit here and type this, I feel like bawling my eyes out. Again. I am a huge photo taker- every game, tournament, race, scout event, holiday, anything and everything. I take dozens of pictures. And now they are gone. I took over 200 photos when we were in Salmon this year, and they are all gone. I had saved them onto the computer and then deleted them off my camera to free up room for Tristan's scout night and other upcoming events. I had sat down to post our Salmon trip several times during the few days after we got home, but I just didn't have enough time. I knew it was going to be a huge post, with tons of pictures, and I just didn't have time. After all, posting San Diego tok me 3 hours to post! So now all we have is what has been posted. The only pictures of Brinley are the ones online. But it's so few- maybe 1 picture out of every 10 I take gets posted. And so I am heartbroken. I have been sitting down here in my little dump, throwing myself a pity party for the last 2 weeks about it. I'm so angry at myself for not saving all my photos to flash drives. So stupid to keep them all on here and not have anything backed up. I even took our computer to a repair guy, and it's unfixable. It wasn't a virus that did it- he said he could have fixed that- but that the hard drive itself crashed, and when it crashed it took everything down with it. He wasn't able to salvage anything. Cahl has a friend who also does computer repair, so he said he'd look at it as well, just to be sure. I have a teeny tiny sliver of hope that maybe he'll be able to find something. But I have pretty much gotten used to the fact that all my stuff is gone, never to be seen again.

So that is the story of why I haven't posted anything in so long. I've been sitting around feeling sorry for myself. I do have more posts coming- but at least you won't have to take a prozac before reading them! I will be posting about scouts, swimming, Salmon, Brinley, and more. Just give me a few days...