Author: soggycheerios

16 months old

Yep that is right Aubrey is 6. This picture of Aubrey was taken a few years ago, but it is my absolute favorite.  This is the Aubrey I see, and I have never seen this side of Aubrey caught in a picture before.  Aubrey is fast to smile, quick to laugh, and has a way of seeing good in all things, but occasionally you can catch this side of her.  Her eyes are so stormy and she is so serious and heavy with the weight of the world on her shoulders.

I was driving to the store the morning of her birthday and was thinking about her turning six, and found myself crying.  Tears were falling down my cheeks, I was so surprised I didn’t even realize I was crying.  I have enjoyed Aubrey so much and love her with such a love that I can’t find the words to describe it.  She is an amazing child, and I can’t wait to see what adventures she has in store for us (or maybe I can).

Love the hike to Winnemucca Lake.  A friend from the ward introduced this hike to me last year, and I’ve done it multiple times since.  Half way there is Frog Lake, and we always stop there for a drink and a snack.  This time there was a lady there with her really well behaved Golden Retriever, Spunky.  She told my kids she was so tired and asked if they would like to help her wear her dog out (wink, wink).  The kids readily agreed and spent the next half and hour throwing sticks into the lake and watching that cute dog swim out and retrieve the sticks from the lake.  They learned quick that the dog always shakes when she hands them the stick and she shakes twice.  This lady told me that she got this dog for her son when he was 12.  She said that she handed him some training books and let him take off with it.  What a great idea, and what a way to bond a young boy with his dog.  We always find the nicest of people out on the hiking trails.

I was proud of Alyssa she hiked the whole way in. She is such a little dreamer, it’s hard to get her moving.  She is always looking for unicorns and rainbows and fairies, and has no concept of time.  But she made it.  I tried to tell her that climbing over every rock in her way was making this hike way harder than it had to be, but she had to climb to the top of them all and jump down off each one.  I’m sure her hike was double the distance of mine.  I packed Hallie the whole way back and Danny helped Alyssa by giving her breaks on his shoulders.

School started today.  Although there are always feelings of sadness that my little ones are growing up, those feelings are quickly replaced with a feeling of elation that they ARE growing up.  I want them to progress, succeed, learn, grow, do their own laundry, mop floors, make dinner, leave the nest… sorry, got carried away, really I just want them to be happy and love life.  Aubrey started first grade, and as she hugged us goodbye, I watched her quickly wipe her eyes with the back of her hands and hold her head high and walk into her classroom.  Aubrey has such a mixed personality– feisty and tough as nails, but inside she is gooey like a brownie.  Tanner starts 5th grade, and I’m sure he’ll be just fine this year.  Emma, yikes, this is the one that blows me away.  My oldest in 7th grade.  She looked so grown up when she left the house this morning.  What happened her her braids, and Mary Jane shoes?  It’s going to be a great year, a new beginning.  I have many goals that I plan on working on this year, I’m sure I’ll post more about those as I progress toward them.

This summer came to an end with one last hoorah at Uncle Monte’s place for his wedding.  I am so happy that he has found someone to love, we all need that.  After the wedding we went down to Salt Lake City to hang out with Grandma and Grandpa.  Grandpa is the best, he records cartoons and the kids can hardly wait to get their hands on his television.  Grandma keeps us well fed and treats us to french toast in the mornings.

We had a great time at the zoo, This is the place monument pioneer park, shopping, picnic at the park with cousins etc… We love going to Utah.

Now back into the comfortable craziness of life.  Piano lessons, soccer, cross country for Emma, scouts, activity days and soon to be Young Woman’s.  I love this time of year.

Rewind with me to mid July, I tried to remember what weekend it was, but honestly they are all blurring together.  Danny and I were getting ready for the ward camp-out.  On our drive out there, I in joking told Danny that it’s never a ward camp-out without a trip to the E.R…. I never imagined that it would be us.  Aubrey was playing with one of those old fashioned water pumps and was getting a drink when someone else who was playing with her closed the pump, but her finger was in the way.  I was down by our tent getting dinner ready when I heard her scream, I knew instantly it was my child.  I also knew that it was no ordinary scream.  She ran to Danny who looked at it and quickly had a puddle of blood in his hand, so he took her back to the pump to wash it off and look at it.  I joined them at this point.  We made the decision to take her to the E.R. because the pad of her finger was cut on three sides, under the nail, down the side and across the bottom.  It was gross, she was crying.  On our way there we asked her if she could calm down enough for us to pray, and she was able to, and never freaked out again.  The nurses and doctors at the hospital were able to touch it, clean it, and glue it all back together without a single noise or jerk out of her.  She got back to camp and ran off and played capture the flag in the dark.  The glue didn’t hold even 24 hours, and it hung open for a week, but has finally healed up now.  In hind site, we should have insisted that they stitched it closed, but they didn’t want to remove her nail to do so.

Aubrey playing at the E.R. waiting to be fixed up!

This has been a hard week.  I’ve had sick kids and Danny is out of town.  I thought everyone was feeling better today so I braved a trip to Lake Tahoe.  When we got there it was obvious that Aubrey didn’t feel well.  She laid in the sun, covered in a towel and slept all morning.  Then she vomited, and we left.  Oh well, it was the most beautiful morning at Lake Tahoe, temperatures were gorgeous.  My friend Shana brought her kids up too,  she has 3 boys who play with Tanner like a brother.  Her older boys took Tanner to the big granite rocks to jump.  He was hesitant, but they were patient and persisted with him.  This is something that I would have never been able to do with him, so I was very grateful for Shana’s boys, who by the way are hilarious and fun to be around.

Alyssa chasing birds.  This child is numb to all things painful, she was in the water before anyone else, outside temps were in the 50’s and the water, oy, I don’t even want to know.

Tanner is the blond boy in the light blue and white shorts wearing the black and yellow life jacket.  Shay is with him, I’m sure giving him some tips; “now if you do this wrong you crack your head open and drown”, but I’m sure it was more along the lines of “you can do this”.  I had my doubts, I didn’t think he’d do it.

“See like this dude”

“If Shay jumps off a cliff will you do it too?  YUP!”

Take Two: This time Noble gives Tanner some tips Noble being older it was probably something like “the chics dig this man”

“If you say so”

No pictures of Aubrey, she was asleep under a towel all morning.  Lake Tahoe is my little bit of paradise!

North Star offers free ski lift rides for kids in the summer.  We do this every year, pack a picnic lunch and go for a hike.  Alyssa announced that riding the ski lifts was as fun as Lagoon.  Good! because free is a lot cheaper than what it costs me to get them into Lagoon this year.  Lunch was taken under a tree sitting on some logs, we packed crackers, chunks of cheese and some lunch meat, and of course apples and some Oreo cookies.

Time flies when your having fun, actually it flies fast whether you are having fun or not.  I got my first back to school clothing catalog in the mail the other day.  I almost cried.  I also got my first Halloween catalog in mail.  I usually love finding these things in my mail, I enjoy browsing the pages, dreaming of sending my girls to school in cute tights and sweet skirts.  I love that crayons are $.25 a box, and that I can throw out all of the old markers and paints and not feel guilty buying more knowing that the old ones were well used and that I’m getting a great price on all of the supplies.  I look forward to shiny little mary jane shoes, and the excited feeling in my gut as I prepare to send my little ones off on a new adventure and wonder what wonderful things they will discover this year.  This year it is coming all too fast.  I haven’t posted at all this summer, it’s not that we aren’t doing things, but I can’t seem to keep up with everything around the house with my new little walker/explorer.  I’m so out numbered when we go swimming, and the thought of having to let my camera drown while I save my little one pretty much talks me out of bringing it along.  Alas, I have surrendered to time, it always wins, so I have decided that time is to be enjoyed and not beaten.  So here are some of our summer shenanigans.

The end of June brought a trip to Murtaugh Idaho.  Monte lives up there and due to his job he can’t get away during summer months at all, so we all went there to see him.  Eva, my only sister, who I haven’t seen in 3 years met us up there also.  My kids were so excited to meet up with their cousins that they haven’t seen in forever.  Monte sure knows how to show everyone a good time.  Look what he made us for dinner.

Monte also has a couple of owls living in a large tree above his house.  Tanner was delighted about all of the owl vomit around.  We dried and dissected a few pellets, not to mention the fun the kids had finding owl feathers.  Monte, being the bachelor that he is has a pretty cool motorcycle, and of course the kids adored that.  Aubrey, my little adrenaline junkie couldn’t get enough of it.

Monte lives right across the street from Murtaugh Lake.  I’m telling you this is the best place to bring kids, there wasn’t a moment of boredom, and nothing cost much money.  We even flooded a skunk out from under his driveway, but that is a story for another time.

Cousin Love– amazes me that these kids don’t know each other at all, how quickly they love.

A few pictures of Hallie, she bonded pretty well with Grandpa, but overall wanted Mama, or Dada.

One of the two owls living over Monte’s house

Eva’s kids are pretty close to the same age as mine.  She just forgot to have one when I had my last one, we’ll have to work on that.

Parade in West Jordan:

More cousin time

Zoo

We went to Lagoon on Tuesday, July 6th.  Danny flew to Ohio that day and so I had all of the kids there by myself.  My sister and her husband and Grandma came.  Needless to say to keep my sanity my camera didn’t come.  I only got a few pictures with my cell phone.  We had a great day there, Emma and Tanner took off for most of the day on their own with their cousin Evan.

Grandma had a friend come and give all the girls glitter toes.  We had a great time in Utah, and lots of fun reuniting with cousins and family.

I had the best time making this dress.  The pattern was so simple to follow, and well written.  I love how it turned out and so does Alyssa.  I made a skirt for Aubrey for Kindergarten “graduation” and Alyssa has been feeling a little left out.  Of course the whole thing had to be in pink for Alyssa, but I didn’t mind.  I of course know where all the mistakes are, and it was harder to gather through the apron on the dress than I thought it would have been, I would probably do a piece of yarn with a zig zag stitch over it for future projects, other than that it was a piece of cake.  FYI the pattern is Portabellopixie- Claire.

Monday morning the kids were up early and had all of their chores done by 7:30am.  We sat around for a while, watched  a little TV, but knowing that Danny was working late that night I decided to take the kids on an impromptu field trip.  Tanner packed fruit and water, Emma got the girls into shoes, and I quickly showered.  The drive to Grimes Point was pleasant, and the kids anxiously chatted, I didn’t tell them where we were going.  We had the place to ourselves.  The hiking was easy and everyone was able to do it.  I worried about taking 5 kids out by myself.  Last summer Hallie was a newborn, and I had 4 pair of eyes starring at me a week after she was born, asking me what we were going to do that summer.  I tried to pull off a decent summer, made quite a few trips to Tahoe, but really felt pretty overwhelmed the entire time.  This summer with Hallie a year older I’m feeling quite a bit more confident, and Monday proved to me that it could be done with little effort.  After the hike, we went to a park, and played hard.  They had this round rock structure that looked just like a castle (in Alyssa’s eyes) it wasn’t part of the playground, but that didn’t matter.  So Tanner was the dragon and Alyssa and Aubrey the princesses of course, and they ran around the trying to keep Tanner from climbing the sides and attacking the castle.  Somehow I even got involved and helped the girls spot Tanner as he quietly ran around the wall trying to find a week spot.  We stopped at Wal Mart and picked up some ice cream and cones for FHE, and met Dad at home for FHE and treat.  I’m feeling really confident now and can’t wait to do more activities with the kids.

We also hiked to 4 different caves.  The kids were having fun imagining where the Indians slept, cooked.  Aubrey said let’s put the TV over here and computer over there, I had to remind her that those things didn’t exist.

Let’s review:

May 2008– Hope Valley

We have camped in Hope Valley  for many years, usually on Memorial Day, and all but one year in my memory we were snowed on.  This time we waited until Mid June, although no snow, we froze.  The wind was so bizarre.  It would sound like a semi was roaring it’s engines and we knew to brace ourselves, not 5 seconds later the wind would blow through and the tent would just about collapse.  This happened every 10 minutes or so ALL NIGHT LONG.  I’ve never experienced such odd wind gusts, and I got very little sleep.  The temperatures were in the mid 30’s that night, and although prepared for the weather, we still froze, I should say I froze, the kids slept just fine.  I was a party pooper and convinced Danny to pack up in the morning and head for home, it just wasn’t any fun for me, the kids seemed to find fun even in the cold and wind.  We’ll try it again in a few weeks, maybe it’ll be warmer by then.  It is a beautiful place and we were just about alone up there.  We had the meadow to ourselves, and kids loved playing soccer in the flowers, and Alyssa picked a few and would say, “just one more” which turned into a couple dozen more.