4M

Baby Kolt is FOUR months old today! 

So we went to his 4 month well check visit and he's 13 pounds now, in about the 50th percentile for all his growth.

We've heard a few good belly laughs from him this last month. Best sound in the world! 

Kasen especially thinks it's the cutest sound cause Kolt loves Kasen talking to him. "Want your binky to nom on?"

He also loves squealing and hearing himself squeal. He squealed the whole time we were taking pictures.

My least favorite thing right now is that while he nurses, he likes to pinch my arm. He's given me a couple good bruises.

He's rolled over a couple times, not consistently, but he has found his toes!

The cutest little Snorticus! 

Is This Real Life?

You know those moments that just feel surreal, like you're suddenly aware that THIS is your life and life is good and just being grateful for it?

I have had quite a few of those moments recently and I don't want to forget them or that feeling of just being and being happy.

-Like when Kohen and Tai picked garden tomatoes and then brought the salt outside to sit down and eat them together and just watching them enjoy it to the max.

-Sitting at the park, while Kasen had flag football practice, and watching Kohen push Tai on the swing.

-Watching Kasen get Kolt to full on belly laugh.

-Kohen having the hiccups and laughing so hard every time he hiccups.

-How happy the kids are when I share my biggest granola clusters with them, out of my cereal.

-Making homemade Carmel popcorn, like my Mom used to, and watching the 4th Harry Potter movie together since we finished listening to the book.

-Watching Kyle play flag football with the kids in the backyard, even though Kohen will not pass the ball to him.

-Running my first 5k in over a year, since having Kolt! I ran 40 minutes, 3.33 miles and it felt so great.

It's the little things :)

 

Jubilee

 

Ashley won tickets to Jubilee on Saturday at Thanksgiving Point and invited me to go with her. Super nice of her. I had never heard of Jubilee, but found out that it's like TOFW except it's not just LDS women there, but a variety of Christian women that @multiplygoodness brings together.

The theme was Rooted and it ended up being so neat to be there with so many women from different faiths, rooted in the love of Christ. We got to see our similarities and connect and feel God's love for all of us together. The music there was so great too!

One thought shared there was about how even among people from our same church, we still don't have the same faith. Every relationship we have is an interfaith relationship because everyone is on a different part of their journey and will believe things a little differently than you do. Each of us have a different relationship with God, even at different points in our lives it will look different because of the different life experiences that shape our individual opinions. And that is beautiful. It's why we need community. To help strengthen one another and remind each other how God is good.

"The best parts of Him are in us." (Grace Freeman)

I am thankful for the connection with faith outside of my own and the goodness I feel. Any faith is inspiring AND I am proud to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I feel absolute gratitude for the abundance of blessings I have received from my Heavenly Father and the love and hope that I feel daily. I feel so sad for the experiences people must have gone through in their lives leading them to conclude that God does not exist.

At the Jubilee, @thefaithcollective was there sharing an exhibit of photos and stories of women and the hard things in their lives that have strengthened their faith in God. There are miracles in the hard, miracles in the waiting places and miracles in tragedies. God is always good. The exhibit was so beautiful.

The very next day at church there was a talk given in Sacrament Meeting about casual vs. careful discipleship. It's been on my mind ever since. Do we want to be led TO the tree of life or just NEAR it? What does God really expect of us? "It is not enough merely to speak of Jesus Christ or proclaim that we are His disciples. It is not enough to surround ourselves with symbols of our religion. Discipleship is not a spectator sport. We cannot expect to experience the blessings of faith by standing inactive on the sidelines any more than we can experience the benefits of health by sitting on a sofa watching sporting events on television and giving advice to the athletes." (Dieter Uchtdorf)

We are to be doers of the word and not hearers only (James 1:22), Faith leads to action and If ye love me, keep my commandments. (John 14:15) He gives us commandments because He loves us and wants us to be more blessed by living them. We've heard all these scriptures before.

But this week on social media I saw someone post a reel answering yes to the question, "Can you be an active member of the church and have tattoos, piercings, drink coffee, swear, go out on Sunday and not wear your garments?" Of course you can. Members can choose to do whatever they want, just like anyone else. But “There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated—And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it [that blessing] is predicated.” (D&C 130:20–21.)

"If we must give all that we have, then our giving only almost everything is not enough. If we almost keep the commandments, we almost receive the blessings." (Bruce C. Haven)

We can rationalize and justify our behavior as much as we want, but we'll only be hurting ourselves and missing out on the rich blessings God is waiting to pour out upon us. That's all. Everything we are asked to do comes with blessings attached.

I just find it so odd that in the name of being an active member of the Church, there are so many people proclaiming, to all of the online world, why we don't really need to follow what the Church and the Prophets teach... How is leading people away from promised blessings spiritually fulfilling? 

For me, believing in a living prophet means that instead of praying to ask if his counsel applies to me and then looking for the answer I want in order to stay comfortable, I'm praying to receive my own confirmation that it already does apply to my life.

That is literally what the flaxen cord is, spoken of in 2 Nephi. "...he leadeth them by the neck with a flaxen cord, until he bindeth them with his strong cords forever." The little things that we think are no big deal, become habits that are added to other little things that gradually seem silly and then we find ourselves bound. But surely something so small won't keep anyone out of heaven! Probably not, but hopefully living against what you know to be right is worth the risk. God will always forgive sin, but he will never condone it so we shouldn't be advocating for it.

Satan doesn't need to convince us the church isn't true, the devil doesn't need to tell us that God doesn't exist. All he has to do is get us to put off doing anything about it until tomorrow. The devil's favorite word is tomorrow. Procrastinate repentance, procrastinate loving your neighbor, and procrastinate doing what we know we should because it will yield the same result as if we never believed in God at all.

The good news of the gospel is that it is never too late to change. This is a gospel of hope, healing and second chances. We don't have to be perfect, we just have be willing to try.

"Are you willing to do what it takes to get your blessing? Even if your feelings get hurt?" (Tamu Smith)

It's not going to be the easiest path to take, He never said it would be easy. He only said it would be worth it! "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." (1 Corinthians 2:10)

The gospel of Jesus Christ is worth living, no matter the sacrifices.

Also, I got to meet @mrdavebutler who I love to follow on instagram! His account is amazing and I especially love his "who won church" he has people send in every week. There are some good one liners and also funny things too.

And while I was gone at the Jubilee, my baby, who NEVER takes naps, slept for over 2 hours for Kyle! What the heck?! I'm so jealous.

Saratoga Shores Sharks

Tai was accepted to go to Saratoga Shores this year with Kasen so today was their first day at their new school!

Kasen is in Mz. G's 3rd grade A.L.L. class and Tai is in Miss. Lasson's 1st grade class, just a few doors down from each other.

We went to meet their teachers on Monday and Kasen picked a desk right in the middle because he said that would make it easier to make friends. Last night Tai told me, "My teacher said it's a fun school so we are lucky!" She also noticed that her teacher has her classroom decorated in sunflowers and wants to wear her sunflower dress one day soon because he teacher would probably like that.

Over the summer Kasen had to make a Hero Poster representing himself, that he turned in on back to school night. He gave himself red and black clothes like his favorite colors, drew his Pokemon hat on his head and his CTR ring on his finger, then glued on pictures of a bike, kneeboarding, an F22 Raptor, orange chicken and The Last Kids on Earth book. We made one for Tai to decorate and hang on her bedroom door too. 

He was also given a list of 20 Battle of the Books books to read and he has already read 15 of them!

We found out that the vice principal at Mountain Trials last year is their principal at Saratoga Shores this year, so they already know one person at least!

All summer I keep telling Kasen to put on shorts and a T-shirt so when school started today he said he gets to wear pants and long sleeves again. I tried to explain that it's still August and 93 degrees today, but he did not care... I took them to get a few new outfits for school because out of the 11 pants Kasen had last year, only 2 pair don't have both knees torn out now! He is hard on pants.

This year Kasen has an alarm clock in his room, so they are in charge of waking up and starting to get themselves ready downstairs before they come up for breakfast. I love it already.

Luckily drop off wasn't as crowded and didn't take as long as I was mentally preparing for. It took us about 25 minutes to drive there and get them dropped off. There wasn't a parent party in the back of the school like we've done at Mountain Trails before so it was just a wave at the curb.

I am so glad that they have each other and that Tai was willing to go to a new school with Kasen. They hopped right out and Tai blew me a kiss as I drove away.

And after school she told me that first grade didn't even seem longer than Kindergarten!

This morning after drop off we went on a walk with all of our preschool age friends and played at the park for a little while together.

It's going to be a great year.

August

The day after Kohen's birthday is my Dad's birthday so we got to go have dinner with him and make some homemade ice cream too! His best friend, Clint, came up from Aurora and we all celebrated his 61st birthday together.

The next day I got to go hang out with my cousins at McKenna's house. Natasha and her 5 kids are visiting Utah right now and it's been 5 years since they last came so it was fun to be able to see all of them!

Even stopped for some Zeppes while we were up there.

I made it back home in time for Book Club that night at Kelsey's house. We had read a book called The Language of Flowers and Kelsey is incredible and had a whole bunch of different flowers at her house for each of us to make a bouquet to take home with us! It was such a fun night.

The next day the kids decided they were going to live outside from now on. They spent most of the day playing in the backyard and then asked to sleep out there too. The last 2 summers they've tried sleeping on the tramp they haven't made it through the night. This year they slept UNDER the tramp and stayed out there all night! I don't know how good of an idea it really was though because they were eaten alive by bugs!

I cannot believe we haven't been to the splash pad once this year! We usually live at the splash pads all summer long, but our shark was a lifesaver this year. We had one more shark party before school starts and then that night Heidi invited everyone over for a backyard movie night. We watched Honey We Shrunk the Kids and it was a hit.

We also got to go see Camden perform as Mike Teevee in Willy Wonka for a summer theater class he took. It was super cute.

Kasen got to go on his Grammy date to Fat Cats and to a fun primary activity with a waterslide so he's packed in lots of fun before school starts on Wednesday!

Kyle gave each of the kids a Back to School Father's blessing and since Kasen is 8 now he got to come with us to the Saratoga Springs Temple dedication. He was super bored, but maybe he'll look back one day, remember it and be glad he got to go. Who knows! Heidi watched the other kids for us and it was the first time we've ever left Kolt.

We went on one last hike before school starts. Heidi and Kelsey came with us and we ate donuts at Donut Falls! It was only 1.5 miles out and back, but we had to use a rope to climb down a few big rocks and all the kids ended up getting their shoes all wet, but it was worth it! 10 kids and Tai was the only girl. lol

Poor Kohen woke up one morning with super red, swollen eyes. We took him to the doctor and they guessed it was a histamine allergy thing and told us to give him Zyrtec. It cleared up after a few days, but we have no idea what caused it.

Eww... That was a close one!

One of the days I was getting so ready to send the kids back to school! They had had friends over, there was paint and playdoh, crumbs, cards and crying all over the house and then they told me how bored they were!! Please tell me what more you need to be entertained.

Personally, I think we had a fantastic summer together! Made some core memories for sure.

JAW-SOME and THREE!

Kohen is THREE! Happy Birthday!

Finally let him have chocolate milk for breakfast.

He loves to tell me that he does not like me. But he will hug me, but I can't hug him back. If I try he says, "I got this." and moves my arms away from him. 

I love how every time he sees us in the morning he runs to me, "Mom! You woke up!" or to Kyle, "Dad! You came home!" And Kolt always gets a, "Good morning Kolt!" with a huge hug. It's more of a smash cause he lays right on top of him.

His biggest fear is a closed door. "Leave the door open!" Whether it's his bedroom door, the back door or my bathroom door, he always tells us to leave the door open.

We'd been waiting to try no diapers at night till they were dry in the mornings, but instead we just went for the underwear at night and he's had no accidents this week! So that worked out nicely!

2 days after having to throw away the entire contents of our deep freeze, I was baking his cake and the power went out AGAIN! So I had to remake it. But we got it done.

And we had all the cousins over for a Shark birthday party!

Watching him open presents was one of the best parts! He was SO excited for everything. "Whoa whoa! Oh my gosh! I LOVE this!!"

Grandma and Grandpa Forsyth gave him a remote control car that he is loving.

Krista got him a big stuffed dinosaur and this bottomless bag full of all the treats he tried taking from everyone at Flaming Gorge! Kyley and Lyndsey had the same idea and he got licorice, cookies, chips and all sorts of candy!

Grandpa Kelly and Grammy Tammy both got him the same shark toy. That he wanted to sleep with last night. lol And he was especially excited about his new Paw Patrol shoes since I refuse to help him put on his other ones that are too small now.

Karissa's family gave him a fun dinosaur stomp rocket, Carter gave him a fishing game and he also got a tool set from the Days. Grandma Mel and Jack gave him a Tonka dump truck and a water gun.

Thank you everyone so much!

Also, the week before Kohen turned 3 years old, Kolt turned 3 months old! 

Just like how Kohen was 4 months old the same week Tai turned 4 years old :)

Kolt has all but laughed a few times now and is drooling like crazy. All down my arm all day.

He still won't nap at all during the day unless he's being held, but sleeps through the night and is super ticklish on he sides and up his back.

We love our baby boys!