Trafalga

The kids each had one last pass left from the school reading program to go to Trafalga.  It was supposed to be a super hot day, so I was trying to get us there as early as possible (hard to do with a new baby).  But it turned out to be cloudy instead and just beautiful. Since we had done the inside course last time I convinced the kids to do one of the outside ones.  Jessie was the most disappointed as she had remembered the black lights and had changed her shirt just so she could glow.  But she’s such a good girl and had a great time anyways.

This third hole gave us quite a bit of trouble and almost landed quite a few of the balls in the pond next to it as they bounced off the bump or the bricks and came shooting back at us.On the fourth hole Spencer was the lucky one who made the shortcut.  Here he is waiting for his ball to come out.  Sometimes the kids helped their balls all the way up the ramps.Mark showed the others how to hit the ball like we were playing pool. Abbie especially liked this method, and it helped her drop lots of balls.Spencer was the only one who showed great emotion at getting his ball in the hole.  That was always fun to watch.Here are the flowers Ken got us for our anniversary. 12 years!!!! that’s old.  I just loved the red and yellow combo, and those sunflowers lasted two weeks!And thank you to mark for helping type most of this post without too much commentary -- like that’s old!

Baby Shower and Family

Ken’s aunt (that I’ve never met) came up from Texas for a visit.  She brought her little 4 month old who was absolutely adorable and so smiley.  It was fun to meet her and have an excuse to have a family get together.  That evening Ken came home a tinch early and picked 6 to 8 cups of strawberries from our garden to share – TASTY! I saw these fun felt foods on a blog and Jessie, Abbie and I are making some for my sister’s little 3 year old.  While Megan was over playing we worked on some together.  Here’s the blog http://gingerblossoms.com/index.htm; at first I thought, “wow those are kind of expensive.”  But after making a few I would sell them for three times what she is.  It’s funny how are perspectives change, but it has been a blast to work with Jessie and Abbie making them.Abbie showing off the first peas from our garden.  She and Mark LOVE fresh peas and while Jessie doesn’t like them she thinks it’s great fun to shell them.I was taking a picture of Abbie holding Neil and Spencer wanted to give Neil his first set of bunny ears.  It was pretty funny.The girls, Neil and I went to Salt Lake to my cousins baby shower.  Great-Grandma got to see and hold Neil for the first time.  It was fun to be with family.  And after talking with Em I can’t wait to go to Yellowstone.On the way home we stopped at our friends, but they weren’t home so the girls and I sat in the shade in the car while I feed Neil before we drove back home.  Boy were we hot by the time I finished so we stopped at McDonalds for a shake.  Only when we stopped the girls decided on French Fries…I wish I had joined them because my shake was the worst I’ve ever had.  Oh well.Here’s my new favorite easy hairdo and I actually made it up all by myself.  It looks kind of like a french braid to me, but way quicker. For FHE activity we played baseball.  This is how Neil spent the game…Spencer and Jessie were on my team and Spencer was our best player, but eventually even I hit the ball.Here’s the handsome pitcher…. And a few more swing shots.Neil kept Ken and I company while we folded laundry.Isn’t he just the cutest!Jessie stitched this pillow for her friends birthday.  It turned out great.

Mother’s day, Father’s day and Library day

This is the first year we’ve gotten more than just a couple of strawberries from our patch; we’ve actually gotten bowlfuls at a time.  YEAH!!! (I mean we’ve only had the silly plants for 5 years now.)  And we are so excited.  It’s so funny to see Spencer out picking – the plants are half as tall as he is. Abbie and I finally planted the marigold she grew for me for Mother’s Day.  We are still waiting to see what color the flowers will be.Jessie took this awesome picture of Neil for me.  He’s all wrapped up in his blanket from Grandma Payne.We started making fish decorations to take down to the library…they’re still not quite done, but hey, summer isn’t over quite yet.  The kids have been reading like crazy.  I made a little summer book for each of the kids and one of the sections is for them to record all the books they read.  I think it’ll be so fun for them to look back at their list and Mark and Jessie’s are shaping up to be long ones. One of our friends brought over these way cute froggy slippers for Neil.Neil’s first bath was not a big hit.  Ken bathed him after we put the kids in bed and he screamed the whole time.  Jessie got out of bed and came in to check on him, just to make sure we were only giving him a bath.  He’s still cute, even when he’s screaming.Ken didn’t have his meetings after church on Father’s day and so he took a little nap instead (not actually how he wanted to spend his day off, but when you’re exhausted what else can you do?).  The kids could hardly wait until he got up.Our little sleepy guy.Jessie has started making strips for a blanket on the hairpin lace loom she got for her birthday.  She is so quick at it now. It’s fun to watch her fingers fly.At Neil’s two week checkup, on a Monday, he was still only 6 lbs. 7 oz. (what we brought him home from the hospital at), so the doctor suggested we give him an ounce or so of formula after each feeding.  (He’d only been eating every 4 hours or so, but sometimes it was 6 hours.  We just can’t keep him awake long enough to eat very much.)  Mark was happy to be the first one to feed him the bottle.We went back on Thursday to check his weight again while Ken took the other kids to Seven Peaks, a local water park.  Neil had only gained one ounce.  So we were back on Monday to check again and he was back to birth weight.  Yeah! Keep eating little guy!

Summer is here!

Find Neil and you’ve found the rest of the kids.  It’s just so sweet.Dad was a home for a couple of days after Neil was born and the kids got to do all sorts of fun things with him like:

weed the garden,pick our first strawberries of the year,and go to the pool with Megan and Jennie. (This is at the end of the day when everyone was exhausted!) A few other events: Neil had problems with his bilirubin for the first couple of days.  So we were trying to give him a bit of sunshine.  Abbie stayed right with him and helped kept the sun out of his eyes and moved him down the blanket as the sun moved.  His bilirubin count peaked at 16.1 and was there for two days until it started to come down.  The poor little guy had to be poked 4 times to get it checked.  We’ve learned a whole bunch about red blood cells and hemoglobin because of this whole ordeal and if you’re interested we’ll share because it’s so fun to learn new things and our bodies are just so amazing!We requested some new books for the library to purchase.  They are “We Read Together” books that have a parent part and a kid part on each page.  They were able to get some and Abbie and I (and Grandma) had a fun time reading together. We were able to visit Grandma Jennie in the hospital, just Neil and Ken and I.  She was so excited to see little Neil. Jessie and Abbie took “Kiddie Kandid” pictures of themselves.  They had a great time dressing up and putting up the blankets for the backgrounds.And Mark got really good at one of his piano songs and so for his last day of practice he had a little fun!  He even tried laying down on the piano bench and playing upside down like our friend Sister Fisher.