I love these people.

the 4th

WOw, we had a whirlwind of a weekend! I'm still trying to recover. My brother and his family came to stay for a few days and we packed in the activities! My sisters were able to join us for parts of the time as well so it was a mini reunion I guess too. On the 4th we went to the parade in Idaho Falls and then decided to drive up to the Tetons and do a little day hike. It was beautiful up there. We took the Devils staircase trail and we decided to stop at the river and skip rocks and dip our feet and then we talked the kids into taking a "shower" in the waterfall. We decided that Jake needed an indian name because he is our little native boy, so his name is "goes with the wind" because he just goes wherever his little body takes him, without concern for safety and without fear. I truly do love that about him, but it's scary as a mother. I can't wait to see what he does when he's older! He kept climbing up these super steep climbs, I think his body was just made for nature.
After our hike we headed back to Idaho Falls for some BBQ and fireworks. The yummiest food and fun company. The fireworks were delayed an hour because of a drowning at the river (sad :() but we had fun playing "guess that movie quote" and the show was as spectacular as ever. It didn't seem as crowded this year which was nice. The next day we packed up and headed up north. We had to take them to one of the only great restaurants in the area-- Big Jud's. Burgers and fries to die for and the onion rings were amazing too! Then we went up to Mesa Falls and stopped at this little spot to feed fish. After that, our trip kind of went downhill, but we still had fun and it will definitely be memborable! We wanted to head to Henry's lake for Crayfishing, but we hit a crazy storm and ended up heading south to the Sand dunes where we had planned to make a fire and play, but we got stuck in the sand and had to have someone pull us out and there were no fires allowed so we continued searching until we FINALLY found some place to make dinner at 8:30pm. The kids still got to play at the dunes and we still got to make smores, so despite all the driving, I think we still had fun. After we got home we did our fireworks show. The next day we decided to head to Craters of the Moon, which was fun and ended the day with more BBQ and Reed's dairy.
We had a lot of fun and I'm so grateful for my family and that we enjoy spending time together.

Sam I Am

Oh this little boy! Getting big so fast, it seems like his vocabulary has just exploded in the last couple of weeks. Either that or I'm understanding his gibberish better! But I wanted to write down what he is trying to say at 16 months: he says hi, momma (most of these are mimicking) dadda, uh oh, hot, want some (when it comes to chocolate chips haha), Claire, no. He loves to make boy sounds, animals, cars etc. when I tell him his food is hot he will blow on it, so cute. He is my most snugly so far. He know I demand kisses and hugs so he appeases me. He will stick his cheek out for me to kiss it. He LOVES balls and will make baskets for a good 10 minutes, it's so cute because he does this little ritual where he says 123 and then shoots, or at least that is what it sounds like. When he sees basketball on tv he watches them shoot and puts his own hand in the air and acts like he's shooting and then says ooohh! When he's poopy he will pat himself and say poo poo. He says night night and will wave good bye. He still takes his binky, much to Chris' chagrin. He loves chocolate and learned how to open the chocolate chip bag, he's also learned how to climb on top of the table which makes for crazy messes. He's had a squealing problem that has mostly been eradicated with the help of a spray bottle. He has 12 teeth and the sweetest little smile, he reminds so much of Chris in his facial expressions. He loves his Claire and reaches for her to hold him. He's 26 lbs and in 12-24 month clothing. He seems to be my lightest child at this age, but I guess I don't know that for sure, but he's getting tall and can now reach stuff off the counters. We just love this age and can't wait for nursery, which will be a process because he's pretty attached. We have taken him in a couple of times to get used to it. But that's our Sam, we love him so much!

Structure of the Day

In case this never happens again, I thought I would at least document our trial of "Structure of the day". I have struggled with keeping the kids engaged in wholesome activities for a while. They get bored easily, don't want to do the things that I suggest, get sucked into watching too much tv, etc. etc. I could go on and on. I was getting really nervous about the summer time because of this. The kids want to spend every waking moment outside, playing with friends down the cul-de-sac where I can't see them. It's been frustrating to say the least and I was getting really worried. I was talking with a group of friends and we were all kind of sharing our good ideas and one of them said they do "Structure of the day". Kind of like a little mini schedule, because kids crave routine and need to know what's happening for the day. I thought it was brilliant. I can "schedule" "screen time" and "friend time" instead of them thinking they can get on the computer or tv or play in the front any time they want. I really thought they would fight me on it, but they haven't so far. *knock on wood!
It's also been really good to teach them about time and another brilliant part of it is that if they are misbehaving I can erase a fun activity. Today was a struggle in that we are still trying to nail down rules about certain "times" of the day. We have activity time, chore time, etc. You can look on the board for all of our summer activities and times of the day. The kids had fun helping me draw the board and come up with summer activities too! This probably doesn't seem like a revelation to anyone else, but I really struggle with the whole parenting thing, It is not one of my talents and I have to work very hard to find it rewarding and to stay engaged, but yet I know how important it is. I am hoping to use it as a tool to be a better mommy. I am really hoping that I can have enough patience to keep this up because I know it will be better for everyone. Thanks to my good friends and their wonderful example to me!

Cousin's Camp!!

The first Knighton Cousin's camp was held during our trip to Virginia. There were arts and crafts, a nature hike, games, t-shirts, bubbles, awards, and most importantly: quality time with Nana, Papa Ray, and all the cousins. We were all exhausted afterward, but the kids had a blast and I don't think they will ever forget it!

Lucky momma

Happy Mother's Day!

D>C> day 1

We are back! Man 10 days was long but seriously went by so fast at the same time. We are glad to be home and back into routine. It was a much needed vacation and we really grew together as a family. We were able to do so much and I hope to treasure all the memories we made as a family. Our first day we decided to head into the city. My mom was nice enough to keep Sam, so we just took the older kids. They had fun riding the Metro and we covered a lot of ground! Our first stop was the National Zoo. It's a HUGE zoo. Literally miles. After 2 and 1/2 hours we still hadn't seen everything. The kids were really good and kept up walking the whole way.



The highlights were the elephants, The panda. Oh my goodness she is adorable. And the gorillas. Claire took about a million pictures. We got to see one of the gorillas being fed, and it was almost eery how human he seemed.


I loved this picture of Jake because I could not get him to look at me for 1 second. That kid. After the zoo we were all starving and tired so naturally we made our way across the street for FroYo. We felt much better after that. We then headed to the mall and stopped into a couple of the Smithsonians.


As you can see, Claire was not excited about Dinosaurs but Jake was in heaven. Here they are in front of the triseratops! After the natural history museum we took them over to the US history. I wanted to show them THE flag. The Nauvoo sunstone and the ruby slippers. :) Pretty fun stuff.



We walked around the mall a little bit and then headed to meet up with my dad to make the commute home. I have totally forgotten just how awful the traffic is and it's gotten so much worse! I do not envy the hours my dad spends in traffic weekly. It's insane! It literally took Chris and I over 2hours from when we decided to head back to my folks house, to when we actually got there. And they only live about 30 miles away! I was pretty bummed that we didn't have time to get to the Lincoln memorial. I really wanted to take the kids, but there was just no way they were going to walk that far. Next time!