We were so thrilled to have so many of our family and friends join us for the celebration. We had the baptism in the morning and then headed to our house for a backyard picnic/birthday party.

But I sewed the button, we made it to Denver (we only had to turn back once so we could grab the camera – only 15 minutes into the drive – lol!) and the clouds cooperated, blocking the sun but holding back on the rain until we were done.

One little note about the flower in his jacket. It had fallen off one of the plants and he insisted on putting it in his breast pocket. I just think it makes him all the cuter! It’s so hard to believe that he will be 8 in just two weeks. We took these pictures so we could send announcements out about the big day.

This is the announcement we sent to family – if you didn’t get yours yet, sorry for the spoiler.

Then since the clouds were being our friends I snapped a few of Monkey Three. He is my angel baby! Love him and his triangle smile.  Monkey Do was there too, but not in a picture mood. Two out of three is not bad…though Monkey Three was a little surly at first. But have I mentioned how mesmerizing his blue blue eyes are? I think they are that way to distract from his lack of interest in growing hair. Here, see for yourself

So sad, because I love writing about the family and our adventures. Now that it is summer we are playing, playing, playing and I love it, love it, love it.

Pool, bikes, parks, picnics, soccer, tball and lazy days around the house with a good pile of books.

Poor Monkey Three. He just gets carted around. I figure one nap a day is all I can promise him. Sometimes it happens at the park in the stroller. He’s surviving. I just hope he doesn’t get out of the habit of napping. I have some serious plans for his nap time once school starts up again.

His latest accomplishments/quirks are: sleeping in the stroller, enjoying sweltering at the pool side, drinking from a bottle (hooray!!!!!!!!!), feeding himself finger foods (annoying – what a mess!), not loving being spoon-fed (double trouble there since he still has no teeth – well, almost, one just broke through the otherday) and making the little rolling walker thing go all over the house.

He sits, plays, laughs, babbles, but does not roll much, nor does he seem to be making any progress towards self propelled motion. Some say it’s less trouble, but (and I know this from prior experience) there comes a time when he is ready mentally to keep himself more busy, but he hasn’t done the prep work of learning to scoot and crawl, so he just sits and cries – because what else is there to do when you are bored?

Monkey Do is playing t-ball! Oh, how I love it. I don’t think there is a more complicated game out there, something I didn’t realize until I watched 5 year olds try it for the first time. The whole concept of watching the batter, knowing when it is your turn to get the ball – very tricky!

Equally difficult is understanding the concept of “rounding the bases. I can’t tell you how many times the kiddos go straight on down the foul line. Love it. I also love the inattentiveness of the first baseman, between not paying attention to the pitcher throwing the ball to him, and insisting on standing on the base at all times – wow, that kid gets clobbered a lot. However, it’s not making much of a dent in his performance.

Monkey See is reading up a storm. He loves his action figures and Legos. It’s actually been quite a challenge to get him outside this summer. He’d rather hunker down in the basement and play. But we created a reading area in a grove of trees by our house, so he’ll take some books out there when I absolutely insist on it.

He is in swimming lessons and is doing amazing! Within two weeks he has learned to swim the length of the big pool. Maybe he’s got the fish gene. Who knows.

As for me – I decided I have three pressing things in my life – play with the kids, work on my business and keep house. I can only handle two of them. So while the house falls to pieces, I am having lots of fun with the boys.

I also went to fourth year girls camp. So fun (thank you Max for taking a bottle, and thank you, Mom, for doing a marathon stretch with grandkids!) It was only a day and a half, but was a much needed break.

We rafted the Arkansas river, which was very fast and very fun. The girls had a great time, no one ejected from any rafts, though we got pretty wet. I had to donate my pjs to a girl that didn’t bring any extra pants to change into. So I slept in a tent, in my jeans, on the ground and I got the best night’s sleep that I have had in 9 months!

Joseph is a dear and is diving into the yearly “tear up the dead sod” project. He finally gave into my pleas and capped off 17 sprinklers, rented the sod cutter and is now busting through the removal process (with my help of course, but still, he brings the muscles to the family).

Next will be shoveling large amounts of rock, hauling trees, digging holes, filling in with topsoil to build me flower beds. We hope all of this effort will finally get the areas designated for grass down to a manageable size. Who knows, we may even get grass to grow there.

We can only hope.

PS – These photos are from some of our hiking outings we’ve taking lately. We’ve hiked Devil’s Head, Red Rock Canyon and Castlewood Canyon. All amazing hikes and all except the last one with the boys complaining every step of the way. So Joseph and I rebranded our outings. Instead of going hiking yesterday, we went “exploring.” It was much better received. Score one for the parents! I wonder when the Monkeys will figure it out.

Sleepy time. Rocking Monkey three to sleep and then snuggling a little longer (until I’m pretty certain the dishes are put away) is just about the best thing in the whole wide world.

He is also starting to sit better. He’s 7, almost 8 months old now. He’s certainly not on the fast track to crawling and walking, and I can honestly say I am very, very glad. Just as long as he stays content sitting and playing with toys. He is babbling more – he says dada, mama, gaga and all the appropriate baby sounds. He’s discovered his spit and likes to drool and bubble it all over.

He’s eating Cheerios and pancakes, but I’m a little nervous to branch out into anything that doesn’t dissolve easily in his mouth. He’s sleeping better and only getting up once a night. Not bad, considering he sleeps 12 hours. He also takes awesome naps, which is also contributing to my ability to get things done. I predict that good things are ahead.

We took a few pics the other day to celebrate that fact that he can sit independently. He’s got these solid little cheeks that make him look like he could be a round little baby. But then you put him in short sleeves and short pants and you see that there is not much there – just a skinny little guy.

I have really enjoyed my mornings home with Monkey Do. The past few months I’ve been able to read with him and play games with him while Monkey Three naps. It’s been fun bonding time. I’ll miss him when he goes to school full time.

He is such a motivated kid. He will go grab a book on his own and start reading it. He also loves math. It is his passion. He’s got all his math facts down for subtraction and addition. He can do his older brother’s math homework. He even told me the other day that he wished they would let him do subtraction sentences with negative answers in kindergarten.

He is also a kind soul. I found this fun website called No Time for Flash Cards. It has some fun preschool crafts on it. I’ll let him scroll through and pick one to do. On Friday he decided we should make medals for each family member.

Monkey Three was awarded “Cutie Pie Sitter” – both a tribute to his new skill and his extreme cuteness. He accepted his award graciously by baptising it with his slobber.

Monkey Do gave Joseph the #1 Eye Doctor. I tried to encourage him with other qualities we could highlight to no avail.

For me, he said I’m the #1 Fun Mom. Probably because in the moment I was being really fun. Certainly he’s not referring to Saturday mornings when I turn into #1 Chore Mom.

My favorite was the award he gave Monkey See – #1 Imagination Expert. I also really love the expression on his face in this photo. This really captures their relationship. They are very close, Monkey Do really looks up to him.

Monkey See is very imaginative. He’s “building” a robot in the garage – which basically means anything in our garage is in jeopardy of being conscripted into the project. Nothing is safe.

But he has these elaborate blue prints all drawn out. I think one day he will really make a robot.

It’s hard to believe he turns eight this summer. It’s gone by so fast.

We’re anxiously awaiting summer – since today it snowed! So if you have some warm weather where you are could you please, please send it our way? Please?

Not!!!!

Sorry – I know that is so 1992 of me. I just couldn’t resist.

Holy smokes, I’ve been so excited for Jason to come home. He arrived Thursday and is already gone up to Idaho for school. Totally not fair to all of us in Colorado – but I’m sure the best thing for him. We went to Denver and stayed the weekend so we could hang out and stare at him.

It was super fun because Julia and Adam were there too.  Adam brought Sienna. Props to him for doing the single dad thing while traveling.  She decided get a bad cough and pulled an all-nighter, which is never fun in any circumstances, let alone when you are traveling.

The Monkeys had a blast playing with their cousin. They also played with Uncle Jason’s Legos. I hardly saw my boys because they were so engrossed in the Legos. It was awesome. Then all I had to contend with was Monkey Three, who – since he is most flexible baby ever – was a dream. I think he’s hit a growth spurt since all he wants to do is eat tons and then sleep for hours on end. At the same time he’s doing all of that, he’s also becoming more adorable by the minute. Mmmmm….I could eat him up!

So here’s how the weekend went down.

First, Monkey Do slammed his mouth into a bench outside the elementary school, smashing a couple of teeth and getting an enormous  fat lip.  We were on our way in to get Monkey See from class so we could head to the airport.

I went into the school and was so grateful that the school nurse assessed him.  Luckily no need for stitches. Poor guy – he was in a lot of pain – but considering that he hit the bench teeth-first, it could have been a whole lot worse.

Monkey Do was so excited to leave school early – I think that was his favorite part of the day. I forgot how “cool” that is. He was pleased as punch.

With the whole face-smashing incident we had to go get a frosty and then go home and get some Tylenol. That set us back a bit – so we got to Denver just in time to give hugs and then head to the airport.

At the airport fat-lipped Monkey Do decided to conquer his fear of escalators (I knew I shouldn’t have given him the medicine – I should have kept him in pain). We went in a circle about 52 times before it was time for Jason to get home.

These are some of my favorite pictures from the arrival.

He had an accent at first – his inflection was funny. But after a day or two, it’s almost gone. We also think that he grew a few inches. He is so tall now! He is also super skinny – he’s lost at least 25 lbs. Which is about how much I need to loose – after looking at those pics of me – I’m pretty committed to hitting South Beach starting tomorrow.

The rest of the weekend we just hung out and talked and ate. It was great.

We also took some pics at the temple. I wanted to show the boys the temple grounds and everyone else agreed to come along. I’ll have to post those later.

This morning I got up super early to catch the morning light and an empty parking lot. I got some more pictures that I hope to print up and put all over our house.

I also took a hundred pictures of this red tulip. I have the perfect YW lesson in mind to use it for. It wasn’t until I got the perfect shot that I realized it’s going to be a long time before I can use this picture in a YW lesson.

Maybe it’ll come in handy somehow in Primary (yes, new calling – pretty happy and excited about it!).

By the time Easter came we did quick stuff with the bunny, drove Adam and Sienna to  the airport and headed back home. Can’t wait for round two when Jason comes home for his non-homecoming homecoming the end of May!

I’m thinking it is super-fabulous, but not what I originally intended. I had visions of a beautiful picture – three monkeys lined up on a bench, all wearing their monkey hats, all smiling for the camera.

The photo shoot didn’t go that way.

Why, oh, why do I even delude myself that they will? I mean seriously – three monkeys perform for the camera at the same time??!!! That’s why I so appreciated my friend Christi’s Christmas card. A beautiful dose of the reality any parent with more than one child faces.

Today it started like this:

And then went straight to this:

Which at that point I snapped, forgot I was talking to Monkey See and totaly lost it with him. So as my just reward I got this:

And then when I asked for a smile, I got this:

And then when I asked for a real smile, I got this while he told me, “I am smiling. I really, truly am!”

And then I wised up and remembered how to get real smile out of him.

Step one: Let him make goofy faces.

Step two: Ask for a real smile.

That’s it. Easy-peasy, as they say.

The other monkeys are a bit easier to work with.

Monkey Do likes to goof around too. His biggest flaw is that he moves so quickly it’s hard to get a crisp shot.

But I did manage to catch one or two.

This was Monkey Three’s first outdoor photo shoot. He did a good job considering he was hungry and tired (a fact I remembered once we got back to the car – poor neglected third child!)

He chewed on a pretzel for the first half of the pictures…

…and was kind of bummed when I took it from him, so I switched views

But he calmed down and though he never smiled – he was sweet.

But we did have lots of fun around town. We visited the swimming pool, the dollar movies, the park, grandma’s house, Pump It Up, friends’ houses. It actually was a huge blast!

The monkeys stayed up super late, played Legos and dreamed up fun imaginary games.

The one little break from Falcon was a overnight trip to Alamosa.  We stayed Friday night in Alamosa and then went to the Sand Dunes on Saturday. Monkey Three was a total trooper! He did really well on his first road trip. It was also the first time we’d taken the new wheels out for a spin on a family trip. We all appreciated its spaciousness.

The Sand Dunes were amazing. The weather was nice enough to stay comfortable in our jackets which kept the sand from getting too hot. We hiked in and spent most of the time climbing up and down the dunes, sledding down them, jumping down them, rolling down them, and digging in the sand.

After all that, Monkey See wanted to climb to the highest point. He and Joseph made it about half way. Monkey Do, Monkey Three and I didn’t make it even that far.

It’s such a unique place – these Sahara-esque sand dunes up against the Rockies. Walking in with Monkey Three in the baby carrier gave me a new appreciation for Laurence of Arabia.

(if you click on the pictures, they will get bigger)

All I can think about is how I love serving in Young Women. Maybe because my calling isn’t over quite yet – I have Mutual tonight and maybe next week.  I totally don’t mind. I’m actually really looking forward to it. But at the same time I probably should look to the future.

So now that I am calling-less there are a few things I’d like to do. Like…

1. Stop just browsing blogs with cute decorating ideas and actually do some of the projects
2. Finish some projects around the house – like fix the ugly drapes I made and try to make them less ugly and make cornice boxes for the boys room (I’ve only had the materials for 6 months now)
3. Put together the family photo albums
4. Make lots of cute crochet hats, booties and purses
5. Build my business!

Number five has been on the bottom of the list for too, too long. I should probably move it to #1. Well, behind family, but probably before crafting. I’m so excited about the prospects.

I’ve been lurking in the online business world for a long, long time. I started out wanting to write copy for websites. Then I learned that SEO writing is dumb. I’m sure I could do it, but I decided that I really did not want my writing skill set to be soley dependent on inserting key phrases in a way that didn’t make it sound written by a robot. Also, I didn’t want to compete with writers from overseas who can work for pennies.

So then I moved on to the newspaper. It was just what I needed. It got me over my fear of calling people. I seriously had to give myself 45 minute pep talks to make a 10 minute call.  Not the most efficient way of doing things.  Thank goodness I’m past that. It might sound silly, but until I worked for the paper there is no way I could have talked easily with business executives…which was essential to prepare me for my next job.

Peak Venture Group. I create email campaigns for PVG to market their events and offerings to their members. I’ve gotten to know some of the business leaders in Colorado Springs and realized in the process that they’re people too. Not much different than talking to my dad.

Working for them has made me realize how much I love writing emails. I get to use my writing skills, my creativity and skills I picked up digital scrapbooking. It’s sooooo hard, but I try not to use cutesy fonts in my design.

The whole time I’ve been doing this I’ve been lurking on Copyblogger and other blog-based business sites, dithering about what I should do.

Last spring I started a blog called FrugalElla.com. It was going to chronicle frugal living. But then I got sick of living frugally and writing about it, so that didn’t last long. Plus the monetization options were a little shaky.

When Monkey Three was 6 weeks old I decided to go a different direction. I got the domain name for MoxieTonic.com – a blog-based business with the focus on helping small business owners send awesome emails to their clients.

I worked hard on it for 2 months (every night from 9 p.m. to 12 or 1 a.m.) and then Monkey Three started waking up 6 times a night and I had to quit. That was the end of January.

In the meantime, I’ve scored some pretty awesome gigs as an “email expert” on some small-business sites and I’m consulting a non-profit on how to reactivate their list. All of those efforts are coming together, so I guess it’s about time I refocus on my own blog so I can drum up some clients.

I love the fact that this kind of business doesn’t require capital to get started. There have been minimal expenditures, but to be successful with this business model you pay in time and effort. I’m really excited about the potential it has. If it could get us to the point where Joseph could take vacation (his job doesn’t offer paid time off) and then pay for that vacation (I’m dreaming of a beach on a Caribbean island) I will be one happy camper. Or should I say – one happy beach bum!

Sorry if that seems weird and braggy.  I don’t usually like to talk about my business endeavors. It makes me all embarrassed. But, I think I’ve mentioned this already, I am pretty excited about it.  Plus, if I tell people, it makes me a little more accountable to actually do something with it!

So here’s to time to do stuff, here’s to accomplishing goals, and to gaining momentum before I get a new calling