No Pity necessary

So I ran into an acquaintance from Logan the other day and we had the typical small chat conversation....

"So, how are you? Where do you live? Are you working? And then the one that stops them dead in their tracks every time. Actually it's not the question but the response....

"So how many kids do you have?" And when I respond happily with "three girls" their face goes kind of numb. Not sure whether to smile, frown or gasp. Well most of them anyway. This one just put it all out there. "Oh, I am SO sorry." Pity oozed from her.

Now seriously folks. Really. No pity necessary. I LOVE having girls. I have friends for life , a plethora of shopping partners and I get to buy boat loads of pink girly things. Now, in a few years when I have three teenage girls THEN you can pity me. But now, it's really not necessary.

Back to school

Hard to believe that just THREE short weeks ago we celebrated Hallee's graduation from Kindergarten...and said goodbye to Mrs. Titus.....

And now, here we are saying HELLO to 1st Grade. Yep. We are back in school.
Three weeks ago we woke up casually, ate breakfast, did the bathtub thing, completed our chores, worked on homework (some simple sight words and etc.) and then had lunch before we said goodbye to Hallee for a few short hours.
Now it's up early, hair done, a healthy breakfast, check the lunch menu to see if we will be packing a lunch, fill up the water bottle and decide on a "sneak-a-snack" (1st graders don't eat lunch until 1pm so they have you send a healthy snack and water bottle each day to help them get through the morning). Then I send my six year old off to school for SEVEN hours!!!! This now means that her teacher and peers at school will spend more time with my daughter than we will. Then it's home from school, work on the homework aka preparing for the weekly spelling tests she will now be taking, read our 15 minutes a day, have dinner, shower and then to bed.

I am quite certain that 1st grade has been a bigger adjustment for ME than for her. In fact, she is thrilled about it. I, on the other hand am just starting to realize how much I took her for granted. She was a huge help around the house, Hope's best friend, and Caymbree's second mom.

Yep Caymbree. I think we are all feeling a little like this right now.
Good luck Hallee. We love you tons and miss you like crazy while you are at school. We hope you make great friends, learn tons and become a leader amongst your peers.

Thank you, master blogger dude

Ingenious I tell ya. That's what it is. The master blogger dude has come up with a new page element that will not only show you when someone posted last but organize them accordingly. Thus eliminating the wasted minutes (or hours) checking each blog for updates. How great is that. "He" (the master blogger dude) must have sensed the jealous husbands all across the world who seem to feel neglected by the hours of blog reading being done by their spouses. Troy will be amongst the first to say THANK YOU!

And on a side note, if your blog is password protected you will notice that it does not work. It's okay. I understand completely.

A child's Prayer

Hope's prayer last night went as follows;

Dear Hevenly Fader,

Tank you for dis day.
Help me to not go to time-out, because I REALLY don't like time-out.
So I need to lisen to my mommy and daddy so that I don't have to go to time-out.
In da name of Jesus Christ
Amen.

We're getting older. We have a boat load of kids between us. A few of us even have some gray hair (okay just me but that's a whole other story). But Monday night we proved we were still young at heart by staying up until 4:30 in the morning, walking to Maverick at 1:30am, eating massive amounts of junk food without worrying about which body part it was going to permanently attach to and laughing so hard our cheeks hurt (and as far as I know we still all managed a little bladder control).

Thank you for a wonderful, fun-filled getaway. Till next time.....

Oh, what do you do in the summertime....

The month of July could be summed up in one word for us.... REUNIONS!!!! We started off the month with my family reunion and soon thereafter did back to back reunion-type occasions with Troy's side of the family.

Troy's sister and family came to visit from Tennessee and we have had a fabulous time with them. It has been almost four years since we saw them last so there was a lot of catching up to do. Cynda (Troy's mom) and Brad flew in from Arizona for a few days so we could have a fun family barbecue in our backyard and a dinner at the Mayan.

Troys sister Tara, Troy, his grandpa Bert and mom Cynda.

Then we gathered up our stuff and headed to Bear Lake for a few days to spend some time with Troy's dad's side of the family. It was fun to see his aunt and uncle and cousins from California who that we haven't seen for quite a few years. Tara put together an amazing tribute to her grandfather who built a cabin at Bear Lake as a gathering place for generations to come.

Hallee Moment

Yesterday Hallee and I were getting ready when she flexed her muscles, looked in the mirror, and said, "Whoa, I have some big muscles."

Wondering whether or not I should burst her bubble or play along I smiled and just as I started to speak she interrupted....

"Ah, Man. That's just my shoulder isn't it? "

Hope Moments

A while back we were driving in the car when Hope asked
Hope: "Mom, are we made of meat?"
Me: "No."
H: "Yes we are."
Me: Hmmmmm. Where am I going to go with this one?
"Well, meat implies that something would eat us. We don't really need to worry about that so I don't think we are meat." At this point I am wondering what in the world sparked this conversation.
H: "Well, how come the lady at the zoo said we were meat then?"
Ahhhh....now it's starting to all make sense.

Apparently my answer was not sufficient because a few nights later the conversation came up again. This time she took it up with her dad.

Hope: "Dad, are we made of meat?"
Troy, remembering the conversation I had told him about with Hope decided to take a different approach.
Troy: "No Hope. Heavenly Father created us from the dust and dirt of the earth.
Hope just starred at him dazed and confused. So Troy continued....
T: Heavenly Father took all of the elements of the earth and created man and woman.

At this point we thought Hope was content with the answer because she didn't say anything else for a minute. Then out of no where she said...

"So dad, are we really made out of elephants???? "

Troy didn't catch on until he started to repeat himself. "Hope, God took all the elements".... And then it hit both of us. And we couldn't stop laughing....l

Cabin Fun

I think we look forward to this week almost more than Christmas itself. It's a tradition that's been around since before I was even born. It's hard to explain. To some it even sounds crazy. But a week up at our cabin in Logan Canyon with all of my cousins is truly one of those things I hope we never stop doing.

This year was a little unique and has been lovingly labeled as the year of the "FIERCE" FLU EPIDEMIC. Camp was invaded by a yucky and super contagious flu bug that took out 3/4th of the population throughout the week. It seemed like every day someone else would bite the dust. Even my poor grandparents got it. Everyone recovered and we didn't let it affect the our fun.

People often ask what we do in the canyon for a week and the answer is quite simple. NOTHING. Now, how many vacations can you say that. We sit around, do a whole lot of gabbing, play games and we scrapbook. The guys fish, go four wheeling, and always manage to get in a golf game here and there. Oh, ya....WE EAT. And I'm pretty sure we never stop. And then we watch our kids recreate the memories that we (as cousins) had growing up. Things like putting on little performances, collecting snails, going for hikes, playing on the swings, and etc. The only thing that was missing this year is hearing my Grandma Smith sing "Oh, what a beautiful morning, Oh what a beautiful day..." at the top of her lungs each and every morning.

I'm so grateful to have a time and place that we can go create such wonderful memories with my family each and every year. I cherish the fact that I still have a great relationship with my cousins and we still can get together as friends. I think I took this for granted until I got older and realized how rare it is to stay this close and do as many things together as we still do. I'm grateful for my grandparents who have established such fun traditions and opportunities that allow us to still get together. SO, Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Birthday Girl

We celebrated Caymbree's birthday up at our cabin and what 1st year birthday would be complete without your very own cake. Caymbree didn't hesitate to dig right into her cute little
puppy cake and loved every bite.




She had plenty of helpers eating it!