Sunset Hike at Bake Oven Knob

This past Saturday was a big day! Darin had worked the night shift and I was battling the stomach bug. Although those things didn't keep us from our Saturday fun. I ran my first 10k (6.21 miles) race in the morning and did okay, for how I was feeling. I finished at 53:25 and took 6th out of 15 runners in my age group (20-29) and 39th out of 116 runners. Before Saturday my goal was to finish under 50 minutes but on the day of the race I felt so blah my goal changed to just finishing and being proud of what I did. I am grateful for Brook and pushing me like crazy that morning...that is what I call an awesome friend, someone who will push you until you need to puke! haha. ;) It was a great experience.
When I got home it was nap time for Nash and ALL of us slept for the rest of the afternoon and then some, we were all exhausted. When we woke up it was time for a sunset hike with our family group. We so wanted to bail out but realized it was a chance to get some fresh air and spend some quality time as a family, which is very limited these days with Darin's schedule. So we made the effort and we are glad that we did.

The Hendershot family, Dowling's, Aaron and Emory and Holtzhafer clan joined in on the fun.

This was a fun little hike. Some climbing up boulders and a pretty view at the end. Darin packed Nash in on his back.
Maria H. is pregnant with her 5th child, so I volunteered to carry all of her families luggage just so she could concentrate on the trail and her kids. I think I was referred to as a "water mule," but I prefer "pack horse," because who really wants to be a mule?! ;)

Darin and I were pretty exhausted and not feeling so great, but the family time we experienced was priceless. We were pretty happy to see our bed that night and the next day was not so pleasant with a lot of rest and recuperation before Darin was off again to work.

Basement Playroom...

I am not a fan of wasted space and in this house I feel like the attic and basement are wasted space. So I have tried to put them to as much use as I can. During the winter when the attic is to cold I turned the creepy basement into a fun playroom for Nash.

I took this picture for the fact that the first time I invited Emory down to play in the playroom he looked down our stairs and with a panicked voice says "Ahh it's old!" It is funny how when I go to other people's homes and we play in the basement they have nice carpet and dry wall! Not us!
This is our noodle/bean center. Instead of having a water or sand table. We have a noodle/bean table. We had a lot of noodles and beans in our food storage that expired so I put them to good use by letting Nash play with them. Yes I do watch carefully so we do not have a choking incident.

The kids love this and I love that it is easy clean-up!

This is the coloring/craft station.

And of course I have colors and shapes all over the room, and we play games with them.

This is the playroom. I saw those cute banner flags on my friend Becky's Blog (Corduroy's Closet) and decided to make us some to cover up the ugly pipes. I think it makes it more friendly.

The floor was pretty gross so I put down a big tarp and an area rug.

That little house is made from my small quilting frames. The basement ceiling was what I think made it so creepy. It was bare beams with pipes and a ton of spider webs. I went through and cleaned those up and made a drop ceiling from plastic dollar store table-cloths and fishing wire. Now it is pretty inviting and a comfortable play area. After we coaxed Emory down the stairs he said he wanted to come again and play in the basement playroom. SUCCESS!

PlaySchool

It has been 6 months since Nash has been receiving Early Intervention for his sensory issues and we have seen some BIG improvements. We now receive Occupational Therapy once a week and Speech twice a week. We had to up our services with Speech because Nash seems to be digressing at times. The Speech Therapist is always baffled with Nash because he does not follow any normal speech patterns. Nash is definitely his own little self! Each week Nash and I are given homework and a lot of times the activities we are asked to do would be easier if we had more bodies. So I decided to put together a PlaySchool. Each Thursday from 9-11am we have 4 children ages 3 and younger dropped off at our house and we have a school that is centered around play. Much of the activities we do are sensory areas that Nash struggles with. All of the children come from families that have just recently moved into the area. I hand picked them based on their home circumstances. Some of their moms are having child #2 and need some time to prepare. Others come from families where the mommy just needs a break, and then there are a few that Nash just plays well with and that is why I invited them to our PlaySchool.

Will - a friend from Club Mom. I love it when Nash and Will play together, there is always a ton of laughter and a lot of running!

Travis - friend from the ward. He is a good helper with new concepts, I can always count on Travis understanding the task quickly and modeling it for the other kids.

Camryn - friend from the ward. She also is the oldest of the children and very helpful when working on language. Whenever I take her picture she always closes one eye! haha. Nash seems to have a crush on Camryn. The other week he kept trying to give her a kiss. The nursery at church has reported this happening as well! UH-OH!

Ava - a friend from Club Mom. She is such a cutie. Although, Nash and Ava love to push each others buttons. If Nash comes near her she starts panicking saying "Mama! Baby! Mama!" :)

The way our house is set up I am able to have different activities in each room. It helps our routine flow smoothly, which makes it less stressful. Sometimes I think I am crazy to run a PlaySchool alone with five children 3 and younger! YIKES! I LOVE IT!

You may notice that my child is not in a lot of these pictures. This is because Nash still has issues with people. A lot of PlaySchool is spent ignoring Nash's tantrums and trying to draw him into the activities. Most days it works, although there are some days when we have to put him in another room and let him figure things out. Books seem to always calm him down.

I have seen a BIG improvement in Nash since we started PlaySchool back in February. He is being more tolerant and able to share his mommy a little more each time. I love it because I get to teach. I do not charge the moms anything, it just makes me feel good that I can do a service for them each week and my little boy is receiving some good peer interaction while learning at the same time! You can take the teacher out of the classroom but you can't take the classroom out of the teacher! :)

Messes...Uh-Oh!

During breakfast I usually spend my time cleaning up dishes from the night before and getting a few chores done so that when Nash is done eating we can start our day. The other morning I was on my hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor, having a sweet little conversation with Nash. Soon our conversation turned into "Uh-Oh, Mama, Uh-Oh!" my reply back with out looking at him was "Ya uh-oh this floor is a MESS!" this exchange went back and forth until I finally looked at him and realized what he REALLY was saying to me!

At first my shoulders dropped and I hung my head thinking "great another mess to clean up!" But then I looked at those big brown eyes and realized life has little messes, and those messes are all part of the learning process...his and mine. On my mission, Matthew and I had a little motto "Win little victories!" The little victory in this picture is Nash is finally touching messy things! haha. As I have said before he has a sensory issue, the OT/Speech and I have been working hard on getting Nash to tolerate different textures. We have been successful with finger painting, water and sand. We are still working on soap, applesauce,pudding and many other things.

First Ice Cream Cone!

I think he LOVED it!

Conference & Park Fun!

After Nash woke up from his nap between sessions the kids needed to burn off some energy before the next session. So we took a walk down to the community park below our house.

Nash's hair cracks me up!

He is really telling a story to someone.

There is no wonder why Nash has such a beautiful smile!

Nash and Darin ready for the big attack!

The zip-line was a big hit with the kids.

Even Nash thought he was a big boy and had to try it out.

And of course Darin had to push the limit and let go of him....look at those muscles at work!

Egg Decorating

After the first session during Nash's nap we let the Ockerman kids and Darin decorate some easter eggs.

No he did not blink, he really looked like that. :) We had to stop Darin from taking over the decorating, he was caught stealing the kids eggs and re-decorating them!

Nick was doing a demonstration of a child posing for an overly camera happy mother! :) Hopefully Nash doesn't end up looking like that...

The eggs turned out pretty awesome!