Life Lately

GAH! Miami is sometimes so....Miami. We are supposed to move Friday. We probably won't know until the day of whether we can move that day or not. Luckily, we have until Tuesday in this apartment, but we needed the weekend to have Sterling to help us move! They are waiting for one board member to approve us to the HOA. It's harder moving into an apartment in Miami than buying a home in Utah. And that I will stick to. 

On the much brighter side of life, we've been trying really hard to enjoy our days beyond the boxes and the sunshine is fabulous. It is TRUE Miami summer now and it is RAINING almost every day, twice a day. It downpours. I forgot how you can walk into Target with the sun shining down, and come out to two inches of water because it can't go down the drains fast enough. Kinda fun though, minus the mosquitoes.

Molly looked adorable for church the other morning so I snapped pictures. But she kept trying to copy me--squatting down and showing me this hair tie she had in her hands. So, basically I didn't get even one decent picture, haha.

 BIG NEWS! Ruthie lost her VERY FIRST TOOTH! It was quite the ordeal. She had asked me to pull it out three days in a row, but then would chicken when I had tugged a little bit. It was completely off the back side, because the tooth growing in had pushed it out, but the front was holding on. The third night she asked me to pull it out, I did a little headlock so she couldn't squirm away and then gave it a little yank. She cried (I know, I'm a mean mom!) but as soon as she saw the tooth she was all smiles and it was worth the four seconds of pain, haha!

I told her to smile for the camera. Too soon? HAHAAHAA

Today I did a TON of packing after four piano lessons this morning (yay for summer so the piano students can come early!) and at four o'clock in the afternoon, when I would normally be cooking dinner, I decided we should go for a swim. It was a very good decision. Also, it's usually raining around that time, so we had to take advantage of the sun!

The water was in his eyes the entire time but he would not take them off!

There was another family there with a little girl the same age as Molly and the parents were ASTONISHED watching Molly. She has NO FEAR! She also has some serious jumping skills.

A little wave.

Good thing she doesn't mind when her big brother basically splashes right in her face!

And the adorable little missing tooth space!

And now, I should probably go pack some boxes while the kids are asleep. Anything to pass the time while Sterling is studying. Did I say he was working MAJOR overtime hours because the company wants him to finish this massive project before he starts school again? They offered him a management position and a raise, too. Unluckily for them, he still wants to do med school. If they had offices in the west, I would sure be tempted! Even MORE unluckily for ME, that means he is basically nonexistent. Which I guess I should get used to before school starts again. Sigh. Good thing we can swim and play outside forever in Miami!

Pool Days!

 Oh man, it has been SOOO gorgeous lately! The water is WARM, the sun is SHINING, the skies are BLUE and Florida has definitely hit it's stride. Thanks for that, Florida, cause I LOVE it and we need to get out of the house! Okay, we need to stay IN the house and pack, but...who could possibly stay inside when you have that gorgeous SUN beckoning you?!?

Will could ride down that railing over and over and over again for forever, I think. 

This girl. This girl has turned into crazy-swimming-no-fear-jumping-kicking-inferno girl in the past two swim days we've had.  She's always been a risk-taker, climber-of-all-things type of girl, but she had yet to warm up to the water. Until the last time we went to the ocean. I think it had more to do with the OCEAN warming up, than her. Now that it has been in the nineties for quite a bit, the pool is finally nice and toasty as well-and she cannot get enough! It's such a riot to watch her! She's practically climbing out of the pool to jump in before she's even finished her current jump! HA!

That ruffle bum!

Ruth rarely uses floaties anymore and she is doing AWESOME!

Ruth and Will have been super into tricks lately. This was the infamous 'jumping in backwards' trick. Very proud.

They made several attempts to jump in at the same time, all equally unsuccessful, haha.

Will is just so much fun these days. He is go-go-go when it comes to play and slow-slow-slow when it comes to ANY sort of chore. I mean, he does have good reason-if he doesn't do it, Ruthie will. How do I change that?!?! 

He reminds me of my nephew Cowen in this picture. 

This is the best photo ever. Those water splashes in the air! Her tightly-closed eyes! The anticipation! I just adore everything about it.

Love those big brown eyes.

In other news, Ruthie and I got our teeth cleaned this week. She was very excited to show off her wiggly tooth, and the dental hygienist did not act sufficiently excited--I was not very impressed with her kid skills in general. Oh well. We've been swimming. I've packed a total of six boxes. I went to a going away gathering at Cheesecake Factory and was reminded how cheesecake is really not my favorite--luckily for Sterling, it just so happens to be his VERY favorite. :) Sterling wins HUGE this weekend because not only did he bring home flowers AND doughnuts on Friday, but then he put the kids to bed so I could go out, and then he got up with them and did all the 'get kids ready feed them breakfast' while I went to the temple. Then I walked in the door just to change to go to a Primary activity (I took Ruthie with me) and so he fed everyone lunch and put them down for naps and then I went to the laundromat and was gone even longer. It was actually really odd. I take the kids with me everywhere while he studies all weekend and weeknights. So having from Friday night through Saturday night practically just me doing a bunch of stuff without kids felt really odd. But very, very nice. Our van is in the shop getting the transmission fixed (ugh) so there has been a LOT more juggling this week than there normally has to be. Poor kids have put in some serious travel time. Sterling's commute is forty minutes. We had to drive him a couple of days to make it to appointments, so that meant we had an hour and a half in the car in the morning and then again in the evening, plus the travel time to the appointments. Lets just say, it has made me SOOOOO grateful for a van that keeps Will and all of his appendages FAR AWAY from shrieking, ear-splitting shrill girlies. Very thankful.

It's a good life. Caio.