The last few weeks

I have been super busy with packing, trying to keep the house clean, keeping my sanity and making sure Bentley is having fun. We have had a lot of fun days lately. I want to make sure Bentley has really good memories of Utah and if he doesn't remember it when older he will be able to see pictures galore that will show him how much fun we have had in Utah. Here is what we have been up to as of lately.

We had a fun playdate with his cousins at our favorite park. The weather was supposed to be nice and warm however it was way too windy which made it feel way too cold so we were only able to stay for tops 2 hours but the kids had a blast at the park.

Another day we went to Wheeler Farm in Salt Lake which is one of my favorite places to go to. Its free which is a huge plus and they have tons of animals to go check out. Its a life working farm which means they even milk cows there. You can pay and they will let you milk one. We haven't done that yet but hoping we can this summer when we come to visit. My friend Ashley and her cute girl Brae came with us. Our kids have grown up together and are best friends, we are so sad to be leaving them but this day at the farm was the perfect playdate. They had a blast and gave us some good picture opportunities. They love each other. And can I just say that my favorite part is that Braelee calls Bentley "meme" she has called him this for years and continues to. I hope it never stops. We are already making plans on when they will come and visit us. Wish we could pick up all of our good friends and move them with us cause this cute family would be one of them.

We have never taken Bentley to the University of Utah campus so on a day I was dropping Jon off at school we went early and walked around while he showed us where everything is. It is a huge campus and so beautiful. We love this school. My mom was there with us and she was super impress with how big it was.

Then we headed to the zoo with Bentley's cousins and we had so much fun. All the animals were out moving around which made it fun. The only animal not out was the polar bear he was sleeping inside. I took my mom along with me and I am so glad I did because she had a blast hanging out with us and especially with Bentley.

Then another day we went up to Salt Lake City to walk around and spend the day together. We got a really late start but boy did we have fun. We went to the capital building which is beautiful. When we walked inside the ceiling was gorgeous and it had clouds painted on so immediately Bentley wanted to lay down in the middle of the building and look at the clouds and see which cloud animals we saw. We do this every time we have a picnic, its one of my favorite things to do. When I was a little girl I used to do this in Costa Rica and its so much fun to do with my boy. We then headed to temple square which is always breath taking especially around this time of year with all the flowers around. After that we walked over to City Creek and did some more walking around then got some yummy treats and let Bentley play on the playground. It was the perfect afternoon spend with people we love so much and are going to miss terribly.

Reality is starting to try and set in, I am trying as hard as I can to not allow it to set in just yet. Jon said I cannot have a breakdown till after wednesday, his last final. So till then I gotta keep it together.

Sad realization

Only 3 weeks left until we move away from Utah.

And it is finally hitting me and not in a good way. I am pretty sure from now on till who knows when, I might just be crying daily.

I am sure I'll survive cause that's what I always do but this move will be THE hardest move of my life and that's saying a lot since my move to the States from Costa Rica was pretty traumatizing. This one for sure will be super hard.

The thing I am most sad about is the fact that Bentley won't grow up with his Tita around the corner and him not getting to continue on having a close relationship with his Tio's and Tia.

I am really close to my brothers. I see them at least 3 times a week and I love them so much. They are pretty special human beings, I got lucky in that department.

My brothers due to their illness come across as weird because of how they talk or their mannerisms so people judge them and therefore they don't really have a social life other than hanging out with me or Jon. In 3 weeks that will not be a possibility which breaks my heart into a million pieces.

I hate this part of moving, so not fun.

Last time I left my family and moved across country is was hard but I was young and naive and didn't think things through all the way. Now I am once again having to leave them and this time I know the reality of what this means. I'll probably only get to see them a few times a year, no more calling my brothers to come to my rescue, no more gym or workout partners, no more breakfast togethers, no more taking Bentley to the park, no more going for a ride in my brothers sick car, no more having my mom come and help me clean, no more a lot of things that I have taken for granted. This truly sucks. I now know that most likely we won't ever come back to Utah to live unless a miracle happens. I married a California boy and I am pretty sure that's where he wants to live. Who am I to tell him no? I am not a dream killer and like I always say as long as I am taken care of I will follow him wherever that's what a wife does.

This will be a totally new chapter in our life and I am so nervous. We will be having to live on much less than we were here in Utah. We are going through every bill we pay and seeing how we can cut things out completely or at the very least pay less for things. No more clothes shopping or going out or driving around. Money will be super tight. These last few months have been a little taste of that but not to the extreme of what it will be.

These next few weeks I have a lot of things that need to get done. A lot of packing will be going on plus some deep cleaning. I also have to go through Bentley's clothes and see what things I need to give away. It's so hard packing our clothes though because the weather the next few weeks will be bipolar some days super cold some day warm. I packed all of our winter jackets so the last few days we have been freezing with the temperature having gone as low as 30 degrees.

Well here I go off to do some cleaning and packing!

Forgiveness

This picture makes me happy.

Funny and weird cause just 2 years ago it would have angered me to no end and made me feel super sad.

Amazing what 2 years can do.

Growing up I had a really hard time forgiving. I held grudges for a very long time. I am known for not talking to my best friend growing up for about 3-4 years because he talked to some girl that I didn't like. Yeah crazy! I know. I am sure he thinks I am a weirdo. Then I went about 5 years not talking to another really good friend because of some boyfriend I had and something she said about him. This is probably one of the reasons why I see people who have friends from childhood and I don't. I hold grudges for too long and have a hard time forgiving others.

Since having Bentley I feel like I have been on a mission to better myself as I know I am a highly imperfect person but I want to be a better example to my boy.

I know that I make mistakes and hurt people and even make my Heavenly Father sad at times but yet I am forgiven. I want to be the type of person who can forgive easily. I am getting there people. I don't hold grudges as long and try to understand everyone's situation when things happen. I am starting to be able to forgive easier; I am not dumb so I will never forget how that person made me feel but I will forgive eventually.

That is what has happened with my father. I know he did some horrible things to me and my siblings but I have been able to see clearly how horrible of a childhood he had and how 50 some years of living a certain way will make you a damaged person. I know that he will never tell me the things I need to hear from him to have a real relationship with him but I also can no longer go on holding a grudge. I needed to let go of that weight I was carrying around that was making me an angry and bitter person which is not who I want to be known as. It has been amazing to be able to be in the same room as him. He isn't perfect and neither am I. He treats my boy good and to me that's all that matters at the moment. I really want Bentley to be able to choose who he wants in his life and not for it to be a choice based on my opinions.

None of this would have been possible without my Savior. I spend many nights crying my eyes out to him after my family went to sleep. I spend many nights reading and pondering and wishing and hoping. The most important thing is that those horrible nights where all I could do was pray to my Heavenly Father and Savior to please carry my weight just for a few hours so I could sleep I felt my Savior's warmth around me. I know my prayer were and continue to be answered on a daily basis. Sometimes I don't see it in the moment but when I sit down and look at what things have happened throughout my day I know for a fact my Heavenly Father and Savior are with me constantly. I know that my son can feel their presence too. We sit almost every night and talk about our day and most days my boy will tell me how he either saw Jesus or felt him around us, gives me goosebumps to hear those words come out of my boy. Those are the moments that make me feel like I must be doing something right with him.

Life is too short to live hating someone or bitter towards someone. We have all come to earth to gain a body and to suffer and be happy. We all go through hard times and make horrible choices and at some point need to ask for forgiveness so if I do my part and am able to forgive I would hope that when I have to stand in front of my God and Savior they will have mercy on me. I want to show this to my son and have him realize how special everyone is that comes into our lives.

4th birthday party

This year Bentley decided a while ago he wanted a Ninja Turtle themed party. Can I just say that my child likes making my life difficult. I love birthday parties and love making the decorations and favors and everything else that goes along with birthday parties but for some reason he always seems to pick themes that are still not super popular so no one has any party decor that I can go buy. I am left to come up with everything on my own. This year I was going to do party decor but money is tight so the only thing I was letting myself come up with was the party favors. We did the party at a fun center that Bentley loves going to and they had a pretty good deal on a package that was semi-private which meant we would only be there with children younger than 8. It all ended up costing me less than any other party I have thrown him and I think he had the most fun.

For the party favors I knew immediately I wanted to do something with slime and I had a bunch of cute ideas but once I got to making them I was stressing myself out too much and got my brother upset with me along with my husband so I figured it was time to give up and just not make it as cutesy as I wanted to. Oh well there is always next year. I still gave the kids slime but I just put it in a Ninja Turtle cup with a balloon and called it a day. I am sure my husbands prayers were answered when I told him that's what I would do and have to be ok with. 

I cannot say enough about this boy. He is the biggest blessing to have come into Jon and my life. We are so madly in love with him and think he is just the smartest, funniest, silliest, lovable, friendly, caring, cutest.....well he just is everything to us, we think pretty highly of him, can you tell? Everyone that meets him falls in love with him immediately I really think I have a pretty special spirit that was send down to earth just for me who my Heavenly Father knew I would need in this earthly life. Just writing this brings tears of joy to my eyes. I have been blessed by my Heavenly Father more than I deserve, truly. My life is that much richer because he is apart of mine. In only 4 years this boy has thought me more about life and love than anyone ever had in 25 years. I am no longer the same person I was 4 years ago and I only have one person to thank for that and that is this precious little man who 4 years ago made me the happiest mother. I promised myself and this boy that day that I would do everything in my life to make his life a  happy one and to love him no matter what happens in life. He knows at this early of an age that he is loved unconditionally no matter what he does he is loved. I love watching how he treats others and how much love he has for everyone he meets. I can see that the things we are teaching him that are important to both Jon and I are catching on. He treats people like he wants to be treated (most of the time). 

I am certain that as he gets older he will be the life of the party. Check him out busting a move in the pictures above. He is loud, loves to dance to any beat, can talk to anyone and make friends anywhere. I am really enjoying watching this boy grow up. Cannot wait for what the future holds.

My favorite reaction from him today. His tia Lisseti got him some spiderman swimming gear and he was blown away. He didn't even know he wanted this but the second he saw it he flipped and has been wearing it since we got home saying he can't wait to get to Meme's house this summer to go swimming with it. He was beyond spoiled today. I was kinda worried about this summer since money is tight we haven't been able to buy any summer clothes and didn't know how we would but after today we no longer need to worry about it because he is taken care of. Wow, really I am blown away by everyones generosity with my boy. And lets talk about toys for a minutes......completely spoiled. He now has every Ninja Turtle toy they make and that's not a joke. He recently got into Legos due to his best friend and I told a few people and they all went above and beyond with it, more Legos than I think my brothers ever had growing up and he is only 4. I have my husband and brother sitting here building these Legos for him and they are in Heaven, really. 

Let's talk about this picture for a minute. I love my mother-in-law, she made me laugh. I don't know if she did it on purpose or not but she got him a bunch of clothes and put it in a scale box and some other home thing box. When Bentley unwrapped it he was so confused as to why he would need that. The look on his face was priceless and had everyone laughing. Here he gave it to me to pull the stuff out and surprise him. Funny kid.

After the fun center we went back to my mom's house just Bentley and his cousins (since my mom's place is too small for too many people) and had a piñata waiting for them to go to town with. They had a blast and we laughed watching them all go at it. 

All in all everyone that came I think had a blast, I know the kids did and that's really all that matters right? What a fun party and fun day we had. So grateful to everyone that took time out of their busy lives to come and give some love to our boy means the world to Jon and I.

Wanting a repeat of yesterday

Do you ever have one of those days where everything goes right?

Your hair looks good, the house is cleaned early, exercise out of the way nice and early, no tantrums and even better yet no complaining, whining and you child even helps clean up (which never happens).

Well yesterday was that for me. I woke up early, which might be the reason why it felt like everything went smoothly. By the time Bentley woke up I had already cleaned and folded all my loads of laundry except for 2 which was huge considering I had about 6 loads of laundry that needed folding.

Maybe the fact that by then I wasn't stressing about cleaning or just that Bentley woke up in a fantastic mood but we had a wonderful day. This boy even ate everything I put in front of him which is always a struggle. Oh and how about the fact that he took a nap, only for 45 minutes but a nap nonetheless.

I am desperately trying to recreate yesterday so in the hopes of that I woke up super early and so far I have the whole house cleaned and have now folded those 2 loads of laundry left from yesterday. I am even in the process of making a yummy breakfast.

Lets hope yesterday can happen today but we will see as I am now having to go to the social security office and the health department to figure out Bentley's birth certificate since the last name on it is wrong.

Living Planet Aquarium

Since we had a sleep over at my sister-in-law's we decided we needed to do something fun with all the kids and grandma. We were going to take them to the zoo but the weather wasn't good enough for that to happen. The kids wanted to go swimming but thats a lot of work for everyone involved so we decided going to the aquarium would be the best thing to do with all the kiddos.

Bentley and I got lucky because my mother-in-law paid for us to get a year membership which if we go 2 times it pays for itself which is awesome. Now we have somewhere to go for free whenever we go down to visit his cousins.

I really enjoyed my time there. I went over 2 years ago with Bentley and he kinda liked it but wanted to be held the whole time which made for a miserable time but this time around he loved everything about it. He has recently gotten into fishes and so this was perfect.

We got to touch a shark and some sting rays which is always fun. Bentley was too scared to fully touch the shark, he barely touched it with one finger but it was pretty friendly and would stick its head out for you to touch it, way cool.

Bentley loved seeing the jelly fish which always weird me out. The next favorite was the penguins of course. I got him to look in the cage of the tarantula and he didn't see it at first since it was kinda camouflage but once he saw he freaked out, jumped and hit some guy and run as fast as he could to me, I was laughing so hard. We also go to see an anaconda which freak me out I don't do well with snakes. (My uncle died from a snake bite so growing up we knew snakes were evil.) It was weird seeing the snake living in a cage with fish and sting rays and that they can live together and she won't eat them, I didn't know that about snakes I thought they ate pretty much anything. Our next favorite spot was the frogs, they are pretty neat looking. They even had one that I have seen in Costa Rica just out in the wild, pretty awesome.

We were there forever and the kids loved it. We can't wait to go back now that we have a pass to go whenever.