Random Happenings

This week has been nice to spend some time just as a family after all our recent excursions. 

I love how silly my little Joe is getting.  He has the best sense of humor and loves to tease people.  Joe came out of the bathroom one day looking like this, just so he could make Jack laugh.

All our kids enjoy picking our strawberries, but Joe loves to eat them too.

Jackson has gotten to where he watches his older siblings closely and tries to do what they do.  I love it when my kids include him and let him tag along.

More fun Sunday happenings:  Clara and I playing Battleship with Joe helping me.

And all the kids trying to get a sticky monster to stick on the ceiling and then waiting patiently for it to fall.

Genevive Visits

Genevieve brought the kids from Missouri this last week, so we made sure to meet up with her and the kids so our kids could play and we could visit.  We met up at a splash pad that was about halfway between our house and where Genevieve was staying.  I tried to get my kids to just play on the normal playground until Genevieve got there, but as soon as Jackson saw water, there was no stopping him from going in. 

Unfortunately, once Genevieve got there, I forgot to take pictures.  So I don't have any of her kids, but we all had a blast playing together.  The kids played explorers and then we all had a picnic lunch at the park.  Thanks for making time to see us!

And once again, Sunday boredom brought out a game where Clara would tie Joe up and see if he could get himself free.  I'm glad they both loved the game so much.

Then for FHE, Joe wanted to go outside to build real Ninja Turtle Robots with a real hammer.  After explaining that we didn't have any other materials to build them other than the real hammer, he decided to use grass.  So we took turns hitting the grass with a real hammer to make imaginary ninja turtle robots.  When he finally got bored of that, we headed to our neighbor's yard where we all played together.

Matt and Kamee Visit

Before Matt and Kamee came to visit, we got to say good-bye to our back yard neighbors.  They are moving to Texas and we will miss them greatly.

My brother and his wife were able to spend nearly a week with us for their summer vacation.  They spent the first half of the week visiting her family, but we got some extensive fun time with them the second half of the week. We celebrated Pioneer Day with them by playing in some water.

Then we got to do some fireworks that night.  Here we are doing the Pop-Its. 

And the late night fire works were watched by these great people, who hated the flash being in their eyes :)

The next day, we rode the train to Salt Lake City to visit Temple Square.  The kids thought the train was so much fun!

We started our visit at the Church History Museum.  Even though they had fun things for the kids to do, I would love to go back without kids so that I had time to really look at the things they had on display. 

One of the fun things that kids got to do though is play with some toys that the pioneer children would have played with.  Even Jackson loved the dancing dolls.

And Clara and Joe had fun making their own dolls dance.

We then headed to the North Visitor Center where a must see is the Chirstus.  Too bad the kids wouldn't hold still long enough to get a non blurry photo....

And lastly we met up with Jeremy and Grandma for some lunch.  It was such a fun day!

Kids Just Playing

Clara built a fort with her friend.  We kept it up for a couple of days so the kids could play in it.  I love it when my kids play so well together.

Jackson has also started playing on the floor by himself.  His favorite is to play with vehicles and make their noises as he lays on the ground to play with them.

And what do two kids who are bored on a Sunday do?  They steal their youngest brothers blanket and try and smother each other with it, of course!

Harold Beck Reunion

We had a reunion for Jeremy's Dad's family.  Our kids had so much fun camping.  Too bad we didn't sleep very well...

The first day there, Clara found ways to entertain herself with sticks. She called them her musical sticks and came up with quite a few songs you could sing with them.

Jack also found a dog to keep him entertained while we were camping.  I love how much Jack loves animals and follows them around as much as he can.

The first night there, we had a campfire program.  We learned a lot about the Beck family.  Poor Jackson was so tired though, and refused to sleep....

At the end of the campfire, they annouced the winners for the "guess how much candy is in the jar" games we did.  Joe was so excited that he won one!

The next morning, most of the crew went on a hike.  It was so good to see the campground!

Uncle Dave and Aunt Melissa brought their new Razer to take everyone on a ride.  Joe was so excited when it was his turn. 

It only lasted about 15 min, but both boys were out cold when the ride was over.

Clara also discovered a "house" right by our tent.  She showed it to anyone who would listen.  She had two trees that created the front door, some rocks for furniture, and she even had some flowers in a garden.  Here is Caden and Joe exploring the house.

That night we had another campfire program where we learned more about Beth Cooper.  After the campfire, Joe finally got to play with a Styrofoam plane that he's been waiting his turn for. 

We left early Saturday morning so that we could get home and get caught up on our lack of sleep.  :)  Family reunions are so much fun!

Joe's 4th Birthday

I can't believe my Joe is 4!  His birth story is such a traumatic one for me that every year, I get teary eyed as I think back to that day he was born.

Joe is in love with Ninja Turtles and Avengers.  He has the best sense of humor and is often smiling, laughing, or telling me a joke.  I love the twinkle he gets in his eye when he knows he's being funny.

We had a small party that consisted of inviting my Mom over to have him unwrap his gifts.

He wanted  his Spiderman bike horn put on right away, so we went outside and did that after cake.  While we were outside, his neighbor was outside too.  They all played bikes together for a while and then Joe invited Wyatt over to have some of his birthday cake.

Jeremy decorated the cake this year.  Joe was in love with his Raph cake!

Joseph was so excited to get a TMNT scooter with all the birthday money he got.  He got right out there and rode it ASAP.

Happy birthday little buddy, I'm so glad you are in our family!

4th of July

We had a wonderful 4th of July weekend.  Saturday we spent the day as a family at Seven Peaks.  The kids always love when Jeremy gets to come with us!  Joe was so excited to show him how brave he's become by going down slides without having any one catch him at the bottom as well as not needing someone to hold onto him in the lazy river.

Monday we got up at 5 am to make it to the East Millcreek parade.  We were there by 7 am and had fun visiting with all the family that joined us.

 

While we were there, we decided to go visit Jeremy's grandparent's house.  Jeremy's dad grew up in this house and Jeremy visited there every Sunday.

The parade was short, but fun.  The kids loved getting so much candy!

After the parade was over, we headed to John and Sharon's for a BBQ. Grandma Beck had made rocket launchers and Joe had a blast with those.

John kept saying how much he missed Camille because she would always pick raspberries.  So Clara and I picked them for him.  Clara had so much fun helping me and she even discovered that she likes raspberries!

After the BBQ, we headed to our house and watched movies until it was dark enough for fireworks.  We got to light the few be bought, but loved watching our neighbor's fireworks too.

I loved watching my kids interact with all our neighbors who were outside with us.  Here Joe is showing me his glow stick while our next door neighbor, Wyatt watches.

Here is Clara (far right) with the Ansah-Antwi kids (they live across the street) with Jade (who lives on our right) and all of Jade's cousins.

At the end of the night, Joe wanted to leave his glow stick on the garage.

We had a fabulous weekend and didn't want Dad to have to go back to work today.  Joe asked me this morning when Dad was going to be sick again so he didn't have to go to work.  :)