July

July is a month of Celebrations. There is Independence Day and Pioneer Day (my favorite!), plus my birthday and Nate's, and lots of other family birthdays. We had a good month partying and just trying to stay cool in the long string of over 100* days.

At the Vaclaw Family Fireworks. It was awesome as always!Hiking on Turkey Mountain (or at least as close as we get to mountains around here)My birthday! I made a list of things i wanted to do on my birthday and I accomplished all of them. The list included play outside, swing really high, wear a bow in my hair, and take treats to friends, etc. It was a great day!Our very special visitors from Taiwan. Nate's best friend from school, Forrest, came with his wife and cute baby for dinner when they were in Tulsa visiting family. It was great to see them.Pioneer Day tri-ward activity (notice that we are all dressed up and other people - not so much. I am a little nutty when it comes to Pioneers).Just hanging out. Peter potato face (I think this was the same night that Talmage and Emma had a heated discussion about whether they were called "Smashatatoes" or "Buh-tatoes")Emma's teddy bear hair.Snuggling boys on a blanket made by their great-grandma.Talmage and Peter singing a duet.Unfortunately we have no pictures of Nate's birthday because the kids and I were gone in Utah. We celebrated with him before leaving and he was happy to spend his day with some good friends.

June (lots of pictures)

In June the big kids took swim lessons. They did a great job and advanced to the Seahorse and Dolphin classes. We were lucky enough to do them at the same time as several of our friends and had a fun time playing in the plaza after lessons and i had a great time talking to the other Moms.We missed our Dad while he was at fire school in Nevada for a week but we were glad we got to see him in his gear before he left.Morgan started a collection of cicada skins. These are the skins they shed when they come up out of the ground after hiding our for 13 years. He found them stuck to trees, bushes, flowers and even blades of grass. He filled a large bucket with them. Crazy! (the picture would not load)
We also enjoyed playing and reading at the park, spending time with friends, and even the splash pad by the zoo (when we found we had chosen the one day the zoo closes for the year to drive down to Tulsa). And Peter got his first haircut! That was a hard thing for me. I felt so sad afterwards - it just made him instantly grow up. But I really like it now. (this picture is the before

Wedding #1

Once upon a time there was my brother, Greg. Goofy, quotable, techy, friendly, determined and tall. Then he found Meisha. Fashionable, practical, happy, good and not-so-tall. And they fit together. Really well. And at the end of May they went to the Bountiful Temple and got married. The temple sealing was beautiful, inspired, wonderful. And we celebrated. They had two receptions: one in Tremonton, UT and one the next night in my parents yard. Their colors were red, black, and grey. The receptions were just like them - playful, happy, fun, wonderful. (My talented little sisters made the very cool cake.)We also got to enjoy Camp Sparkle. We debated if we should go up to our traditional Heber Valley Camp because it was still covered in snow. We decided to go just for the day. I am so glad we did. We felt SO happy to be in a familiar place filled with happy memories. We hiked and paddled boats on the lake. We spent some time in our beloved mountains. Millcreek Canyon. My Mom, sisters, and I went out to breakfast to welcome our next sister into the family. We went downtown and toured the Conference Center, and Temple Square (Have you seen the detailed model of the SL temple? Awesome), and the Church History Museum (I found a painting that i absolutely love; now i just need to find out how to buy a print.) I got to spend a lovely evening chatting with my Jill. It was good for my soul. Katie and Co-Nate blessed their cute, new baby.It was a wonderful week with family. Gosh, I love those people.

May

I'll spare you the details since this is long overdue. But i just wanted to post some pictures and a little of what we did in May.
Cute Peter turned ONE year old. We kept our celebration simple. He is getting so big! Peter eats everything - mud! He has not been our easiest child, but he loves to give hugs and kisses, and he has really great hair.



































We celebrated Mother's day and attempted to get our traditional picture of me and the kids. Unfortunately these are the best we got.This was one of my favorite days. We took an early trip to the temple then came home and worked hard in the yard all together. It was just so full of joy.Nate made a long due quick decision to get laser eye surgery in Kansas City. He loves being contact/ glasses free. While up there we took a peek at the temple under construction there.

Morgan and Emma finished school. They have had a great school year. They both enjoyed their teachers. Morgan really got the hang of reading this year. He loves books and it is difficult to get him to stop reading when we need him. Emma learned a lot and made some really good friends. She was a good missionary too, telling her friends about the Church and taking her Book of Mormon to show them at recess.
(We actually missed the last day, which was moved later because of unplanned snow days, so we could attend my brother's wedding. More on this next post)

Culinary Adventures with the Kings

In today's installment we have two options for your culinary excitement.
1. If your resident cook is feeling a bit lazy you may choose to eat out on a Holiday weekend. This can be an exciting and comical event if you follow these instructions. Take your four small children who rarely go out to eat and do not know how to act at a restaurant. {We chose a small chinese restaurant.} If you are lucky you will start out as the only customers in the place and will be able to let your two year old run over to watch the fish while waiting. Place your order while your kids continuosly ask "do i like that?" Once your food arrives at the table put some on your two-year-old's plate. He should exclaim loudly "I don't want this! It's yucky!!!" for the restaurant staff and newly arrived guests to hear. Let him eat the plain rice instead. It will get everywhere - on the floor, the table, his chair, and even smashed into the knees of his pants when he kneels in it to reach the table. If all goes according to plan your baby will now be climbing out of his highchair and onto the table while your two-year old hides in the window curtains and your 5 and 7 year old beg for more fortune cookies. While this is happening try to be charming as you meet husbands co-workers at the next table. Now, two-year-old should catch the bottom of the 12 foot store front curtains under his feet and pull the whole thing down. Rod and all. With flair. As you turn red {because now there are several others families in the restaurant} and try to gather everyone nicely husband will try to pick up the rice on the floor. He won't have to get it all though because the manager lady will come over and tell him {in a quaint chinese accent} "No, no don't do that. . . That is your wife's job!" Pay a generous tip and leave as quickly as you can.

2. If the cook is feeling more ambitious attempt an Easter feast complete with Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, and some vegetable that that healthy easter bunny left for your kids to find. Except forget to put out the frozen roll dough before church so no rolls. Over boil the potatoes so they are lumpy and starchy. Burn the boiling turkey giblets {because you are getting everyone dressed} so your house will have a lovely burnt smell all day. Now for the gravy. Painstakingly extract the juice from the hot, heavy roasting pan. Remember everything your dad taught you about thickening gravy . . . it still won't work. Now season gently. Shake in some salt then take your newly refilled pepper shaker and start shaking. Make sure the lid is not screwed on correctly. Dump the entire contents into the pot. {Next exclaim "Blast! Blast!" and two-year-old will come running to see "what blasted off!?!"} Strain out as much pepper as you can. Find the lid in the bottom. When you eat it your sinuses will be thoroughly cleared out.

Bon Apetit!

The Boys

At our house we have "the parents" (affectionately or unaffectionately known as Mom and Dad), "the kids" (Morgan and Emma), and "the boys" (Talmage and Peter). It has been so fun lately to see these two boys having fun together. Peter is starting to really have fun playing with Talmage. One of his favorite games is actually to try to steal Talmage's binky when he is going to bed or has just woken up. Peter will crawl over to Talmage, pluck his binky out of his mouth and then look at it and smack his lips while Talmage laughs! Talmage enjoys giving Peter hugs and saying "Petey" with a wry smile, or "Sorry-I-yuv-you" if he has made Peter cry.

Recently Peter has developed a really good smile. He kind of throws his head back, closes his eyes most of the way, and gives a wide, toothy grin. Then he will throw his head forward again and his somewhat long hair will swing wildly around his head.

This morning we caught Peter learning how to climb up onto Talmage's bed. Here's the video we took of them having fun together. Enjoy! (Warning: this movie has a sad ending.)

Rappelling Adventure

Several weeks ago I got to help out with the Scouts by taking them rappelling at the nearby state park which has a cliff that's about 35-40 feet high. It was pretty fun for me and made me remember being the Scoutmaster when we were still in Provo. However, even more fun was that Leslie and the kids met me afterwards and we had a family rappelling activity!

When we first moved here we went rappelling with some friends and I managed to convince Morgan to try it. This time we got everybody down except for Peter (he'll have to wait until he's a little older). And no, I'm not forgetting about Talmage - he went down too! Of course everybody had a belay rope that I worked from the top, and I rigged up a chest harness for the kids, just in case they decided to get a little crazy and tip upside down.

This time I let Morgan control his descent. He used a rack and did quite well. Emma was a little scared since she had never done it before, but she also did great! She was so brave and once she was over the edge she got the hang of it pretty quickly. When it came to Talmage's turn, he just wriggled right over the edge of the cliff like there was no 40 foot drop below him. He kept asking Leslie if she was seeing him coming down. He looks pretty cute in a harness!

Here's a video of Morgan, Emma, and Talmage going down. It's not great quality (it's just from our phone), and some of it reminds me of when my dad tried to film my wrestling matches in high school (you could never see much of the match because he was mostly busy cheering me on - although in Leslie's defense, she was holding a baby while filming):

Sadly, I couldn't take a video while belaying and we didn't want to have one of the kids try doing it, so we only have a picture of the most beautiful person to jump off the cliff :)

You may wonder how we accomplished this amazing feet with four kids and no other adults. At the top of the cliff is a little picnic area. Before Leslie went down we got out the food and helped the kids to start eating lunch. We put Peter in his car seat and asked Emma to feed him an oyster cracker every few seconds. We were most worried about Talmage, so we got a little creative (you have to click on this picture to see it bigger):

But, it didn't work out so well. Even the extra small harness was still easy for him to slip out of. I didn't know what he was doing until Leslie was halfway down the cliff and Talmage showed up next to me to see how she was doing! I quickly yelled for Morgan to help keep him by the picnic table. Luckily, that worked.

Well, our blog post wouldn't be complete without a picture of the rigging master. He may be too small to go down the cliff, but's he's a master of knots (usually tying us into knots, but hey).