Everything You Missed... May 2016 Edition

May was great!

Let's dig right in...

Sometimes I make my family dress up like characters from children's books and we take pictures...

Just your Modern Day Berenstain Bears.

My mom went to Nebraska to visit my sister and her family at the end of April,

and while she was gone we updated her basement and little for her for Mother's Day.

These are the before pictures...

My Mom is not a messy person at all,

but life just really makes us all a little crazy sometimes,

and I knew she needed a little help.

I seriously love to organize!!!

Aniston LOVES these stairs outside our church building!

We love that Spring has officially arrived and we can play more outside!

Aniston made this for me at preschool and I just love it!

I will never throw it away!

Benson always needs to have his pillows.

Aniston had a princess day at dance class,

and she looked adorable!

We went out to dinner and Aniston kept herself busy with her crayons.

I was shocked when she handed me the card she had doodled on and she had written Mom.

I didn't even know she knew how to spell Mom,

let alone write it!

Best thing ever!

Aniston spends hours a week going on Disneyland rides on YouTube.

Did you know this was even a thing?

By the time we go to Disney next year, 

she'll probably be bored of all the rides!

Yeah right.

Not even possible.

Pool fun,

or not,

in Benson's opinion,

at Nana's house!

We keep finding these R2's all over Rexburg.

And then Elder Kinville found one in Scotland.

Shady....

Aniston has become OBSESSED with crimped hair!

This girl would've rocked the 80's!

This momma duck had 12 baby ducks!

It was adorable!

We had to wait for Daddy while he got a massage,

so we hit up all the arcade rides at the mall.

Lucky for Mom,

they all only cost 25 cents!

It was a HUGE hit with the babies!

Aniston drew this picture at church a few weeks ago.

When I asked her what is was she said, 

"Aniston and Jesus of course!"

Love this sweet child of mine!

End of the year thank you gifts for Ani's teachers!

Soccer offically starts for this cutie tomorrow and she couldn't be more excited!

I'm sure she grew like 10 years overnight!

Last day of dance!

Aniston was blessed with the BEST teachers ever!

Recorders will be the death of me!

I know I'm late to the game but the debate over Berenstain and Berenstein is so insane to me!

It really blows my mind and makes me question my childhood!

Aniston insisted on picking flowers for every member of the family.

Sweet girl!

Best friends forever!

So much running happened in May!

99 cent bowling during the summer is our absolute favorite!

Benson was perhaps a little too tired to be on Daddy's back...

The games where you win every time are THE BEST!

Teaching Aniston all about the classics!

She didn't love it...

Benson LOVES to blow his nose. 

I find wipes all over the house from him pretending to blow his little nose.

This kid eating in his sleep in one of the best things I have ever seen!

My late night entertainment!

I try really hard to teach my kids not to climb up the slides, 

but Benson was trying so stinking hard to get up.

While doing my MTE training,

I noticed that the voice of the lady reading the medications sounded an awful lot like Angela from The Office.

It made my day!

He can dunk like a beast!

I already shared this video on a post, 

but it's too good not to share again!

May was great!

But I can already tell that June will be better!

DAY 1728... Memorial Day Weekend

I just love holidays!

Especially holidays where we get to celebrate our freedom and those who fight for our freedom.

We really are so blessed to live in a country were we have religious freedoms,

freedom of speech,

the right to bear arms.

Although,

there have been times lately where I feel as though our grip on on freedoms,

the entire basis that this country was founded on,

are being stripped from us,

we still have more freedoms than so many others.

On Sunday,

we packed up and headed to the 1000 Flag Memorial set up in Freeman Park.

It worked out perfectly because Freeman is also home to a disc golf course so everyone was happy.

Aniston worked hard on her throw...

Aniston has also become obsessed with climbing trees lately,

so we got a little of that in as well.

Benson was pretty upset that there were no baby swings...

The kids LOVED all the flags.

There was a gentle wind which was perfect!

My brother Jake,

who is currently serving a mission in Scotland,

taught Aniston to always yell "America Yeah!" whenever she saw an American flag.

She does this every time without fail.

While we were at Freeman she taught Benson to say "Yeah!" after she yelled "America."

It was pretty great.

Of course we played a little soccer...

Our latest obsession.

Our Memorial day started with a fantastic e-mail from Elder Kinville.

Seriously,

how perfect is this picture?

Love our missionary!

My e-mail reading was followed by a 3 mile run,

and then we headed off to Idaho Falls for a bike ride on the green belt with some friends.

We only ended up going 5.5 miles.

By the end my kids were screaming and not happy.

Pretty sure everyone we passed were judging us as the worst parents ever.

Oh well...

You win some and you lose some I guess.

We followed our gorgeous bike ride with some Panera Bread.

I had never eaten there before and now I am officially hooked!

So is Aniston.

We were all pretty beat after our day in the sun,

so we came home and napped it up.

Naps seriously are the BEST!

Dinner was a BBQ at my parents house.

I definitely loaded up 2 plates,

maybe more,

and ate like a 14 year old boy!

It was really nice to be able to spend the day with my family,

and to teach my little's about another holiday.

This one was a little harder for Aniston to understand.

She gets a little uncomfortable when we talk to her about death,

but opportunities to teach her,

means an opportunity for her to grow.

I think that my favorite part of the weekend was watching the pride that Aniston has for her country.

She is only 3!

But she knows how amazing it is to be a part of this country already.

No one close to me has died while serving my country,

but I know that there are many others who have not been blessed in that way.

Although,

those families may consider it a blessing the way that their loved one died.

Serving their country.

Protecting our rights.

Death is always difficult,

but what an honorable way to die.

I appreciate their sacrifice more than I know how to express.

I am so proud to be an American!

Three Things Thursday... Getting Married at 25

Getting married was always a day that I dreamed of when I was a little girl.

I couldn't wait for the dress,

the flowers,

the ring,

and for always having my best friend with me 24/7.

What hadn't occurred to me,

was that it might not happen according to my time.

I am a Mormon.

And Mormon's tend to get married a little bit younger than the average person.

Most of my friends were married between 19-22,

and most of them already had 1 or 2 kids before I even got married.

I got married when I was 25.

Well...

25 1/2 actually,

but who's counting right?

Here are 3 things that nobody told me about getting married at 25.

1. You will have a lot of stuff.

I had always heard stories about people getting married and having nothing.

I heard stories about sleeping on only a mattress with no bed frame.

I heard stories about eating ramen for days because they couldn't afford anything else.

I heard stories about no internet or TV's because they couldn't afford it.

Well...

When Spencer and I got married,

we had A LOT of stuff!

We had more than enough to fill our apartment.

We were blessed!

We were both 25 when we got married and had lived on our own for a while.

We had accumulated a ton of stuff during our single years.

I wouldn't say that I'm a hoarder by any means,

but I do tend to neatly collect things.

We had 2 TV's when we got married.

We had a nice dining room table,

a bed with a bed frame,

we had furniture,

and we had about 1000 DVD's between the two of us.

We it came to registering for gifts,

I already had all of the kitchen essentials and cooking supplies.

I didn't get 1 crock pot when I got married,

but it didn't matter because I already had one.

We had already started our lives before we got married,

and so we were set.

It was kind of nice.

2. You will feel incredibly lonely at times and you will be stubborn.

I felt so far behind in life because I got married at 25.

It was weird to hang out with all of my friends because they were married.

I was the 3rd wheel,

all

the

time.

While my friends,

and even my younger sister,

were preparing for their families and having dinner with their spouse,

I was hoping for a date and eating pasta in my bed.

I was lonely.

When the other coaches had their husbands coming and supporting them at games,

I had no one.

I was lonely.

Holidays were lonely.

Church was lonely.

Night time was the worst!

Getting married at 25 also really allowed me to develop myself.

Once I got married I found that I was really firm on a lot of things and not so willing to compromise on the life that I had created for myself.

It made marriage a little more difficult.

It's hard living by yourself for 25 years and then have a live in husband.

There are a lot of adjustments to make,

and numerous compromises.

I was so set in my ways,

that sometimes it was really hard to change my actions and ways of thinking.

It takes a lot of work to let down your ideals and your traditions and to make them smoothly work with someone else's.

But it's so worth it!

25 years of being alone wasn't always enjoyable.

It wasn't always the worst thing ever...

I never had to ask for permission to spend money,

I had the whole bed to myself,

and I could eat Taco Bell whenever I wanted.

But all of those things,

didn't ever outweigh the loneliness.

Especially since I found a man who would eat Taco Bell with me on our wedding day,

in our wedding clothes,

in-between photo sessions.

#winning

3. Everything happens for a reason.

I was engaged twice before Spencer.

I had set two other wedding dates before Spencer.

They both ended in disasters.

Like the worst thing ever!

I can look back now and see why those relationships weren't working,

and never would have worked out,

but it was really hard to see then.

But nobody ever really reassured me that everything happens for a reason.

Nobody ever really told me that something better was out there for me.

Maybe I needed better friends...

If you don't get married until you are a little bit older,

that's okay.

There's a reason for it.

I was dying to get married at 19,

and everyone thought that I would,

but I didn't,

and now I can say,

thank goodness for that.

I was so young.

I didn't know who I was or what I really wanted.

I was lost.

Getting married younger for me,

would've have been a HUGE disaster!

The Lord chose to teach me patience when it came to marriage,

and that was a lesson that I definitely needed to learn.

it was difficult at the time,

but it was so worth it to me to wait.

Marriage is something that must be thoughtful considered,

and not rushed into just because you desire to no longer be lonely.

Although it took me what seemed like forever to finally get married,

it was 100% completely worth it.