Funday

This afternoon we had our biggest rainstorm of the summer. The kids were all excited and wanted to play outside. There was a river in the front yard, but Rebecca, Shari, and Adrian played in the back. The pictures don't show how much rain there was, but they were all soaked when they came in.




Charlie couldn't play outside because he has been sick all day. He started throwing up around six o'clock this morning, and continued through the afternoon. Even with that, after watching the rain he said this was "the best day ever." If you hang around Charlie enough, you know how much he loves everything to do with water, except getting wet (he even asked for and was excited to get an umbrella for his birthday).

Charlie shows his sick face:

And his "all better" face:


And of course, today was fun, because we got to continue celebrating the first BYU football victory of the year:

First Monday of School

It's hard to think of a title for a blog when there is more than one subject to include. I'm starting with school. The kids went to two days of school last week and today is their first Monday so I finally took a picture of them today. Rebecca has Mrs. Francis and seems pleased. She was a little sad she wasn't given the same teacher she had last year who moved up to teaching 4th grade. Shari has Mrs. Alvarez and couldn't be happier. She has a few friends from her 1st grade class so 2nd grade should be a piece of cake. Adrian now no longer uses the word good. He replaces it with great. Example: (Mom) Adrian, how was your day at school? (Adrian) Good, no, I mean it was great! Charlie is getting used to the back-2-school idea. After we walk the kids to school right when we get home he asks for his midmorning snack. I think he thinks it will help the kids come home from school faster if he eats his snack earlier. I am going to attempt to register him for pre-school tomorrow. He always needs somewhere to go and something to do so this should take care of a couple days of the week. I won't do it, however, if I don't get a morning slot so we shall see.
In other news, this weekend we took on the project of taking the weeds out of our front yard "flower bed" and covering them up with landscape fabric and rocks. You be the judge of whether or not it turned out. Dan and I are glad to not have the weeds there. We need a few more bags of rock to completely cover it. Ignore the thirsty tree in the middle. We missed a few weeks of watering and now we are trying to catch up. When it's green and grown it will be a beautiful turkish filbert hazelnut tree.



Today is Donald's 5 month birthday! Dan doesn't consider monthly remembrances of Donald's age birthdays but I love to celebrate! So, here is the "birthday" boy. In all his olympic glory, Donald took gold for being able to sit up at only 4 1/2 months! In other words he's been practicing for a couple of weeks and look how spectacular he is. He can't even believe it himself.

2 Big Weekends

It's been a while since I blogged. I've been so busy and this week I'm getting ready for school to start so I'm guessing I'll get more busy not less so now's the time to catch up a little.
2 weekends ago I went to my brother's reception in Phoenix. It was so much fun. Dan took over things at home and I packed Donald off to a weekend of wild fun with the Weir family. It was so great to be with my family even if it was for a short weekend. The highlights were staying in a fun vacation home that could be preserved as a historical representation of all things seventies. It was great. I loved walking from room to room and finding the faces I love in each one. The reception was lots of fun, the best part being Shannon and Donald's smiling faces. I wish I had pictures to post but even with one baby to hold my hands were busy. Plus, Shari was taking so many pictures I'm still waiting with bated breath to see the results.
After a fun weekend in Arizona I came home and immediately started getting ready for our next trip to Boise. We left Wednesday night to visit Dan's family for the weekend and we had so much fun. We asked all the kids what their favorite part of the weekend was. Charlie said riding around on Aunt RaeAnn and Uncle Paul's boat was his favorite part. Adrian said playing Wii with Uncle Craig and Aunt Rebekah was his favorite as well as riding around fast in the boat. Shari and Rebecca both agreed that their favorite parts were swimming at Grandpa's pool, shopping with Aunt RaeAnn, and being pulled behind the boat on a big yellow floatie chair. Dan and I enjoyed boating and playing Rock Band with everyone until the late hours of the night. At least it was super late for our 5 kids. I especially loved seeing Dad and Kimberly getting all settled in their new life in Boise. Rebecca found a house that she loves and dreams of moving into so we can be near Grandpa, Kimberly, RaeAnn and Paul all the time.
Now that we're home we've been doing laundry and today we weeded a ton in the garden. This is the way we help them want to go back to school! I think they'll be cheering when they walk through the school doors on Thursday. We'll see if I am.

Fun with Deya

We've been having so much fun with my sister Amanda and her daughter Deya. They've been out on the island of Saba while my brother-in-law is going to medical school. Although Deya has her own little troupe of friends on Saba, hanging out with all of her cousins has taken some getting used to. We all want to kiss her, talk to her, play with her all the time! She's super sweet and so much fun when she can stand all the attention. Here are a few pictures of our fun times with Deya.

Aunt Sarah was trying to get Deya to like her so on her first night here Deya got a lollipop.

Here is Deya dressed up and going for a ride in the cooler.

Here is Uncle Scott performing a feat of daring-do with Deya and cousin Scotty.

Camping Trip

This weekend we went camping! It was a trial run so we planned on camping one night and seeing how much camping I can stand and what we still need to add to our camping supplies. We went to Settlement Canyon which is maybe 5 minutes from our house. It was super hot so we needed a spot in the shade, but all of the shady spots were dirt and rocks, no grass. We decided we'd rather have shade than grass. Within the first half hour Charlie tripped over a tree branch and was covered from head to toe with gray dusty dirt. I was ready to take him home for a quick shower and then come back for the campfire but I was trying to rough it! There were many trips down to the stream to rinse hands and we used a ton of wet ones. It seemed like the whole afternoon/evening I was fighting a losing battle against the gray dirt.
Charlie was so anxious to have a campfire he asked every 5 minutes when Dad would start the fire. I finally dragged the kids off on a "hike". It was more like an uphill sprint from shady spot to shady spot interspersed with breaks and drinking warm water (the ice water didn't last to long in the heat).
The campfire was a big hit and the kids enjoyed roasting hot dogs and marshmallows. We gave Charlie a Smore and he decided it was yucky so I had to finish it. Rebecca ended up being the only kid that likes Smores so Dan, Aunt Amanda, and me all had to eat enough to make up for the kids not eating them.
After our dinner party I put 4 filthy dust balls that resembled my kids in their tent and we let them play with flashlights for a little while before they started to quiet down. Then, being the gentleman that he is, Dan sent me and Donald home so Donald could sleep in his own bed because we wouldn't want Donald to be uncomfortable. I laid awake for a little while feeling guilty that Dan was out in the wilderness with the kids and I was at home in the air conditioning. The guilt didn't last all night though and I accidentally slept in until 8:30! I told Dan I'd be back at the campsite as early as I could.
So, the camping supplies we still need mostly involve getting a camp site with running water, showers, maybe a laundromat, a swimming pool would be nice and maybe a pavillion. KOA is starting to look pretty good to me!

Charlie, cousin Deya, and Aunt Amanda.

Here are the girls playing in the stream.

Why are they wearing white?!

Donald's First Bites

Donald started eating rice cereal this week. He really seems to enjoy it, and eats a lot. He also had his 4-month checkup. He is 27-inches long and 15 lbs, 9 oz.

Field of Dreams

Friday night we went to a Little League baseball field. Everybody took turns hitting and running around the bases. We used a wiffle ball and bat, along with some bats and balls. Here are some pictures (Sarah's not in the pictures, but she did hit and pitch to Dan):

Our future infield.

Charlie started hitting off the tee, but actually hit some pitches at the end of the night.

Donald didn't get to play, but enjoyed sitting (and pooping) in the dugout.