"Judge not, and ye shall not be judged..."

For those of you in Cache County I'm sure you've heard the latest and greatest gossip of things happening in Providence. If you get the Herald Journal you were privileged to get a front page story on it. Usually when I read stories like this I think, "thank goodness they caught that sicko". This time I felt totally different. These people were and are our friends. They are good people. This time when I looked at the article I thought, "why the heck did HJ feel the need to put it on the front page. They must like the idea of humiliating his wife and children". Don't get me wrong, I don't think whatever he did was a good thing.

More than anything it made me realize that we as a community need to be less judgemental. I'm sure there is a lot of terrible things being said about this person and his family. Most of it not true. What he did is wrong and he alone should have to face just consequences. But good people make very poor choices, that doesn't mean they are terrible rotten people. Not only that Christ said "..He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone...".
(John 8:7) I don't believe that is any of us.

New Car

Well it is a new car but not our new car. Our neighbor's mom just bought this Smart car and the first time Bayler saw it he was in love with it. He googled it and watched tons of clips on it. Last night he got to take it for a spin, okay so he didn't drive it but he did get to drive in it. He thought it was so cool.

Back to School

Four of my five children went to school all day yesterday. I didn't have a chance to feel sad because my good friend Sharlee stopped by and spent the day with me, we even went to lunch. Thanks Sharlee!!!

Bayler is in 7th grade and wasn't really nervous cause he went to the same school last year and this year they are the oldest group of kids. He has some fun classes and has a locker by a lot of his friends. Addason and Tylee started 2nd grade. They where a bit nervous. This is the first year they have been in different classes. Neither one of them knew any of the other girls in their classes. They were both worried about who they would play with at recess. Of course it all turned out okay. The both made new friends. Avery started 1st grade but looks like one of the smallest kindergartners. She said she was excited. She loved to eat lunch like the big girls.

I have mixed emotions about this time of year. I love summer because there is no schedule, no homework, no soccer games. We can pick up and leave anytime we want. We can stay up late, sleep in, the kids can go without a bath for days(swimming in Bear Lake counts) and not do our hair every day. It's great. Along with all this freedom comes a very messy house, more fighting, kids saying "I'm bored" and more meals to feed the kids which in turn means more dishes and more grocery shopping. Yesterday was very quiet and my house stayed pretty much the same all day. I was very excited to see the kids because I had been away from them all day. It was kinda nice. I think I can get use to this.

Baby Harper

IT'S A BOY

We are the proud aunt & uncle of a new baby boy. Harper was born to Jeff(Scott's brother) and Shauna yesterday. CONGRATULATIONS!!! I wish I could figure out how to get a picture from my phone to the computer so you could see him. I guess I should leave that up to the proud parents. We've seen a few pictures of him and I can honestly say he is one of the cutest newborns I've ever seen. For the most part newborns all look kinda the same and generally not all that cute. Don't get me wrong, I love them, it is my favoritest age. The are all so precious and sweet and smell so wonderful but a truly cute one only comes along every so often. I have had 5 newborns and only one was really cute. They all turned out great it just took them a little time to grow into their features. Anyway, he was a little over 8lbs and I think that half of the weight is in his cute little face. After I saw a picture of him I was ready to drive all the way to Seattle to kiss those chubby little checks. It made me remember why I have 5 children.

Rollerblading

 

Family Reunion

We just got back from the Smith Family Reunion(Scott's moms side) in St. Anthony, Idaho. Grandma R. rented a massive house that was full of fun things for kids of all ages to do. I didn't take any pics of the house cause you can check it out for yourself at threepeakslodge.com. The kids spent a good percent of the time going down the indoor tube slide and playing in the hot tub. We also played tennis, baseball, ping pong, air hockey, tried to rollerblade, went swimming at the Sand Bar, ate lots of good food and stayed up real late chatting. We had a short talent show, Scott and girls sang a few primary song for their talent and Scott also told a scary story to the kids. The kids didn't want to come home. On our drive back home we stopped in Idaho Falls so Addason could see where she was born. The kids loved climbing around the Falls and it is so beautiful.

Fresh Produce

When it comes to food there is nothing better than produce from your own garden. In this house we only have a tiny little garden spot but it's better than nothing at all. I took a picture of the garden for a couple of reasons. One so you can see my pretty zinnias in the front of the garden, they are there to hide the weeds. The other reason is so you can see what's going on behind my house from 5a.m. until
6p.m. There is a Stake Center being built back there. I don't really want to go out and weed the garden and have my rear end facing all the workers, it might scare them away. It's too loud to have a conversation outside and we have an inch of new dust everyday. I know that when it's done it will be beautiful and peaceful but for now it is a really annoying.


The kids enjoying fresh corn. Between Avery and Landon they ate 10 cobs of corn.

Camping

 

Now that the summer is almost over we finally got the chance to go camping. Scott has had this camping trip planned most of the summer. We were taking Scott's parents camper up to Tony Grove to stay for a 3-4 days. We got all our stuff and all the kids plus Josh(cousin) packed up and headed out on Sunday afternoon. Things didn't work out as we anticipated and we ended up staying up Franklin Basin. Since it has been a dry summer everywhere was very dry. Withing minutes of stepping out of the truck we were all covered in dust. We made the best of it. We made and floated little boats down the stream, colored rock, stick and bark with markers, (so much for leave no trace behind), read 2 Junie B. Jones books, took a couple of mini hikes and froze our hands and feet off playing in the stream. The girls and Landon seemed to have fun, that has to count for something.