Thank goodness for cupcakes!

After a crazy evening of chasing the kids while getting dinner ready and cleaning up and after a crazy day of more chasing around (I must have pulled Ashlee off the counter at least 100 times today-- she's a great climber) that I thoroughly enjoyed of moment of peace while they gobbled down a left-over cupcake (thanks Sarah and Benj). It only lasted about 30 secs tops, but it was pure bliss. I tried to sneak a picture of them sitting side-by-side to not disturb the moment, but I guess I wasn't sneaky enough.

And, if you're wondering why Ashlee seems to have a swimming suit on at all times-- no we don't have a pool, but it is her permanent daytime attire. Luckily they easily wash out in the sink and are ready to go in the morning for another day. Some how we're going to have to break this habit come fall.

Something fun to try....

I found this site called Wordle from my friend's blog that looks at the posts on your blog and creates a "word cloud" of the words it finds. It the makes the words bigger or smaller depending on how often it it finds it on your blog. Cool huh! You can play around with the fonts, colors and arrangement and then post it to the gallery to get the html for your blog. Hmm... I must use "like" a lot, and "so blessed" even came up ;).

Reunion time again!

Usually when the word summer is mentioned, images of relaxing by the pool comes to mind, but for our families-- that's not the case. Justin and I both come from large families (8 kids for Justin's fam and 7 for me, of which only 3 live in the area), so summertime is all about reunions! I LOVE IT! We started with the annual Bear Lake trip for my family. If you know me, then you know that I love to organize and my family is no different. The "Bear Lake Trip" is like a well oiled machine.

Here's the run down: (Sorry if there are more details and pics then you need/want/can handle-- I had over 4 gigs of pics to choose from by the time I gathered all of the fam's pics together.)

Every year we have the same menu! (Why fix somethin' that ain't broke!) Aside from home-cooking at the condo, we always make a trip to get some awesome burgers and fresh raspberry shakes! Mmmm....the food is great and the surroundings-- awesome. I love the little town at Bear Lake. It's so quaint and the valley and lake are so beautiful. Some day I want to find a little old house on this lake front to come and spend my summers!


Here is Andrew not keeping up very well with the melting ice cream!










There is always lake time. Who needs a boat? The kids are entertained for hours digging sand castles and parents get to relax!


Even though Ethan lives in Cali, Andrew and Ethan immediately acted like long lost best buds.












Even Ashlee has a partner in crime. (Actually there are 3 more cousins within a year of her age.)










Is this the smile of complete contentment or what?










Then there is the unforgettable family home evening that grandma and grandpa put together. This year they re-enacted Lehi's dream with black painted pvc for the iron rod and a created tree of life with white taffy as the fruit of the Tree of Life that the children got to partake of-- very desirable!

Here is the cast (left) and Grandpa telling about the grand dream of Lehi (right)










On the left, Andrew is moving quickly to get to the very desirable fruit from the Tree of Life and Ashlee on the right who appears to have fallen by the wayside into the deep and murky river.



There's always a craft or two planned for down time, a round a miniature golf to play (or 2, 3 or 4 rounds by the end of the week) and lots of time to hang out and play on the huge grass field! I have also prodded my family along to get an informal family pic taken here each year to watch as we grow!


BFF already at 2!?!













This is Ashlee swinging "her way". She turned 2 while up here this week and she definitely fits the profile.










The family picture-- yeah I'm the one that looks like I just ran and jumped in the picture and has the remote timer not very inconspicuously hid in my hand. Oh well- it's not going on the wall or anything! It was pretty amazing to have so many little bodies holding still and smiling at a camera with no one standing behind it.





This year seems extra special because Suzanne my sister, by no small miracle was able to come out on a buddy pass to be at the reunion. Thanks for making the huge effort. It's no small task to fly stand-by with an almost 2 year old across the country. We missed her husband Rand and thank him for giving up his wife for a week or two!

We had another week after Bear Lake to hang out with my brother Jon and his family. There were BBQ's, hanging out, trip to the Farmington train park, the parade, swimming at the Bountiful rec ctr and fire works on the fourth (maybe I'll post some pics on another post later), sleep-overs, movies. (I know I'm missing some of the festivities) Whew! It was fun! I have LOTS of pics, but it's taking WAY to long to upload them. So just imagine them. Hopefully I'll digi scrap them sometime in this lifetime. I guess there will be a part II of this post because I haven't even got to the fun we had with Justin's fam. and my bed is calling.

Proud to have a "Mormon Mommy Blog"

So, I read an email from my sister-in-law that linked to a blog "Seriously, so blessed" that is a spoof on "Mormon Mommy Blogs". Maybe it hit home--I am a Mormon mommy in Utah with a blog and I tend to make comments that are heavily sarcastically made fun on this blog like "I am so blessed--my husband and kids are the best", or maybe I was just finding a reason to not catch up on my very behind blog, but for a moment I thought that blogging for me was out the window. I've heard of blogging as described as a continual fabricated Christmas card that we all cringe when reading because of the amount of gloating that it contains. Hmmm.... I'll be honest, I went back and read my whole blog and I am sure there are parts (or all, who knows?) that sound like that to others, but as I read over the posts and looked at the pictures, it made me happy to remember the good times like this and this and laugh about some of the bad times like this and then I was convinced that blogging is a keeper! So here's to getting it back up-to-date! (I still plan on printing this out-- one day!)

Happy Blogging!

What's in your fridge?

To be honest, my fridge is nearly empty right now because we're heading to a family reunion in a few days, so I'm doing the s-t-r-e-t-c-h it out thing until we go, but based on our norm, I'm amazed of how much my fridge apparently says about me.

What Your Fridge Says About You You aren't greedy, but you don't really deprive yourself either. You strike a good balance with the stuff you buy.

You tend to be a fairly thrifty person. You splurge occasionally, but you're mostly a saver.

You don't tend to be a very adventurous person, but you do surprise everyone now and then. You have a bit of a wild side.

You are responsible, together, and mature. You act like an adult, even when you don't feel like it.

You are likely to be married - and very busy.

Take the quiz here

The Old and the New!

Wow, 2 posts in one day. I'm probably going to regret taking the time (I may NEVER unload the dishes and the sink is piled high with dishes!) But, here is goes....

So we've had a baby boom in my family. We've had 3 babies born to the "Todd" family over the last couple months and we've had 3 blessings in 1 month! (Mmmm... lots of good food.) We snapped a shot of the last baby boom and I couldn't resist posting this pic of these 3 adorable little girls. They are finally deciding that they are not merely a threat to their toys, but are starting to play and become friends!

Brinlee, Sadie and Ashlee!


Here's some pics of the next generation of cousin buddies!

Tessa:

Aidan:

Treyden:
Aren't they precious!!!

It's been awhile!

DORY:
Hey, Mr. Grumpy Gills. When life gets you down, you know what you gotta do?
MARLIN:
I don't wanna know what you gotta do when life gets you down.
DORY:
[singing] Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. What do we do?
We swim, swim.

It's been a little while since my last post..... I feel like I've been doing a lot of just "swimming" per se. How does life get so busy! I guess that I should be grateful that I'm keeping up.

Somewhere in the midst of being busy we planted a garden. I haven't really pinpointed why, but somehow gardening for me is very therapeutic. There is such anticipation of reaping what you have sown. It's very rewarding. We go out nearly everyday to watch the progress. Andrew loves it, although the only thing he may actually eat from it are a few peas (he does NOT like veggies) and strawberries. I had meant to post these pictures of the progress awhile ago, but since we seem to be just trying to keep up with life these days, they a little out-dated and we are now enjoying some of the fruits of our labors!

We've had a great year for spinach so far.


Our lettuce is growing like a weed. Unfortunately the mix we planted this year looks more like weeds (in a pretty way), and kind of tastes like them too. So, we'll be sticking with spinach salads I guess.

We have tomatoes, peas, cucumbers, zucchini, green beans and LOTS, AND LOTS OF STRAWBERRIES to look forward to. Mmmm! (Each of those little blossoms will be soon strawberries and this is only HALF of our strawberries.)