Family Reunion

 

We went to up to Payson Lakes from Thursday to Saturday for the annual family reunion.  We had a great time even with all of the rain and rain and rain.  Here are some highlights:

Low clouds on Friday morning after raining all night…

There was no water at the camp this year…

Worms…

and more worms…

Campfire and sticks and marshmallows...

A beautiful hike (Grotto Trail?) to a waterfall…

Riding the toys…

Painting cute frogs, lizards, turtles and dragons…

Water balloons…

Watching “wipeout”…

An anonymous “wipeout” participant…

A little birthday party…

A rainbow…

The Regata (and the winning boat)…

The race is on…

A good time had by all… well, for the most part!

Brotherly Love

Air Show

I’m finally posting our pictures from the air show that was a couple of weeks ago.  We had a lot of fun and it was cool to see the airplanes and the amazing stunts that they do with them. 

We took the Front Runner from Salt Lake to Clearfield then a shuttle bus to Hill Air Force Base.  It was a lot of fun to take a train and it was nice to not have to worry about traffic, parking and directions. 

Another cool stunt.  Jaiden and Zach weren’t impressed by the noise that the F-4 Phantom (not pictured!) made.  They were screaming and when I checked on Austin, he was just chewin’ on his churro, not at all concerned. 

An undefeated stunt pilot (Jeff something??) from California.

We actually left before the Thunderbirds flew because we were tired, didn’t want to fight crowds leaving (there were at least a gazillion people there) and my camera battery died.  We did, however, get to see them from the Front Runner station and for a while once on the train.  Amazing!

It was a fun day and we’re glad we went!

An attempt at domestication…

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I got some Fuji apples for $.33 a pound a couple of weeks ago so I bought a box and made apple pie filling.  It tastes really good but it was my first time canning anything but salsa and several jars didn’t seal right.  So we’ve been having a lot of things with apple pie filling!  Apple pie, waffles, German pancakes, more waffles…. I hope everyone doesn’t get sick of it!  I’ve actually enjoyed it.  I just think that homemade is so much better than store bought!  I also made some apple pudding with the apples-another favorite!

A Broken Heart

Jaiden (names have been changed to protect privacy--oh, wait, no they haven't) was painting this evening and doing a great job. He is very creative and starting to pay attention to a lot of details. I went to put Zachy into bed when I heard a big, "Oh, no!" and went to see what was going on. There was red and blue paint on the wall and Jaiden was desperately trying to wipe it up with his little napkin. He was mostly just spreading it out. I got a wash cloth and together we started cleaning. I asked why it was on the wall and he said that he threw it. I don't have a clue how he did it. So as we were talking, he said, "Mommy, I'm really, really sorry. I broke your heart."

Wow, I thought. Where did he learn to say that? I was actually touched. Then he proceeded to tell me again that he was sorry because he broke my heart. Which heart? The one I had painted on a piece of paper was broken into pieces. And he was sorry because he broke the doggy too. Crazy boy!

Life is like potty training...

Warning: Content may offensive and/or crude...

Without going into too many details, I came up with a new analogy yesterday while I was in the thick of it.

Life is like potty training. At first, we don't really know what we're supposed to do and that's okay. But then we start to learn and little by little make progress. We still mess up and have accidents but we keep going. Sometimes we know what we're supposed to do but because we wait too long or are rebellious, we get into trouble again. And sometimes, we just plain don't want to do what we're supposed to do and as a result have to just sit in our own poop* for awhile before things get cleaned up.

And there is a lot of laundry to wash.

(*edited)

We moved and more posts below

So yes, we did move, again! After renting this last year, we decided that it was time to buy a place again. We were in a wonderful neighborhood and ward and they really helped us through the last year. We feel that we were very blessed to be there. I was really sad at the thought of moving. We started looking and after a while decided on a place in Spanish Fork. It was a short sale and so it took awhile for everything to go through but we finally closed and moved on May 15th, the day before the March of Dimes. It was an exhausting weekend!

It is a twin home that was built in 2006. It’s a rambler with an open floor plan that makes keeping track of the boys so much easier. It will also be easier for Zach to get around in a wheelchair. It has an unfinished (but framed) basement with room for a large family room. The backyard (also unfinished) has a lot of room for the boys and we’re really excited to finish it a little at a time. The ward is good and we’re just starting to get to know people but it seems like a good neighborhood. We like that we are close to the freeway and stores so errands are easy to run. It’s nice to be in a place of our own again!

Check out the posts below! There are more posts to come….

Happy Birthday Jaiden!

Jaiden turned 4 today! He was very excited about his birthday and his new water gun. That was all he wanted.

That and the fire truck birthday cake that I was going to make when we celebrated Zach’s and his birthday with family. Well he remembered first thing this morning about the cake and so I had to make it today. I couldn’t find all of the stuff I needed and made it in a hurry with little hands helping me.

Helping hands…

I won’t go into details but it was a disaster. (Not really because of the helping hands, just my lack of preparation…) He still seemed happy with it but I will make a good one for the family get-together.

Happy Birthday!

We went to a matinee and saw UP. It was fun! He also got a couple of new outfits and will get some church shoes as soon as we can find them. Don’t even get me started on how hard it is to find shoes for boys, especially church shoes! I digress…..

He is a smart boy and loved preschool this last year. He knows his colors and shapes and some letters and his numbers. He knows his name and is learning his phone number. He is always asking questions and has a great imagination.

Some of the fun things he says are:

• Mom, I’m just pretending. (Often when he’s doing something he shouldn’t.) This also applies to Zach and Austin.
• Lasterday
• Footnails (toenails)

Okay, my mind just drew a blank but he really says funny things….

We need a gate at the top of the stairs...

Zach has decided in the last couple of weeks that he is ready to move and is figuring out ways to get where he wants to go. He rolls a little bit and pushes himself backwards and rotates. We've been working on commando crawling at therapy and he's starting to figure it out.

One day I left him by the couch and was distracted for a couple of minutes just to come and find him by the stair rail about ten feet away. So yeah, it's time to get a gate!

He has also starting to get into things...

This was where he started...

...and this is where he ended...


He covered that distance pretty quickly because he really wanted my camera!

He still gets really frustrated because he'll get stuck or tired and just really wants to be involved in things.

On Friday, we went to the Spina Bifida clinic at Primary Children's. Everything looked good. The doctors were all happy with his progress. The orhopedist want's to see how he does with putting weight on his feet before deciding if he needs braces or not. He also had a renal ultrasound to make sure that his kidneys are healthy and they looked great. His shunt looks good and he clapped for everyone who came in.

He's definitely growing up and knows exactly what he wants. Today he threw a fit because Jaiden and Austin had a sucker and he wanted one too. He stopped crying as soon as we let him have a taste!

Happy Birthday Zachary!

Yesterday was Zach's 1st Birthday! We really didn't do anything to celebrate but will have a party later this month...

He's doing so well and is really starting to move around. He's decided that he wants to go and keep up with his brothers and is figuring out ways to do that.

Here are a couple of pictures from after dinner yesterday.

The March for Babies

The March for Babies was a huge success. We had over 500 adults plus 100-200 kids. We were expecting about 300-350 total. There was a fun band there (name, name, name...I can't remember), balloons, jugglers, an awesome face painter and other fun things. We had a great time and had a lot of family support too. Thanks again to everyone for coming and supporting us.