August

Right after we got home from Tahoe, Papa Ray came into town! It was just a super short visit (about 36 hours) but we packed in a lot of stuff in such a small amount of time! We picked him up from the airport and took his straight to the Discovery Museum so he could see where the boys play and see them in their element. Then he treated us to dinner (at Settebello in Farmington Station, basically our favorite place) and then took us to ice cream after (since the boys ate basically no dinner).  Sunday he came to church with us, got to witness Hudson's meltdown over going to nursery (this is a new thing) and went to Sunbeams with Chase. We had a relaxing Sunday with him and then Ben dropped him off at the airport first thing Monday morning. It was a fun visit!

Somehow, I've converted Ben (a little bit) to my love of hiking. I had a rough day one Monday and Ben suggested (I'm sure mostly to help me feel a little better) that we go on a hike for Family Home Evening that night. Ever since Tahoe Chase had been asking to go hiking, so we packed up the kids and headed for the mountains! We are so lucky that the mountains are five minutes away. We chose a pretty easy trail and the kids did great! Chase did about 4x as much hiking as the rest of us, because he opted to run the trail, coming back for us about every 25 feet before running out again. Hudson did about half the hiking we did and kind of preferred his spot on Mom or Dad's shoulders. It was such a lovely evening with our boys! We all oohed and awed and the beauties of nature, stopped to admire wild flowers, wonder at cactus, and enjoy the view of the valley. Chase did trip and fall and got kind of scraped up, but other than that we return rejuvenated and happy-tired. It was so fun that we were back up there that weekend to enjoy another evening in the mountains. The boys are great hikers! I'm so excited about making this a frequent family outing. 

 I've been feeling a little anxious that these summer nights are coming to an end all too soon! Saturday night BBQ/swimming/fire with smores up at my parents house is one of my very favorite summer traditions. One night we invited our dear friends the Newbolds up to join with us and it was a blast! Chase loves playing with Will and Matt so much. They had a blast playing in the yard and pool. It was another perfect summer evening.

At one point my mom came into the backyard to inform us that about 7 police cars had just entered their street (it's a dead end street). Apparently someone had stolen a car, gotten out and escaped on foot and was seen fleeing into our neighbors yard! The police and K9 units were out in full force looking for them. I look around, mostly at Hudson who at this point was out of the pool and just bopping around the backyard and thought to myself "We have an open pool, an open flame fire going, and an escaped criminal- could we have more hazards in one place right now!" I'm happy to say that everyone still had a great time, and no one got hurt!

This was on Sunday before church

And then things got a little crazy. The last week in August was a doozy for us! We had a really great Sunday on the 23rd- family dinner at my parents house with almost everyone there, played with the boys in the front yard a little that night enjoying the cooler evening air. Church that day had been great and I was feeling spiritually and emotionally renewed and just so ready to really tackle the week. Embrace Motherhood. You know, just basically ready to be awesome. Then at 1:00 am on Monday we awake toHudson screaming- he'd thrown up all over his bed/carpet/himself. So Ben and I jump into action. We have a pretty solid routine in this type of situation where one of us takes the kid and cleans him up/calms him/comforts and the other starts cleaning the carpet, bedding and clothes. We finally get him settled back in bed and before we can even drift back to sleep, it happens again. And again. All night long. And continued all day long. So much laundry. Scrubbing the carpet. And completely exhausted from being up all night. (Although Hudson was so sweet and cuddly that it kind of made up for all the other stuff).

That evening Hudson rallied a little. So we let him go downstairs to play. Several minutes later Chase informs us that Hudson is in some type of trouble. I go down to inspect and find that somehow Hudson found a small bottle of touch up paint for our car and has painted the doors, walls and carpets with it! AHHHHHHHHHHHH! Luckily Ben got most of it out of the carpet using paint thinner, and we'll have to repaint the doors and walls later. I'd already done about 5 loads of laundry that day, but had plenty waiting to go in (you know, the stuff covered in puke that just kept piling up) so I throw the rags from the clean up in with those not even thinking about it. Everything in the entire load came out smelling of paint thinner! (I rewashed that load 5 times, once with vinegar and once with vanilla and it finally came out smelling new!) I was just. so. done. Of course, this day was followed with another day more vomiting and sleepless nights and a tired/tempermental/tantrum prone Hudson who was starving and sick. It was just rough all around.

The only thing that made Hudson feel better was baths! So he had about 12 a day for those two days. And I knew he was completely exhausted when he fell asleep in my arms watching TV on the second day of the flu. We stayed home for three full days and by the end of the third day I was just so done. I was exhausted and frustrated and feeling so cooped up and overwhelmed. Ben brought home these pretty flowers for me somewhere in the middle of the flu adventure and I would just look at their beautiful, bright, happy colors on my windowsill and remind myself again to be positive. Needless to say, we are all so glad that we are done with the sickness (for now at least!). 

Chaser definitely felt cooped up and his behavior was reflecting that. I was so glad that Hudson got better by the end of the week and we sure got out of the house a lot those days! We went to the park (Wednesday night), a playdate at Matt's (Thursday), and then to the discovery museum with his pal Paisley (Friday)! Chase and Pais are just the cutest little kindred spirits and he's missed her so much since we moved! It's crazy because we actually live about as far away from her as we did before, but since we aren't in the same ward we just don't see them as much. These two running around holding hands seriously melted my heart. 

 Oh and just general Hudson craziness. This two year old is intense. Intense cuteness, intense tantrums, intense naughtiness, intense napping, he just does it all at 100%. This month he's had the most terrible tantrums about the most ridiculous things (I made his toast incorrectly- which I still don't even know what that means, it's toast!- he wanted the cookie Papa gave Chase instead of the (identical) cookie Papa was offering him- the blue spoon was dirty so he couldn't use it- just generally things like that). He also gets into so much trouble so quickly! One morning I was showering and I could hear the boys squealing downstairs in the kitchen. As I go to investigate I see Chase immediately split out of the kitchen- always playing the innocent party. And there is Hudson left alone on the kitchen floor, with a paper plate full of chocolate chips, shoveling them into his little mouth as fast as he can! Those chocolate chips were on the top shelf of the child-locked pantry!