Sweet Little Grace

 The other day I chopped up some broccoli for dinner then put it in a pan and went outside to check on the grill.  When I came back inside, Gracen had personified the broccoli into a family.  There was a mommy broccoli, a daddy broccoli, a baby broccoli, and several brother and sister broccoli, all according to their sizes.  And she was playing with them!  Whether it makes me a good mom or not, I just let her play with them - it was just too funny (they DID get cooked later, after all!).

She's been making a lot of stuff into "families" lately.  Like cars.  And blueberries.  This morning she picked out a mommy blueberry, a daddy blueberry, and a baby blueberry.  She was pretty distressed when she realized she had eaten the mommy and daddy and had only a baby blueberry left.  She carried that blueberry around for a long time. ...In fact, I don't know if it ever got eaten. :)

 We've been getting up early to run at the track before it gets deathly hot (how many 100+ degree days can we possibly have in a row?!?).  Which means the kids have been a little tired.  Gracen fell asleep like this at 6:40 one night.  I decided to just put her to bed.  Unfortunately that resulted in us being up for a couple of hours in the wee hours of the morning.

Sure love this girl.

P.S.  I lost her at Wal-mart today.  One minute I was checking out and everybody was there, the next minute she was GONE.  We did the code Adam thing and a store worker found her at the very back of the store in the SHOE department, lining up pairs of Dora the Explorer shoes!  Only long afterward does it seem illogical that the instant I realize a kid isn't with me I immediately imagine that the most horrible person in the world has snatched them up and whisked them far from the store already.  Those are the split moments when I wish I kept my kids on a leash. :)

Happenings

When we returned from our Idaho trip, we used our last few days of Jaron's free time to do some things we had really been wanting to do as a family.

Jaron and I got to go to the new Kansas City temple for the first time together.

Heaven on earth!

So we're not the world's best self-photographers? Oh well!

We also used a giftcard someone had given us to The Plaza to go as a family to the new Spiderman movie.  I was a little nervous about taking Gracen.  I was more nervous when both Gracen and Eli fell asleep on the way there.  We ended up having to pay for Gracen to go in (!).  She lasted less then half the movie before we were in and out for the rest of it.  The boys loved it, though.   We are in a serious superhero phase at our house right now!

 We also were able to help our dear friends, The Forreds, get ready for their move to Texas.  Christal is just awesome and I miss her dearly already.  Her moving away was a great opportunity to visit with a bunch of awesome gals.

 I love each of these women!  

When we moved away from Kansas City the first time, it was the weirdest thing but I honestly felt like I wasn't saying good-bye to Christal.  I thought that we'd see each other again.  And, voila, 4 years later we were neighbors again!  Haha, things work out funny sometimes.

I wish I could say I've had the same feelings with her moving away this time.  Whether or not we see them again in the near future, the Forreds will always be great friends!  I'm so grateful we have the ability to keep in touch with loved ones far away!

Kidisms

Our neighbors keep a list of the cute things their kids say and it inspired me to write some of ours down.  I've been jotting them down at the back of my current homework notebook and here's a few that I've recorded.

Quite a few of them come from the sweet prayers our kids are saying lately.

Most of them were much funnier in the moment. 

You may not find them funny at all.

But they're pretty sweet to me!

Eli (crying): I wiped my raindrops on you!

~

Mom: Good job, kid!

Gracen: I not kid, I Gracie!

~

Eli's prayer:  ...Thank you that we could go inside the temple. (It was the KC temple open house.)  And thank you that we could have Easter and go on Easter hunts.  Thank you for the whole neighborhood and all of our neighbors...

~

Gracen, coming downstairs after a bath: Look at my hair!  Alden brushed it and now I can dance.

~

Alden's prayer: ...Thank you for second chances...

~

Gracen (The ice cream truck had just driven by playing "It's a Small World"): Hey, that's my song!

~

Mom: What should we eat when we're camping this weekend?  How about cold cereal for breakfast?

Alden: Sure. And then can we go hunting and eat a deer for lunch?

~

Gracen (watching Transformers): Oh my!  Look at that!

~

Mom (at a neighborhood BBQ potluck): What do you want for dinner, Grace?

Gracen: A big stack of cookies, like this (gesturing).  

~

Eli: Mom, when you hug me it makes me think of Jesus.

~

Dad: Eli, can you swim across the river?

Eli: Yeah.

Dad: Grace, can you swim across the river?

Gracen: Yeah, but I can sink too.

~

Gracen: Mommy? I want to run faster than Alden and Eli.

~

Eli's prayer (as we started to drive back from Idaho): ...bless us to drive safe, bless us to not crash, bless us to not fly out the window...amen.

Gracen: Fly out the window?!

~

 

Idaho Trip - July 4th

We came back from camping on July 4th.  On the way home, we stopped to enjoy the Rexburg parade.  We got all kinds of fun stuff thrown to us: candy (of course), kid books, subs from Jimmy Johns, popsicles, etc.  We had a good time.

Later in the day the family gathered for a BBQ at Jaron's parents' place.

 How cute are Abe's kids, Piper and Paislee?  They just had their fourth (a boy!) so we unfortunately didn't get to see much of Kayla, Phoeboe and baby Parker.  The great news is that Abe got accepted into a Master's program at KU and they will be moving to Kansas City next month!  WOOHOO!

 At one point, I noticed that a bunch of two-year-olds were missing.  I found them in the field looking all innocent-like. (I promise, I DO brush Gracen's hair!!)

 Let me tell ya, two-year-old girls can be pretty dramatic.  These guys were fighting/being offended by each other over the flowers.  It was pretty funny to watch.  Just think how much fun they're going to have together over the years!

 It's fun that the kids are getting old enough to play games together like "What Time is it Mr. Wolf?"

The evening granted us this beautiful sunset.

 And we got down to fireworks.  IF puts on an amazing fireworks show but it goes super late at night and our own little show was a little more young kid friendly.

We also got to visit Jaron's cousins, Jaman and Brigetta.  We love them to death but I never seem to snap any pictures at their house!  Brigetta and I upheld the tradition of the wives beating the husband at Rook. ;)  It was good to see a lot of Jaron's other cousins as well during our trip.  Yay for belonging to a big family! (I have six cousins - on my mom and dad's sides combined!)

Until next year!!

Idaho Trip - Camping

My favorite part of the trip was going camping.  We only ever camp one night because I'm exhausted after one night's rough sleep.  

We shared a huge tent with Ben and Melissa and their kids.  I was nervous that their 1-year-old would keep us up all night - HA.  Their kids slept like rocks.  MINE were up all. night. long.  

Case in point: late in the night Alden woke up crying.  I could tell he wasn't quite awake and he wouldn't say what was wrong.  He soon passed a fair amount of loud gas, rolled over, and went back to sleep. :)  Then, in the wee hours of the morning, Eli had to go potty.  We climbed out of the tent and he wouldn't step on the ground 'cause it was cold.  So I carried him, had him stand on my feet while he did his business, and then carried him back to the tent.  Once inside the tent, Eli refused to get into his then cold sleeping bag.  He and I ended up sharing my mummy bag for the rest of the night. Let me tell ya, a mummy bag is made for ONE. :(  Add in Gracen's frequent wakings because she'd crawled out of her sleeping bag and the inconsiderate people four-wheeling around the campground from 2-3 am and it was a l-o-n-g night.  

Some people say it isn't worth the work just to camp for one night but that, my friends, is why I camp one night at a time!

CR's a great Grandpa.  He was a good sport while Katelyn made him a "headband" out of grass.

 Jaron's brother, Michael, is serving a mission for our church in Iowa right now.  His brave little girlfriend, Ashley, came camping with us.  She was awesome - cute and smart and kind.  She always knew where all my kids and my stuff were and she helped with absolutely everything.  We sure missed Ashley when she left us!

 We (meaning I) forgot to bring up the camping chairs so we did the only classy thing: sat our kids in their carseats around the campfire. :)

 S'mores!

 Alden's willing to share.

Idaho Trip - Fun With Cousins

Jaron had two weeks off at the beginning of July - the first time off he's had since we started rotations last year.  We decided to use the time to make a speedy trip to Idaho.  We drove for four days and were in Idaho for seven.  It was a lot of driving (20 hrs each way) for such a short trip but it was worth it. 

I tried to snap a picture of beautiful Jackson Hole, WY.  Next time I WILL stop and take a picture...when we're going down the pass on the way home 'cause our little Ford would never recover if we stopped on the way up. :)

 

We stopped at a gas station/playground at one point that had a Baskin Robbins.  I told the kids that if they wanted to they could spend the dollar Grandpa Allred had just sent them on ice cream.  Eli and Gracen jumped at the chance.  Alden surprised and impressed me by saying that he would rather save the dollar toward opening a bank account.  I told him a few weeks ago that if he saved $25 then he could open a bank account.  He has money from doing $0.25 jobs around the house and from Papa Henry, our elderly neighbor who walks around giving the kids dollar bills.  Alden said he would rather save the money than have ice cream.  Wow!

The kids enjoyed the hotel, even if it was of questionable quality.  Note to all travelers: do not stay in Laramie, WY!  I didn't see any hotels I would have been completely comfortable in!

 There were two best parts to the trip: Jaron got to spend a lot of time fishing with his Dad and brothers (sorry, no pictures of that) and the kids got to spend time with their cousins.  Jaron has several siblings close in age to him and all but the two youngest brothers have several kids.  Alden is the oldest grandchild and there are fourteen cousins (with two on the way)!  It makes for some memorable family get-togethers.  I've had to explain to Alden and Eli several times in the last couple of weeks why they can't marry their cousins when they get older. :)

 

We got to go to the IF zoo.  It's a perfect zoo for us - small with close together animals.

 Gracen loved all the girl toys (there's mostly girl cousins).  The boys kept asking "Where are all the boy toys?"  Fortunately, Grandma has a few awesome boy toys she saved from her 6 boys. (See the Micro Machines van in the background?)

 We had fun at the Rexburg splash park!

 And on Rexburg's super old carousel.

 And this was so sweet; I'm glad I caught it in a photo.  Gracen is waving good-bye to the "horsies." :)

Random Photos

Here are some random photos of what we've been up to lately:

One day I was browsing in a store I'd never been in before and I turned around and saw this:

 It made me laugh.  At least they were occupying themselves without getting into trouble!

We got a new jogging stroller.  I haven't decided which is more fun: the stroller or the box it came in.

 My Dad sent the boys some rubber band shooters.  They are in heaven!  They love them.  And I have rubber bands ALL over my house now.

 Alden's been on a love-note making kick lately.  They're all addressed to me. :)

 We played Jenga one night for family home evening activity.  I was impressed at how tall of a tower we can build!  I may have helped Gracen find the "loose" ones.

And that's what's been going on at our house!