Sleep...It's a lovely thing

So last week, McKinley slept 7 hours in a row one night and 8 hours in a row the next night. I had forgotten how much I enjoy getting consecutive hours of sleep. Now she's back to sleeping about 5 hours in a row, but I'll take that over the 2-3 hours in a row that Laynee used to sleep. It's interesting how much different she and Laynee are.

Day at the Farm

Saturday, we headed out to Dan and Amber's house. (Amber's mom lives next door and has a little farm.) Laynee's favorite part was riding the horse, but she also got feed chickens, ducks and sheep, ride the four wheeler, run around, pet a pig, see cows and eat a bbq lunch. We had a great time. It was so nice of them to invite us out.

Day at the Farm

McKinley's Blessing

McKinley's Baby Blessing

McKinley was blessed on Sunday, May 4. We were lucky to have family and friends there to support us. The blessing was beautiful and McKinley didn't fuss during it (and more importantly didn't poop on the white dress. :) )After the blessing, we had a lunch at our house. The kids were outside and loved the weather. The adults loved the adult conversation. We were so grateful to everyone who was there to support us. I forgot that day to take pictures of just McKinley in her blessing dress, so I did it today. Laynee of course wanted to get in on the action, so she put on the white dress she wore for Heidi's wedding and I took pictures of both of them.

Matt's 31st Birthday

Matt's birthday was May 2 and he took the day off. We were so glad to have some time with him. We decided to hike up Kootenai Creek as a family. (Seems crazy with a 2 month old, huh?) It was actually fun. McKinley slept in the front pack for most of it. Laynee was a little trooper and hiked all but the last little bit by herself. (Then daddy put her on his shoulders.) It was a beautiful day and nice to be out in the mountain air. Later that night, we went to dinner at Johnny Carinos with a few of our friends (Brittany & Jody, Zack & Courtney, Dan & Amber and Molly & Dave). Then we came to our house for cake and icecream. (Landon & Melissa and Joe met up with us for that.) Celebrating Matt's birthday this year was fun.

Kootenai Creek Hike

My New Favorite Picture of McKinley

The little moments

I went visiting teaching last night and the conference talk I chose was one by M. Russell Ballard. It was about mother's. In it he talks about that the joy of motherhood comes in the moments. A few nights ago, I had one of those moments. It had been kind of a long day with the girls. I was putting Laynee to bed and she was saying prayers. In her prayer, she said she was thankful for mommy giving her hugs. I teared up a little. I thought I had been more than a little impatient with her during the day and that I didn't really deserve her being thankful for that. But I was so grateful for that comment in her prayer. Made me feel like no matter how tired, overwelmed or frustrated I get, my kids are SO worth it! I love being a mom. I really need to take time to enjoy the little moments with my kids. I'm so glad I've got great examples of mothers in my life. (My own mom, my mother-in-law, my sister and sisters-in-law, my good friends who are mothers.) Thank you all!

The New Boat

For those of you that are interested, I'm attaching pictures of our new boat. Matt ordered this boat in solid black and designed the "wrap" to go over the black paint job. There is a company in Spokane called Imagination Graphics that actually wraps the boat with some sort of plastic material in whatever design you want and uses heat to attach it to the boat. To be honest, I was a little leary of the whole process, but it turned out really nice. It's kind of a cool concept, because then you can have your boat represent your personal style. (Well, at least Matt's personal style. :) )