Father's Day

This is my amazing Dad! Happy Father's Day!

I was working on a project the other day and was thinking how sometimes as a parent you wonder if the kids hear a word you say. Then I started thinking how a few simple conversations I had with my dad had such HUGE impacts on some of my choices in life. I'm sure most of the time he didn't realize how closely I was listening, but I have always had great respect for this wonderful man. It's because of conversations with my dad that I made choices regarding playing the piano, pursuing an engineering degree and marrying Chuck. It makes me stop and think how little moments and conversations I have with my kids will affect their choices in life. It makes me want to be a better mom! I feel blessed to have such a fun and hardworking dad who is also an amazing grandpa to my little ones.

For Father's Day the kids made and decorated ties for Chuck and the grandpa's. When I told the kids what we were doing and showed them the ties I had cut Samuel quickly pointed out the fact that his dad couldn't wear a paper tie. He is a very by the book type of kid. The ties were crazy and fun. Grandpa Clayton's had fishing stickers, Bella put flowers on Grandpa Paul's tie - which Samuel was upset about and Chuck was wondering why his tie had slow animals like a snail and turtle. He was thinking we were trying to tell him something!

Chuck opening up his tie the kids made and another tie I bought for him. I always buy Chuck ties knowing he is going to hate them. Every tie I have ever bought Chuck he has wanted to take back. We just don't have the same taste in ties! But Chuck actually decided he would keep this tie because he's getting to old to care anymore about what his ties look like.

Chuck was a good sport and wore the tie the kids made him to church. Grandpa Clayton also wore his to church in his ward. Both guys said they had never received so many comments on their wardrobe!

Also Happy Father's Day to Chuck. He is a wonderful, fun, kind and loving father. The kids all adore him.

Yeah for Summer!

I just love summer! But this summer I'm feeling a little heartache each day. I just keep thinking how quick Samuel will be starting Kindergarten and I it makes me want to cry. I really LOVE having all my kids at home all day. Yes, most days are crazy, loud, messy, challenging, and I don't have much time to do anything for myself, but I really do love it! So my goal for the summer is to do some little fun thing each day.


Here is the result of one of my attempts to be more fun. The kids and I moved the kitchen table and chairs into the family room and built a giant fort. They thought it was wonderful to walk across the table and then jump onto the couch. We also played a crazy game where I was the troll trying to get the kids out of their cave. But then Samuel and Isaac started whacking me with their foam light sabers and the troll had to die because it really did hurt.

Here's to having more fun this summer!


Samuel and Bella also completed swim lessons. They both love the water and this year Samuel actually started to grasp the concept of swimming. On Monday I took the kids swimming and couldn't believe how well Samuel was doing.

Samuel also finished up T-ball. He was thrilled to get a trophy and has it proudly displayed in his room. The highlight of the season for him was when he hit a home run. Chuck told Samuel before one of the games if he hit the ball onto the grass to just keep running because he would get a home run (it takes the kids FOREVER to retrieve the ball and then throw it in). So that's exactly what Samuel did and he was so excited.

Chuck's brother Blake and Blake's brother-in-law did a rappelling hike. This is the guys the night before getting the ropes ready. (It makes me feel better about these adventures knowing we have a good amount of life insurance!) I guess the adventure was a little scary because Blake declared that he didn't ever need to do that rappel again!

Pizza, Pizza, Pizza - and Scissors

I went to this amazing Power of Moms conference this weekend (I hopefully will write more about that later). Chuck and I have both been feeling this great desire, urge, need, you name it to strengthen our family. We have really been trying to focus on becoming better parents and setting our home in order.

I come home from this conference and have 2 funny experiences.

Samuel and Bella have been using a lot of masking tape lately. They are constantly asking me to rip pieces of tape for them. So I have my first brilliant idea - I'm going to teach Samuel how to tear the tape so he can do it himself because as a good mom I should be teaching my kids how to do things for themselves.

I sit Samuel down and show him how to tear the tape. Of course he is struggling trying to rip it so I next show him how he can tear it with his teeth. We practice until he can do it then he and Bella are off on their tape ripping adventure. About 5 minutes later Samuel comes downstairs with the roll of tape and I see he has been trying to rip the tape, but now it's just a smashed up mess on the end. He looks at me and says, "Mom, I have a better idea why don't I just use the scissors to cut pieces tape." BRILLIANT - but why didn't I think of that!!!

Later that evening I have my next brilliant idea - I'll ask Samuel what I can do to be a better mom. This is the little conversation we had.

Me: Samuel, what could I do to be a better mom to you and the other kids.
Samuel (after thinking quietly for several seconds): You could feed us pizza for every meal!
Me (trying not to laugh): Is there anything else?
Samuel: No, just feed us more pizza.

So I guess in the mind of my 5 year old I'm doing alright as his mom even if the kid is smarter than me at times!

A couple 3 Month Pictures

Now that Jenna just turned 4 months I'm finally getting around to editing her 3 month pictures.

This little girl is so precious. I often wonder why Chuck and I thought so hard about having a 4th baby - how blessed our lives have been by this little girl!

All the kids adore her and tend to smother her with attention. But she's very good natured and doesn't seem to mind everyone holding her, kissing her, rolling her over and getting so close to her face all day long. In fact it's when it's quiet and no one is bugging her that she tends to cry a little.

She can grab objects with her hands and loves to put everything in her mouth. She is so close to rolling from her back to her belly, but gets stuck just before getting there. She likes to squawk along with my singing and laugh at the kids.

I love this picture because it's very similar to a newborn picture I took of her. She's gotten just a tad bit chunkier since then!

Camping And Snakes!

We went camping with the kids Friday night and I know I say this about every activity we do, but it was crazy! Of course Trina was also there with Kambree and baby Bronson so the crazy and wild level was even up a notch.

Can I just say how amazing Chuck is - he stayed over night with the 3 kids while Trina and I went home with Kambree and the two babies. Jenna and Bronson are still waking up several times a night so we figured it would be eaiser for every one if we slept at home.

Yes, this is a picture of a RATTLESNAKE!!!! Making it's way across our campsite!!!!

The kids were in the bushes playing, Trina and I were at the camp table with the babies and Chuck was checking our tin foil dinners when he spotted this RATTLESNAKE slithering right in front of him. Let's just say there were a few moments of panic on our part as we tried to make sure the kids were out of the way. Chuck had to threaten Bella not to follow it into the bushes as he was throwing rocks to try and get rid of it.

Besides the rattlesnake visit we also had bees swarming. Note to self: don't take lemonade camping the bees can smell it for miles! In addition Bella was giving me heartattacks with her climbing, Kambree tried to run away and the babies were both crying. What can I say - it was crazy, but exciting!

This picture has nothing to do with this post, but I thought it was cute. Chuck really is an amazing dad!

So Much Fun

I've taken a break from blogging because life is just busy. But my mom really likes to see pictures of the kids - so mom here's a catch up for you! I think I've finally decided I will begin posting pages from my digital scrapbook as I get the pages done. Of course this means things will be out of order and way behind, but there's just not enough time in a day to accomplish much more than taking care of and playing with the kids.


Samuel's playing t-ball and loves it.


Bella and Isaac dig in the dirt and get really dirty at every game.

Chuck took the boys to Father and Sons a couple of weekends ago. Bella was crying that she didn't get to go camping. But she was okay after Trina and I took her out to dinner. I really think the dads should be able to take all their children to the camp out not just the sons!

A couple of weeks ago I did something a little crazy. I drove by myself with all the kids to Chuck's parents home - a 5+ hour drive. Overall it wasn't took bad, but there were moments of pure torture. On the positive side no one threw up and at no time were all 4 kids crying - I had 3 out of 4 crying, but never 4 out of 4 crying at one time. The reason I attempted this was to go to a wedding of one of the girls I taught in Young Womens when we lived in Bountiful. It was a lot of fun seeing old friends.

While we were in Salt Lake we went to the zoo.

We went to the aquarium.

We had fun with the family. And we got to experience freezing cold weather with snow in May.

Over the Memorial Day weekend we took the kids fishing. Samuel really wanted to go to the fish pond so that's what we did. I love this picture because the kids were more excited about eating the treats than fishing with Chuck in the background.

We went hiking and had a yummy tin foil dinner with Trina, Wes and the kids. Notice poor Isaac doesn't have any shoes. We have had a hard time remembering his shoes lately. In the wedding picture above he was also without shoes.

We also went to the lake and soaked up the sun.

So we've been busy having a lot of fun lately!

What season is it!

So looking at Bella in this picture you would never guess it was 90 degrees outside! We were all going for a walk this evening and Bella insisted that she wear her coat because as she said, "I just want to be hot Mom". Well you don't have to wear a coat to be hot here this time of year! But I have just given up trying to reason with Bella when it comes to clothing. Today she also wore her snowboots to gymnastics class.

I was excited to go for a walk because it is just so nice outside. Bella really wanted to show us something and she was trying to lead us to where Grandma Luann had taken her for a walk a few weeks ago. But she couldn't quite remember the way and became very frustrated that we couldn't find where she wanted to take us. Let's just say the walk was like poking an eye out for all of us. (Notice how Bella finally shed the coat)


The kids were going outside to play today and Bella came downstairs looking like this. I don't let them take the nice toys outside to play because they just get lost and ruined so Bella thought she would be sneaky and stuff a Barbie up her shirt. She just didn't realize her mommy would actually not fall for this trick!

Garden

I was so excited about planting our garden again this year. (Okay so Chuck plants the garden, but I really like watching it grow and I love eating the vege's so that counts right!) We planted lettuce and I was LOVING going out and cutting pieces off for lunch every day. I really like a salad for lunch or I should say I really like eating my honey mustard dressing I put on the salad.

Then a really sad thing happened - little holes started to appear in the lettuce. At first I didn't see any bugs I just saw the holes in the lettuce. I kept cutting my lettuce, but I would cut out all the holes before I ate it. I just couldn't stand the thought of eating something a bug had been nibbling on.

Then a couple of days later I spotted the lettuce eating culprits - little green worms. So that pretty much put an end to my lettuce eating days.

But on a positive note our tomatoes are growing so well and they are so sweet and yummy! I can't wait for more to ripen!

Cute Samuel story:
Today at lunch we were reading out of the Friend a story by President Monson and how he remembered giving his first church talk about the early pioneers and seagulls eating the crickets. I told the kids this story and then we talked about how scary that would have been to be depending on your garden for food and then to have the crickets come and start devouring every thing you had worked so hard on. We talked about how they prayed and the seagulls came to eat the crickets.

Samuel then said, "Mom we should pray that something will come and take care of the worms so they won't eat our lettuce anymore."

How I cherish this time with my kids! I really look forward to making the kids lunch every day because we have such great discussions and little teaching moments that pop up as we all gather around the island. Last night I was laying in bed thinking how sad I felt that Samuel will be starting Kindergarten in just a couple of months. Then in another year he won't be here for our daily lunch discussions. Why do they have to grow up so fast!!