We're Back

We got back on Monday night and have been busy since. I finally copied pictures to my laptop tonight and have started editing them to post. So I promise to have pictures up tomorrow :)

Check List

Pack my clothes
Take pictures off the camera
Pack food
Pack kids stuff for overnighter at grandma's
Pack my stuff still
Pack kids stuff for overnighter at cabin with Mana
Pack
Pack
Pack*

*The one thing I really need to do, and I'm waisting time not doing it. And that word looks really fake right now!

Night of The Living Dragonfly

Last night we got together for dinner and celebrated Karri's birthday (it's on Thursday). After dinner we all went outside to play for awhile. Karri got a picture with all of the nieces & nephews. This was the first picture taken, notice how my kids don't smile and look at the camera on the first try, but Max, Conli, & Sawyer do! I don't get it! I am always having to tell Xander to actually smile, he thought that was a smile, and I'm always yelling at Mara to look at the camera! Whenever she does, she'll squint or make a face.

Oh how my frustrations grow when I pull out the camera!

The traditional Funny Face Picture.

Conli took this picture of us girls sitting on the steps! I love it!

During the summer, whenever we are outside in the evening, Pat always grabs the net to catch Dragonflies. He was successful last night, but was too rough and damaged one of the wings on this one. It wasn't able to fly away, but did get passed around a bunch, and it made the boys happy.

Brent grabbed my camera and took some cool pics of it.

This picture is really pretty! Thanks Brent!

I took this one.

The boys were in heaven but the girls were really nervous to be around it.

I took this one too!

You can see that part of his wing broke off. It was sad.

Overall it was a great night!

Now just two more days until our vacation to San Diego!! Wahoo!!

Comic Con here we come!

It's Never Too Early For Ornaments!

Every July, Hallmark starts selling their Christmas Ornaments for the year. (But the Dreambook comes out in May, so we can make lists) Me, Mom, Karri, Chris and Grandma Joan are all members of the local Collect 'em All Club and there is a Midnight Premier for the Ornaments. We have been going to the Midnight Premier for at least 10 years and enjoy every minute of it! Last Friday (the 10th) was the anticipated day. Grandma didn't come, but she sent her list with us. But my friend Stefanie came!! She loves the ornaments too, and in past years we have talked about them, and this year I made sure she came! There was food and games (of which we won first place!!!) Then we are able to get our ornaments off the shelf, and waited until midnight to buy them!

Here's Karri with her Frosty Friends Ornament.

(This is a series that she's been collecting forever and it's been going for at least 30+ years, but I'm not sure how many she has.)

Mom & Chris on the hunt!
Inspecting the ornaments is a very important part of the evening.
Ornaments on display

This is the 4th edition to the Noelville series that I collect. They are all gingerbread houses and they light up! I love 'em!!!!

Me, Karri, & Stefanie

Waiting to check-out

Thanks Hallmark! We sure love ya!!!!

*FYI: Saturday I made sure I had all my ornaments cataloged, and I have just over 200. And at least 30+ of them are Star Wars! :)

Adventures at the Park

We went to Nielsen's Grove Park last week and this time we came prepared with bread for the ducks.....

and a net & bucket so Pat could catch a fish from the pond!
Don't worry, we put him back before we left.
Xander was feeding the ducks the biggest pieces of bread, so we ran out pretty fast!

Mara's interests in the ducks didn't last for long, so she ventured to the playground. This was right before she fell on the stairs leading to the big slide, she hit her nose and got a pretty good nose bleed! So from then on she wasn't too happy. Blood even got on her dress and shoes and she was pretty upset about that too. Luckily we were able to turn her dress around and clean out her jellies, and that made her happy.

This duck was awesome! Pat would throw bread and it would catch it! It even took bread from Pat's hand! So cool!

While I was at the playground with Mara, Xander wasn't obeying and fell into the pond and lost a flip flop!

Good thing dad brought a net!

Wet boy!

Mara finally got the courage to go down the slide!

(Which is funny because she loves slides, but after the nosebleed, she was weary)

Momma & her babies

My babies looking at those babies.

There is a really big swing thing there and we tried it out.

Mara usually loves to swing and always wants to be pushed high, but on this one she got too high and started to cry!

Hopefully next time we go there won't be so many mishaps. But it was fun nonetheless.

Fireworks Galore!!!

The 4th of July is always so fun! I love that we make time to be together as a family and with our extended family.

Our Annual picture with our Old Navy Flag shirts!!

Saturday night we had a BBQ with some of my cousins that live close. Then Pat & I & kids met up with his family up at the Provo Temple Grounds to watch the fireworks from the Stadium of Fire!

Then Monday night we had our own little 'Sidewalk of Fire' in front of our house. (We live in a cul-de-sac, so it's easy to do fireworks.) I have 2 aunts that live on our street and they came over with kids & grandkids :)
We did some fun Sparklers!

Here is Riley (my cousin Lindsay's husband) and Larissa (my cousin Joel's wife) helping the kids with more sparklers!

Then the boys lit the big ones!!

My cousin Jimmy decided to jump over the fireworks, but I didn't have the camera ready, so Pat jumped over for me!!

I just love how the picture turned out!

Then Jimmy jumped over again, just so I could get a picture!!

Pat tried eating the moon. After making Riley jump 4+ times, my camera finally worked and we got a cool picture out of it!

After all the fireworks were done, my uncle Jim got enough courage to jump too!

The weekend was a lot of fun and I am grateful to have such a wonderful family and to live so close to them too!