up the canyon

 I love that we live next to a beautiful little canyon and we take advantage of it as often as we can.
This particular evening we decided to head up the canyon for FHE. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and let the dog and the boys run wild.

Every Monday night since, the boys have asked if we can head back up the canyon. It's an evening we'll definitely have to repeat.

graduation

 Porter graduated from preschool this year. Here he is with his teacher Miss Jamie (I couldn't keep Bridger from jumping around behind the two of them). Miss Jamie was absolutely wonderful and I'm so grateful that he was in her class. She is fantastic with kids and so excited to help them learn.
Porter is reading so well and he loves to read. He has learned so much this year and I'm just sad that he's old enough to go to kindergarten.
I don't know how I'll do in the fall when I have to take him to a new school. We've loved the boys preschool, and I hope that the elementary school doesn't fail in comparison.

Bridger didn't technically graduate, but here he is with his teacher Miss Adrienne. She was fantastic as well and Bridger loved her.

 After Porter's graduation ceremony we headed to get the boys their favorite snack... snow cones.

So proud of my boys and all they have learned this year.

Summer, here we come!

sayings...

I've got piles of pictures to edit and not enough time to do them. But I have to post some of these cute and funny things that my boys have said before I completely forget them. I'm sure that there are several more and I will just post them as I remember them, but here are a few from the past several weeks.

*About a month ago I had another kidney stone and Kyle and the boys took me to the hospital to get the pain under control. Both boys were a little frightened to see me writhing in pain and wanted to know what was happening.
The following Sunday at church Bridger was brought to me by his teacher. He curled up in my lap and I could tell he had a little bit of a temperature. He didn't move for a little while and I asked him "Bridger, are you okay?" He shook his head, but wouldn't answer me. I asked him what hurt and he started to mumble something. So I asked him to tell me what hurt and he slowly lifted his head and said, "I have a kidney stone".

He tucked his head back down into my arm and tried to go to sleep in my arms. Needless to say, it wasn't a kidney stone and it actually turned out to be fifths disease... which we were all thrilled about.

Just this morning he announced that his foot was hurting because he has a kidney stone in his foot. In fact, he's starting to claim a kidney stone for almost any ailment. We may have a hypochondriac in our family.

*Porter received a stack of Bible flash cards for his birthday last year from his primary teachers. He loves looking through them and since he has been getting so good at reading he's been trying to figure out all the names on his own.
I didn't know that he was looking through the cards in his room the other day but all I heard was Porter shouting, "I found Jesus!! I found Jesus!!"
Can I get a hallelujah?

*I took the boys up to Kangaroo Zoo one day and let them go crazy for as long as they wanted. It was nice cause I could chase them around for a bit and then crash on one of the couches for a while. At one point while I was sitting on the couch a little girl who was probably only one year old came over to me and climbed into my lap. Her mom came up and apologized, but I told her she was fine if her mom was okay with it.
She had been sitting in my lap for quite a while before the boys rounded a corner and saw her sitting in my lap. Both boys got so excited and started shouting, "The baby is here! The baby came! It's here!" They were a little disappointed when they realized that the baby wasn't ours, but they sat down and played with her for about an hour.  These boys are obsessed with babies and are so excited for their baby brother to join us.

*We have a boy in our neighborhood who comes over to play with the boys frequently. We'll call him "J" J is 4 years old, but he can't speak very well. I wasn't sure how old he was for a while because I simply couldn't understand him and I assumed he must have been around 2, but I was wrong.
Porter has a difficult time understanding what J says and Porter frequently asks J to repeat himself. The other day we were all playing out front and J started saying something that none of us could quite understand. We all started trying to guess what he was saying when Porter finally turned to me and said, "It's okay, mom, he's just speaking Spanish."

*Bridger continues to be a hypochondriac.
Porter has terrible allergies and frequently needs some Claritin to make it through the day. We were out watering our garden the other morning when I noticed Porter rubbing his beet-red eyes like crazy. I asked him if he needed some Claritin and he said yes.
Bridger then piped up and said that he needed medicine for his allergies too.
Bridger doesn't have allergies.
When we started talking about how he doesn't have allergies and Porter does, Bridger started to argue. And the arguing led to crying. He was so sad because he wants allergies so he can get medicine for them... and nothing changes his mind. He doesn't care if he has to have itchy, watery eyes or a runny nose. He thinks those all sound great as long as he can have medicine.
I'm really not sure what to do with those arguments. I'm at a loss of how to make him okay with being healthy.... any suggestions would be helpful.