Kids

Being a mom to 3 is so busy! I feel like I never have enough time in the day to do all that I need to do. Cleaning the entire house during the week is really tough. Most of the time I don't get to vacuuming the upstairs or cleaning our master bath. Folding the laundry for the whole family almost never gets done. Stockton doesn't go to bed until 10:30 or so and then I stay up until midnight or later cleaning. Some nights it is fine, other times I can't keep myself awake and then the cleaning doesn't happen. It is exhausting and I lose my patience more then I would like to admit but I love these kiddos more then anything. I genuinely love taking care of them. Taking care of my kids brings me complete joy. I know that I am exactly where I am meant to be when I am with them. I love when they snuggle me and just fall asleep and I know that they feel completely safe and relaxed and loved. I feel the spirit so strongly when I hold my babies, all 3 of them. I am the luckiest to have everything I've ever wanted in life... a husband who loves me and takes great care of our family and 3 beautiful, healthy kids that I get to stay at home with and take care of. 

My two sons sleeping! I was rocking Stockton to sleep and Brooks, who missed a nap that day, fell asleep on the mattress we have laid out on Stockton's floor. 

We had a fun day of swimming and therefore Brooks didn't get a nap today. I love rocking my boys to sleep!

Hallie trying to help Brooks Rollerblade. Brooks' legs weren't quite strong enough to stand up and Hallie was trying to use her strength to help him. These two love to play, annoy, fight and make messes together!  

Basement Progress

Lately Russ has been working on the pullouts that go under our stairs in the basement. I'm loving these so far and think they will provide a lot more storage for us!

Brooks

Oh my Brooksie boy! He is impossible not to love. He is sweet almost all the time. He has developed an "I do it myself" attitude with everything. I love that he still loves to snuggle. He is timid and pretty shy but once he gets comfortable he is wild. He loves Hallie and all her friends. He is a carbon copy in looks of his dad and loves everything Russ does. He loves mowing the lawn with his pretend mower while Russ really mows the lawn. He asks Russ often if he needs to "mow the lawn today." He loves wearing his "lawn mowing shoes" that look exactly like Russ' lawn mowing shoes. I love how he replaces his "p's" with "f's" and therefore says "fuppy" for puppy, "fark" for park and "fotty" for potty. He runs with his arms totally straight down with his wrists flopping. It's pretty cute! 

With his "I'll do it myself" attitude he puts his sunglasses on upside down. Man he's cute though!

Brooks likes to be with me while I rock Stockton to sleep. I love my little sidekick! 

For a minute there I thought maybe Brooks is done with naps because he seemed to take forever to fall asleep at night. So, I stopped napping him and then he would crash at like 5 PM at night. So, I quickly started napping him again and I'm totally fine with that. I love snuggling him to sleep. 

Wearing Hallie's boots

Wearing his hat backwards just like daddy!

Russ thought that maybe Brooks was ready to take off his training wheels. It turns out he isn't ready yet and was terrified for Russ to let go of his bike seat. 

Poor kiddo is terrified of car washes!! He legit has panic attacks when we get them. He shakes and crys and it is pretty sad to watch. It's odd because he talks about car washes all day long with his cars at home, as if he likes them, but is scared to death of them. 

One day, when he didn't take a nap, he legit just laid his head down on the dinner table and fell asleep. 

Hallie

Oh cute little Hallie! She is the smartest little 6, almost 7, year old that I know. She can read incredibly well and is just so far above her age level academically. She still chooses to sleep on her floor rather then her bed at night. She is a very picky eater and decides on something pretty much everyday that she no longer likes. She is very creative and excellent at problem solving.  She is obsessed with Stockton and such a great helper with him. She doesn't like to hear him cry and will do just about anything to make him stop. She is a natural leader and enjoys taking charge at home or when playing with her friends. She has an obsession with the TV and would watch it all day if I let her. She honestly doesn't even care what is on the TV, just as long as it is on. 

One day Hallie spilled something on the floor. While trying to clean it up, she accidentally unrolled the entire paper towel roll. She then, trying to fix the mistake, rolled up the roll and placed it on the counter like this. Problem solved! Haha

She took this picture herself. I'm not sure what she was doing. Silly girl. 

We are going to Bear Lake with Russ' family in August. Every family was told to bring an activity for the kids to do while up there. Russ decided to create the "Ahlberg Family Olympics." He has several events for the kids to do and, with the help of Hallie, has made medals for all the events.

Pickle ball medals and Luke's face on a poop emoji for the Log Dump event. 

I absolutely love that Hallie can read and write! It is so fun to watch her grow up. She writes notes all the time. I particularly loved this apology letter she wrote me. "Dear mom. Sorry for saying your mean. Kids think everything is funny. I love you." 

Prior to going to Shelli's one week, Hallie wrote down Stockton's schedule to help Shelli. "First feeding, 4:30 P M. Tired at 2:30ish. Roll over time 2:00ish." Haha! She's just too cute!

We signed her up for an art class in the neighborhood. It was twice a week that lasted all month long. I'm not sure how much she learned but she loves creating artwork! 

Little clay rocks they made in class. Her plate is the bottom left. Her rocks all had smiley faces on them!

YM Campout

As of about a year ago the bishopric is also the young mens presidency. So, being the 1st counselor in the bishopric, Russ goes to all the young men activities and campouts. This week they had their "high adventure" campout. Russ went for 2 days and 1 night. During his time there he went on a 11 mile hike with the young men. Russ said it the hardest exercise he has done in a long time. He hasn't pushed himself that much in forever. He said he had already burned 3,000 calories like 3 hours into the hike. All he packed with him was a few granola bars and a PB&J, which wasn't enough to sustain him. His knees were killing him so much on the trek back down the mountain that he was almost in tears. You know it is bad if Russ is close to crying because he never cries. Poor guy was exhausted from the hike for about a week afterwards. And for about 10 days afterwards he had terrible heartburn anytime he was the slightest bit hungry. I was concerned with how crappy he felt for so long after the hike but luckily with time his symptoms went away.

Garth Brooks

For a few years I have been wanting to see Garth Brooks in concert. I love his songs and I hear that he puts on a great show! Finding babysitters is tough and Russ doesn't really care all that much about music so we didn't get tickets for him. I asked my sister in law, Lauren, and her Aunt, Kim, to come with me. The company could have been a little better, only because I'm not besties with these two and not completely comfortable with them, but we all still had fun nonetheless. We had amazing seats...middle view, isle seats and we got a cement backrest too!

The concert was PACKED! It was complete madness to get to our seats!! We were barely scooting past others to get to our seats. Everyone was shoved up against another and it was hot! Nothing like someone else's sweaty arm rubbing against yours! The whole time I just kept thinking, "I'm so glad I'm vaccinated, I'm so glad I'm vaccinated." With how large the crowd was, no one being masked, and how jammed we all were together I was sure it was a perfect petri dish for COVID. 

The concert was really fun! I wish I knew all the words to every song but he does put on a fun show. He is just such a likable artist! Stockton is still not taking a bottle and he basically cried himself to sleep while I was gone. Poor baby and poor Russ! 

Hallie Swim Lessons

Hallie has become such a great little swimmer! I trust her entirely to swim in an uncrowded pool without a life jacket/puddle jumper on. She also loves the water and would swim for hours! We signed her up for some more swim lessons, not really for the instructing part of it, as I'm not really impressed with this swim school, but more for just something fun for her to do during the summer.