The first four days of July

The little boys LOVE Mark’s horns….they love to hear him play, and watch him empty the “condensation,” and they love to use PVC pipe to play along with him.  Not only is imitation the highest form of flattery; it’s also incredibly adorable.I love pictures of kids reading books with Grandma.Grandma Jennie’s funeral was really nice.  I got to meet some of her husbands brothers and sisters that are still alive and they are the neatest people.  Ken was asked to give the family prayer and he did a beautiful job.  I’m so thankful to know that families really are forever and things like this make you so excited for the eternities we have to get to know all our family.

We dropped off dinner for Steph since Scott and his girls were on choir tour…the sun set was stunning.Abbie babysat the boys for me one afternoon and she was amazing!  They made paper hats and little hand puppets and everyone was happy when I got home.  Love that girl!!Another horn player in training.While my mom was here we went up to a patriotic fair on the 3rd.  It was really cool to see all the time period artisans and learn about their crafts.  They boys went to “school” and got to try on some costumes.  Spencer really liked this bull head the blacksmith had made.  We got to hear them shoot the cannon and got our names written in calligraphy.  David and Lisa meet us there too….always fun to see them.

Grandpa drove in that evening and we had a brunch with Ken’s parents the next morning.  Emma warmed up to Grandpa quickly….which was a pleasant surprise.  Love this picture!We had muffins and fruit and sausage egg casserole.  Emma tried a couple bits of mashed banana, her first go at real food….she did not think that was tasty.  Neil and Isaac took turns filling all of our cups from the 5 gallon water pitcher…and somehow that led to Isaac getting a spiky hair do and Neil being talked into watering the plants.  Neil got an “ooooo-deeee” ride on Grandpa’s lap – one of his favorite things and before we went home Mark played us the national anthem he’d been practicing.  Great morning!!

Randy had to work on the fourth for lunch, but came by afterwards for Jessie to give him a face paint….but he wasn’t the only one.

I had time to sun that afternoon and Isaac came out with these sunglasses almost on right….so silly!

That evening we all meet at David’s for more delicious food and fun.  Rachel made an amazing cake.  The kids played a few games we brought and we went for several walks over on the south end of BYU’s campus while we were waiting for the stadium of fire to start.  The big kids even got to see a little of the soccer game that was going on through the trees.

Neil and Isaac trying not to get wet, but just touch the water on our walk.

We did some sparklers when it was too dark for walking and then enjoyed the fireworks from David’s front lawn.  All except Neil and Isaac who were having way too much fun with sparklers to stop to watch and watch the big ones.

Summer Break in full swing

Jessie’s been trying out some new face paintings.  She found the tiger one on Pintrest…her new best friend.

Ken went with the Teachers and Priests for their week-long to Zion’s to go repelling.  He got to do some pretty fun hikes, including Angel’s Landing.  We missed him, but it was fun to see his instagram feed and here about his adventures.

The evening he got back we had a little neighborhood ice cream party.  This year I found a new recipe for coconut syrup, and special thanks to my mom who had left us with some coconut flavoring she had gotten the last time she visited, we had all the stuff to make it on hand.  And man was it DELICIOUS!  I think we’ve made it four times already this summer.  It was fabulous on waffles and ice cream!

Here is a picture I took to remind myself not to scream.  Isaac apparently got too much malt-o-meal served to him for breakfast because it turn into a play toy and was a huge mess all over him, the table, chair and the floor.  Luckily I caught him before he decided to hop down and run all over the house.  (and yes, he’s wearing Emma’s hat.  He thinks that it’s so funny…..and well, it is.)

Abbie got a Jenga game from the prize box for completing 15 summer checklists.  (She was one away from getting this and Jessie has a sign up for “loan advances” on summer work charts….one for you now/you owe Jessie two.  Abbie felt bad for Jessie not getting very many charts done and took out a loan to help Jessie get something out of the prize box too.  Does it get much sweeter than that?)

Mark loves to read books to the boys and is always happy to hold Emma and talk to her when I need an extra pair of hands.

Another tiger….this one with yellow eyes.

Neil loves to snuggle up by Emma and hold her finger or give her a toy.  So cute.

Look at this happy baby.  Emma is almost always smiling.  She’s not much of a talker….but she can squeal pretty loud when she wants to….like in the middle of the prayer during Relief Society.  We are so blessed to have her in our family.

This summer we’ve tried to have “happy Wednesday’s”  where we make a treat and each of the kids get to pick a friend to take them too.  So far we’ve done it once in a row… and the other time we ate all the treats before we could take them around.  We’ll try again this week.

Summer mornings are pretty relaxed around our house and we end up having jammies on for quite a while, and I’m enjoying every second of not having to hurry people off to school.

We got a call Thursday that Grandma Jennie wouldn’t be with us much longer.  Ken took Mark and Jessie down with him for a last visit.  She wasn’t really conscious, but it was nice to see her.  She passed away peacefully Sunday morning…and we are a bit sad, but so happy for her to be free from a body that was in a lot of pain and reunited with Grandpa who passed away 23 years ago.

My mom flew out for another visit and we met her at a family reunion for her family at Cheery Hill.  Rachel and Becca rode up with us.  We had a delicious pot luck lunch first.

Then headed over to the water park.  Riding on the intertubes was a big hit.  Isaac was Grandma’s buddy…that was really sweet.  After the big kids had gone several times Grandma and Ken took the little boys.  Neil had a blast  and poor Isaac just wasn’t really big enough.  He made it down ok but was done with the water slides.  Ken took Emma for a bit and I got to go on the slides with Mark and Abbie.  It was SO fun…. I love rides.  Grandma and Spencer headed over to the lazy river and hung out there.  Neil went several times on the tubes….but on the last time his tube flipped him off at the end and that was scary….Mark was lightening fast to scoop him up and was impressed with how quick I was in the water to grab him.  After that scare I felt very lucky that nothing else had gone wrong that day with small children and lots of water.

Enjoying grape juice and shaved ice on a hot Sunday afternoon.

We took Grandma and Becca up the Curiosity museum.  The big kids took off so I didn’t get pictures of them, but after I fed Emma the little kids, Grandma and I did some exploring outside.  The boys loved the cave and the animal footprints in the sidewalks.  And we had some fun finding our way through the garden mazes.

For Activity Days we hiked to Escalante Cross.  For the most part is was an easy shaded hike.  The very end however was extremely steep, but we made it.  Abbie was fun to be with and I was glad I had left Emma at home with Grandma and the kids (even though she wasn’t a happy baby for them).

Our library books were due and Neil was so sad, so we took a picture of him with his favorite page from the Toad and Frog book we had checked out.

And silly Isaac was wearing Emma’s hat, again.

Grandpa

David and I were able to go up to SLC with Spencer and Neil on the Thursday before Grandpa passed away.  It was nice to be with him without so much going on.  He was in quite a bit of pain as it was very hard for him to breathe.  David and I both stayed with him for a while.  He got some Lemon Cream pie, his favorite, for lunch.  I had made a poster for his room that David helped me hang up. My dad was able to fly out Friday evening and the rest of the family arrived on Sunday, after only a small delay with car trouble.  Grandpa returned to his heavenly home on Monday.  Here’s all us kids at the viewing, except Laura, who had had her baby girl, Baylee, on Friday. Abbie keeps saying to me, “Grandpa said we were pals.”  Jessie and Conrad were especially sweet and wanted to be with Grandma a lot.  A few things I will always remember about Grandpa are: that work didn’t scare him, the gospel was the best and most important thing in his own personal life and the most important thing he could share with others, and how much he loved Grandma.

Fun with the Family

My family came out as my Grandpa was in failing health. Alexander showed up in almost the same outfit that Neil was wearing. Baby, baby, baby. My parents were able to spend most of the time up in SLC with my dad’s family during the final days Grandpa was with us. While they were out, Becca and Conrad had to keep up on homework. That seemed to be a full time job for Conrad. Ken joined in on the homework fun. We got to watch Mark play soccer. I love this picture!!Spencer never watches the game for very long… Going home to more homemade pizza, YUMMY!!!Heather, Rachel and Becca helped us can tomatoes and salsa. Thanks guys….now you need to return to enjoy it with us. :-)Here’s Rachel’s tomato creation. I used this picture for my computer desktop for quite a while and then one day my desktop magically changed to a pretty picture of the moon. Jessie later informed me that she was tired of looking at tomatoes. Mark loved having a playing partner.Mom and Dad picked Uncle Mark up at the airport and they were all able to make it down for one of Mark’s games. I think this was the game his team played the best (even though they lost by one) everyone was totally engaged and worked together really well. And I think Mark got an assist for one of our goals. Here’s my head butting shot. It was really funny because the ball got head butted three times before it actually made it to the ground.We were trying to make it to the park with these tin foil dinners….but my life is just too crazy. We cooked them in the oven and they were SUPER and it makes me wonder why we don’t have them once a week…maybe my pizza would be jealous.Our new driveway has a great perk in that it already has the markings for a great game of Four Square. Uncle Mark was the reining champ of the evening.Followed by a game of sardines while we waited the last few minutes for the tin foil dinners to finish. Abbie was “it” first and did a great job hiding under the shelves in the shed. It took some players quite a long time to find her. ( I know Abbie didn’t even make it in the picture, but she’s behind the chicken food. I had to take the picture quick so I didn’t give away the hiding place and it was dark in there too.)After dinner the kids started a simple tower. It worked so well, and we had enough people that they decided to add an additional row.Heather thought that some people needed a little training on the correct placement of boney knuckles and knees.And the very top…HURRY take the picture!! Karina wasn’t hurt, I think she was just sad not to be on the top any more. A little reading, playing with babies, piano concerting/teaching, and dressing up finished up the evening.Uncle Mark played Snakes and Ladders with Spencer and me. He wasn’t quite used to Spencer’s way of making up random rules mid-game.