After Hunter's last soccer game we headed over to the temple where my cousin Brittany and Davide were getting married. He is Italian and they met on her mission in Italy. When she got home they started skyping and the rest is history.
The kids waited outside the temple with some older cousins, Emma had fun chasing the birds all over the temple grounds.
Then we headed home for a quick lunch before heading up to Globe for the reception. They had a really nice family dinner with all different kinds of soups and a slide show about their lives. Then the reception started. It was so fun to dance and visit with family.
Hunter had fun dancing with the "aunties" minus Aunt Mar :(
Deke and I may also have had a little too much fun dancing :) :) :) :)
Josh, Claudia and Baby Tieman :)
Lisa and Lonnie....
Kassi and Ron, newly engaged to be married in Feb.
All the ladies getting ready to catch the bouquet...
What are the odds that Hunter would catch the garter? After he caught it, having no idea what it was he came over, hugged me and said, "Here mom, I won this for you!!" handed it to me and took off to play. It was hilarious.
Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Pisola we love you!!
Another soccer season comes to an end. It has been really neat to watch how much Hunter has grown skills wise since last year. His ability to control the ball, make a good pass and definitely be more aggressive has gotten so good. He works so well on a team environment and has made some good friends. Deke bought him some green hair spray so he could be all green for his last game. It was like the joker green, it was quite bright especially against his fair complexion. 
Even though they lost the boys played a great game and ran really hard. As they came off the field they all looked pretty bummed about the fact that the season was over. 
Of course it definitely helped that Grandma, Eden and Aunt Brenn had all just come into town and got to come watch his game.
They came off the field and gathered together to hand out trophies. The coach had them each come up one by one and recieve their trophy while the coach said a few words about them. Hunter told my that his trophy was "way cooler" than the one they got last year. I loved that after the coach finished talking about him, he lifted his trophy in the air like a fist pump, smiling and cheering as if he had just won a world championship. Love him. 
Add in some Krispy Kreme donuts as a post season celebratory snack and all were happy. A nice break for the holidays before spring when we venture into either baseball or flag football. I have to admit I will definitely be enjoying the little bit extra sleep in time on Saturday morning and the lack of Fry's runs for fruit snacks and Caprisuns. Way to go Hunterbug!!! 
The other day I got out the Duplo blocks for Emma to build with. She start happily playing away building towers and then knocking them to the ground like usual. I sat on the couch reading my book when she suddenly got quiet. Now that she is a toddler moments like this can mean all sorts of creative messes and trouble. As I looked up, sure that she had taken off somewhere I saw her standing there. She had taken a big block and put a little block on top of it and was holding it up to her eye and saying something. "Emma what did you make?" I asked her. She hurried over to me, looked at me and smiled, then put her eye back on the blocks and murmured something. Oh I get it now. Laughing to myself as I realized that she had just made her own "camera". She pulled the block to one side of her face, pointed at me and mumbled a whole bunch of something. "Oh okay, I'm ready. Cheese!" I said and smiled wide at her. Grinning that I finally understood what the game was she put her eye on the block, murmured something and then looked back at me completely satisfied. I then became her photo subject for the next few minutes in which she actually started trying to use her tongue to make a clicking noise. After a few minutes I attempted to go back to my book when she came over and starting patting my lap. "Mom!. Mom!" she said loudly "Mom!" until I relinquished my reading once again and put on my best happy face and said "Cheese!" once more. After going back and forth trying to read any of my book I told her to go take a picture of Ariel. She headed over to the Mermaid car, held up the camera and pretended to take pictures. 
Realizing that this new twist to the game was really fun she headed into the kitchen and started taking pictures of other things. I watched her for awhile then had to snap a shot or two of her. Taking a picture of the scarecrow...
Taking a picture of the skeleton on the pantry door. I'm sorry but the side view is hilarious to me because she actually looks like she is trying to focus and aim at the skeleton. 
She cracks me up. I thought it was really clever for such a little thing. I know of course that it has to do with her being a child of a paparrazi mother. Since I sort of love to photo document our day to day life. Can I help it if I think my kids are adorable? :) :)
I love this baby, I know I know she is a toddler and everyday more and more signs are popping up to support that reality. She is such a girly girl. About six months ago she was playing over in the toy bin and I saw her reaching in and digging for something. A few minutes later she walked over to me grinning and I about died of laughter when I saw what she had done. She had taken three of her old teething rings and put them on her arm like bangle bracelets.
She held it up for me to see, obviously proud of herself. "Ohhhh, you are so pretty, I love your bracelets" I told her as she raced off to find Daddy. Since then all teething rings are bracelets. 
She will just be playing around the house some days and I will be cleaning or doing laundry and she will come in wearing a pair of Ave's Sunday shoes, teething ring bracelets on each arm. It makes me smile. The ladies in the nursery during scouts were laughing so hard one day when I came to pick her up and they told me that she had found some rings and was wearing them as bracelets. "Yeah she does that at home too" I told them. I am not sure what I love more, the actual bracelets being worn or the way she holds her arm when she is wearing them. She will walk around with her arm out straight, hand held up in a stop position so that the bracelets don't fall off. When she needs to pick up another toy she will bend down slowly keeping her hand straight out so as not to disturb her carefully placed jewelry. So sweet. So today when I told her to head out to the van and she came out with Hunter and Ave complete with a bracelet on I had to take a quick pick because it is just another one of those millions of little things that I love so much about her that I don't want to forget. 
Last week we took the scouts to the fire station for a field trip. They were all very excited about this since only two of them had ever been to a station before. When we got there we first got a quick tour of the fire house. The boys got to see the stations kitchen, living room area, and workout room. Then we headed out to the garage and they got to climb in and see inside every door and compartment on the fire trucks. 
They got to sit in the front and get a chance to pretend to drive it. Had a chance to see where all the hoses and ladders and kept on the truck as well as other necessary medical equipment. 
Then we went outside and they turned on one of the hoses. Each boy had a chance to hold the hose and spray the water out in the parking lot. Obviously this was their favorite part. They each sprayed, splashed, doused themselves in the hose water. By the end they were all happily soaked. 
Then they did a couple of races with the hoses. Divided into teams to see which team could straigten out the hose first and then which could fold it back up first. 
It was really fun and I think the boys all enjoyed it.
"See Mom, that's me in the middle" he said, "Then there's Ethan and Dylan." Trying to maintain my composure but feeling on the verge of a breakdown at this tender moment, I hugged him and told him I loved it. "But look Mom, then it can close again and fold back up to me." He closed and opened it again. "It's just like how Ethan and Dylan are with me because they are inside of me" he said slowly folding the three down into the one boy. Struggling to get out the words I said, "You're right Hunter that is exactly like it is, Ethan and Dylan are always part of you, all the time. I have always felt that they stay very close around you and I know that they love their big brother so much." Grinning he grabbed his backpack and I took them to school. I have tried to stay busy all morning, cleaning, playing with Em, baking some banana bread but I just feel off. I went in to clean the bedroom and saw the paper boy sitting on the computer desk. Now it comes, the tears. The flow of emotion with the kids at school in the quiet of my room where I can stop for a minute and feel the pain of missing my babies. My precious sons. I just hurt and know I need to let it flow out of me so I can pick up and keep on walking again. Tomorrow will be better, it always is when I have a day like this. Thank goodness these days are far and few between and often I am able to keep a very good perspective of Heavenly Father's plan. I know where they are and have comfort in this, I am so richly blessed and happy in my everyday but today this tender reminder from Hunter just struck a very special string of my heart that is reserved only for them. They are my babies, I miss them. That will never change, Hunter, Avery and Emma will miss them, that will not change. This is just hard, and enduring the waiting for them some days feels very long and very tiring. You just don't love anything the way you love your children. Hunter is so in tune with them, the moments I have felt them so close to me have been at night when Hunter was sleeping. Especially that first year I would be hurting so much, couldn't sleep and didn't know how to get a reprieve from my aching. Moments where I seriously doubted whether I could keep walking and wondered if I person could truly die from a heart that felt this broken. I would go in and my little two year old would be fast asleep in his bed, Rusty in hand donning his Lightning McQueen jammies. I would lay next to him, look at his tiny freckles and bulldog cheeks and could feel them close by. A warm peaceful feeling and I would wish that I could just lay there and feel them that close all the time. But of course the moment would pass and I would head back to my room and least feeling a little weight lifted from me if only temporarily. A renewed sense of why I had to keep walking and pull it together. For that amazing little boy laying in that bed. So many times Hunter saved me from the dark moments, reminding me that I was still a mother and had a little someone that needed me. Needed me not in millions of barely functioning pieces but needed me as a whole. They looked so much like him and since they are identical of course looked just like each other. It will get better, I'll pick myself up, but today I just need to cry. All I can say is my heart yearns for the day when the sight of my three boys standing together holding hands is real and definitely more than a paper picture. 
