My Newest Niece

My brother Dan and his wife, Amber had their third baby girl a couple of weeks ago. Welcome to the family Candace! Amber was nice enough to send me these pictures of the quilt that I made for her since I forgot to take some. Thanks Amber!

This was my first attempt at appliques on a rag quilt, and only my second rag quilt (on my own)

I think it turned out pretty cute!

Congrats Dan and Amber. We are so happy for you!

Fun With Cousins

One of my favorite traditions is the 24th of July fireworks in Bountiful. The kids love it, its free, and it's really a good show. We always have dinner and hang out at my parent's house and then when it gets dark we go outside and watch the fireworks from my aunt Gayle's lawn. This year Ben and Ben got a bunch of fireworks to do in the circle before the big show. It was great!

Savannah, Jake, Will and Tyler


All the cousins that were there except the babies who were sleeping. Alonzo, Savannah, Jake, Will, Tyler and Lily.

Jake and Isaac are pretty much inseparable when we get together.

It was such a fun night.

Last Wednesday Ali invited us to meet her at the Hill AFB Air Force Museum. We hadn't been there for awhile and the kids had a great time.

Isaac, Savannah, Will and Alonzo

Sarah is signing airplane

Sarah and Whitney (or baby Sarah and baby Sarah as Sarah has started calling every baby she sees)

I know you can't see the kids very well, but I like this picture anyway. The wing on the plane looks huge!

This was the boys' favorite plane inside the museum. It's pretty cool.

My sister Ali with Whitney

And the hit of the museum was . . .

the coin machine. They LOVED watching the coins roll around and down the hole. Awesome. (Sorry the picture is blurry)

Sarah's favorite part was this ceramic dog. She would have sat there looking at it and signing dog all day I think.

Thanks Ali! We had a lot of fun hanging out with you.

$5 Craft

OK, so I had made all the other kids their name out of wooden blocks from The Wood Connection a few years ago but for some reason it just hadn't happened yet with Sarah's name. I guess it is because I didn't really have anywhere to put her name in her room. Then the other day I was looking through the clearance at Hobby Lobby and I found these for only $1.20 each.

I thought they were super cute as they were, but unfortunately since they were on clearance, the letter selection wasn't very good. In fact, they didn't have any of the letters I needed for Sarah's name. So I decided to buy them and just change the letters out since the frames were so cute. So here's how they turned out.

I am really happy with them, and it was such a cheap and easy project! The most difficult part was just prying the back of the frame open. They were glued REALLY well. After that, it was a cinch.

Oh, and here is what Sarah was busy doing this morning while I was finishing up my project.

She pulled everything out of the doll bed and climbed in herself. She was pretty happy to hang out in there too. I seem to remember that my brother's little girl, Brooke did the same thing last time they visited us. So cute!

More Camping

We had another fun-filled weekend. We have been so busy this summer!
On Friday night we went to Layton Surf-n-Swim. I can't believe we have lived here for four years and hadn't been there yet. The kids absolutely loved it! They were anxious to show off their skills fresh from swimming lessons and they had a blast riding the waves on the tubes. Even Sarah liked it . . . at first . . . until the waves started. Then she said "No, no, no and started pointing toward the side of the pool. I kept her in though, and she did great. No crying at all until she slipped on the wet pavement right before we left and hit her head. She was OK after a couple minutes though. Once again, I got ZERO pictures of this event. It's hard to go swimming with four kids and keep track of a camera too. Oh well.
Robby met up there with two guys who were in his mission and had fun catching up. He doesn't get to see people from his mission very often so I was happy we were able to go and meet up with them.

On Saturday morning we left for Christmas Meadows in the high Uintas to go camping with Robby's parents and his older brother and his family. The kids were so excited to go camping again, two weekends in a row. Christmas Meadows is one of our favorite places to go. It is so pretty up there!

Don't they look excited to be camping? I don't know what Isaac's problem is in this picture, but Sarah was mad that I put her down to help set up the tent.

We love our new tent! It is so nice to have enough room for all of us AND all our stuff (even the pack-n-play)!

Robby's parents got a trailer last summer and they were excited to get out and use it this weekend.

Will, Savannah and cousin Rebecca.

I tried to put Sarah down for a nap but she wasn't having it. I guess it didn't help that she could stand there and watch the kids running up and down the hill by the tent.

Robby and his dad chillin.

We went up the road a little ways to go for a hike and Bill let the kids ride in the back of the truck. They were in heaven!

Luckily Kim was willing to ride in the back with them so I didn't have to.

Grandma with all the kids except Sarah. She had to ride in her carseat.

Sarah was so happy hiking with Daddy. It was so cute!

We hiked for awhile and then the trail abruptly stopped at this:

Yeah, there was a river pouring down the middle of the trail. That was NOT there last year. We couldn't believe how much more water there was this year compared to last October when were were there.

Robby and Bill decided to brave the river and go on up the trail but we didn't want to take six kids across the river so the rest of us headed back to the camp site. On their way back Bill and Robby saw a moose! Man, I wish we had been there for that!

Last weekend when we camped in Peoa with my family I decided to sleep with Sarah in my sleeping bag and neither one of us slept very well so this time I put her in the pack-n-play instead. It was a much better night for both of us.

Here she is getting ready for bed. She was walking all around the tent with just her hat and her diaper. It was pretty funny!

She looks tired, doesn't she? I thought she would lay down and go right to sleep, but no. She was up until almost 10:00 when the rest of us went to bed too.

This morning we got up and had an awesome breakfast (thanks Kim!) and then we let the kids go for another ride in the back of the truck.

Here they are waiting while we loaded everything up to go home.

I tried to get a picture of just how dirty the kids managed to get in only 24 short hours, but you can't really tell. Believe me they were soooooo dirty! We were all happy to get home and into a shower.

Raspberries!

Our raspberries are finally ripe and Sarah is LOVING it! When I take her outside with me to pick them she eats them as fast as I can pick them. I don't even end up being able to bring very many inside for the rest of us to eat. If I try to get her to stop or at least slow down she gets really mad.


The way she says berry is so cute and I was trying to get her to say it for the camera, but she was too busy eating.

Camping

July is already more than half over! I don't know how the time just keeps speeding up.
We had a great 4th of July but I didn't take a single picture! We spent time with both our families and saw some great fireworks and the kids had a blast playing with cousins on both sides.

Last weekend my sister Ali and her husband invited us to his family's property in Peoa, UT to go camping. We had a lot of fun! Ali and I took the kids to see the horses while the boys went shooting. The kids were excited to climb on the tractor and Sarah was thrilled to see the horses. She was signing horse and saying neigh over and over.

The horses walked away and Sarah was trying to get them to come back over to the fence.

My four with Ali's two kids.

Isaac looks awesome in this one!

My kids with Grandma

Sarah wanted a turn on the tractor too.

Thanks so much Ali and Ben! We had such a great time!