Brotherly Love

People often stop me to tell me that

"You have your hands full. . . "

I don't think of it that way. I just have that much more to LOVE. My kids get along SO well & I love seeing them truly love each other. Now that Craiger is getting a little older, Bladen is wanting to play with him more. Their "play time" turns out to be the most adorable time of the day. I love watching my kids love each other!

Trek is sure loving having some BOYS around the house. Every night they have a little wrestling session before bed. Everybody loves it! Bladen is a really good wrestler too. That might be something that interests him later in life.

I love ALL THREE of my BOYS!

But let's not forget the other 3 PRINCESSES that live in this castle! They love to be loved too.

(I love Taya in this picture. . . she had a rough day)

I'm so grateful they all love each other SO much.

Craiger is getting SO big.

Craiger is 4 1/2 months old now. Can you believe it? Time sure flies these days. He's getting SO big & SO handsome!

I love this little guy.

Caught in the Act

If there is ever silence in my home, I know there's

trouble

being made somewhere. I was changing Craiger's diaper & the house got VERY quiet VERY fast. I snuck around the house trying to figure out what Bladen was up to &

THIS is what I found in the pantry . . .

Oops! Caught again.

Craiger's First Solid Food

I can't believe it! My little Craiger is FOUR MONTHS OLD! And you know what that means:

SOLID FOOD.

I always get SUPER excited to start feeding my kids all the fun fruits & veggies. I love to see what they like & don't like. I love how they are all SO different.

So I started out with the basic rice cereal mixed with formula. So far NONE of my 5 kids have liked rice cereal with just formula in it, but I always try:

Nope, Craiger doesn't like it either. But once I added some sweet potatoes & a little water to it, he ate it right up. So he loves sweet potatoes, squash, & pears so far. I can already tell he's going to be a good eater. HOORAY!!!

Tomorrow I start him on carrots & after 3 days of that we'll start on the green veggies like peas & green beans. Then I'll be nice & introduce the fruits. But my motto has always been VEGGIES FIRST! ha ha ha.

Man, they grow up WAY TOO FAST!

Salem Pond

The last day of our vacation, my daddy thought it would be fun to take the kids to

Salem Pond

to feed the duckies. We packed some lunches & made a picnic out of it.

I love to feed ducks. That's something I did as a kid ALL THE TIME. I love to see the excitement in my own kids' eyes when the ducks come close to them & their loaf of bread.

For lunch we had sandwiches, chips, & drinks. Very simple, but VERY fun! It's so nice being together as a family.

And after lunch, the kids played for a while on the playground. Life doesn't get much more fun & relaxed than that. It was a perfect end to a relaxing vacation.

Enjoying Family

Even though we live MUCH closer to my family now than when we lived in Germany, it's still a good 15 hour drive to UT from Monterey. Trek had a 2 week break from school so we thought we'd take a trip out there to see my family. It was SO nice to spend an entire week totally relaxing & enjoying each other's company. I got caught up on some

MUCH NEEDED SLEEP.

It was fun though. Mom was home since she can't work anymore & the girls got to spend LOTS of time with her. They even went "jogging" with her in the mornings on the Wii.

ha ha ha.

I can't believe I didn't take any pictures, but my favorite part of the 4th of July weekend is celebrating

MY BIRTHDAY!!!

Even though my birthday is July 6th, we have ALWAYS celebrated it on the 4th. This vacation we had to go home on the 4th, so we celebrated even earlier. We had a wonderful dinner at Los Hermanos (my favorite restaurant) & opened presents. This was a BIG year for me. I'm officially OLD. . .

30 YEARS OLD

It was a super fun week! Thanks Mom & Dad for letting us come visit. We already miss you guys.

Spanish Fork Splash Pad

When the temperature climbs to 97 degrees, it's completely OBVIOUS what needs to happen: It's time to go to the

SPLASH PAD

The splash pad is new in Spanish Fork. I had never been there before, but my sister-in-law takes my little nephew there all the time. We were DYING from heat stroke so we decided it was a GREAT idea.

So I have 5 kids, each with their own unique personalities. . .

Craiger (my 4 month old) slept the entire time with his Mimi in the shade.

Bladen (my 2 year old) is still NEW to the whole water/swimming thing. He is interested in it & WANTS to touch it, but he doesn't want IT to touch HIM! We were laughing so hard at how he'd get mad at the water when it hit him in the face. He's hilarious.

And then there's Taya (my 3 year old). She's my spitfire. I wish I could bottle some of her energy & keep it for myself. She is the biggest scaredy cat I've ever seen. She won't go anywhere NEAR the water unless it was less than 5 inches high & she could stand a few feet from it. Looks like she will be in some swim classes this summer to break this fear. I'll keep you posted on how that goes.

Lorien (age 6) is my fearless child. NOTHING scares her. She's one that would walk off the edge of the pool whether she can swim or not. For example, she did something she shouldn't have because a friend did it & I asked her

"If Jane jumped off a bridge, would you too?"

This was her response:

"Is it fun?"

And that's Lolo in a nutshell.

And last, but not least, is my sweetheart Cadence (age 8). Cadence WANTS to not be scared, but deep down, she knows she's scared. It drives her nuts that Lorien does everything with NO FEAR & she so badly wants to be like that. But she needs to realize that that's NOT Cadence. She is so cute & so sweet. I think I enjoyed watching her in the water the most. She was timid, but brave all at once. She's really come a long way.

But I'll tell you what. . . the bravest one of all was Cari. She was out there running through the water with Korbyn even though she was NINE MONTHS PREGNANT. Now THAT is a SUPERWOMAN!!!

What a FUN way to spend the afternoon!

Cousin Time

There's nothing in the world like playing with your cousins. I grew up with the best cousins on EARTH! Some of my best childhood memories are of time spent with my cousins. I know we live far away from my kids' cousins, but when we can find time to visit with each other, the kids have a BLAST together. I'm SO glad we had the opportunity to play with the kids' cousin (Korbyn) for two weeks while we visited UT.

Korbyn is my brother's little boy & he is just a little spitfire. Flaming red hair & bright blue eyes. . . what's not to love about this little guy?

Thanks Korbyn for letting us come play with you. We already miss you SO SO SO SO SO much!

Remote Controlled Cars

When we visited Opa & Oma on our way to UT, Opa took the kiddos to the church to take turns playing with his remote control

"MONSTER TRUCK!"

(This "MONSTER TRUCK" video is for you KORBYN)

They had a blast!

Thank you Opa & Oma for sharing your fun toy with us.

Camp Tonsofun Field Day

I can't believe I totally forgot about doing our

Camp Tonsofun Field Day

blog entry before we left for our 2 week vacation to UT. CRAZY ME!! So here's how it all turned out.

On Saturday (since Dad was back from surgery) we had a fun day where we just played together all day long. A lot of the playing took place outside which is a FABULOUS place to be in June. I set up an obstacle course at the park by our house & all 6 of us had to participate.

(We let Craiger sit out on this one)

Everyone had to go up the playground 3 different ways & go down 3 different slides.

(It was great fun watching mom & dad do this)

Then we had to run & complete 10 hula hoop rounds, do jumping jacks to the sidewalk, & then jump rope 1o times.

After our obstacle course, we set up our

homemade pinata

filled with a bunch of yummy candy! The kids couldn't wait to BURST it open.

And after our pinata we awarded certificates to all the

HAPPY CAMPERS!

Lorien is SO HILARIOUS. When she got the award for "BEST ATTITUDE" she started to cry because I'm always telling the girls to "change their attitudes" when they're acting up. She thought I was telling her she had a bad attitude all week long. ha ha ha. She laughed when I told her that she had the happiest & best attitude all week. I guess we as parents don't realize how things sound to our kids.

And to finish the wonderful week, we roasted smores in our kitchen. Life doesn't get much better than enjoying smores with your family!

That's a little piece of heaven right there. . .

We're SO happy we had a great Camp Tonsofun week together. As the girls sang in our camp skit:

"We love Camp Tonsofun - Tons & Tons of FUN!"

Until next year . . .