Slacking? Maybe, but here's a long post to make up for it.

Well here it is way over 2 weeks since I last posted but there is good reason. I've been busy soaking up all the last of summer. I mean I love fall and there are so many fun things to do in the fall but for some reason I just felt it necessary to say goodbye to summer and the craziness that comes from it. So here is my post to the end of summer with some pix that I may have posted but maybe not.


Our summer started out with our 1st family vacation to Zion's Nat'l Park. It was awesome.

We visited with lots of friends through out the summer but it was sure nice to get together with the Phillips family. Lizzie was reconnected with Sophie and has missed her since they left.

What is a summer without watermelon? This is Jace a friend of ours son. We've had a great time playing with them through out the summer.

Will has been such a trooper learning how to content himself in the stroller while his older sisters cut loose and run wild and fancy free. I'm sure next year he will be all over the place.

Lizzie took swimming lessons this year and has now qualified herself as a fish. She's a great little swimmer.
She can't wait for next year when she gets to go in the deep water. She loves to swim.

This is Lizzie and Jackson who helped each other not drown during their first swim lessons together.

The 4th of July is a big deal here on our block and somehow I failed to post anything about it. This picture is of our neighbors kids who are all so close to Will's age. Poor little Hannah on the end is going to have to learn how to tough it out with these rough rolling boys.



We always sing Happy Birthday to America on the 4th of July just before lighting off fireworks with a monster Cupcake cake. It's now become my favorite tradition.

We became amazing outdoors men this year and took multiple camping trips and now that we own both a tent and a 4 wheeler I'm sure we'll have plenty more camping adventures. (K i love Abby's hair in this pic simply for the fact that it was in revenge for her keeping me up the entire night before. Yes, I'm a terrible mother!)

Jeremy had his 10 yr reunion this summer and they had a fun little get together with Cotton Candy, bouncy houses, and a yummy lunch. It really was so much fun to see all of Jeremy's old classmates.

Lizzie still calls Cotton Candy "rotten candy" she sure can eat a lot of something that's so rotten.

Abby loves playing in the water and these few pix demonstrates pretty much all of it.
Pouring out all the water. Only to find that she can do it again and again.
Until she says she's all done.
I think Will is all done with being in the stroller this summer. But now that he's completely mobile and pulling himself to standing and everything now at the ripe old age of 8 months I'm sure next summer we won't be able to keep up with him.

All in all a great summer and now we're looking forward to an equally pleasing fall. Lizzie is starting preschool. The leaves will begin to change. We will celebrate our anniversary, birthdays and Halloween and then before we know it it's Winter and the craziness that ensues. I hope everyone else had a well balanced Summer and I can't wait to see what the fall brings to us.

Will the crawling machine

So like 3 weeks ago I was going to post about Will and how he had turned 7 months and started crawling and stuff like that and here we are 3 weeks later and Will is nearly 8 months old. I have some video of Abby helping Will learn how to crawl. It's a little bit longer than what I'd like and you can hear Lizzie in the background complaining about cleaning her room but Will is still the star as he starts to scoot around. Will is now 7 months and 3 weeks and has really become quite the mobile child. I thought he'd want to crawl more on the carpet but he prefers the wood floors because he can push himself around a lot faster. After looking at his onesies and how dirty they are I remember why it's hard to pass on those 6-9 month clothes. Anyhow he sure is a cutie!

Rain + Camp = lots of muddy fun

Once again we found ourselves camping this weekend. We were able to go to another favorite fishing spot of my family called Potter's Pond in upper Joe's Valley. This time with my dad and all of his brothers. It was pretty rainy the entire time we were there but the rain parted long enough for us to get in a couple of fishing trips and a few horse rides and our new favorite past time mud slinging in the 4 wheeler. We bought a tent and tried sleeping in that this time around and honestly it wasn't that bad. So who knows maybe we'll get camping a little more now.

This is my uncle Lynn and Lizzie on Lynn's horse. This brought back so many memories of me riding along with my uncle Lynn.

Lynn's daughter Jessica (my cousin) and Abby. As soon as we got to camp all Abby wanted to do is be by the horses. Jessica wasn't quite prepared for the tantrum that came when it was time for Abby to get off. Uncle Lynn came to the rescue and insisted that Abby go for one more ride.

Abby was happy to once again get her way and actually came off the horse a little nicer this time around.

Lizzie made a new friend while we were camping and they found lots of fun ways to get super super dirty. This was a shot of their hands after making Mud balls the size of Apples.

This is the 4 wheeler after a serious mud slinging battle with the Mountain. Everyone got so Muddy while we were up there but i guess that's what you're supposed to do when your camping.


I'm having trouble loading a video of Jeremy on a serious muddy trail from my camera. We have more on our video camera but I need to buy a cable to get that on the computer. There were many many amazing trails up there. On our way back from one such adventure it had started to sprinkle and by the time we got back to camp it was hailing. Jeremy and I were soaked to the bone and had ding marks all over us from the stinging hail. It was such a blast!

Our encounter with a Kodiak!!!!!

When we were camping last week I failed to mention Jeremy's favorite part of the whole trip. I failed to mention it just simply for the fact that I wanted better pictures but I guess that'll have to come later. We went to Price before we went camping so that Jeremy could purchase a little toy for himself. He picked up a Yamaha Kodiak '05. It was a good deal and now Jeremy is just bustin' at the seams about his new baby. In the 4 days we were there Jeremy put over 130 miles on it which is a lot for a 4-wheeler. He was able to get it a little muddy and nearly dumped me off the back of it in an attempt to forge a river. It was great fun to have it for the trip and now we can't wait to get back into the mountains to dig up some new trails. Anyhow we only got a few pictures of it and it is currently waiting patiently at my brother's house for us to come pick it up on Friday. So here's a few pictures for Jeremy to help him get through the rest of the week without his new baby.

Me and my new arch nemesis (i guess it's ok I like to ride too!)

This is where Jeremy tried to dump me (I know it's not a huge river but that water was still wet and cold!)

Jeremy forging the stream sans Andrea so I could document the mud slinging.

You can't see it well from this angle but it was like a 2 foot drop into the "river"

Jer had to peel out here and the 4 wheeler was sliding and slinging mud every where. But don't worry Jeremy made it safe to the other side when we realized that I had to cross the river somehow...

Post about Pete

We took last week and had our annual family camp out at Pete's Hole. This was my favorite place to camp with my family growing up and has yet to fail us for entertainment. It was nice to hang out with my family and see my kids with my parents. It rained and Abby and Will got sick. Our camp was sprayed by a skunk not once but twice yet through it all we still had a good time. Here are a few pix depicting our trip.

A pretty good picture showing the beauty of the little fishing hole.

Lizzie was so so so excited to catch this fish. And I was so excited to stand next to her as she reeled it in. My mom fried up the fish that very night and Lizzie devoured her prize catch of the day.

All of the grandkids couldn't wait to go fishing with Grandpa. Unfortunately we were rained out but we at least got our poles wet.

Lizzie loved fishing and by the end of the trip was quite the fisher woman.

We did some trail riding and found this stuff called "snow"! We couldn't believe how much snow was still there. It was totally worth the trip.

The ridge was still packed with snow!

Another favorite pastime during camping is playing cards. We had plenty of time to play with all the rain we had.

Mom and Evan were teaching Lizzie the ropes of UNO.

Abby had a hard time adjusting to the whole camping thing not to mention getting sick. Nap time was really hard but after one long hard battle we found Abby asleep like this.

She totally fell asleep on a bag of dirty clothes. I think I could have fallen asleep anywhere too. It's nice to be home now where schedules are a little bit easier to follow.

Secret Blog, Secret Meme

I just posted something on my secret blog for those of you who would like to see something more about ummm Me.

Baby #4

We have a new addition to our household! We are now the proud "parents" of a gorgeous piano. I'm so excited I've wanted a piano for years and years and here it is now. I'm a little rusty but it's so nice to have our home filled with the sound of music. Unfortunately kids still need to be fed and diapers need to be changed so that's been cutting into my play time but still just to have it in our home is fantastic! We got a great deal on it and it's not only beautiful on the outside but it has a gorgeous tone to it. Anyhow we thought we'd share our joy with others. Maybe if I can get good enough we'll post a song or two from our beautiful new instrument.

It's a great dark mahogany but it looks different colors from different angles

It was well cared for in it's last home and it really shows

This is my new home.

Super shiny!!

Memories

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember! (Andrea, Jeremy, Lizzie, Abby and or Will)

Keep in mind that our parents and grandparents read this blog!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments.

EVERYBODY PLAY! I want to see what memories are out there!

6 Years ago today

Six years ago today Jeremy proposed to me in Cincinnati. I've been all through my boxes of stuff to try to find pictures of us when we got engaged and it was just now that I realized that we didn't take any pictures of us then. So I decided to post some pix from our dating year. Nuts and Crazy how fast time has flown by. Hooray for Love and Hooray for my best friend, who just happens to be my husband, Jeremy. Love you Honey!

This was our first "date" we'd been "hanging out" for a few weeks by this point and I'm pretty sure that neither one of us had any clue what was going to happen during that year.

A fantastic group date to some where for something I don't really remember but I do remember that Jeremy looked smoking hot in those aviator shades!

I was pretty sure I was going to marry Jeremy by this point. This was my attempt to subliminally brain wash him into marrying me.

Who doesn't look great in rock climbing harnesses? Jeremy smoked me pretty good on the wall this day.

We even look good squishy faced together.. It for sure was meant to be.

This was in the famous K-Mart photo booth in Logan the night before Jeremy left for Cincinnati. I had to make sure we took a picture in the booth because I just knew that we could make it a whole summer without each other if we had a photo strip chuck full of pictures of Jeremy kissing me.

Happy half birthday

6 months ago it was new year's eve and most of you probably had a little party, watched the clock tick down to midnight, and kissed your love ones. I had a little party, watched a clock and kissed loved ones as well the only difference was I had a party called "let's have a baby party" I watched the clock timing each contraction and I kissed my husband and my new joy, my baby boy! I can't believe that was 6 months ago. Will had his 6 month check up today and I thought I would post what's new with Will.
Will is now up to a whopping 17.5 lbs meaning he has gained 10 lbs and a few ounces. He's 26.5 inches long and is measuring in the 65% and 80% which is a big deal for our family gene pool.
Will is now a rolling, jumping incredibly active kid. He rolls all around until he comes against his dreaded enemy, "the coffee table" dun, dun, dun (dark music inserted here). He has a new friend named jumperoo which keeps him, and us, entertained for hours. He loves his sisters especially when Lizzie sings him the chicken song. He's starting solid foods although he's not as crazy about them as I thought he would be he at least humors me and lets me make his face all messy. Anyhow here's a few pix of Will and his favorite pastimes.

Favorite past time #1: Spitting up! seriously it's a miracle he's gaining weight.

Pastime #2: Dress up with the sisters (there's more to come I'm sure)

Pastime #3: Laughing at his funny Daddy.

Showing off his two new pearly whites. Yep he's a cutie!

Help me pick please

Our amazing friend was able to snap a few pictures for our family photo and I was wondering if you, the internet public, could help me decide which one to blow up

Picture #1

Picture #2

Picture #3

Thanks again Lex for taking the pictures. It really is amazingly hard to have 3 kids happy in all of the pix but it was awesome to see how many we really got.

2 years and a couple of days

Two years and a couple of days ago we moved to Tooele. What a crazy time in our lives. Jeremy had just graduated from USU with his masters and had accepted a job with L-3, an answer to our prayers. Abby was just a couple of weeks old and we were leaving the only home that Lizzie had ever known. We love Logan with all of our hearts and it was sad to leave all of our family and friends but we have really grown to love Tooele and feel so blessed to be here.
A few things that have changed since we moved into our lovely home.

We've painted: the entire main floor including the 25' entry way, The girls bedroom, our bedroom and the master bath. We still have Will's room to paint and the entire basement but all in good time.
We, no scratch that, Jeremy installed: wood floors throughout the entire main floor while I watched in a sick pregnant state. They look awesome!
We've replaced: a yucky glass sliding door with a beautiful french door.
We've officially killed: 6.5 trees, the lawn and numerous flowers and other such plants. All though Jeremy has done a killer job with the lawn so far this year and it looks lush and green and beautiful!
We've survived: a giant wind storm that took apart the majority of our roof and nearly sucked out our living room window. A pregnancy with a new Doctor and Hospital. Jeremy commuting every day for an hour round trip. And being so far away from all of our family.
We hate: The over crowded Wal-Mart (Target please hear our cries) Lack of high quality restaurants, That our families are so far away and our dreaded side lawn that needs way too much TLC for our liking.
We love: Our neighborhood, Our ward, the small town feel, And so many things that are too hard to explain.
All in all we love it our here and feel so blessed to be where we are.

The dreaded side lawn looking super fine.

Our backyard that needs a fence and those are not weeds I promise they're my beautiful Wild flower mix.