Happy Birthday Baby Hyrum!

Hyrum turned 2 today. The last baby that I will give birth too is 2 today. I guess it is weird to say. For so long and in such a short span it seemed I was pregnant. Funny though, I still am not baby hungry one bit. Our decision is very much the right one, this I know. Maybe I'm not feeling it because he still seems so much a baby, though. He is tiny for his age. In fact, Auntie (April) has lovingly nicknamed him, "Bitty." He still doesn't really talk. He will say a few words like, "Shoe" which is more like, "Sue." He says, "Bob Bob" for Spongebob which is extremely cute! I really did NOT like it when the boys started watching Spongebob. I mean, he's funny and all but the point of the things that I let them watch is to encourage them to be smart....not....Ok, I'm going to let that one go. Ok, so they watch Spongebob on occasion! My son who hardly says a word at all can communicate Spongebob of all things! I have to admit....it is really cute! Anyways, my baby is 2!

MeMaw and Poppy (Thatcher) got his birthday all together. They assigned each family cupcakes. I think a few of us thought that was way to many but I have to admit it made it all the more fun seeing all those cupcakes for my baby!

This is as close as we could get him to blow on those candles.

He wasn't scared of them, he just didn't know how to do it but when they were out he got all excited!

He went straight for the frosting until the ice cream came! Poppy (Thatcher) and the older kids made this ice cream earlier in the day.

Here he is opening his present from Mommy and Daddy. We normally don't get them birthday presents (I know, we are mean parents!) because they get so much from everyone else but I felt bad because MeMaw and Poppy were getting all this together and I felt like I wasn't really contributing like I normally do with my other kids so we got him a much needed puzzle (we got rid of all our other ones when we moved).

Everyone left after presents but we stayed a bit and Hyrum ended his night with some MeMaw time.
Happy birthday, my stinky pahtinky!

Water treatment anyone?

Yesterday, David and I took the boys to the splashpad in Grove. We brought with us Lunchables, sandwiches, drinks, and lots of energy. I enjoyed it much better yesterday than in days past because there was hardly anyone there. We had a good time....maybe a little to much of a good time. At one point I look over and Levi and Brigham are spitting water at each other....the water from the splashpad that is being recycled over and over. That is just gross to me. I mean, I know that they treat this water but you just never know. So I call them over to me and I proceed to tell them how yucky that water could be. How sometimes little kids pee and poo in their diapers and run around in that water that they are swishing around in their mouths. Well, I'm thinking that maybe I should have expressed more of the "sometimes" part because right after I let them go back to the water Brigham lets the whole world know of his new found information. He runs right up to this poor little girl and yells at her, "DO YOU KNOW THAT WATER HAS PEE AND POO IN IT?!" That poor girl is probably scard for life now about public water places! I know I am!!!!

Mexican Me-Me

I took Amanda (Me-Me as all the kids call her) to the Mexican Restaurant for her birthday. Ok, so the restaurant has a real name but I can never pronounce it right and since it is the only Mexican restaurant in Jay, well, you get the point. She was a good sport about it because she knew if we went there for her birthday that she would have to wear....well, you can see all that she had to wear as the employees sang "Happy Birthday" to her! Happy Birthday Mexican Me-Me!

Waterfun

Here are the kiddos at the splash pad in Grove. Levi and Brigham are used to going here with Grandma and Grandpa (Thatcher) on Thursdays with their cousins, Shaylee and Elton, but David and I decided to take the boys a few weekends ago. It was Hyrums first time and of course he was as cute as can be! This place is wonderful because it is free and when the kids get tired of it, they just run over to the playground equipment and vise versa.

This one is my favorite shot!

Don't you love water photos?!

A few weeks later, me and the boys met my friend Niki and her girls at the splash pad. Aren't we a perfect match with her 3 girls and my 3 boys!?!

Happy Scrapbooking...ummmm, I mean, Birthday Mom!

As I mentioned before, this is quite the month for birthdays so you can imagine how broke everyone is in our family right now! So I got creative with what to do for Mom for her birthday, the 16th. On the 17th, Amanda brought the chips, I brought the sandwiches, and April brought her 5/7 layer dip (you probably know it as the 7 layer bean dip but she puts in 5 ingredients). We told her that we were doing nothing but scrapbooking with her that night. It wasn't much but we know how much Mom LOVES to scrapbook. April couldn't stay because she was getting ready to leave to head off to Florida with her family but I hope mom felt loved from all of us anyways.

Happy Birthday, Brigham!

July 13th was Brigham's 5th birthday. This is the birthday cake that Amanda (cake and icing), Dad (the writing), and Ronald (the design) made for him. It tasted great and looked amazing for something not store bought. We fed everyone before the fun started but we had to wait until everyone got there. Logan decided he wasn't going to wait that long! Notice the piece of cheese on the floor that fell as he was zipping past so he wouldn't get caught!
Auntie pestering Brigham!
It took a few blows (with some spit, I'm sure) before he finally got it out.
This is a crazy month for our family with 7 birthdays. Poor Dad kinda got lost in the shuffle of it all so we got him a cookies and creme brownie!

Brigham was very patient with Hyrum as he tried to help him with the presents.

Here is a picture of Uncle Chuck being a bad influence. Now I have proof! Brigham got some binoculars and Chuck proceeded to tell him that he could look into the neighbor's windows with it!

I love this picture because Brigham looks so sweet and innocent in it. Awww, if only.....

This is a favorite gift of his because his cousin, Elton, has one. When Brigham sleeps over with Nanny and Poppy he mentions this to them so they knew of the perfect gift to give to him.

Ok, so there are pinatas that you can get now that you pull on the strings attached to the bottom instead of hitting it until the candy spills out. I didn't realize that was the one we got until we brought it home and no boy is going to want to pull on strings when they can beat it to death with a stick!

After the kids gave it their all, Uncle Bubba took care of it with one hit!

Then came time for the water balloons. If you look closely you can see Shaylee's water balloon that just hit Poppy's backside!

And since Brigham is the birthday boy he got a pan full of water dumped on him!

And the prize for the biggest kid of all goes to Grandpa!!!!

Shaylee doing a "swing" by shot.

This is probably my favorite picture because it has so much action in it.

Happy Birthday, Brigham!

Happy Late Birthday!

After Shaylee's baptism, we all went to the Adams' home to have dinner. Because of the craziness of summer and a few sicknesses we weren't able to celebrate Grandma and Uncle Chucks' birthday so we surprised them with an apple pie!

Sunday, July 12th, was Shaylee's baptism. A baptism is so very special for anyone but I couldn't help but notice all the tears shed within our family during the meeting and thought just how special Shaylee's baptism is because of her being the first grandchild/great grandchild. Nothing touched my heart more during that meeting than when she sang, "I am a Child of God" with her mommy, April. April has an amazing voice anyways but Shaylee just sounded like what I would imagine a child angel would sound like. Her singing that song in her angelic voice made me realize that all Heavenly Father asks is for me to endure.
Poppy had the honor of baptising his grand daughter.

Bathroom Time

Here are a few cute bathroom pictures.

Hyrum is more attached to Daddy than he is me. It used to be the other way around but hasn't been since we moved here. When Daddy is home he is Daddy's bud. When Daddy has been gone most of the day working, he gets upset if Daddy leaves....even if to take a shower. I think it melts David's heart that Hyrum is so attached to him and so David always gives in and lets him in the shower with him.

After David shaved the other day, Brigham decided that he wanted to also. I got all excited and had to take a picture of this "first" for Brigham and he informed me, "It's not real, mom." As I usually say, Brigham is to smart for his own good! But Daddy informed him that he was really going to use the razor on him. He went on to explain that if you use it the right way (and he showed him) that is will not cut you. You should have seen Brigham's worried face there at first. But after he started shaving him, he was all smiles!

4th of July Celebration

After Logan's birthday party we waited for it to get dark so we could start the fireworks. With it being summer, it was a long wait. David stayed outside most of the time whittling this stick. I love my husband!
This is the only semi-decent picture I got of our fireworks. Brigham and I went to the Grove firework show on the 3rd and I was trying to explain to him why we have the firework display. I explained about our ancestors living in a different land across the ocean and how they wanted to be able to make their own choices with religion and such. So they moved very far away, across the ocean, to a land where they could get away from the rulers in their old land that wouldn't let them do such. I explained that those "rulers" eventually came after our ancestors and tried to kill them. I told him of the fight and how we knew we had won when we were able to see a flag after all the smoke cleared after the fight. Later we became a "free" country.

I asked him later, "So Brigham, why do we celebrate on the 4th of July?" He said, "Ummmm.....Ummmmmm....because those people were nice?" Ummm, well, maybe I'll explain it again later.

We live close enough to the football stadium that we were able to see their fireworks, along with ours, in the distance.

It was so very cute to see Hyrum with the hand "sprinklers."

Brigham with all his many bug bites on his face!

Logan's first birthday

Logan turns 1 on July 8th but since all of the family would be over at Mom and Dad's house for the 4th of July, Amanda and Steve thought that they would have his birthday party then. Here is a picture of Logan and his parents opening up all the fun stuff!Since it is his birthday I wanted to put my favorite pictures of him on here. I found Logan and Steve like this one day, in their bedroom, both fast asleep!
I don't see how this is comfortable for Steve at all but all parents know how desperate you are for sleep when babies are little!

Anyways, Happy Birthday Logan!

Rob and Erin: Day 2

On Tuesday, June 30th, we spent the morning trying to get to Harbor Village. You know how it is with little ones...ok, and me! When we were finally out the door, the van died! We have been having issues for a while with the battery and have been avoiding the real issue: the alternator. It was time to face up and take care of the problem! So we ended up getting to Harbor Village around lunch time so you can imagine how hot it already was by the time we got there. I felt bad for Rob and Erin because I'm sure they didn't enjoy it like they could have if it would have been a cooler day. In fact, we left before we even made it through the whole self-guided tour. I have been to Harbor Village plenty of times growing up threw school functions but even with that I couldn't tell Rob and Erin why it was there! So I'll just write what it said in the pamphlet: "A sincere effort to preserve for future generations the way of life as experienced by our forefathers who carved out of the wilderness this wonderful country we know and enjoy today." Some of you already know this about me but I'm kind of preparing our family for a serious natural disaster or something like an EMP attack. I know, call me a freak but I worry about that kind of stuff and believe it is a real possibility. Stuff that was in the "museum" would be stuff that we would have to learn again if something really bad happened. It is always wise to know our past.
So most of this stuff is really boring to little kids so they mainly played outside with the tadpoles, frogs....

....and yes, the snake skin. At one point, Brigham had the snake skin in the water and that was just gross to me. He had already put one of the small frogs in an area of Harbor Village that I was pretty sure little froggie wasn't going to make it out so once he started swishing Mr. Snake Skin around in the water I knew it was time to move on!

Behind Erin and Rob here are little cabins that were scattered all about Harbor Village. I loved the Native American Museum. We talked about some of the things we knew and well....ok, so it was one of the only "cabins" with air conditioning! Most of the cabins had antiques of all kinds; dolls, furniture, dentist (that one was just scary!), hat and dress, military, anything pioneer, machinery, and so much more. There was so much there that it was a little too much! But that could have had a lot to do with the crazy humidity and heat we were all trying to get out of.

This is my favorite. David served a mission here in the Grove, Oklahoma area. While on his mission he took a picture of himself at this pulpit. This was in a miniature chapel. Erin thought it would be cute to have David holding up Hyrum at the same place that his Daddy stood years ago. A family had wandered in behind us and was sitting in some of the pews. One of the ladies quoted the "out of the mouth of babes" scripture. It was so cute!

Aunt Erin really payed attention to Hyrum and as you can tell, he really enjoyed it. Hyrum is quite particular as to who he gets attached to so this picture is real sweet to me.