Camping

We took the kids camping on Friday and Saturday. Camping is definitely changing for the better as the kids get older. They helped to pack, put up the tent, get everything set up, gather firewood, and toasted their own marshmallows. It was great that they could go together to the bathroom (right next door) or go fill up their water bottles without one of us going with them. We had a great time.

The river was FREEZING cold, but Nate was tough and gave the three oldest each two turns down on the tube. They loved it. They found a water snake on the shore that they thought was pretty cool. Abby was not a fan of the cold water. I found a great little spot for her to sit and throw rocks in the river. She was happy as long as I kept her rock pile supplied.

We went for a nature walk, had scrummy scout dinners, played a few hands of UNO, ate smores, and sang some camp songs around the fire. We discovered that Elise has a talent for making up funny lyrics to common songs . . . “Jesus wants me for a green bean”, “Humpty Dumpty took a bath”. She was cracking us up. Ben, as usual, was all about the firewood. He spent hours scouting out sticks and throwing them in the fire pit.

Sleeping in a tent hasn’t gotten easier yet. Abby was up for a couple of hours in the middle of the night. One of these years we’ll get more than 4 hours of sleep on a camping trip.

It is a good thing that she is so cute!

The kids wore themselves out. This is what it looked like inside our van on the way home.

Cousin Summertime Playdate - Discovery Gateway

Today we took the kids down to Salt Lake to the children’s museum. It was a bit of an adventure. Abby cried the whole way down, Elise was having a particularly grumpy/whiny day, and Ben and Emily each had their moments. Somehow we still managed to have fun. It was a cool place. Jody had some free passes so we didn’t have to pay $40 to get in. That made it even better. Ben’s favorite part was the coin funnel. Emily’s favorite part was the real helicopter. Elise’s favorite part was playing house in the kid-sized town. Abby was just very happy to be out of the van and free to roam around.

Activity Days Hike

This morning was the big Activity Days hike. I love the girls in our ward, but I came home saying “my kids are tough!” Most of the girls did a pretty good job and they all made it to the top, but there was a whole lot of whining on the way up. There were certainly no spontaneous expressions of “I’m so glad that Jesus made this beautiful world for us to live in” like we heard from Ben on Saturday. My kids felt pretty proud when I told them that they were better hikers than the older girls. I think I need to tell them that it is our little secret before we go to Primary on Sunday and they blurt it out.

Ready to set out.

We made it!

Grandma Reatha watched the kids while I was gone. They played outside for a while, played a couple of games of Sorry, and watched a movie (after I got home and showed her how to work the DVD player).

My cute map-maker husband made some quality maps for me to take along. One marked every 10th of a mile so we could see how far we had come. On the other one he mapped the difficulty of each part of the trail based on the contour lines of a topographic map. He is a cool kid!

Hyrum Petting Zoo

Today I took the kids up to visit Kaylynn and meet Carly. We had a fun time hanging out at their house. It was good to catch up with Kaylynn and get my weekly fix of holding a newborn. The kids got to ride Sparky (the pony), drive Buck (the mini four wheeler), and feed Male and Female (the rabbits . . . their real names were snowball and smoky, but Ben just called them Male and Female). Ben fell in love with the rabbits. It was definitely the highlight of the trip for him and he has been begging us for a rabbit ever since. That’s just not going to happen. The girls all liked the pony rides the best. Elise fell off when Sparky got going a little bit faster than she could handle, but she was a brave kid and got right back on that horse. We had a little picnic in the shade of their shed and the kids played in the sprinklers. It was a good fun time. We’re glad we have cool friends who live in the “country”.

Abby LOVED the pony. Every time we were switching riders, she would want to get on. I was a little afraid to let her ride, especially when the pony picked up the pace a bit, but Emily was a good sister and held on tight.

Elise liked playing with her new friend Lucy. On the way home she said “I love Lucy a lot. She is really nice.”

Ben loved cruising around on the little four wheeler. Cruising might be a bit of an overstatement since it topped out at one mile an hour, but he liked it.

Elise and Ben feeding “Female.”

Hanna hurt her toe playing soccer. She came out using a wooden dowel for a crutch and had made herself a cast by wrapping a scarf around her foot. Kids are funny.

Swimming

Yesterday we had our first family day at the pool. I was planning on taking the kids by myself, but Nate’s afternoon appointment canceled so he got to come with us. Ben and Elise each had a bit of a meltdown, so I was very glad he was there. I promised the kids that we would go swimming a lot this summer, so I’m going to have to be brave and embrace the idea of one mom and four kids at the pool. I think I can, I think I can.

After two weeks of watching her brother and sisters at swimming lessons, Abby was very excited to get in the water. She loved it.

Emily and Elise found Tucker and Abby, a couple of friends from church, to hang out with for a while. They had fun playing together. The girls look a little funny with their life jackets on when they are in the shallow water, but it is nice that they can go anywhere they want without me worrying too much. They don’t seem to mind wearing them, so I’m not going to rock the boat.

Elise bumped into another kid on the slide and cut her lip with her tooth. This is her 2nd fat lip in two months for the exact same reason. Hopefully it is not the start of a trend. She was so upset that she cried herself to sleep. This is how she spent the second hour of our outing.

Ben loved jumping off the high dive. He looked pretty brave standing in line with kids a foot taller than him.

Father's Day

We did our best to give Nate a great Father’s Day. There’s nothing like giving someone the day off to make you appreciate how much they do! Elise and Emily helped me make a yummy breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast, orange juice and fresh strawberries from our garden. Nate was already up and showered by the time it was ready, but we made him get back in bed so we could serve him breakfast in bed. I tried to get the kids all ready so he could take it easy, but he was nice enough to pitch in and get the church bag ready and give Abby a bath so we could get out the door on time.

The kids sang two songs in sacrament meeting. Elise had been singing them all week and knew every word. It was cute to see her up there just singing away with the big kids. The kids each made a card in Primary and the presidency gave them a bag of cookies to give their dad. He was nice and shared.

After church we opened presents and watched the first half of Fiddler on the Roof. Then we went to Grandpa and Grandma Nelson’s for dinner.

Nate is a fabulous dad. He is fun and silly and the kids love to play with him. He is the master of bedtime in this house and reads to the kids every night (with cool voices for the different characters). He is super patient with the kids when they are helping him with a project. He teaches them scripture stories and lets them play bejeweled on his phone and makes crepes for breakfast almost every Sunday because they are the kids’ favorite. We love him!

The cheeser smiles are getting a little out of hand in this house.

Hike

See that mountain over there . . . one of these days I’m going to climb that mountain, mountain, mountain.


I’m taking the activity days girls on a hike next week, so today we took the kids to check out the trail. They did GREAT. Ben and Emily hiked the whole way up without complaining. Elise made it about a third of the way and Nate carried her on his back the rest of the way. Abby got to ride in the Snugli on Mom’s belly. Luckily, she loved it. Every time I would ask her if she was having fun, she would nod her head. She was a trooper and didn’t whine one time.

We had a great view from the top of the ridge. It was awesome! We even got to play in some snow. Three guys on horses came up while we were eating our snacks. They let the kids feed the horses and even sit on one for a minute. It was a definite highlight for the kids. Dodging horse poop on the way down the trail wasn’t quite as much fun.

Starting up the trail. Ben took the lead most of the way.

Almost to the top. I love that Abby was pointing out the scenery to Nate.

Here we are at the top. It was fun to play in snow in the middle of June.

When we got home and asked the kids what they liked best about the hike, they all said “the horses.”

That’s our house.

Nine Fabulous Years

Yesterday we celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary. Mostly it was a typical day – work, swimming lessons, playing with the kids – but we did manage to fit in a few special things. We got take out from Wingers for dinner. Then we let the kids watch the Lakers/Celtics game and have a slumber party so we could watch a movie. We rented “Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married?” We thought we were pretty funny picking that title for our anniversary date, but we both really liked the movie.

We did a great job at staying within our $15 spending limit for gifts. I gave Nate the new Coldplay CD and 5 bars of dark chocolate. He gave me the beginner level sheet music for the Raiders of the Lost Ark theme and downloaded Ryan Shupe’s new album from Amazon. We were both very happy.

I feel blessed to be married to my best friend. We are both kind of quirky, but we are a good match. I’m glad that we found each other.

Here we are nine years ago. It was a perfect day.

I looked through our wedding album yesterday and saw this quality picture of my college roommates. (Keri, shouldn’t you have been in this picture?) It is funny to think that Heather and Kaylynn each only had one baby at the time. Now we are up to 19 kids from this group of ladies. It's crazy how much life has changed since then.

Cousin Summertime Playdate - Clearfield Pool

Today was our much anticipated cousin swimming party. We were planning on getting together at our pool after swimming lessons, but since it was 52 degrees outside, we went to the Clearfield pool instead. The kids had a fabulous time. The older kids played a little water football and spent lots of time diving for dive sticks and jumping off the diving board. The younger group had lots of fun on the slides and in the lazy river. We all got to hang out together in the lap pool for about an hour while they were cleaning up an “issue” in the kid pool. Yuck! It is great to have kids that are mostly independent at the pool. Abby stayed with Grandma Reatha so she could get her nap. I felt like a free woman.

The under 48 inches club.

48 inches and taller.

Ben has been practicing his front flip on the trampoline. He was excited to finally have a chance to do it off of the diving board.

Abby's First Haircut

Say goodbye to the mullet. After one too many “nice mullet” comments in the church foyer, I decided it was time to take action. Abby is a cutie, but she is still pretty much bald. The only place her hair will grow is right at the bottom in the back. Actually, it doesn’t even grow in the middle at the back, just at the sides. My friends at playgroup said that the trick is just to keep it all short until it starts to really come in. She wasn’t very patient about sitting still, but we managed to give her a decent trim today. We’re looking forward to pigtails in a year or three.

Before

After

Tracy Aviary

We took the kids to Tracy Aviary and Liberty Park for a fun family day today. The kids were pretty impressed with the cool birds at the aviary. The peacocks were a definite hit since they were out walking around on the trails with us. After we had had our fill of the birds, we let the kids play at the park for a while. The unseasonably cool weather didn’t stop Ben from getting soaking wet in the “shooting jets of water” area of the playground . . . “the wetness doesn’t even bother me Mom.” I was shivering just watching him.

Emily's Card Trick

Emily learned a new card trick last night. She stayed up practicing it in her bed until she got tired and had to go to sleep. Here she is showing it off today. We have no child prodigy delusions in this house, but she really is a sharp little girl. It is fun to watch her little mind ticking away.

Cousin Summertime Playdate - Beus Pond

The kids were excited that their cousins were “finally” out of school this week so we could start our summer playdates. We took the kids to Beus Park/Pond for lunch and to feed the ducks (and geese and seagulls). The kids loved the wildlife. We found lots of cute little inchworms. They also found a huge fish swimming in the water and a dead turtle on the shore (STINKY!). We finished up the outing with some time at the playground and a few games of Bocce with Aunt Jody. It was a great time. We are looking forward to lots of fun cousin time this summer.

Abby's New Trick

This last week, Abby has become an expert at opening the safety gate at the top of the stairs. She will stand there for a good 10 or 15 minutes at a time and just open it and close it. She thinks she is hilarious.

Caught in the act.

This is what she does. Over and over and over again. Side note: If you listen closely, you can hear Ben in the background saying he played a “duet” of Ode to Joy . . . that’s what he calls it whenever he plays with two hands at the same time. He’s a silly kid.