Summer Dreamin'

We are on the cusp of Summer. I usually really love summer. But...we are currently living in hell...I mean Las Vegas! We moved here last July so we got a pretty good idea of what to expect for the next 3-4 months. Home-bound, air conditioning, pools, indoor play areas...basically booking it between air conditioned houses, cars, stores, etc. And A LOT  of laundry...I found that when it's 115 outside I tend to change all of my clothes everytime I get home from being out and about, which could very well be 2-3 times a day!

I always have high hopes for fun summer times. But the reality is, we are still in a stage of our lives where June, July and August are not different than any other months of the year as far as school and work schedules go. Kellen has already started his summer semester and we will both still be working our part time schedules the same as always.

I hope in spite of this to be able to fit in a few adventures. Everytime summer rolls around I feel a little tug in my heart. The beach calls to me! It's been a long time since I've been back. 3...4 years? And poor Ashton has never seen the ocean. We'll get there buddy! Someday. But for now, here's my feasable list of Summer Dreams.

1. Swim Lessons! Ashton has only had one official swim lesson ever and I'm so excited to do that with him this summer. Whether it's me teaching him, or if I can find a resonably priced mommy and me class...either way I'm excited!
2. Books. I'm thinking up a summer reading list for myself. I have never been a big reader. I'm slow at it and usually I have 18 unfinished projects on my to-do list and curling up with a book isn't on there. But it's thereaputic. And I'm making an effort.
3. Family Trip. This is a big wish. I don't know when or how we would make this work but getting it on the list is step 1! The past....5 trips anywhere taken by our family have not actually included the whole family. Ashton and I went to Fresno, while Kellen was in Pheonix. Then Ashton and I went to Utah, and then to Fresno again. And Kellen went to St.George. So I have a goal to go somewhere (anywhere!) together.

Another thing I'll be looking forward to all summer is Ashton's 3rd birthday! I'll be thinking up ideas! I'm so excited, this will be the first time we have friends of his to invite! He will be so thrilled! He loves the idea of birthdays and occationally we have to sing him happy birthday just for kicks.
And with that I feel a memoir of birthday's past coming on...

 First Birthday: Splash table and smash cake memories! I slllaaaved trying to make this party super cute and fun, lets face it, the first birthday is about mom showing off more than the kid who doesn't know what's going on. Ha! It turned out super cute and I was so glad a lot of our family was able to make it. But I was disappointed, more so than I thought I would be, that not one of my mom-friends from our community came with their kids. We had an awesome time anyway!...but it stung a little. 

Ashton's second birthday was a month after we moved to Nevada. We hadn't really made friends yet so we had a fun, small pizza party at his Papa and Avó's house.

I can't wait to start cooking up some juicy-fun ideas for birthday number 3!

California

A couple weeks back Ashton and I were able to take a quick trip to my home, Fresno. We were getting the heck out of dodge while Kellen had his finals! It paid off, he got all A's! So proud.

While we were in Fresno, I really wanted to be able to take Ashton up to the mountains. That was one of my favorite things about where I grew up, being so close to beautiful places. So we took a little day trip up to Shaver Lake and Huntington Lake. It was so fun and nostalgic for me! My dad is a mountain, hiking man so I have literally been up there hundreds of times in my life. I'm so glad I got to show Ashton this beautiful piece of my childhood.

And of course our traditional frozen yogurt picture. Couldn't miss that.

Lunch & Love

This morning we had Ashton's MyGym class at in The District. After class we had some fun walking around the grassy area and over to Whole Foods so mommy could get lunch and buy some fish to make for dinner! Yum! 

They are doing some construction across the street too so naturally we had to watch the bulldozers for 10 straight minutes.

I have a weakness for weird, fancy beverages.... It's a problem. This rose lemonade was divine and went well with my smoked mozzarella pasta salad.

Ashton wasn't interested in my fancy food. {so weird} But he did really enjoy his water! haha. Replenish your fluids little one.

Nature {Ride} Walk

Lately, I've been helping Ashton get geared up for bedtime by telling him all the fun things we get to do the next day when he wakes up. Last night I told him all about how we could go to the park and find all kinds of treasures to put in his backpack and bring home! He was pretty excited!

This morning he was up and ready to get going on his adventure! He had the great idea to bring his "motor-cle" {motorcycle} Lol so he could ride it around the park. Clever boy.

We had a marvelous time. :) Collecting flowers, rocks, sticks and leaves. He even found a "big daddy pine corn" {large pinecone} and a "little baby pine corn" {small pinecone}

 Just a boy and his pine corn :)

Treasure Inspection

Pre-K at Home

I've been looking into ideas for how to help Ashton academically (as academic as a 2 year old can be...) There are quite a few cute ideas to be found, but to be honest, and this may sound bad, I really don't mean to be judgmental, but the uber-gung-ho christian force behind a lot of homeschooling blogs and resources kind of turns me off. I'm as religious as the next person and appreciate parents choosing to integrate that into their homeschool experience, but I'm not into that.

For instance, through my search I was brought to a page where it seemed like the mom was transforming her family to follow all of the same values and principles as the Duggar Family from TLC's 19 Kids and Counting. Actually it didn't even seem that way, she plainly stated, that's what she was doing. Using their book as reference.

That's great for them, if that is where their beliefs lie. That's really not what I'm interested in. Haha.

Many of the other resources I've found from other sights are just, how do I put this delicately... Not very cute. In essence, I guess, I've just had a hard time finding a completely secular cirriculum with all the fun and cuteness of some of the more religious based programs. Where's my happy medium?!

Luckily, I'm a DIY addict. I'm always looking at cute ideas and thinking of how I can recreate or do something similar to cater to my family. And since all I'm really wanting to do is a little preschool/kindergarden prep with my 2 1/2 year old, it really should not be that complicated.

Here are a few ideas I wanted to start out with:

ABC cards- For these, I have decided to do upper case on one side and lower case on the other. I know that Ashton can already identify all the upper case letters, so I know that I specifically want to focus on pairing the lower case with the upper case and the sounds of each letter.

Number Cards- Ashton is not really familiar with numbers yet, he can count to 3 but recognition and counting are still things that we need to start at the beginning. To have a little fun with counting, I thought we could use some of his small toys, trains or cars and work up to counting 10 of them. I've seen some people recommend to have one bucket full of the toys to be counted and an empty bucket to place the ones that have been counted. Not only to help keep count, but to help them recognize amounts.

Science- I wanted to make sure to do something outdoors. Ashton loves to be outside and explore, really, what toddler doesn't? So I came up with a few ideas of things we could do: a nature walk, collecting small, interesting things like leaves, sticks, pine cones, rocks. Then bring our spoils home and inspect them! It would be fun to have a small magnifying glass and talk about the properties of each item.

Getting Crafty for Primary

It's been about a month now since I was called to my new calling in Primary. Like I mentioned, I've been really enjoying it. It was a bit hectic at first, all of us were shuffling around trying to figure things out. Now that we've kind of gotten into the swing of things, it's really getting fun.
As Secretary my jobs are fairly simple. I'm in charge of the roles for the classes, and I decided I would just go ahead and take charge on those each week by taking role during Opening Exercises rather than passing them out to each teacher. This way I can get to know the kids, and be more immediately aware of who is missing. I also make the assignments for Opening Exercises, who will be offering prayers, giving a talk, and helping with the Article of Faith and Scripture of the week. This has been the most hectic one so far, just because I'm not familiar with all the kids yet, knowing who is there before hand to make the assignments easier. But I'll get on top of it.
Other than those two busy jobs, I mostly just help out with whatever else Whitney or the counselors need me to do and do the newsletter. It's been fun!
I'm also semi in charge of birthdays, so we decided we would have a bulletin board to display the birthdays of the month. And we also wanted to have cute little chair covers displaying each class name and the helpers for the day. I ended up being the crafty one of the group so these jobs were given to me and I'm having a lot of fun with them. I got to pick out cute fabrics and design them myself.

I just need to make the candles that we will use to write the children's names on and put on the cupcake every month. 

And just for kicks and giggles... a few adorable pictures from yesterday. Someone from Kellen's office at work gave us a bunch of great stuff for Ashton, and this bean bag was a big hit! It's his new favorite perch for watching shows and having snacks. 

A few scenes from our Conference weekend at Papa and Avo's house. I asked Ashton to smile... He was pretty serious about it. Haha. Fierce. 

Confessions of a Working Mother

On Monday I started a new job. When I was offered this job at a spa here in Las Vegas I was completely split down the middle. Sad and happy. I really liked the place and the owner and I love doing esthetics, so for all those reasons I was really excited. But having a job meant leaving Ashton with someone else, and that breaks my heart.
We were so lucky to find an awesome in home daycare! Even though it's an awesome place, I was still nervous about leaving him just because in the past he hadn't done well. He would even cry being left with my sister. So I was just sick over it all weekend, thinking about him crying for hours on Monday while I was at work. I'm so glad to say that I was wrong! He did really well. She text messaged me about 20 minutes after I left and told me he had asked for me once but other than that was doing just fine! I cannot even express in words how relieved I was! With that out of the way, I was able to enjoy my first day at work. I had two facial appointments and they both went splendidly!
All in all it was a total win!
I love being a stay at home mom with Ashton. I've had other jobs since he was born but the majority of the time I've been able to stay home. I'm grateful for that. But to be honest, I think I'm a better mom when I work. I love to get out and do something I love for a while. Focusing my energy on something else for a change sort of refreshes me. Then when I get home to my boys I can give myself whole heartedly to them! I savor and enjoy our time together better when I know there will come a time I'll have to step away for a while.

Joy School

Our ward here in Henderson has been such a blessing! It didn't take long for Ashton and I to be invited to Playgroup. From there a few of us with two year olds started a Joy School every Tuesday morning. It's been so much fun! My favorite part has been watching the kids become friends. They are getting to the age where they play together, as opposed to just next to each other.
We rotate which house it's at every week. We do a theme, Seasons, Health, Colors, for example, and a letter of the week. We listen to music and dance. We let them play together and do a craft. It's been so fun to watch them learn. Toddlers are incredible!

Playing with rocks with Paisley. Who needs a playground?!

Some highlights from Joy School: