Catch up

So, my good friend Trine did a quick post on things over the summer and she posted highlights month-by-month. Although I have posted over time, there are many things I have failed to write about and skipped over (as if they never happened). My good husband asked me to do a quick post on all the things I've missed that are blog worthy, so hopefully this will fill you all in. Thanks for the idea, Trine!

JUNE:

Mack played baseball (aka Start Smart for preschoolers)
Stretching

With his mitt.

Trip out to Shaurie's house.
Mack in the makeshift swimming pool. So fun and silly!
It was really cold water, but he loved it.

Speaking of Shaurie...

I think she is so beautiful! I always say she got the looks and the brains. Lucky girl! Too bad Addie looks like she is struggling in this picture. Hahaha!

Mack's Superhero birthday party was a BLAST! Here are a few pictures of the obstacle course:

Opening presents...

This will probably turn out to be a long explanation, so I'll try to keep it brief. Each kid made up their own superhero identity and RSVP'd with their info... name, color, power... In return, I gave them a password that they gave at registration. Example (which was my favorite and still makes me laugh): Make-up Mia, color pink and purple, spreads make-up through all the land. The password I gave her was "beauty." I also loved Super Guinea Pig who could chew through metal. Mack was "Mack-man." His super power was his spiky hair that could stab the bad guys. Kids are awesome! While they waited around for the other guests, the kids played pin the cape on the superhero. Once everyone was there, each kid was introduced and given their capes. Then I told the kids there was a villain on the loose and they had to save the birthday. Shortly after, the villain showed up and dropped balloon bombs all over. The kids had to step on them to deactivate them and collect all the bomb evidence, which was sealed in a manila envelope. Next was the obstacle course consisting of: riding a bike, crawling through a tunnel, jumping over buildings (made of cereal boxes), swinging on the rope onto the water (air mattress), climbing a ladder and dropping a water balloon through a basketball hoop, running across a rickety bridge (part of the old fence in our backyard that had been replaced), and through the finish line. When they finished, they received their masks. The villain showed up, again, and dropped Kryptonite (green spray-painted rocks) on the ground. The kids split into two groups and used kitchen tongs to collect the poison and throw into the hazmat container (a cooler). The villain showed up one last time and the superheros captured him with their spiderwebs (silly string) and he was hauled off to jail. It was a BLAST! And, no, I am not creative enough to think of this all on my own. I stole the idea from a website.

JULY:
The kids and I took a trip up to Logan, then Idaho for a Chlarson family reunion, and finally to Washington, where Chad met up with us. We even went to "Sleattle" (Seattle) and stayed in a "hometel."

In Logan we stayed with my wonderful "cousin," Chellie Lambertson and met her family. I really enjoyed my time with them! This was Maddie and Mack at the Logan Zoo (which totally rocked and I remembered as a kid). Isn't she beautiful??? and oh boy, does she have a personality! These two are exactly one month apart.

Everyone feeding the ducks.

After I met up with the Chlarson Clan, we went for a nice hike in the Minnetonka Cave (surprised I remembered the name? I just looked in the picture. :) ) It was 444 steps to climb on the way in and back, equaling 888! My grandparents and Aunt Jana stayed back with the twins, so Mack and I could go. Sweet of them, hu? Mack hiked most of the entire thing!
This was the longest stretch of stairs called "Stairway to Heaven, " which was a total of 75 steps! Cassandra there, in the green coat, was 8 months pregnant at the time! Way to go, woman!
Mack and me at the end.
I really enjoyed my time with the Chlarson's. It's been a really long time since I went to a reunion and spent time with a lot of them. I really had a blast getting reacquainted and appreciate their warm welcome. I have especially enjoyed getting close to my Grandma and Grandpa. They have been great examples to me.

Once we made it to Washington, with the help of my Aunt LaVoy and her family, we stayed with my dad for a couple of days. Their super kind neighbors invited us (meaning us, Jarred and his family, Kyle and his family, Dad, and Mary) over to swim in their pool. If that wasn't nice enough, already, they then pulled out a bunch of food and had a BBQ!
Here is Mack with his cousins Riley and Matt.

Next, we headed over to Mom and Dad Weber's for a couple of days and then over to Seattle to pick up Chad. We went to Pike Place Market, the Space Needle, on a bay cruise, the Aquarium, and the monorail to the mall.
Two pictures of the Space Needle that I like...

Lydia and me on the boat.

Addie and her Daddy.The gum wall. The first thing I noticed on the wall was CTR written in gum (not pictured).

I wish Mack had been looking at me, or the camera.
On the monorail... He was tired of me taking pictures!

AUGUST:

A couple of weeks later, I headed back to Washington with my sister. This time, we stayed with Kyle and family in Moses Lake in a camp trailer. I thought it was really fun, but the best part was the wind storm one night. It made our camper rock! Shaurie was nervous and felt we needed to go inside, so we each grabbed a baby (Mack was already sleeping inside, thank goodness!) and ran for the house. She couldn't get the door closed to the camper and I didn't realize she wasn't right behind me, until I got to the house. It was frightening to see her (my little sister) holding my tiny baby in a crazy, warm wind storm trying to shut that darn door! Luckily, everything was fine and she made it, but it was the weirdest feeling... like one of those dreams where you can't run, or talk. Anyway, once we were in the house, everyone at Kyle's was awake and scared. Kyle said a prayer, which calmed everyone and, would you believe, the stormed died right down!

A couple of days later, we headed to Ensign Ranch (owned by the LDS church) by Seattle and met up with the Weber family. That was pretty fun, too. Especially the water slide! It's this long, man made hill with a huge tarp on it and sprinklers to keep it wet. We all had tubes, so we would sit on them, link feet to arms and create long chains to go down together. At one point we had over 20 people on our chain. The last person got whipped around pretty good! So fun!!!

The day before we headed back to Utah, we visited my cousin, Marlys Chlarson Downs, who is Shaurie's age, that just had boy/girl twins. Here are a couple of my favorite pictures.

SEPTEMBER:

We met up with cousins at Thanksgiving Point one day. Look at those adorable girls!

At the water table.

Digging for bones. This was his favorite part.

After church one day, we tended Abbie, our neighbor. She is 11 months older than the girls, but she looks the same size as them! I love her.

That's all for now. Someday, I will post Halloween pictures. I need to download them, still, and haven't had the desire or time to do so.

Until next time, ENJOY!

Pure Silliness

All three of them enjoying a fantastic game of "May I take your order?"

Someone put Addie's jammies on wrong, and was struggling to get that last foot through the arm hole.

Some days we have to improvise.

Just practicing for Halloween.

And the best of the silliness...

Addie's face every time I took a picture of her this morning.

Lydia's "mascara face."

Mack

Have a great day!

October already?

I know I am way behind and there is no use in trying to catch up. This summer was great... a lot of traveling and socializing. During the month of September, I headed down to Richfield 3 times! RyLee and Sara had their baby, KayLee (she is a DOLL!), so I try to sneak down there as often as I can to visit them. Plus, our best friends, Elle and Devin, live down there, too, so it's hard to stay away! Now I am sick, so I am home bound for a while and thought this is a great opportunity to blog!

A couple of weeks ago, we went to the circus. It was amazing! I didn't know animals could act that way, or that people could bend that way! My batteries died 5 minutes in...

...so this was the only picture we got as a family. Makes me laugh!

Before I start about the kids, I have to write about something very important to me. I finished reading the Book of Mormon. This time I really studied it out and tried to understand what I was reading. I used four different books to gain the most insight: Scriptures on the IPod (there aren't any footnotes, or chapter headings); The Book of Mormon; The Book of Mormon for Latter-Day Saint Families; and Book of Mormon Stories. Reading it this way, I felt I gained more understanding and was able to follow the stories and retain the information really well. I LOVED it! I find it so crazy that all those generations preserved and protected the records so our generation could read it and gain knowledge to help guide us through these difficult times. For any of you who haven't read it, I encourage you to study it out and pray for understanding. It'll change your life.

Anyway... The kids:

Mack:

• He just finished fall soccer. I think he was too young to play. The first 5 minutes of each game, he chased the ball, but then twirled around the field and watched his shadow.
• After working on his letters for over a year, he is finally starting to read and figure out how words come together. We play "I Spy" and one of the clues I give him is the word spelled out. He has figured out how to sound them out and guess the object.
• Addie and Lydia adore him! He came make them laugh at the drop of a hat. Especially Addie. She just looks at him and starts to laugh sometimes. He really likes "the pink baby," too.

The Team

Mack and Mia. The kid cracks me up, as does Mia's skirt!

Lydia:

• She is crawling! And she crawls everywhere. I have to keep the bathroom door shut, because that seems to be her favorite room. She takes it very seriously and tries to be super fast.
• With crawling, she is trying to pull herself up on furniture. She is one tough chic, because she falls a lot and barely cries. She even fell off my bed one day and hit her head on the wall and barely shed a tear. Crazy girl!
• Her first tooth should be coming through any day.
• Personality: She is very busy and can't hold still. She is even busier than Mack! When she cries, she tries really hard to find something to laugh about. She doesn't like to cuddle and talks to herself until she falls asleep at night. She is such a silly baby and pulls the funniest faces. I have said from the day she was born that she cracks me up!
  
• She prefers to say "dada" and even called Mack "dada" the other day. Of course, he died laughing!

Addie:

• She is my little sweetheart! She is so tender and loving. When she wakes up in the morning, she lays her head on my shoulder and gives kisses.
  
• I swear she looks straight into your soul with those huge blue eyes.
• Her first tooth broke through about a week ago. She likes to rub it with her tongue ( and Lydia tries to stick her finger in Addie's mouth to feel it, too) and rubbed a little sore on it last week. She also bit her tongue and had blood around her little lips when I got her out of the car. She didn't even complain, or cry about it once.
• She is behind on her gross motor skills, because she is just so content to sit or lay down for long periods of time. Plus, she stays plenty entertained with Mack and Lydia around, so she doesn't seem to find any reason to move.
• Her favorite word is Mom and she even uses it when she really needs me.

Just so sweet!

First curler.

I wish Addie wasn't so blurry. I could kiss these faces all day!

Some typical sleeping arrangements:

Let's Make This Quick

So much to blog about, so little time... We've had Mack's birthday, birthday party, Father's Day, trip to Logan to visit cousins, then on to Idaho for a family reunion, continuing on to Washington for a visit with family and friends, which included some fun in Seattle. Not to mention the baseball and swimming lessons. Keep reading over the next few weeks, and I might cover all these events.

First things, first...


He finds humor in the simplest things. Apparently learning the properties of water shooting from a hose is comical to this child. Oh, how I love him!

These next few are from an overcast day. I just can't resist a good photo op...

On the tractor.

In the tractor bucket of the loader.

Skipping.

Dancing.

For his birthday, he got a new bike and Lego Batman for Playstation. We also went bowling that night. Mack won, and not because we let him...

That's all for now. I am really not in the blogging mood, right now, but I had to update something.

Oh, and some fun pics of the girlies...

I couldn't get a picture of Addie not talking...

This picture cracks me up! Lydia is so sad...

Now she's happy!