July

We had a lot of fun this month. I am sad to see it ending since school is coming soon. This photo is from the zoo, an excursion that the boys enjoy and I'm just along for the ride. Grandma Leslie came with so it was even better.

The boys are on the train here, but it 's such a short ride that Bennett cried when he had to get off. I wouldn't have minded staying on for another trip or two myself.

 The 4th of July was great, although I didn't get many pictures. We saw the local fireworks besides lighting some of our own.

Our lambs are growing, getting taller and fatter for sure. We are trying to manage the pasture by dividing it into two sections; one grows while they eat the other half down. It's worked so far.

These two love to drive the Gator at Grandma's house. They are both good at it, Bennett only occasionally runs into trees or other fixed structures : )

Family reunion! Thanks to a couple of Jared's sisters in particular, the whole bunch of his siblings and their spouses and kids got together for a couple days. This inflatable rental was a surprise from Gma and Gpa in the Philippines. It was really fun, it kept nearly all the kids occupied all afternoon. Here are the supervising adults. Jared sported swimming trunks and went down the slide. It caused a tidal wave in the pool at the end.

Thanks (I think?) to Jen for supplying the water guns. I did not exactly appreciate my own 6 year old soaking my back pocket but hey, I am an easy target.

Part of the inflatable was an obstacle course. The thing really is pretty safe, except for some scratches, no one was seriously hurt (not even the lawn) so I'd definitely be up for doing it again.

This turned out to be one of my favorite things, having all the kids coloring on this giant roll of paper, thanks to Machelle. This work of art may make a trip across the sea : ) Jen and I decided we need to spend more time together doodling. 

Jared was able to make our own corn hole game. It didn't take ridiculous amounts of time to do and turned out really well, maybe not quite as perfect as Grandpa D's but close. 

Paxton loves his goggles. I had to pry them out of his hands to show him it is possible to swim without them.

Bennett is not always a huge fan of the pool yet but he did start to get more brave and really didn't want to leave by the end. His favorite part was swimming with Carter.

Machelle brought this fun idea to make boats for a racing tournament.

Here we all are doing what we do best at these gatherings...feeding our faces some tasty dutch oven cobbler from made by Shane and Dennette.

June

As part of our town's celebration we attended a parade and were blessed to have Jaylene and Ellie with us. Ellie is a happy and beautiful baby. She laughed at our dog Chula a lot, and didn't seem intimidated at all. We even got Jared to come with us (those knees in the corner are his). The candy throwers must have been stingy earlier in the parade because when they got to us they had A LOT left to give out. We ended up with a big bag to take camping.

You can see Jaylene's latest haircut, very cute. She's had it for a little while if you haven't been following her on face place or whatever you call it : ) My hair needs help; I got a trim recently to fend off the permanent ponytail. At my appointment my hairstylist also curled it with a flat iron (this is probably an ancient idea to some of you) & showed me how. I'm considering getting a soft perm.  Jared has been asking me to get a perm from the beginning of our marriage but now that Jaylene showed me a picture of a friend of hers, it I will consider doing it.

Welcome to our ool! notice there is no P in it? Keep it that way.

Gma Leslie made this great teepee for our boys. Growing up we had one at my house and loved it so grandma "needed to make one for the boys to play with at home". Yes, I'm quoting her. She's got mad sewing skills. That's Ellie sharing some adorable drool.

We took a little camping trip which turned out great. At least until the ride home. This is our pretty campsite between the turn off for Potter's pond and the road to Cottonwood, an area familiar to the deer hunters in the family. We saw many deer, one that was buck and one that was a very young fawn. On a little hike we came within 3 feet of the new fawn. It must have been born recently because our dog basically tripped over it before she realized it was an animal. Our neighbor says that when deer are first born they don't have a scent. Luckily Chula left it alone after we called her off.

One of the fun things about camping these days is that Bennett is big enough to go on short hikes. This timer photo was the best we could get with a dog, two boys, and a rock crawling with giant ants.

Paxton asked, where's my bubble?  As he reeled his line in he discovered he had a fish.  This was Paxton's first fish he caught by himself.  When asked what we should do with the fish he said to throw it back.  Grandpa Davis would be proud.

Besides canoeing and fishing on Potter's pond, we also got to watch the pond get re-stocked with fish. The ranger said they do it about every two weeks.

The boys had both wanted to swim so we stopped on the last day of our trip at Huntington lake which is low enough to have warm water temps. Bennett lost his footing and started flopping around, refusing to let Paxton help him, so Mom ran in with jeans on to get him back to his feet. He said "Mommy you saved my life!"  He repaid the favor to us all later on.

Thanks for taking the photo, Jared, to prove that I am not aquaphobic. 

This here is a picture of underneath our trailer. The metal part hanging is supposed to be attached to the end of the other part curving away, but it is cut in half. On our way home, near the top of Soldier Summit, Bennett said he needed to go to the bathroom so we stopped at the gas station there. As we pulled back onto the road Jared said something didn't feel right as a motorcyclist zipped by pointing down at our tires.  So we got off the road and found the two trailer tires were touching (and rubbing and probably smoking while moving).  If this had happened at full speed it could have been ugly. Thanks B. We had to leave the trailer there and have a neighborhood mechanic go up to fix it the next day. Luckily it was far enough off the road and the Highway Patrol didn't bother with it so we got it home okay.

Paxton played coach pitch baseball this year. It's been fun to watch him improve and be proud of himself. He has a silly habit of pounding the plate twice before each pitch, which got a few laughs from the people sitting next to us at his last game. Probably because it appears to take more effort to get the bat up and down than it does to swing at the ball.









Bennett entertains himself running up and down the nearby hill and sliding into the blanket. He also loves the sunbrella we put up sometimes.

Some good friends of ours got us into going to the Hidden Garden tour each year. We (especially me) love it; each year there are over a dozen gardens in different areas that are open to the public to see. Usually there's a wide variety, big or small, formal or cottage, and some very eclectic ones too. It's apparent some have hired help, but many seem to be the pet project of the homeowners. So I threw a few photos in from this year.

This last photo is an exception to the usual tour, the homeowner is an artist who has used her skills ALL OVER  her house. She is very good, and very ambitious.

May's events - in no particular order!

I loved your May 28th blog post Jaylene! Well said! It lifted my spirits and helped me find extra push to get this post done....so here's to you, literally. This photo is from the Families Supporting Adoption organization's Birthmother's Day celebration. They had some games, treats, roses for the birthmoms who attended, and these signs to show support for the many special birthmoms around. It actually was fanstastic to hopefully help the boys understand there are others with similar life stories to theirs. We love you J! Our lives have never been so blessed!

A quick update on the lambs, they are all alive and doing well (I was concerned about the littlest one at first but now it's hard to tell her apart). The bottle feeding is almost over, probably by the end of the week they'll just be grazing on the alfalfa and the grain they occasionally get. It has been fun to invite many neighborhood kids and friends to see them and help feed them. Props to Jared for the experience.

Our oldest is now a kindergarten graduate. Here he is performing one of several songs they sang at the ceremony. He loves school, is a little sad it's over but takes comfort knowing he'll be back for 1st grade.

This was Paxton's teacher. I thought she was great; enthusiastic about teaching but firm with class rules and expectations. Paxton did very well in the classroom, when I volunteered several times I noticed he was much more quiet for the most part, except at recess of course! We love that he takes pride in his ability to read well. Paxton is generally a great big brother and best friend to Bennett.

Bennett is a lot of fun these days. And stubborn at times! Here's a few quotes from him, which all often revolve around food:
"I LOVE cheese. I could eat cheese all day."
"Can I have some maple syrup without any pancakes?"
When I asked him if he wanted one waffle or two he said, "No, I want them all."
We were talking about birthmoms this month and he said he "climbed out of his birthmom's stomach" and that's how he got here.
He frequently wears his Superman costume that one of his grandmas made so he can "save the day".

 I thought I'd show some photos of some oil paintings I did that took much longer than expected, but turned out to be really enjoyable. These were commissioned by Jackie Brady, who is someone I adore, and happens to be my grandmother. She has memories of this small home in Monroe, Utah (the home isn't there any longer) and through photos and discussions we put together this representation.

I so enjoyed the other photos she had to share that I talked her into doing the following three small ones too.  All of them were interesting and challenging to do.  They have various family members of hers at and around the home depicted in the large painting.

And my gardening hobby is producing lettuce, spinach, peas (soon) and broccoli if it doesn't have worms that gross us out. I speak from experience.

Lastly, just a few pictures from the Tulip festival at Thanksgiving Point. This year was amazing, they seemed taller and even more packed in than usual. I chose some non-tulip images too so you could see what else they have to offer, which is actually a lot even while the tulips are on display.