Day Camp

The boys both got to go to Cub Scout Day Camp this year--the only year they will both be there together. I got to go up for the last night...and I had the privilege of chauffeuring 5 boys up there and back home. It is always fun to do things like this with the boys. It is a joy to watch them interact with boys their same age and see them in situations where they forget that I am watching so I can see what kind of choices they make! I was proud of them. They had a lot of fun with their cousins and the other kids up there. The trip home was WILD. The boys were crazy and at every house that I dropped a boy off at, I would apologize to their parents that they were so hyped up, but they had a lot of fun--and so did I.
(Sorry no pictures for the blog...they all had pictures of other people in them, so they only go in the book! I guess if you want to see pictures you can always come over and visit.)

1st Tooth Fairy Visit

This girl could not be happier. Last week she got her first loose tooth. When she would wake up in the morning, she would ask me if I remembered her loose tooth. I would say yes expecting her to tell me that she lost it or something. And without saying anything she would just smile--I guess she just wanted to make sure that it was still on my radar. Any time she would see anybody, she would tell them about her loose tooth (even if she had already told them). She finally lost her tooth yesterday, and so she was so excited when the tooth fairy left her $1 and a pack of pink gum. Life really is that good.

Child Labor

We put our kids to work--sometimes more than others. Today, we were low on milk, so we enlisted Trevor's help to make breakfast for everyone. He wanted to make apple pancakes. They were so good. I wished I could have eaten more, but with my apple allergy, 1 was all I could handle.

Grant wanted to do some weed whacking, but I think he figured delegating would be best. Ben did a great job and reclaimed the area in front of the garden, so now we can actually see it again. We are so glad these boys enjoy working.

Fishing Tales

Once upon a time, there were a few kids who really wanted to go fishing. They had a dad who also wanted to go fishing, so he made it happen. Luckily, this family had some friends who are always inviting them to use their dock to go fishing. So they woke up early one morning...like 5:30 early, got their worms, and their poles and headed out the door. They all enjoyed their fishing trip so much. All 3 of the kids caught some fish--some were bigger than others (one apparently was huge...but it got away), and some were stranger than others (like the snail). The friends came out and joined them, and they all had a lot of fun. And I am sure they are all living happily ever after. The End. 

Pioneer Day

Every year our church celebrates "Pioneer Day" where we celebrate the pioneers in the early days of the church who sacrificed everything to travel hundreds of miles to establish the church in what is now Utah. I loved this video and article that one of my friends posted on her blog, so I'm stealing her idea...if you want to learn more go here)

This year we weren't able to get there until the last bit, but it actually was pretty awesome because there were no lines for any of the activities. The kids got to go on the jumpy toys, eat scones, and the girls got their faces painted. Our camera battery died; which was so sad because the three older kids went in the dunk tank (which was used as a miniature one man swimming pool because it was so hot out). They really enjoyed that! It was a fun hot day. We are so thankful for every single pioneer and what they sacrificed.

Cooling down

We have had an amazingly perfect summer as far as weather goes. However, this means the afternoons are a bit hot for us--unless there is water involved. We got out the slip and slide and the kids got to play in the water (and eventual mud). (Trev was feeling a bit under the weather, so his absence from pictures is not because I forgot to include him.)

Cooking Cabrownies

Mr. Trevor has been experimenting with cooking. So far he had the idea for Piper's dessert for her Birthday and has been working on perfecting Top Ramen.
He called his recipe for Piper, "Cabrownies." He took cookie dough and then put brownies in the middle. Baked them up and we all enjoyed them. They turned out great.

He also has enjoyed cooking Top Ramen, but adding his own spices to it to enhance the flavor. He has used such things as white pepper and rosemary. He didn't like the rosemary, but everyone else did. He loves to cook, and I think he has some serious talent and that if I keep letting him do stuff like this---I may never have to cook again.

Happy 1st Birthday!

Piper turned 1 yesterday. We were going to go to a park and have a picnic because that is where we went for Lydia's 1st birthday, but we have had some crazy amounts of rain. So instead we just celebrated at home. Trevor wanted to be in charge of her cake. He came up with a cookie recipe that we all enjoyed. We all enjoyed playing with Piper on her special day.

Piper got to Facetime Nana & Papa--she got a kick out of it

She is a cute girl. Grant and I feel that Piper has unified us even more as a family this past year. We all focus on her and so that has helped us all to rally around someone together. She says very little...saying "Mom," "Dah," and "Oh wow"--I love that one; it is adorable how she says it. She is so expressive. She already loves to copy other people the best that she can. Piper is following in Lydia's footsteps and likes to wear necklaces. She is constantly smiling and reminds me so much of Ben because of it. She has a bit of curl the longer her hair gets and I think her eye color is now going to stay the same. People say that she has brown eyes when they look quick, but if you really look at them the outsides are brown, but there are definitely green streaks throughout the middle. They are the most fascinating eyes because of all the colors that are in them. She is a tiny one for our kids---only weighing in at 19 lbs 10 oz. and 28 1/2 inches tall. She loves to dance, she loves to clap, and she loves to snuggle pillows and anything else that is soft. Piper loves her brothers and sisters. As soon as she sees them she points to them, and I swear it is sign language the way she does it saying that she loves them. Somehow this girl oozes with charity at such a young age. She is such a happy girl and we are all smitten!

Our Sweet Little Lady-bug

On Monday, we got a call that Lady had passed away. (As you may recall, we dog-sat Lady while Grant's parents were on their mission. However, about a year and a half ago, we had to give her to Grant's sister's family because her eye sight and hearing were both going and it just wasn't safe for her to be here with cars, hills, and stairs.) We were all so sad. She held a special place in each of our hearts because she was just about the sweetest dog ever. She loved everyone and was so gentle.

The kids were crying (well, so were the parents). Grant taught the kids that Lady went to heaven to live with Heavenly Father. Later that night, one of the kids said that they were so sad that Lady wasn't alive anymore. Karmin (who I knew would be the one to take it the hardest) said without any tears, "Yes she is. She is still alive with Heavenly Father." And with Karmin's sweet testimony of what she knows is true, we have been able to deal with it a bit better.

Some of our favorite memories of her:
-She was camera shy
-She would pay special attention to me when I was pregnant--she seemed to know--even if I didn't
-She barked at night--all the time
-She gave the coyotes a run for their money
-She was our protector
-She would climb trees trying to get chipmunks
-She would never play fetch
-She loved her belly rubbed by certain people
-She did not like to be brushed, but she secretly loved it when it was done
-No matter how old she was, she would act just like a young spring chicken
-She was so tolerant of babies
-If Ben would go outside by himself, Lady would come up and touch her nose to him, and then walk off. Then Ben would go and pet her. Then they would do it over and over, so they would be playing tag together
-Trevor wants to remember that she wore a green shirt after her surgery. She looked so pretty all dressed up
-Karmin always liked to brush her and take care of her (we are so thankful that we had that last time with her at the Fourth of July)
-I always loved how much Lydia loved Lady before she moved. They would snuggle together anytime Lady got to come inside

Success

This year is going so much better than the last few years. We now are trying to figure out what to do with all of our bounty. I love the fruit because it just keeps growing and growing. I'm so excited to have tomatoes too. I probably went a little overboard when I planted the pumpkins. In my defense that is the only thing we have been able to grow in the past, so I wanted to plant a lot so that we could at least be successful in that. Well, the pumpkins are overtaking the garden. But I don't mind. Grant and I have enjoyed walking out to the garden on almost a nightly basis to see how things are growing. I have learned a lot this year as well, that will hopefully help in future years to get it even better.

Tapping Her Inner Dr. Seuss

Lydia wanted to go fly her kite, but unfortunately there was no wind outside. So she decided that if she ran really fast, inside would work just as well (and it was air conditioned). I just kept thinking of Thing 1 and Thing 2 running down the hall and bumping their kites on the wall. Bump. Thump. Thump, Bump. Luckily we didn't see anything fall. And good thing for her, her mom didn't mind, no not at all.

What to do

Do you know what happens when you ask 6 people to pick strawberries for about 20 minutes? You get a lot of strawberries. If 4 of those people happen to be kids and the other 2 adults, you will yield approximately 25 lbs of strawberries.
What does one do with all of those strawberries? Here is one scenario:

You could use 11 boxes of pectin if you have about 29 containers and over 10 lbs of sugar and make jam for the coming year. If you throw in some rhubarb stalks, you could also make strawberry rhubarb cobbler that is very yummy. While you have the rhubarb, you have to make my Grandma's rhubarb muffins that are just about the best muffins you will ever taste even though they don't contain strawberries--it is just the rule if you have rhubarb...you make the muffins. Then you could freeze about 1 gallon worth of strawberries for smoothies. Then if one has that many strawberries, they should really have dessert for dinner (now when I tried this my kids thought that they were in heaven) and make strawberry shortcake. I'm just saying that is an idea if you happen to have 25 lbs of strawberries.

Whistle While You Work

What Ben is pointing to is "the side" where we would throw things like weeds, etc. It use to be a ledge with a drop off, but now it is a wall of trees. 

Grant's dad loves a chain saw. He loves to cut things down. This year he decided to cut down some trees and branches so that in case a fire ever came through, it might help prevent it from spreading towards the house. The boys and I (and sometimes Austin and Tyler) got the job of picking them all up so they could be thrown over "the side." We have been working on it since the boys got out of school. It has been great to have something for the boys to get a lot of that energy out. Today we got the first phase done. We will wait a few weeks before starting another round. It has been hard work, but I have LOVED working along side the boys. I think we all have bigger muscles because of it!

4th of July

Living where we do, I forget about some of the common things that most kids grow up doing that our kids miss out on. To celebrate the 4th of July, we made up for one thing for the boys. We let them ride their bikes on the road! When we go down to Gina and DeWayne's every year, all the kids from around their house bring their bikes. Some years, our boys, in desperation to play with them, will just run as fast as they can on the trails to try to keep up. Our car is not big enough to bring bikes (Grant is constantly trying to talk me into buying a bigger car--he is always trying to use scenarios like this to convince me that it would be best for our family), so it made sense that we could take two kids out and have room for (barely) 2 bikes. I'm glad we did because the kids had a lot of fun with them.
I loved watching the kids help each other out all night.
Karmin and Lydia helped push each other on the swings.
Trevor cooked Piper a hot dog.
We learned that Trevor needs a bigger bike. The boys learned how to drive a 4 wheeler (thanks to the expert teaching from their cousin, Tyler). We got to visit Lady, and Karmin helped brush her. We played capture the flag (and it would seem that having me on a team was bad luck). We enjoyed all the food. And the fireworks were impressive, but the moon provided some tough competition as it came up just as the fireworks started. It was a great holiday. I'm glad that I live in this country and have all the freedoms that we enjoy (and sometimes take for granted).

And just fyi--it might be the other way around about the car.

Strawberries!

We went and picked strawberries today. The kids all loved it! Lydia loved picking all the green berries.

When it was time to go we took pictures of the kids with their bounty:

But some one couldn't resist picking just one more:

 And miss Liddy-Pie couldn't resist stealing berries out of Dad's bucket to claim as her own:

 And still there is just one more perfect berry (I don't blame her because I love picking berries):

 Finally done and she had the most beautiful berries. She did not have any stems on them: