Family Time - Utah!!!

We got to spend the end of June and most of July with family in the west. We started at Grandma Neff's house, with the kids favorite toy!!!

On the first Sunday we blessed Chloe.

Here is the beautiful girl in her dress.

It was great to have some much family there. Both sets of grandparents were there, as well as, my brothers Steve, John and Dave and sister Sandy with their families and Brian's brother David and his sisters Wendy and Christa with there families.

Afterwards we had a dinner at my parents house. It was fun to have our two families together, many of them had never met before.

Chloe also got to meet her cousin Emma who is almost a month older then her.

They next day, my brother from California showed up. We had fun playing with them.

And they had fun playing with us! It was fun staying in the same house as them. We also got to go to the zoo together, even though I have no pictures of that.

They had recently gotten a new little sister. She is only about 3 weeks old when we met her. This little baby got to go see "Eclipse" with many of the older girls in the family and some friends.

Sadly, after a few days they had to return home, they had been gone for a while and we just got to see them for the last few days of their trip.

We also went on a tour of the 'Sweets' factory. It was fun to see where the candy was made even though many of the stations were closing up for that shift so we couldn't see much action, and get to try some freshly made candy. Next year we will have to do the tour earlier in the day. They even made us wear hair nets since we were on the actual production floor.

My brother Steve and some of his family was able to come with us on the tour!!

Another day we went to visit Brian's sister Christa and see her new house. On the way home we got to see my niece march with her school marching band in a 4th of July parade. She is the first one in the second row carrying her flute.

On the 3rd of July we went to the This Is The Place State Park for an extended Johnson family reunion. It was a lot of fun. There was much family there both that I knew and that I didn't know as this family went all the way back to pioneer days. The kids had fun in a watermelon eating contest. Some of my brothers and others of the kids gave it a try as well. I think this picture was taken at the end of the contest. They ate lots as you can see.

They also got to go on a train ride.

Mine for gold which they then traded in for candy.

We also did some crafts. Saw the saddlery of one of the Johnson sons, and many other fun places. I wish that we had more time there. There was lots to see so we will have to do it again some day!!!

The next day we had to say goodbye to daddy and I was left alone with the kids. Thankfully, I still had lots of family around to do fun things with. We went to a fun wild west themed park.

Had story time with cousins.

And played in the sandbox and slide in the back yard.

I know that we did many more things but I wasn't always the best about taking pictures. I did get to help my dad put together a Grandfather clock for my sister, and enjoyed being able to work on a project with him again. It did seem like we stayed busy and got to see lots of family, I just can't think of what we did. It was great to be so close to everyone and reminded me why it would be great to live in Utah, maybe someday.

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Bed. . .

On Thursday night I went down to get a drink before going to bed and found a cookie on the counter next to the stove, instead of on the plate with the other cookies. I thought this is odd and put the cookie back on the plate. I asked Brian if he had put a cookie next to the stove. He didn't remember doing so and I don't remember getting a cookie out that I didn't eat. A little while late I decided to go downstairs again to check on the cookies. This time there was a rip in the plastic wrap covering them and something was definitely eating one of them. The mouse traps come back out. Since then we have caught two mice. Will they ever stay away?

This is the second time that mice have been found in our house. I am very thankful that Brian is around this time. Interestingly, to me, is that both time they have been found out by chocolate chip cookies. The first time I heard the mouse walking on the crinkly wrapping on some cookies given to us. They aren't even the good kind of chocolate chip cookies, that I would usually make, but ones that we haven't liked as much. Maybe I just need to not have chocolate chip cookies around and then the mice will stay away.

Update 9/5/10 - Three dead mice and no signs of more.

Our Growing Baby!!

Well I realize that I have not been very good at blogging for the last almost five months since we welcomed a little sister into our family.

So, I thought it might be fun to have a blog filled with pictures of her to see she has gone from this newborn baby . . .

to this cute little baby.

Here she is still in the hospital.

At two weeks old or so, as she is saying goodbye to Grandma.

How her brother and sister love her and love to be able to hold her.

(About 2 months old.)

Lizzie always wants our little girl to sleep in her bed.

The kids love their sandbox and loved having Chloe join them for a time.

All clean and wrapped in her towel.

(Three months)

Here she is all dressed up for her blessing. She just keeps getting cuter all of the time.

She has been able to meet some cousins close to her own age.

This one from Brian's side is about a month older.

And this little girl is my brother's daughter who is about 2 months younger.

And here she is will both of her cousins that are within a month older then her. They are all four months old in this picture.

Now for a close up of my baby girl! I might be bias but I don't think babies get much cuter then that!!!

Here is my tired girl after some family pictures.

In her new bed. She looks so small in such a big crib.

The kids are still happy to be by here, where ever she might be!!

And most recently, yesterday we went to a lake and she enjoyed getting her feet wet and wished that she could have gotten in more.

It is amazing how quickly they seem to grow and how quickly one forgets what they were like. Next week she will be five months and babies do seem to just get cuter as time goes on. She has really found her voice in the last few days. It is amazing to think that just a short time ago she was such a little baby. She hasn't yet started doing tricks like rolling over or sitting up, but she is getting stronger and she has really started finding her voice in this last little while. She smiles easily and sleeps well. She will put anything she can grab into her mouth and if she grabs your hair it is impossible to get her to let go. Lizzie will often come to me with a handful of hair that Chloe has just pulled from her head.

Here is a video from the day before she turned two months when I finally got on video her laughing. It is long but it is the best sound to a mother's ears.

We are so grateful to have this little one in our family!!!

Strawberry Picking and Fishawack

Last weekend, June 12th, we ended up spending a lot of time out in the sun.

Friday, we went to a nearby farm and picked strawberries. We ended picking two eight cup bowls full. I think the kids even enjoyed it, at least they did when I would let them pick.

On Saturday was the Fishawack festival in my town. In the morning I ran a one mile race.

And Brian ran a four mile race.

After getting cleaned up we spent a few hours walking around the main streets looking at booth and having a yummy lunch. It was a fun weekend even if we did turn a little pink (or red) after being outside for so long.

Split Rock

In the middle of April we decided to take a family trip to

the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania.

Our first big outing was to a nearby state park. First, we went to a giant field of boulders. It said that this field was created by glaciers melting and refreezing. The size of it was amazing.

Almost as amazing was how much the kids enjoyed climbing on them. It took them a little while to figure out how to do it, but when they figured out that holding on to the rocks was better then holding on the a hand they really enjoyed it. They still talk about it and want to go back.

We then went on a mile and a half hike to this waterfall. The kids love when the trail had big rocks on it that they could climb on and jump off. They did a great job on the hike. The only complaining came at the last little bit when we were climbing up to the road, and we did it in less then an hour. It made me realize that we need to do more outdoor stuff with these kids and hopefully they will like such things for the rest of their lives. I often think that they are to young to do things like this, but they prove me wrong most of the time if I give them the chance.

The resort that we stayed at had a group staff members that planed and carried out activities all throughout the day. It was fun to take part in some of these activities. It gave us a chance to let the kids try mini golfing. I'm happy that it was just one hole, because it took some work for them to get the ball in the hole. It was fun to watch them, and to help them.

The resort had a play ground which the kids made good use of on a few days. Again showing their new found love of swinging. It is amazing how high they will go now, three months ago Lizzie would cry to get down in the swing went, probably, more then two feet back and forth. Jamie wasn't much better, now they want to go higher and higher even in the big kid swings.

They also got introduced to the see-saw.

WE found that the kids really liked to be in the water and would ask to go swimming every morning.

Here is the rock that the resort is named after. It made a great background for pictures.

We also thought we would try out bowling. The kids were so cute carrying their light ball and throwing it down the alley.

And finally we decided to let them try some pool. This they didn't do quite so well at but it was still fun to help them try. I wasn't much help though, I don't think I hit anything in even on my own.

We had such a good time just playing together as a family and relaxing that we realized that we need to do more of it. Most of our vacations have been to visit family or to visit places. This was nice because we were able to have fun as a family and not feel like we had to be rushing to different places or doing things all of the time. I hope that we will get many more of these and be able to make memories with our kids like I have from the trips that we took while I was growing up.

Just Playing Around

I was looking through our pictures and thought that I would share some pictures of the kids just playing around.

These first ones are of them playing at a friend's birthday party at Pump It Up, which is a place with some blow-up toys. Like a obstacle course, bouncy castle . . .

and a big slide. This was the second time that we had been there and the first time they liked the slide, but this time it was to fast. It took them a while to like the bouncy house to, but finally got used to it as long as they didn't have to walk on it themselves.

These pictures are from a play group that we went to at a nearby park.

The kids have decided recently that they really like swinging, and it is now all that they want to do at the park. The best part about this park was that the swings were low enough that the kids could get on themselves. This was especially helpful as I was still recovering and could not pick them up, but also because they could play on them by themselves and I didn't have to spend all of my time there by the swings.

We got Jamie a toddler bed, also since I couldn't pick him up. One day I was cleaning it and the kids decided that they wanted to clean it instead. They spent quite a while scrubbing away at it!! Oh, the things that they find so much fun!!

I signed the kids up for a story time at the library, one week they were taught this great dance.