My Poor Hair Dresser

When I go get my hair cut when my hair is long, I have my hair dresser straighten it. There is no way that I would do this on my own. It takes her almost an hour to do it. I'm sure the next day her arms are sore. It is fun to have a different hairstyle for a day or so. Karmin LOVED it. She wanted me to have it straight every day. I love just feeling how soft my hair is, and seeing how shiny it is. My curly hair is me, but it sure would be fun to have straight hair.

Practicing Those Smiles

Piper loves to smile. Although she has a shy smile. She won't look at a person straight on. When she smiles at us, she looks at us out of the corner of her eye and the smile starts out small and just gets bigger and bigger. But she will smile at anybody and anything. Anytime someone talks to her, she smiles. One of my favorite things is during the middle of the night when I feed her, she will just look up and smile (and sometimes give me a little giggle)--and won't eat until she gets all those smiles out of her system. She will even randomly smile at things like lights or windows. It is really funny to see what things she smiles at. The kids get a kick out of her smiling at them when they talk to her. I find it funny that she smiles even when Lydia is around her. I guess she doesn't care that Lydia is responsible for every near mishap that occurs with Piper. Piper is a tough girl to put up with Lydia.

Temporarily Shy

Lydia sometimes likes to think that she is shy. But don't be fooled--she is in no way shy. It lasts approximately 3 minutes and then she is herself and there is no stopping her. Grant caught the development of her shyness on camera, minus the last step, which, is when she puts her two

fingers in her mouth.

Swimming at the Lake

A family that Grant home teaches loves to go boating. They told Grant that for this month one thing he could do for them was to go boating with them. So we all got to come. The lake was so warm. I have never been swimming in such a warm lake. Lydia had no problem jumping right in...as long as she had someone to cling to. Ben was a fish as usual. Karmin finally got in and loved it. Once she gets in, she is just like Ben---almost impossible to get out. Trevor finally went in when we told him that he didn't have to put his earplugs in as long as he kept his head out of the water. His earplugs have bothered him. The kids all got to go tubing and Ben also got to go knee boarding...Karmin wanted to go so bad too, but her ornery parents wouldn't let her. It was a lot of fun, and I'm so thankful for the Ward's for inviting us.

Smiles

Piper gave us her first smile on August 22. However, they were given only on her terms--so getting them on camera took a few days to capture. Today, Ben and I sat with her and kept playing with her until she finally smiled for the camera. I think this is my absolute favorite milestone of kids. It is such a joy to see the first acknowledgment that there is a world out there and that they enjoy it. I love this sweet girl. I still don't get to spend enough time with her as I would like, but I think it is more because I have to fight the kids to get a chance to hold her.

Me and My Boys

It occurred to me in church today that you all must be dying to know what our chair status is at church. (Remember we were a 2-chair family pre-Piper). Well, I'm happy to report that we are up to about 3 1/2 chairs now (although one day we did manage to have all 7 of us on two chairs, but another Sunday I think we used 5). Today Grant sat at one end with the girls all around and on him. And I sat at the other end with both boys, one on either side of me, on part of my chair. I love these moments of quiet snuggle time with my kids...and yes it was quiet during sacrament meeting today (a miracle). I thought about how quickly it all goes. Grant's nephew MaKade left to go to college, and this technically was his first Sunday gone. I missed seeing him up front playing the organ or blessing the sacrament. I know his mom and he have a good relationship, and I can't imagine how she is feeling.

Well, maybe I can imagine. The day we brought Ben home from the hospital I was in tears knowing that it would be in a blink of eye when we would be sending him off on his mission. And every now and then I get teary-eyed thinking about it. (I know, I know, I'm a bit over-the-top emotional--but he's my baby.) My kids can drive me crazy...today I was asking Grant if he could please take Lydia with him to work tomorrow...but I am sure that I drive them crazy sometimes too. But I love them and I adore the craziness of this big family.

The Cabin

On probably the warmest day we have had this summer, we got to take the kids up to the cabin. A couple of my cousins that I haven't seen in years were there. That was nice to see them; although, with 5 little ones I didn't get to talk with them as much as I would have liked. The boys enjoyed fishing...and Ben caught a couple. Karmin enjoyed her first time fishing with her new purple fishing pole. But they all enjoyed swimming and being in the water. It was a great day!

Baby Blues

No photoshop here. They really are this blue.

One Month Already

Our little miss Piper is one month. And can I tell you how happy I am not to be pregnant? I love
eating and then not being nauseous afterwards. It is so great.

And Piper is great too. She is so sweet to me...I only get up once or twice a night. She loves to be held by anyone who is willing especially with her head being up on a shoulder. She still likes to make noises--grunting being her favorite. She wakes her dad up at night (not an easy feat) because she is such a loud eater. Her hair looks red in the sun, but a light brown inside and if I had to admit it, with a tint of red then too. We are still unsure of her eye color. Some days they look like a dark blue, sometimes brown, and sometimes hazel. At one point, one eye was blue on the bottom and brown on the top, but now all the colors seem to be mixed up. Her aunts love holding her at church. She is very easy going and pretty content. My only complaint is that she is growing up too fast.

Ketchup , Mustard

This is one thing that I got from my dad:

Well not ketchup specifically. My mom had a supply of food storage while I was growing up. I don't know how my dad felt about the food storage--whether he thought it was crazy or a smart thing. But I do know that he was okay with it as long as it had an ample amount of tuna fish in it. We would joke that if we got under 100 cans, he would start stressing out. He became quite the couponer with tuna fish. He would go shopping with his coupon just for tuna fish. I remember one time he brought Grant and I a "can" of tuna fish. The can was so huge, it was more like a lifetime supply of tuna fish. I have found that the way my dad felt about tuna, I feel that way about ketchup. I know it is time to go to Costco if my supply gets down to 10 bottles of the huge bottles of ketchup. So if I happen to bring you a bottle of ketchup, know that it is out of pure love for you and my own love for ketchup.

Happy

I wasn't sure if Grant was going to be home at a decent time on my Birthday. Four of his five Medical Assistants were gone. When one of them in particular is gone, he usually doesn't get home until 7:00--which is then about bedtime for kids, but to have three others gone on top of it, I figured we would celebrate another day. One of my dear friends, made it very special before Grant got home though. She brought up a couple of pizzas so I didn't have to cook, a pie, and some balloons. It was very sweet. Then Grant called at about 5:05 saying he was coming home. He doesn't get off work that early on a regular day, so it was nothing short of a miracle that he got done that early. I was so excited. He took me out on a double date with his parents--something that we haven't done in years. I got to/ had to pick the restaurant. I decided to go to a local restaurant that I had heard good things about, but never have gone. It was heavenly. So good. It made me want to get back into cooking. I am so glad that Grant got to come home so early.

I think my Birthdays were becoming not a big deal for me, but I read an article written by one of Grant's friends in the local newspaper. He talked about how Birthdays were becoming just another day for him, until he realized that his Birthday could be a day of celebration of all the things he got to do and experience in the past year. So now, I want to try to reflect on my Birthdays and enjoy the meaning of each one more. When we were kids, Birthdays were the best...there is no reason why we should let that feeling diminish. They are special days, and we should celebrate them with special things and with special people.

Here are a few of my special crazy people that I celebrate and this year the kids had some help from their dad on getting the number of candles correct (the three and the one = 31--at least they don't think I am hundreds of years old like last year).

And true to form: here they are always "helping":

Family

All of Grant's family was here this past weekend. At one point, there was only 1 person out of the, I think, 39 people in the family missing. It was a lot of fun having everyone here. We got together at the park on Friday night; where all the grand kids got to play and the adults got to talk. Some people were coming from out of town, so that was the first we got to see of them. That night was also the first night that Karin, one of Grant's sisters, found out that we got pregnant and had a baby. Apparently she didn't get the message, and apparently I need to be a little bit more pro-active about relaying info to others. I hope she forgives us.

On Saturday we went up to Grant's grandma's grave site. Grant's dad hadn't been up there yet, so we all went up there and he dedicated the grave. Since everyone was dressed in their best, we took family pictures. After, we went to Kim's house and went swimming and had a barbecue.

Sunday, we blessed Piper, and had one last dinner with everyone. We've continued to hang out with family that is still here, but had to say goodbye to others. It is fun being part of such a big family--there is always someone to talk to, and never a dull moment.

Blessing

With all of Grant's family in town, we decided to have Piper's blessing at home today. It was simple, yet so nice to have his brother and dad here this time. Piper wore the same dress that my sister and I each wore when we were christened when we were babies, and Karmin and Lydia wore for their blessings.

Brotherly Love

Last week Grant had the opportunity to take Ben to scout camp for one of the days. It was a great experience for Grant to be able to see Ben really interact with his friends and peers. At one point when they were in the car, Grant said that he overheard some of the other boys complaining about their younger siblings. Grant said that Ben went on to say how much he liked his brother and sisters and how much he loved being around them. How cool is that--he didn't fall into peer pressure and he honestly told them how much he likes his brother and his sisters.

Today he proved it! I've been promising the girls that I would paint their nails. After we got started, Ben came in and asked to help with Karmin, who was waiting patiently while Lydia had her turn. Karmin told him exactly what she wanted and Ben went to work. He painted stripes, spots on others, and swirls. It looked great and where he missed, it was nothing that a little finger nail polish remover couldn't help (like on the floor--thank you vinyl). What an awesome big brother!