One on the move and one in school...

About a week after we returned from our trip to Idaho, the kids and I headed up to visit my sister's family. N8 was gone a week on the scouts high-adventure and then a week on travel for work. I figured, if he was gone there was no point in me being here alone with the kids. We love going up to see my sisters family. Apart from the wonderful company the have GREAT SHOPPING!! She has an outlet mall within 10 minutes of her house.

We did lots of shopping. I spent way too much money, but had a great time doing it! While we were there Matthew had an ear infection, got his 3rd tooth and worked on sitting up by himself. The day we got home he started crawling!! He is now on the move and can get anywhere he wants!

On Monday school started. I was super excited (but nervous) for Bud. He's now been to 3 days oof 1st grade and unfortunately he had had a substitute all 3 days and we're unsure of when his teacher will be back. I am very uneasy. We haven't received any information about how her classroom runs. Luckily Bud could care less. He's happy to be back in school.

Here are some pictures from our trip. We went to the Sacramento Zoo, played lots of dress up and went to a little amusement park.

Fun sites!

The internet has so many fun and interesting things, I'm always excited when I see something new. Last night (late at night! N8 is on a backpacking trip with the scouts.) I came across 2 fun new websites. The first is Spell with flickr http://metaatem.net/words/


You can type anything in and it will spell the word with images. Just a fun thing if you're wanting to highlight a word.

The 2nd site is Worle http://wordle.net/
This site creates "word clouds". Here's one I made:

Have fun creating!

Home Sweet Home

We made it home yesterday. We really enjoyed our vacation. It was wonderful to visit with my parents and a lot of my extended family. We did a lot of fun things.

We started out with a stop in SLC visiting with some friends. It was so good to see them and it was just like old times.


When we got to Idaho, N8 and his brother left to go on a hike. They hiked the Middle Teton with some of my cousins.
We spent lots of time outside. The weather was wonderful! The kids flew planes, kites in the wheat field next to my parents house, pitted cherries with grandma. We went to the zoo and rode some park rides. And the kids fished with grandpa!

The last 2 days of our stay were my family vacation. It was for my mom's side of the family (from my grandparents down). The count I heard was 117 family members were there. I think the highlight of the entire reunion was the giant slip and slide! It was a giant hay silage tarp with a field water pipe for the water. The kids (and some adults!) had a blast!


We were also able to get our family pictures taken. We hadn't gotten any decent pictures taken since Mo was born. We're really happy with how they turned out.

Where are we?

Just a quick check in! We're on vacation right now in the great state of Idaho. We're visiting my parents and extended family. Here are a few highlights of the trip so far:

N8, his brother Aaron and some of my cousins hiked the middle teton on Monday.


There will be more pictures to come when we come home!

Do I scrap?

I don't think I can truthfully answer yes. But I have owned digital scrapbooking software for probably about a year. I haven't done much with it, but I did try printing some of the pictures at Walmart today. I will admit I was dissatisfied, but I think it was mostly my fault. I didn't save the images of the pages at the highest resolution. I need to find a better location to print to. Maybe I'll have to try Walgreens. Not too many choices up here in the land of the desert.

So here's a glimpse at some of Emma's pages. I actually put a book together for Benjamin and she loves to look at it. I hope to someday have at least her first year and and Mo's.

Cock-a-doodle- WHAT!?!?!

Well the 4th of July has come and gone and so have my thoughts of getting a restful night sleep! Ok, so the 2 don't really go hand in hand, but there was something with the timing of the holiday and my sudden decline in better sleep. Is it my whinny terribly sleeping 7 month old- well he does actually play a large part in this issue. But actually the more annoying part of this problem are the chickens, yes I did type chickens.

It seems that sometime this past week, the neighbor we share a back fence with acquired a couple of chickens. This includes a rooster! I have not seen them with mine own eyes, but Nate has sneaked a peek through the fence and has lifted the kids up over the fence to check them out. This morning the cock-doodle-doing started at 4:23am! Yesterday N8 ended up sleeping the wee hours of the morning on the guest bed since it is farther away from the darn chickens!

I don't know what we're going to do to remedy this problem, but we need to figure something out quick. I am rapidly going more crazy than I already am!! We're trying to convince our neighbor to invest in a be-be gun. That or we might toss their dog over our fence!

Thanks for Kathryn for having us over on the 4th and passing on some cute pictures!

This is Mo's 2nd time in the pool. He's figured out how to chill!

I also found some cute matching shirts at Walmart so we could be festive on the 4th!

So, here's to a good nights sleep and a great week!

We made cheese!!

No really we did! Well, ok I photographed Ricky and Kim making cheese. But it was in my kitchen with my stove and utensils, doesn't that count! Last night Ricky and Kim and the Calls came over and we made mozzarella cheese, pizza and breadsticks. What an interesting and amazing process that cheese making. http://www.cheesemaking.com/store/p/169-30-Minute-Mozzarella-Ricotta-Kit.html
That's a link to the kit that Ricky and Kim have and used last night. The pizza was good and it was a fun experience.

I was also able to snap a cute picture of Mo playing ball!


On another note, on Sunday a letter was read in sacrament meeting about the upcoming ballot issue for the California Marriage Amendment. We were not residents of California during Prop 22 but plan on fully supporting this upcoming measure. Here's a website with more info: http://www.protectmarriage.com/

WE, THE FIRST PRESIDENCY and the Council of
the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints, solemnly proclaim that marriage
between a man and a woman is ordained of God
and that the family is central to the Creator’s plan
for the eternal destiny of His children.

http://www.lds.org/languages/proclamations/family/start_here_0.pdf