Busy, Busy August!

August has been so crazy! One of my previous posts was about Asher's birthday, which was on the 5th.  It was such a fun day and I'm so happy Asher could be in our family.  He is such a crazy boy!  He loves to get his picture taken and whenever I take a picture of the babies, he likes to jump in until I take a picture of him too.

I sure love this smile!

For his birthday, Asher got a bike.  He loved it that first day!  But since then we've had a hard time getting him to ride it.  He doesn't like going too fast and gets nervous he's going to run into things.  So we have to take him out into the parking lot and walk next to him while he rides it, somewhat forcefully encouraging him to work the pedals.  I hope he gets over that fear soon and learns to enjoy riding it!

Notice the boots...

The girls have grown so much this month!  Their personalities are coming through so strong now.  Mia is still sweet and quiet and mild.  She's been sucking on her thumb a lot recently (something she got from her mother).  I think it's super cute, but also know how hard it will be to break her of that in the future!

One night she didn't want to sleep so we had some bonding time.  My little Mia!

They are finally starting to notice each other!

While talking to David's brother and his wife the other night, I said that sometimes I feel like I'm really getting the hang of having twins and like I'm doing a pretty good job! (like when I took all three to the grocery store - Mia in the front carrier, Ava in her carseat in the cart, and Asher walking, all with almost no crying!)  Well a few weeks ago I did not have one of those days.  Two of my children cried themselves to sleep that night.  It's days like that that make me grateful for tomorrows.

I don't remember why he was crying, but I do know it took a good 30-45 minutes before he finally fell asleep.

She fell asleep in the chair crying while I was trying to put Ava to bed.

One of my favorite outfits we were gifted (I'm pretty sure from David's aunt Linda).
Born together, friends forever.  I sure hope so!

A week after Asher's birthday we did something crazy and went camping with my family!  My parents, brothers, sisters, and all their family's go camping every summer.  It's one of my favorite traditions and I look forward to it every year!  This year we went to Downata, Idaho.  It's a campground right next to a pool/hot springs.  My parents were even super nice and paid for everyone's camping spot!  We all bought 2 day swimming passes to the pool so it was nice to have something so close for entertainment.  I was worried about how the girls would sleep, but they did amazing!  They fell asleep fine and got up the same number of times as always so I felt like it was a success!  Asher had a harder time falling asleep, so he had many grumpy moments where I know he was just really tired.  Our first camping trip as a family of 5 was great!

Happy Daddy

We had to move their Pack n Play outside during the day because it was too hot for them in our tent.  I thought she looked to peaceful sleeping there!

After an impromptu nap.  Still waking up.

Asher thinks that sleeping in a tent in a sleeping bag is just about the coolest thing ever.  Especially when Dad is there to make him laugh!

The Clay girls!

My sister adopted Clara about 6 weeks after my girls were born.  Hopefully they'll all be best friends!

Grandma's hammock was Asher's favorite thing about this trip.  And he cried anytime he didn't have friends to hang out in it with him!  Here he is with his 3 cousins. 

Hanging with Grandma!  I wish we all lived closer together so you could see all my babies more often!

Three sisters with three babies.  These kiddos are all less than a year apart!

Grandpa and Mia.  They're going to be friends. :)

The whole group!  12 adults, 13 children (ages 2 months to 11 years) and 2 dogs!

My favorite picture of our family.  It was so fun!  I can't wait for next year!

You would think after a big camping trip that we wouldn't be leaving the house for another month, but the next weekend the kids and I drove back to Rexburg for my nephew's birthday and to see my aunt and uncle that I haven't seen in probably 15 years!  

Grandma was such a good sport and played marbles with Asher for about 3 hours straight!

Keny (Andy's wife) made this awesome Spiderman piñata! I guess she had made a couple other piñata's for other kids' birthday parties and they were all just as amazing.

Some of the kids at the party! (not Asher because he was having a meltdown at that time)  Keny is probably the best party thrower I know.  She made amazing food, had such fun decorations, and all the kids had a great time!

Poor baby Cache fell asleep with the bottle in his mouth!  Being held by his favorite person (Grandpa).

After that trip we started to settle into our new routine.  David started school and I was nervous to have all three kids by myself all day, but it's been going pretty smooth.  We are all up around 7, I go through my rotation of taking care of kids, I usually try to clean and make sure everyone has food.  David is really busy during the fall because he likes to help out with marching band and he also starts his after school orchestra, so it makes for long days for both of us.  But when he gets home he goes through and greets everyone, we try to have a meal together, and then from 6-7 I work on giving all the kids baths (which I have come to realize is not normal, but it really helps me keep a good bedtime routine), the girls are in bed around 7:30 and Asher is in bed by 8. 

One last thing to finish off our crazy month is we are watching David's sisters dog!  They are spending 2 weeks in Hawaii (of which I am very jealous) and so we have had 2 dogs for a little while!  It's actually not as crazy as I would've thought.  Milo and Millie entertain each other a lot and are always playing and chasing each other around.  He's a pretty good dog, just definitely still a puppy with tons of energy and wears Millie out really fast!  He's a funny little thing, but I will be glad to bring the level of chaos back down to our normal level once they get back.

They love each other.

Milo is kind of a punk, and Millie was too nice to kick him off her nice big bed!

I had so much fun with August and I can't wait to see what September brings!  Asher starts Preschool tomorrow, the girls turn 4 months old next week and David's brother is blessing their new baby next Sunday, so I know we'll stay busy!  Look for more posts about our crazy, fun life!

Mitchell Family Camping Trip

The last few weeks have been quite exciting in our house!  On Monday, June 8, David got a call from a school in Mesquite, NV who wanted to have an interview with him for a music teacher position.  We were both very excited about it!  The interview was for the next day, on Tuesday morning.  So the next day, we got up and waited for the call.  And we waited some more.  And half an hour after the scheduled call, David tried calling them instead.  It was at this point that we realized that our phones weren't working!  My heart just sank.  Since we're in the middle of nowhere, sometimes our cell service just stops.  I told David to try emailing them, but their emails weren't listed on their website.  It wasn't until about 5:00 that night that we finally got service.  David frantically called them and explained what happened, and they agreed to have another interview the next day.  We had service, the interview went great, and 30 minutes after they hung up, they called back to say they wanted David to come to the school and meet with them!  We had very little time to figure things out.  What ended up happening is that we left Wednesday night with all 4 of us!  It was very squishy in that car.  We met with the principal and everything went great.  And shortly after we left the meeting, they offered David the job and David accepted!  We're moving to Mesquite!  We then drove around the town about 7 times looking for a place to live.  We didn't find any place that would let us keep Millie, but David's sister found one place for us later.  We haven't seen it in person, but the pictures look nice, it's in our price range, we get to keep Millie, and it has a pool and playground!  It will be a lot smaller than our place here, but we expected that.

We drove back to Kayenta Thursday night so David could meet with his principal here on Friday (which was the deadline for him to sign his contract here).  Unfortunately, the principal was out of the office so David couldn't meet with him until Monday.  He gave him his letter of resignation, and then David had to meet with HR, where they told him that we have to be out of our place by July 14 (because we live in teacher housing).  So we were feeling the pressure because right after David met with all these people, we left for Idaho for my family's annual camping trip!  I was a little stressed, but I think it will be a good move.  When we move to Nevada, it will be our 4th state we've lived in during the past year!  I'm very tired of moving and hope that we can make it for at least a full year.  We would like to end up in the Northwest area (Idaho, Wyoming, Washington, etc) but this new job will be a good step for us.  David will get paid more, have a job he likes - he'll be teaching 2 orchestra's (yay!), 2 guitar classes, and 2 choirs, and we'll be just a little bit closer to family.  I'm not looking forward to the heat, but I think it will be better than where we are currently at.

Our squishy car!  This is also how it was for the 10 hour drive to Rexburg.

Going to meet the principal!  Virgin Valley High School

Now for the camping trip!  It was very fun and we had fun being around family.  We both like to be with family and miss that close connection now that we live so far away.  My family has recently started a tradition of going camping all together once a year.  My older brother and I both had to travel about 10 hours to make it, but it's worth the travel to get everyone together!  I sure miss all these crazies!  The campsite we were at was right in the middle of a bunch of RV's, and I'm not sure how much they all appreciated the kids running around and being noisy and the babies waking up in the middle of the night!  But we had fun!  Here are some pictures:

Grandpa and Sorren, they are such good buddies!  No one does Paddy-Cake like him.  Right here he is doing his signature paddy-cake with the feet move.

  

All the grandkids!  Poor London is the only girl but I don't think she minds because she loves to watch those crazy boys running around!

Original Mitchell clan.

It's hard for us to have a normal picture taking session....

Family!

Asher had a hard time sleeping at camp.  He's never been a good sleeper, and traveling makes it that much harder!  So I got to have a lot of good cuddle sessions. ;)

I could kiss that face all day!

Me with the babies, Isaac and London!  It was a cold morning so I was glad to have 2 little lap warmers!

Hiking up Cress Creek Trail.  It's a pretty easy hike and lots of fun!

London had the most fun on the hike, she had her sunhat to block the sun, her juice to keep her hydrated, and her daddy to give her a nice ride the whole time!

This is the most smiley girl you ever met!

Isaac had a lot of fun in his own little play area!

London loves Asher!  And Asher loves bath time, even while camping!

Lisa brought this for Isaac, but all the toddlers loved playing in it too!

Dad was either reading or going on pop runs.  He enjoyed camping in his own way. :)

Grandma's tent was the coolest - it was big, has nice rugs, and movies!

These three clowns had a lot of fun together, and got into a lot of mischief!  Ledger (in red) is the oldest, Sorren (in gray) is 4 months younger than Ledger, and Asher is 6 months younger than Sorren.

Millie did this a lot.  Camping wore her out.

Asher was sleeping so sweetly, I had to take a picture!

After we got back to my parents house, everyone was so exhausted that the kids all watched a movie while the adults lounged around.

We stayed in Rexburg for a couple more days and then drove to Utah to spend some time with David's brother Brian and his wife Brittany.  They were so nice to let us stay in their new house!  I don't have any pictures of it, but it's very nice!  We had a lot of fun while we were there and were sad to leave!  Now we're back home and we have just a couple of weeks to pack our house, find a new apartment, get David's Nevada teaching license, and move!  Anyone that wants to help us move is more than welcome!  It will be a stressful few weeks and moving is always hard on Asher.  I feel so bad that we have to keep packing all his stuff up, but hopefully this move will last a little longer!  We miss all our family and can't wait until we get to see any and all of you again!  I'll leave you now with an adorable picture of my two munchkins cuddling.