Rocky Mountain High

I'm sure John Denver was referring to Colorado's (correct me if I'm wrong) beautiful Rocky Mountains in his song, but we are very partial to the ones just minutes away. The girls have been begging to go camping again, so we asked the uncles to join us for an overnight rendezvous over Father's Day weekend. It was finally hot enough during the day that we felt like we wouldn't freeze to death overnight. We got Paul some sleeping bags for Father's Day and gave them to him early, so we wouldn't freeze our pants off.  Asher and I went back down the canyon and slept at home because we could and then met up again with the crew in the morning. 

Roasting a perfectly toasted marshmallow. Uncle Jared is the bearded fellow and we're not quite sure what Uncle Josh is trying to pull.  

A view of Mt. Timpanogas from the Alpine Loop. Ahhh! Breathtaking!

Uncle Josh and Asher playing with "Fawure".

Jared and Paul trying to set up the tent. And they think they're eagle scouts! Ha!

Clairey Beary sitting on a log.

Emmy Lou Who

And Abbey too.

Why is Claire always in everyone else's pictures?

Everything is better with a friend

So it should come as no surprise to anyone that I love to have friends visit. I have a tendency to talk a lot (all of my teachers would comment on that at parent teacher conferences) and I really enjoy adult conversations since they are so few and far between. Now that we have moved back to the hometown, I get to see my friends more often-but never often enough. We also have very dear friends scattered all over the country that we LOVE to see when we get the chance. Earlier in June our friends, the Bartles were visiting briefly while moving and we got to catch up with Heidi and her darling boys for an afternoon of park fun. The kids loved Rock Canyon park and loved playing with the boys. Heidi and Garry are our friends from our Wymount days and it's so fun to have kept in touch with them. Unfortunately, my camera didn't make it into the car with us that morning, so I have no visual documentation of that event and I'm not tech-savvy enough to know how to link to her blog. Sigh. But it was fun nonetheless.

The next week we our friends the Robisons and the Hagerdon's (friends we met in Cincinnati)  were visiting after the mother figures in each family were brave enough to hit the  road in Tornado season with six kids in tow. We are so glad they did, because we had so much fun with them for a few days. Aliess and Nicole were able to do a session at the Salt Lake Temple while the kids hung out with us. I'll admit I was curious as to what I'd do with ten kids, no basement and no yard, but the kids were great and had so much fun together. We took them to the Dinosaur museum and of course the camera stayed at home again, so I'll need to get pictures from Aliess. That was very fun as always and the next day we went to Temple Square. Probably not a recommended activity for any children under five, but still fun to spend time together. We toured a couple of the buildings and then spent our life savings on lunch at the Lion House. Sadly our basement was not done it time to host our visitors, but it will be done this coming Wednesday, so if anyone is in town, you are more than welcome to stay. I can't guarantee mints on the pillows, but the sheets will be clean.

Elizabeth passed out after we completely wore her out.

I remembered to bring the camera to Temple Square, but the batteries died after a few pictures I took of just my kids, so I need to get those pictures from Aliess as well.

Claire and Elizabeth playing on Barbie.com. Thanks Barbie for being such a wonderful babysitter.

Asher playing dinosaurs with Kurt. Asher adored Kurt and held his hand everywhere we went.

Cody and Reid trying to figure out the karaoke machine.

Abbey, Emma and Lexi playing petshops.

Hannah playing Guitar Hero.

Thanks again to all our dear friends to make the effort to see us. We love you!!!!

June's Little Birthday Girl

Man alive, she's already five! Emma requested a treasure hunt to find her presents on her birthday morning. Paul sent her on the cutest treasure hunt ever and I was so busy filming it, that I didn't take any pictures of her with her presents. What kind of a mother am I? She was very excited to say the least. She got a LPS web animal, Barbie dog and puppies (one actually tinkles when fed a bottle of water), a Diego vsmile game, a few other dog figurines, a razor scooter (blue of course) and new birthday duds.

Am I a chipmunk, a rabbit? Who knows. I just know I'm cute. Thanks dad for the big teeth and small mouth. I love them and unfortunately you will pay for them dearly in the not so distant future.

Emma has had her Jungle Jim's birthday party planned since she turned four. A little carny and ghetto, I know, but she was so EXCITED! How do you say no to that. Plus our house is in no way ready to host a birthday party. Maybe next year.

Rees and Jack enjoying their rubbery pizza-just a notch above Chuck-E-Cheese, but a notch nonetheless.

Emma and her friend Hannah, from preschool. Hannah declared that she did not like roller coasters and then spent the entire party riding it with Claire. There's nothing like a little peer pressure.

My favorite shot of cousin Grace- this girly loves gum!

An attempt at modeling the birthday gear.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there are lions in the jungle, however, I thought these were so cute and what do five year olds care anyway?

Lovely dimple shot. Don't you just want to eat her up?

Back to rodent mouth with cousin Catherine.

Birthday girl and neighborhood friends Zack, Ella and Aleah.  

Grace, Maya and Catherine and I think that's all the birthday guests. Emma's siblings were also there, but somehow didn't make it into many of the pictures.

To say we were shocked and surprised at learning we were pregnant for the third time in 4 years would be an understatement, but to try and describe the joy and blessings Emma has brought to our family would be impossible. She is so sensitive, loving and caring to those around her. Her sisters love her dearly and she is her brothers best friend. He has to be with her constantly. She is a delight to her parents and a great friend to everyone. 

She does have two conflicting personality traits that are very interesting. She is incredibly shy and just as equally competitive. She has to be the best at everything. She is starting to come out of her shell, thanks to preschool, but we are trying to tactfully teach her how not to be boastful. One day her friend was riding home from preschool with us and Emma looked at her friends drawing and declared, "I totally draw better than that." We had a long conversation about things we say out loud and thoughts we keep to ourselves. Now she'll say things like, "Isn't that weird that I am younger than my sisters and can shoot the basketball way better than them?" or "Isn't that weird that I'm the fastest runner?" Ya, Emma, real "weird".  

Our little "Lulu" as we affectionately call her has never been a conformist. In a house full of girls, blue and brown, not pink or purple, remain her favorite colors. She has never liked princesses and asked for fighting dinosaurs for Christmas last year-which she got. When she plays house with her siblings or friends she is always the male dog and up until a few months ago, she was very perplexed as to why she was born a girl and not a boy. She finally stopped pestering us with that question and has come to realize not all girls have to be "girly" although lately she has really enjoyed when I do her hair curly on Sundays and she actually asks to play with the girls in the neighborhood instead of just the boys. Before, she would actually cry if I suggested that we call a girl over to play.

So Emma, we love you and are so glad you are part of our family.

How to make a sculpted dog cake

This is the cake Emma wanted me to make for her. I don't think so.

Prelude to a Birthday

Since Emma's birthday is June 10th, my mom's is the 1st, cousin Catherine's is the 30th and everyone was in town on the 8th, we had a birthday dinner and party on that Sunday. It was so fun to have everyone minus Marissa together. That doesn't happen very often and probably won't happen again for awhile. Emma was so excited, but we had to explain to her that she wouldn't be opening many presents because it wasn't her real birthday. She chose the same dog cake she had last year and I told her she needed to pick something different, so she picked the horse cake Abbey had for her 6th birthday. This one was slightly modified as Abbey's was a paint horse and Emma wanted just plain brown. Easy enough. She was quite happy with the results.

Emma wasn't very thrilled, however, at sharing the candle blowing duties, so we re lit candles several times so each girl could have a turn blowing them out. Five year olds can be so demanding.

We all went in on a kitchen aid mixer for my mom and she really was surprised or at least put up a very good front. Sorry about the background shot CC, but this was the only picture I got that captured mom's expression.

Emma has always been really good at puzzles and Grandma found this awesome jungle one that she just loved. She also loved the coloring/activity book that Catherine got and asked Grandma if she would give her one for her "real" birthday. Nice. 

I just had to throw this picture of Asher doing his pose next to Grace. He wanted to see the picture after I took it and then reenacted for me several times exactly how his legs were. And yes, he is just wearing his shirt and "big boy pants". Easier access for going to the potty.

Gym Bugs

All the girls had a gymnastics recital on Saturday that took the entire day.  We all went to Emma's performance in the morning and then Paul took Emma and Asher home while I stayed for Abbey and Claire's. Although it was long, they loved performing and we really loved watching them. Abbey's friend Tanira is in the same class as Abbey, so her mom took still shots of Abbey and Tanira while I filmed them both. I don't have the stills of Abbey yet, so I'll post what I do have. I was so proud of all the girls, but was really excited that Abbey finally got her backbend kickover. She has been working really hard on it for quite some time. She moved up to pre-team and Emma moved up to Level 1. Claire only has a couple of things to pass off before she can go to level 2 so they are all doing awesome.

Emma on the bars

Claire on the beam

Asher may have to join the ranks when he's old enough; he loved it!

Abbey and Tanira

Bruise Progression

I don't know why I feel the need to document this; maybe because it's his first really good shiner and he himself is so excited to tell everyone about it. The bad thing is that I need to take him to the doctor for a weird bite/infection? thing on the back of his leg and I don't want them to think I'm beating him. I guess they'll just take into account that he's a two year old boy and that says it all.

Day 2

Day 3 morning

Day 3 evening

Basement Walls

 I know pictures of drywall are so incredibly boring, but we are just so thrilled to have drywall and one coat of mud and tape up. They should finish mudding and texturing this week and hopefully start the paint, trim and tile.

Part of the family room

The kitchenette area

Entry to what the kids call the clubhouse

Abbey's room

This, That and the Other

As boring and mundane as it is, we tried to stay close to home (and the potty) this week. At the beginning of the week, Asher watched tv on his potty because it took him awhile to relax and pee in the potty. After a couple days, he did well enough to run and play and sit on the potty only when he really needed to go. Paul finished painting the wall and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. The colors aren't exactly what I thought they were, but it's so hard to tell with a tiny little swatch and this is a really big wall. Now all we need to do is decorate and it will really feel like home.
This is the front room entry area and I was very hesitant on this shade of green, but it's starting to grow on me, which is good because Paul says he's not painting it again.
The girls started swim lessons this week. Our neighbors, the Smith's, have a daughter home from college who teaches lessons in their pool. It has been great so far! She is right across the street, the classes are small and the kids who are not have their lessons can play in their awesome backyard while they wait for their turn.
We had a fun play date at Wines Park with my friends from way back when on Friday and the kids all had so much fun until Asher bit it. He got a huge goose egg on his noggin (the picture doesn't do it justice) and has a nice shiner that has deepened in color over the weekend. He is very proud of his "owie" and tells us "my eye bue, popo, deen (blue, purple, green)"

Afterthought

I forgot to mention that during the week of the unfortunate events, I was picking Emma up from preschool and she was bringing a friend home with her for a play date and I ended up locking the keys in my car. Nice! This is the second time I have had to call USAA to get me out of a pickle. The rep was asking me what city I was located in and I replied, "Murray, Utah". Somehow she didn't understand what I was saying so I asked her if she was a fan of American Idol. She then said, "Yes, I just love David Archuleta- oh, Murray, Utah". Yeah-he's put us on the map even if he didn't win.  That still didn't get someone to my aid in less than an hour, but they did eventually show up and we were on our way. 

Potty Training Round #4

We have successfully completed week one of potty training. Asher did awesome (Imagine a big thumbs up right here.) The first day was a bit rough- just like with the girls, but he has been a trouper and  now tells me each time he needs to go. He still had a couple of accidents today, but is doing dramatically better than the last few days. My favorite is when I put a pull-up on him because we are going out and I can see him holding his legs together so tight as he is trying not to pee, but does anyway, and he keeps looking for the pee to run down his legs and it doesn't because of the pull-up. He looks so confused. Hilarious! I am so proud of Asher, especially because everyone told me how much harder it is to train a boy than a girl. I am just so grossed out changing two year old diapers that all my kids get potty trained by two. Asher is the oldest at 2 years and 2 1/2 months. This was because of the move. I still couldn't find my potty seat and had to go to Target and buy a new one, but I couldn't stand it for one more day.  I also couldn't find the Betsy Wetsy doll I use in the training process, but he did just fine without it-so here's to the champion of peeing in the potty!

Home Improvement Gone Bad

The future bedrooms of Claire and Emma-just waiting so patiently for their drywall to be hung. 

While we are thrilled to be in a home that we want to settle down in, we are a bit overwhelmed by all the work that needs to be done. When we bought the house, we did so with the understanding that our contractor could finish the basement in 30 days. All the girls will have their own rooms down there and we thought it wouldn't be so bad to have all the girls in one room upstairs for a month or so while we finished it up. Well, three months into it they are still not finished. It's not a big surprise that you can't finish it in a month if you only work ONE day a week! Now that I got that off my chest, I'll admit they did pick up the speed after I emphasized how important it was that it be done by June 1st. We have company coming to visit and we really wanted to have enough room to host them. So one morning a few weeks back while the drywall was being delivered, a city official (I swear they're vultures) stopped by to check if we had a building permit. Although the builder had already paid for one, it had never been issued, so the city made us put construction on hold until it was. They were a couple weeks out on issuing them and we couldn't do anything until their inspector came over and gave us the go ahead. As you can imagine, I was FURIOUS! During and or around this time, Paul was at meetings in Boston and Toronto for over a week. While he was gone one night, I was drying some clothes and heard some pops that sounded like firecrackers. I went into the laundry room and  there were sparks shooting out from the back of the dryer. I quickly shut it off and pulled the clothes out. Good thing I was home or there might not be a house to finish a basement for. I called the Maytag people and they couldn't fit us in for a week, which was fine because I could dry my clothes at the laundromat or my mom's-another perk for living close to my parents. When the scheduled day of service came(a  whole Saturday wasted waiting) , the repairman never did. When I called to complain, they said they could reschedule for the next week. I politely refused and said I would call someone else. Then they called me back on a Sunday morning to again ask if I wanted to reschedule. I wasn't quite as polite this time. Anyway, Monday we called Sterling of Sterling Appliance and he had our dryer up and running that same day for 79 bucks. Talk about service! While Sterling was fixing our dryer, Jones Paint and Glass was attempting to replace the five windows that were broken when we moved in. In their attempt, they got one window in, broke another while trying to put it in and had three others that didn't fit, because they measured wrong.  Today, they finally completed the job and I'm so excited to have all the windows fixed, well, except for the one in the basement that the dry wallers broke when they were bringing in the drywall during the incident that started this post. All but that one, which I was told would be replaced by the end of that very same day. That was three weeks ago. Still broken. Oh, and did I mention that on one of the very few days this year that it has been warm enough to turn on the air conditioning, it didn't work. We had to call Kelly of Kelly's Heating and Air to come and fix that bad boy. It's been one of those months, there's really nothing more I can say. Except that we do now have our permit, the drywall is hung and now the tedious jobs of mudding, taping and painting will occupy the next couple of weeks. Good thing Paul ponied up and hired out for these jobs. We could have been living in limbo for a very long time. More pictures to come....

Da Man

I know I am biased because I am his mother, but man this kid is cute! I took him to get his two year old pictures taken and the photographer perfectly captured the essence of his personality. Those of you who know him well will know exactly what he is doing in each picture. For those of you who don't know this sweetest of boys, I will narrate. We were lucky to get these pictures. So many of them were super action shots or blurry. This kid can't sit still for a second!

Just a plain ol' cheesy smile picture-so sweet!

Three quarters view of the beginning of "Ahoy there me heartey's" as heard by Captain Feathersword of the Wiggles.

Front view of "Ahoy Sequence"

Follow through of the "Ahoy Sequence"

Who me?

Just his happy little self

Ah, the trifecta! #1 "Awesome", #2 The "sweet" face and #3 "Cheese"

Every time I have a two year old, I say two is my favorite age. This time around is no exception. This kid melts my heart and frustrates me beyond belief all at the same time. Like most two year olds, he says and does the funniest things. He gives the best hugs and pats your back with his sweet little hands, he gives pinch kisses where he pinches your cheeks and kisses you on the lips(a personal favorite). He says his name as though it were a profane name for a donkey-you can use your imagination. No sh's for this boy and his r's aren't the best either. Instead of just saying, "Love you", he says "love you much". When our bishop and his counselor were over visiting the other night, he really took to the counselor and upon their leaving, he waved and said, "bye bye someone", since he didn't know his name. He can't walk anywhere-he runs, skips and jumps.

One of the things I love the most about Asher is how much he looks like his daddy. I could just eat Asher up, he's so stinkin' cute. Paul was quite the "hotty" in his day. Well, at least I think so. I should dig up a high school picture and post it, but he was tan with longish blond hair (yes, long-probably why he's bald now) and had a swimmers body. I would totally have dated him in high school, although the question remains, would he have dated me? I guess we'll never know. He's stuck with me now and he has the cutest little mini-me of himself to relive his glory days through. Hats off to Asher! And here's to many more birthdays for our little man!