Hello blog, it's me Ashley

I am not going to go into the many reasons why I am a defunct blogger; the short of it centers on my house, kids and trying to short sell my house. Enough.

And though I tried to avoid it, this blog is my neglected journal. So an update is in order I suppose. We have had a crazy and wonderful 6 months. Here are the highlights:
-Adam graduated from the Loma Linda school of Dentistry on Sunday May 29th. The ceremony wasn't nearly as hot or long as we anticipated, my shoes were cuter than any I have ever owned (too bad I probably won't ever find another reason to wear them) and everything was perfect. Both of our parents came for the event and we had a wonderful time chatting, eating and quietly celebrating the accomplishments of the one we all adore so much. I made some pretty outstanding food, I have to note: Gorgonzola crusted beef tenderloin, rosemary rolls, sweet potato fries and carrot cake.
-After that decadent event, my parents whom I cannot thank enough took our boys to Utah so we could pack up the house. The house is so riddled with mixed emotions for me. It is where I have raised my crazy boys. I love that house. It was hard to say goodbye, but only for a moment. We did it and we moved out and on. But I miss these and other people so so much. Good friends make your location your home. I am still working on making this new place a place where friends make me feel at home--even more for my kids than for me.
-And then Adam and I went to Maui! Maui is something for which I cannot thank my inlaws enough. What a gift. They watched our boys and sent us on their dime to Maui for 5 wonderful days. We went on a helicopter ride, rented a Harley and went to the top of the volcano, ate more decadent food and devoured our favorite books in prisine, beach bliss. So so fun. This event must be repeated.

-Then Adam officially became a New Hampshirian and a working man while the boys and I enjoyed some more time in Utah and at our favorite locale--the Ranch in Atlanta, ID.



So so fun and a good way to say farewell, bite the bullet and actually move ourselves 3000 miles away.

Whew. That was a little rough. But we are getting the hang of it. Fortunately, a week after we moved in, Olivia and her family came and visited for the 4th of July. I could have holed up in my house for weeks, just putting stuff away and convincing myself that I had neither the time nor the inclination to go anywhere and explore. But go and explore we did: We went to Boston on the 4th and then spent the next 5 days entertaining our kids at the farm, local ice cream shops, lake, beach and pool. They had so much fun...maybe a little too much fun. Maybe non-stop entertainment is NOT the best thing for kids??? They loved playing all day and it was so fun to have familiar faces here. When Olivia left, she said, "I think you live in a really cool place." And that has really helped me get more comfortable in this new place that I am supposed to call home.
One more thing: I have become quite the chef in the past year. I think I decided to cook myself through all of the moving and house stress. It has worked and a few people have benefited from it. And last week my sister in law even taught me how to make a decent loaf of bread. Not decent, like freaking outstanding! It's amazing. I am addicted and make bread almost everyday now. Yeah, I make bread. Still not grinding my own wheat, and maybe I never will, but...we also made jam and we decided that we could almost pass as pioneer women.

4 year olds rock

Someone wise once said "4 year olds rock." Maybe it was me that said it; in any case, whoever did was right--they do. Today my Eli is 4 years old. I remember thinking about this day, wondering how weird it would feel to be the mom of a 4 year old when Adam graduated. But here we are, almost fully functioning adults, and it is not weird. It is awesome. Because, again, 4 year olds are awesome. In the last year, Eli has gone from making me feel like I am constantly treading water, to making me feel like there are few people in the world that I would rather sit down and chat with than my own son. He is fun, funny, conversational and witty and hard to keep up with in a totally awesome, extra calorie burning (no longer frustratingly, mind numbingly difficult) way. I love Eli for everything he does to remind me of my husband, whom I also adore. I see absolutely nothing of myself in him. But as I listen to him rattle off quirky made up songs, stubbornly insist on doing things his way (which more often than not turn out to be pretty creative and ingenious,) be a clothes hater, and run circles around me (literally) and everyone else I feel like I get a window into what my husband's childhood must have been like. And at worst, that is humorously frustrating, but at best totally hilarious, interesting and endearing. I am so happy that Eli is in our family. He pretty much makes us what we are. And I like what we are. Love you E.

Fluffer turns one

Maybe we need to back off of the Fluffer Nutter nickname--Tate wouldn't touch his birthday cake; apparently he has decided to trim down a bit by walking everyday and adhering to a strict diet. He exhibited some serious self control because this was no run of the mill birthday cake: I made a triple chocolate, sweetened condensed milk infused, double layer cake with one layer of homemade caramel and one layer of vanilla frosting. He didn't want it, which was unfortunate because it just made me want it more.

The day was ordinary enough. Play around the house, a trip to Target, lunch, naps, park, BYU basketball, dinner and cake and presents. I just didn't have it in me to do a one year old party. With Tate's birthday timed right in the middle of Adam's dental boards and my prolonged meltdown over how to move 3000 miles away and the larger issue of what the freak to do with our house...sigh. And yes, I am aware that there is a nuclear meltdown in Japan, people dying in Libya and myriad deaths resulting from recent earthquakes, tsunamis and wars and I should shut my mouth about my stupid house and Adam's test. I am just saying both of us were far more inclined to celebrate our mischievous little munchkin in a more relaxed, mundane fashion.

Which brings me to why I love Tate so much. He is easygoing, relatively anyway for an inherent independent spirit who is inhibited by feet that don't move fast enough and screams that don't communicate well enough. He always has a smile for anyone. He is patient and endearing and sensitive...things that I am still learning to understand since I do not have much experience dealing with that sort of people. (It's been over 6 years since I have lived with anyone like that!) Most of all, he loves and adores me. Worships me really. He wants me to hold him and hug him and play with him--also, a new experience for me. I am so confident that this little boy thinks that I am awesome that some days, nothing else matters. Some days it does, and that is just life. But I love being Tate's mom. He has been so fun to have over this whirlwind year. Tate has brought laughter and lightheartedness to our family. He has made our family more complete than it was. I get such a kick out of watching him explore and topple and get up and do it again. So cheers to Fluffer. Good job being born, we love you and think that you rock.


PS I am sorry if anyone is offended that my boys never have clothes on. That's just how we roll here.

This makes me want to move to Montana

and tell my kids to go play outside and be home before dinner. Maybe I need to move to another century (not state) to fulfill that dream...anyway, speaking of dreams, we went to Joshua Tree to celebrate MLK day. And we had a blast. Joshua Tree is a slightly less cool version of Moab. But it is totally awesome for kids who want to run and climb unrestricted until they are on the brink of dehydration and exhaustion--which we mostly let them do. It won't shock you that Eli only partially liked being in a harness to climb on rocks. But he did really well and we all enjoyed basking and climbing in 85 degree weather in January. And they even let us live our dream for free. So Joshua Tree truly rocks.









This is my favorite-"Here, I will just help you eat the rope Dad..."

Since...whenever

Seriously. I am sorry I have become the most boring blogger. All I do is report like once a month now. So here is my lame report that will consist mostly of pictures because I have like 5 seconds:

The service project party:



The preschool program:



The Fluff being happy in spite of a week-long bout of viral gastroenteritis...which is a fancy way of saying he was puking for 7 days:




The pretend Christmas morning:






The flooding:







The real Christmas morning:







The resulting train station that was formerly Eli and Tate's room:





The epic snowboarding day:


The epic running day:

Our Christmas card

Well, I believe I began last year's report with a joke concerning my refusal to join Facebook; so I suppose the introductory joke this year is that my friends will probably be reading this on Facebook.

Besides that most momentous of occasions--mine and Adam's conversion to the cult of Facebook-- 2010 has gone pretty similarly to the three years preceding it: We cleaned up many messes, tried to be nice, got farther into debt and vacationed in Utah. Glamorous right? Other than that, our second son Tate, otherwise lovingly known as Fluffer Nutter, Tater Fluff, or simply Fluff, was born in March...so that was a pretty big deal too. It’s a short report. That being the case, let's discuss the things to which we are looking forward for 2011, shall we?

Adam will graduate from the Loma Linda School of Dentistry in May. He has worked incredibly hard and for many obvious reasons, we are looking forward to it. I have also finally managed to convince him that running is a good idea. Adam is mostly eager to graduate and begin working; we are both eager to follow the advice of propets and economists alike as we begin our ascent out of debt.

Eli is looking forward to perfecting his sharing, listening and being nice to Tate skills on which we have so diligently worked this year. He hopes to amass as many gold stars for practicing those skills as possible. He continually asks me if he can do this or that when his 4…so we have a lot to accomplish beginning April 7th. His tenacity, persistence and energy never cease to amaze us.

Tate is looking forward to being old and big enough to withstand Eli’s attempts to wrestle, smother and generally torment him. He has perfected the speed crawl in an effort to flee his attacker; but unfortunatley his girth, speed, and overall sweet, smiley and adorable temperament have been largely ineffective tools of evasion.

Much of the same could be said for Duane: He spends most of his time trying to avoid attack. Duane’s enthusiasm for running has waned as much as Adam’s has increased. I believe he is hoping to soon become a lap dog…not gonna happen.

All that being said, I am most looking forward to being able to have my boys in the same room without anyone getting hurt. And yes, I realize this could be years away. I am also ready to begin a new chapter in our lives. Mostly I try (try being the operative word in all of this) as often as I can to pause when my boys laugh together, show me or each other affection or do something so hilarious that I am forced to smile and laugh out loud. I measure my level of success as a person and a parent by those moments.

So at this time of year, I have more successes than failures. I think the nature of this most wonderful time of the year is God’s gift to mankind. For that, and countless other blessings, I am indeed grateful. Merry merry Christmas to you; we wish you a more plentiful amount of smile making moments.

Love,
Adam, Ashley, Eli, Tate and Duane

Today was a fairytale

Not the courtroom kind I used to dream about. And certainly not the Taylor Swift kind. It centered around baking dozens of cookies for several upcoming Christmas parties whilst listening to the highly appealing background sounds of Christmas music, E accurately identifying alphabet letters on his computer, and Tate laughing while playing with Duane. There was also a Vanilla Coke Zero involved, the delectable scent of french vanilla cake cookies (apparently I am a mega fan of vanilla) and NO, I repeat NO, crying, fighting, yelling or breaking of household items. And for a brief moment, I thought "I am a damn good mother!" and then I realized soon after that I wasn't since I had thought that.

I had a similar sentiment as I was putting together our Christmas cards the other day; that activity also involved some Diet Dr. Pepper and Christmas music which almost always equals a good mood. When we took our Christmas pictures, I looked through them 100 times, slightly disappointed that there was not a perfect one that I loved, and that in each one someone was doing something not to my liking. But as I assemebled them, looking at the picture I ultimately chose over and over and over again, I started to just love it for all of its flaws; because they highlight perfectly the personalities of all of the people in it that I adore. It's like when you spend enough time with someone, you start to love them in spite of--if not for-- their inherent flaws. The more I look at our picture, the less I care that Eli isn't looking at the camera, that Tate is drooling and that Adam isn't wearing a huge grin. I am even over the fact that my hair looks like I got electrocuted and that Duane got my shirt all dirty.

I tell you this not to annoy the hell out of you, (see I'm really not a good mother because now I have sworn twice in one post) but to highlight the wonderfulness of the most wonderful time of the year. In church last Sunday, a lady mentioned that she just loved this season because she could feel the spirit of Christ while wrapping presents and decorating the house...it won't shock you that Adam totally made fun of her for that, but I defended her: I think what she meant is that everything is just easier this time of year. Feeling the spirit is easier, getting along is easier, accepting imperfections is easier, simple things elicit immensely strong feelings of gratitude...and even I can have a fairytale morning with my kids.

PS Allison, these are what the cookies were supposed to look like