Before I forget...

In all of the commotion of things, Tayden finished preschool. I have been meaning to blog about it for weeks, but keep forgetting too. He had a great year and it was a lot of fun working with all the kids. One of the moms put together a cute book with pictures of the kids through out the year. Boy oh boy has Tayden grown! 

He grew about six inches in size and about seven feet in attitude!

After his first year of preschool Tayden:

- Knows all of his letters by sight. At the beginning of the year he could point to the letter if you asked him where it was, now he knows all of them by sight.

-Is really getting the hang of sounding out words.

-Still isn't the greatest at counting. He can count 1-12, but gets mixed up between 13-16, and figures out the rest after 17-24. 

-Has started referring to minutes by his hands and feet. For example, if its going to take 15 minutes, he uses both hands and a foot.

-Is losing the patience for drawing. He can draw, but would rather not. 

-Colors in the lines.

-Still confused black and white.

-Has the best sense of direction I have ever seen! 

-Picks things up freakishly fast.

I love this boy and am so proud of how much he grew over the year. I am a little frustrated with our current home predicament. It's affecting preschool, so he will most likely miss the first half of it. I have put together my own curriculum for the year and we have goals for him to reach before he gets to kindergarten. I'm not worried about the social aspect as we do plenty of things with other kids, go to church weekly and he'll be enrolled in baseball this fall. I just hope I can do a proper job getting him ready for kindergarten and teaching him everything he needs to know! 

Sure do love this growing boy. 

A day early

We're home...a day early! Scott flew to Idaho on Thursday and the plan was to hit Utah over the weekend for my family reunion, then finish up the drive to Las Vegas on Sunday. However, our kids caught a yucky bug and we had to skip the reunion all together and head home a day early. The older two probably would have been fine if we had doped them up on meds, but Cache had a relentless fever and  since the reunion was outdoors, I did not want to keep him out in the heat.

We were super bummed we missed the reunion. Tayden especially, as he was really looking forward to playing with his cousins and swimming on the pirate ship. But, we are happy to be home and sleeping in our own beds tonight. The older two were extremely happy to be reunited with their long lost toys, but already asking when we get to go back to Idaho.

Which, may be sooner than later. We almost had the house rented out, but the potential tenant backed out. The home has a few applications on it right now, so we are patiently waiting to hear results. We've had a lot of people look at it, now its just a waiting game to find the right qualified renters. If it gets rented out in the near future, then it will be back to Idaho for us until our home is built...possibly as soon as the middle of September! 

Things are a little crazy and its late. I am hoping to get back into a routine and schedule soon and back to blogging regularly. But first, we have to unpack! 

And isn't that the worst part of the whole trip!?

Ugh! 

Cache at 9

I can hardly believe it, but our baby Cache is 9 months old today. 9 months! Seriously, where did the time go? I can't believe in 3 short months he'll be a year. Ah, its too crazy. 

Cache has a special place in my heart. He is just the sweetest little guy. He is constantly smiling and happy. He loves his mama and I am 100% okay with it. He is also easy going with strangers and will let pretty much anyone hold him. He loves to flirt with show off his cheesy grin to anyone that looks at him. He is my social baby, for sure.

  

His brothers adore him. Its safe to say the feeling is mutual. This boy could watch his brothers all day long. Nobody can make him laugh harder than Tayden and Beckett. Its warms my heart. He knows who they are and could pick them out of a crowd. His whole body lights up with excitement when he sees the boys.

Also, Cache is mischief. He was always lazy to do everything. Never really wanted to roll over, but loved to sit up. I joked that he would be crawling by his birthday if he was lucky, but I could see a twinkle of trouble in his eye from day one. The minute he learned to crawl, he has been into everything! His favorite thing to play with is the dog food and cords of any sort. Soon after crawling he learned to pull himself up. He can also sit on his knees and started climbing stairs tonight. As soon as he found a purpose for moving, he was all over it. I think we'll have a full blown walker in the next month or two.

He loves to eat. He hasn't turned his nose up to anything yet, including tomatoes, and lights up as soon as he sees food of any kind. He is still my small portable baby, but I am learning to love it. He's still incredibly chunky and has rolls for days, but is on the small end of the spectrum. But to me, he is pure perfection!

I'm grateful for Cache. I wonder how we ever felt complete without him.

I'm grateful that he is a healthy growing boy.

And I am grateful I can call him mine. 

Happy 9 months little man. 

Idaho Falls Zoo

My mom and I were able to take the kids to Idaho Falls for a fun zoo trip. The weather was perfect, the animals were out and the kids had a blast. Enjoy our pictures.

Fishing

Tayden has been so excited to go fishing from the moment we crossed the Idaho border. This boy is obsessed. He watches fishing youtube videos all the time and is always asking to look at fishing pictures on the computer. Today, they finally got to go with Grandpa Packard.

Tayden was less than excited to wake up early in the morning, especially after a full day of fun the day before and a late night. However, once he heard they were going fishing, he literally hopped out of bed. 

Grandpa Packard started the day right with donuts and chocolate milk. And then it was off to the lake.

The boys had so much fun and talked about it the rest of the day. 

I think a tradition has been born!

July 4th

Family.

Friends.

Parade.

Naps in the stroller.

Naps in the car. 

iPhone pictures.

Crawling.

Falling.

Kissing owies.

Frozen Yogurt.

Family Drives.

 Candy.

Baseball.

 Snow Cones.

BBQ's.

 Fireworks.

Sparklers.

 Running.

Laughing.

Fishing.

 Brownies.

Cousins.

 Water fights.

Music.

Adventures.

Broken hearts.

Scared Dog.

Red. White. Blue.

Inkom.

Pocatello.

Best Day.

Favorite Holiday.

Shark Attack

We picked Scott up Sunday afternoon and have been going non stop ever since.

So today, we loaded up the boys for a little Packard family time and headed to ISU for the shark exhibit. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I was hoping for a little more than a room and half of shark pictures. Thankfully, the boys were happy with the few shark models and animal skeletons. And happy boys make happy parents.

Little Cache and his new two teeth! Its been a big week for baby C. Not only does he have two new teeth, but he is officially crawling. He's been scooting around for awhile, but is now a full blown crawler. Super fun! 

The museum was pretty lame, but it was so fun hanging out with my little family. I love them, so so much. It was a good afternoon.

And, for the people that have been wondering--We do not have renters for the house. We had a few more run ins with the landlords and decided it would be best to hire a property management team to find renters. We need to iron out a few more details and sign a few more papers with the company, so the plan is for me to return to Las Vegas in about two weeks. This whole process has been extremely frustrating, but I am trying my best to have patience and go with the flow. I have to remind myself...about 15 times a day...that it will be worth it in the end. 

Happy fourth everyone!