Stephen's Lake and spray park

Above: Ethan and his friend Jared
Below: Sierra and her friend Mary

Niece Kristina Came to Visit

Random pics of Adam

Above and below: Adam's 3rd birthday

Adam's new pose for pics:

But I want to touch the computer!

Trying to attract the fish:

Fishing with Gma Vickie:

Ice Cream!

Potty Trained!!! Yeah!

Spray park. One of many in Columbia.

He's good at it! Learns from his sis. Obviously not from his mom!

Our Subdivision Pool!

Our most favorite past time this summer!! We went swimming almost everyday. Adam's surfer tan was quite impressive!

Sierra and Kelty

One of Sierra's favorite past times...dressing up Kelty! Necklaces, bracelets, hair clips, the works. How does she do it? She tempts Kelty into her closet and closes the door. Kelty is her captive!

Missouri Storm

The storm that brought these clouds was quite interesting to watch. Seeing these clouds, we were in awe! Not sure whether we should hide in the basement or stay out on the deck and marvel! Welcome to Missouri.

Happy Now?! By the way, we moved!

So, as many of you know, we moved! Thus, the lack of updating my blog! Sorry, it's not top priority. This is our new house! We love it. I'm finally adjusting to the amount of extra cleaning and yard work I now have to do. The kids and I moved in April. Jacob moved in the end of June. Life has been hectic (to say the least)! I'm still not quite settled in but you all are begging for updates!! :)




Here are the kids. Ethan will be 8 in a month, Sierra 5 in 2 wks and Adam's 2 1/2 (and he just potty trained himself! With a little encouragement from dad (the peeing in boots and anywhere he pleased wasn't working for us!). In this pic they're holding the cards they made for Jacob's B-day in April.

The Love of Books!

Every night before I go to bed, I check on Ethan and Sierra (I'm afraid that if I went in Adam's room he'd wake up. Heaven forbid!) It's usual, lately, for Ethan to have fallen asleep while reading (a new found love in his life that I'm more than willing to support!). But this night when I went in to check on them both of them had fallen asleep with thumbs in the books they had been reading/looking at! It made me so proud! I know, I'm weird! All 3 kids love books! Every night they're usually surrounded with tons of books that they "read." I just love it!

Can you say "Princess obsession!"...
I'd be worried, but I notice all girls her age are the same way!

Ethan's love for reading was fueled by the Magic Tree House Series. I could hug that woman for writing books that interested my son so much that he just couldn't stop after I was tired of reading to him! Now he'll read 4-5 chapters a day on his own. The only downside: He picks up where I left off and I never know what happened in between!
It's a great series of books!

Dress Up

I can't remember for the life of me what she was dressing up as, but I do remember getting enough of a kick out of it to get the camera out! But, Sierra is definitely queen of dressing up in this family!

Playing Together

I was gone at Young Women's Night Activity and when I downloaded pictures these were on there. They were too cute. I guess the kids all wore their Crocs and a backpack and were pretending to go on a vacation! Too cute! I love the one of Sierra helping Adam get his shoe on! She's so motherly that way to Adam. :)

My crazy plant!!

So, normally I'd say I definitely do not have a green thumb! I'd describe my experiences with plants as a brown thumb because I seem to kill every plant I've ever had. The worst was a plant Jacob gave me when we were first married and expecting Ethan. He did the whole I know you'll be a good mom because you can take care of a simple plant. Well, that plant didn't last long!! But, lucky for my kids, I can't over water them and I can put sunscreen on them if they're outside too long! And I can understand their wants and needs better than I can judge what the heck to do with a plant. How much is too much water by the way?!

Anyway, for Christmas our Young Women's President gave me this plant. My first reaction was, "Great! She doesn't know my background with plants! Hope she knows this thing has no chance in my hands!" So, I read the instructions and did exactly what it said. They seemed simple enough: After planting, water as needed. OK I can do that. So when the bulbs started growing I was excited. Before long I noticed that it seemed to be growing several inches during the night! One bulb's leaves grew like crazy but the flowers all wilted away without ever growing and the other one's flower grew like the beanstalk in 'Jack and the Beanstalk.' Yet the leaves didn't really grow and the other flowers, too, wilted. Maybe the plant can just feel the love! Or maybe there's something really wrong with Riverside water!!

Here's the plant next to Ethan and Sierra so you could see the craziness!

Pool Party?

What do you get when 3 families with little children get together for a Holiday weekend?

Well, the bath started out with my children. Then all the other kids wanted to join in! 

7 kids in all!

That was the quickest "get'em washed and get'em out" bath time I've ever done!  

Once there was a Snowman!

Every Monday night we have Family Night. We sing, pray, read from the scriptures and have a spur of the moment lesson on whatever topic seems to come to our mind (some may call that lack of planning. Well, I like to call it letting the spirit guide us! :)) Anyway, the highlight of the night is singing songs. The kids love the song, "Once There Was a Snowman." Without fail, we sing that song every Family Night, several times. But it's oh-so-cute to watch!! So, we had to video record it for memories sake.   That means, now everyone gets to join in!

Video of Adam blowing out candles!

Adam blowing out the lighter before we could even light the candles was too much. So we had to get it on video! He had everyone laughing. We thought maybe we'd have to sing Happy Birthday in fast-forward to get the whole song in before he blew out the candles.

Adam's 2nd B-Day

Adam's B-day was on Thanksgiving.
Did you notice that his "cake" is a roll?
With all the pies, we decided not to make a cake.
Adam didn't care(he didn't know better) but the older
children sure thought he needed one.Adam loved blowing out the candles!
He would blow the lighter out before we could even light the candles!
It was the funniest thing! We didn't even know that he knew anything
about blowing out candles.

Fall!

Fun in the leaves!
(Adam was sleeping)