A hundred posts in one

Playing catch up is what this post is all about. Cause I know you have missed these faces!

In the end of June we made it home to my family reunion which was so much fun! All my siblings made it for the day at the giant water slide and it was pretty incredible.

I love this picture because it is all my sisters/sister-in-laws and we didn't even plan it. We are just that awesome.

This is a comparison of pictures of my boys with my grandfather. The left is Porter 3 years ago at his first family reunion. And the right is Lincoln with my father and grandfather. Such good men who I hope my boys take after. 

Porter and cousin Max in the bounce house; there were SO many cousins! 

We were back in Idaho just a week later after my grandmother passed away very unexpectedly. We were so blessed to see her at the reunion and make some last memories. My favorite was grandma going down the huge water slide...  This is all the Gardiners that made it home to celebrate Grandma. 

While we were there we celebrated the 4th of July!

Porter was a BiG fan of the fireworks! Loves things that explode, he gets that from his father. 

And because we hadn't worn them out enough, we packed up and went to see the Wulfs back in Wyoming. 

This is how Lincoln felt about the fireworks; I love his look! 

We made it home and I tried to get some pictures of the boys one Sunday. This is how my efforts were rewarded. 

Enjoying some down time at home in between trips. Man this kid LOvEs the tub! But hates the pool we discovered, go figure... 

After a week at home we were off yet again for a trip to Iowa to see all the Wulfs. We did a quick stop at Mt. Rushmore because everybody needs to see it once. 

Phillip and I at the lake in Iowa by were my father-in-law grew up. 

All 11 of the Wulf siblings and their spouses. The first picture all together since g-ma and g-pa Wulf passed away. 

Phillip's family

Home again for good this time and so we started a few projects. Re-did my dining room chairs, made new pillows, batches of freezer jam, and decided to re-do the boys room (not pictured, I'll get on that). 

Celebrated my 28th birthday and our 5th anniversary. I couldn't love this man more if I tried! 

Porter discovered the I-pad and is a fan to say the least. 

But he still makes time for saving the world and being awesome.

Summer ended and my baby started Pre-school! He loves it and is thriving in the new environment.

Took a weekend trip to Denver with some great friends and attended a women's conference. Thanks to an amazing husband for holding down the fort! 

And this one is just because they are adorable! 

Glad the summer is done and over! On to fall, holidays and hopefully more great times with great people. A big thanks to everyone we got to see on our many trips! 

Still to come: family pictures (finally did them, hurray!), another trip home next week, and the Gardiner's mission call.

All the Things You Missed

Life has been busy around here! Since I posted Phillip finished his first year of law school, had a birthday and started training for his two summer triathlons. Porter tuned 3 and is now fully potty trained!!!! Lincoln is now 7 months and crawling (which is ruining my life). We had family visit, took an unexpected trip home for a funeral, and we moved. Did I cover it all...? 

Porter on his 3rd birthday

With Dad after opening presents

 My greatest Idea yet, put the crawling baby and a friend in a small space where neither can escape 

 The crawling monster

My big boy and a random pig

 Phillip and the boys after school ended PS Phillip did AWESOME his first year! So proud.

Lincoln enjoying "a lick" of my cookie

The aftermath of his eating

Porter going through the tunnel on the way to grandmas, he loves those tunnels 

More of the basket, seriously I'm such a good mom! Ha, I was a bit embarrassed by how many of these pictures I had. I swear my kids don't just hang out in a basket all day. Honestly, I kind of wish they would though...

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger...

So when you go missing for a month it is usually because you are super busy, or out of town, or doing great fun things and have no time to blog. That is not the case for us. Since spring break we have been SICK. Is that possible? O yes, I'm afraid so. 

We came home from spring break with a nasty cold, and the following week we mixed in the flu. After two weeks of taking turns we were finally feeling better Easter weekend. But I should have known better; Easter weekend was just the "eye of the storm". On Monday Lincoln started acting sick again and I figured the cold was back. Nope. I took him to the Dr. after a few days of misery and woe, and sure enough it was RSV with a side of Bronchiolitis. Porter came down with it soon after. As if that wasn't enough, the universe sent us ear infections and pink eye too. You all know sick kids are the pits but add and sick husband, a huge paper due, and nice weather that makes your toddler want nothing more than to be outside and you have a killer combo for mom. 

Happy to report that we are on the mend! I made it to church for the first time in 6 weeks today! 6 weeks of sick kids. BOO! But all those sick days will make the coming weeks so much better!

I think this is funny cause it looks like they are watching together. 

 Easter Sunday or the "eye of the storm"

 Lincoln now sits by himself. All that crying must have been good for his tummy muscles, poor guy.

 A rare moment of peace. 

 I ran my first 5K with Phillip in the middle of all this. Phillip was a champ and did it sick and I ran to the end after only running once before to prepare. Not bad considering :) 

 Porter aka "Peter Pan" got all dressed up and fought Captain Hook aka Dad in an epic battle. Complete with a sweet hat quickly fashioned out of his brother's rag. 

 Lincoln doing ta-du-ta-dus. He is quite good at them. 

 We did a lot of building with the new blocks G-pa Brad made us. Thank heavens for toys and movies!

A HUGE thank you to every body who helped or called to make sure we were alive. We are SO glad to be feeling better!

Update in Pictures

They are growing so fast! Porter will be 3 in just 3 short months and Lincoln is almost 4 months old. Life is good. 

SPRING BREAK!

Spring Break... An ironic name for a holiday in March, because around here there is NO sign of spring. But I will take the holiday anyways and even better I will leave Wyoming and go to the sunnier states of Idaho and Utah. Ok again not that much better but if it is warmer than 30 degrees I'll take it with a smile. Can't wait to see all my family and friends and enjoy some time with my long lost husband. Ahh holidays.

Parenting FAIL

So Phillip and I have a dirty little secret. We are guilty of watching fail blog for "date night". And if that wasn't ghetto enough we have also been guilty of letting Porter watch the falling, dancing, and driving fails (don't judge too harshly, we mute it). So being the awesome mom I am I gave Porter a talk during one about good choices vs. bad choices and how these people were making bad choices. Well I felt super good about myself and justified him watching by saying he was learning good vs. bad.... Just an FYI he thinks they are hilarious and belly laughs whenever someone falls, just like his father.

So it has been a while since we watched and the other day Porter came up to me and asked to watch "people doing bad things". Uhh excuse me?!?! It took me about 30 seconds to realize what he was talking about and boy did I feel dumb. Now my kid is going to tell people that he watches "people doing bad things" on mom's computer. Great. PARENTING FAIL.

Talking Lincoln

I figured if I was going to post one of Porter I might as well do one of Lincoln too. This one is for Grandma. We can't wait for Spring Break! 

And this I just find funny because he is SO pear-shaped!

Talking Porter

I had a good friend make a request for a video of Porter talking; so I took this one at breakfast this morning. It is not a great one he wasn't feeling very talkative, go figure.  Good luck on Wednesday Shannon! 

This one's for you Dad

I got a letter from my dad in the mail today (haven't got one of those since the mission) and in it he casually mentioned they've been checking my blog to see if I've updated it... Yeah, about that... I haven't in a while so to remedy that and to apologize for my slacking here is the best I can do. 

 

Family of Four

It has been three weeks and I still can't believe we are a family of 4! We are adjusting and on some days are doing a little better than "surviving". Here are some pictures of what has been happening since baby has come home.

A lot of this:

 

 Made it to church once

 Had Thanksgiving with the Wulfs

 Too much of this (he is awake a lot just like Porter was)

 Luckily some of this (Phillip has taken some time away from school to play)

Way too much of this (Don't judge me!) Thank heaven for Curious George! 

 A bit of this; Yep I made bread! WHAT!?!? Phillip said he'd get rid of my bread machine if I didn't use it by the end of the year. Had it for 4 years and finally decided to use it right after I have a baby, go figure... 

 Can't have too much of that face! So concerned.

 Thankfully Porter is good at entertaining himself!

I love my beautiful family of 4!