Fun times with family!

My oldest sister and her 4 kids were able to come out to Utah from New Jersey and visit for a week this month! This is the first time they have been to Utah and it has been several years since we have seen each other. The kids had a great time visiting with their cousins and my oldest brother was able to come down during that time with his family and baptize their youngest son here in Utah so we could all attend. I also had another brother come out for the weekend with his 3 year old daughter. We were able to go Silver Lake up Big Cottonwood Canyon, to Temple Square and we went swimming twice. M&M is right in-between my sister's two girls age wise so she had a lot of fun playing and visiting with them. She was able to spend the night with them at my parents' house on Saturday as well. We all had a lot of fun and I hope we will be able to see each other again in the not too distant future!

Playing some foosball.DH was able to take off work a couple of hours early to go swimming with us. It was nice to have him there to help out with the kids.At the luncheon after Ty's baptismOn our hike around Silver Lake.Baby K had a ton of fun running around in the dirt in these new tennis shoes.The kids kept throwing sticks and rocks into some bushes to try and get the ground squirrels to think they were throwing them food...Baby K trying out her climbing skills!Temple Square - Unfortunately this was the weekend of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple dedication so all of church was canceled for Sunday and a lot of the buildings on Temple Square were also closed...More climbing...

Cookie fun!

M&M tried out her new icing decorating kit last week on some sugar cookies:

Nothing but trouble...

Baby K is definitely keeping me on my toes lately. Her latest favorite things to do include: throwing things away in the kitchen trash when no one is looking, climbing on the computer next to our TV so she can bang on the keyboard or the TV stand, and putting anything and everything into her mouth!

When we got home from our summer vacation I took Baby K's car seat out of the car so that I could wash the car seat cover. To take the cover off you have to disconnect all of the pieces of the harness system. It took me a while to finally wash the seat cover and when I went to put it back together I was missing 2 of the pieces for the harness system. I asked everyone in the family if they knew where the pieces were and searched the entire house when I got the sinking suspicion that Baby K may have thrown the pieces in the trash. So I got out my rubber gloves and another trash bag and proceeded to go through the kitchen trash and sure enough the pieces were at the bottom of the bag! I also found 3 stuffed animals and a toy car in the trash another day when I went to throw something away!

Garden update - 8/16/09

So far we have been able to harvest some tomatoes, green beans, green onions, and a green pepper from our garden this year. My tomato plants are huge once again and I have to keep trimming them back because they are just unmanageable when they're so big! The big tomatoes are suffering from blossom end root rot again so I need to figure out how to solve that problem.

Yesterday I harvested my first green pepper ever. Green peppers don't like the heat and so every year until this year they have just dropped all of their blossoms and never developed into full size peppers. This year I decided to try something different and put my green pepper plants in between my tomato plants to try and give them some shade - and it worked. All 4 of my green pepper plants have peppers on them and I used one on some homemade pizza last night.

Some of the potato plants didn't sprout so I'm not sure what happened there, but everything else seems to be doing pretty well. I wish the corn was a bit taller, but there are a few ears on the first stalks that I planted. My pumpkin plants are being attacked by squash bugs once again this year so I have been going out periodically to kill any bugs that I find. I have also been smashing the eggs when I find them on the leaves of the plants. The weeds are still a little out of control but it's a full time job trying to keep on top of them and I just don't have that much time or energy every day!

We had a really strong wind storm a couple of weeks ago and several of my corn stalks were lying on their side the next day. I have tried tying them to the stalks on either side of them to help support them. Hopefully they will continue to grow but I'm not sure at this point.

I am going to try planting some lettuce or spinach and then some more green onions in the next week or so.

Soccer season is almost here

I am going to be coaching Luke's soccer team this year and received the team list and schedule last week. I also attended a coach's meeting last Saturday and got the uniforms for the team. Now I just need to call everyone and figure out when and where to hold the practices. There are 6 kids on the team that are returning from last year and then we have 6 more for a total of 12 players - 3 of which are girls. They will be playing 8 vs 8 this year. I'm both excited and nervous about the season!!

Cooler weather

We had some unseasonably cooler weather last week that we all enjoyed. The highs were in the 70s and it got into the 50s at night. It was nice to be able to turn off the air conditioner for a few days and enjoy being outside. I was also able to get a lot of good work done in the garden. Unfortunately we are back to the 90s this week. Thankfully we have had a relatively mild summer this year - we have yet to see the temperature at 100 or above. And fall is right around the corner!!

Computer trouble

Baby K has recently figured out how to climb onto the chair at the computer desk and loves to stand there pushing buttons, but especially she loves to play with the mouse...If you look closely at the above picture you can see her pointer finger poised to click the button on the mouse...

The other day I found a couple of new folders that had been mysteriously added to my desktop and another file renamed to: [[[[[[[[[[[

Storytime with Dad

Blondie wanted her dad to help her read a bedtime story and Kitty wanted to listen in. Then Baby K thought she was missing out on some fun so she inserted herself into the middle of the group...

Baby Kong

Baby K thinks that this is a great toy for displaying her climbing skills:
And these pictures are from another time when I came upstairs and found Baby K on top of the table, wiping it clean with some napkins...

M&M turns 11!

Thursday, July 30
I can't believe that M&M is 11!! Unfortunately with year-round school M&M usually ends up having to celebrate her birthday during the first week of school. And unfortunately this year it was also back-to-school night. We ended up letting her open her presents on her birthday but we celebrated with a family party the next day.
After school on Friday we headed over to my parents' house, picked up my dad and headed over to the pool down the street from their house. This was the first time we have been swimming in a big pool this summer and the kids had a blast! Baby K loved the water and just splashed and splashed the whole time. She was so excited that she would splash with her hands and kick with her legs at the same time - it was almost hard to keep ahold on her. Blondie was also quite funny to watch because she was having so much fun and laughing so much that she couldn't keep her mouth closed and kept getting water in it.



After the pool we went back to my parents' house for dinner and a party. DH met us there after work. M&M is not a big cake fan so she also opted for cupcakes this year.

Blondie's 6th birthday - take 2

We had promised Blondie that we would have a family birthday party for her at home on Pioneer day after our trip. Initially we had been planning on coming home on Wednesday and then I would have had a day to prepare, but instead we got home on Thursday night. So on Friday (Pioneer Day) despite having to unpack and clean the house still, we had a party for Blondie and invited my family over for dinner and a party. We ended up barbecuing on my new grill for the first time, then Blondie opened her presents and then we had some cupcakes and ice cream. Afterwards my sister and her husband left to watch a fireworks show elsewhere and the rest of us went out to the front yard to do our own fireworks. The kids had a blast with the snaps and sparklers while DH lit off the bigger stuff. Unfortunately it was a VERY WINDY evening which isn't a great thing when you're trying to light fireworks...This was a funny gift from Grandma S because whenever Blondie sees her she asks her for a mint - so Grandma gave her her own bag of them.
Baby K loved the cupcakes - she's come a long way since her birthday cake in April!

Family vacation wrap-up

I loved watching and taking pictures of Baby K while we were in the car. She had it the worst because all she knows is that she's strapped in her car seat for a super long time and there's not much to do that is very exciting. M&M was sitting in the seat next to her and was given the assignment of trying to keep Baby K happy. She did a great job feeding her and trying to keep her entertained, but there were times when Baby K just didn't want to be there anymore. She was so happy at the end of the vacation when we finally made it back to our home.

Trying out M&M's sunglasses
Eating a lollipop
Eating a lollipop and stretching
Totally bored out of her mind
Eating powdered doughnuts
Classic pose: Baby K sleeping with her thumb in her mouth and her hand in her hair.

Family vacation part 7 - Pottermania

We headed back to Vancouver, WA Tuesday evening after our brief trip to Seattle. DH wanted to get back early enough that we could get the younger kids to bed and then head off to see the new Harry Potter movie. Luke started reading the books earlier this year and then once he got hooked, M&M decided to read them as well (she had tried reading them a couple of years earlier and just wasn't interested at the time). When we left for this vacation M&M was just starting book 7 and Luke was finishing up book 6. So we got back to DH's parents' house and set up our tent in the backyard for the 4 oldest kids to sleep in. We put Blondie and Kitty to sleep in the tent and it definitely took them a while to go to sleep. Our kids just think it's so much fun to sleep in a tent and they don't get the chance very often so it usually turns into a big play time. Our big unknown was whether I would be able to get Baby K to sleep and if she would stay asleep while we were gone. She had been having a rough time on the trip and wasn't sleeping too well unless she was in bed with me. While we were at the rental house in Oregon I noticed that she was cutting some new teeth so I think that was contributing to her poor nights. There were 3 late night showings of the movie that night so we decided to try and go as soon as I got Baby K to sleep.

After a bit of struggling and some threats to Blondie and Kitty, we finally got the kids to sleep and headed out to make the 10:45 showing of Harry Potter 6 (actually I'm not entirely sure that Blondie and Kitty were asleep before we left). We were trying to keep it a secret from M&M and Luke that they were going to be going to see the new Harry Potter movie and they were so excited when we pulled up to the movie theater. DH's mom, brother Tan and his wife went with us as well. Grandpa stayed back home to keep an eye on the younger kids.

We all really enjoyed the movie and it was fun watching M&M and Luke watch the movie. It was also neat to hear them critique it afterwards and compare it to the book since they had both recently finished reading it. Luckily when we made it back home around 1:30 in the morning, the kids were all asleep still.

The next day was Wednesday and we decided to just take things easy and relax at the house before we left for home the next day. The kids played in the pool and bounce house with their cousins and watched a few movies. Grandma N came over for dinner that evening and it was great to see and talk to her.