Strange and Unusual

One day when it was still summer, I got up early and went out to work in the garden before the kids were up. Well, you know how it is. There was a lot to do, and time just got away from me. But I knew the kids were up when Ben came out to the garden, and said, "Hey Mom, I just took a picture. Wanna see?"


The other day I just happened upon a killer deal on cheese. I also just happened to be on the phone with my mom when I found it, and so I had to get some for her, too. I ended up buying 23 pounds of cheese! (At about .41/lb, in case you were wondering.)
My kids thought it was great! What a nice mother I was to buy them some new building blocks.


Also during the last couple weeks of summer we had a couple of violent wind storms. One of these wind storms knocked a branch out of our tree and smashed the trampoline. Once again, my kids thought this was great! Our trampoline has never been so popular.
Thankfully Superman (aka Jef, but don't tell) came along and bent it back into shape for us.
Thank you, Superman!

Camping

Because of Jef's crazy schedule this summer, it became obvious that if we were going to get a camping trip in this summer, then it was up to me. So the kids and I went up and explored Castle Rock and picked out the perfect spot. The next week we packed up, hitched up the tent trailer, and off we went. Just me, six kids, and a tent trailer for three nights. Not one of my more sane moments, I'm afraid.

But it turned out great, because I managed to back the trailer into just the right spot, only hitting one tree in the process. Then Jef got so nervous that he ditched on of his evening classes and came up to set up the ten trailer for me. Yes!

The best part about our spot was the little creek running right past it. Ben and Cannon spent most of their time floating things. But then Ben made himself a home-made fishing pole, and really really really really wanted to try it out in some deeper water. So we headed down-stream and found the coolest little spot for Ben to fish.Unfortunately, he didn't catch anything. This could have been for two reasons. One: he didn't use any bait. Two: His brothers and sisters were swimming and being crazy about twelve feet away from his spot.So Ben soon gave up and got in the water. He was very proud of himself for being able to do the butterfly against the current and actually making progress.

Robyn spent most of the camping trip reading.
The only part that got a little lonely was in the evening. But luckily we only had one night like that. Both of the other two nights we had guests. My family one night and some friends the other. Thanks guys for a super time!

Swimming

We couldn't possibly pass July without mentioning swim team. Ben has always been half fish, and I'm so glad we've found an outlet for his obsession with water.

(This being the exact opposite of Robyn, who still doesn't like to get her hair wet while at the pool.)

Ben did an amazing job, even completing his first 100m IM at his last meet, and getting second place!

And of course, the rest of us had a great time. Spending half the summer in a sweltering hot indoor pool without being allowed to get in the water. Who wouldn't love that?

Hooray for Swim Team!

Happy Birthday Jef!

Happy Birthday, Honey!
(ten days ago, but who's counting?)

Jef isn't really into cake, so we made apple pies instead. Super yummy!

29 again. My, how time flies!

July Holidays

Since I'm behind anyway, let's just pretend like the 4th of July and the 24th looked exactly alike. Since they mostly did.

So for both holidays, we sat and watched a parade. The kids got tons of candy, but more on the 24th.The best part of the parade was Robyn playing the cymbals with the high school band. No, you haven't lost track of time. At least not that much time. Robyn will only be in 6th grade next year. But the band was lacking a cymbals player, and since we're friends with one of the percussion players, she recruited Robyn.

But the best part of the 4th was The Field of Stars, a locally written and produced patriotic musical.
I must say that most of the play was incredibly long and boring. There were 33 songs, which was at least 20 too many.
But the feedback I got from everyone was that Jef was the best part. I'm glad the whole town agrees with me. Jef was hilarious as the King of England. He was obviously meant to be royalty. Which works for me, since if he's the king, that makes me...Emily was also in the play, and did a fabulous job of knowing all the words to all 33 songs. Of course she would forget her hat on the one night I remembered my camera, but at least it makes her easier to pick out in a picture.

Happy July!

Catching Up

OK, I have my weird computer quirk worked out so that I can once again shrink my pictures without huge hassle. Whew!
So... what did I miss?

I guess most important is that Robyn had a birthday way back in May.
She turned ELEVEN!!!
She got an mp3 player, and it's hardly been out of her ear since. She had a fun party with her friends, where she was pampered and painted and fussed over. Perfect birthday treatment.


Then, of course, there was the dance recital. My girls danced beautifully, as usual.
Sometime in there, the boys took a trip to Wah-Wah Hard Pan, which is a vast expanse of...
nothing. Absolutely nothing.But it's great if you need a nice big place to ride your scooters

.But I couldn't possibly leave out the super fun trip I took at the beginning of June with my three sisters and my mom. I even had a sister-in-law show up for a day. It was so fun!
We took a "before" picture (Katie is NOT supposed to be smiling, here)...Then we went and got our hair cut & colored, got manicures and/or pedicures, did lots of shopping, and then took an "after" picture in front of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple.


Thanks, gals, it was a blast!

Emily's Beautiful Eyes

Wow! I seem to have missed all of June - the best month of the year! Don't worry, I'll catch up. But right now I have a story to tell you. The other day the kids went over to the playground at the elementary to play. I went over a little bit later to check and see how they were doing. The bigger kids were running through the sprinklers, so I just sat down by Jennie, who was picking clover blossoms. (Armfuls of blossoms of blue. Except they weren't blue.) Anyway, so Emily gets done and runs over to where we are. Except that half way to us, she suddenly slows way down and starts acting really weird. She's looking at the grass, looking sideways at us, coming toward us in a wandering way...
Finally when she was about 35 feet away, I said, "Emily, are you looking for something?"
She looked up, squinted at me, and said, "Oh, it's you!" and ran over.

One of those stomach-dropping, someone-just-sat-on-my-chest moments.

So we took Emily to the optometrist, and sure enough. He said anything past about 10 feet is probably very blurry in Emily's eyes. I asked her if she could see the board in school, and she said no. As in "No, of course not. Can anyone?"

Guilt. Guilt. Guilt.

Jef and I have never needed glasses, so it's not something I've been watching for. But now, after a long two-week wait, she can finally see, and she looks so cute.


By the way, if there's anyone out there who also wears glasses, I highly recommend zennioptical.com. After paying shipping costs, Emily's glasses cost me a total of....

(drum roll, please)

$12.95

Which definitely helped to ease the pain of this experience.

On Blessings

"... and prove me now, herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it."

I now present to you proof that God wasn't kidding when he said that.
Today I sent ten big garbage bags
stuffed full of children's clothes to D.I.
Ten!
"So," you're thinking, "You got sick of doing laundry, and now your kids are going naked all summer?"
Oh no. No fear of that. Their drawers and closets are still stuffed with clothes.
Not to mention the laundry pile that's taller than Cannon. (You think I'm kidding, don't you?)

But, just in case some child decides to grow in the night and suddenly doesn't fit into any of those clothes, we're still covered.
Because I still have TWENTY-ONE boxes full of clothes in every size and season filling up every little bit of storage space in my entire house!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have never in my life questioned the principle of tithing.

Until now.

I just don't have any more room!

Where Have All the Good Books Gone?

So I was looking at my little bookshelf, here, that shows the last 20 books I've read.
There is not a single five-star book among them.
It feels like forever since I've read a solid five-star book.
So I'm wondering if maybe I'm just getting a little hardened and harder to please. I do read a lot of books, after all.
But really it just feels like I've already read all the fantastic books that are out there, and there's none left. They're all so mediocre lately. Good books, yes. Interesting, entertaining, worth reading. Even some that I would have given five stars the first time, but only got four the second time around. (This is why I don't usually re-read books. But I was desperate!) I even took a whole week off, just to see if it was a case of overdose. (An entire week of only scriptures, church magazines, and cereal boxes!) But it didn't help because the next book I read was fun, interesting, fairly well-written, but just.... Well, just not five stars. *sigh*
So I ordered myself seven new books for Mother's Day, and if one of them doesn't do it, well.
I may have to take up knitting instead.

Emily's Baptism

Emily was baptized on Saturday!
Jef baptized her, and he did a great job. She only had to go down once!
She really really wanted me to take a picture of her under the water, and was very disappointed when I told her I couldn't. So we took lots of before and after pictures.

Thanks to Mom, Dad, Tom and Wil;

Stacy, Judy, and Stacia;

and LaPrele, Delia and Chris for coming!

I'm not sure where her shoes went for this picture.
We all came back to the house for a yummy sundae bar after the confirmation.

Hooray for Emily!
We're so proud of you.

Poor Baby

All during Emily's baptism, and while we were trying to get ready, Lydia was acting really weird. She would scream bloody murder if I wasn't holding her, but then when I picked her up, she would just lay her head on my shoulder and hold really still. She did the same thing whenever anyone else picked her up. Scream like crazy for a minute, and then just hold really still. I offered her some Motrin because it seemed like there had to be something wrong with her, but she just screamed at me. Not until after the excitement died down, and my mom was holding her did we notice that she wasn't using her left arm. In fact, if anyone touched it or moved it she would scream. Hmmm. So we started reviewing the day and what could have happened to her arm, and it came out that she had fallen off a chair earlier, before the baptism. She was obviously in pain, so we took her to the Emergency Room. The doctor messed with her arm a little, but she would scream so loud that he decided to take some X-rays before he did anything else. When the x-rays looked fine, he came back to talk to us. We were all just sitting calmly talking when he suddenly reached over, grabbed Lydia's arm, gave it a vicious yank and a twist, and Click! Her elbow was back where it should be. Really the doctor ought to have been punched in the face for doing that to a poor baby, but it worked, and she was all better. She still didn't dare use the arm all day, but it was fine, and today she's been using it lots without any pain. And they all lived happily ever after. :) So that's what this picture is for. To show how sad she was while everyone ran around being crazy all day without anyone noticing how much pain she was in. Poor baby.

Capitol Reef