Olympic Athlete

So I have to spend a moment and brag about my little Adalie. She is going to be an Olympic Swimmer! Let me back up......we have been in a hotel for over 3 weeks now and so we do a lot of swimming everyday! Adalie and Hallie's abilities in the water have increased 200%. They can hold their breath underwater for a long period of time. Hallie can do it for 8 seconds and Adalie just made it to 22 seconds--she is only 4years old-okay so she turns 5 next week, but still pretty cool!!! In addition, Adalie is learning the freestyle stroke and she can do it for approximately 13 feet! Her actual swimming started by Nate taking her to the deep end and holding her on her belly and then letting go and she would swim for her life to where she could touch. Mean I know, she was scared out of her mind, but now enjoys it and does so well. She can also do 1 1/2 flips underwater and does it so gracefully. When we were all done swimming today I told her she was our ticket to the Olympics and then asked her is she knew what that meant and she said, "Yeah I am going to be on TV and do all the Olympic stuff". She was so proud of herself as she should be!!

So I am going to let you in on Nate's little secret, he doesn't read this so I can tell you haha. While in the pool today Nate asked me what I would be if I could be any fictional character, I told him I didn't know and he paused since there was another guy in the room (he wanted to wait until that guy was gone) then he flew back into the water and said, "a mermaid". He makes me laugh. Anyways, Adalie and Hallie get their swimming ability from Nate 100%. Adalie will pass me up in a few years. Hallie is impressive as well. She holds onto Nate's back while he pretends to be a sea turtle and he will swim from one end of the pool to the other and they are both completely submerged.

Just some things to remember about my girls:

Adalie:
When someone is crying in our house Nate always says, "there's no crying in baseball" from  A League of Their Own, well today Reid was crying and Adalie said, "Reid we don't cry at baseball games."

Nate and I had a wedding video made and Adalie watched it for like 8 or so hours straight on our drive out to Ohio and she cried though it most of the way. I think she is really touched by it and so it makes her cry. Well she since has watched it many times and still cries. I have to hold her and she tells me she loves mommy and daddy. She is so sweet, it melts my heart. When she wants to watch it we try to convince her to watch other movies, but she insists.


Hallie has become the comedian in our family:
I was getting ready to go somewhere with the girls and Hallie was trying to get me to hurry so she said, "Woman lets go!"

She was wearing her beloved ND shirt and Adalie has the same shirt in a bigger size so I said,"Hallie you're lucky you can wear Adalie's ND shirt when you get bigger." and she said, "I'm lucky? No, you're lucky"

I had to wake her up to take Adalie to preschool and she said, "this girl is not getting up"

Then she picked her nose and flicked the booger on the ground and said, "It's for the birds, they like it, its booger chips."

When we got to Ohio we did a lot of house searching and the girls we sooo sick of it, well we pulled up to a house and immediately Hallie said, "I hate this stupid house"--yeah she has a potty mouth for a 3 year old haha

Okay now I can not forget my sweet Reid. Nate thinks I am a freak with the way I talk to Reid because I say things like, "I love this little boy and I am going to eat his face off". Well now Adalie sounds just like me and every morning she wakes up and sounds something like this, "Where is Reid, I want to eat his little face, he is the cutest little butt, I just want to love all over his little face". Anyways, here is a picture of the most precious little boy I know.

 I know I am his mother, but isn't he adorable?

My babies--Wow I have 3 kids!! Crazy!!

Preschool

Adalie started 5 day a week preschool on Monday. She was SOOO excited to start. That morning she woke up and kept saying how excited she was. I kept asking her if she was nervous and she always said no. I though for sure when she got there she would curl up in a ball and not talk and be shy and want me to hold her hand. Although she told me that morning she didn't want me to walk her in to the building, I of course told her I had to on her first day since she didn't even know where she was going, then she said, "okay, but don't hold my hand, I want to be a big girl". Yikes, and so it begins. Anyways, she proved me wrong, when her teacher Mrs. Hunter said it was time she marched right in there without looking back. I am so proud of her, coming out of her shell is a VERY big accomplishment.  

 Hallie wanted to get in on the action and was so sad that she couldn't go to preschool

 This one just makes me laugh 

 Also, this is Reid's life, he is attacked by his sister daily (okay mostly by Hallie)

I wanted to also include this. I took this picture of the girls when Hallie was sad about something and Adalie was consoling her. It was sweet! I love them!

Moving East

WOW! Our lives have been all over the place....let me recap:
Reid was born May 16th, Nate graduated May 19th, we moved out of South Bend June 24th to Utah, we were basically homeless and decided to stay with my Mom and Gary for exactly one month, Nate got a job in Ohio mid July so we drove back out east (lucky for us we left all of our stuff in South Bend) Since being in Ohio we have searched for a place to live and hoping to buy (homes are cheap out here compared to Utah--those living here don't understand me when I say cheap, they think it is expensive here). After it is all said and done we will have stayed in a hotel for a month--lucky for us it is not on our dollar. We eat out EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. (except on nights when ward members have us over) The food does get old, however, Nate and I are currently obsessed with Panera Bread and eat it like it is going out of style-- we don't have to pay for food which is AWESOME!

So I am trying to get to know people in our new town so whenever I can I strike up conversations. They usually learn I am new to the area and moved for Nate's job. Their initial though is we are crazy for coming this far for a job and for not having family around. However, one thing they do not understand is where ever we go we have the church, which means instant friends and instant family. We have been invited over for dinner several times,we are currently borrowing someone's car so that we do not have to drive Nate to and from work from our hotel room (which ended up being about 2 hours total each day for the girls and I). I asked Nate what his coworkers would think if they knew he moved here 3 weeks ago and was already borrowing someones car for the next 2 weeks, who he met 2 weeks ago and been invited to dinner many times. Well that's what you get with your ward family! Our ward is tiny but very excited as you can imagine to have us, they have been praying for people to move in. On our first Sunday Nate said, "So I understand you all prayed us here", they laughed and said how true it was--they are starting a ward fast for more families to move in. Its funny because we were looking to live further north which would have put us in a different ward with many members, because of our circumstances we decided to live closer to work which put us in the small ward. After going to church I told Nate I think the Lord put us in these circumstances so that we would have to go to this ward rather than any of the others. I feel very good about where we are and know this is where we should be. I told a friend not too long ago (before Nate had a job) that I had a feeling we were going to be in a small ward in a small town because that was the kind of place we needed to serve in (mostly because of Nate's work ethic in any ward we belong to). Well enough of that, the girls are adapting much quicker than I expected. Okay I am mostly talking about Adalie, she is very cautious and shy--much different than Hallie.

We spend much of our day in the hotel room, some days are harder than others, but overall not too bad. Adalie started 5 day a week preschool so that keeps us busy. We do A LOT of swimming, we make up weird random games such as "parade", this is where the girls pretend to be in a parade down the long hotel hallway. Reid is such a trooper through all of this madness.

Here are some pictures to sum it all up:

 With Grandma Porenta

 My SWEET boy! 

 On our way out

 Running for some entertainment

 My babies

Swimming 

 

More Swimming 

 Of course the easiest way to entertain good ol TV

Boating at Strawberry

 Only 3 days before we left Utah we were able to squeeze a day of boating in with one of my BFF's and her family! It was a lot of fun! After we were all done and packed in the car the first thing Nate and I both said was, "that was so fun, I am glad we came!" I was afraid it was going to be so hot out and with Reid only being 2 month old it worried me. However, it was not hot at all and if we got a little warm Hank would cruise around the lake so we could all feel the breeze. It started raining towards the end and got pretty cold actually. Nate and Hank each caught a fish and the girls loved every second of it!

 First catch of the day 

 Hallie, Ryleigh, Adalie

 Me and Kadie

 Adalie playing the air guitar 

 Beautiful 

 The girls trying to stay warm 

The crew. Man I love their family!