Utah trip 2014

We made our annual trip to Utah this year, driving for the first time with 3 kids in the Camry. It was cozy and fun and really kind of great on the way there. We ended up dividing it into 3 days which felt more like a vacation, and I do love road trips. The way home was a different story, but we'll get to that.

  

 This is what it looks like when you get to the hotel after a long day in the car.

 Energy overload!

And this is what it looks like when you finally make it to grandpa and grandma's house:

Every night it was fun with the cousins, trampoline, soccer, swings. I LOVED seeing Amelia running around and keeping up with the big kids. 

 She is the only girl with a lot of boys her age, and they were so kind to her and sweet. Fun cousins.

 Do we see the joy on Maya's face? Maya became obsessed with Griff, she loves him.

Oscar and Lottie, he loved to lean in and "kiss" her.

 We met up with some Texas friends who had moved back to Utah (boo). It was so fun seeing them! And all our babies are the same age and it is just the best thing having friends like them.

 We walked around BYU campus. Juan and I loved our years in Provo.

 

 We went to Old Spaghettie Factory to celebrate Heather's birthday. This picture was taken right before all 3 of our children had huge meltdowns and Juan had to pack them up and go home. The late nights playing with cousins caught up to them. But hey, I got a picture!

 We visited with Bishop and Cheryl. They were our Bishop in our married ward at BYU, it was so wonderful to catch up. They are such good people, we look up to them.

 Just a little photo shoot at the Provo temple. The days were hot, but just gorgeous. 

 We met Margarita and Brad for lunch! They will be married in a little over a month, so excited for them. And Oscar loved Marg, he usually cries with people, but he was totally content with her.

 Posing with grandma.

And then we were off to East Canyon:

  I grew up going to East Canyon Resort for every summer. 

 And I loved bringing my own little family there.

 So please excuse the many many pictures.

 

 

 

 

 And then we headed back home. Don't they look like angels here?

  Oscar was desperate for attention when the girls were sleeping, so he was so excited to see the camera sneak back.

 The way home was a tiny bit disastrous. I really didn't think they were so bad, but the girls got into a few fights which would then erupt the whole car in screaming, Oscar screaming because he was terrified of his screaming sisters. And Juan felt like he should not be driving when such craziness occurred. As a result, we are now flying to Disneyland in September, which is fine by me (but sure not to be stress-free, we do have 3 tiny children).

 
And now we are back to this:

 We are happy to be home.

Maya at 2 1/2

Our Maya is 2 1/2 years old today.

She has the best personality and comes up with the best stuff.

Her newest: "Your majesty, would you care to dance?"

She loves to make up fights with Oscar, "Oscar trying to pull out my pony tail!"

She likes to tell us when we're being bad. "You being a bad mom to me." "Millie being a bad sister to me."

She loves to dance and dances every day to her cat piano, especially when she turns up the tempo and dances double time.

She wakes up when I'm out running, and she doesn't go in to wake up daddy, she just waits for me in the darkness of the tv room. And always catches me off guard when I walk in the door.

She does this thing, makes a diamond with her hands. And she looks at things through it, or mostly just stares into space for it. Yesterday she took a while to come inside and I said, What took you so long? And she said, "I just doin' my diamond in the car." It's her thing.

She is really into pretend play and prefers to play alone. She and Amelia tend to fight a bit, so Maya often goes off on her own and does so well just playing and playing: babies, dress-up, dollhouse.

She calls herself Maya the Faya (rhymes), a nickname given to her by Juan.

She very often yells at me, "Just stop talking to me." We are working on it, not acceptable, that sass.

She and Oscar have recently started playing together well and it is really great.

We are in love with our Maya.

It took me forever to get a normal smile out of this girl, and this lasted only a second.

Ladies and Gentleman! video

Ladies and Gentleman.... Millie sings!

Juan had a birthday...

Shout hooray!

Juan turned THIRTY over the weekend. It is so exciting, I think he has accomplished so much and has such a full life at 30. And so what if he's having a bit of a mid-life crisis in the career department, just wondering what his purpose is and where he wants to ultimately end up. Such fun, this adult life.

We met the day before Juan's 16th birthday. So this marks 14 years that we have known each other. And we didn't just meet and then hardly know each other, we met, liked each other, didn't like each other, became best friends, went many times without talking, and then finally dated. I love our story. Next year at this time, I will have known him half my life. Wow.

 This is what Juan looked like when I first met him. Stud with a mustache. Who can resist?

I told him back then, in my mean teenage girl phase, that we'd never end up together. And now, I am so glad that girl was wrong.

 We celebrated his birthday all weekend. We took all the kids to see The Lego Movie on Saturday afternoon.

 And then Saturday evening, we went bowling with friends! It was so fun to have a date night out, and Juan and I are both terrible bowlers, but our friends are good. 

 Doesn't he look happy?

 More celebrating on Sunday, his actual birthday. The girls and I made him a banner and we had a fun day at home.

Happy Birthday to Juan!

Videos!

Amelia teaching Oscar to clap.

Maya singing I am a Child of God.

Amelia singing Pat-a-cake to a slobbery Oscar.

Oscar getting his scoot on.

Juggling

I have been thinking a lot lately about 3 kids and how people juggle. I have such a desire to really be there for each of my children and not get too caught up in keeping the house clean (I've got that one down already-NOT keeping my house too clean, it's a skill people) or getting involved in too many activities that are for the kids but ultimately do not really matter in the scheme of things. I want to focus on things that really matter, and right now that is individual time. With an infant, I always have a baby on my hip. He is just always with me. And as much as I love it, I feel for my girls. They know I am not as accessible as I have been in the past.

For Amelia, her time to shine is with dance. While it is not exactly one on one time, we take that time each week to get her to dance and it is all for her. She will do the dances for Juan in the evenings and she really loves it. I love watching her be independent, this is the first time we've ever put her in anything. And I love that it is just hers, I don't feel the pressure to put Maya in dance also, she can have her time later.

Amelia is so great to talk to. She is constantly telling me she is going to get taller taller taller and then she wants to be a mommy. Well I make sure she knows how hard work it is to be a mommy, not to discourage her in any way, but we talk about how hard daddy works and then we also talk about how hard mommy works. So the other day I was telling her when you're a mom, there is always something to do. And then I said, will you run and grab me Oscar's binky? And she says, "Well I just going to rest wecause I not tall yet." (meaning she's not grown up yet). Okay then, live it up while you can Mill.

Oscar and I have plenty of one-on-one time. He knows how to make me feel like I'm the most wonderful person in the world. He loves patty cake. He "throws it in the oven" the whole song. He has been sitting up now and playing with toys and he can play by himself for an hour or more, and he loves when the girls stop in and play with him. I love to sing to him, I love when he lays his head on my shoulder, I love to nurse him. He is getting bored with nursing these days and gets so distracted and just wants to look up at me and smile or whip his head around and try to grab the book in my hand, or sit up and spot what the girls are doing. Sometimes I have to pump and hand him a bottle, which he devours. He loves to hold his own bottle. I love having a boy, he is sweet and amazingly chill. Julaine visited and she told me 100 times, I have the best behaved baby. And it is so true.

And Maya. She is our firecracker right now. This girl, she cannot be talked down from her fits. She will just go on and on and on. Yelling and screaming and wandering the house so she is sure to be heard. And I have tried everything to snap her out of these tantrums, and nothing. So we wait it out. Thankfully it doesn't happen too often, but this girl can go on for up to an hour each time. Aside from that, she is our sensitive one. She sobs and comes to find me during the scary parts of Disney movies. We were having our "talks" one night and I was asking her about her day. She told me a boy pushed her down and nursery and said, "mommy wasn't there to 'tect me". It broke my heart. Because of the Disney movies, I had been telling her that mommy is always here to protect her. And then I wasn't. She is so wise. The way I maximize my time with Maya is our talks at night and sometime in the middle of the day, when the girls are at the height of fighting, I'll sweep her away and we read books together or play a game or sing her favorite songs. She melts my heart.

We have the funnest kiddos.

We leave for Utah in 1 month. And we go to Disneyland in 3 months!!! We are so blessed and have so much to look forward to. I am trying my hardest, and know there are so many great moms who have done it before me.