Happy Birthday Bekah!

Our Bekah Mae Mae has just turned 3! Really? It doesn't seem like she's only three. She acts so big (and she's quite tall too!) that it surprises me sometimes that she's still so "young." Ah well. I guess that's what happens when you try to do everything your four and a half year old sister does. What a big girl!

When we went to the store to pick out a special birthday cake, Bekah wanted three different cakes, "Because I'm three," she said. Shawn liked this thinking but Mommy squashed the idea. With just us celebrating together this year (sorry if you felt left out...but I didn't feel like hosting after such a difficult past couple of weeks), I knew we would barely be able to handle this little cake, let alone three! Bekah and Kelsey didn't fight much over the rings: each got two and they were content.

Both of her gifts were a big hit, although I'd say the Mr. Potato Man was the best loved by everyone. Even Jack wanted to try on the glasses-- to be like Mommy and Daddy. But Bekah has loved the baby doll more than I've seen her love any other baby doll. Yeah! Thanks to all of you who love and support our little Bekah!

Number Five is on His Way

Surprise to y'all! The battle of the sexes has been somewhat won--for the time being. John has convinced Kelsey that having a new baby brother really would be better than getting a new baby sister. I think Bekah doesn't really care either way. She loves playing with Kelsey and a new baby wouldn't be someone to play with for a few years anyway.

But anyway, in about five months, we should count seven in our household. That's how many seat belts we have in the van. Time to upgrade?

I love little baby feet!

Autumn Leaves and the Kids

It's been a pretty mild Autumn this year and the leaves have been pretty slow to fall near our home. The maple trees across the street have finally all turned yellow and are dropping their leaves. But the sycamore trees in front of our house are barely starting to turn brown. We'll see how quickly that changes after the next couple of days when the cold storm finally hits.

The kids have loved going across the street to pile up leaves and jump in them. Jack loves to run through them and listen to the crunch! Kelsey and Bekah pretend they have bouquets of flowers and they love to throw them in the air to see them fall again. It's been lots of fun to see them playing.

Shawn and I were remembering back to our first home with the Box Elder tree that dumped bags full of leaves on our lawn. We had such fun piling them together to let John play in them. Ah well. Memories and photos are what we keep of that. But it's great to see all of the kids enjoying the changing seasons.

Happy Halloween

To all of you ghosts and ghouls, we wish you a Happy Halloween! It's a few days late, but here's some of the highlights of our kids' experience. I have to say, it turned out better than we expected...since it was thundering and pouring at 1730 when we had planned to get started. By 1800, it had cleared enough that we thought we'd get a few houses in before the rain would start again. Luckily, it didn't rain again while we were gathering candy.

John forgot to wait for his sisters and Jack was always at the rear. But we had Jack trained by the end of the night to say "thank you", in his own way. It was fun and we got quite the haul. Poor Bekah's handle on her candy bucket broke it was so heavy! Sorry, no pictures of Jack in his frog costume. But I'm sure if you checked out last year's pictures, you can see Bekah in the same costume Jack wore this year.

The kids picked out their own designs for the pumpkins and I got the privilege of gutting, cleaning, and carving the jack-o-lanterns. Not too bad...since I had kids bumping and hovering over me during the sawing process. Jack got the bat and the moon; Bekah's became the owl when Jack broke the frowning jack-o-lantern; John chose the flaming pumpkin; and Kelsey chose the witch. It was fun! Hope you had a fun Halloween too!

War Paint

Chalk art is always an adventure with our kids. It usually gets all over their clothes and then just brushes off. Add an artist to the mix, and you get even more unusual results-- not bad, just unexpected. Jack got the inspiration this time. Doesn't he look like a "native?" I think he went around town like this for a few hours...and he still brings smiles to our faces.

Zoo Day With Three of the Kids

On a whim, and because John had been begging to go, we decided to go to the Hogle Zoo. Shawn was home working on school stuff and "volunteered" to "watch" Jack take a nap. That made it so much easier for me to get around the zoo. The kids asked where the red wagon was (that has been a constant companion for the past two years) but we didn't have to take it this time! Everybody walked! Ah, such freedom from a stroller or a diaper bag! Sorry, Jack...we didn't really miss you. Love ya!

We had such a good time taking it slow and looking at whatever we felt like seeing. Bekah was excited for the baby elephant. John wanted to see poison dart frogs (Kelsey plugged her nose in the animal house). And everyone wanted to ride the train at the end. There was hardly anyone at the zoo (poor Shawn would have LOVED this part of the day!). So, we got some good pics to prove the fun we had.

We were the only ones on the tail end of the train. The kids thought it was great fun to be by themselves. And to show how empty the zoo was, check out the following picture of the parking lot. Usually, it's packed and you have to search for a place to park. This is what it looked like as we were leaving the zoo at 1600 (one hour before the zoo closed).

This is what Shawn would have loved. Ah well. I did think of you!

His First Word

We've come to the decision that Jack's first word was "Ball." He has been repeatedly saying the same word every time he sees one. It's kinda cute. I first noticed it when I set up the umbrella stand as a make-shift t-ball stand for John. The height was too low for John but Jack caught on quickly and took over the batter position when John got bored.

Anyway, he's been overjoyed with the popper gun (which holds and shoots balls!). He will ask for the guns whenever I pick him up. Oh, and "easss" is "Please" for Jack Jack. So, he's exploring the world of words and sounds. I'm grateful. It's much easier to guess what he wants when he can put a word to it, rather than a whine and reach.

John's First Day of School

That's right loyal blog followers and Family. Yesterday was John's FIRST OFFICIAL DAY OF SCHOOL!!

The story of John's school registration is a bit longer than you would expect. Where we live there are many wonderful schools available. We originally applied to get John into Freedom Academy. Which is a local public Charter school only a few minutes from our home. Unfortunetly, due to the high demand for enrolment, we were unable to get John in to kindergarden as we didn't make the lottery.

So we quickly moved to Plan B. Linda registered John at Westridge Elementry. Another great school only a few minutes away from our home up on Grandview hill.

With School quickly approaching we set ourselves to organizing our affairs. We put all the school dates on the family calendar, bought John some school clothes, and generally prepared for the day John would enter school at Westridge.

I'll be honest in that I was having to prepare myself for the inevitable fact that my John John Man was going to be a big boy in a big school. So I set myself to be prepared for his first day on September 1.

As in all things, plans change. Late Thursday night Linda received a call that John was next on the list to enter Freedom Academy. WHOA!

That's right. A butterfly left a branch somewhere in china effecting the wind patterns and effectively changing the world as we know it.

So instead of John's first day of school being two weeks away his first day was Friday the 21st.

We have been in a constant rush to get him all his supplies and uniformed school gear. But he loves his new school and teacher. We are absolutely excited for him and all the things he'll learn. I think our family will fit in nicely with Freedom Academy.

Edit: Ok, Shawn is still a big baby and is not ready for John to go to School.

Jack Jack's obsession with Shells N' Cheese

Shawn has recently discovered Jack's love for Velveeta Shells n' Cheese. Wow! It was such a messy ordeal that Jack got a bath after the entire incident. But there was one happy boy! I think Shawn said he ate more than John at the meal. Good thing you cooked two boxes of shells n' cheese!

Bridal Veil Falls

The kids and I decided to go for a little outing and a picnic. We took along Macher (who thought to bring an extra pair of sandals!) and what a big help she was! We were all hungry before we started out on our hike to the falls so we ate our meat and cheese sandwiches first. The wind was blowing just a bit and the kids were cold by the time they had finished their food. Ah well. Who knew it could be chilly in August? It wasn't, really.

Anyway, we took a leisurely stroll up to the base of the falls and the kids were eager to get in the water and start playing--until they discovered how cold mountain water really is! Kelsey froze up in the water and wouldn't move until someone came to rescue her. Yea, Macher!

The kids thought it was great fun to pose together on rocks in the water. Too bad we couldn't get them all looking at the camera at the same time. There was just too much to look at. Jack was fascinated by all the rushing water over the rocks. He wanted to splash in the water too.

This was the best we could do. Enjoy!

Pioneer Day Parade

Our neighborhood has done a Primary Pioneer Day parade for the past two years. The kids have enjoyed walking the streets on their bikes, decorated wagons, or scooters. At the end of the parade route (the church building), they get to play games. The favorite with the boys (young and old) is the giant sling shots. If you park on the opposite side of the street, you can bet your car may become a target for those water balloons launched at a high speed. The kids love it!

The girls had fun walking the "trek" route with their stick horses and eating watermelon at the end. I don't know what John did all morning but I assume he stuck pretty close to the water balloons and sling shots with Daddy.

My pretty girls!

Enjoy the girls and their ring toss game! They both won a prize for their ability to get the ring on the stick!

Happy Birthday, Jack Jack!

It's really been one year since Jack was born? Time really does fly nowadays. We have really enjoyed having another boy in the family (John has recently started wrestling with his little brother). Jack's been making life more interesting these days since he's started to walk more unassisted and learned some good words like "no" and "ball." He's learning fast!

Well, we decided to make his birthday a themed one of a beach party, complete with a sand castle birthday cake! John was planning on "tricking" everyone into thinking they were eating sand and then telling them later that it was just graham crackers. Silly boy. But he did help me decorate it.

We had some great friends and family come to help celebrate! Thanks, everyone! We love you!

Birthday present monster! Roar!!!

Shopping with Jack

One of Jack's favorite things to do is go shopping. Not because he gets a lot when we go, but because he can sometimes push the cart. If we're not in a rush (which usually happens when we go to Cabella's or the farm/ranch store), I'll put him down and he'll push the bottom bar of the cart everywhere he can. It's really quite funny. I'm sure he'll get over the novelty as soon as he can walk. But for now, it really makes me smile.

The following video was at the end of April. So, you can see how early he's had this obsession with pushing things around. Ah...he's so cute.

Camping with the Collotons

What a weekend we had! We decided to invite some neighbor friends to go camping with us and we had so much fun, we're planning to do it again in September! Wow! We went up Diamond Fork canyon in Spanish Fork canyon to a small group camp area. There was a huge parking lot available (not that we needed it for vehicles) but it was great for playing glow-in-the-dark frisbee with the teens that came.

The kids had so much fun playing with other kids their age, and even some who were a few years older. That left time for Mom and Dad to socialize with some of the other adults, or clean up, or both! Anyway, the kids keep asking when we're going to get out the sleeping bags and tent again. It's nice to see they enjoyed themselves as well.

This is where Jack stayed pretty much the entire morning after we all got up. He was playing outside of it the night before, but we had so much to do to pack up that he got sequestered to his bed. Contain! We contained the baby! But he was a good sport about it.

There was also a small stream by the campsite and the kids loved wading it in. At one point, I turned around and realized I had at least two pantless children. Bekah and John both had clothes hanging on the fence post to dry...but they weren't finished with the water.

Happy Fourth of July

A very big Happy Freedom Days to everyone! In honor of the 4th of July, we take the kids to see the balloon festival every year. It's held in the baseball field behind the Utah Valley hospital and this is it's 26th year. They have lots of balloons, people, kids, and even an early pancake breakfast by the Kiwanis club. It's a good time!

We decided to see the balloon launch on Friday morning. I was hoping that there wouldn't be as many people attending the Friday session as the ones for Saturday and Monday. I was right. It was a LOT less crowded! It was actually more enjoyable this way. The only problem we/the pilots encountered was a strong crosswind somewhere overhead. There wasn't any wind on the ground, but it's been fairly windy for the past couple of days, and the atmosphere above us could be doing anything.

Anyway, we got to see the balloons inflate and one was even offering rides (I didn't check out prices). But it was an awesome sight to watch deflated fabric suddenly "balloon" overhead and then lift off of the ground! The kids loved it!

Thanks to Daddy's camera abilities! The panoramic picture is awesome, Shawn! I think the Coke bottle was a favorite of everyone's this year. John kept calling it "Dr. Pepper" but he finally figured it out when he could see the letter "C" on the huge label.

Amazing what they can fly? So...the unusual balloons this year were the bottle, piggy bank, and Smokey the Bear. Kinda fun to see something different in the sky.