We can't wait!

July 10 can't come fast enough! A whole movie made about Minions?! SO AWESOME!!!!

If you're gone long enough, someone will come!

We love our family, especially when they come to visit us! We love going to visit, don't misunderstand, but sometimes it's really nice to be visited. Finally, the long awaited day came and with it came my sister and her husband and their offspring. To say that we had a good time would be grossly understating it. We couldn't wait to play all kinds of things with them. We only had a couple and a half days with them, we had to make every minute count!

First there was a tough game of Speed. B was the champion for so long that we decided that we all needed to work together to get him out. It was decided that every time he won, we would put candy in a bowl. We all knew that whoever got him out won all the candy that was in the bowl. Of course as soon as we came up with the candy idea, he only won one time before someone got him out. He had won probably close to a million times before that. Truth. 

Next up was the game, Left, Right, Center. We really like that game except we play with candy instead of the little plastic chips that the game comes with. Yes I have a serious problem with candy. If we can play a game with candy, then we will. Thank goodness the dollar store sells bags of candy. Good candy too like laffy taffy. I love laffy taffy. just sayin'.

The kiddos loved playing Twister. They made up their own rules and all we heard was laughing. We didn't just play games. We live really close to a lake. The only bummer is that there's no public swimming. You have to have some kind of water craft to get on it.

This is what we came up with. Isn't our niece, X, adorable?! I don't even remember taking this picture, but obviously I did. Playing in the Kayak was fun, but that's not the only thing we did. 

There was also some handstand contests that went on. M is in the middle and her cousin's J and X are next to her. Oh and there was something else.

WOOT WOOT!!! B had a stroke of genius when he said that we should rent two of these. It. Was. Awesome! The lake is shallow and so it gets really warm. The water was 89 degrees. It still took some convincing to jump in because our brains are used to jumping into cold water. We got to take turns playing on these, the kayak and just playing in the water. 

 B and our brother-in-law, J were the designated drivers. They were so awesome and they shuttled all of us to a spot so that we could all swim together. We used the back of the jet ski's as diving boards and jumped off. Watching people try to dive off them was hysterical, especially when my sister tried to do it. Oh man, I wish I had a picture other that just in my brain, but I don't. Just imagine someone flailing but from only two feet above the water. Oh man, it was so funny! She popped out of the water and said,"I saw that differently in my mind." Pee your pants funny! That's what her dive was. There were a whole lot of belly flops and a catchy tune that was sung as a 14 year old floated on his back and said he was floating out to sea. Man, these folks are funny!

The gang's all here! We love these people so much and had a total blast while they were here. Too bad we didn't notice the tiki torch behind J. It just adds to the awesomeness of the day!

We played hard and long while they were here. We had to soak up every minute that we could. We were totally pooped after they left, but it was worth every second!

K's birthday pictures

Yay! We finally did K's birthday pictures! Better late than never right? We thought about doing them a while ago but then he took a little spill on his bike. Truthfully, calling it a little spill is down playing it a lot. We're talking face meets sidewalk, front teeth almost knocked out, scraped up face, hands, arms, elbows, thighs and knees. We decided we should wait until at least the sores on his face healed and his front teeth came out. His face healed, but his teeth didn't come out. The dentist told us that he's the perfect age to hit his front teeth loose. They fall out about this time in a young ones life so just let his body take care of it. That made us happy until I was brushing his teeth, well, he brushes and then I check said teeth. Anyway, I was checking his teeth on Saturday and noticed that his tooth is turning black. Now, I in no way profess to be a dentist, but I'm pretty sure black teeth aren't a good sign. Looks like we'll be heading back to the dentist sooner than we thought. Back to his birthday pictures. Can I just say getting this child to smile a smile that doesn't make him look like he's trying to poop is a feat comparable to raising someone from the dead, not easy! We got a whole lot of pictures that looked like this

 He would tell us that it was hard to smile good and that it was hot, which it totally was. Holy smokes why is it so blasted hot and humid and it was only May? He wanted to watch the thing flying around that looked like a black katydid or look at the tiny fish in the stream or throw rocks and sticks. Taking pictures was not what he wanted to be doing! A thought came to me, totally the spirit, to hide behind B and tell K that I was going to jump out and scare him.

 Woot woot! It worked! He thought that was pretty funny. Once that stopped working I had to hide in the bushes and tell him that I was going to attack him with my mad Kung Fu skills.

Heavenly Father is so awesome! I know I've said it before and I know I'll say it again, but I think it's truly amazing that He who controls the universe is always so aware of us. He knew that on a hot, humid morning  we were at the park trying to get this kid to smile, so he helped us know how to do it. If that's not a miracle, I don't know what is!

Since his picture is up, let's talk about how awesome he is. K is so sweet and doesn't want anyone to feel bad. One night at dinner little B wasn't eating so we cleared his plate and got him down from the table. Little B was fine and walked away. I heard a sniffle and noticed that K was crying. I asked what was wrong and he said,"I just feel bad for B! He's going to be so hungry by breakfast." For K to be sweet like that is not abnormal. He got a pack of gum for his birthday, favorite present since I HATE when little's have gum so we don't really have it at our house. Anyway, he opened the gum and the first piece went to M. He just is awesome! It was his turn for the lesson for FHE yesterday. When it's his or M's turn for the lesson, they have to come up with the idea by themselves. They can look at the gospel art book or the friend or just talk about a gospel topic. I had reminded him yesterday morning that it was his turn for the lesson. Church isn't until 1:00, so we do FHE before church. He sat down to think about the lesson and a few minutes later he popped up and said that he knew what he wanted to do. Of course it included cars, but he also got each of us a dice (yes the singular version of that word is dice. Since Google knows everything I have no doubt that it's right! ;)), that matched our car color. At the edge of the table he set up a stack of coasters and put a cup on top. He had us sit around the table. He told us that the cup was like Heavenly Father and Jesus. We had to roll our dice and try to get back to them. He told us that we had to stay on the path because Satan is all around the path. After we had each taken one turn we talked about the first step we all take to get back to Heavenly Father and Jesus, which K told us was getting baptized. After we had taken our second turn, he talked to us about going to the temple. On one of my turns I went off the path just to see what K would do. I turned my car off the path and K yelled, "What are you doing?! You're off the path! You have to come back, Satan is all over over there, you have to come back this way!" I almost cried happy mama tears just because he was so worried that I had left the path and that Satan was all around me. I asked him how I come back. He told me that I need to say a prayer and tell Heavenly Father that I'm sorry. I asked him if Heavenly Father would tell me it was ok and let me come back. K truly treated me like I was an idiot as he said," Uh, Yeah!" B did talk a minute about repenting and that it doesn't matter what we've done, we can always repent and Heavenly Father will forgive us. We talked about how Satan is real and that he's a really bad dude and doesn't want anyone to be happy. We told them that sometimes in their lives they might make big mistakes and Satan is going to tell them that Heavenly Father won't forgive them. When we said that both M and K said that's not true. I blinked back my happy mama tears, turned my car around and made it back to Heavenly Father and Jesus. I thought his lesson was so good and I loved that he came up with it all by himself. Sometimes I wonder about that kid like when he goes commando(which happens more often then I would like to admit) or runs outside with nothing on to tell me that he can't get his swimsuit untied. But then he does a totally awesome FHE that makes all those sighs and head shakes and me saying,"K! Why are you out in the front yard with nothing on?", totally worth it! 

Let's go camping!

We love camping! I know that it's a lot of work, but we love it nonetheless! This was taken Friday morning before breakfast. They were so excited that they woke up and put on the headlamps! We've been planning this camping trip since January I think. That's when we learned about this place and wanted to go. The place you ask? Mt. Mitchell. It's the highest peak east of the Mississippi and South of Canada. It has a towering height of 6,684 feet. That height is no joke round these parts. There is a trail that leads from the bottom, but we learned after we got there, that the campground is at the top. I was looking forward to the hike, but alas it was not to be. Truth be told it was pretty nice to drive to the top instead of hike to the top. Although we had enough snacks for three small armies, so we could have done it. Anyway, it was a beautiful drive to the top. Honestly, these pictures were taken on the way down, but it's not like the Alpine loop in Utah. There's only one way up to the top of Mt. Mitchell and one way down, so the views we amazing there and back.

 It truly is so beautiful here. We love that it's so green and that there are so many trees. My visiting teacher says that the trees make her claustrophobic, but we love them. We pulled up the the campground and found out that we had to hike our stuff to the campsite. Thankfully it was just up a few steps, or so we thought.

We had to hike up these here stairs which lead to even more stairs and at the top of the stairs we still had to walk a little bit to our site. We got there on Friday and as we all know I have a pretty firm no working out on Friday. Hauling all our crap up the never ending stairs and along the path to our campsite was almost more than I could take. I blame the fact that it was Friday and my body was freaking out because of all the work it took. To say that I am in such great physical shape that I wasn't breathing hard or sweating like I had just finished a workout would be a lie. Not to mention Little B liked walking up and down the stairs, but wanted to hold your hand. I'm not from Africa, I can't balance a cooler with a tent on top of it , on my head. Instead unloading was a painstakingly long process since I had to keep one hand free to hold his hand. Once we got the tent to our site, B stayed there to put it up and Little B wanted to stay with him. Tender mercy right there folks!  M, K and I finished bringing the stuff up from the car.

We were camping with two other families from our ward. We got there the same time as one of the families, so we both unloaded at the same time. The third family got there after us. When it's not your stuff you're taking up to the campsite, the hike didn't seem as bad.

This was taken Friday. When we looked at the forecast it said that it was supposed to rain all weekend. It had rained on the way up and we worried that the rain would stay, but we all prayed really hard and it had stopped by the time we got there. We were able to set up, do a fire and roast marshmallows without the rain. When we woke up Saturday it was clear and sunny. We were feeling so thankful that there was no rain. We weren't in any hurry. Since we had driven to the top, our plan to hike was kind of foiled. The ranger had told us that there was a nature walk that wound around by the tower at the summit. He said it was great for little kids since it was just over half a mile. We decided to give the nature walk a go. We loaded up and drove to the parking lot at the base of the summit. 

It was a cool little walk. M and K were happy that they had friends there to walk with. It took us longer to do it because I love having pictures. We stopped pretty often to take a picture of something.

He didn't totally love being in this thing. He kept telling me that he wanted to get down and walk. Thankfully I had fruit snacks I could bribe him with to stay right where he was. There were a ton of trees that had fallen and had moss growing on them. Little B kept pointing at them and calling them alligators. We tried to get a picture of him with his eyes open and looking at the camera, but a lot of the time he either keeps his eyes closed or won't look at the camera. We take what we can get!

We made it! I do wish that it hadn't been cloudy so that we could have seen the view, but it was still really cool! What is the thing in the background that two small children are sitting on you ask? Oh that would be the tomb of the Dr that discovered how tall Mt. Mitchell is back in the 1800's. Creepy right?! That's what I thought. We all took family pictures by the sign and then went back down. We went back for lunch and that's when the rains came!

I feel like it was more like a small monsoon. Calling it a rain storm just doesn't sound fitting. There was a LOT of rain. We're talking flooded tents, soaked sleeping pads, bags and pillows. It was so loud you couldn't really hear the person talking to you from across the table. Little B cried and said,"rain too loud!"  It rained for what felt like forever, but that's only because we were outside. When the rains went away we were left with soggy children that were still happy because they had friends to play with.

Aren't they so cute?! They loved to puddle jump and hit the water in the flooded fire pits with sticks.

The P's brought their slack line. The bigger kids loved to play on that. I thought that there would be at least one young one that got clothes lined while playing on here, but they didn't. They loved it and spent a lot of time playing on it.

I just love him! That's all.

Since we were so far away from home, we knew that we would miss church on Sunday. We couldn't go camping here and not go on a hike to a waterfall. That's what we did Sunday. We threw our soaking wet stuff in the car and went looking for a waterfall hike. We found one and of course it was beautiful! Both the hike and the waterfall.

This is what a normal hike looks like. It's so much different than hiking in Utah where there are no trees. It started to rain again as we got there, but the trees acted like our umbrella.

This was only half a mile away from our car. I just think waterfalls are like a surprise. You're hiking along and all the sudden, you're at a beautiful waterfall. The water was shallow, so we walked across the stream and the kiddos threw rocks into the water. 

This is the whole gang. We had so much fun spending the weekend with these two families. Our kids loved playing with their kids and we loved talking with the adults. We feel so blessed to be able to live in such a beautiful area and have great friends to go camping with!

Oh boy!

Last week was the week that I dread as soon as we find out that there's offspring in utero. It's what nightmares are made of. It's what brings out the true crazy inside of me. Potty training week. Even saying the words, my core tightens with dread and my eyes fill with tears. When I say that I dread it while young one's are in utero, I'm not exaggerating. Truthfully, I've been dreading potty training my own children since sixth grade. My friend Gretchen, not from Sweden, not that I have a friend Gretchen from Sweden, but Gretchen sounds like such a Swedish name and in my mind all Gretchen's should have an amazing Swedish accent. My friend didn't, she was a red head from Orem, Utah. I digress, Gretchen and I were walking around at recess one day and we were talking about having kids. Gretchen said that she didn't know if she wanted to have kids. I said,"Yeah, just think about trying to potty train a little kid." She looked at me kind of weird and said that she was talking about the pain of actually having a child. But even at the ripe old age of 12 I knew that there was NO way I would have a child without an epidural. The pain wasn't the issue, it was potty training. Well folks, the time had come in little B's life. It was ingrained in my brain by my mom that you start potty training your kids the Monday after they turn two. That way they're ready to go to nursery on Sunday without accidents. I was filled with guilt that little B is actually 25 months old was wasn't potty trained yet. On Sunday night I prayed one more time to know if the young one was ready to ditch the diaper. This was one of the few times in my life that I was wanting a no answer. I was told yes he's ready. Monday morning seemed to come too fast. To say that Monday was a truly terrible day would be a gross understatement. We have six pairs of training pants and I did laundry three times to wash them. I had no clue that he peed so much every day. Most of the day was spent in tears and they didn't come from the little one. By 6:00 that night I was second guessing that I was told that little B was ready, because it seemed quite the opposite. We had just finished practicing and I was cleaning up. I was just washing my hands, he was standing next to me and he peed on the floor. I about punched a hole in the wall. We both burst into tears as we practiced again. I looked at the ceiling and said,"Just once! Help him pee in the potty just once today!" We cleaned it up and started the bedtime routine that seems to take forever especially when it's been a truly awful day. I brushed his teeth and told him that he needed to try going potty again. I put him up there and miracles of miracles, he peed in the potty! I started jumping up and down and clapping and hugging him and kissing his little cheeks. He started clapping and yelling "Yay! I did it!" Tuesday was better than Monday. He even pooped in the potty on Tuesday! Wednesday was awesome! I think he only had one accident on Wednesday. Since Wednesday, he's only had one accident! He stays dry during his naps and at night. I was worried about nursery on Sunday and how that would go. I took him potty two or three times during nursery just to make sure he didn't have an accident on the church floor; because that would be awful! One of the times I took him I didn't think that he would go since he had just gone at the end of sacrament meeting. Since I didn't think he would go, I didn't take the time to push his manhood down. Of course he went and it got all over the back of his pants. Thankfully we had brought extra pants. Too bad they were sweats and looked awful at church. But, I didn't really care because we hadn't needed to change them because he had an accident. I take none of the credit. It was ALL Heavenly Father. There is no way we could have started the week out the way that we did and then two days later be accident free.

When we potty train our kids, we don't put pants on them. Thankfully he doesn't like pants so that wasn't a problem for him. There was one of the days that he wouldn't keep his shirt on either, but he was freezing so I put socks on him to try and at least keep his feet a little warmer. I wish I had taken a picture of him in just undies and socks.

This is what I found this morning. He really doesn't like to wear pants. He must have taken his pants off and his undies came off too. When I asked him why he didn't have any undies or pants on he smiled a mischievous smile and said, "I don't know" I am so thankful that he caught on to potty training so fast and that Heavenly Father helped him so much. It makes me so happy to know that we won't have to potty train another little one. Yipee for no more diapers!

Mowing the lawn

Remember this picture from last year? I was mowing the lawn and little B was freaking out because it was too loud and so I had to hold him whilst I mowed? Well, not a lot has changed.

First of all, M wants me to make sure that everyone knows that we didn't mow the lawn the same day we took his birthday pictures, he's just wearing the same shirt. Now that that's out of the way.... I told him that I was going to mow the lawn. I told him that it was going to be loud. He said "K." and went and stood on the little slab of cement we have by our back door. I turned the lawn mower on and Little B burst into tears. He came over to me and held his hands up for me to pick him up. I did and he told me that he wanted to get down. I put him down and told him he could go in with M and K. They were home for spring break and they wanted to go in while I mowed. Anyway, he shook his head, grabbed onto the lawn mower and started walking with me. He cried the whole time he was pushing it. I kept leaning down telling him that he could go play with the kids in the house. He told me no and kept pushing. I turned it off in case it was the sound that was making him too nervous to go in with M and K. As soon as it was off, through his tears he pointed at it and said,"what's that?" I told him that it was the lawn mower. I asked him if he wanted to go in. Still crying he said,"No! And help you."  So, through my sweat and his tears, we mowed the lawn! Thankfully he had had enough of mowing the lawn by the time the bunny incident happened. K had come outside and was jumping on the trampoline. I was mowing along and a bunny went jumping through the exceedingly long grass. It hopped through the grass and settled in right next to the fence. I was watching it to make sure that I didn't run over it. I got right behind it and it just sat there. I walked in front of the mower and stomped my foot right next to it. It jumped away after just a few stompings of my foot. K yelled from the trampoline,"I see it! It hopped under the fence by Rod's house." Rod is our neighbor. I finished mowing the back and went to the front. Have I mentioned that I hate the grass here? It's thick and so long and takes a really long time to mow. Anyhow, I was mowing the front and got next to the fence by Rod's house. Now, when I say the grass is long, I mean really long. From the side of the mower, the wheels are almost covered by the grass and I mow the lawn once a week. It just grows really fast. So, I'm mowing along thinking about how I'm almost done and getting very excited when all the sudden I hear this awful sound. I know that I've just run over something. I hear the sound and think, oh please be a BIG stick and not the little bunny. As we all know thinking is really fast, so I hear the sound, think the thought and see the puff of fur that blows out from around all sides of the lawn mower almost as the same time. I was truly horrified when I pulled the lawn mower back and saw a red puddle in the grass. It was so sad! I prayed and prayed saying that I was so sorry about hitting the little bunny. Why didn't it move? Why would you just sit there when a very large, loud thing was roaring towards you? Why wouldn't you hop away? When I emptied the bag I tried not to look, but it was like a bad kissing scene on TV, I just couldn't look away. To say I was upset as the little ball of fur came tumbling out of the bag would be a huge understatement. When we mow the lawn here, we put the clippings on the side of the road and every Thursday, the city comes and sucks up your lawn things with a vacuum truck thing. I was thinking that I had gotten the clippings there before the truck came. I was wrong. For a week the grass clippings that were now the burial site of a little bunny sat by our sidewalk as a reminder of what had happened. B is a big bully and if something bad happens, like a shooting in a major city, he'll say something like, "That's probably like running over a little bunny with the lawn mower." Then he laughs as I punch him. It's safe to say that now when I mow the lawn, I'm really jumpy and if I see a clump of grass that the lawn mower doesn't suck up, I have to kick it apart so that my brain doesn't turn it into the remains of a poor innocent bunny. Maybe I should just leave all lawn mowing responsibilities to Little B. He might cry the whole time, but at least he would leave the bunnies in the grass alone.

Birthday pictures

Here it is! Here's the best we could get. Ok, not really, this was just on a random day, but I love that he takes his pants off and wears K's slippers. I love that Brandon used to never wear a shirt. I think it's so cute when little boys run around without a shirt on. I have always secretly hoped that our little boys would take their shirts off like Brandon did. Little B keeps his shirt on, but his pants are usually off. No, it's not as cute, but I'll take it! Here are the birthday pictures for real.

I know that we're biased because he's our kid, but, seriously, these are so cute right?! He still looks exactly like B. We even pulled out B's baby book and his baby pictures and Little B's pictures look almost identical. I knew that I wouldn't be able to get him to smile and take the picture at the same time, so we had to wait to take them until B had a post call day and had the day off.  B takes better pictures so I had the job of getting Little B to smile. Truth be told, he's a tough crowd. To get him to look at the camera with his eyes open and smiling is probably comparable to parting the Red Sea. Truth, it's not as easy as it looks. We prayed fervently that he would smile. Clearly our prayers were heard and answered! Yay for good 2 year old pictures!