more birthday!

This is the awesome place we took the kiddos for their birthdays. It's called the Grilled Cheese Grill, and it came highly recommended (thanks, Raina!). They have lots of varieties of cheesy bliss. It's Y-U-M-M-Y! And, it was a big hit with EVERYONE.

Yes, you actually eat in a BUS! So fun!

Yummy chocolate cake (but very ugly! I'll try harder on the REAL cakes, coming up for the "friend" parties!).

Olivia had a great birthday, and was elated with everything. She has grown up into such a darling young lady, and we are very PROUD of her. She has become responsible for her things, and quite often her younger siblings. She helps around the house, earns allowance, and spends it carefully. She loves to organize ANYTHING. She often asks, "hey Mom, can I organize this drawer for you, it's a MESS!" She LOVES school, soccer, and being with friends. She loves music and SINGS all the time. Our favorites are her shower numbers. Lovely, really. She loves to play on Webkinz. She is really into making her habitats super fun for her pets! She is my BIG girl, and I am so grateful she came into our family 9 years ago! Happy Birthday, sweetie!

Happy NINTH birthday, Olivia!

Happy NINTH birthday to my little girl! It was her MAGIC birthday this year, because she turned NINE on 9/9/09. Very ENCHANTED, really! She LOVED her special day. She chose to have Swedish Pancakes for breakfast, with whipped cream, of course. YUM!

Here she is with her new POGO-stick, get jumping, little girl!!!

Her new birthday outfit! Her shirt is "scratch and sniff" cupcakes! That's a nice thing to smell all day on your birthday, right?

Here are the cupcakes we took into her class. Little soccer RINGS. So fun!

And, here she is in her birthday crown (that she decided to make for herself=DIVA)!

She also scored a WHALE Webkinz (which she is very excited about because it swims in a bubble all around Webkinz World) and some PIXOS, which she did until too late last night.

fall fashion show...

Twas the night before school and all through the house

were fall fashions galore: Union Bay and Levi Strauss.

Olivia is ready, all tucked in her bed,

while visions of notebooks dance in her head.

Her lunch is all packed, her messenger bag, too.

She's ready for school tomorrow, how about YOU?

Here is a sneak peak at her THIRD GRADE wardrobe!

I cannot believe my baby is in the third grade and has a birthday in two days. Really? How can she be turning 9??? Lots more to come this week of her first day at school and THREE birthdays!

molly uncut...

I was cooking dinner last night, and while I had my back turned, Max snuck in and took a bite of the (pre-cooked) breaded chicken patty I was getting ready to grill. I turned around and noticed the bite missing and said, "Max, don't eat those yet, I haven't even cooked them."

And that's when Molly chimed in, "yeah, you freakin' vulture."

ten months

ten months!

oops, looks like Olivia dressed Ian for bed! I just let him sleep in it, since he looked so darn cute. This is what Ian is doing these days to make us smile...

crawling

clapping

signing "more"

clucking his tongue

pulling up in his crib

playing pat-a-cake

dancing to his favorite music (unfortunately, his taste in music runs towards his dad's)

eating anything and everything

cuddling his mommy

giggling at Max's physical stunts

pulling Molly's hair (and she lets him do it!)

hanging out with Olivia, his awesome roommate

and rocking out with dad!

bragging rights...

34 Quarts of peaches=total satisfaction

stitches

My little guy had a big accident on Sunday, just as we were packing up and getting ready to leave Utah! Somehow he got bounced too hard on the trampoline and fell on the bar, smack on his head. I didn't see it happen, but my guess is a big kid bounced him accidentally. Olivia brought him inside and there was blood everywhere. Luckily, there was a doctor in the house, whom I deferred to right away. Uncle Glenn sat him up on the counter and determined that the best route would be to get some stitches, so he and Jon jumped in the car and took him down to the Urgent Care. They walked in and Glenn walked right up to the counter and informed the nurse that he would be needing a room (connections are great, I tell you). They got to the exam room and stitched him up (with quite a struggle, I might add, Glenn said he might have been the hardest fighting kid he'd seen!), and he left with four stitches.

So, my big birthday plan of buying the kids a trampoline for their shared birthday is thwarted, as I now feel SICK about this darn accident. Dr. Glenn said "he'd never own one of those dag-blamed things" and I think I have come to feel the same.

A big bang ending to an otherwise accident-free vacation. Since they left the Urgent Care Max has not once complained about his head, and seems to be basically unscathed. And, if he's lucky and has my dad's hair line, no one will ever see the scar. If he gets his daddy's genes...........poor guy.

one last hoorah...

We made the trek down to Utah again for one last summer hoorah. We had tons of fun, as always, visiting, swimming, and riding on tractors...

here are the kiddos riding on Papa's tractor...(the dog came along)

Ian had lots of fun with TWO big days of swimming...

we got to swim with great friends in Bountiful...

these boys got along so great!!!

biggest and littlest (my nephew is about 6'5" and counting)

sweet Aunt Shirl took amazing care of us, as usual...

another tractor (Max let him have this ONE ride on it)...

brothers...

uncle-ly advice...

and yet another tractor ride...

The main reason we headed down was for the wedding of Jake and Emma. Their sealing was amazing. It made me remember my own, and I am so happy for those two love birds! Crystal and I helped the amazing Shirl with the food for their reception, which was TONS of fun, and lots of work, but I would do anything if it means spending time with those two sister in laws. The reception turned out great, and thanks to nearly 400 eclairs and 400+ barbeque beef sandwiches, we had just enough food! Thanks for getting married, Jake and Emma! Good luck in love and life....

nine months...

I can't believe my baby is nine months already. He is a total gem. He sleeps all night. He naps in his bed twice a day. He LOVES to play with his toys. He rarely fusses. He loves to eat. ANYTHING. He loves to drink out of big cups (he has the same hole in his lip that his mommy does). He has a contagious laugh. He loves to be snuggled, wrestled with, and doted on by all of his family. He brings us together. The perfect end to our little family. Our CABOOSE.

21 pounds

29 inches

(thanks, Jaide, for the cute picture!)

warning, here come a lot of pictures of a very fun stay-cation!

We had such a blast with Crystal, Jaide and Tage this past week and a half. It was too fun, too fast, and we wish we could do it all again! These visitors are so good to us, so helpful, and love to do all the things that we do, which makes it easy! Here are some of the highlights of our trip:

We had a fun picnic at a river-front park. The kids had fun playing in the water and watching the boats. This was part of Jaide's birthday extravaganza.

Molly roped Jaidie into some good-ole dress-up! Jaide was such a good sport when Molly brought her a dress that Molly promised was just her size!

Thank you, Jaide, for turning 17 at my house and choosing to go here for dinner:

Jaide under the banner, she is even cuter at 17, if that is possible!

Oh, I love this picture. These three have always been so close even with so much distance (because their moms do such a good job keeping in touch!) and pictures like this just warm my heart! We have so many of the three of them through the years, and I just want to take time by the shoulders and shake it and say stop, don't let these guys get a minute older.

We love you guys and will miss you dearly, dearly, dearly!

berries!

Berry picking is an integral part of summer in the Northwest. We have been doing our fair share. We like to freeze them, and love to jam them! This summer, before our visitors arrived, we made 20 pints of strawberry jam, 20 pints of sylvan berry jam, 15 containers of sylvan berry freezer jam. Probably sufficient for a nice long winter, but we couldn't resist one more opportunity to go picking with our favorite berry team! Here are some cute pictures Crystal took of our adventure!

Max with his goods!

Molly getting to work. We told them if they didn't pick, they didn't eat lunch. It was very motivating.

And, we decided to feed them, because we ended up with 67 pounds of boysenberries and raspberries. Yum!

It wore this guy out!

And, after this, Crystal and I were also very worn out! The end result? 72 pints of jam!

Crystal, I think we should go for double or nothin' next summer!

more, more, more!

We took a trip to the Farmer's Market on Saturday. We all walked and pushed two strollers two miles each way, with the promise that after the market we would hit the fountains and cool off! It was so fun. We have loved this attraction for years! The kids had a blast splashing each other, spitting water at each other, and eating lots of kettle corn!

I just love this sculpture!

ooh, the water feels good!

At home, we stayed cool on the Slip-n-Slide. Aunt Crystal bought us a new Diego slide, and everyone had fun sliding (except Max, who had fun observing). Here is Molly reassuring him that it is "super fun" to slide!

Jaide is showing everyone how it's done!

And then she gave Molly lessons (and lots of support!)

Could these cousins be any more fun???

life's a beach...

Our trip to the coast was awesome! It was 90+ degrees when we packed up and left, but the weird Northwest Coast Phenomenon kicked in when we hit the coast, and it was windy and freezing on the beach! Never fear, we had fun nonetheless. We flew kites, dug in the sand with sticks (someone forgot the beach toys...), searched the tide pools, and watched the sunset over the Pacific Ocean from the warmth of our hotel room. Does it get any better than that?

The view from our patio

Tage looks like he's thinking...hey, look at my two cute babes!

silly cousins

here's to fifteen bliss-filled years...

Yesterday, Jonny and I celebrated our fifteenth wedding anniversary. He was on a plane all day and I was 67 pounds deep in boysenberries, but sometime in the very near future we plan on going out and painting the town to celebrate the best fifteen years EVER! I just love this guy!

...and this is how I picture us 15 years from now (and 15 years after that, and so on).

summer fun