There goes another one....

Andy started school today. As he is my second, I thought it might be easier. In fact, it was harder!!! Jakob has always been my little buddy. But I knew how excited he was for school and I knew he was ready to go so I was excited for him. Andy's always been my little Andy. Sensitive, inquisitive, silly and my little boy. He's ready for school to be like his brother but I'm not ready for him to go to school. :) But they all grow up so there's only one thing to do, and that's let him be a big boy! So, instead of bawling (like I wanted to), I took a few pictures.

Ashley, Gavin, Ethan and I laid down for naps (although I read while they slept...) and when they woke up it was time to get Andy again! They were so excited to go back and pick him up. Andy was walking out of the classroom as I pulled up. He saw me and showed Miss Lindberg where I was and he ran all the way around to hop in the car. And of course I got pictures of that too. :)

Yep, he's a big boy alright. He was excited for the friends he made, the fruit loops he ate the future homework that's coming!

Summer's done?!

Summer was crazy but we had a lot of fun with everything we were able to do.

We went to Thanksgiving Point many times for their family night activities. We got to have jell-o fights, paint with bubbles, run from dementors, see dinosaurs, go on a pony ride and many other things! The kids had a blast and we had a blast right along with them!! They had pudding eating contests, and we got to enjoy the beauty of the Gardens.









Steve, Ashley, Ethan and I went to the Stadium of Fire as stated in one of the other posts (I think). We had a lot of fun. Ashley got to see Miley Cyrus and she was so excited!! She enjoyed the fireworks and the music and didn't complain once!!! Ethan slept through most of the show and only woke up to eat once. He even slept through the fireworks. It was so great to see all the celebrations for our country's independence. And to see the soldiers and the families of the soldiers that were there watching along with us. I felt great pride in our country!

We also go to celebrate a few birthdays and Ethan's baby blessing! Along with the two reunions I talked about, we also enjoyed having Steve's brother and family stay with us for a few days. We hadn't seen them for a few years so it was great to see them again. Ashley was in heaven playing with her cousin because she finally got to play with a girl (just a small tidbit... we have lots of girl cousins her age on my side too but it wasn't until recently
that she actually WANTED to do girl stuff...)! We took the girls shopping while Steve and his brother worked on our never-ending project of finishing the downstairs bathroom.
The last day they were here, we got to go hunting for geodes 2 hours west of us. It was quite a drive on dirt roads but well worth it as the kids and adults ran around looking for rocks that could possibly be geodes.
You'd think with having 16 of us in our home(9 of them, 7 of us), it would feel full but we all enjoyed every minutes of it and it didn't seem crowded at all!! We can't wait to see them again at Christmas!!





So I guess I'm okay with summer being done. Onto the next big adventure of two kids in school... I'm not sure I'm ready for my little Andy to go to school but ready or not, there he goes!

Weist Family Reunion

We have had a busy few weeks with family and I've loved it all. The weekend after we were in Idaho, we went to St. George to visit with Steve's family. We were able to leave earlier on Friday because the night before I unknowingly stepped on and crunched Steve's glasses.... luckily he had another pair but we had to take his others in to get fixed. :) OOPS!!!

Anyway, we enjoyed St. George's new In N' Out Burger and played at Grandpa and Grandma Weist's house. We stayed overnight there and then went clothes shopping the next day. Gotta love school shopping time! We had gone through all the kids clothes to get what we needed.

My favorite purchase though was the 8 ft long, 2 feet deep pool I managed to get for $7!!! It was the display so they gave it to us for really cheap. We were so excited because up here you can't even FIND pools anymore except for the really expensive kind.


We then took our little ones to Steve's sister's house. Her kids watched ours while we went out to lunch with my brother- and sister-in-law. YUM. We went back and enjoyed some time at their house and Steve took a nice nap with Ashley next to him.


We went back to Grandpa and Grandma's house and had a yummy German dinner of potatoes, brats, sauerkraut, and these little dough ball things that were really yummy. When it got late, we headed over to our hotel. It was pretty nice, although it had to be at LEAST 90 degrees in the room when we got there!!! It wasn't until about 2 in the morning before I finally felt cool enough sleep okay.

Sunday was a busy day but it was a lot of fun! We went to the St. George Temple with the whole Weist family and got our pictures taken. Unfortunately, it was at least 100 degrees sitting there on the white steps of the temple with the sun shining right on us!!! The picture tells the whole story. :)

After the picture we went and played with the cousins at G'ma and G'pa Weists for a while and then went back to the hotel to get ready for church. Church was very special because we got to be there for our nephew's baby blessing. It was extra special because this is a senior ward so they have NO kids in the ward. The ward members LOVED it! So all 27 of us squished in and about 8 of the kids bore their testimony. Plus we got to hear my mother-in-law and sister-in-law too!!

Right after church we went to the clubhouse of the community Steve's parents live in and had a very nice dinner. Steve's dad told the story of his conversion and I can't wait to get the video from that because it was very special! We had a talent show afterwards where the grandchildren got to show off their skills. Here are a few pictures. Video would be more fun but as I don't have it on videos, pictures will have to do. :)
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It was a very nice day and we greatly enjoyed each other's company! The rest of the weekend flew by in a blur. We went swimming while others went hiking. The final thing we did together as a family was dinner at a Mandarin Buffet. The food was great and the company was a lot of fun. I'd put pictures on here but I think I used up all my picture space. :)

Pioneer Days Part 3

Apparently I get to do this in parts because I did too many pictures in the last one. :) I wanted to add my mom's picture in there. She's been doing the Goose Creek Run-Off since it began 22 years ago!!! That's a lot of 6 miles runs... But then she's also done 10 or more marathons on top of that!!!

What an amazing woman!!

After the races were done, we went to have breakfast at the park. We had the privilege of meeting LaVell Edwards who was in town for a fireside that day. It was very cool to meet him!
You can see Steve but I was back behind my mom. But I really was right there. :) The rest of the day we were busy with kids activities, a family reunion for the Poultons, swimming, a parade, barbecue and fireworks. I love being able to go for the 24th of July!!

We went to the Single's Ward with my parents(My dad is the Ward Clerk) on Sunday before going home for a yummy dinner. I was sad to see the weekend go so fast but it was a lot of fun!

Pioneer Days Part 2

Its been a while but its been a very busy couple of weeks! So here we go with Saturday of Oakley's Pioneer Days.

Early Saturday morning, they have the Goose Creek Run-Off which is a 10K run. They also have a 1 mile run for age 12 and under. Each year my little ones turn 3, we start them running. Here are some photos of my little ones and our nieces and nephews coming into the finish line.

Jakob was the first of all the cousins to come in! He came in 5th in his age group.




Andy did really well and was much faster than I expected. He placed 5th in his age group also. He started and stopped when he needed to and ran really well on his own.




Ashley was really excited to run at Grandma's house but decided 300 yards into that her tummy hurt(she does that when she's hungry) and Steve brought her back to me. My brother told me "Ashley's coming up fast" which I didn't believe until I turned around and saw her coming from the wrong way! When Grandma Hardy came running up with a couple of her cousins, I had Ashley run out and finish the last of the race.

Here are the other nieces and nephews that came in. They all had fun. One had a fall during the race but still finished!


There are a couple missing but my camera wasn't fast enough to keep up!!!

Oakley Pioneer Days

Well, sort of. I missed a lot of photo ops because I was having too much fun and forgot to take pictures. We got to leave on Wednesday because Steve took some time off. We got to Oakley late after about 4 potty breaks, feeding Ethan twice and grabbing some dinner... all for only a 3 hour long drive! But we were all happy to be going!

Thursday (the 24th) we played outside and enjoyed actually HAVING a yard to play in. After naptime we went up to the Oakley Swimming Pool and enjoyed swimming without worrying about germs!! Grandma Hardy(my mom) taught Jakob and Andy how to do the front crawl and Jakob learned to take breaths so he did awesome! Ashley wanted nothing to do with anyone but enjoyed playing by herself and diving for the toys we brought with us. Gavin went up and down the steps and said "no no no" when we tried to get him to do anything else! Ethan was a good boy and slept the whole time.

Friday morning was very exciting. We got up, got ready and everyone(all 5 of us kids and spouses plus 20 grandkids and of course my parents) piled into cars and headed off to Twin Falls Idaho. We had the opportunity to go through the Twin Falls Temple during its Open House. It was a wonderful experience going through with the whole family and getting to see each room! The kids did very well and enjoyed going through. Afterwards we went to the Stake Center and had a cookie and then went and got family pictures - all 34 of us!!! If you count, there are 32 but we have a little angel watching over us and one little one coming in October(My sister-in-law is expecting - not me!). Here is the picture of our family.


After the temple, we all went to Chili's and ate some good food! It took about 6 tables and 2 booths to fit us all in but it was a lot of fun and the waitress and waiters were great! We all went our separate ways and headed back to Oakley. Steve and I took our kids swimming again where they had a ball and learned some more swimming strokes. We played until Ethan decided it was time to leave!!

That night was Jonathan Nelson's (my nephew) 5th birthday party. He had a Batman party and all the kids dressed up in their superhero clothes. We had a pinata (which Kristen turned from Buzz Lightyear to a Batman - I'm highly impressed!!!!), pizza, cake and lots of presents. And some fireworks called "Party Hardy" that a friend of the family brought to us because they thought it was funny(as we're the Hardys...). It was a very fun night and we were all tired and ready for bed so we could start all over with a busy day the next day! Jonathan is the in the red shirt and cape. :)

Happy Birthday to my family!

Now that all the birthdays are done in my little family, I can breathe a little easier. I love having so many birthdays and we had fun parties for each one of them. But now its time for a break! So while I wait for next year's birthdays to get here (all too soon), here is a short summary of each birthday.


I'll start with Ashley's(and mine) as we were first in the lineup.
Ashley turned 3 and I turned 30 on April 29th.
While I was a little depressed about the whole thing I decided it was easy enough to put a 3 on Ashley's pony cake and a big Zero on my German Chocolate cake...We had family over for some good food (fish tacos made by Steve), cake and lots of fun! Ashley decided she absolutely LOVES ponies so that's what she got lots of. And me? I got 10th row tickets to Matchbox Twenty and a nice t-shirt to go with it. :)



Next came Jakob's on May 19th. He turned 7 and actually got to celebrate his birthday on three different days! On Friday the 16th we had a family party(my mom was in town) and had cake and pizza. He got a basketball standard to put up in our backyard - that he gets to share with everyone! I even bought myself a basketball to go along with it. :) It took a while for Steve set up but it was worth it because I'm very happy to finally have one!

On Monday(his actual birthday) we took ice cream sandwiches to school for him. The kids loved it! He had had a doctor's appointment morning so he was late for school and enjoyed the last couple of hours learning how to make origami!



The third party was on the last day of school. He'd wanted a friend birthday party and because I had Ethan only 3 days later, he had to wait a little longer. But finally the day arrived and he had cupcakes, corn dogs and video games. What more could any 7 year old boy want?!



Ethan was born on May 22nd, two weeks early and right in the middle of Jakob and Steve's birthdays! I was very happy to have him and it was sweet that as he was born, our doctor told him Happy Birthday! The whole experience was a great one and we're all very grateful for our little boy!



The kids love their little brother... sometimes a little too much. Their daddy took them to the museum and Thanksgiving Point gardens while Jakob was in school and I enjoyed my stay in the hospital I was happy to go home!





Steve turned 33 this year on May 25th. He insists age doesn't bother him. I guess it'll bother me enough for both of us... I wasn't up to making a nice dinner for him (having been home from the hospital for 3 days...) but he enjoyed making dinner for himself. I did make him a cake though. He wanted power tools so we got him two kinds of drills(one cordless, one with a cord) and the Indiana Jones trilogy. He was very excited! And he wants to me add that he did NOT use his new tools to drill holes in his Indiana Jones Trilogy. :)



Next comes Gavin turning 2 on July 5th. What a crazy weekend that was! That day I pretended like I felt great (mastitis is FUN) and went about making preparations for Gavin's birthday. We went to my sister Charlotte's house for a big party. It was all my family (except my brother who was watching over the farm in Idaho) and Steve's sister's family. We had hamburgers, took a CPR test(long story) and then did the cake, ice
cream and presents. Gavin loved it! Afterwards we did fireworks and went home. It was quite the birthday for little Gavin!!!


And last but not least is Andy. He turned 5 on July 18th. And believe me, he's been waiting for this day for 2 years!!! Ever since Jakob turned 5 and was old enough for kindergarten. Finally it came and we had a huge celebration for him! The Ellises let us use their yard and we had pools and slip n slides and water balloons(which I couldn't fill up fast enough!). He had a great time and was excited with all the transformers and everything else he got! I can't believe my children are gettin gso big so fast!!! I also can't believe I didn't get pictures from the party... But here are pictures of him with his cake.