My sister is so smart.

All of my sisters and sisters-in-law are smart of course, but right now I am specifically talking about Nat. I know I have mentioned it more than once before, but she blogs a picture a day and prints the book of pictures with brief descriptions out at the end of the year. Smart smart smart.

I haven't been doing my normal steady routine of keeping this blog updated because of lots of reasons, but I want to do better. Please don't check it if a daily-ish blurb about what we are doing is going to make you roll your eyes. I am doing it for my kids in the hope that I will actually print this thing off one day!

So here's a little catch-up of our lives over the last couple months:

I can't remember if I already blogged these or if we just facebooked them, but here are Ambrose's first school portraits.

Would it be totally cliche if I said he was growing up way too fast? Because he kind of is. Next swim session he is moving up to Level 3! WOAH! :) That's big time news around here since he has had three mysterious and baffling near-drownings in the last year. I am proud of him. Last week he shocked me and shot a basket too and here's 7 seconds to prove it:
He's chomping at the bit to go to kindergarden NOW, basketball on a real team NOW, surfing NOW, skateboarding NOW, walking to school all by himself NOW...etc, etc you get the idea.

Asher Henry started his first swim lesson on Thursday.

He went in the water and he loved it. I was shocked. His speech therapy is slowly progressing and we are deciding what to do come June when he turns 3 and will no longer be eligible for the early intervention speech therapy he is receiving now. Lots of preschool and homeschool type options are presenting themselves for this Fall. They are all good and I just want to make the very best choice for Asher and not necessarily for me if that makes sense. I just want to keep him with me all the time and try and force him to talk and so far that hasn't been the best course of action. I want him to be confident in his speaking abilities and to get the very best help that he can and we are not even close to that yet. We are definitely getting there. Someone please just make the parental choice for me!

I am really happy with my classes, students, and novels I selected this semester and I love my schedule! I am always working on a project of sorts for my calling in the Relief Society presidency and really grateful to get the chance to serve even if it stresses me out sometimes. I definitely grow one project to the next and feel like the ladies in my ward are family. This calling has helped me to grow-up and look beyond my problems and bad attitude and just help others. Any time I have anxiety or depression I work on my calling and all is well. Pretty great how that works!

Thomas is busier than ever with work. He loves his growing private practice and all his clients in case management seem to be pretty stable right now. What do I know really since he spares me the details usually, but I do know that we haven't received any middle of the night crisis calls in a long time so HALLELUJAH! He is camping right now with the scouts. He told me last night, in the middle of watching Liz Lemon dress up like an old hag and cough on everyone in the NY Subway system, "Oh yeah, I am camping with the scouts tomorrow night. Did I tell you that already?" HAHA I love it. I am not trying to imply that the man I love is not organized, but I do usually hear about Upstanding Youth shows through fellow band wives or facebook fans talking about their weekend plans. It's kind of lovable.

Ok, that's about it. We are all caught up. The boys are irritating and precious and perfect and frustrating and growing. I am busy but in the best ways possible. We are where we are supposed to be, serving those we are meant to serve, working the jobs that fit our lives and personalities perfectly. Monday starts a nearly consistent photo-a-day family journal. Come back if you like that sort of thing, but it will probably be boring for most. I am just being honest! I'll love it, but it's going to be very everyday: we don't travel or entrepreneur or take very many self-portraits or offer quotable pearls of life wisdom that you'll find on a print in Pinterest two weeks later or photo any tutorials or confess all our sins and sorrows or anything fun like that. That's what people read blogs for right? I know I do. Well you won't find much of that here -(boo! hiss!) -we are just a regular family working hard and trying to create memories with our growing kids. Yep.