Enjoying Motherhood...

Lately, I've been learning that I'm enjoying motherhood more. Yes, there are hard times, and yes, it sometimes feels like what I'm doing isn't worthwhile, and that I'll never get to do much of anything for myself... But, lately, I've just been soaking it all in more... I love my kids, and I'm actually enjoying the everyday routine with them more. I'm enjoying the giving of myself to them. I'm enjoying watching them play together, enjoying seeing them give eachother a hug and saying, "Sorry Dax!" after Elora hit Max. I'm enjoying seeing Elora be so motherly to her babies, her stuffed animals, her ponies, Max, etc... I'm enjoying Max look at a duck in a book and saying, "Duck! Duck! Duck!" I'm enjoying the snake shakes that I give Elora (learned that one from my mom...) I'm enjoying the reading of books, the singing of a lullaby before bedtime, and Elora's prayers... I'm enjoying the giggleling, dancing, playing, building blocks, little voices (not so much the big, loud, shrieking voices...) Playing with Elora's hair, and watching Max walk. People say to enjoy them while they're little, because they grow up so fast. I'm really trying to do that now, instead of just getting through another day... I'm enjoying the present, instead of the thinking of "It'll be better when..." I appreciate and am thankful for my children. I love them so much, even though they might not fully understand that... I'm just so grateful to be a mother, and I think a lot of things in my life lately helped me to get to this point, the way I'm feeling now... So anyway, just wanted to share my feelings a little, sorry to get all mushy on ya... But if there's one bit of advise that I'd like to give, enjoy your now. Wherever you are in your life, enjoy the present. Don't be always thinking, it'll be better when... Because then you'll never enjoy life, and never be happy or satisfied, and never appreciate what you have right now...

The Lazy Days of Summer...

Ah... summer is great... I'm enjoying having Travis around after work during the summer before school starts, and Travis will be back in night classes and homework sessions... Only 11 days before school starts for him, I guess we better make the best of it!

Here's Max after dinner one day, what a messy, funny kid... It looks like he was trying to draw in some new eyebrows with his food...

I've been doing Elora's hair in two messy buns lately, she's quite cute!
Here is the ultimate example of the lazy days of summer... The kids with their Daddy enjoying some vegetation time...

Elora and Max both love their books, and when they're not fighting over toys, they can entertain themselves quite well... Here, they were sitting on the couch and bouncing their backs against the couch over and over and giggleling a lot!
Last friday, we went to the treehouse children's museum here in Ogden. It's the coolest place, the kids love it! It has a big tree in the middle with stairs inside and there's a slide that goes down from the tree. There's lots of activity centers in the museum, like a kitchen, doctor's office, school, doll room, a big chess set, art corner, music corner, and more! We finally decided to get a year membership so we could have someplace fun to go to get out of the house in the winter.

Here they are after we made visors in the art corner

Max couldn't keep his on so Travis wore it... uh...cute....

The kids loved banging on the marimbas...

Travis put on a little puppet show for Max and then appeared from behind the curtain! Max thought it was the funniest thing!

Then he wanted to grab the puppet to play with it...

Elora enjoyed driving the fire engine... Thankfully, she won't be driving anything for real for another 13 years!

Max climbing, and playing peekaboo...

They had a little nursery for the baby dolls in the doctor's office, and Max was so cute holding a baby... He's in touch with his feminine side...

Elora checking the heartbeat of her baby...

Here we are on the fire engine again...

The next day, we went to Salt Lake for a little Arnell reunion. This is Elora on the way down, she was excited that she was going to see Grandma...

4 Years Ago...

4 years ago today, Travis and I were sealed together for time and eternity in the St. George temple...

...And 11 years ago this fall, a friend named Catherine introduced me to my future husband. It was after a ninth grade football game, she took me down to the middle school to see all the guys after their good game. She talked to one guy, saying something like, "Hey big tuff Gough!" And I said, "Who's that?" Catherine told me about how he was in her biology class and how guys liked being called big and tuff... But I was just thinking that he was pretty cute... But that fall Travis paid no attention to me, he liked Catherine. But I secretly had a crush on him all the way through school until he finally showed some interest in me in 11th grade when we went to Sadies and Junior Prom, and then not showing much more interest again until we were in College. Some might call me pathetic, but there was something in this amazing young man that I couldn't let go of. Travis says he was stupid for not noticing me, but I say we just had to wait for the right time and to go through life's lessons before we got together.

Anyway, that's the short version of our story. Tonight, we wanted to go to the temple and out to dinner, but our plans aren't working out... It's girl camp this week, so all the girls in the stake that could babysit are off to girls camp. Two of my adult friends are helping with girls camp as well. We did have one couple that was going to babysit, but they found out that they have plans, so another couple was going to babysit, but they had plans. Plus, we found out that the temple is closed for two weeks... So....I think we're going to get some take-out and have a candle-lit dinner after the kids go to sleep...

Rodeo

Hinckley Dodge was one of the sponsors for the Rodeo in Ogden, so Travis got some free tickets for Monday night. This was my first time to a rodeo and I had a GREAT time! It was a lot of fun! The rodeo started out with a few sky divers coming into the field, and the last one had the American flag, it was pretty incredible!

Elora thinks she pretty cool wearing Daddy's sunglasses...
Here we are, having a good time!
Max was surprisingly really good for sitting on our laps for almost 3 hours!

Here's a video of Max "Bull Riding" (on Mommy's legs) He enjoyed himself...

Going to the Lake

Many of you may remember our trip to the lake last year... To refresh you memory, go here. Anyway, we went to Pine View Reservoir last Saturday, I love that it's only 20 minutes away to our special spot by the lake. (Our free spot) It took Max awhile to get used to the lake, but after a while he quite enjoyed himself...

Here's the three of them enjoying the water...

The yellow tube is supposed to be for Max because it has straps to hold him up, but Max hates it, and Elora loves it! So go figure...
The water level was soooo much higher than last year. This is the tree that we sat in front of last year, but this time we had to sit behind it.
My boys.... Aren't they cute?
I had to add this one on here, this was the next day on Sunday. I gave a sharing time lesson on missionary work, and asked Travis to find his missionary name tag, so he found it, and then sent Max up to me with it... I was like, well, hello...."Elder" Gough! So handsome....

Memories

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.

New Dress

I've been meaning to post this, but I finally got a new dress! It was actually right before Father's Day. I like to say that it was Travis' Father's Day present because he gets to see me in it. :) But yeah, the last dress I got before this one was a maternity one when I was pregnant with Max, and the last one before that was in my second year of college... So it's been a long time since I got a new dress. I love this one! I couldn't believe that it was long enough, had sleeves, and didn't have a low neck. So very modest, but I love it!