Honest. This is The Last One. For Today Anyway.

If you've read my post from Saturday, you know that it was the day that IHH was having its Summer Picnic. We had fun there. It was nice to see other families with children with a chd. It was held at Primary Children's 3rd floor outdoor pavilion. I learned there that two others in the group went to high school with me. Small world.

They had snow cones for everyone (besides pizza, salads and dessert) and some activities for the kids. Even had a magic show for them. The kids all seemed to really enjoy that one. The guy who did it was very entertaining for them. The group is having a campout in August. I'm looking forward to going to that as well.

Here's Russ holding Dylan as we waited for the food to be ready.

Molly and Emma enjoying their snow cones. And the flowers. Kind of surprised they didn't try to pick any.
Jimmy enjoying his second snow cone.
Lyssa with hers and Russ.
Just for the heck of it, I took this picture showing some of the desserts. If you look close, you can see how each dessert was given a number for the contest. They had prizes for the contest. My cake won "Best Overall." I got 4 passes to Cherry Hill and a bucket with outdoor type of toys for the kids. They were thrilled. So was I.

Okay, Last One, I Swear...Maybe Not...

Di's oldest, Cole, decided that he would stay with my parents an extra week. Since his dad is currently working in Spanish Fork Canyon, he could stay and just go back home with his dad when he's off for the 4th. Shortly after Di left, Susan and I took Cole and the kids bowling. Nice thing is that during the summer the kids get to bowl for free. They had fun. I was on one lane with my girls and Sue, Cole, Josie, and Jimmy were on another. The girls took long enough that the others were able to bowl two games in about the time it took us to bowl one. I bowled better this time than when I went with Jimmy. I didn't gutter 6 balls in a row. Even guttered one that still managed to knock down a pin. That was nice.

The bowling alley had a little ramp thing the girls could use to push their balls down. Made it easy for me. I didn't have to help them much at all. With that and the bumpers, they did decent bowling. Emma even got two spares.

Speaking of Emma, I think she's the one who took this picture. I purposely left off the lovely butt shot one of them got of me. Yeah, you really don't want to see that one.
Susan (playing with her iphone), Josie and Cole waiting while Jimmy took his turn bowling.
Lyssa cracked me up how she was holding onto the wall as she watched the bowling. Molly was about to climb up on the ball return thing to wait for hers to be returned.
Jimmy watching his ball and Molly about to push hers down the ramp thing.

Various Family Stuff

Going along with the aforementioned busy week, we did spend some time hanging out to let the kids play and just relax. Let's just say that the noise level was pretty high with all the kids at times. The pictures almost say more of what the kids were doing than I could alone, so I'll just go with them and perhaps a little explanation for them.

This is Isabel playing outside. She's Lyssa's age.

This is where I could find Jimmy, Seth and Garrett when they weren't "ghost hunting." Cracks me up that leaning over Seth is about the same height as Jimmy. They are a month apart in age. Seth is just really tall.
Pretty much the same as above.
Brianna got her hair cut and thought she was beautiful. Took a picture to show her new haircut. Lyssa had to pose next to her. The girls really had a lot of fun playing together and were sad when they went back to Arizona.
Seth really liked Dylan. Here he's helping him walk. He was very happy to help him walk. Not so sure Dylan was though.

Zoo

I mentioned earlier with my pictures from Lagoon that it was the start of a busy week. Essentially it was. The day after going to Lagoon, I went to the zoo with Stacey and De. Well, sort of. I saw Stacey for a little while and saw De for about 2 minutes. Something about my girls needing to go to the bathroom and others trying to find everyone else...ah well. For the most part the kids had a good time at the zoo. They were mad that I didn't let them ride on the carousel and were hungry and seemed to think that I wasn't going to give them lunch (I was, just planned on waiting until we left the zoo to get lunch. Figured it would be cheaper.)

The kids always love the lion head drinking fountains. Here they are watching Lyssa get a drink from one.

This was the area the cougars were in. Every other time I've been there, the cougars are sleeping. This time one was actually wandering around a bit. If you look close, you can kind of see it in the space above Jimmy and Emma.
The kids were looking in a cage for a monkey. It had been way over on the other side and saw them and came over to look at them as well. I laughed and told them that it knew other monkeys when it saw them.
Here they're looking through the lower area glass at the rhinos. They stared at them longer than I thought they would.
Posing by the giant elephant statue thing. Makes noise. They had fun with that.
Jimmy holding Dylan while we waited for our turn to pose by the elephant statue.
Two of Stacey's boys, Alex and Chris, playing under the elephant.
Stacey's boys getting ready to pose for a picture for her. Ben looks kind of bored to me.
Dylan was happy to be pushed around in the stroller. He liked looking at the animals, especially the marmosets.

Heart Cake

I know I have a few other things to post, but really wanted to post pictures of my latest cake first. Mostly because I'm actually happy with it. I made it for a summer picnic that IHH (the support group for heart defects) is having today. I signed up to bring a heart-shaped dessert. I was worried when I discovered that I made the figures a bit bigger than I should have for my original plan, but I think it turned out well anyway. Now let's hope it transports well. :)

Hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I had fun making it.

Start of a Busy Week

This week has been a busy one so far. Steph has been visiting this month and will go back to Georgia in July. This past weekend Brian came out for a few days. Di and her family came up on Sunday (and left today). Stacey also came down on Sunday. This was the first time in a few years that all of my siblings have been together. And the first time in even longer that it hasn't been because of a funeral. Hopefully De will email me pictures that we took Monday soon.

Sunday we had dinner with my family since Brian and Di were there. Stacey didn't arrive until later and Susan was driving up from bringing Madi and Josie home from staying with their grandparents in St. George. It was a good dinner. Besides being Father's Day, it was Michael's birthday. Yes, there was cake. Yes, it was good too.

We decided that Monday would be a good day to head to Lagoon. The kids were all very excited to go and had a good time. Lys even went on Rattlesnake Rapids with me three times, despite getting totally soaked each time. I don't think any of the kids wanted to leave when we did, but all of the adults were very ready to leave.

I realized as I arrived at Lagoon that I had left my camera sitting on the counter. Luckily my phone has a camera so I was able to get at least a couple of pictures. Didn't take one of the family together (minus Kady and Kelly who were at a soccer camp) with my phone because De said she would email me one. Still waiting on that.

Jimmy lately thinks he needs to pull a goofy face for any picture. Which is what he is obviously doing here. This was taken just before we went in to Lagoon. Dylan didn't stay in that stroller long. Stacey pushed it because she used to carry the carseat with Abby and he wasn't happy to have someone else pushing him. After that he was pretty good about other people pushing him or doing things with him. Surprisingly.

This was Molly, Lys, Emma and Jimmy on the Puff ride. They loved that one. Went on it over and over again.
Emma on the merry-go-round.
Lys and Molly on the merry-go-round.
Emma and Jimmy on the airplane ride.
Obviously isn't a picture from Lagoon. Actually from a week or so earlier. This is Dylan with his cousin, Savannah. She will turn 1 early next month.
All in all, Monday was a fun day. I eventually dried out from the wet rides. Kids kept falling down. (Just so you know, flip flops aren't the best to wear to an amusement park, but I would recommend sandals of some sort if you go on the wet rides.) Didn't have sunscreen, but amazingly only got a little red.

Happy Anniversary!

This picture was taken 11 years ago today. Looking outside, the weather was nicer then. Well, depending on your definition of nicer. For a wedding, it was nicer. Let's leave it at that.

I was thinking about my memories of that day. Those who know me know that I really don't like to be the center of attention. I'm much happier sitting on the sidelines. And I'm not real fond of getting my picture taken (which is one reason why I take most of the pictures...can't be in the picture if you're the one taking it). If I see a camera pointed toward me, my immediate response is to duck and run. I've gotten better. I don't usually act on that instinct. Much. That day I realized it was all part of a wedding and it didn't bother me as much as I would have thought. Sure, I felt downright silly at times, but that's okay.

But my main memory of that day is the feeling of rushing from one place to another. We were married early in the afternoon and after pictures didn't have much time to get to the wedding luncheon. Which was made more interesting by a misunderstanding and someone leaving with Russ' suit so he couldn't change out of his tux before leaving the temple. He did change quickly once we got there.

From the luncheon, we rushed off to the reception center for more pictures. Then didn't have any time after pictures before the reception started. So it was a busy day.

Thinking back on everything over the past 11 years and all that has happened, I look forward to the next 11 and wonder what they will bring. And yes, Russ, I'm still glad you said, "Well?"

Clearly, I Wasn't Thinking

This is why one shouldn't leave figures down low enough for babies to reach when making figures out of gumpaste for a cake (first attempt at using gumpaste, just so you know). Especially when said baby really tried to get them when you were starting to make them. In case you were wondering.

Annual Family Campout

This past weekend was the annual family campout with Russ' family. This year we went to Yuba Lake. We had a lot of fun, despite the rain. Sara and Andrew came from South Carolina and Linda came from Texas, so everyone was there. Not quite sure why we didn't ask the neighboring campers to take group picture for us since everyone was there. Guess we didn't think of it. Anyway, enjoy the little slide show of some of the pictures I took while there.

In case you're wondering, which you probably aren't, I picked the song with the pictures because I figured the title went along with camping. That and I just like the song.

Last Day of School

Well, it's official. The school year is over. Which means I no longer have a 4th and 1st grader and preschooler, but now have a 5th grader, 2nd grader, kindergartener and preschooler. Not sure how I feel about that. Just know that this year has flown by (of course, I mentioned that in an earlier post).

Earlier in the year, Emma's teacher sent home a note asking that each child bring a 3 ring binder. Today I learned why. Emma came home with a little scrapbook of 1st grade memories. It's actually quite cute. And being put together in a binder like it is, I'm much more likely to keep it than deciding to toss it 2 weeks from now. Has several pictures Emma has done at school, photos of a few things and even a little story Emma wrote about when Dylan was born and came home. She also brought home her report card, which is pretty good. Her lowest overall grade is a 3.5 in Language Arts (basically an A- or B+ for those of us used to letter grades). The rest are all 4's (A here). Also included were test results from the end of year testing. She did pretty well at that, too.

Jimmy didn't bring home a report card. When I asked him about it, he said that he had to put his report card with a book thing that stays with up through high school. Said that the copy to bring home didn't work to get printed. Apparently only half the class got report cards and the rest didn't because it stopped working right. But he did bring home his test results as well. Overall they were pretty good. Got his lowest overall scores in science. He brought home most of his stuff on Wednesday.

The school posts the class lists on Monday, but kind of take the anticipation out of it by sending home papers with each child telling them who they have and has a list of items they will need or the teacher is requesting for donations for the class. I was about to say that this is the first time that Emma will have a different teacher than Jimmy had, but then remembered that she had a different one this year. She would have had the same teacher but he got a job in administration. So Emma's teacher was new to the school this year. Guess the only reason to go check the class lists for them is so they can see who else is in their class. I'm 95% sure on who Molly will have for kindergarten, too. Guess I should go over and make sure I'm right on that one on Monday.

Lys and Cake

Last night we had cake and ice cream for Lyssa's birthday. Her favorite movie is Finding Nemo, so I got her a Finding Nemo cake. Got it from the new Dick's Market by me because I love their frosting. Only the frosting didn't quite taste the same to me. Still was good though. (Yes, I realize I'm rambling a little.)

Lys was very excited to have people come over and have the cake and ice cream with her. Kept asking when her "birthday" was (birthday here means party). Having misplaced the camera (yet again), I only had my phone with which to take pictures. So here are a couple. The first is of Lys with her cake.
Picture of just the cake.
Tried to get a good picture of Jimmy feeding Dylan some ice cream. Unfortunately, Dylan saw me and decided he wanted me more than the ice cream, so I couldn't get a good one. And it's not really focused, but thought I'd throw it in anyway.

Alyssa is 4!

Today is Lyssa's birthday. Which means that the "Happy Birthday" song from Blue's Clues is stuck in my head. Mostly because I made the mistake of singing it to her. (Which made her very happy, by the way. She told me I should sing that when I pick up the cake. Yes, I decided to order a cake instead of make one this time. Just felt lazy.)

Lys is very excited that it is her birthday. Gleefully told Emma and Molly last night at bedtime that in the morning it would be her birthday and she would be 4. Don't know that I was very happy about Molly trying to wake her up this morning by telling her it was her birthday, but it was still kind of funny.

Thought I would throw in some pictures of Lys since it's her birthday.

If the date in the corner of this picture is correct, Lys was about a month and a half old in this picture. I thought it was cute how Molly is giving her a kiss.

I took this picture when Lys was 100 days old.
Um, not totally sure on her age here. Probably around 9 months.
Here she is a little while ago at the park. Yes, I know, goofy expression on her face. But that's okay.

Water Fun?

So I bought one of those water toys that you hook up to a hose and it has little arms that wiggle and spray the water around. Figured it would be good for the summer. Got it home and the girls decided they wanted to try it out. Which was fine. Then they turned the water up so much that the hose came off. Again, that was fine. I took Dylan back in the house so I could get it hooked back up. Got it probably halfway when Lys decided to turn the water back on. Didn't realize I had wanted to try out the new toy, but I guess she thought I did. Ah well.

June Birthdays

Wow. June is a busy month for birthdays. So here we go (deep breath)....

Happy Birthday this month to Doug, Josie (both today!), Lyssa, Steve, Challene, Daniel, Michael, Madi, Andrew, and Garrett! Better run and check to make sure I haven't forgotten anyone. Nope, think I got them all. Anyway, hope you all have a great birthday this year!