Camping and other odds and ends

Last night we headed up Little Cottonwood Canyon to meet up with Russ and Amy Adams. It was Whitney's birthday and they (along with family) were camping one night to celebrate the occasion. It was so beautiful up there.
So the ride up was a bit interesting. Part way up the canyon Tanner announced that his tummy didn't feel so well, so we pulled over and he puked on the side of the road! Lovely! Luck for me I had a canvas bag in the back of the car for the other two times he threw up and forgot to tell us. By the time we got there he felt fine and was playing with the other kids.
When we got there poor Whitney was sick with a fever. She was snuggled with Dad and looked so miserable...what a Happy Birthday, Sweetie! But soon she too was feeling a bit better and got up to play.
Here she is with Grandma Heiner.
I couldn't resist a picture of Baby Logan. I think he is one of the cutest little kids I have ever seen.

Here is a shot of the whole group. We made yummy tin foil dinners and Grandpa Adams brought the yummiest corn ever!!!!
I was trying very hard to keep a good eye on the kids, but also trying not to be overly protective. Well, at one point I noticed Ady was missing. There was a small stream, so I headed there first. There was also a huge grove of trees up by the cars, so Charles headed taht way. He soon announced he'd found her and she popped out of the trees and said, "Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah you can't find me!" I was slightly irritated, but also a bit amused.
Heather Heiner took Aiden for a small walk and happened upon a moose! The kids were so thrilled to go see it. This is a close up, it really was quite far away. There was also a large rodent running around and it didn't look like a squirrel or a chipmunk, so I asked around to see what it was. Everyone just said a chipmunk, but I knew it wasn't. I also couldn't get a good picture because my kids kept running after it. Matthew even tried feeding it cheetos...ugh! Well on the ride home I was talking to Davis and he said it was a potgut (I think!) So where was he when I asked earlier?!?!?! Oh well!!!

Being the wonderful Mother that I am, I couldn't pass up a chance to take a picture of all three of my kids. Well, as most know, it is very difficult to get 3 kids to cooperate, especially when there is a stream less than a foot away. I took about 6 shots and this was my favorite, partial because Tanner was a bit bored and trying to be silly.
Jumping on rocks!


And last but not least. Tanner started 2nd grade on Monday. Yesterday he brought home a poster and one of the pictures caught my eye. He did a very good job with Ady's curly hair. But I couldn't stop laughing at the drawing of DAD! I just HAD to show Davis, who promptly told Tanner....I'm not bald like THAT!!!! (Yes you are sweetie!)

Blogging....opening worlds!!!

I'm amazed at the "blogging" world. I think it was about 2 years ago that Carrie Sweet first introduced me to a blog. I jumped on the bandwagon, but rarely posted in those first few months. I also only knew a few fellow bloggers....Since then, it has opened so many doors. I am able to keep in touch and up to date (faster than my bishopric husband) on the happenings with MANY in our ward. Davis comes from a LARGE extended family and I have very much enjoyed keeping up with so many of them. I always felt so sad when friends (especially in my ward) would move away. All too often it meant good-bye forever. But not with blogs...I get to see pictures of the Airhart's in North Carolina (whom I miss oh so much!) and the Buckley's (only about 10 minutes away, but haven't seen since they moved...yikes!) and many others.
Recently I got an email from one of Davis' highschool friends...she'd found our blog and I was so thrilled she'd posted and sent me hers. She lives not far away and I have only seen her son once...yes so sad. I also got caught "blog jumping" for 3 HOURS, yes I said HOURS!!!! She had links to 4 of Davis high school friends and one from my grade, who then had about 10 more people. Funny enough I found my sister in laws blog on an old highschool friends blog. I guess he married a girl that was friends with my brother in law. Such a small world.

So to make a long story short...I LOVE blogs. Yes they take up tons of my time, but I love it. It feels like "Christmas Card" season all year long!!! Yes, there are some blogs I check ALL THE TIME! and others maybe once a month, but I LOVE it. I especially loved one Sunday sitting in church with so many unfamiliar faces (even though I've been in the ward 6 YEARS!) As I sat there someone mentioned blogging and had people raise their hands if they had a blog. To my surprise, the girl sitting next to me, whom I've only said "hi" to once...raised her hand. I was THRILLED to ask her for her blog and have gotten to know her so much better. I LOVE IT!!!! SO, keep up the good work. If you are a lurker please comment...even if you don't have a blog, maybe we can email each other on occasion...I love that too!

I hope you all have a lovely blogging day!!!!!!

Sunday Naps!?!?

So this past Sunday I was amazed that Ady and Matthew went down for naps so quickly. (yes, they were exhausted.) It gave me time to get a few things down and surprise again, Davis came home around 1 (which is amazing). We were so thrilled we decided we might as well take naps too! I woke up and realized Ady and Matthew were in the tv room. I got up and as I walked past the tv room to go downstairs Ady ran out and said, "Wait Mom!" This is usually followed by, "Where you going?" and 10 other questions just like it. Instead she said, "Don't go downstairs! I made a mess!" UH OH! This can't be good. The first thought that went through my mind was the brand new bag of wheat flour I had bought and left sitting on the counter. I envisioned it all over my floor. I wasn't prepared for what I REALLY saw. There in my pantry, 3 out of the 4 shelves were EMPTY and the contents that should've been on those FULL shelves, were spilled all over the pantry floor. I took a few pictures to illustrate and to black mail her in the future!!! Oh, after the shock wore off I calmly walked back up the stairs, woke Davis and said, "There's a "little" mess in the kitchen, will you come help me clean it up." Let's just say he was MAD and not nearly as calm or humored as I was.

We'll log this one as Evidence #1
Evidence #2 (notice the emptyness of the shelves!)
Evidence #3 (that would be pinto beans you are seeing!)
Evidence #4 (you can't tell, but under all that rubble is the remnants of pancake mixes scattered about, bread is on the bottom, yes ALL the bread I bought the day before...hamburger buns/hotdog buns/rolls...all squished quite nicely!)
So, it took us nearly an hour to clean up this lovely mess and Grandma and Grandpa arrived for dinner only 30 minutes into clean up. Thank goodness they were bringing the crockpot-dinner or I'd have been in tears!!!!!

What's in a Name?!?!?!!?

Since finding out we are having a boy, Tanner has been pestering me with name ideas. LOL He feels like it is his "Older Brother" responsibility to name all children after him. Unfortunately, he chose Matthew's name, so this seems to solidify it in his mind. He of-course has had some good ideas and some not so good ideas. His original choice was Tyson, but I know too many Tyson's, so I said no to that one, though the name is cute! His response was, "But Dad likes it Mom, so it's two against one, you lose!!!" Ahhhh, he still has so much to learn about Women!!! (smile)
So the only name he has suggested that made my list of possibilities is Colton.

So I am up for suggestions. The only "rules"...you can't use the letters T, M or A (as first initials) it you want to choose a middle name, we always use sibling names and the ones left are (Trevor, Scott, Jeffrey, Andrew and Kirk.)
It also can't be on the top 20 for 2007 :) From the Social Security database they are 1 Jacob 2 Michael 3 Ethan 4 Joshua 5 Daniel 6 Christopher 7 Anthony 8 William 9 Matthew 10 Andrew 11 Alexander 12 David 13 Joseph 14 Noah 15 James 16 Ryan 17 Logan 18 Jayden 19 John20 Nicholas

So suggestions would be great. Even if you are generally a lurker, comment away!!!!

IT'S A...........

So the majority lost we are having a BOY!!!!! We were very excited to have a wonderful ultrasound tech. She was amazing and spent a LONG time trying to get all the measurements and such. He's perfectly healthy. It was funny because she was waving the wand around trying to get some different shots....all of a sudden I said, "It's a boy!" She said, "You SAW that!" LOL I said, "Yup!" It was so funny! I can read those ultrasounds almost better than she could.

Now the name game begins. We have no ideas for the most part, so we'll see how it goes. It's weird because we ALWAYS have a name picked out before the u/s, but not this time.

I will try to scan a pictures when I get a chance.

Car trouble

As most of you might know, I have a "2nd" family, the Warner's. They parented me when I was a nasty teenager and wouldn't listen to my own parents. Well, they unofficially adopted me and I them. Well, they were heading on a long road trip to Nauvoo today and around 11 I got a panicked call from my 17 year old sister Alyssa. (It came into my cell phone and I was on a conference call at work, so I forwarded it to my voicemail...seconds later she called again, so I figured I'd pick it up.) She was freaking out so bad it took me a little while to get her calmed down enough to hear what she was trying to say. Basically they were headed up Parley's Canyon and the car started to smoke. They pulled over and noticed flames, so they hurried and got themselves and all their stuff out before it was completely engulfed in flames. I drove up to get them and bring them home. It was a pretty scary experience, but we are very happy everyone was okay. I have plenty of pictures but thought I'd just post this one. Yikes!

Tanner turns #7

Yes this is a week late.....oh well!!! We celebrated Tanner's birthday on Sunday the 6th since he'd be gone for his birthday on the 8th (to AZ.) We decided to just do cake and icecream and it worked out quite well. Here's his cute cake Aunt McKell made. Didn't she do great?!?!?!

Blowing out the candles!!

Opening the presents. He got a "Naked Brothers Band" cd from Aunt Kiersti and LOVED IT! Can you tell?!?!?!

Next were some balls from Andy and Heidi...

Balls from Grandma and Grandpa Strong.....

Last but not least the best gift of them all from Mom and Dad. Did he like it? Can you tell?

Davis told him he'll take him to hit a bucket of balls when he gets home.

We had tons of fun!!!! We also really enjoyed the present from Grandma and Poppie Rasmussen. A few years back Davis' Grandparents had a rental property and they left a trampoline there. His Grandpa told Davis, "If you want it go get it!" So we did and put it at my parents house. I think it was around the time we were waiting for our house to be finished. Well, when we got into our newest house, my Mom wasn't so sure she wanted to give it up, since it's a great grandkid-sitter. LOL So she told us around Matthew's birthday in March that they would buy us a new one for all the kids birthdays. We waited until July to actually get it and the kids LOVE IT!!!!

Uncle Trevor helped put it together..here he is showing off his skillz.

The cousins with Uncle Brian.

Quiet Saturday........

So Tanner has been in Arizona with my parents since Monday night. We knew the only free day with the little ones was Saturday, so we decided to play in a blow up pool, have lunch, take naps and go out to dinner. As it always happens, things didn't quite go as planned. The swimming was fun and the kids played for close to an hour. We fed them lunch and then let them play for a few more minutes. Davis got Matthew out/dressed and into bed. He then went to grab Ady and dump the pool when he noticed Ady had blood pooled in her ear. OH JOY!!!! So after a little discussion, we decided to do the ER (since they have more access to specialties than the clinic.) Well, 2 hours at the ER, the doctor comes in, looks in her ear and says, "I can't see anything, it is full of blood." (HELLO?!?!?! I know that.) So she writes me a prescription for an antibiotic for her ear and says, "Go see your doctor in a few days and see if he can get a better look." ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!!!!!! I was a bit frustrated, but left to go get Davis and Matthew so we could go to dinner. We filled the prescription and headed to a restraunt. Lucky for us there was pretty much no one there. Matthew started having a whiny moment so Davis took him out to the car. A few minutes later he motioned for me from the front door. I went over and he said ,"Get it to go, Matt just puked all over the car." I went and grabbed Ady and the waitress to get it to go. Took Ady out to the car, went back in to pay and grab the food and headed home. Ahhhhh, what a lovely evening. Kids are now getting ready to watch a movie and I get to run to the store and pick up Tanner from my parents house. Gotta love having kids and trying so hard to make life fun for them! I guess next time we'll go out to eat just Davis and I.

Crazy Summer Days!!!

The last little while has been a bit insane! Infortunately my camera failed to make an appearance through most of it. (But I stole a few pictures of Carrie's blog!!!) So to finish the basement saga...Monday was a hop jump with the builders. Finally they got someone out to work on the furnace/ac and clean the stench. We were supposed to have friends over for a barbeque, but canceled due to our predicament. I opened the house for the builders and went and hung out with Carrie, the heat and smell were more than I can handle. It was great, I got to hold cutie pie Cameron.

I soon had to grab Tanner from school and went back to check on the progress. Our basement had back up again and needed to have the roto guy come out again. He showed up at 5 and didn't leave until well past midnight!!!!! Lucky for me Davis stayed up with him. The next night Tuesday Davis and I went to clean the conference center from 9-midnight (another late night.) That was pretty fun, but I felt a bit useless...LOL! The lady told me I couldn't work the vaccum (due to my pregnancy) so I got to be the "cord holder" for Davis. It was pretty fun and we got it done quickly. Next we were asked to wipe down chairs and after the first 10 my back was killing me...the row had about 30 or so in it. Luck for me Amy Adams volunteered to do the bottoms and I did the tops. It was much easier, but I wore out fast. So I would do a row and rest. Pretty pathetic, but it was also way past my bedtime. We didn't get to sleep until 1:30 am and Ady and Matt woke at 3 refusing to go back to bed. It was a rough night, but lucky for me Davis got up and turned the tv on for them. We then checked on them around 4 and finally about 5 they fell back to sleep UGH!!!!!!!!!!

Wednesday night was "bishopric night" at girls camp, so we took chinese food up (Mulan theme) and had a wonderful night. The leaders made these adorable kimonos for the girls and the bishopric.

BISHOP Brennan

Davis and Sam.
We didn't get home from Girls Camp until much past midnight (another long night.) But it was fun. Thurday was a crazy day. With two late nights and neither of us home much, the kids didn't sleep well and they were ORNERY!!! It was a long and rotten day for me and Davis walked in the door from work at 8 and walked right back out for church stuff. YIKES!!!! The kids didn't nap and it was difficult getting them to bed. So Friday the 4th we took the kids to my parents house for a little while (nice break.) We then headed down to Davis grandparents house in Alpine for the annual barbeque @ 1. The highlight of that was seeing our new nephew that was born on July 1st. Baby Jones is so little and cute. I wish I had a picture. Also there is a wonderful tire swing that the kids love. There were 4 swings and about 20 grandkids. Andy's kids don't usually get ot ride it due to motion sickness, but they had two rides and on the second ride, poor Will nearly puked all over. When his Dad got him off, he looked like he was in shock...no color to his face or lips. We had a pretty good laugh over that one!!! Soon after we came home and tried to relax before we were headed down to Orem for another barbeque at my Aunt's house. This for me was the funnest part of the day, since all my cousins were there and I finally got to meet baby London. She's sooooo cute! My Aunt has an amazing yard and my kids were fascinated with the waterfall, ugh! I was a bundle of nerves. My camera died after a few pictures....I was so bummed!!! Here you have Davis and Ady...she was mad because he wouldn't let hr throw rocks into the waterfall.

My cousins son Zach with his cousin Kennedy.

Matthew trying to take his pants off so he can play in the water with Jax and Ady.There are three nakey babies in there....they sure had fun. We played lots of games. The first was with this kiddie pool. At the bottom of the pool are a bunch of letters (magnetic ones) you needed to as a family get all of them out with your feet and then use them to spell the word "AMERICA" We did pretty good since Ady used her hands. LOL The kids also painted #10 cans that had ropes roped at the top and then they used them as stilts and had a race (so much fun, but the cans would stick in the grass.) They had a few other games, but the adult game was a relay race. You had to put a golf ball into the hole (Davis got it on the first try...yay for us.) We then had this game, not sure what it's called, but you have throw these balls and get them on the top rung of a "game" made out of pvc pipe...we played it in California with Davis family and it was a ball. Well, once again Davis got it first try...wahoo!!! Then you had to shoot beebee guns at Sprite cans and hit two cans. This was much harder but once again Davis did it, giving us the best score. As they were getting ready to clean up, my Uncle John said, "My turn!" So he with my Aunt (hesitantly) played and beat us by about 10 seconds...it was hilarious!!!! We then went and watched fireworks. Matthew did sparklers for the first time and Ady wasn't going anywhere near them.

A while back our lawn was looking pretty long, so I took pictures of it. Not sure if you can see how bad it is!!!!

While Davis was mowing, the kids colored on the porch. They had fun and loved being outside. Showing off the masterpieces!

Saturday was just a crazy day and now today we are celebrating Tanner's birthday (since it's on Tuesday and he is going to Arizona with my parents for a week.) I am actually almost ready to go back to work on Monday...LOL!!!

Summer Fun!?!?!

So I was thinking today of all the fun stuff we did in the summer as kids. Oh my how the world has changed?!?! I decided to mention some things that I did as a kid that my kids have never done or have maybe done once (blush.) First a brief background....I am the only girl with four brothers (I am #4) we lived in a tiny town in California called Bishop. I remember tv, but definitely no cable...I'm sure there were ony about 5 channels and cartoons were over by 9 am at the latest, so no tv watching for us. WE had to play and have fun. So we went camping each summer for about a week. This I recall as not my favorite week, but looking back it should've been. LOL So my babies have never been camping.....Tanner maybe once or twice. My kids have never been fishing (sad I know.) My kids rarely get to go swimming due to the extreme fear their mother has to water. My kids have never been to a state fair or rodeo (I LOVED going to these as kids.) My kids have never ridden a motorcycle or go-cart (and never will!!!) Even though I LOVED that too as a kid. My kids have rarely been on a boat (Matthew never, ady once, Tanner a few times.) My kids don't get to play in the rain or mud puddles, with all the dirt in our back yard (which is what we had in Bishop) I rarely let them play or dig in it. But most of all, my kids have never had a watermelon with seeds and rind still attached!!!! This last one is actually what got me started on this whole thing. I have to bring fruit to a 4th of July celebration and I was whining to Davis about all the work that goes into it. I then decided not to cut the watermelon in cute little squares, but to leave the rind on and let my kids eat it that way for the first time! The funny thing is...I don't think I've seen a watermelon with seeds in a long time. All you ever see is seedless, gosh I don't even think they had seedless when I was little and if they did I'm sure it was too expensive.

So, my request to all of you...update your blog with summer memories and wether or not your kids have experienced these said things. If you don't have kids, you can still remenisce.