Heritage Park

This is my screen-saver right now.  

I love to see my boys exploring and busy and happy.  

We went to our favorite park to race an 'out-rigger canoe' Dave carved down the river.  The boys kept calling it an 'out-burger canoe'. 

Lincoln discovered the sand volleyball court and for a minute I felt like I was at a beach. 

Gaggle of Girls

Diana is having her two babies any day.  Every morning we wake up wondering if she had to run to the hospital in the middle of the night.  So we thought we better take some maternity pictures fast while we still had the chance.

I'm not going to mention that I gained more weight with each of  my pregnancies then she has with these twins!?!

Five months ago she was sitting in California with her little family excited to welcome one little baby into their family.

And now here she is in a different state, two baby girls on the way, a job change for her husband, and a new house to move into before the girls arrive.  I can't imagine what her stress levels have been like.  I really hope we will be able to be a big help to her.  Love ya Di!

First Grade

First Grade 

I know I couldn't be any happier about Josh's teacher this year.  My Mom!!  Can you believe it?  I'm dying that Josh gets to spend so much time with the same wonderful person who spent so much time loving and teaching and playing with me and this young age.  My mom loves to teach and spends so much time preparing for her class.  Of course we could never find another teacher who would love Josh as much as his own grandma does and sometimes it seems like that is what a little 6 year old needs more then anything from the teacher standing in front of him 35 hours a week. 
This picture makes me laugh because Josh is becoming more and more reserved, or 'cool', and can't decide if he wants to smile in this picture or if he's too embarrassed. 

First day of school outfit picked out by Josh, laid out by Josh. 

First school lunch.  Josh is such a good eater, but hates PBJ.  What am I going to do for the next 12 years of school lunches?  I know there are other options but the PBJ is your lunch box staple.  I made him M&M cookies and his favorite kind of sandwich.  Toasted open face tomato and avocado with cream cheese and seasoning salt.  I feel foolish sending him to school with this but he loves it, and I'm realizing I can't make him eat a PBJ when I'm not around.

Traditional picture in front of the garage.

At the bus stop.  I though all these kids looked so cute on their first day.  How exciting.

 Dave never misses a chance to joke around with little kids.

I'm going to miss you Josh!  I can count the number of times I've been away from Josh for 7 1/2 hours.  I'm not use to this and neither is he.  When he got home I could tell he was exhausted.  What a long day for a little guy.

Morning Ritual

Every morning Dave comes down stairs and says, "Who can carry my lunch out for me?"  This is Ammon's cue to jump up and carry out his Dad's lunch and follow him outside.  By now Lincoln is waving furiously at his Dad to tell him goodbye for the day and trying to get out of his highchair so he can follow everyone out to push out Dad's car.  Ammon always gives David the Wall Street Journal newspaper and then positions himself in front of the car to help send Dave off to work.  This tradition started 25 years ago when I would run outside to wave goodbye to my Dad.  I remember foggy mornings running outside and kneeling down to inhale in the exhaust from his car.  Of course my parents would yell at me to stop and to never do that again, and then I would then push my Dad's car out the driveway. 

The boys keep up the tradition, except I will never tell them that I use to smell the exhaust (I already know Josh is like me and likes those synthetic smells).  We love our Dad.  I'm so glad he does this each day so I can stay home with our bears.

Bayloaf 4

How fun is it to know all the members of a really live rock band?  We've been pretty impressed, and very entertained this summer as some friends from our street (Sugarloaf) and of a neighboring street (Bayhill) put together a real live ligament band.  Here they all are at our favorite Heritage Park in Cedar Hills.  We had a lot of fun this night with friends and neighbors and let the kids run around and dance and pretend play like they were in their own band. 

Some of the band members:

The Groupies:

Forcing Lincoln to take a picture with his parents:

Uhhh....ohhh

What caught the attention of these boys you wonder?...

Just a couple of cute girls. 

When did this start to happen?  I had to laugh when I saw these two groups of kids interacting with each other the other day.  I do think the boys were still pretty oblivious to the attention these girls were giving them, but it still makes me laugh each time I think about how near this is in the future.  Okay, maybe I shouldn't be laughing and instead worry a little. 

Imagination

I found these boys pushing themselves around the neighborhood on this little dolly hitting pretend targets with their empty Nerf gun.  I love seeing their imagination at full speed.

Two Favorite Summer Days

This one:

And this one:

Who'd have every thought that I would get to live next to my three sisters and my parents? Not me! I came to realize that we would all be spread out pretty far for most of our lives, and now here we are, in Utah, just minutes from each other. It really is wonderful. I especially love seeing all of our kids play with each other. So now we just have to recruit my two brothers and their families to come. Impossible? Maybe. But then again I never thought I'd find myself living next to this much family.

Packhorse

Josh has been joining me on some of my Saturday runs lately. We run/bike down to Costco (7mi.) together and then Dave pick us up. It's a great downhill run and very easy for Josh to do on a bike. I love this time with him and I even figured out that if I have him along I can make him carry water and my phone, keys, etc. We have fun just talking and I know he loves having my undivided attention so he can show me all the bike tricks he makes up.

Scouts

Here go some of the scouts straight up the mountain we live on for an overnight camp out.

Dave is back in scouts as Assistant Scoutmaster and loving it! This calling fits him so well. He gets to camp out once a month, talk about survival stuff and work with the youth. Perfect, for him. When the bishopric counselor who extended the calling to him asked him how he felt about a scout calling he said, "Let's just put it this way, I have scout pants." As in, "I'm really into this". He wanted to order himself one of those flat, round brimmed scout hats so his outfit looked very official on Tuesday nights (okay, he was kind of just joking about that). In Florida he was a scoutmaster and was rounding the hallway corner at church and almost ran into someone and all she could say was, "Wow, that's one big scout."
He's good at playing with the boys and making sure they get lots of requirements passed off. But if you don't wear your scout shirt and bring your scout book to mutual watch out!

Bridal Veil Falls