Nana and Bumpa

They came to see us again.

I really really love having them here.

And I'm quite sure I'm not the only one.

This trip was more low-key than most, Dad had no plan ironed out and allowed me to do most of the scheduling.  (A huge honor.)

So, we hit the beach.

All the Gunns call Belen "Little Eileen".  It's easy to see their reasoning.

Nothing like naps in the beach tent.

We also toured the Queen Mary. 

I am usually a little leery of tour-type things these days as it is impossible for me to focus on anything for longer than thirty seconds at a time.

But with five adults to two children, it was so fun.

Our favorite way to be out on the town.

I don't think there was a single waking moment in Mac's life that week that he wasn't glued to Trent's side.

We also hit the Aquarium of the Pacific, a couple of different parks, and the jacuzzi several times.  I was a little lazy with the camera.

Not only did we paint the town red, but Mom and Dad fixed our leaky shower and our ill-fitting car battery.  Mom has discovered how-to's on You Tube and has become so handy.  Thank you!

And, they babysat.  We went to scouts.  I went running.

And Mark and I went to a Jeff and Laura's wedding.  Jeff is a wonderful friend from chiropractic school.

Proof:



Thank you, wonderfully family.  We were sad to see you go.

"The Boys"

We recently got new callings in church.

We are the Wolf den leaders in Cub Scouts.

It is so fun.

(I am in the process of setting up a little scouting site so the parents can be more in-the-know and we can more easily communicate ... so I have an excuse to take all sorts of pictures.)

We get to teach and goof around.
We get to eat treats.
We get the beginners ... the ones who are still so excited about scouts and haven't had a chance to develop any attitude.
We get to do it together.  This is the first time since Mac was born that we have been able to do something church-related together.

But the best part of all:  Mac is in heaven.
He calls them "the boys" and gets so excited when Thursday finally rolls around so we can go "play with the boys".  He tries to sit and listen like they do, runs when they do, eats when they do ... and they let him.

I hope we get to keep this calling for a while.

The Summer Wave of Visitors

Now that we are in our fourth year of living in California, I've noticed some trends of when people come to visit.  The first starts around February, with people trying to sneak in a trip while schedules are calm and before the spring break madness.  It goes on through March spring breaks, and then we seem to have a little time to ourselves before the summer travelers start stopping by.

I love it. 

It's like every couple months, our lives become one non-stop party for a couple weeks or so.

And our first summer travelers even brought gifts.

 My cousin Jesse and his adorable wife Leslie came and stayed for a few days.  And she MADE this swimming suit. 

Yes.  You read that correctly.  She made this adorable ruffly tankini.

Now of course, if you come visit, you must know that gifts are not at all required.

Your presense will be enough.

But should you feel you just have to bring something, know that we'll never turn our noses up to anything you might happen to throw our way.

In fact, I may even make a blog post for you.

Thank you, Leslie and Jesse.  Come again! 

Settled

I just wanted to mention that ...

Life is good.

I think we're getting things figured out here.

Belen is on a good schedule.

Mac plays hard all day long and goes to bed early very willingly.  (I even hear on occasion, "Macky tired, Mom.") 

Thanks to my friend Shannon and her cloth diaper business, I have got a huge following on my doula blog and facebook page, so once Belen is old enough, I can more easily get back into doula stuff.  But for now, I write a little here and a little there, and enjoy my babies.  I am so thankful I get to raise them myself.

Mark is working his rear end off in the office.  And although he is busy, I like this so much better than school.  He's not annoyed by teachers teaching useless things.  He's not overloaded with assignments.  He's not stressed about a test. 

He's just doing what he's been waiting to do for so long:  help people with is chiropractic skills.  It's a vulnerable, frustrating, and thrilling time.  I love seeing him grow, and I love being able to help him out with the website and the pamphlets and finding places to put them all.

I like to be useful to him.

As frustrating as building your own business can be, it's incredible to work so hard on something together and see it actually grow and become worthwhile. 

Kinda like having kids, I guess.

And so, our children and business are finally making sense to me.

I am enjoying this time.

I'm sure one day or another, something will happen to shake it all up again and we'll need to re-adjust.

But we will.  And we'll enjoy the ride.

Belen at 6 Months

My lovely little lady is now halfway through her first year.

I can't believe how different she is from when she was a newborn.  She's still my little fireball, don't get me wrong.

Every Sunday we have at least 6 people tell us,  "Heard your little baby in there."  But it's usually followed by some form of, "She's so cute!"

This girl has a voice, and she likes to hear it.  At Fresh and Easy a lady stopped me and said, "You have a singer on your hands there."  I responded that indeed Belen loved to be loud.  She said, "But she's not like most babies.  There's a pitch and melody in the sounds she's making.  Mark my words, she will sing."

Alright.

It is rather adorable, providing I'm not anywhere that requires quiet.  Like the library.  Or a graduation.  Or church.  Or a meeting.  Or book club.  Or a restaurant.  Or a movie.

But besides her noisiness, if she is full and rested, she is sweet as sugar. 

She smiles at everyone.

 This makes me very popular everywhere I go.  People are so incredibly nice.  I am losing count of how many times my bags have been carried out for me to the car.  They fawn over her.  Then Mac of course gets the, "Oh you must be the best big brother!"  Which he usually either shies away from or smiles and replies, "Macky big strong boy!"

Belen basks in the attention of others.  She loves people.  Specifically smiling people.  She also loves her toes.  (I do too.)

 She loves her toothbrush, we take it everywhere.  She loves shiny beaded things, like bracelets or necklaces.  She loves to blow zerbits and still chews on everything.

She loves having her crazy floofy hair brushed, and has no problem with me doing it.  (And sometimes I pull hard ... sorry baby.  Beauty and pain often go hand in hand.)

 She loves other people's hair too.  And she's quick.  I feel I have to warn every small child who comes near her with, "Watch out!  She thinks your hair is so pretty, she just loves touching it ..."

She sits up, rolls over, and can wobble back and forth in the crawling position for about a minute.  She then ends up back in the superman.

 She loves to eat.  But only if she can feed herself.  She does not like being spoon fed, and so all that baby food from WIC is just sitting on my shelves.  (Anybody want it?)

But I found THIS fantastic blog post from a friend of mine, and am thinking I will go this "Baby Lead Weaning" route.  So far she loves grapes, avocados, bread, apples, bananas, sweet potatoes, mangos, blueberries, celery, and carrots.  She does not like broccoli. 

She puts herself to sleep now -- heaven -- except for in the middle of the night.  This is my fault.  When she began teething, I had already put her in Mac's room.  So she began waking up at 1 am and 5 am instead of just 4.  In my desire to keep her from disturbing her brother, I hastily nursed her back to sleep, thinking that once those teeth were through, she'd go back to her regular routine.

But those two bottom teeth are through. 
And she's still waking up twice a night.  Sigh.

I could just leave her.  Mac would just come crawl under our bed if she did wake him up.

I'll do it soon.

In the daytime however, these two just love each other.

Most of the time.

One minute, Belen will flap her arms and squeal just at the site of him, and he'll come close and hold her hands and say, "Hiiiiii cute baby stister!  Silly baby!"  And I am just thinking my family is divine. 

But of course two minutes later, he'll swipe something out of her hands and growl, "Not for you, Stister!" And she will screech at the top of her lungs.  And I am frustrated.

But I guess that's just siblings, right?  Bringing out the best and worst in one another.  Good to hammer out all those extremes at home.

I love my girl, she's an irreplaceable addition to our family.  We love her.  Mark said the today he couldn't remember life without her.

Avengers

While in Panguitch, we went to "The Avengers".

With the kids.

And while they were antsy and I was indeed in and out of the movie, I'm glad we did.

Mac loved it.

"I watch green guy on the big huuuuge t.v.!  Hulk smash!  Smash smash smash!  Super huge muscles!" 

Hulk Face

 I told him I thought he was starting to turn green.

"Macky not green, crazy Mommy.  Macky just white."

"But I thought you had hulk muscles."

"Macky big muscles like Hulk, Macky no green.  Macky just white, crazy Mom."

Then at Barnes and Noble the other day, I was talking to a friend, and turned around to him unwrapping and taking all tags off of this book.

So we purchased it.

He asks to read it about 8 times a day and attempts to imitate all the sounds.

What a boy.

One Last Getaway

At least for a while.

Dr. Holland decided to take Memorial Day off, and as Mark's Doctor of Chiropractic license hadn't come in the mail yet, he couldn't keep the office open by himself.

So we decided we'd best take advantage of our last multi-day, guilt-free trip.

And we went to Panguitch.

Mark called around to see if he could drum up any siblings to come along, and it turned out to be a fantastic weekend.

Here's why:

• The drive was beautiful.  I always harp on how non-outdoorsy Southern California is, but let's be honest ... it's gorgeous.  This state of mind could have had more to do with the fact that Mac and Belle slept the entire drive.  (Sometimes, I am so glad Mac rarely takes naps.)

• Matt is setting up yet another 100 mile race through Bryce Canyon.  He, Ben, and Mark each took a kid and four wheeled through some of the trails.

• Those of us left talked, ate nutella, and had make-up parties.

• Mac took a catapult to the face and had his first black eye.  Also, his first ibuprofen.  He sure had trouble sleeping that night.

• Meals provided by Chris.  It just doesn't get any better than that.  Especially when she has helpers.

• Belen's cheeks were constantly smelly from all the kissin cousins.  She is so loved.

• Mac and Grandpa Rand ... they really like each other.

• Mac alone consumed around 12 popcicles that weekend.

• Four wheeling in flip flops ... not the best idea.  I'm just impressed I made it out of that mud hole with them still on my feet.

An incredibly memorable trip.  The Panguitch cabin is the place to be for relaxation, adventures for kids and adults, and talking with loved ones. 

We also were lucky enough to be there when one of Mark's closest friends died in a private airplane crash.  They had been friends since he was about ten years old.

Colby Hafen is wearing a blue ball cap.

Mark was able to spend some time with Colby's family.  We are so grateful to have been there.



Mark's 29th

Happy birthday to my favorite guy.

He slaved away at Holland Chiropractic all day long. 

We then had a feast of grilled Teriyaki Bacon-wrapped Chicken Skewers and Raspberry Supreme.  (Oh and Nutella Banana Bread earlier.)

I then was absolutely on-par getting both kids in bed before 8 p.m.

I came downstairs,

and he was alseep.

Thank you for all your hard work, lover.  Can't tell you how much I appreciate it.

Troublemaker.

My darling little boy loves to throw things.

Especially rocks.

The other night we had some friends over and the kids were all outside thoroughly enjoying themselves while we adults were inside doing the same.

A rapid knocking at our door snapped us out of it.

There were two cops.

"We have a report of some kid throwing rocks at your neighbor's window."

Uh oh.

Well, we brought him to the front door and gave him yet another stern talking to.  But I think this one might have stuck.

It helps to have two tall, uniformed strangers staring down at you.

What didn't help was their amazement when they saw how old he is.  "Wow, you need to get him into baseball.  What an arm!  Is he a lefty?  You could make some money off that kid!"

MacAlister, my love, it may be cute now ... but don't you be bringing cops around any more.  I doubt they'll be so nice next time.

Belen Keeps Growing

She's sitting up.

She's eating food.

She's got two bottom teeth.
And she's sporting pigtails.

This girl is growing up so fast.
Now if only we could figure out this sleep 8-8 business.

Mother's Day

This was the most memorable Mother's Day of my life.

Started off with the hubby stumbling in at 2 a.m.

Continued with Mac and Belen tag-teaming me till the rest of the cousins made get-back-to-sleep impossible.

And then came the phone call to hustle back out to clean up after Matt's 100 mile race.  So off went the brothers and we ladies began to ready everyone for church.

We decided to divide and conquor.  Some went to the 9 o'clock, while myself and others waited it out and went to the 1 o'clock sacrament meeting.

Between the two meetings, I got to chat with these two lovies for a brief (too brief) moment:

And then it was off to sacrament meeting where I got to listen to several young folks talk about how they had the best mothers in the world ... while I grumbled at Mac and he grumbled at me and we had just about had enough of each other.

Then all gathered at Mama Gunn's house.  I was not expecting much.  She had been at the race with everyone else the past few days, running the runners' favorite aide station.  That should give her some reason to finally relax, right?  Silly me.  Chris Gunn had a turkey dinner going for her entire family.  All the grandchildren were getting a little fed up with their fed-up aunties, and so conglomerated around her.  She loved them and held them and kissed them between stirring pots and pulling out silverware.

I was amazed.  Yet again.  Leave it to Chris to consistently blow my mind.

Happiness is a choice, and mothers must chose it.  I am blessed to have such wonderful examples in my life of women who give and give and give until there is nothing left ... and then give some more.

Thank you Chris.  Thank you Mom.

P.S.  Mark later got me a gift card to Ross.  SCORE.