Private Swimming Lessons

Private swimming lessons the week of June 6 with Miss Jo were fantastical for us all. This lady is the sweetest, most patient, yet persistent swimming teacher. Just what my kids needed. At one point Kaela was refusing to do what Miss Jo asked and Miss Jo looked over at me smiling and said, "I'm just as stubborn as she is, so I'm not going to give up until she does it!" It was then I knew she was worth every penny.

They had her all to themselves for 30 minutes each day for one week. Kaela was thrilled to learn to swim but that girl became so whiny when Miss Jo asked her to do something new. I decided to write a few of the classics down. I also recorded Luke's daily progress:
Day 1: Kaela was refusing to try something and Miss Jo said in her little southern accent, "Do you want to get better (sounds like "badder")?". Kaela confusedly repeats, "I don't understand what you're saying!" Kaela did swim on the first try though! She was so ready.
Luke refused to put his face in the water.

Day 2: Kaela states, "I think I'm getting sea sick".
Luke yells grumpily, "I can't do it!"

Day 3: Kaela squeals, "my innerds hurt too much!" when she didn't want to put her face in the water while swimming.
Luke's face goes in the water and he loves it and he tells Miss Jo, "sometimes I pee in the pool."

Day 4: Kaela told Miss Jo before their lesson started, "I'm not going to whine today." And Miss Jo claimed she didn't! I had to leave for this lesson and when I returned Miss Jo said about Luke, "This one was so brave he had me scared to death!"

Day 5: Kaela broke out in a rash and fever so we postponed (no wonder she was so whiny most of the time!). Their last lesson was really great and they were both doing exactly what Miss Jo wanted and were all smiles. That is, until a big old lightening bolt flew out of a cloud literally feet from us and everyone bolted out of the water. Sadly, it had to end early before they could jump off her diving board.
These swimming lessons saved us. I can go to the pool now confident with Kaela's ability to swim, and Luke is much more comfortable too. It's made for a lovely summer at our neighborhood pool.

Emmy's First True Laugh

Emmy is a walking, babbling, steal-your heart little munchkin. That girl has me smiling at every turn. She has been our only child, though, that doesn't seem to truly laugh. She giggles here and there but doesn't surrender to it...until now. Amazingly , I caught some of her first real laughing fit on video.

My Little Lemon Tree Project

All of my extra time lately has been spent on creating a new blog called The Lemon Tree Project. It is a blog where life's "light bulb" moments can be shared. Simple tips, tricks, and advice to make life easier and more fun. This random idea has felt, not to be cheesy, inspired.

Since being jolted out of my comfort zone with the new move, I've been sort of going through this stay-at-home mom crisis and needed to feel like I was contributing to the world and growing as a person. This blog idea came to me and when I dare told Joey about it, he really encouraged me. So, after almost calling it "Life Shared", "Fireflying", and "Unexpected Insight" - the Lemon Tree finally wafted into this brain of mine and it just flowed from there.

Where did I come up with the name you ask? I always adored the Lemon Tree in our front yard growing up and as a kid I loved to climb and practically live in trees (no kidding, does that make me so strange?). So, what better place for me to "sit in" for a while than my own little Lemon Tree.

You can click on the "button" Katie created to check it out. And before you do, just know that she is the talent behind the beauty and graphics of the blog. I couldn't have done it without her!

Rockin' the Mid-Week Date

This is me and Joey on a hot mid-week date at what they call here a "Walmart Shareholders Meeting". This was just one of the many free concerts they put on when they have these so-called "meetings".

This is REO Speed Wagon entertaining us with songs I didn't even know I liked, like, "I Can't Fight This Feeling Anymore" and "Heard It Through A Friend Who Heard it Through A Friend Who..." and other awesomely 70's songs.

This is REO Speedwagon's drummer, who kept me in giggle fits with his pursed lips, wife beater, and American Girl Doll hair. Classic.

These are the Skinners, our bestest buds and neighbors out here, who weren't fortunate enough to find a school night sitter. Love this candid of them. That little cute guy Connor is Luke's best friend. They can't seem to get enough of each other.

This is The Bare Naked Ladies, the reason Joey wanted to go. And before you size my man up, it's a band people! They sing that "Chickity Chine of the Chinese Chicken" song and "If I Had A Million Dollars". Arkansas didn't seem that into it, but were.

This is a video of the sign language interpreters that were signing & dancing their hearts out to every song. I've never seen anything like it, and man could they groove. The Bare Naked Ladies couldn't get over the fact that they were, and I quote, "deaf people's favorite band".

And to top off the night, the newbie babysitter, who just so happens to live a few houses over, had a glowing report! Good Times.

We (He) Did It!

Lucas Dale Hobson is officially potty trained! Phew.  I promised myself I wasn't going to stress over potty training him because trying to train Kaela just about sent me over the edge.  So, I figured I'd let him figure it out on his own.  Only that wasn't happening.  Joey finally had had enough and encouraged me to at least get this boy started a good month ago.  So I did.  And 4 Weeks Later we dare leave the house in BIG BOY UNDIES!  So nice.

Turtle Crossing

Little Graduate

Preschool is officially no more for Kaela. Her graduation was Tuesday and it was adorable, funny, and sweet. Kaela is one who revels in the spotlight and made a million faces and poses while sitting in the front row to prove it. All we could do was laugh at the little ham. We were so proud to watch her walk up and get her diploma! She couldn't run fast enough to the cake afterward, but we did manage to get a few pictures:
Miss Sheena has been the perfect teacher for Kaela and she is rarin' and ready for Kindergarten now.

Our Own Private Vacation

We spent two nights and three days in Branson, Missouri this past weekend. I love that we are only 2 hours away from such a unique place. Branson has shows galore, fabulous shopping, and water/theme parks to boot. So we went ahead and bought season passes to Silver Dollar City, the local theme park. It will be a little hot spot for us while we live here.

It really was as Joey put it a "stress free" and a fun family bonding time. The down side was no sleep. Even when we turned out all the lights in our little hotel room and lay still, one of the kids would make a noise and the other echo it, Emmy being the biggest culprit. The sleeping part was hopeless but our days were filled with lots of fun, good food, silly rides, and laughter. Definitely a tradition we will continue to uphold.
A big shout out to Joey for braving most of the spinny rides. It may not look like it but I promise I was there and did go on my fare share rides with the kids!

Mother's Day Attempt, Take 5

Yes, my 5th official Mother's Day and it was a success. I woke up to beautiful Red Gerbera Daisies, a scrumptious German Pancake puffed to near perfection (the best Joey's made to date), and ended the day with an incredible steak and potato meal (Joey's cooking is one of the things that stole my heart when we were dating). The highlight of the day was playing with my goofy kids whilst Joey was cleaning up the kitchen! Below is our attempt at some pictures before we whisked them off to dreamland:


m
I'm indebted to my own mother who taught by example the joy in motherhood and who never raised her voice, except, of course, when I trotted off to girls camp once with one of her nice forks :) I try hard every day to be the calming and loving mother that she was to us rascals. I love you mom!

Nostalgia

We finally reveled in a warm Easter this year! Amazing. And it brought back memories of Easter's past. I bought sucker molds and made chocolate suckers with the kids. It was very nostalgic for me as it is one of my favorite memories of Easter when I was a wee lass. My mom would create a homemade candy masterpiece each year for us kids, that probably took her hours to make and that we devoured in seconds. One year she broke out these amazing sucker molds and her tupperware full of colored chocolate wafers and let us help her make some. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. So, above is my Easter Bunny attempt at a homemade treat, the exact mold I remember the most. Yum!

Coloring the Easter eggs is always a highlight. They colored and crafted 18 of those babies and still wanted to create more! Hard boiled eggs are in high demand at our house.
Easter morning was a delicious adventure. The Easter bunny always tends to overdo it at our house. The kids even got a couple of non-candy surprises that brought giddy excitement. Kaela and Luke went to town eating to their hearts content and Emmy was thrilled just to shake her plastic eggs over and over again. It was nice to stay home and watch conference. What an uplifting and inspired conference it was! So much talk about strengthening families. It was perfection.

What The...

I forgot to add this to my last post but it probably deserves a post of its own. This beastly possum was discovered by Joey. I happened to be right there when he opened the garage door to throw something away (notice how close the door is to the garbage) and shabam! His reaction was rather manly with no screams or door slamming, okay, well, maybe a little door slamming. Apparently this is a commonplace if you leave your garage doors open too long in the winter here. It hissed at Joey and Jessen (thank heaven he was there) as they dueled the wild thing and got him out. Crazy!

Be Our Guest

Joey's brother, Jessen, his wife Linda and their four kids Evan, Thomas, Allison, and Claire came for a visit over the week of Spring Break. Our first house guests, so this was exciting! Joey and Jessen were able to bond while watching their cherished BYU basketball, Linda and I bonded while taking a well-deserved shopping day, and the kiddos bonded while... I know, we thought we escaped the snow when we moved here, but it reared its ugly head the first couple of days. The kids didn't seem to mind. The boys even tried a little croquet in the fluff. The girls made the snow into suds they could paint onto the driveway. Nothing better than snack time, something we did lots of! The kids all played really well and made great memories together.
The local bounce house was a must and everyone jumped, slid, and goofed off for hours.
Our good friends loaned us their Super Mario Wii game, which was a big hit with Evan, and everyone for that matter. It even kept all of us nostalgic adults up until the wee hours of the night battling through the worlds to save the princess. It's my favorite game EVER.

"Wukie" & "Claire Bear" would go off and play beautifully on occasion. This was one of those moments. Two peas in a pod!
The main event was a Nickelodeon show featuring Kai-Lan, Dora, The Wonder Pets, & The Backyardigans. Everyone watched mezmorized as they watched the singing and dancing characters come to life. A definite success.
I was so proud of Linda and I for braving the many events with the kids during the week while our husbands were hard at work. Props to us!! And props to the guys for being such dedicated providers!! (notice Evan who appears in both adult pictures, that boy is hilarious)
The time flew by and before we knew it we were waving goodbye to the back of their van. All in all it was a perfect visit with lots of laughs and new discoveries (Linda discovered a light we didn't know existed in our ceiling fan which is now lovingly called the "Linda Light"), so thanks for making the trek to see us Jelinda family and come again soon!

Birthday Bonanza!

Lucas Dayale - as he pronounces it - turned 3 on March 8. To celebrate we threw him a little Buzz Lightyear party with our babysitting group the Friday beforehand. He thrived on every moment and especially reveled in the "Happy Birthday" song to him, which he had anticipated for weeks by sporadically singing it to me with his name at the center. That kid is so dang cute!
Luke gives THE best reactions to presents...
We began the morning of his actual birthday in usual Hobson fashion with waffles and presents. He got a Wiggles Guitar, the Cooties game, a transformer, Toy Story figurines, and two small Buzz Lightyear's (which was his birthday wish that morning and unbeknownst to us came true!)
The two Buzz's came with us everywhere that day - to lunch at Chick Fil-A with dad, to pick up Kaela at school, to pick out a movie, and to Chuck E Cheese's that night. A dream come true when Chuck E himself came out to give Luke a birthday hug.
Check out Kaela on the big screen, remind you of anyone at that age?
Luke just dug into his cake this year, it's good we had all already had a piece!
We love you Luke and are blessed to have such a sweet and fun little man like you in our family! Happy 3 dude.



Emmy Lyn turned 1 just one week later, on March 16. I can't believe our little baby is 1 year old! Really, this has come all too quickly...didn't I just give birth to her? Mind boggling I tell you.

Her day began with presents and German pancakes because let's face it, she had no say :) With a little help from Kaela and Luke Emmy unveiled a Little People Camper set, cute clothes, and a popper toy.My favorite moment was riding in the car with Emmy facing forward, a momentous occasion every time.Just before dinner I braved Chuck E Cheese alone with all three kids. It went incredibly well. This is the biggest and cleanest I've ever been to, so it make's going even fun for me.We continued the celebration by having fabulous grub at Red Robin. Emmy LOVES their fries.
And at last we sang to her, helped her blow out her candle and watched as she...
wanted nothing to do with her chocolate peanut butter frosting cupcake. Honestly, I think she just had one too many fries for dinner :)
Happy 1st Birthday to You Emms! We can't squeeze you enough and are grateful to have such a sweetheart in our family.