The Cutest Thing Ever!

Gabe gave this to me tonight, and I must say it is probably the CUTEST THING EVER! He told me it didn't turn out quite right but I think it is perfect.

Happy Birthday Madisonironi!

I can't believe she is turning 11! I remember the day she was born, it seems just like yesterday. I remember being huge and swollen, the Dr. had just told me that I had toxemia and he put me on bed rest. I went home and laid down for a couple hours and started having these funny feelings. I had no idea what was going on. Troy came home from work and started cooking dinner. Noodle chunt (or noodles with cream of chicken soup and tuna fish)with the tri-colored noodles. I still remember! I didn't eat any of it because by the time it was done I was in full blown labor. My contractions were 2 minutes apart so we ran to the hospital. I was checked in and the Nurse checked to see how far I was dilated. She told me I was between a 9 and a 10. Madison was finally ready to come and she didn't want to wait any longer. At 10:59 pm she was born. She weighed 7 pounds 13 ounces and had a lot of crazy hair. She was the cutest thing I had ever seen!

Eleven years later she is such a wonderful young lady. She is such a good girl, I don't know how we got so lucky to have her in our family. A few things about her:
*She loves to read. She is just like her Nunny!
*She hates the heat. Again, just like Nunny!
*She has beautiful strawberry blonde hair.
*She is very spiritual and loves to go to church. She definitely is an example to us.
*She is friends with everybody.
*She loves American Girl dolls.
*She already knows what car she wants when she turns 16. A Mini Cooper!
*She loves strawberries. Plain strawberries, strawberries dipped in sugar, strawberry ice cream, strawberry suckers. Everything strawberry!
*She wears hearing aids....What? And she just got new earmolds. They are adorable and just as bright as always.

There is so much more I could write about her. I could go on and on. Instead I will just give you some pictures and you can see for yourself what a wonderful girl she is.

We love you Madisonironi! Happy Birthday!!!

YNP '09

We made our annual Yellowstone trip at the end of July. We had such a great time! The weather was great, the company was great and the time together as a family was great. As I said before, we had McKinley with us. It was so nice to have her there to keep Madison company. She balanced us out, two boys and two girls. We did so many fun things. We went to Mammoth hot springs and then up to Gardiner to our favorite restaurant in the whole wide world, Petterino's (I think thats what it is, I get it mixed up with one in Chicago). We eat there every summer. Troy starts craving it about 2 months before our trip. We also eat breakfast by the Madison river every morning. I think Kinney thought we were CRAZY but we have these things that we ALWAYS do. How sad is it that our trip kind of revolves around food. Dinner at Petterino's and breakfast at the river. Thats not it either, everywhere we stopped Troy insisted on icecream, Kinney didn't think that was so crazy!



Other things we did:

• Hikes, Harlequin Lake, Canyon, Tower Falls, etc.etc.


• Swimming in the firehole river


• Skipping rocks in the river


• Old Faithful Young Scientist badge (this took all day, the kids were exhausted after they were done)


• Saw a ton of waterfalls


• Hot pots, dragons mouth is one of their favorites but Eli thinks a dragon really lives in it.


• Saw tons of buffalo and elk, missed a bear by seconds.


• Got eaten by mosquitos


• Stayed in the park at Grant Village right by Yellowstone Lake

I could go on and on. We had so much fun and I am already getting excited to go back next year!

Thanks Kinney for coming with us, we hope we didn't scare you too bad!

Summer '09

I know it is now almost fall and for quite some time I have tried to post about summer. My problem is there is always something else to do. Whether it is mow the lawn, or weed, or go to the aquarium or splash pad or zoo. There is always something else. So here is a quick update of our summer.

Here are my kids being crazy as usual. We have this park in Park City that we call the John Deere park. The kids absolutely love it. We make a few trips there every summer.

Here are the kids at the Riverton Splash pad. We went a few times this summer with cousins and friends. The kids love it because their Dad and Tyson built it! Eli goes around telling everybody that...pretty funny.

Here we are at the Aquarium. We had Madisons friend Brittany and her brother Collin with us. I bet we went 5 times this summer. We bought a family pass and it is only 5 minutes from our house. Cheap entertainment! We love to pet the stingrays!

Here are the kids in Yellowstone. We had our niece, McKinley, with us. I would have traded all of my kids to keep her. She was so fun to have for 9 whole days. (I will put more pictures of Yellowstone later. I took a couple hundred or so...)

We had a wedding this summer too. Troys dad got remarried. Here we are at the wedding. It was fun to all be together. We were missing Aaron and Carter, but I am sure they were there in spirit....right Aaron?

Here are the kids decorating Papas truck and Troy and Lorin drinking beer so they could hang the cans from the bumper. Funny thing, the next week Troy was called to be the Elders Quorum President. Good thing he really wasn't drinking the beer!

Troy did a bike race as part of the Tour of Utah. It is one of the hardest stages in the United States and he finished it. You can see how excited he was to finish! I was so proud of him.

And here are Troy and Jason crossing the finish line together. Troy says there is no way he could have done it without Jason. This is kind of how they are in life. They don't go very long without talking to each other. Jason and Heidi have been great friends forever. Thanks guys!

Thats just a few things we did this summer, I forgot my camera for the others, but we had a lot of fun! And thanks Jill for spending a couple weeks with us and keeping us busy!

Reading makes me tired...

I am not much of a reader. I can read for a few minutes here and there but not for a long time. It makes me too tired! Every night my kids read before they go to bed as their school homework. Well, Eli just started kindergarten so he thinks he needs to read like Madison and Gabe. All I care about is that he stays in bed. Some nights he will be reading his scriptures, or Go Dog Go. Apparently, he takes after me and this is what he was reading last night.....

I went in before I went to bed and this is what I found. He was snoring so loud, probably because he couldn't breathe. I wonder what he was dreaming about...maybe, a boy named Max who wouldn't eat his dinner!

PS, This is for Kinney. Madison keeps bugging me to put a picture of her doll for you so here it is! For those of you who don't know, Madison worked all summer to earn this American Girl Doll. She absolutely loves it!