Oh No! I'm one of THOSE people!!

I got to looking at my page and I realized something. It looks like a scrap book. An online scrapbook! A freaking scrapbook! It's finally happened! I've crossed over.... pretty soon you'll see me at those parties, cutting things out. I'll be talking about scrapbooking stuff. No.. I can resist. No offense to those women out there who can be the scrapbooker. It is a creative thing to do and I admire those with the patience to do it. I tried it once, I even went to a little party where they were selling things. I even tried to keep the mocking to a minimum so I wouldn't embarrass my friend. However... I just can't do it. But look at my Blog. It's all cutesy and stuff. And what's worse is that I LIKE it! This is what living in Utah Valley has done. Either that or it's because I'm getting older. I'm going soft. I need to go find me some leather pants and a biker. Man oh man!

Things I forgot!

I didn't necessarily forget some of these things, I just couldn't find the camera and thus, get these pics off the camera to post them! I've been using my phone for pictures. So, I'm finally able to post these cute pics!

Carter's Graduation:

Yes, my baby graduated from Kindergarten this year! We are officially out of the baby years. It's both sad and exciting. We'll miss Mrs. Vitters! She is a great teacher. She has been so good to our family. She also taught the triplets when they were in Kindergarten and I wish we had more kids to send to her. Maybe we can talk her into just moving grades as Carter does!

Carter with Mrs. Vitters

Carter with Richard McAlliser and Bryton Tanner, his two best friends in his class! They were way too interested in their popsicles and everything else that was going on around them!

My little man with his diploma. He'll be a big 1st grader!!

Ethan's Pioneer Day:

The 4th graders had Pioneer day at school which Ethan was so excited about it. It was very special for him because his class was reading Among the Shoshone. It's a story about his great, great, great, great grandfather, Elijah Nicholas Wilson who lived with the Shoshone Indians when he was a boy. He is my grandpa Bill's great grandfather. We had Nick Wilson's cabin on our property in Jackson.

Anyway, Ethan was excited to dress up like a cowboy and tell his teacher about our relationship to Nick Wilson. It was very cool!




Playing at Bridal Veil Falls:
Every year we take the "hike" to Bridal Veil and take pics on our first hike. It's one of our favorite places to go in Utah Valley. This year, our first trip to the falls was kind of late because it's rained so much, but we finally got there in June between rain storms and took some great pics.

4th of July

Doug and the boys at the pancake breakfast.

Ethan and Garrett fought it out with gigantic boxing gloves.
Garrett ditched his gloves and jumped on Ethan's back! You can kinda see his head.

Garrett on the bouncy slide

All of us got our faces painted. We all looked super cute and very festive!

Daddy and Uncle James were right there on the slip and slide with the kids
totally racing them all.... too funny!!

We had the coolest 4th off July. We went up to Layton to spend the holiday with my family, as has become our tradition. We took part in the Layton Liberty Days, enjoying a big pancake breakfast put on by the scouts, watching the local parade and shopping the many booths at the festival. It was so much fun. The kids got to get their faces painted (and Mommy did too) and we let them play on all the bouncy slides and stuff in the park. Later that afternoon we had a BBQ at my aunt's house where we set up the 3 lane slip and slide and wore out the kids and stuffed ourselves full of all kinds of good junk! That night we lit off fireworks in my aunt's cul-de-sac. It was awesome because we could see the Layton fireworks, the Clearfield fireworks and the Syracuse fireworks all from my aunt's house. Way cool!!

Then, we went back to my grandma's and the grown-ups stayed up till 3 am playing cards. Doug kicked our trash. In my defense, I was exhausted and off my game! Ha ha!! We tried to have a rematch on Sunday and he kicked our trash again! Gotta love him.

The best Daddy

Last week was Father's Day and I've been slow to write about the best Daddy ever, the Daddy to my babies. We tried to give him the most relaxing day we could and ended up having a fun day. My sister-in-law and I made Doug and my brother a HUGE breakfast (actually a late, late brunch) and then my grandma came from Layton. We played card games and then just lounged around and visited. It was a great day. Doug was honored with some golf clubs. He joined a beginners golf team at work and I'm all for anything that takes him away from playing World of Warcraft. He bid on some clubs on Ebay and won them, so he got a terrific deal on some nice clubs which his dad chipped in on. So Doug got pretty lucky. He deserves it for being a great dad. He's very involved with our kids and he's a great example to our boys on what a Daddy should be. I hope they all grow up to be just like him. He's also the best Daddy to our little girl. Mckenzie is totally her Daddy's girl. She'll know how to be treated by a man when it comes time for her to look for her own prince charming.

I'm honored to have good men in my life. My own dad who is amazing in every way. He is hardworking, determined, optimistic, hopeful, cheerful, giving, kind, compassionate, creative and he never gives up. My grandfather, whom I loved dearly was talented and creative and literally made his dream come true by turning his family's home stead into a successful chuckwagon dinner show. My father-in-law, Rick is kind and gentle and my husband's grandfather, Paul is intelligent, sweet and a great teacher. I am the beneficiary of all of these men because my husband is the product of all of these influences. Doug is my source of strength, he's my calming influence, he's my better half. I am so blessed to be his wife. And I am so blessed that he is the father of my children. (well, most of them anyway...half the triplets, I think... just kidding!!)

Shoe Therapy

The last week or so have been emotional and most people who know me know that I'm not good with emotional. So today I decided that my friend, Kim and I needed some Shoe Therapy. I had a little money put aside from my birthday so we hit BOGO at Payless. I have added to my family of shoes and my collection of purses. I feel it's important to do this particular type of therapy to spare my children from such things as yelling, throwing objects, tearing out of the hair, slamming doors, and other such things that result in frustration or anger at actions such as leaving shoes in the middle of the floor, using all the paper in the printer for comic books, drawing pictures on the clean windows with brand new lipgloss, throwing dirty laundry on top of clean, folded laundry, taking bathes and not actually washing body parts, using words such as ball or nut for things that are neither a ball or a nut in front of their grandmother. You see, I always feel it's better to say "Hi babies! Mommy's home!!" Instead of "Mom is home! Run and hide!"

Yes, shoes are good therapy.

Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple

For FHE this year, we've been trying to follow the Primary's theme of Family's are Forever. (not sure if that's the actual theme, but that's what we're going with...) So this week for FHE we talked about the importance of temples and we took the kids to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open house. It was so amazing to be able to take the kids inside a temple and show them the different rooms where different ordinances are performed. The rooms that meant the most to them were the baptismal font and the sealing rooms.

Doug and I were sealed to each other and to Ethan when Ethan was 5 months old in the Logan temple. It was neat to be able to explain to Ethan and the other kids about the signifance of that day in the setting where the sealing ordinance takes place. The kids really liked the mirrors and how they were a symbol of families being forever.

Mckenzie and my neice, Edil loved the Bridal room. I told them that temples are where princesses like them are supposed to get married and made them both promise to get married in the temple. Of course, Mckenzie got all embarrassed but she promised me but Edil was all wide eyed and completely impressed.

We were going to take pictures when we were done but when we walked out there was a HUGE storm brewing and we got caught in it on the walk back to our car. By the time the little shuttle thingy got us back to our cars, we were completely soaked. It was hilarious and will hopefully make the event very memorable for our kids! I hope it made an impression on them and it will be important to keep themselves worthy to go to the temple some day.

Mommy Moment

Recently we had a precious neighbor go through an extremely difficult struggle and our family has been praying for them and looking for ways we can help. Last night, in the mayhem of getting kids in bed, I walked into Garrett and Chase's room to tuck them in and there was my little Chase, kneeling by his bed. He was praying for our neighbor by name and asking Heavenly Father to bless her that she will feel the comfort of the Holy Ghost. That was my mommy moment for the week and probably for the year. I think my heart was about to burst from how much I love that kid. He is the sweetest boy and others don't get to see that very often because he is so shy. I love every moment of being a mommy, but these moments make it all worth it!