Month: August 2010

Every year the boys get to go with just their dad on camping trip, and have some good old boy times. I am not invited. So, I have no idea what really happened, but they took the camera, and brought home some evidence…

I guess I kind of mis-spoke, I do know one thing, there was salamanders, and the only reason I know this, is because the boys called me asking if we could get another pet, like a salamander.



But from these pictures, I gather that there was LOTS and LOTS of salamanders.

I know they ate some good, healthy, nutritious food, 🙂 (and that Truman can make some really awesome faces)

And took fire safety really seriously, 🙂

And all joking aside, I do know they had a really, really good time… and that these boys have one awesome father.

7:20 pm ‘Hey Mom, come feel this, I think my top tooth might be a little loose’

9:47 pm ‘Hey Mom, look at me..’ (insert: Me gasping in surprise at this sight…)

‘Mom, did you know that Dad is really, really strong?’

Apparently after about two hours of him wiggling his kinda loose tooth, and some of Toph’s muscles (Toph insists he didn’t really pull hard), we end up with this new smile…

Sure makes him seem bigger, doesn’t it?

Last summer I learned how to bottle food. This summer a neighbor brought me some bottling cucumbers, and a recipe, and it was so refreshing to dust off my skills again, and create something I never have before.

Pickles. They were so pretty,I again came to the conclusion, nothing is prettier than bottled food (and that I live in an awesome neighborhood, so grateful to live in a place where everyone reaches out and shares!)

he’s past that messy eating phase…

But every once in awhile there is a food that he just can’t resist getting his hands in.
This night it was red jello and cool whip.

And the little smile on Tru’s face makes cleaning up the mess so much easier.

Sitting in church one day, I looked over, and couldn’t believe how blessed I am.

Just wanted to capture how handsome my boys are right now.

Can’t believe how big they all are getting, and in their Sunday Clothes they look even more grown up.

I’m a lucky Mama.

A couple of weekends ago, I FINALLY I got to meet this sweetheart at her baby blessing.

She was just as wonderful as I’d heard. Can’t wait to get my hands on her again.

Since July, we have been making the weekly trek up to see Grams, and she’s been teaching her grandkids about horses.

These pictures were taken at the first lesson… (Before we start 1-I don’t know if I am spelling any of the horse terminology correctly, so if not, feel free to correct me all you horse lovers out there! 2–below is a bunch of fun pictures along with fun things we are learning)

The kids have learned how to clean out the hooves, being careful of the frog (the tender part in the middle of the foot(. They all have had a turn doing this mostly by themselves, with supervision from grams.

Something they do twice at lessons is brush the horse down good, with different type of brushes, so she won’t get any sores.

They have learned the proper way to put on and take off a saddle blanket and saddle (and how to place a saddle down on the ground, so it won’t get ruined).

An important lesson, which side of the horse to get on and off.

How to give a horse a carrot (Fingers together and thumb in)

The importance of wearing a helmet (so far only Truman has fallen off),

They have learned how to hold the reigns and ‘drive’ the horse. (Last week they did it completely by themselves, Grams, just walked along side)

Elliot is progressively spending more and more time on the horse, before exclaiming ‘all done’. Our last lesson, we went around the corral like 3 times!

We’re hoping we can continue these lessons through the fall, or until it’s too cold! We’ve had a great time thus far! Thanks Grams, we love you!

The pictures are way better than any words, I’ll just use a few to illustrate our favorites things…
Meeting Baby Isaac for the first time (oh, he was so delicious, I just wanted to eat him up)

The sandbox





All the kids around Aunt Cat (no surprise!)

Watching/lighting fireworks (especially the ones thrown in the river)







The comparing of Dallin Paul and Becca’s tummies 🙂

Celebrating Michaels birthday

Floating the river (I think the boys floated down like 7 or 8 times! They couldn’t get enough, and loved it! They didn’t even fight us on the lifejackets either!)






Napping in the shade of the trees and a fan, after falling asleep on the river

And of course spending time with family.

Wonderful time at the river, as always.

warning pregnant ladies, of intensely emotional movies.

Last night I spent 40 minutes SOBBING (like I can’t breath, I am crying so hard) whilst watching this movie (the Pursuit of Happyness).

Seriously, I think there should be some time of warning system in place…or maybe I should just know better. Which now that I say it, is probably the latter.

Ever since last year, the boys have talked about the Detroiter, and have wanted to go back. That’s where they voted to take our family vacation. Toph and I were happy, it is after all just a tad bit cheaper and less travel than a Disneyland trip! 🙂

There was LOTS swimming in the natural hot springs, the boys are truely little fishies who could just swim, swim, swim the day away…



Elliot had no fear of the water which was good in some ways,

and not so good in others (he would just walk right off the steps)-

the boys enjoyed their lessons on building the fire/fire safety, and roasting the perfect hotdog and marshmallows.

We ate lots and lots of yummy campfire food, tinfoil dinners, hot dogs, s’mores…yum.

Tucker and I had a good laugh about his marshmallows catching on fire (just like our pretend camping trip)

We enjoyed beautiful scenery,

and later in the evenings, we had a nocturnal visitor to the Detroiter…a skunk. I ran into it more than once….

(Picture taken out of our window)
Yeah, Christopher kept telling me, it’s more afraid of you than you are of him….Yeah, not so. Let’s just say one night, I was on top of the picnic table, and Toph had to come to my rescue. Thankfully none of us were sprayed.

We went on a hike and looked for bugs

We swam, and splashed in the river

Toph got some incredible pictures of some cranes, pelicans that were splashing in the river at the same time as us

Somethings I didn’t get pictures of, but wish I had?
The kids snuggled together sleeping on the futon, the 5 hour game of Monopoly played by Toph, Tuck and Tru *Truman won!*, and the pool house (where the boys loved to go down and get penny candy and treats)…

One minute down the road, after we’d packed up and said good bye, we looked back to see this:

He’d had so much fun, he couldn’t stay awake to eat his sucker. Now that’s a good sign of a good family vacation.