Aunt Teresa

While we were in Austin looking for a house my younger sister Teresa came and stayed with the boys. They had a lot of fun together. We also got a few days with her before and after we were on our trip. We spent time at the park, swimming at the Y, and visiting Dinosaur Ridge near our home.

The boys loved Dino Ridge. There is a small $1 museum there and then a 3 mile hike where you walk past actual dinosaur footprints and a small dinosaur quarry with bones and fossils visible in the rocks. The boys walked the whole way and it was really hot. I'm super impressed with their hiking skills!

Another New Dress

Hannah's Father's Day dress...yes, she pretty much wears a new dress every week. I don't have pictures of her 4th of July dress yet.

We Love Taylor

For Father's Day we went down to the Y on Saturday morning so Taylor and I could play racquetball. I had been planning it all week and was going to surprise him, but during our breakfast prayer that morning Matthias said, "Thank you that mom and dad can play racquetball." But he had no idea up to that point so it was still a surprise. We had a lot of fun playing, but I am amazingly sore since we haven't played since we were in Provo 5 years ago.

Today we both got the speak in Sacrament on the Trek. Then for dinner we have steak, salad, and potatoes. We also got Taylor a book we have been loving lately called Molto Gusto that is an Italian cook book with really yummy, authentic, and healthy recipes. Cauliflower Ragu is our new favorite food! Then Lava Cakes for dessert of course. And they are all natural too. Just really full of fat and sugar...

We love our Dad and he is the best. He is such a wonderful husband and father! And we are so grateful for our dads (grandpas) and all they teach us and do for us still!

Trek 2010

I have a long drawn out (possibly 10 page) journal entry in My Thoughts for my own remembrance. Here I will summarize:

It rained, it snowed, it hailed, it sleeted, it rained for over 15 hours in a row at one point. The kids were amazing and we loved our family. It was great to see the youth grow and to see their testimonies. We had wonderful experiences showing us how mindful the Lord is of each of us and our prayers and desires. Taylor and our son Dylan spent like 2 hours one night digging trenched to let the puddles drain out of our tarp. It was really cold. The food was good, the experience was great.











Our real children spent an amazing weekend with Leigh and Todd doing a million really fun activities. Now they are back to entertaining themselves, which they are so good at.

We Will Miss the Mountains

We have been doing a lot of hiking and even got a camping trip in the weekend before Trek. We all love being outdoors and have had a great time in these wonderful mountains!

Matthias Pumps

Matthias learned to pump. As you can see in the video I am possibly more excited than he is...

Pajamas for Hannah

Having a little girl is SO fun because of all the great sewing I get to do. Now that is it finely somewhat warm here we have switched to summer pjs. Since our house has no AC it can get a little hot for sleeping at night. I didn't want to run out and buy a ton of 18-24 mo pjs when we have perfectly good ones, they are just green and blue and worker trucks, etc. But who sees you in your pajamas? It's somewhat eerie how much she looks like Matthias when in blue and green...


Matthias is thrilled to have matching pjs with Hannah since he is now wearing the ones James had when he had the ones Hannah has.



But just because I had some Strawberry Shortcake lightweight "pj" material laying around (that I probably bought like 4 years ago), Hannah has one pair of girly pajamas.

Hannah & Ducks!

Hannah is in love with ducks and everything with wings and beak is a "DUCK!!" Our friends just got chickens which they normally do every summer and we happened to be over there when the chickens arrived. They are only a few months old, so not yellow and fluffy, but small and brown.

Hannah was so excited she could barely contain herself. Shouting duck over and over. One of the girls asked if she wanted to touch one and she reached out and grabbed it's head between her fingers. I thought she was going to crush it. The other little girls that were there were really funny, one said "it's not a duck" and another said, "I will call it a duck for Hannah."

I think this was one of the best experiences of Hannah's life thus far. She was SO thrilled with the "ducks" in person and up close!

Last Day of Preschool

James had his last day of preschool on June 2. He enjoyed a lot of the year, but also had some struggles. Mostly being bored I think as they spent a lot of emphasize on pretend play (which is what James does ALL day) and not as much specific "learning". He always told me he never learned anything at preschool. But we did like his teachers and he enjoyed the kids in his class. I'm not sure if we'll do preschool for our other kids or not, but I think overall it turned out okay for James.

Doom & Duck

Another fun game we tried the other day...

James says, "We're going to play Doom and Duck. When someone throws a frisbee at you then you Duck. If you don't duck then it's Doom."

I humored them.

It was actually quite hilarious because they don't throw a frisbee very hard or accurately. Hannah only got hit 5 or 6 times and she didn't end up crying at all. Overall a funny game. But it's never been mentioned again, so I guess not that memorable.

Brain Storm

The other day I was feeling restless and stir crazy and unmotivated. Generally what happens in this situation is I surf the internet and the boys play crazily while Hannah hangs on my leg.

But last week I decided to choose a different course of action and plopped down on the lawn in the backyard announcing, "we're going to brain storm".

The boys immediately sat down around me and Hannah seeing that something was happening came over to join our circle. To get everyone going I started with "Animals that are Brown." A fairly easy brainstorm.

James then said "I want to choose the next Rain Storm." (I then explained that it was actually Brain.)

This continued for several rounds with different categories such as Animals that are Yellow, How to Make a Tree Grow, How to Help the Earth, etc. My personal favorite was Matthias' "Animals that are Red, Including Fire." To which I shouted "Fox!" and Matthias shouted "Fire!"

Hannah sat proudly in our circle scooting closer and closer to Matthias. And, because she could hear a dog barking, exclaiming "Dog! Dog!" while also signing for emphasis. Everyone else was shouting out words and she was more than happy to join in.

We enjoyed a fun 30 minutes together and we didn't even have to do anything but sit in a circle and shout out random words. We've played Brain Storm a couple time since then. Very fun. And educational. =]