Why do all blog posts have to have a title?

We have been enjoying some beautiful weather here! Mother's Day was nice, very relaxing, which was just what I wanted (believe me, an outing at this point in our lives is NOT for my enjoyment most of the time!). Last weekend, Brian's parents came to visit and it was supposed to rain all weekend and it turned out to be beautiful and mostly sunny:). We even got to have a date afternoon/early night while they were here! We went on an underground Seattle tour, which we both really enjoyed! I think I know more about Seattle's history than most locals now! We then went to Ivar's for dinner and had some delicious seafood - yum! Sunday morning we went over to Juanita Beach Park, and it was a really fun morning! Adam actually went into the water and his pants ended up getting really wet (I really didn't anticipate needing swim trunks, it was cloudy and not all that warm when we left!). On Monday, Nathan and I drove them to the airport and had some lunch with them there before they left. All in all a nice weekend!

Our landlords hired landscapers to come clean up the yard and it was a big improvement! They tilled up the viney weird stuff in the front yard and Brian planted grass seed last week. Hope it grows! What else is new . . . not too much. We did plan our vacation in the beginning of July! A few nights in Seaside, Oregon in a beachfront hotel, and then we are off to Sunriver Resort in Oregon for 5 nights! It looks like a really fun place, and I have gotten many recommendations from random people in Facebook groups, so it must be awesome:). We also decided when Brian's parents were here that when we go up to Alberta in August, we are going to tent it for our weekend with Brian's family in Kananaskis. They were talking about renting a trailer for us, but it was just going to cost way too much money for the two, maybe three nights that we would be there. So, instead of blowing up the whole family get-together (which is apparently what would have happened if we had backed out) we decided to go all in and sleep in a tent! I went to Costco the next day and bought a really big tent that should be big enough for years to come, and we are going to hopefully try it out in our backyard this weekend (Lynsey is really excited about it, but it's looking quite likely that it will rain all weekend . . . fingers crossed that the forecast is wrong again!).

Adam has started peeing himself when he gets upset. He doesn't always do it, but it is a very real possibility now and he has peed on OUR BED a few times in the last month! Very frustrating behavior! Certainly we are trying not to overreact to it, and I am reasonably confident that this is just a phase as he discovers what is in his power to do to "fight back", but it can be quite difficult not to get angry about it. We had a bit of a scare last week with our insurance company (again). We got a pile of statements for bills sent to them from RSA for January thru April, and they basically said that they were only covering half of the cost of the claims and that we owed RSA in the neighborhood of $15K. HEART ATTACK! And of course I only got this Friday at 3pm, so it took some doing to reach someone at RSA that could tell me what was going on. The insurance company was able to tell us that they weren't denying any of the claims, just that the hourly rate RSA was billing was way higher than insurance would pay. When we talked to RSA, they said that they were discounting the overages and that they were billing at too high of a rate for some reason . . . it was a bit complicated, but after a lengthy chat with their accountant, I actually feel confident that they are doing things right. We only have to pay the co-insurance on the amount that insurance is covering, so all is well! Seriously the school year is almost over and I am STILL getting heart attacks from this insurance billing! Yikes, this better be the last one!

Nathan continues to put together longer and more interesting sentences. The other day, we were having ice cream, and as I was taking a bite of his he grabs it back and says, "Hey, give me back my ice cream!". Definitely learning about self-advocacy! There is still a lot of tension between him and Adam, with a lot of physical exchanges, but I am very much hoping as Nathan gets older these will smooth out. Sigh - I miss the days when Adam wouldn't hurt a fly! He still isn't really aggressive and you can see in his face that he doesn't want to hurt other people, but for some reason, Nathan just really gets under his skin and it's like he has this compulsion to hit him! Self control takes a lot of practice, he just needs to keep working on it (with our help!).

Fun family weekend back in Alberta!

We had a great weekend in Edmonton! Was I expecting the snow? Not exactly. But the Fehr clan persevered and still had a great time at the Run/Walk on Sunday! Lynsey and I flew in late Friday night and spent Saturday morning/afternoon with Brian's parents. We headed over to Martin and Angie's around supper time for the big pre-race gathering. It was a great time! So nice to catch up with so much family! Sunday we woke up to snow and just below freezing temperatures. I was a bit annoyed, but still ready! I ran the 10K (well, my GPS watch said it was only 9.76km, full disclosure!) in 58:35. I was happy with that, especially considering that there was a hill at the end of each 5K section (it was 2.5k, then turn around and run to the start, and then turn around and do that loop again). You will see from the pictures that I was much more chipper at the 5K mark, even waving at our awesome photographer, Dion. I look like I might be close to death as I'm finishing the race. It was pretty exhausting, I really pushed myself! It felt good! Lynsey walked the 2K with some other family members, she was saying she wanted to do the 5K but the adults she was with didn't let her (I also know her and think she would not have actually wanted to do 5K, so I'm really glad that she was told no!). Everyone had a great time, and there was lots of talk of doing it again next year! You can bet I will be coming again:). Lynsey had lots of fun and spent a lot of time with Grandpa Kroeker this weekend, too - he told her many stories as she was sitting by the fire, very cute:).

Nathan is really using his manners these days - I hear a lot of "please" and "thanks" from him! This morning when I was getting him changed for swimming lessons, he actually peed in the big toilet! Very exciting! Later today I tried to get him to aim and hit Cheerios in the little potty, but he thought I meant physically hit them so he kept reaching in with his hand and hitting them haha! I laughed so hard! Maybe we'll have to give him some more time before he understands that one:). He has quite a temper these days, too, with a very strong opinion on plate color and what shoes he wants to wear (which these days is only his new sandals, rain or shine!). He even has an opinion on the songs I sing him - his favorite right now is "You are my Sunshine". Interesting little guy, that's for sure!

Adam had a bit of a breakthrough at preschool the other day - three unscripted sentences in a row, out of the blue! Apparently, he had been sitting in the couch area and looked in the wagon and said, "There's a carpet square in the wagon". There was indeed a carpet square in the wagon! Then he had walked over to the window and looked out at some guys playing basketball outside. He says, unprompted, "They're playing basketball". THEN he points at the girls bathroom door and says, "I want that door open" and walked over and opened the door. Wow! We always wonder what his abilities are, and it would seem he has the ability to put a complete sentence together without a problem when he tries. Why he doesn't try more often, we don't really know, but I can only hope and pray that he will be experimenting more and more with these sentences! I love how these moments often come after we start to worry and wonder if he is making any progress at all - God is so good!

My favorite quote from Adam in the last while came yesterday. He had a bit of a messy number 2 job (sorry for the TMI but it's vital to the story:)) and Brian comments, "This is going to need a first class wiping". Adam gets a bit stressed and his typical fashion for protesting says, "Want to say bye bye first class wiping!". He says, "want to say bye bye ______" a lot, but for some reason this just sounded really funny and made me laugh a lot, so I wanted to write it down. Such a special guy! One day maybe he will just say "no", but until then, he will continue to protest in his own way, I guess!

Lynsey lost her second tooth yesterday! It was incredibly loose for several days, and it took all of my will power not to just go in there and yank it out! I could hardly stand it, I really am a control freak! She was being very picky about what she could eat, only eating soft foods and it was becoming a bit of a pain. So finally yesterday, I told her to check the tooth with her fingers, and I just tapped on her hand a bit and it came out. I hadn't really planned on doing it, but I guess I really just couldn't help myself! To be fair, I barely touched her, it was really ready to come out. The best part of this story is that she got this note ready for the tooth fairy and was so excited to see what the tooth fairy brought her, and since we had to wait until the kids were asleep to play Tooth Fairy it had left our minds, and we completely forgot! Wow did I ever feel terrible! She was so disappointed, the poor girl:(. I couldn't believe the parenting fail! She was okay after a little bit, we convinced her that the Tooth Fairy gets very busy and sometimes takes a few days to come. We better not drop the ball tonight!

Apparently the only pictures I have from the last week and a half are pictures that Dion took for our family on race day. He took a lot of good ones, here are the ones that included myself or Lynsey! Must remember to take some pictures of the boys for the next post!