Summer Update

This Summer was full of fun. We did lots activities and had lots of adventures.

Saturday was my sister Katie's baby shower. It was beautifully organized by my sister-in-law Sarah. Katie looks so cute with her baby belly.

Katie got some awesome gifts. And some great things that will help her be more prepared for the little one.

We played some fun little games and ate a wonderful brunch.

This is Sarah. She is so cute and the best at planning and decorating for parties.

Here are some of the guests. To the left is our cousin-in-law Char and Grandma Hopkins next to her.

To the left is Mom, then Mariah(Katie's daughter), next is cousin Joelle who had her adorable little boy there as well. Bottom right is Joelle's mother, our aunt, Jane Hale

Here is Jane to the left, Amy, Jane's daughter, Jan Godfrey(katie's friend), Katie :), and Deanna Forrester(friend).

Getting ready for some games.

The beautiful display.

So cute.

This is the top of a cake that I made for a topsey turvey cake decorating class I went to. For the class I made a three layer topsey turvey cake that crashed on the way home. With a total of 7 cake boxes used for this cake, I didn't want it all to go to waste. So I took the top layer, fixed it up, and gave it to the police department to gobble it up.

First day of school for Cameron and Lilly. I think I was as excited as she was.

Eating breakfast that morning before class in the cafeteria.

They were wanting to just get in and find their sets. A little annoyed at mom for making them wait for a picture.

Thomas and Angie got married. Here is Angie giving Miah a hug right after they came out of the temple.

I let Cameron have the camera to take some pictures and keep him busy. He did a good job.

When Cameron took this picture he was so funny because he ran around saying that he got a picture of Thomas and Angie kissing.

This is one of the only pictures Miah would let me take of her. She was very cranky I could not get her to co-operate.

Lilly was giving me a hard time too. We had a rough morning and the kids were chowing it.

This is my niece Lexi, who was all about posing for the camers.

Finally got them going.

Interesting smiles. :)

Can't believe how old this kid is getting.

Camping at Laturas lake. It only took her about 5 min to be covered in dirt.

The first day we were camping we had torrential rain hit us, along with lightning, thunder and hail. We had to move a couple of the tents because there were big puddles underneath them. This puddle was underneath Lizzy and Aaron's tent.

Doug caught a fish, with a fork in his mouth and the kids by his side.

All wet.

One morning when the weather was perfect and the land looked beautiful.

It was so nice that Grandpa Gray let us take the four wheeler. It was just what we needed to give us some adventure when things got slow.

An evening on the beach, fork in mouth again feeling relaxed ;).

Miah and Cameron playing in the water. It was cold!

Kids Favorite Video

Daddy showed this video to the kids a while back and they can't get enough of it. It is so funny to them and they love singing a long.

Pool Time

The kids really enjoyed spending some time in the pool yesterday. Cameron and Lilly are learning to swim and are able to play without me monitoring every move they make. Miah had me pretty busy going from one part of the pool to the little fountain area next to the deep end. I was chasing after her the whole time.

It was great having the warm sun and slight breeze out.

With all of the colder weather we've had ,the kids kept asking, "Why is winter killing summer." I never had a very good answer for them because they didn't stop asking it. But now, thankfully, the sun has returned and hopefully to stay for a while.

Thank you summer! Thank you for coming back!

June Update

Back, I'm back to catch up on some of the goings on between January and today. Things change so quickly while new things come and go. There are many things that have happened in the last 6 months that I hope to remember for a long time.

Here are some of our fun and maybe not so fun experiences.

Since I don't want to move the pictures all around everything in is order from most recent down to stuff that happened in January.

I started this project with the purses in January. My crafty cousin-in-law taught me how to make them after I begged her. She was great about. Thanks Dena!

I finished them on Saturday, very thankful to be done and ready to use one. They also make great diaper bags because they have nice big pockets on the inside. So when that next time comes around that I will need one, it will be available.

After finishing up this project I was feeling crafty and found a pattern online for making baby booties. They were the homemade baby booties that are sprawled over craft sites galor and there to entice the DIY'er which, for a moment, took a hold of me.

I spent the night making a cute set of baby booties out of jean material and red and blue plaid material. My crafting emotions were at a height and I was getting it done(with a few difficulties along the way).

Well, so I'm not such a good crafter. The one baby bootie that I was able to finish was probably too small for even a preemie. I stayed up until two o'clock to finish the one shoe because I would not let myself give up on it. I had to get it done. I guess it will be a fun little shoe for the girls to play with. If they have a one legged doll! :>

Last weeks adventure was going to the Zoo. I think its been several years since we went as a family to roam around the Zoo. It was very exciting, especially since it has changed since the last time we were there.

It happened to be a mildly warm day so we were able to see a good amount of happy animals. We saw the Tigers at the end of the walk. We caught them right at the time when the trainers were about to come out. The animals were ready to have a real friend come by; pacing in their enclosures.

It was a very nice family outing and worth the discounted rate on Thursdays.

This Lion lifted up her head just in time for us to take a picture. I think she smelt the trainers perusing through the park.

Here is our Lion King friend! This little guy was funny, but really just a bit sad as well. He sat like this staring through the glass, bored and with no friends. He moved for a minute to look up at us but that was pretty much it.

At the Tiger cage.

These young giraffes were eating and just hanging out. The one in the picture stood there and chewed his food staring at us for a little bit. It was the funniest and cutest thing. His mouth was munching back and forth and just staring. It looked like something out of a cartoon.

This is I think a vulture type bird. It is a bit scary looking at him this close. What's cool is that this picture was taken by Doug's phone. Great quality.

Mr. Crane.

A couple weeks ago I went crazy at the dollar store buying up a ton of foam curlers for the girls. I then put the curlers in their hair the next evening to sleep with through the night. Sunday morning came and I got them all dressed up with their pretty curly hair. After church we had a photography session sporting their new do's.

Loosing teeth seem to be such an exciting time. For us at least. Cameron lost his first tooth in May and then his second in June. This is a picture of his second experience loosing a tooth. The first time was a little surprising because it was very loose and he wanted us to get the thing out. He kept saying to get a tool(like pliers maybe) and pull it out. We yanked and yanked on that thing and he didn't even cry.

This second time he didn't like as much, but none the less he wanted to get rid of that tooth so the tooth fairy would come. Luckily the tooth fairy had just enough change stashed away (that she forgot about) to give in place of his tooth.

Our next adventure was at the church orchard. We were asked to prune our wards aisle of peach trees. It took us a while but it was fun. It was great getting out there and doing some good service.

What was cool is that right as we were leaving, we drove by the owners house and he was out in the midst of a huge swarm of bees. It was loud. We asked him if we was being stung by any of them. He said, "Oh, there not stinging, they are swarming around the queen bee. Come on over and see for yourselves." I though it was too exciting to pass up the offer. So I jumped out of the car and walked over to him. He started explaining about the bees and how they follow the queen, making new hives. It was interesting. He found where they were swarming on top of the queen. He suggested,"Just put your hand on the bottom of it. They won't sting you, they are full of honey and moving too fast to sting, but don't move to fast." So, gullible me, put my finger up to touch the bees and while just about to touch, a bee rammed into my finger and scared me. I took my finger away and had enough at that point.

Very interesting.

The kids loved the ladder.

Oh, my goodness. I look horrible in this picture. This is when we went to visit Grandma H and family at Cascade for the night. That whole weekend was mostly rainy and cold, so I was very glad not to be there the whole time, but it was nice to go hang out with everyone.

The water was beautiful. We watched as the other family members went fishing. Those fish were not biting at all. It was worth being there, breathing in the serenity and peace.

The night was finished off with telling jokes and scary stories around the camp fire.

Again, picture taken by our phone.

Cameron started playing T-ball this month. It is his second year playing and he really enjoys it. It can be so funny watching these kids play. They get bored in the out field resorting to gymnastics, fighting over catching the ball and wrestling on the ground for it. When running the bases, they run around the other team member bypassing the base so that they would not get tagged. I love this game because it is so innocent. They just love being there.

Miah was being goofy this night while looking so cute, so I snapped a picture.

At the dog park. The dog park has become a new favorite outing. Triger, our black lab, loves going there. He takes his turn playing around with every dog at the park while Jessy, our rat terrier, hides behind the family away from the other dogs. This time we had some time to practice throwing with Cameron.

This was the first time that I used my hot curlers on the girls. They had to show off their curls. It is where I got the idea to go to the dollar store to get the foam curlers.

This was cleaning day. I was trying to get the kids to help me with the cleaning and the most exciting thing for them was to vacuum with the hose under the cushions on the couch.

This was an experiment on doing some different decorating stuff with cupcakes.

Tasty.

This was Doug's graduation from the post academy. He lived(except for weekends) at the post academy from beginning of January to March 12th. It was sometimes difficult but we were extremely happy when he was done. Now he is working the job that he loves and he is much more happy. He started out working the best shift at the Dep., Sun-Wed. 4pm to 2am. He loved this shift. I didn't like him having to work on Sunday, but with this job you have to or you don't get to work for them.

As of last night, he now has to work the Wed-Sat shift 8pm to 6am. I am not very happy with this change because we will not be able to do any of the weekend stuff that we had planned(like the ward campout). It is really hard for him to get to church while on this shift because he doesn't get home until 6:30am and is dead tired by the time church comes around.

I know that it is good that he has the job that he loves but this shift is going to take some getting used to.

Wierd picture ^

:) This was when they were waiting to come into the cultural hall for the whole graduation display.

And this was right after the graduation.

This was Lilly's 5th birthday party. Don't ask me why I did not get a picture of her, but she had a great birthday party. She had all her friends from preschool, cousins and even our "different" neighbors kids come over. The kids had a fun time playing games and running around.

Thanks to all who were able to come. It made Lilly very happy.

We got new carpet! Wahoo, we were so happy to get rid of the old nasty carpet.

It was a bit of a fiasco with the carpet company considering they laid the wrong carpet. So, words were said and it was very close to the look of the carpet that we actually wanted, so everyone was to blame and I was upset, but I'm really trying to let it go :|

It is nice to have good carpet and worth all the mess.

Well, there you go. Some of the things that have been going on for us. It is exciting to have new adventures and we hope to continue with them as often as possible.

Here are some of the videos we caught while on our journeys.