Until We Meet Again...

If we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die we die to the Lord. So whether we live or die, 

we belong to the Lord. 

- Romans 14:8

Grandpa John holding his first grandson, little Hunter, as a baby, and at his 2nd Christmas.

The birthday boy with his family.

And then their were two grandsons.

Hunter riding the tractor with Grandpa.

Spending time with the grandkids in Oregon.

And then there were three grand children.

Surprise! Happy Father's Day!

The whole family visiting Garnet Ghost Town.

Grandpa with the grandkids.

Family picture in the beloved jeep.

A Saturday with Grandpa - carousel, helicopters, and trains.

Before we arrived at the cabin for Grandpa's final days, Hunter asked to have "just one more jeep ride with Grandpa" before he goes to Heaven. Wish granted.

Goodbye Grandpa, you were loved by many and will be in our hearts forever!

Dear Charlotte, You Are 4 Months Old

Dear Charlotte,
   Or should I call you Charli, or rather Kiki like Hunter does? Let me tell you a little story about you. Your dad had told once I start getting paid more, I could have another baby. So as luck would have it, it was about a year ago today that your dad and I found out we were going to welcome another child into our lives. I was super excited about the next few months following; your dad however was not excited to live with a hormonal mom for 9 more months...

   I studied the Chinese calendar, which predicts the baby's sex based on the month and the age of the mother. I was determined to have a little girl. Don't get me wrong, I love your brothers, but I longed for a little girl. I knew from the git-go my wish had been granted. You gave me the worst morning sickness. Normally it lasts for the first 12 weeks, but you my dear made it last until I was 20 weeks. That was not fun for mom. Luckily I worked as the Executive Housekeeper at a hotel and had access to plenty of toilets...
      As I waddled up and down the halls of the hotel, my belly gradually grew bigger and bigger, and with that your kicks and jabs grew stronger and stronger. It was so hard for me to keep my mouth shut when people asked me, literally everyday, what I was having. (To a lot I actually responded with 'a baby!') I was elated to see on an ultrasound I was having a girl, but since we had kept your brothers a surprise, we kept you a surprise to everyone else. Quite frankly, I didn't know if I could handle having another boy, so I explained to your dad I needed to know before you were born so I could prepare myself for the arrival of a boy.
   At 3am on May 13th, I woke up to turn over and my water broke. Your dad was practically bouncing off the walls with excitement. In fact, I went back to bed for a few more hours, and since he was so restless, I sent him to work. Later that morning, I took your brothers to daycare and then your dad came home to pick me up and take me to the hospital.
   I was given pitocin to induce labor since 6 hours later I still wasn't having contractions. After a long afternoon of boredom, the new doctor on call came in to see me and determined most of my water was still intact. After she ruptured it, you were born about an hour and a half later. You entered the world so perfectly that I was able to watch you be born. (Your brothers both had the umbilical cord wrapped around their necks so I was too focused on getting them out that I missed it.)

   And it goes without saying, but I'll say it anyways, you were perfect. Tiny and perfect and beautiful. And my oh my were you a tired little girl during your first few weeks! In fact, I had to wake you up to feed you! Unlike some newborns who are up every couple hours at night, you my dear let me sleep, and for that I thank you. Not only was I a new mom again, but I also had a new job, to stay at home with you and your brothers, and with the energy they have, it's hard to do on little sleep!

   It seemed as though it took so long for you to get here, and now I can't believe you are 4 months old. What a good little girl you are too! As a newborn, you always had the hiccups. It sounded like you swallowed a squeaky toy each time you got them, which was pretty frequently. As soon as your many bouts of hiccups vanished, you became quite the little puker. About two or three times a day, when I was least expecting it, you would throw up what seemed to be your entire feeding. I learned to always pack you two extra sets of clothes when going anywhere! When you turned 2 months old, you began to light up my world by smiling at me. At 3 months old, you found that sucking on your fingers makes you super happy. So happy that for a few days afters you found them, instead of crying because you were hungry, you would suck and suck and suck your fingers. In fact, now at 4 months old, you fall asleep sucking your fingers all the time. Most commonly it's the middle two fingers on your left hand. I'm surprised they're never wrinkled! Though you started a while ago, your babbling is the cutest thing, especially when paired with a huge smile!

   Each morning when I pick you up out of your crib, you are nothing but a baby full of smiles. Even if you're starving, one look at me and you are the happiest baby in town. You are so laid back and quiet too. You are always being praised by family and friends because they never hear you cry. And when you do cry, it's only because you are super tired! Your legs are very strong, as is your neck for your age. I love that you love to just sit with me and take it all in. You are a good little girl.

   I'm excited to continue to watch you grow. Soon enough you'll be eating food, and then standing on your own, and walking. Though it makes me sad to see my baby grow up, I am excited for the memories we have yet to make.

        Love,
             Mom

P.S. Thanks for sleeping 12 hours last night. I enjoyed the extra hour of sleep :) xoxo

Cousin Photos to Love

This post has no purpose other than to show off my cute nephews who I was able to see this past week :) 

I love this picture plan and simple.

A) It's a great picture of Papa Craig with all his grandkids.

B) It clearly shows all of my kids' personalities. I'm still getting to know my nephew :)

I'll start with JP. He is flat out a goofball. He is constantly cracking me up. And here he goes again. He has a hard time being serious.

Charlotte is my little sweetie pie. Go with the flow and smile kinda girl.

Hunter....Hunter Hunter Hunter. This is his "I'm a perfect little angel" face. Although he can be the sweetest little boy and melt your heart in an instant, this also happens to be his "I didn't mean to do it on purpose" face.

This one is for you Aunt Kim - Her first time being with ALL her nephews & her niece at the same time. Again, you can see my goofball son Jim.

 Maybe I'm inexperienced at this, but gosh dang it, can't they just look at me and smile at the same time?!

Maybe I could do some cut and pasting? This is one of the few times I've seen Casey smile. 

And since we've gained a cousin on the other side of the family...

 Aunt Em spent a good chunk of her free time snuggling and shushing these little ones.

Isn't baby Steven just a little cutie pie?! He's about 2 weeks old here. I forgot how little Charlotte used to be! 

 I never would have picked Hunter to be the baby lover!

Go Team Dirty Shirleys!

Waaaay back in January, my sisters and I thought it would be fun to get together to run in the Dirty Dash. After little discussion, we invited our mom to join us. We named ourselves the Dirty Shirley's after our childhood favorite drink, Shirley Temples. Now that we're all adults, Dirty Shirley's seemed more appropriate. Plus, what a great way to hydrate before hand?! We didn't leave my dad out either! He was the babysitter. Lucky for him it was for only one of his grandkids, not all 4 of them! He was a trooper! Because he wasn't in the race, he was also the designated photographer. :)

For those of you who haven't heard of the Dirty Dash before, its a 5K "race", except it's not timed and there are obstacles along the course. A handful of which involve mud.  Some were more sloppy than others. Unless you went around them, there is virtually no way to cross the finish line clean.

We signed up for the dash located in Missoula. It was held at the equestrian track so it already had a few obstacles built in. Let's see if I can recall the majority of the obstacles along the course... At the beginning there were stacks of hay bales to climb over. The first two were fairly short, but the third and fourth set were twice the size so we had to help each other climb up and over. Later down the course we were hopping our feet through tires. I think we had to jump over a horse jump next. At mile marker 1 we were faced with our first mud pit. There were 3 sets of air up tubes that you had to climb over. I know I had to be pulled over one of them, which caused Robin and me to land in the mud below.

After we all made it through, we laughed as we headed to our next mud pit where we crawled through tunnels of muddy water. That led us to the mud mine pit. I wish I would have know about it. I happened to slip and while I was on my hand and knees I was hit in the face with a glob of mud. I didn't care until I opened my eyes to discover that I had mud in one...under my contact. Lucky a spectator, or maybe the mine controller, had a bottle of water he was able to rinse it out with, but it stung for the rest of the race.

From there we made our way to the GIANT water slide. I typically don't like water slides, but this one was fun. I was surprised there wasn't a mud pit to land it. But maybe by the afternoon there was? I think after the slide we had to climb up and over a 10 foot net. Pretty scary at the top... I think the next obstacle was a 10 foot wall with a rope that you had to climb over. Also very scary from the top. I was scared for my mom's life on these ones, since there were two of them.

At the 2 mile marker there was *finally* a beer station. We were under the impression there would be beer stations along the course and were a little butt hurt to find only one. Once we made it over both the 4? foot high wall (my mom rolled under them), the rest of the course started to get sloppy again. There were a couple trenches to wade through, and a few big mud pits.

One of the last obstacles featured a HUGE blow up house looking structure where the inside was nothing but sticky mud. To get out you had to try to run, without slipping, and jump over the aired up border. Kile made it out through a window and had to pull me through. My height was a complete disadvantage on that one...

When we all made it though the house, we approached the 3 mile marker. The last tenth of the race we had to wallow through two massive mud pits. They weren't too bad to get through, it was getting up and out over the mound of mud built around it that was challenging!

But all 5 of us made it. It only took an hour and twenty minutes! Unfortunately we only got a couple pictures of us after the race. Ah well. Before heading home, we rinsed off a the shower station. I made the mistake of trying to wash my face off. In doing so, I got mud in my "good" eye. With both eyes burning at that point, I had to take my contacts out and throw them. And then I was lead around like a lost dog. Robin had the same problem with her contacts but not to the extent of mine. 

Next year we're wearing goggles!

Go team Dirty Shirleys!

Monkey Shiner Babblings

While we were headed to the cabin the last week, we had a few boys in the back calling out road signs.
H - "That sign said 'deer are going to come down the mountain onto the road'."
J - "Deer shouldn't be on the road, otherwise we'll hit 'em! [Long pause] One time I hit a giraffe with my car."

J - "I just saw a whale on that sign! [Fishing access] You better watch out for whales on the road!"

After explaining to Hunter and JP that Grandpa was in heaven, and once you go to heaven, you don't come back, JP retorted matter-of-factly, "Unless you have a really tall ladder!"

And then the other night at the dinner table, we started talking about Grandpa.
M - "But you want to know what's really cool about Grandpa being in heaven now? You can talk to him whenever you want and he'll hear you!"
H - "Because he's in our hearts?"
M - "Yep."
J - "Why did Grandpa take his phone with him?"

On our way to preschool today:
J - "Mom can you hand me some paper to color on?!"
H - "Jimmy, mom is driving. I have to go to school so my friends can drive me nuts."
M - "Why do your friends drive you nuts?"
H - "Because they play and it just drives me nuts!"
M - "Don't you play too?"
H - "Well yeah but they're just nuts!"

School Time for the Dustin Boys

In February I enrolled both Hunter and JP for preschool and after a looong wait on my part, the time has finally arrived! 

 

Both boys were super excited to attend the open house on Aug 26. Proud parent moment: My boys were able to easily find their names, unlike some of the other kids...

JP started school on September 3rd. Since we had been at the cabin Saturday, Sunday, and the majority of Monday, come Tuesday morning, this kid was exhausted. I woke him up around 7:45 to get him ready for school, and all he could say was "I'm still tired!" I reminded him about his school countdown (where he got to eat a Skittle every day until school starts) and then he sprang out of bed!

For breakfast, I made him Mickey Mouse pancakes with sprinkles. Loved it! And Dad did his hair.

 He looks so old! I gave him three shirt options, but I knew he was going to pick his favorite SpiderMan shirt. And he insisted on wearing his green shoes. They're pretty cool!

He was pretty nervous when we dropped him off at school. But he said his good-byes and off he went to play.

When I asked him what he did at school, he responded with "I didn't get to color." He was pretty disappointed by that, but I was able to get out of him that they also played tag outside and he got to be "it", they read a book, and he ate popcorn for a snack. 

Hunter was supposed to start school the next day on September 4th, but since we went back to the cabin after JP was done with school, we decided to stay there longer than planned. A month ago I agreed to fill in a shift at the hotel so the staff could attend a baseball game. Perry wanted to be able to spend as much time with his dad as possible, since his condition was deteriorating, and working meant leaving in the early afternoon. Luckily someone else was able to work instead! I could tell both Perry and the boys were thankful they were able to spend more time with Grandpa. Unfortunately for Hunter, it meant missing his 1st day of school. Hard decision, but it was clearly the right one.

 This is what I was able to get for a first day of school picture for Hunter. He goes to school in the afternoon, and by that point he was clearly not feeling pictures. And JP insisted on being in it, as well as Eeyore. When I dropped him off at school Friday, he didn't even say good-bye before he ran off to play. By the sounds of it when I picked him up later, he had mixed feelings about the whole school thing.

Hunter however was the first one on the schedule to be the teacher helper, snack bringer, and show & teller. I really wanted to make a cute snack for him to share with his new friends, but being at the cabin for the night before, and the morning of, didn't allow me much time to do so. I sent him along with some gummy snack and juice, that I instead let him pick out. 

For show & tell, he kept saying he didn't want to bring anything. Then I suggested Perry and him catch a crawdad to bring. That was that. He was super excited about it. Grandma Betty even gave him a toy crab to put in the crawdad's jar for him to "play" with. He named him Pinchers, even though he was missing one.