Shurtliff Family Vacation 2013

I look forward to our Shurtliff family vacation every year. I love hanging out with my parents and siblings talking, laughing, and playing games together. This year we all met up in Austin on lake LBJ. Unfortunately, a few days before the vacation, I caught pink eye. I did not want to pass it on to any of my own family members nor take it with me on vacation. So we ended up coming a day late so that I could be sure I was goop-free and cleared of pink eye. 

Day 1 (for us):

We arrived at lunch time and everyone was swimming in the lake. We were quick to join in on the fun!

Much time was spent running from this dock (as Matt is in this picture) in order to catch a Frisbee. As the week progressed, people became pretty creative with either their throws or jumps.

Caleb wasn't too happy about leaving a day later than everyone else. Within an hour of when we arrived, Caleb got stung by a wasp on the side of his head. A wasp flew by him, and he stayed perfectly still as we had taught him, yet it still stung him! He's posing for me to take a picture of it, but it had cleared up by this point. Caleb can be pretty dramatic, so this was not a good start to his vacation! (Poor guy didn't know at the time that there was more to come.)

Carter showing off his muscles wearing Clayton's fighting mask.

Later that afternoon, we went on a hike in Longhorn Cavern State Park through a cave. This was how Bryson rode on the trip.

Caleb next to a "rock"weiler

Touching a bear's nose (rock formation)

Carter with Aunt Lindsey

1 1/2 mile hike was a long distance for the little guys.

We saw this bat in the cave, and Caleb really wanted me to take a picture of it.

After the hike

Family picture

Fun at the Creek

We enjoyed having Aunt Lindsey and Uncle Derrick here for a month of the summer. They stayed at our house a few nights so that we could play games together and watch a movie together. One afternoon we headed to the creek near our home so the kids could play.

Aunt Lindsey with Bryson

The boys having fun in the water

An "island" in the middle of the creek

Bryson just wanted to eat rocks

One of Lindsey's dogs that came with her, Izzy, had a blast running up and down the creek, in and out of the woods.

9 Month Check-Up

Bryson's 9 month stats:
Weight: 20 lb 2oz, 56^th percentile
Height: 27.5” tall, 16^th percentile!
Head count: 48.5 cm

Carter's 9 month stats:

Weight: 22 lb 12oz, 80^th percentile

Height: 30.25” tall, 95^th percentile!

Head Count: don't have it recorded :(

Caleb's 9 month stats:
Weight: 20 lbs. 13 oz., 55th percentile*
Height: 45th percentile
Head Count: 80th percentile for his head count

*I guess the child growth chart has adjusted from 2008, where Caleb was 55th %, to 2013, where Bryson was 56th % but weighed less!

It's only fitting that it took me 9 months to put on all my pregnancy weight and 9 months to take it all off! I'm finally consistently staying at my pre-pregnancy weight. :o)

Journal tidbits about Bryson:
Bryson is pulling himself into a standing position. He loves using his legs to bounce high in his bouncy toy. He crawls around everywhere, and usually ends up at my feet. He prefers me to every other person. If someone else holds their hands out to Bryson, he'll do a "fake out" lean towards the person, then go back to me. His favorite food is sweet potatoes. He's a great eater and sleeper. He sleeps from 7:30pm to 6:45am. He's transitioning from 3 to 2 naps, and he's nursing 4 times per day. 

Month 10: Scripture Reading

For July's Happiness Project goal, I decided to challenge myself to read The Book of Mormon in 1 month.  I love to change up my scripture reading so that I have a different focus each time. This time the focus was to read The Book of Mormon more like a novel, to purposely turn to it whenever I had a spare moment in the day. (It should probably be this way always!) Usually I read it relatively slowly with outside sources to aide my study. In order to accomplish my goal, I had to read 8-9 chapters per day/night. I learned quickly that I did not want to get behind and have to play catch-up! It was a difficult, but very rewarding experience. I enjoyed the experience so much that I'd like to do it again, perhaps on a yearly basis. As with each time I read The Book of Mormon, I felt the Holy Ghost witness to me that the words are true. This time around, I had a greater appreciation for all the orchestration that went into The Book of Mormon coming forth in these latter days--the plates being handed from father to son or prophet to prophet and then being preserved so well. Overall, it was neat to see how spending more time in the scriptures each day increased the Spirit in my life and in my home and thus made me happier. :o)

My goal for month 11 is to make improvements in our food storage (take stock of what we have and fill in any gaps) and update our 72 hour kits!

Sea World

My brother, Clayton, wanted to go to Sea World with his family this summer. The rest of us were quick to jump on board with our families as well (minus my older brother who lives in The Netherlands and my parents who were visiting them at the time). It was great fun!

Day 1: Sea World

Caleb and Carter in front of the Sea World fountain

Alligator Alley

(look hard for the alligators)

 Looking at dolphins

Shamu Express

I snapped the picture just a second too soon to catch Caleb, Dallin, and Carter riding this roller coaster together.

They have a Sesame Street show. We snapped a picture with Telly.

Bryson was a super great sport!

Most of the time he looked like this though: bored!

Shamu show

Enjoying the water area

Bryson wasn't feeling 100% on the trip. He had some diarrhea that got on his outfit, and Mommy didn't pack a spare outfit. So for the last hour of the day, we were "white trash" with a naked baby.

Leaving Sea World on the first day

We were able to rotate guys/girls watching babies so that the adults could ride all the roller coasters. We were fortunate that the roller coaster lines were 10 minutes or less.

The kids playing at the house we all rented together.

Day 2: Aquatica

It's kind of hard to take pictures at a water park. Here are a few I snapped:

Again, Bryson was a good sport. He loved sitting in the water and splashing though.

Caleb playing in the sand

Caleb and Dallin were a bit obsessed with the wave pool

Carter and Gavin taking a snack break

Again we were able to tag team so that all the adults got to ride the water slides. Caleb and Dallin were tall enough to do quite a few of the slides as well. There was one tube ride that Carter was tall enough to ride where you went underground to see some sting rays. Great fun!

Day 3: Tubing on a river

Too tricky to bring a camera as I was holding Bryson on my lap the whole time. At the end of the river ride, there are some water falls that you can tube down. Carter was very brave and did it by himself 3 times!

We ended up getting a season pass to Sea World, so we're excited to go back in a few months!

He's a Crawler!

Bryson turned 8 months at the beginning of July, and a week later he learned to crawl!

He had the proper "form" for crawling for almost a month before he finally got the coordination down.

Bryson is a super great eater. His favorite food is probably peas. He's usually a fairly clean eater. This was his messiest meal.

Month 9: Love to my Children

For the 9th month of my Happiness Project, I focused on filling my boy's love tanks. I read The Five Love Languages of Children to determine the way they receive love best. This was a no-brainer for Caleb. His primary love language is quality time. Anytime grandparents are over, he frequently asks for them to play a game with him. He thrives on Matt's or my undivided attention. Caleb goes through phases of games that he obsesses over. Over the last year, his obsessions (which last 1-2 months) have included in order: Chutes and Ladders, Candy Land, Uno, Parcheesi, Trouble, a Dr. Seuss matching game, Sorry card game, Farkle, and Ticket to Ride (his current obession). His Aunt Lindsey taught him how to play Ticket to Ride, and with some guidance at figuring out his route, he is able to play independently. This last month where I really focused on giving him all my extra time, I definitely have played more Ticket to Ride this month than in my entire life! The most games we played in one day was 4.

 Carter took this picture for us.

Daddy playing Farkle with Caleb about a month ago.

(My family called the game Farkle by a different name growing up: Zilch. Matt and I argued for several years which is the appropriate name of the game. He finally bought me the game for Christmas one year as more of a prank gift since he won this battle.)

In order to meet Caleb's love language, it basically meant turning off technology, in reference to Sister Wixom's latest General Conference talk. I stopped watching any TV (except for So You Think You Can Dance, my all time favorite TV show) and was on the internet a lot less (I still kept on top of emails every day after Caleb went to bed).

A fishing trip with Daddy

This is Caleb's second-largest fish he's ever caught. It's hard to tell in this picture because the fish wouldn't cooperate and hold still. :o)

Random picture of Caleb. He's been really working hard on being able to do a head stand.

2 other love languages that I discovered are really important to Caleb (as with most children) include physical touch and words of affirmation. Physical touch is an important one for him. I have pictures of him all growing up falling asleep literally right next to Matt or on top of him. He's always loved to snuggle and still does. The security of that physical closeness provides a needed assurance of our love and protection. I've also noticed over the years that I have to be very careful how I say things to Caleb. He can get discouraged easily and be extra-sensitive.

I wasn't able to determine Carter's love language after reading the book--the book says that it's difficult to determine under the age of 5--so I just focused on doing all of them for Carter: gifts, quality time, words of affirmation, acts of service, and physical touch. Specifically, I really focused on saying positive things to Carter. Because I was really concentrating on him this month, I had the realization that a lot of things that come out of my mouth towards him are negative. How horrible is that?!? Carter is perhaps a typical boy, but more so than Caleb ever did, he makes messes all day long! I feel like I get something cleaned up while he's making a mess somewhere else in the house. He keeps me busy for sure. I found myself making comments like, "Ugh. Carter I just cleaned that up!" or "I asked you to eat your popsicle at the table. Now there are popsicle drips everywhere!" "Stop doing that to the baby!" etc. etc. Once I had this "ah ha" moment that a lot of what I say to Carter is negative, that became my focus for the month.  I concentrated on being more patient and forgiving for his messes that cause me extra work. He's just being a kid! And I focused on only saying positive things including how much I love him. He is such a sweet and funny boy that has Matt, Caleb and I laughing at all the funny things he says!

Carter taking a silly picture

Bryson's love language is definitely physical touch and quality time :o). He has started feeling separation anxiety if I am not in his sight. If I leave the room for one second, he starts whining. If I'm in his sight and not holding him, he starts whining. If anyone holds out their hands to see if he'll come to him/her (including Matt), he will lean that way, then quickly go back to Mama. He's a little obsessed with Mommy right now.

Bryson loves his new bouncer/exer-saucer!

Also as part of this love-toward-my-children month, I took the Orange Rhino 30 day challenge of not yelling. Not raising my voice is something I've been working on for the last several months, so this aspect of my monthly goal was not too difficult. I even had my boys help me out. Whenever they sensed that I was getting angry, they would call out, "Orange Rhino!" as a reminder to keep my temper in check.

Making banana bread at the beginning of the month. (Carter's in bad need of a hair cut in this picture!)

Because of all the time I spent playing games with Caleb, this is my first month since I started my Happiness Project that I didn't complete my 200 names of indexing. :o(

My goal to increase my happiness for month 10 is a spiritual goal to spend more time reading my scriptures. I'm going to read the Book of Mormon in a month, which requires approximately 8 chapters a day. I'm on track right now; any time I would normally spend reading a book for fun, I've now replaced with reading my scriptures, which I consider a worthy replacement.