Family

My brother and his family live in Arkansas so we only get to see them once a year. We load that time with adventures, meals and conversations. There’s just nothing like family and I only wished we all could live a little closer.

All the cute cousins. And one of these cuties was voted the orneriest of the bunch. For the record, there was NOT ONE shot where Jenna was not screaming.

 

And poor Samuel was given the task of trying to keep ahold of her. I love this picture – notice how everyone is staring at Jenna wondering what all the fuss is about, except my kids, they’re used to all the screaming and just stare blankly ahead.

Oh she was mad!

Good Times

Trina and I loaded the 6 kids in the mini-van and drove to my parents house to spend a fun filled week with Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Brady and his family. The house was constantly noisy, busy, crazy and fun with so many kids running here and there.

The kids had fun making play-doh with Grandma.

Reading books with Grandma.

Playing with cousins.

Certain activities are a must when we go home, like an adventure to the Dino-Mine park. We love going early so we have the whole place to ourselves.

And of course we have to do our fair share of fishing with Grandpa. This little pond is the best for catching fish. The fish are literally jumping all over the place and sometimes you can even see the fish swim right up to the hook and bite it. With a little worm for bait, everyone was able to reel in 2 fish. With so much action, Grandpa was hopping trying to keep the poles baited and getting fish off hooks.

 

There were lots of albino trout swimming around, but most of them they were too smart for worms. Bella finally landed one, it’s hard to see because it blends into the background, but it’s right by my shorts.

We also had to take a fishing trip on the boat. Six little kids all in life jackets makes for an adventure. The babies, especially Jenna, were not excited about wearing those big bulky jackets. Good thing for Pringles, that’s become a must on any adventure we take with Jenna. She’ll settle right down for a potato chip!

Samuel’s catch of the day.

Bella’s catch of the day.

And what family get together would be complete without a little sickness. Seriously, we seem to have stomach issues! Samuel got carsick on the way to the lake and lost his breakfast so that doesn’t technically count, but it was still not fun. Jenna however, got a little stomach bug when we got to Bountiful.

We also must take a 4-wheeling adventure. Grandpa manages to haul all 4 kids around at once.

Jenna was upset because she wasn’t able to ride, or maybe she’s just upset because the can of Pringles ran out!

After a week at my parent’s house we all headed north for a trip to Lagoon. The first day was great and the kids all had so much fun. We left Jenna with Chuck’s mom for the day. It’s the first time we’ve ever gone on an adventure and left one of the kids. I was feeling guilty about it, especially since she wasn’t feeling so well, but it did make the day SO much easier. We bounced back the next day and let’s just say you should NEVER go to Lagoon on a Saturday! We’ll have to remember that piece of advice for next year.

This is all our family filling up the whale ride. It’s super fun to have cousins all so close in age.

We also spent time with Chuck’s family while we were up north seeing more cousins we only get to see once a year.

We took a trip to Tracy Aviary and the kids loved seeing all the different birds.

They especially loved feeding the ducks.

We crossed a whole bunch of activities off our summer to do list. There’s only a few more weeks to pack with adventures! Where is the time going!!

Brotherly Love

My Boys – what can I say, most of the time they are loud and rambunctious. These boys of mine like to wrestle, light saber fight and pretty much pester each other nonstop. But today I was reminded of the love they have for each other.

We have a rule in our house that you have to eat all your dinner if you want a snack before bed or desert if we happen to have something tasty. Isaac has not been good about eating dinner for quite awhile now so he regularly misses out on treats. The poor guy even had to miss eating Chuck’s yummy birthday cake the past two nights. Today when we were coming home from the library, Samuel asked if we could have cake after lunch. I said they could if they ate their lunch and then commented that maybe Isaac would actually be able to finally eat a piece of cake too.

Samuel and Bella quickly finished their sandwiches, but Isaac decided he couldn’t eat the rest of his sandwich. I reminded him that if he wanted a piece of yummy cake he had to finish his sandwich. He again told me he was done eating. So I told him there would be no cake.

Samuel with a very tender tone of voice asked, “Mommy, if I eat the rest of Isaac’s sandwich will you let him have a piece of cake?”.

My heart just wanted to melt. The three of us then made a compromise because really, how could I refuse to grant such a tender hearted request. Isaac ate one more bite, Samuel finished the rest and everyone enjoyed a piece of cake. I hope these boys of mine will not only be brothers, but friends.

 

Eating chocolate cake

I took the boys pictures together in January for my scrapbook, but never posted them on my blog. I figure now is a great time to show a few pictures of these guys together doing what they love best. (I can’t believe how young Isaac looks in these pictures – his hair is so long and curly now.)

Turning building blocks into grenades.

Star wars figures fighting each other to the death.

Racing cars

Laughing about everything.

And their favorite – wrestling until someone gets hurt!

One Year Older & Wiser Too–Happy Birthday to You!

Happy Birthday to my wonderful hubby! The kids and I really are lucky to have this guy in our lives.

Age is a relative thing, and because our kids are young I also tend to think we are younger than we really are. So I’m always a little shocked when it’s one of our birthdays and I’m reminded how old we really are – for example, Chuck’s 20th class reunion is coming up in a couple of weeks! Really, how did that happen?

When the kids woke up I reminded them it was their daddy’s birthday and Bella instantly had to hurry and make Chuck a card before he left for work. She drew a rainbow with a birthday cake and then our whole family. Is that not so sweet. Too bad my legs aren’t really as long as this picture would imply!

We don’t really buy each other gifts anyway, but Chuck made sure and told me in advance not to get him anything because he already had in mind what he was getting himself. We actually both love this setup – obviously neither of our “love languages” is gift giving! But the kids wanted to get daddy something so we took balloons, pizza and a Obi Wan pez dispenser to his office. Let’s just say the candy lasted about 2 seconds.

We took the pizza to the park and had a great time eating and playing. It was cloudy, but boy was it humid for here in the desert.

Jenna LOVES to swing and what could be better than having her daddy right there.

Smiles quickly turned to screams when Isaac decided he wanted a turn.

We made Chuck the Mississippi Mud cake – super yummy!

The kids were a little disappointed with the birthday celebrations. While I was frosting the cake Bella was standing beside me and excitedly asked, “Oh, what kind of cake is daddy going to have? A shoe cake?” I looked down at the cake and sure enough my frosting pattern looked a little like a shoe. But I told her no, he was just having a plain birthday cake. She was a little disappointed but then excitedly asked, “Where are the decorations?” and Isaac chimed in with, “Oh, are we having a Thomas party?”. Again they were all a little sad when I said we didn’t have any decorations. Then Samuel wanted to know where daddy’s pile of presents was. Sorry kids, but around here birthdays just aren’t as exciting for us parents!

And to finish the night we took Samuel and Bella to The Little Mermaid at Tuacahn. It was fabulous! The show didn’t start until 8:45 so we weren’t sure how long the kids would hold out. Luckily they both took a little late nap and weren’t bored at all. They also never said a word about being tired even though the show was delayed twice for 20 minutes each time due to rain. This caused us not to get done until after midnight. We were lucky because we actually had seats very near the back of the amphitheater so when it started to rain we weren’t even getting wet. They stopped the show and most people filed out to try and get shelter from the rain. Then they made an announcement that the show was going to resume so everyone made their way back to their seats. They started the show and I’m not even kidding, but about 1 minute later it began to pour! They stopped the show right in the middle of the song and again made the announcement the show would be delayed another 20 minutes. This time it was really coming down and I felt even luckier we weren’t getting wet. Everyone filed out of their seats again and people were really getting soaked this time. Chuck was watching the radar on his phone and it looked like it was going to pass pretty quickly and sure enough at the end of the delay they said the show was going to resume. Yet again everyone filed back to their seats and I was surprised to see that hardly anyone had actually left for good. The show then went on and we were supper glad it didn’t get canceled. We loved this production and had a wonderful fun night together!  

Karate Promotion

Samuel had Karate promotions last week. Anyone who knows Samuel will not be surprised that he is super good at his yells. The funny thing is now baby Jenna goes around the house saying, “Aih Yah!”. Makes us laugh every time.

 

He is now a white belt with a green stripe.

The teacher has an exciting promotion routine. He calls the kids name and announces what color belt they will be receiving. Then they jump up, run around the group of kids receiving High 5’s from everyone on their way to the front of the room. They receive their belt from the teacher and then they get to ring the gong. Once everyone has their new belt it’s a race to see who can untie their old belt and put their new belt on fastest.

Chuck isn’t able to make to it all the promotions, but he was here this time. I was standing to the side taking pictures and mouthed to Samuel that I was going to have daddy put his belt on. Samuel vigorously shook his head and mouthed back, “NO, YOU!”. Poor Chuck, the last time he helped Samuel get his belt on at promotions he did it all wrong. Since I get him ready for class each week, I’m the belt tying expert in the family so it was no wonder Samuel wanted me and not dad. And yep, we were finally the winners – go mom! 

These are just a few fun shots I took of Samuel a couple of months ago. I had what I thought was a brilliant idea – karate uniform with an urban feel. This area is totally lacking in urban feel, but I thought the parking garage was a perfect location. I talked my friend Allyson into coming with us, her son is also in Karate. It took us about 2 seconds to realize that parking garage, two boys and white uniforms was not a great combination. Their hands and feet were completely black, little black smudges on the face and the uniform was not so white anymore.

Samuel knows the picture drill and is great about going along with whatever. He knows after he will get a treat so he’s happy to pose as long as he can do his “cool” face. Afterward Samuel and I had cupcakes at 25 Main and enjoyed some one on one time together. I sure do love this guy!

At one location, there was a large group of adult couples walking by the alley. The guys stopped and were imitating karate moves and making a lot of loud funny noises – think Karate Kid. These were not kids or teenagers, they were full grown adult males. They did provide us with some great entertainment though.  

Made Me Smile

Jenna trying to help Bella unload the dishwasher. She actually loves to stand in the dishwasher and gets REALLY upset when we don’t let her.

Lazy summer days – swimming and eating otter pops.

Bella has turned into a little fish. She was showing me how she could “dance” in the water, which got me thinking about synchronized swimming. I always found this Olympic sport fascinating so we watched a few great YouTube videos of the US Olympic Synchronized Swimming Team. Bella was captivated and exclaimed, “Oh mommy they look like mermaids!” She LOVES mermaids so she was excited to try out her new moves in the pool. So cute!

We made pinwheels out of a balloons, straws, and pencils. I just loved seeing Bella’s cute little cheeks as she tried really hard to inflate her balloon. It reminded me of her giant baby cheeks.

The kids were SUPER excited about experiment day. We usually try to do our experiments while Jenna is napping because it’s just easier that way, but this week she was awake and ready to join in the fun. She actually was really good and sat and watched with the kids. She really wants to be big like everyone else.

Unfortunately my scientific skills were lacking this week. On our trip to the library I found another great experiment book and was really excited to try a few simple ones. Well, I’m not sure what my problem was, but both of our experiments failed miserably. After trying really hard to create a cloud in the pop bottle 4 different times, Samuel finally exclaimed, “Well, that wasn’t very fun!” I read and reread the directions, but it just wasn’t working for us so we moved on.

The next experiment looked really fun. The idea was to cover the toaster in cardboard, put a plastic bag over the cardboard and the heat rising from the toaster was supposed to have a hot air balloon effect causing the plastic bag to rise 6 to 10 feet. Yeah, it sounded amazing! But all I got was a melted bag and one that flew about 6 inches max. I’m going to figure this one out eventually! The cute thing was that Isaac in his prayers that night was telling Heavenly Father all about the toaster experiment and how mommy melted the bag. I guess my efforts weren’t a total failure! 

Took these 3 kids to their Well Child Checks last week. Two of them are in the 6% growth rate and One of them is in the 45% for height and 80% for weight. Yes, one of them is built like their daddy for sure! I really enjoyed taking Isaac by himself to the doctor’s appointment. It was fun to watch him jump from square to square in the doctor’s office pretending to escape from crocodiles in the river. I sat and watched him with a big smile on my face thinking what an AMAZING transformation has occurred in this little guy over the past several months. Isaac being 2 was really difficult for all of us! But now he is such a delight.   

And Bella girl gave a talk in Primary last Sunday on temples. We made her a goal chart and she memorized and practiced her talk every day. She is super sweet and has a tendency to be shy, but we have been working really hard on goals and this has helped a lot. When she started her talk she wasn’t speaking very loud in the microphone, so I bent down and gently reminded her that to pass off the last square of her goal she needed to speak so everyone could hear her. She started again and did such a good job. I was really proud of her because I know how hard this was for her. After church, while we were eating dinner she told us she was scared when she started her talk. We talked about how it was okay to feel scared, but the important thing was that she gave her talk and was brave even though she was a little scared at first. I really want my kids to internalize the principle that in our family we can do hard things.

I also loved spending one on one time with Bella every day last week as we practiced. One day we had such an innocent and sweet discussion as she asked when she would get to see Jesus again. At one point I told her Jesus and Heavenly Father loved her very much and she said, “How do you know mommy?'”. Tears sprang to my eyes as I looked at her and thought I’ve always know Their love, but it wasn’t until I became a mom that I could understand that kind of love and even then I know what we feel as earthly parents pales in comparison to what our Heavenly Father feels for each of us. How I love this sweet Bella girl!