general conference weekend

Three more school days and then summer vacation begins. I've never felt so unprepared for summer break to get here. Which is all besides the fact because my purpose today is General Conference.

Yes, general conference that happened nearly two months ago. It was such a fabulous weekend and I have been too slow in getting to it.

Eric and I decided, in our family, when you are 12 we will go on a special trip to Utah to attend General Conference. Kyler got to go with Eric last year. While Kyler and Eric had a great time together, I think Ky felt like he got the short end of the stick since they spent the majority of the trip driving in the car. Meanwhile, Kacin and I flew in a plane. I guess that's a dad vs mom experience. Sorry, Ky.

Kacin and I flew into Salt Lake City on a Friday morning. We met up with our good friends from WA, Caleb and Adrienne, at the airport and spent the weekend with them.

We ate way too much pizza.

And then used some free passes at the Clark planetarium.

We walked over to temple square and took a tour of the Beehive house, walked through the beautiful Joseph Smith Memorial building, and enjoyed the temple grounds.

We got Joseph Smith (the statue) in this selfie.

So incredibly beautiful!

Our main means of transportation for the weekend was Trax (though Adrienne's wonderful in-laws so kindly let us borrow their car whenever we needed to). Which was fun in and of itself.

We spent 48 hours as dedicated temple square conference attendees. We watched the first session of conference in the Tabernacle.

Then we waited in line and got tickets into the Conference Center for the afternoon session. I was both dizzy and claustrophobic sitting up so high. But some of my favorite talks came from this session. Like this and this and this.

The boys had tickets to the Priesthood session with Caleb's grandpa (while Adrienne and I enjoyed a nice dinner).

On Sunday, we watched the morning session in the Joseph Smith Memorial building. Then in the afternoon we had awesome seats in the Conference Center.

What did we do in between conference sessions?

Smushed lunches between sessions. And by the end of it some trunky kids...

It is such an experience to be there at conference, to be in the same room as the apostles and prophets. I'm so grateful we got to be there!

moana medley music video by us

For mother's day, I convinced my family to make a music video with me. Because they love me. And I totally love them. Especially after they did all of this!!

I hope you will see the amateur nature of our video for what it was--a bunch of amateurs having fun and throwing something together in a short afternoon even though at least two of them were not feeling well. Total family fun (in every sense of the word--there was creativity, fun ideas, bonding, and also some frustration. We've even got Layla hitting one of her brothers recorded--though it didn't make the music video cut.)!!

two hours tonight #lifewithautism

 

Me: "I love you."
P: "I hate you."

I'm going to bite this.
No reaction from me.
Chucks it at my face.

Let's go upstairs to your room.

I'm going to throw my trophy.
I'm destroying my toys.

Hold my hand.
Stay with me.
Let's finish making dinner together.

Two chairs
knocked onto their sides
crash to the floor.

Hold my hand.
Stay with me.

I'm going to bite my shirt.
Bite this instead.
I'll help you take off your shirt.

I want all my candy.
I'm not eating my dinner.

First dinner,
then candy.

My leg is caked with applesauce.
My arm is caked with applesauce. 
And my shirt is covered, too.
The floor is covered with applesauce 
and french bread pizza.
Uneaten.

I'm going to bite my socks.
His feet go into his mouth.
I eat my dinner.

Run this way.
Run that way.
Run this way.
Run that way.

Hold my hand.
Stay with me.

Crumple, crumple.
I broke the letter cards.

Here's your blanket.
In my arms.
Cuddle, cuddle.

I pinch you.
I hate you.
I kill you.
I kick you.

I want ALL the candy.

First dinner,
then candy.

If you eat the candy first,
it goes in the trash.

On my lap.
Careful, careful of those biting teeth.
Off my lap.

Eats a piece of chocolate.
Spits it out in the garbage
when he sees me coming
towards the pile of candy.
I'm sorry!

Whining.
Bites of dinner.
Whining.

You are calm now.
You can go play.

Dumps the fish food 
all out 
on the carpet.

I want ALL the candy.

It's your fault!

It's time for bed.
Scooped up into my arms.
Head rests gently on my shoulder.

I pee on you!

I glance in the mirror.
My disheveled hair
in the messiest of messy buns.
If it looks like I've been beaten up,
it's because it's so.

I'm not going to bed.

We can leave the light on.
Rub his back.

I bite this.
Bite your toothbrush instead.
Chomp.
Throw!

Can I lay with you?
Nods his head.

Mama, you stay?

Repeated kisses
smooch
on my lips,
on the top of my head,
and on my shoulder, too.

Hugs my arm
just like he is hugging
his favorite stuffed animal.

Me: I love you.
P: Mama, I lub you!!

I love you so much, my Perry boy. More than you will ever know.

*picture at the top was actually taken yesterday after Perry came home from school. Another bitten shirt with a big hole. It's been a hard week at school, too.
-----

A huge shout out to Kyler especially who, when bedtime came, worked so well with Layla to help her get her room cleaned and get her all ready for bed. She was so excited to show me that Kyler let her wear his shorts for her pajamas! Thrilled. She only wished that some of her pajamas were big enough to let Kyler wear.

I made them hug for the camera.

little league

I wrote this post way back at the beginning of April! I was going to publish it then but I was having trouble uploading the pictures from my blogger app on my phone that day. And I just now finally sat down today to download my phone pictures onto my computer. 

We are now at the tail end of the baseball season. Perry had his last game on saturday and the playoff's for Kacin's team start this week. Kacin literally still has something baseball every week night. We love baseball, but the time commitment has been a bit tricky for our family. But Kacin is enjoying it and his team officially ranked second at the end of the regular season.   

It feels good to sit down at my computer again! I spent the first weekend of April in Utah for General Conference and then I ended up subbing the rest of the week at Layla's school. My evenings are filled with little league baseball and the weekend was spent catching up at home and trying to spend some much needed family time together.

But now I'm back here to document our little lives.

Since it seems like our time is dictated by Little League schedules these days, I will start with that.

I was so proud on Little League opening day to have two players parading onto the baseball field.

Kacin is playing in the Majors this year and was drafted onto the Redsox team. He has a pretty amazing coach who is very serious about this game of baseball so this has been the most competitive season Kacin has ever played. He has a game or practice usually four times a week. His team has won every game so far, except for one in which they tied.

Perry is playing on the Challenger team and I'm so excited for him that we found a team that he can participate on successfully. He keeps calling the sport soccer (since we just came off of soccer season for Kyler), but he is having a good time playing baseball. I think his favorite part of it though is bringing a gatorade to drink. And he is so proud that he can go play a sport (at night, without his little sister--sorry Layla) just like his big brothers. The challenger team is an amazing community of parents and players! The support and the kindness and the love permeates that field when those kids get out there to play.

Kacin's team played against the second challenger team one saturday morning. The brothers were disappointed that they didn't get to play each other, but it was great watching Kacin out there working well with and watching out for some pretty awesome players.

Love my baseball boys!