How many?

How many people does it take to cut this super cute 10 month old's hair? Answer, three, one to cut, one to help and one to film the hilarity. 

Fruits of our Labors

We have done fairly well with the little garden at the side of our townhome again. This year found new veggies on the vine and a trial for bell peppers. We've done okay with our zucchini. We haven't seen any cucumbers like last year, but those plants got a late start. I guess we should be lucky we got much of anything since Joe was born right when we should have been seeing peas growing in the garden. But the kids have been super excited to see tomatoes, zucchini, and now peppers. We have been blessed!

Now, if only I could get Jack to smile for the picture...

It's Back to School Time!

And here are the kids, all ready for a new school year! Don't they look great in their new uniforms? John's going to be in first grade and Kelsey gets John's class in kindergarten! Mom's looking forward to naptime with only three kids at home! Yippee!

Kelsey did a great job posing for the pictures. Such a pretty girl!

Can you believe she's such a big girl? All ready and excited for kindergarten!

And John's so excited for first grade! He's ready to show off all he's practiced over the summer to his new teacher. Such a good lookin' kid!

Let's get ready to learn!!

Happy Fourth of July

Happy Freedom Days! We spent Friday morning before the fourth watching hot air balloons inflate and then rise into the sky. The kids were pretty impressed by the amount of fire it took to get the balloons into the air. It was awesome! The wind actually allowed the balloons to go up this year but wasn't cooperating enough to let the balloons play their games. Ah well. I guess you can't have it all.

We had a few "characters" show up this year for the festival. Smokey the Bear (as seen from below) and the pink piggy bank are regular attendees. The Coke bottle showed up after all the balloons had left the field. But the main attraction was the Darth Vader balloon all the way from Belgium. Wow! There were even stormtroopers, Darth Vader, and the Emperor who made their appearance. It was fun!

Speaking of the Coke balloon. It inflates but rarely flies. The crew actually had volunteers from the crowd (preferably those under the age of 12) come roll the air out of the balloon before it got stuffed in the giant bag and put in the trailer. We talked John into helping out with the crew. And before the end of the line, Jack decided to help a little. We got that on video.

All of the kids were pretty good. We all tumbled out of bed and they showed up in their jammies. It was so much fun. Maybe we'll see some of you next year and we can show you around the festivities!

Friday Field Trips

This summer I have tried something "new." It's called "let's keep the kids entertained, busy, and educated all summer long." We've had John practicing his penmanship; Kelsey's been working on recognizing upper and lower case letters; Bekah's been coloring; and Jack has been working on listening. We've had varying results depending upon the week.

But every Friday we've tried to get our work done early to do a little "exploring" around Utah. We've had some fun hiking to a waterfall, checking out the dinosaur museum at BYU, and going to the zoo. Here's some of the memories we've made.

The Hogle Zoo had a Zoorassic experience this last summer. They had lots of dinosaur models around the park. Some of them, like the T-Rex, were life size and somewhat interactive. The eyes moved as though the dinosaur was looking at you and his head turned. It was rather intimidating. Little Jack backed away from T-Rex and growled at him...so tough!

This was at the base of Bridal Veil Falls. The kids decided to go wading in the "pool" made at the base of the falls. John was the most adventurous and was all over the rocks, water, and generally having a great time. Jack couldn't understand why the water was so "hot." I kept trying to convince him it was really "cold" and not "hot." But I think he's a little backward.

I guess this is the only picture I got from the dinosaur museum. Bekah was the only one brave enough to climb up onto the brachiosaurus's vertabrae. The kids enjoyed seeing students working on real dinosaur bones. It was pretty cool! What kid doesn't look forward to field trip day?! It's been fun trying to find fun, free places to make things exciting.

Kelsey's Birthday

It's been awhile...so sorry. Here's the update on Kelsey's birthday party. She loved seeing her cousins and have so many friends coming to her pool party. The weather was great and we didn't even get sunburned. Thanks, everyone, for supporting Kelsey! We all had a great time!

A quick update on Kelsey too...she will be entering kindergarten in a month! She is so excited! We have been working on our alphabet flashcards and looking for letters as we drive in the car. She loves to learn and now she has started to claim "John's school" as her own. Hopefully, I'll get some first day pictures up here for you to enjoy. August is just around the corner.

Easter Egg Hunt

This month has proven fun for the kids. They've waited sooo long for Easter to arrive. It's almost as if Christmas was coming. Well, we are celebrating the Saviour, so...I guess there is some correlation. But they've been so eager for the candy too. Ah well, they enjoy all parts of the season.

We had a church egg hunt a week before Easter and that was a lot of fun. Bekah got lots more eggs than her brothers or sister. She's got this game down! Jack had to be coaxed into looking for his eggs; but once they were all found, his shining moment was eating the candy from everyone else's egg and handing back the empty "shell." He didn't care if it was a golden egg or not. He only wanted the candy. Smart boy!

Joe didn't get much into the thing of things. But he was a good sport and let everyone else find the eggs.

And here are the pictures from our family egg hunt. We had two visitors that are the kids' friends. Christopher and his sister wanted to help look for eggs. We had enough to share and it was fun to see them all scampering around the yard looking for eggs.

John kept saying it was too easy. And it probably was, but we're dealing with a large age range here. Jack wasn't as interested in finding the eggs today. He like picking them up and throwing them. Thank goodness we left the hardboiled eggs inside. The joy of finding plastic eggs was enough for them all.

Happy Easter! From our family to yours.

Teaching Jack to "Smile!"

So, Shawn decided to teach Jack how to smile for a camera. And we got some interesting results. Most of the kids know how to pose and smile for their pictures. They all want to see their pictures instantly (thank goodness for digital pictures). Gone are the days of guessing how the picture will turn out once it's developed.

Well, the kids (minus Jack) were all ready to have their pictures taken, and they were more than eager to show Jack how it's done. Well, we got some good shots that really show the personalities of our children.

Say, "Cheese!", Jack Jack!

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.

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!

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!