Blondie is 5!

Blondie had her 5th birthday yesterday! We just had a family party this year for her. My parents came over in the afternoon to watch the kids while I did some last minute shopping and then when DH came home we let Blondie open her presents. After that M&M and Luke had their last baseball game so we all went and watched the game. My sister, Auntie M and her husband Rog met us at the game and we all went back to our house for dinner and cake and ice cream afterwards (except my dad who had to go to a meeting).

I can't believe that Blondie is 5 already and will start kindergarten in a few short weeks! She was only 2 1/2 weeks old when we moved into this house!

The castle cake I made her was one of the easier cakes that I have made. I found it in one of the cake books that I have. It is just made with a basic 2-layer round cake and the spires on top are regular & sugar cones stacked on top of one another.This was probably her favorite present (and M&M and Kitty love it too). It is a Polly Pocket size Sleeping Beauty doll that includes Prince Philip and a horse and carriage - very cute.

Modeling some of the clothes she received
(with Kitty always by her side).The other favorite kid toy that Blondie received. This is a little toy laptop that has lots of games and activities with counting, the alphabet and other basic concepts. Surprisingly, all of the kids have been fighting over this toy since Blondie opened it.

Baby Girls

I have finally figured out with girl #4 that if I want people to know that she is a girl, I need to have some type of bow on her head. Regardless of how much bright pink or lace the baby is wearing, people for some reason almost always will guess that the baby is a boy - hence this shirt that my husband's aunt gave us. I am not a huge fan of the baby headbows because they always seem to get pulled down over the eyes or mouth or fall off, but now whenever I am going to be out in public with the baby I will put a headbow on her. So, if you look back over the pictures of Baby K, you can almost always tell where the picture was taken by whether or not she is wearing something on her head... (This cute headbow was made by my brother's wife, Kami.) :-D

Three months old!

Baby K is 3 months old today!
She is such a fun and happy baby lately! Today at church one of my Visiting Teachers watched her for the first hour because my husband was teaching Elder's Quorum and I am in Primary and she did great! She fell asleep halfway through the meeting for her. She still will not take a pacifier but is trying very hard to get anything else in her mouth that she can get her hands on. Lately whenever she has a blanket on her or if she can get ahold of her dress or shirt she will grab onto it in a death grip with both fists and bring it up to her mouth. Then she will either stick the blanket or clothes in her mouth or try and get her fists in...
She also drools more than any of our other kids. Notice the huge wet spot around her neckline...
And here is a picture of my husband's kind of "babysitting":

Happy Birthday America!

The kids participated in our annual 4th of July neighborhood parade again this year followed by a pancake breakfast in the church parking lot. This was one of the coolest days we've had for the parade because it was overcast all morning - it's amazing how big of a temperature difference that can make here in Utah. Afterwards I set up our pool in the backyard and the kids played in it in the afternoon. My parents came over for a barbecue dinner and my flag cake that I make every year.

This year we tried out the fireworks show at West Jordan's city park. Auntie M & Uncle Rog met us there and brought their wedding pictures that they had just picked up. There was a rodeo going on at a stadium on the park grounds so we were a little unsure where they would shoot the fireworks off from. We started out in one location and then after my husband scouted out the place we moved to a different area. The newspaper had said that the fireworks show would start around 10:20 and we ended up waiting and waiting and waiting. The rodeo didn't end until after 10:30 and we were still waiting for the fireworks show. At one point (before the rodeo ended) they shot off a few fireworks not too far from where we were sitting but then nothing... One funny thing about the Salt Lake Valley is that we could see fireworks shows going off all across the valley - and the one we were at still wasn't starting...

Finally, at about 10 minutes to 11:00 the show started! It was a really good show and the location was great - nice, soft, green grass and it wasn't very crowded - if only it could have started a little earlier. By the time the show started Kitty was asleep and ended up sleeping through most of it. At one point she woke up and watched a few of the fireworks and then she laid back down and went back to sleep. After watching the fireworks for a good portion of the show, Blondie also laid down and fell asleep - she said it was too loud and too bright so I told her that next time we need to bring ear plugs and sunglasses for her. Baby K slept through about half of it and then woke up wanting to eat so I fed her and she went back to sleep - which was nice for me. So, other than the show starting VERY, VERY, VERY LATE, it was great!

Cleaning??

When M&M and I were finishing up in the kitchen after all of our baking I made the comment that we were going to spend most of the day on Thursday cleaning the house. M&M turned to me and asked, "Why? Who's coming to our house?"

Apparently the kids think we only need to clean when we are expecting company...

Baking Day

Wednesday I spent most of the day in the kitchen baking. I decided to try my husband's grandmother's recipe for Monster Cookies and I wanted to make some banana bread with my overripe bananas. I only made half of the cookie recipe and it still made a ton of cookies! M&M was a great helper with the cooking and with Baby K. We gave away several dozen of the cookies as well as some of the banana bread to neighbors. I also helped provide dinner to a family in the ward on the same day!

Here is the recipe if anyone wants to try it:

Monster Cookies
1 pound butter
4 cups brown sugar
4 cups granulated sugar
12 large eggs
6 cups peanut butter
8 teaspoons baking soda
1 tablespoon corn syrup
1 tablespoon vanilla
12 cups quick oats
1 large package M&Ms
1 package chocolate chips

Cream together butter, sugar, eggs and peanut butter. Next add the baking soda, corn syrup, vanilla and oats. Cream together. Fold in the chocolate chips and M&Ms. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 12 minutes.

Just as a word of caution - half of this recipe was almost too much for one of the largest bowls I have in my kitchen...

Hooked again...

For the last couple of weeks I have gotten hooked on Internet Indexing again! I thought that I would do a lot of it when I was pregnant with Baby K, but I think that since I was so tired all the time for the first two trimesters, I just never had the energy to want to sit down at the computer and index. Well, a couple of weeks ago I was sitting at the computer and didn't have anything to blog about at the moment so I tried to launch the Internet Indexing program on my computer. Unfortunately since I haven't done it in a while the program was really far behind in the updates so it just gave me an error. After spending some time trying to figure out how to get it working again I was successful! There are quite a few different projects going on right now than when I last did it so I had to do some reading up on them and then got right into it. I have indexed a few of the projects but most of my time I am spending arbitrating. So, one reason I haven't been blogging as much lately is because I am hooked once again - and loving it!!

Reunion Recap

Friday, June 20 we had a family reunion for DH's side of the family. It took place at a campground in Heber Valley. This was the first reunion since I've been in the family that hasn't taken place at the grandfather's house in Perry. With the passing of DH's grandfather a year and a half ago and the house up for sale a change had to be made this year in format and location. It was decided to try out a campground here in Utah that has tent sites, cabins & RV hookups as well. My husband is not a fan of camping and neither are many of his family members so this format was definitely more of a challenge for them. Some of DH's cousins & aunts & uncles are much more equipped for the whole camping thing and seem to enjoy it a lot more.

Anyways, because of M&M's tumbling performance on Friday evening we decided that DH would go to the campsite with the 3 middle kids and get the tent and sleeping bags setup while I attended the tumbling performance with M&M and Baby K. My parents were going to be at the tumbling performance as well so they could help out with Baby K while I videotaped the routine.

The family left much later than we had been planning on to get to the campground so my husband was still setting up camp when I got there around 9 p.m. - which unfortunately caused the family to miss some of the events scheduled for that evening. It was a lot of work for my husband to setup the tent by himself and the kids tried to help but there is only so much that a 7 year old, 4 year old & 3 year old can help out with.

M&M's performance went well and my car load left as soon as her group was finished with their routine so we could try and make it to the campsite before dark. We didn't have any time to eat dinner before the performance so we stopped at Arby's before we hit the road and got something to eat. I was surprised at how short of a drive it was to get there - just over an hour! Luckily Baby K was good in the car and slept for most of the drive.

After we got to the campsite and helped finish setting up we got long pants & jackets on all of the kids and then headed over to the family campfire to roast marshmallows and make s'mores - YUM! We also had glowsticks for the kids to use and play with. The exciting part at the campfire was when we saw a skunk that was hanging out under the pavilion (probably scavenging for food)... :-D

After s'mores we headed back to our tent to settle down for the night. The kids did pretty good and after the initial excitement of the tent & sleeping bags went to sleep fairly quickly. Our biggest concern for the night was that it was getting very cold very quickly. We ended up bringing Baby K's car seat into the tent so she could sleep in it and I wouldn't have to worry about her being stepped on in the night. The only thing that I wish I had brought was a hat for Baby K. I kept waking up to check on her and to make sure she was warm enough. Finally partway through the night I picked her up out of the car seat and brought her in the sleeping bag with me so I could keep her warmer. She did great though and only woke up once to eat at around 5 in the morning. Kitty and M&M woke up at around 6 for some reason and were wide awake. I tried to get them to go back to sleep and M&M convinced Kitty to get into the sleeping bag with her and then she ended up sleeping for quite a while longer.

On Saturday we had breakfast and the kids played on the playground for a while with their cousins. We went for a hike in a marshy area near the Provo River. The hike ended up being longer than we thought and it was getting really hot. There were not many shade trees there in the swampy area. Luckily on the way back we were able to hitch a ride with one of DH's aunts who was driving back from town at the same time. :D



Next came lunch and then the Unbirthday Party started. Luke, M&M and DH had a lot of fun with that and then we were all given water guns which ended up in a huge water "fight" with the whole extended family.

After the water fight we had some much needed down time to get dried off and to get out of the sun for a little while. Next came dinner and then some game time followed by more s'mores at the campfire. We left that night because of 9:00 church the next morning. (We all took naps after church with the exception of Luke...)

(The shirt that Baby K is wearing was given to my by an aunt...)

All in all we had a good time at the reunion. Luckily the skunk didn't spray while we were there and no one in my family got sunburned, but we each (with the exception of Baby K) came away with a couple of mosquito bites even though we used bug repellent. The kids' favorite parts were playing with their first cousins, the water fight and sleeping in the tent. It was a lot of work for me with packing for a family of seven and especially with having a newborn. I was pretty limited on how much I could help out with the various events and meals, but thankfully my husband helped out a lot and the kids all did great. It's nice that the older ones are getting old enough to be able to do more on their own now. We unfortunately weren't there for the planning meeting on Sunday but they are talking about holding the reunion at the same location next year. It will be a little easier to plan for now that we know what the facilities are like and what is available for the family to do there.

Backyard Fun!

We have been having really hot weather lately and my husband talked me into getting out the inflatable pool for the kids last Saturday. They had a blast playing in the water!

The shirt says it all...

...but then I'm probably somewhat biased!

I went to the Carter's store near my house the other day and they had some really cute onesies on clearance!