Family Camp

BYU hosts a family camp at Aspen Grove each Summer.  We decided to try it this year and went June 1-4.  It was pretty fun.  They have 2 times each day when the kids go with their age groups and do fun things and then several options for the adults to choose from.  It was nice to have time for Daniel and I to do some fun things together and then to have time as a whole family.  Daniel and I did several of the activities, but I must say I think my favorite was the ping pong.  I don't actually remember if I've ever played ping pong, but it was so fun.  We were both laughing so hard we could hardly play.  I don't remember the last time we laughed that hard together.  It was so great.  Here are some pics of the other things we did:

These are air rifles.  I was actually the best shot for our week.   I really had fun shooting.  We also did some archery.  I got a nasty bruise from the string hitting my arm on that and realized afterwards that my double jointed elbow made my arm stick out in the way of the string.  Wish I'd known that before hand as it would likely have been less painful.  :)

 This was in the dining hall.  The food was unfortunately not that good, but oh well!

It was freezing up there because of the super cold Spring.  However, Emma wanted to swim so bad that Daniel went in with her one day.  She loved it, despite the fact that her lips were turning blue.  Good thing daddy went with her, because there was not way I was getting into that water.

Bella did pretty well.  She didn't really want to go with the babysitters by then end, but she did pretty well, despite the fact that she had very few naps.

 These next few were from the pioneer night or something like that.  They had a bunch of activities that you could participate in as a family.  It was my favorite family thing that we did.  Emma and Matthew loved the train.

We discovered that it is not a good idea to give the kids big foam things and tell them they could hit each other.  They were both more than happy to hit the other person, but each time they got hit themselves, the world came to an end with a bunch of screaming at the other person and crying.

Poor little Bella was so cold.  We went back to our cabin shortly after this.

These kids sure love their daddy.

This was Bugsy's favorite part of the whole weekend.  We bought him a "grabber" from the gift shop and he went around trying to grab everything he could see.

This was the ropes course that I did not make it up.  The first part had a long log hanging straight down with notches in it.  I couldn't make it past one of the notches that was really far apart.  Bummer dude!  Maybe next time I'll be in better shape.

All-in-all we had a good time!

Easter...

Yes, it is almost July.  Better late than never!  :)

We went to my parents house for the annual Easter Egg Hunt again this year.  Bugsy actually understood it this year and got himself some candy.  He wasn't super speedy, but he was happy with what he got and had a good time.  Emma had a good time too.  Bella just didn't get what was going on, but was more than happy to play with and gnaw on a wrapped piece of candy.  We all had a good time.

We are actually missing 4 or 5 kids from this pic, but it has most of them.

This was pretty funny.  Bella doesn't usually let anyone else hold her, especially men!  However, she was so enthralled with Mike's goatee that she stayed with him for a while.  She just couldn't figure out what it was.  She was so cute!

Easter...... Instruments?

No, I suppose there is really nothing very Easter-ish about drums or maracas.  We made them anyway and the kids loved it!  Here's how they turned out:

And here are the proud creators:

Annika and Mieka were here too, but it was a little crazy with Bella crying, so I didn't get a picture till after they had gone home.  We all had fun though!

What's In A Name?

For anyone who reads this blog, you probably already know that I call my little boy Bugsy.  Yes, I know that has nothing to do with his name which is Matthew.  It originated when he was born and Emma finally had a little brother.  We started by calling him "Brother."  That morphed into "Bubbers" which then morphed into "Bugsy" or any form of that such as "Bugsy Boo," "Biggetty Buggetty Boo," and "Bugsa Boosa."  Now that you know the history, here is the conversation we had in the car today:  


Matthew:  My middow name is Bugsy!
Mommy:  No, your middle name is Paul, like the prophet.
Matthew:  No, my first name is Maphew and my middow name is Bugsy and that's awl my names!


I guess maybe I need to stop calling him Bugsy.  But then I suppose we would have to explain that he has a last name as well.  With the length of our last name, that could get difficult.  :)

Scared What?

Daddy:  Bugsy, you need to put your fire truck away in your room.
Bugsy:  Daddy can you come with me?
Daddy:  No, you're a big boy, you can do it!
Bugsy:  But daddy, I need you to come with me because the clock scares my ears!

Blessed!

As I mentioned in my last post, we had Isabella's blessing last Sunday.  Here are some pics:

This is the invitation I emailed out

Here are pictures from the actual blessing day

Isabella did quite well the whole day, except for the 1 minute that Daniel was giving the blessing.  She hates being cradled in your arms and since she was being cradled, she fussed for most of the blessing. She was an angel the rest of the day though.  Thank you to everyone who joined us.  We had a wonderful day!  We feel very blessed to have our sweet little Bella and for all who came and celebrated with us.

Poor Daniel!

My poor husband!  Why you might ask?  Because he is married to me and we just had a shindig!  We just blessed Isabella last Sunday which of course means that I (like my mother before me) had to make changes to our house.  Fortunately, I did not go as in depth as we often did as children.  There was no knocking down of walls, wallpapering, or painting to be done.  I did however decide to finally finish up some decorating.  This meant that the whole week before the blessing I was working on getting pictures arranged, printed and hung.  Here is what I did:

I took these pictures of my kids and then arranged them in photoshop.

Then I had Daniel make them into canvases to hang on the wall.

Then we tossed around some Ideas of what to do with the wall in our hallway and ended up with this.

Finally he helped me update the pictures over our stairs.

Besides all of that, Daniel cleaned the entire house, (I am talking, bathrooms, mopping floors, vacuuming, kitchen, the whole shebang!) and watched the kids for much of the day on Saturday while I taught a Zumba class and tried to figure out how to cut the vinyl for the walls in the pictures above.

Yes, poor Daniel.  He was fabulous though.  I am so blessed that he is so supportive of my often annoying habits.  He wasn't bugged at me even once the whole weekend and there were plenty of opportunities for him to have been so.  I AM BLESSED!