Pioneer Day - Fireworks

Later that evening we set off the remainder of the fireworks. Samuel was excited for the smoke bombs, probably because they make no noise.

Chuck set off one firework that we’re not sure how it could have been legal! It was like a big ball of flame and was still burning after the sparks stopped.

All three were in tears after the noise. The kids moved indoors and watched the last couple of fireworks with the door closed to muffle the noise. It was an eventful day and we all had a great time!

Kids Update

Isaac holding his head up so good.

My only baby that hasn't taken a binkie. I've tried to get him hooked on the binkie, but he likes his thumb. Unfortunately when he's really upset he forgets about his thumb and just cries.

This week he started bringing toys to his mouth and sampling their taste. I just have to watch the other kids because they like to give him things to "eat".




It rained a couple of evenings this week. Chuck always hates it when it rains - and especially doesn't like to hear anyone in church praying for rain! The problem is everytime it rains here in Ivins there is flooding and big problems. Ivins seems to make the news everytime we get a little rainstorm. The city is working on getting a new stormdrain in, but it isn't quite done yet, so the flooding continues. Just look at that nice red dirt!

The cloudy day made for some good photography practice. Samuel is my little guinea pig as long as I reward him afterward with some treat.

The beautiful long eyelashes - why do the boys get them!



I had to take this picture of Bella with her curly hair done. She only looks like this for about 5 minutes each day and the rest of the day she is my little rag muffin. She pulls her bows out, messes up her hair and constantly has dirt on her face. I just can't keep her put together!

We had these bug traps behind our toliet and yes, Bella managed to get her hand stuck to it. Don't ask me what she was doing playing around behind the toliet!

Bella has been really interested in going potty lately. The other day she did not want me to put her diaper back on and was throwing a giant fit. The funny thing is that she has learned to go potty by watching Samuel and is slightly confused about the difference between girls and boys! She tries to push down a body part she doesn't have and gets pee pee on her hand everytime.

This is what Bella did to herself while we were trying to get ready for church. She found the markers and wrote all over herself. She was in the spare bedroom and thankfully she just wrote on herself and not on my beautiful bedspread!


Play Time

Samuel loves building big towers. Bella likes to get in on the action, but can really make Samuel mad when she knocks the tower down.

Samuel and Bella played in this big box for about 1/2 hour without having any fights - which is a miracle! Samuel is really bossy and Bella tires of him telling her what to do rather quickly. Then Samuel gets upset because Bella won't do what he says and pretty soon everyone is upset. But despite the strong personalities they still enjoy playing together!

Samuel discovered that the magneatos could stick to Bella's hairclip and thought it was so funny to hang one from her head.

Fun With Fireworks

These are some neat pictures I took while having Chuck write our names with a sparkler. I checked out a photography book from the library that got me excited about trying some new things. This was one of my photographic experiments. Good thing Chuck is talented with the sparklers!





When we came in from doing our sparkler experiment I was walking across the kitchen floor and almost stepped on this little guy. We had the sliding glass door open and he just came on inside. It is amazing how well he blends with the concrete floor. We were sad the kids weren't awake because they would have loved seeing a frog in the house! The funny thing is I told Samuel the next morning that a frog had come in our house and he looked at me and said, "How did he come in, did he open the door?"

Fish Lake Vacation

We spent a week at Fish Lake with Grandpa Clayton, Grandma Jerri Lynn, Wes, Trina and baby Kambree.

We rented a cabin with two bedrooms and a loft (a huge improvement from the last time we stayed in a cabin at Fish Lake – who could forget the mice running around!). The only bad thing about the cabin was the steep death stairs to the loft. They were so steep we didn’t dare let the kids climb them by themselves, especially Bella.






Samuel loved being on the boat, driving with Grandpa, helping catch fish, eating treats and squirting all of us with Grandma’s cooling fan. He was so sad when we had to leave for home!

As usual, we didn’t catch the big one, but had fun catching a few small perch. One day we loaded up the boat and drove to Otter Creek because Grandpa had heard good stories of great fishing. The wind was really blowing so it made fishing hard, but Grandpa managed to catch one nice rainbow.



The first night Bella loved the boat, but was making us all nervous by hanging over the edges. By the end of the week she was crying when we boarded the boat and everytime we talked about getting on the boat she would say NO! She just didn’t like wearing the lifejacket!


Dad, Trina and I bushwacked it through the undergrowth to get a picture of a moose in the lake. We actually got quite a bit closer than this, but then the moose started heading for shore so Trina and I got moving.

Isaac's Baby Blessing - July 6th

Celebrating Isaac's special day!

Chuck's 35th Birthday!

Chuck turned 35 this year – halfway to 40! Chuck's birthday this year was extra special because he got to bless our little Isaac on his birthday. As he said during his testimony in church, this was better than any gift someone could wrap up and give him. We celebrated Isaac’s special day and Chuck’s birthday after the blessing by Chuck cooking us yummy Dutch oven. We also had Grandma Luann’s homemade ice cream and red, white and blue sprinkled cupcakes for desert.

Happy 4th of July!

Samuel was so excited about celebrating the 4th of July with fireworks this year. We tried to escape the heat by going to the parade with Aunt Trina in Cedar City. The kids collected so much candy - more then they got at Halloween! All through the parade they were chomping down on goodies. Amber asked Samuel what his favorite part of the parade was and he said the firetrucks, even though he had to plug his ears while they were going by. Then he said Daddy's favorite was the Queen. The funny thing was that Samuel was the one that noticed the Queen and Chuck didn’t say a thing about it. During the parade Chuck told Samuel the horses were really pretty and Samuel said the riders were pretty. He has been noticing pretty girls a lot lately!






After the parade we decided to take the kids to a mud pit in Enoch. It sounded like fun, but we drove around for an hour trying to find the place. Chuck even got directions from a cop and we still had difficulty finding it. When we finally found the location we realized this was a "Redneck" activity if we’d ever seen one! It wasn’t quite what we’d pictured! The mud was really deep and the kids were not excited about climbing in, but we’d been driving for so long Chuck decided they were getting in even if they didn’t want to! Bella braved it while Samuel screamed and threw a big fit even after Chuck sat him down. Don’t think we’ll be going back another year!





The kids really enjoyed the few fireworks we set off at Wes and Trina’s home. They go to bed before it gets dark so we are still doing fireworks during the early evening. This was the first year Samuel has not cried because of the noise. He did plug his ears once during a really noisy one. We had to keep a good watch on Bella because she isn’t afraid of anything, and even tried to grab the end of a burning sparkler several times. Poor Chuck had a little accident while lighting fireworks and got a second-degree burn on his hand. Just a word of advice - when its windy and your trying to shield the fuse with your hand don't point the end of the fuse directly into your palm. It shoots a burning hot flame straight out. Oouch – it really hurt!