July 4th Craziness!

We spent this last 4th of July in Sandy at Grandma Elaine's with all of Michael's family and cousins.  Michael and his bro took on the task of trimming the trees.  There were loads of dead branches to be had.  Michael made a harness for trimming this tree in particular so that he wouldn't die.  I was so glad he thought of it. :)  He learned all about trimming trees when he worked on the grounds crew at the Denver Temple and he enjoyed putting his knowhow to work.  He was our resident monkey.  I just love how this tree is covered in moss.

Abby had avocado for the first time and loved it as you can see!   She has always loved to feed herself.  It's messy, but I get to eat at the same time, so its worth it.

So about a month before our trip I chatted with my friend Alicia Wall who has been gone from Laramie for two years, and it turned out she was coming down to Salt Lake area at the same time as us!  We were so excited to get our kids together.  Ellie and Bryant are only two months apart and they loved eachother... until they moved.  That was a sad day.  So it was fun that they were able to stop by one afternoon and hangout.  Bryant is such a sweet boy.  If we lived close, I'm sure they'd be good buddies.  Thanks for coming over Scott and Alicia!  So good to see you!

July 4th is also cousin Coulsen's birthday, so of course there was a party.  Ellie refused to go down the slide.  I'm guessing she didn't like the water that sprinkled from above.  She really doesn't like water on her head.  So instead of playing in the water, she "flew" between Uncle Chris and Uncle Matt.  As you can tell, she loved it!

Michael's sister Amber made this adorable cake for Coulsen!  And it tasted really good too.  The rocks on the left are made of chocolate and tasted amazing.

Birthday Boy Coulsen.

Coulsen thought the cake needed a prayer before we ate it.  So cute.

As you can tell, the kids couldn't wait to eat it!  They thought it was sooo cool.  And it is.

Michael and Matt did their usual firework hacking of tanks, adding on all sorts of things for their "TANK WARS".  Michael reverts to a little boy around fireworks and I love it.  It's so fun.

Amazing, I made it into a picture!

Ellie squirting Grandpa Kerry in the face.  Way too close...

The launching begins!

Sister in law Amber with her new camera!  Yea!

(not to be confused with Michael's sister Amber, I know, it can get confusing sometimes.)

These boys were so cute all lined up watching the fireworks.  Love Tyler's expression!

BOOM!

Here I am about to launch my favorite firework.  36 Parachutes!  

And here we are all running around trying to catch the parachutes.  It's pretty much my favorite activity of the night, and maybe because I feel so much like a kid!

Can you tell they are related?

(Stephanie, Kathy, Amber)

Matt and his awesome California candle.

We bought a lot of mortors this year.  This is my favorite kind of firework right here.  It was so fun to lie on the grass with Ellie and watch the big fireworks above.  Ellie was up till 11:30 that night.  It was aweful for her, but she had fun as a zombie.

The next day was Callen's birthday so we celebrated some more!  I got this idea from Ellie's birthday party where we had a waterballoon pinata.  If I had a tree this would have happened for her.  I didn't know we were going to have so many parties and I thought it would be fun for the kids to do, so Stephanie was gracious and let me do it for Callen's birthday.  And I don't think we could have bestowed  it on a more excited participant!  He loved it! 

We put some little toys in the balloons too.  You can see some in some of the balloons.

A bat with rough sandpaper rubberbanded on worked fantastic!  Highly recommend this technique over forks, toothpicks, etc.

As you can see, it was amazing how tough some of these balloons were.  This one took on about 8 hits before it popped.  Surprisingly tough!

Callen blew and blew and blew.... caught you Steph!

Eating some fantastic Tillamook strawberry icecream.  Summer bliss!

When we got home we remembered that "Oh ya, we had a leak from above into our apartment that made us move everything away from this area of the house and essentially make it a disaster area the day before we left!"  Story of our lives.  Leaks, leaks, leaks, and mostly from above!  Not fun.  But Ellie found fun.  She found my formal dress and put it on.  She loved it!  So funny.

That's all folks!  I think I'm finally all caught up!

Passing of Time

Time surely has gotten faster with two kiddos!  This is me dumping all the photos I love from January till now.  So almost a years worth.  Enjoy!

Ellie built this amazing trapez out of odds and ends.  Love the creativity.  It kept her busy for at least 30 minutes.  Amazing.

Miss Abby Cutie Pie Dumpling.  Enjoying the nice end of summer weather.

Daddy helping her walk.  So cute.

"Ha ha!  I'm goint to eat this piece of grass while you take a picture!  Ha ha!"

Ellie sometimes goes in before me when Abby wakes from her nap.  I had spent a couple minutes finishing some dishes and when a came in, this is what Ellie had done.  She has a fasination with putting stuff, herself included, into the crib.

Second day of Preschool!  The first day was at our house so I didn't get a pic.

Counting how many apples tall she was.  I think she was 7.  So fun.

Neighbor Aiva and Ellie marching around like ANTS!

Playing in some new tunnels I got for a deal.  Makes it fun to "disappear"!

We went on a little hike at Blair Wallace to a cool teepee fort thing.  It was cool.  And beautiful.  Fall had just started in the mountains so it was beautiful.  We had a little fire at the end and roasted a couple mallows before going home.  I love me a roasted mallow :)  Maybe a little too much :)  I've been known to roast them at home over the stove, or under the broiler :)

I gave Ellie a most needed haircut.  Her hair is pretty thin so she gets bed head easily and really doesn't like me brushing her hair...So I tried out an A-line and it really worked great!  It took me a whopping hour to cut it tho.  First time makes things take longer.  She watched Mary Poppins and cooperated enough.  I love it.  It even air dries better looking than just her bob hair cut did.  Below is a picture just before I cut it so you can see what an improvement it was.  It's really fun to style too.

Happy in the crib post nap again.

Ellie's little kitchen we bought secondhand for her birthday came with a big bag full of fake food, aprons, and this awesome pioneer dress!  What a bonus.  She loves to put it on backward and zip it up.  So cute.

Sporting their University of Wyoming shirts!

Doing cool jumping tricks with curlers in her hair.

For so long Ellie was obsessed with putting this teething ring on Abby's head like a "princess".  

Abby just loved her jumparoo till she could crawl.  What a cutie.

This could be a puzzle.  Can you find Abby?

Ellie reading a book to all her babies.  It was so cute to come upon.

So we've been climbing a lot.  Michael especially.  He thought it would be great to teach Ellie.  On our piano.  Goodness.

It's much harder to keep tabs on Ellie now with Abby around and needing me.  I'm always coming upon her doing something interesting.  In this instance, she is chowing down on a whole stick of butter.  Yum.

Ellie is so young here.  I think it was from February.  What an elf!

Abby when she was much younger.  What a babe.

Ellie doing Ab Ripper X with Dad.

This was soooo funny.  First Michael got in the sleeping bag and pretended to be a big blob monster.  And then Ellie joined in.  It was such a fun time.

Ellie burping one of her babies.

This picture is so funny!  We have late church so Ellie had missed her nap.  She was pretty grumpy and we wanted to get a picture of the girls in their cute outfits.  For some reason, Ellie plopped her hand on Abby's head.  As we told her to move it down, she put her other hand on Dad's head.  So funny.  We didn't get a normal picture, but this one sure is funny.

  

Pigtails and her fun candy cane dress.  Love this dress so much.  Glad I have another girl :)

Random young baby giggly grins.

Oh, how we all love Abby!  What a fun personality she is getting.

These babies are taking their nap.

Can you see the person in her painting?  So fun.

One day early August we had an epic storm.  It gushed for a whole hour.  There was also some hail.  We just sat and watched it with our neighbors.  It was amazing!

These girls love to take baths together.  It is always such a fun time full of splashing and toy stealing.

Ellie just splashed Abby really good.  Such good sports.

Dressup with old toe socks.

Hmmm.  Looks like sister caught a sister.

Ready for a walk.

Dinosaurs rule around here lately.  For Halloween they will both be Hyper Carnivors.  Such a funny pic.

Our neighbor Zoey moved :(  Sad.  This is the gals jumping around while folks were loading their stuff.

Conference weekend.

We took some pics of Abby in the leaves.  She really wanted my camera, so I gave her my lid :)

THE END.