(Just a note, I realize I am a long blogger and posts lots of pictures, but I do it for my families benefit, I am making these all into journals and it helps me remember what order the pictures take place in. If you don't enjoy long posts, you might what to steer clear of my blog.)

It's been awhile since I've posted about Talli. She is really starting to get fun. She is rolling onto her belly all the time now, which actually makes her pretty mad after the first few minutes because she can't figure out how to roll back. She is more interested in her toys and a lot more interested in watching Dutch and Maylee run around. She is a very content, mellow baby just like when Dutch was little. She has really found her voice and if she can be left alone from her siblings she really enjoys laying on the floor and talking for long periods of time. She is such a little doll and we love having her around.

There are some things that only Dads think to do... Dutch and Maylee love giving Talli a bottle, we try to explain that those bottles are just for baby dolls but it doesn't seem to bother any of them Talli even seems to enjoy it! She is still sleeping in her car seat, I really have no idea how I am ever going to get her in a crib. She LOVES bath time and doesn't seem to mind having three people washing her. I love my Talli girl!

Goggles

I got Maylee some swim floaties while my Mom was here helping us move so she could take the kids swimming. And I got Dutch a package of goggles because he thinks they are really cool. Well the package came with five different pairs in different colors and there was a pair of pink goggles. So Maylee instantly fell in love and wanted to wear them. She sure looks cute in goggles and so does Mimi. Then she found a pair of yellow goggles yesterday. She's so sassy!

Dutch Update

It's been awhile since I have given an update about just Dutch and today as I was watching him and thinking about his silly little things that make him Dutch, I thought I should write them down so I'll never forget them. First off, Dutch has this thing about things or himself being wet. I thought the older he got he would out grow this but not yet. If he happens to spill even a drop of water onto his shirt he has to change it. If his glass has water on the outside of it he won't drink out of it or even touch it until it has been dried off. But he loves to swim and he loves to take a bath, but when it is time to be dry, he needs to be completely dry. Lately his favorite thing to do is to tease Maylee. It's sad that the big brother tormentor develops at such a young age. The louder Maylee cries or screams the funnier it is to him. He has to be dressed, he is not one to run around in his underwear, that only happens on very rare occasions. The first thing he does in the morning even before he goes pee, he gets dressed. He always gets out of bed before I do and I always know he is awake by the sound of his dresser drawers opening. But ironically he doesn't like to sleep in pajamas, he prefers to just sleep in his underwear. He loves to have family dinner in the evenings and not for the food but for the conversation. He loves to ask everyone how their day was. Every single Sunday he cries and screams that he doesn't want to go to church, this mostly has to do with having to wear a button up shirt and tie. But he always has so much fun and loves to show us what he colored in primary. About the button up shirt, he will not wear them period, except on Sundays when he his pinned down by his dad and forced to put one on. Nor will he wear a collard shirt, he likes plain T-shirts. Dutch hates change. He doesn't handle change well at all. He got so upset every time we told him that we were moving into a new house that we finally had to stop talking about it all together (although he loves the new house). When we buy him new clothes it takes him a few days before he will wear them because he is so afraid of the change. I use to hang all of his clothes up but I finally had to start folding them and putting them in his dresser for him to pick out so that he will pick out some of the new shirts. And he loves his baby sister Talli. He still just dotes on her and thinks she is the greatest thing ever. He is still in love with trains. He has a ton of Thomas trains, Geo Trax trains and a whole bunch of Thomas movies but he still doesn't think he has enough and that is the only toy he will ever ask for and the only one he wants to look at when he go to the store. He recently got some Thomas sheets for his new big boy and he won't allow me to put a blanket over his sheets and cover up Thomas (I can't believe I didn't' see that one coming). He is still a Daddy's boy. He is such a great kid and he sure love him a lot, we are so glad that he is apart of our family.

We haven't been up to too much lately. Mostly because going anywhere with three kids makes me feel like I am going to go insane. I love my kids, but it is really hard to go to a public place with three kids, three and under. Lucky for us we just moved into a new house at the beginning of the month and the kids are much happier here. Dutch and Maylee now have separate rooms. I was afraid it was going to be a huge adjustment for them not sleeping in the same room but it has been fine. Well they do want to get in bed with David and I a bit more but other than that they are doing ok. And it is so wonderful to be back in a single story house. Its amazing how much better the kids play here then they did in the two story. They use to follow me around from floor to floor and would not play on the level I wasn't on. But now they play in their rooms by themselves all the time. I sometimes have to go looking for them to make sure they are ok. I was just so use to them being under my feet all the time that it still amazes me that they are just playing in their rooms so well. But they are also enjoying the ease of being able to carry ALL of their toys out into the living room with out the stairs getting in the way. We gave up having an office and now we just have the computer in the living room, which I love. Its so nice not having that one room that gets all the junk that we don't want to have to deal with tossed into. Now everything has to be organized and dejunked. I love it! And now that the computer is more easily accessible Dutch has learned how to use the mouse. So now he can do Starfall with Maylee. Although his new obsession is "PBSGeorge" as he calls it. They love playing games on the computer. But now instead of having to limit TV time, I have to limit computer time. I didn't think that would happen at such a young age. I started potty training Maylee again. It wasn't going so good the first couple of days. She didn't care at all if she made it to the toilet and she had no remorse for peeing on the floor. I was feeling so defeated and frustrated. Then a week ago and some days she started peeing on the living room floor and then took of running. So I had to get on my hands and knees and feel the whole carpet to find all the wet spots to clean them up and I was doing this while I was bawling. Yes I know pathetic but I was just so mad. But apparently that is what Maylee needed. I guess she needed to finally see her mom have a melt down because she hasn't had an accident in the house since then. Yeah! She did pee on Barnes and Noble floor the other day but it truly was an accident. And then we were at a friends party last Saturday and Maylee wanted to go home and we told her nope not yet. So a few minutes later she was standing by David and she started peeing and while she was peeing she looked up and David and said, "I go pee pee in my panties, we need to go home." She is such a snot! (But thankfully we were outside in the grass during this incident.) But other then that she has been pretty much accident free for a week. I'm excited.

Cupcakes

The kids and I made cupcakes for FHE. My kids love to help bake but their favorite part is just eating the batter. Maylee kept dipping her fork into the bowl to get more batter and it was dripping all over the table. No big deal, it was keeping her happy while I was trying to get everything else done. I figured I would just clean it up at the end. Well Maylee decided to "help" clean up the mess.

We got home from California Monday afternoon and started laundry, we did laundry all day Tuesday and started packing again for our next trip to Montana. We woke up Wednesday morning and headed up to Utah. We had seriously been home for less than 48 hours. It was crazy. David's Grandpa has a cabin up in Island Park, so we stopped in Utah to break up the trip a little. The kids were getting tired of being strapped in car seats. When we first got to Utah we met up with Noah and his girlfriend at Chik-fil-a and let the kids play in the play land while we got to visit, then we headed to a park to play. It was so much fun to see Noah, we don't get to see him enough.

Then we headed over to David's Aunt Tondi's house to spend the night. Tondi and Clif are awesome and we always enjoy seeing them and spending time with them. The funniest thing this time was how much Maylee and Dutch loved seeing Tondi. She looks so much like Fawn and they have such a similar voice that Maylee attached herself to Tondi like she does Grandma and even called her Grandma the whole time we were there. Dutch even started calling her Grandma Tondi. It was too cute.

Thursday morning we picked Fawn up at the airport and headed up to the cabin. The kids did much better having Grandma in the van with them but they were still pretty restless. I finally broke down and let them get out of their car seats and play in the van. Talli was done with her seat and we couldn't let her keep crying so she spent a lot of the trip being held in the back. On the way to the cabin we stopped in Rexburg at Bear World. It was so much fun. You drive your car very slowly through the bear habitat. They walk right up to your car, in front of the car and if you don't keep driving they sometimes play with your car. We watched one bear chew up someones side mirror while they took pictures. I didn't feel like letting my van get destroyed for some pictures but it was fun to watch the bear attacking someone else's car. The kids absolutely loved Bear World. We drove through it three times to watch the bears.

Sitting on Grandma's lap watching the bears. The grizzly bears are the only ones that aren't allow to roam all over and come up to the cars, they are behind a small electric fence but it was fun to watch this bear playing with this huge log. After we drove through the bears a couple of times then we headed into the petting zoo. David got to pet the deer while it was going potty. Dutch and Maylee got to pet this sweet tiny little baby. The baby bears. They also have little kid rides that are all included in the price of the admission, so the kids can go on them over and over again. They loved it. Bear World is definitely a place we want to visit again.

Of course Dutch's favorite ride was the train. They also enjoyed the cars. This ride was so much fun. It was like a tiny Knotts Berry Farm one. Notice Maylee all smiles on the way up. And now clinging to the bar for dear life on the way down. It really got her tummy, it was so funny. After Bear World we finally made it to the cabin. We went to the lake Friday morning to let the kids play and to kayak. The lake was gorgeous, I have never seen such crystal clear lake water before, the only other water I have ever seen so clear was in Hawaii. It was gorgeous and freezing. But that didn't stop Dutch and Maylee from playing in the water. I know the water doesn't look clear here but that's just because the kids have the dirt all stirred up. The kids also enjoyed catching crawdads. I really wanted to swim despite the cold water but I just couldn't get past all the crawdads, they kept freaking me out. There was seriously at least five in very square inch it seemed.

Me freaking out. David trying to catch a big one. Kayaking After the lake Grandma took the kids back to the cabin and David and I got to go kayak down the Madison River with Grandpa Greene, Thad and Lacy. It was a lot of fun. We got soaking wet but we never tipped over. We had a blast.

David took Dutch out to show him the tree swing. He talked it all up, told Dutch how much fun it was and said, "look I'll go first and show you how to do it." So he started running and took off and headed straight for two trees, so he let go and hit the ground from about 7 feet up with a thud. Dutch looked at him and said, "I don't want to do that." David hurt his ribs big time, he's still moaning over them. West Yellowstone has a Playmill there and this year they were putting on Beauty and the Beast. So Grandma and Maylee went together. Before the play they had tea time with Belle. Maylee was super shy but pretty excited to see princess Belle. Ice Cream stop. The kids playing Simon says with Grandpa Greene. Hot Tubbing It was our last trip of the summer and a lot of fun. Thanks Grandma for coming with us.