June 2014

I'm pretty sure I blinked away the whole school year away. It flew! Now here we are in June and the kids are happy to be home from school for the summer.

Life has been crazy for us—just how we like it.

We had several birthdays over the last couple months. Heidi's birthday was March 1st, Ashley and I had birthdays on April 29th, and then Jakob, Ethan, and Steve celebrated theirs in May. It's quite a run of birthdays, but I like having them all clumped up together.

I have a bunch of pictures and hopefully I get them all where they belong... Here is Easter in Idaho first.

Heidi got the golden egg. The big prize from Grandma. She wasn't sure if she was in trouble or if it was a good thing when everyone started laughing and yelling when she got it. She got a gold dollar coin!

Grandpa took the kids on a ride in the tractor. He was happy to show them that the tractor can steer on its own. He was super awesome and patient, letting each grandchild take a turn.

What's cooler than seeing the location where the final battle will happen in the books you've been writing for years? Having your brother and sister discuss where dragons can land or leprechauns can hide. Seriously. This is Phantom Falls. It's a about a two mile hike and it is totally worth every blister.

Total Lunar Eclipse! I got to watch the whole thing from the comfort of my living room. It was awesome!

Easter morning. Not sure why I don't have everyone included... I'll have to change that! The Easter bunny was super sneaky and hid everything in our rather packed unfinished basement. Some of the baskets were easy to find....

And some were not....

Easter is the anniversary of when we met our good friends, the Ellises. So of course we had to spend time with them. We had yummy food and then a big egg hunt at the park. It was tons of fun hiding all the eggs. And guess who found the golden egg again. Yep, Heidi!

The end of April marked the time for LDStorymakers. The Ellises watched our kids so I could drag Steve along with me this year. It was amazing. I got great feedback on my book about Neverland, Steve pitched his book to Tor, and we got to meet tons of awesome people. Oh, and I got to sell my books. Okay, so none sold, but at least I got to try!

Shortly after Storymakers was done, Ashley and I celebrated our birthdays. I got a few books from Storymakers and Ashley got a few things she'd asked for. Gaye came over and celebrated

I also released a book The Princess and the Prom Queen that day. Awesome, right? Cool birthday present. After we got done with the online launch, Gaye and I went to Wendy's to celebrate my birthday. It was a great day.


Andy had his wax museum day and he was Thomas Payne. He did a great job and had all his facts down perfectly. He told me he added more facts as the day went on.

Jakob had his end of year orchestra concert. He loved the class and was sad to have it end. I'm happy that he will be playing again next year!

For Jakob's birthday we had strawberry milkshakes since he could haven't cake. We were all totally okay with that!

Ethan was SO excited for his birthday. I was really hoping he would be feeling better by then and thankfully he was! Instead of wrapping the gifts this time, we wrapped him. Actually, the kids did, but it was brilliant.

This is what the kids do during every baseball game at Midvalley. There's pit of dirt and my kids come away filthy. But they couldn't be happier.

Yes, that's a handprint of dirt on Ethan's head.

 Since we were going to be in Idaho a couple days later, we went with cupcakes for Ethan's birthday. He was so excited!

We went to Idaho for Memorial Day and had a great time. The kids played with their cousins and enjoyed every second of being outside. It was warm while we were there and I was happy they had a place to play. Our yard is still dirt and weeds. Mom and I took Ashley, Jakob and Brittany to the store to pick out birthday presents from their grandma and I got gifts for Steve.

On Sunday we enjoyed church and yummy food.  Everyone opened their gifts for birthdays before having a piece of the gigantic cake I made. Steve is still waiting for his Black Forest Cake he has every year.

Taking a break during our visits to the cemeteries. We visit four every year!

School kept the kids busy with all their fun end of school festivities and I was quite relieved when they came home from the last day of school. Ethan didn't sing much at his kindergarten graduation but he was super excited to see himself in the slideshow afterward.

We have new baby kittens! We picked them up from the Ellises when we got back from Idaho. The kids adore them. We have them in our house almost as much as they're in the garage. That doesn't help when we're trying to get them used to being outside. No one is complaining though!

This right here is how I know Andy is my little boy...

So remember how I dyed my hair green in March? Next came this color. Awesome right? I also chopped my hair off for summer and man it feels good!

We started baseball in May and we've been running from one game to the next. With six kids in baseball, we knew we'd be busy, but we didn't know we'd have to figure out how to clone ourselves to get to all the games. Thankfully the kids are super awesome and don't mind if we miss a game. They know we'll get to a game as soon as we can.

Here, let me show you May 31st:

Yes, as a matter of fact that IS five games at once. Five. The good thing was that it was all done at once. The bad thing was, we only made it to Ethan's game. I had Jakob watch Heidi's game (Thankfully he doesn't play on Saturdays), and we watched as much of Gavin's game as we could before running over to Ethan's.

Oh, did I mention we're coaching Ethan's games? That was an adventure. But I love the kids. They're so much fun and they're improving a lot in every game.

I knew Jakob was going to be doing basketball camp, and I had a break when I was taking boxes to a friend, so I decided I was going to pick up the basketball standard from my sister's house. We weren't sure if it would fit in my van, but guess what—it does! 

This year for Pony Express Days I decided to make the most of the celebration. They canceled several things this year (and scheduled the rodeo for September), but I wanted to get the kids out of the house and have fun. We went to family fun night, did the scavenger hunt, went to the dollar days carnival, and then to the parade. It was a lot of fun and I was happy to spend it all with my family.

After we were done with the carnival, we drove out to Topaz mountain to find topaz. It was supposed to be a 45 minute trip and it took over three hours. Once I was able to get just a little signal on my phone, I got a map and we drove straight to it. We found some fun rocks and then took another two hours to get home. It was a long drive, but it was totally worth it.

Jakob had basketball camp all last week. We drove into Provo every day, but it was worth it. Jakob learned a few life lessons along with how to work hard. He scored twelve points in one of the games, seven three-pointers in the three-pointer contest, jammed his finger, got a bloody nose, made good friends (from Twin Falls!), and his team won the championship for his age group.

Harvey Unga! Jakob got his autograph afterward. Super nice guy.

Tyler Haws! Jakob is the short one getting his ball signed.

Dave Rose. We got this one for his Grandpa Hardy.

So, remember the red hair? Well, I promised my mom and dad I would have it back to a normal color for our Sun Valley trip next month. So first I stripped all the color out of my hair.

Steve liked it enough, he had me wear it that way to St. George. It was a little more shocking in real life and Jakob was not a fan at all. 

We had a wonderful time in St. George. The kids helped pick up leaves and other jobs for their Grandma and Grandpa Weist and they were thrilled with the $3.00 they each got when they were done. I did things for them inside and Steve did other yard work.

Because it we stayed home from church the next day with Steve's parents, his dad gave us a wonderful lesson. I knew the kids hung on every word by the answers they were able to give him when it was done. We sang a primary song or two and then watched Ephraim's Rescue. It was amazing.

That night when we got home, I went with auburn brown. I was hoping it would emphasize the brown with just a hint of brown. What I got instead was a hint of brown with a ton of red. Uh... I'm hoping to get one more attempt at brown before we leave next week.

Ethan's second tooth proved to be a little more difficult for him to take out. He had another one coming in underneath and we told him last night that it HAD to come out. So he pushed and pulled and yanked and cried. I finally held on to the tooth and he pulled on my hand to get it out. Success! The tooth fairy came and Ethan is dying to spend his money.

So that's our last couple months. Here are just a few more tidbits of information about the kids.

Ashley's soccer season ended and shortly after, we got her ankle checked out to see if it needed to have surgery done on it. Thankfully it was a simple matter of physical therapy. She tried out and made the Arsenal soccer team but decided she wanted to spend more time with the family and backed out. She'll play city soccer instead. 

Jakob is going to play competitive soccer starting this year and he's excited. He'll be playing for his old baseball coach and he's happy to know he'll have a good position on the team.

Ethan lost two teeth in that last month and it was a fight to get them out. He wanted to do it on his own and he did a great job but needed just a little more help to get it out.

Gavin has decided that the only sports he wants to play are basketball and running. I'll claim him with the basketball thing. Not sure about the running part...

Andy has been living and breathing baseball and scouts. We're doing everything we can to have him ready for his Webelo before his birthday next month. He's done a great job and only has a couple requirements left. His team is doing very well and was undefeated until the 0-1 loss last Saturday. That point was in the last inning of the game. Crazy!

And Heidi is Heidi. Her baseball coach told me that he will be happy if his baby daughter has even half the spunk Heidi does. She loves her baseball team and she is devastated when she sleeps through practice or a game. She takes a running start before she throws the ball anywhere.