Joseph Smith

Joseph Smith must be living in our ward.

It's true. Rachel saw him today.

"Mom, look - I see Joseph Smith!!"

{I'm still trying to figure out who she was talking about!}

Miracles

The Sharing Time lesson in Primary today was all about miracles. We watched a short movie about some of the miracles the Savior performed, and it got me all goose-bumpy thinking about some of the miracles we've seen in our family.

There's the time we found my wedding ring at the beach in California.

There was the time that Emily suddenly started getting better during her bout with pneumonia a few years ago. Consequently, the doctor still talks about that event.

The hours and days surrounding Rachel's birth definitely come to mind. With doctors and nurses not knowing what to do, especially when she wasn't responding to typical treatment. And me feeling like I had been thrown to the very edge of a cliff. Oh, and the pediatrician still talks about this one too!

Sometimes miracles are easy to pinpoint. And sometimes they're small and they may be difficult to recognize. But they're all around us. Waiting to be recognized and appreciated.

I am also thankful for one more small, but very much appreciated miracle today. Caleb - after getting off to a rough start - gave in and slept through most of Sacrament Meeting. He needed that, I needed that...heck, the whole congregation needed that!

Happy 8th Birthday Joshua

Happy happy birthday to a fun-loving, silly boy!

Josh, you’ve come a long way!

Some things about Josh:

• He is learning to play the ukulele and is catching on rather quickly
• He is also learning the piano, and doing very well at it
• He has a real love for music and can tell us exactly what we’re listening to on the radio much of the time
• He is a very good cleaner and organizer, and only grumbles a little bit when it’s time to clean
• He is a very smart, deep-thinking kid, and always full of questions.  In the words of Jared, “his mind is like a steel trap.”  If you know Josh at all, you’ll know this for sure!
• He is a good friend to everyone
• He got to go to Cub Scouts for the very first time yesterday (and he LOVED it!)

We love you very much Josh!  We are so happy to have you in our family, and we look forward to your baptism next month!  We are very happy you have made the decision to be baptized, and we hope you’ll continue to make good choices all your life!  You are such a blessing to us and we’re thankful for YOU!

Jared’s Shiner

Jared loves to play basketball.

Really.

A lot.

Did I mention he loves it?

I always worry that he’s going to come home broken and battered.  Guys seem to do that to each other.

And he usually does come home with a minor injury or two.  You know, jammed fingers, scratches, banged up knees…minor stuff.

I knew it wasn’t good when the phone rang at 10:30 p.m. 

“Hi, I just wanted to let you know that I split my head open and need stitches, so a couple of the guys are going to take me to InstaCare to get it taken care of.”

A couple of hours later, this is what I saw – a cut about an inch and a half long right under the left eyebrow(no stitches, just several layers of glue).

And a couple of hours later, this…

And a couple of hours after that…

And 18 hours later…

And it got even worse, but we stopped documenting.  It was getting a little gruesome.

And oh, the comments!  The comments!  If you can imagine it, he’s probably heard it!

Jared still loves basketball.  A lot.  Enough to get up before 7 a.m. this morning and go play – 10 days after all this!

Paul McCartney

Jared and I went to see Paul McCartney perform at Rio Tinto Stadium in Salt Lake on July 13.  It was the most fun I’ve had in years!  It was worth every penny – not just to see Paul – but to see Jared as excited as a kid on Christmas morning!

The concert was amazing – just under 3 hours long with 2 encores!  And some fireworks thrown in to add a little spice.  Despite being nearly 70 years old, Paul McCartney was incredible!  He was like a teenager on stage, totally in his element.  To say it was entertaining would be a huge understatement!

Unfortunately, we didn’t bring our camera.  But thanks to a few sites on the web, we’ve got a few memories.  Here is some of what we saw…

I am sure if he ever comes back to Utah, we will be enjoying ourselves again.  But I’m thankful for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I got to spend with my love!

Our FHE Adventure

We decided to have FHE in Providence Canyon a couple of weeks ago.  I cooked some boyscout dinners and we all loaded into the van for a fun adventure.

We ate our yummy dinner amidst the cow pies.  Thankfully they were dry.  But much to our dismay, we could not keep Caleb and Rachel from playing with them.  EWWWW!!

Then we pulled out Jared’s .22 and shot water balloons that we had filled up with air.  Emily and Josh LOVED that part!  Oh, and Jared loved it too.  OK, I’ll admit it – I had fun too!  It’s a great way to let off a little steam!

Rachel and Caleb had fun playing around and picking up the little plastic BBs that were all over the ground.  Jared was lucky enough to snap these picture of Rachel being not so happy.  First comes the lip…

And then the floodgates open, letting out quite the outburst…

That’s some quality blackmail material for down the road!! 

And based on this picture, I think Caleb will get the hang of using a gun with no problems at all!!

As we headed back down the canyon, we were keeping our eyes on the road, looking for a snake that we thought Jared may have run over on our way up.  Sure enough, we spotted a snake lying in the middle of the road, so we stopped to take a look.  And this is what we saw…

A nice sized rattle snake with a squished head!  YIKES!!  Jared has some serious driving skills!  I’m just glad we were in the van and not sitting in the grass having our dinner!

First Haircut

Rachel (finally) got her very first haircut a few weeks ago – age 3 years, 3 months.  Here she is at Cookie Cutters enjoying sitting in the airplane and watching Scooby Doo.

I was hoping the trim would revitalize her curls.  I don’t think it worked :(   She really does have beautiful hair, but I sure miss the days of really tight curls back when it was much shorter. 

4th of July…sort of!

Here are a few pictures from part of our Independence Day celebration.  Since the 4th was on a Sunday, we partied from Friday through Monday (with a break on Sunday of course).  We had fun watching fireworks, eating yummy food, and being together.

Emily loves Alaina’s glow-stick glasses

The kids all had fun playing frisbee – Conna is the BEST aunt ever!

Caleb with a mouth FULL of candy – and some of it drooling out the corners.  He’s such a cute kid!  I can’t seem to get enough of him!  And he always makes sure I have lots of chances!

I love the expression on Caleb’s face as he and Rachel are watching the fireworks!  After a few seconds of watching, he was up in my lap, saying “I scare fireworks!”  He roamed from one person to the next the whole time, sitting long enough to see a few flashes and hear a few booms, and let us all know he was scared.  Rachel loved them and couldn’t take her eyes off them.

Uh oh, I think she’s already to the “no more pictures, please!” phase!

I love that we are so close to family.  Holidays are so much more enjoyable when we get to spend them together.  The kids get along so well – it’s fun to watch them play together.  We are so blessed!

Bad Hair Day

Must’ve been a rough nap!  Maybe it’s time for a haircut?

Swimming Lessons

July has been the month for swimming lessons.  Emily and Josh took two sessions of swimming from Gin Manning again this year.  And of course, they complained about having to go for two weeks prior, and after their first session begged to go more!  Go figure!

They are both getting to be pretty darn good swimmers, and we could see a huge improvement from last year in just the first session.  I couldn’t tell you much of what they learned – I was too busy keeping two curious busy-bodies out of the pool.  But here are some pictures.

Just look at that form!

 

These are pencil drop dives – they get pretty deep if they keep their bodies nice and straight.

I think this is called a throw up dive (or something like that!).  They’re supposed to throw their legs up into the air so they get the right angle going down into the water.  Seemed to be a tough thing for all the kids.

Mr. Motorboat

Miss Fish…watch out – she’s quick!

I’m proud of these kids – they are hard workers and always try their best.  And they’re so good at paying attention to their teachers.  Way to go Emmy and Josh!