4th of July 2009

One of our favorite family traditions is the 4th of July. Justin and I decided a long time ago that we were going to stay close to home because of all the fun things to do up in the valley for the 4th. We started off once again this year by heading over to the Huntsville park for a pancake breakfast, carnival rides and games and the famous parade. There honestly is nothing better than a small town parade. Kids on their decorated bikes, 100 year old tractors, civil war ear cannons and muskets and lots of candy.

We were lucky this year to have my great friend Stephanie and her family come for the weekend from Idaho and then my friend April from Morgan and her family come over for dinner. (these are my closeset Pampered Chef buddies, I am so blessed to have them) We spent the rest of day on our deck stuffing ourselves silly with food. The temperature was so nice. It never got above 80 degrees. The kids swam, played and ran crazy!
Then about dusk we took our boat out on Pineview to watch the fireworks from the lake. The kids always look forward to that and we have front row seats to the spectacular show!

My Husband has a problem!

Okay I had to take these pictures last week because my husband has gone CRAZY! So its getting to be the big joke in our house that Justin has to have hot sauce on EVERYTHING! His problem now is that he can't get anything hot enough. He goes to the store just to buy new hot sauce. When we had dinner last week this is a picture of what he pulled out. 3 different hot sauces, jalapeno's and chili's and he had all of them on his dinner! And he wonders why his stomach gives him problems!

Gall Bladders, Temples, Camp Fires, Mothers & Graduates oh my!

So yes it has been several weeks since I have posted but with much good reason! I had my Gallbladder on May 26th. Yes it was done rather quickly (I only had a weeks notice) but I have been having problems for 9 months. When they finally ultrasounded it they found over a dozen stones. Thus the problems! It has been a far harder recovery than I expected it to be. I was basically in bed for 5 days. I couldn't have done it without the help of my sweet mother-in-law and Michele. Plus I had some good drugs.
So let me give you a rundown of the past few weeks and what our family has been up to! The kids have been so excited for the warm weather and have loved playing outside. Even Aspen plays on the deck in her little playhouse. This picture was taken Mother's Day night after everyone left our house sitting around the firepit enjoying the warm summer air!

Justin's sister and us take turns every year having mother's day festivities at our homes. This year it was our turn and we had them up for a BBQ. It was so nice, we just sat on the deck while the kids played and even got in a mean game of kickball with the adults!

Here is Justin's mom with all the grandkids and yes that is Ridge covering his eyes!

My darling sister Shanae graduated from High School on the 4th of June. I was lucky that Justin was able to get away from work that day and come. Although I felt like crap from my surgery that day it was so nice to spend time with my family at the graduation and then a nice lunch at the Country Club without the kids! I think we are a couple of hottys if you ask me!

Last Saturday we toured the Oquirrh Mountain temple open house. I have really wanted Hunter to see this temple because I didn't know if he would ever get a chance to see inside a temple again until he was an adult. Justin's mom and Mike joined us as well as Mike's granddaughter Brianna. The kids actually did pretty well and I am so glad that we went!

The Diva is 1!

I can't believe that Aspen turned 1 on May 1st! More importantly I can't believe we survived a whole year with 3 kids! We had a cozy little party at the house and she got so many cute outfits and toys. My favorite tradition for my kids is me and Justin (yes he is a huge help) make a custom birthday cake. For hers it was a barbie cake. She was so funny about eating it, she just kind of dabbed her little fingers in it and sampled it. She never really dove in. I took her in for her 1 year check up and she is still in the 20th percentile for her weight. She is such a peanut. She is finally starting to stand a bit on her own and I think in the next 6 weeks she will walk. I feel so bad I have all these cute summer outfits and are shorts and she crawls around and cries because her knees hurt because she has no padding. I really am in no hurry for her to walk but it would make things easier for her. She really is a good girl and just figured out the sippy cup this week and thinks that is the cats meow. She loves the juice!

I still love getting her dressed every single day and doing her hair (it is finally long enough for a tiny pony on top) it is like having my own barbie doll! How blessed I am!

I Turtle mom!!!

So Ridge is well known for his standing in a corner, raising his body to his tippy toes, and grunting and turning red. You can imagine why he does that right?!?!?!?! Well a couple of days ago I said "Ridge, are you going poop?" and he says "no I turtling" in shock I look at him and say "what????" he says "I turtling" So thinking the worst I call Justin in sheer disgust and say "what are your teaching my son???" now I say this because my boys burb, fart and do all sorts of other yucky bodily noises and laugh because there lovely father has taught them to do so. So I say why wouldn't he teach him this. I am imagining it is in the same reference as the term "prarie dogin" which if you need further elaboration on I would be happy to explain privately. So Justin says "Jori I think he said he is turding" after much thought I think that is probably what he means. So now EVERY time Ridge has a bowel movement he confesses "I turtling!"

Its finally out! Not just one but 2!

So after several months with several loose teeth Hunter FINALLY lost his bottom tooth. When we were in Georgia with my brother the two of them were trying to tie his tooth to the hotel door knob and yank it out because it was so loose. Well last week Hunt ran through the door from school and said "look mom" and low and behold he got it out at school. This kid next to him told him to twist it and so that is what he did and out it came. Its fun when they loose teeth at school because the teacher makes a big deal about it and they send them to the office to get a cute little tooth box to keep it in. The tooth fairy even left him $5 that night (only because it was his 1st) then the next day he came home from school and saud "look mom" and the next tooth over was out too! So he has now lost 2 and I haven't been there for either one. Little bugger!

Lake Powell Easter 2009