Our Little Boss

Yesterday, we had my Aunt Michelle and her kids here along with Grandpa, Ben+ Sara, and Rachel. We were in the middle of eating dinner (the adults in the living room, kids in the kitchen) and we heard Emily say, "You clean that up right now. You don't make a mess with your drink. My mommy and daddy don't like that. You clean it up." Riley (who she was yelling at) promptly got up and cleaned up the mess. Apparently they were throwing water at each other (just sprinkles at a time). I thought it was so funny that she would yell at them like that because Riley is 12, Celine is 9 and Chanel is 14. At least we know she has heard some of what we say.

Yellowstone

We just got back from Yellowstone yesterday. We had a great time and really enjoyed spending time together with family. Our days were packed from 9 am to about 9 pm. We saw as much as we could in the time that we had. I was there last 20 years ago. I am so glad that we were able to go again because I had forgotten a lot. We enjoyed seeing geysers, mud pots, hot springs, waterfalls, buffalo, mule dear, white-tailed deer, antelope, coyote, elk, bears, and other smaller animals. Yellowstone is truly a beautiful area. My parents had everything planned out perfectly so we were able to see quite a bit. The children did okay with the walking. Emily and Madison spent a lot of time in the strollers though.

Here is one of the springs. I think it is so beautiful with how blue the water is. It is really stinky though in real life.
Emily and Lucas get along really well and really love playing together. They are both really bossy and were perfect for each other. I don't think either of them let the other one push them around.
I love this picture with Maddie looking at one of the hot springs. She got really scared of the steam because she is convinced all steam is hot and is going to burn her.

This is Old Faithful erupting. I think we got to see it erupt three times. My brother Dean even got a picture of another geyser erupting and Old Faithful erupting in the background.
There are so many pictures I might just make a slide show.

Our Week

This last week was another busy one. Joe went to scout camp on Monday and came home Thursday afternoon. He had an amazing time and really enjoyed spending time camping with the boys from the ward. When he left on Thursday he was pretty sure they had received the Woodsman award (you have to earn a lot of points to get it), but on Saturday when everyone was coming home from Scout Camp they called and told him they missed it by 5 points. He was so bummed and couldn't believe they missed it by only 5 points. Well, they were just teasing him because they showed up on our doorstep that afternoon with not only the Woodsman Award, but another award(can't remember the name) for getting the most points. He was so excited that they had done it. He said that the boys were great up at camp and he was really impressed with how well they all did.
While Joe was gone we just did our normal routines for the week and we were so excited when he returned. JJ actually started giggling when he saw Joe because he was so excited. It was very cute.
On Friday night Joe and I headed to the temple with my family to do some temple work. We had a great time and went to ice cream at Dairy Queen afterward. Jared watched the kids for us which was awesome of him.
Saturday was spent running errands and getting ready for our trip this next week to Yellowstone. I also took the girls swimming with Ben and Sara. We had a good time especially since it was over 100 outside.
This next week we will finish getting ready for our trip and then we leave on Tuesday. We are so excited to go to Yellowstone and spend time with our family.

Our Garden

Emily and Madison love our garden.

Madison is often found out in the garden picking peas or raspberries. She loves them so much. If I can't find her anywhere that is usually where she is. We also are finally getting strawberries from our plants that we planted this year. We were picking the blossoms until the end of June because this is supposed to make the berries even bigger and better, and I think it worked. Our blossoms in May were kind of small and the ones we are getting now are huge. The few strawberries we have gotten so far are pretty big too and they are really yummy as well.

Oh No!

I discovered today that Madison can open doors all by herself. This has been the only thing that kept her out of the bathroom and our bedroom, the two rooms that she likes to get into things that she isn't supposed to. I guess now I will just have to start putting things up higher. I am glad that it has taken so long for her to do this though because she doesn't get into nearly as much trouble now as when she was younger.

Library Day

Our local library is having fun activities every Wednesday during the summer. Today they had a clown. She did a pretty good job and the kids enjoyed watching her. I think their favorite part was the balloon animals though. She did balloon animals for anyone that wanted one. Emily got a heart wand and Madison got a giraffe. I didn't think Madison would really care if she got one, but I was wrong. Emily got one during the presentation, and at the end people who didn't get one were lining up. Madison kept telling me Balloon, Balloon. I asked if she wanted a balloon animal and she said, "Uh-huh." So Emily took her to stand in line and she was so happy when she got it. She kept waving it all over the place with a huge smile on her face.

4th of July!

Yesterday we had a wonderful day. We started the morning by going to Caldwell's 4th of July parade. I was surprised at how easy it was to get there and leave because it wasn't to crowded in the area that we went. The kids of course loved the parade and enjoyed seeing the horses, firetrucks, and all the other floats.
After the parade Rachel and I went and picked cherries and left Tim with the kids. He did a great job keeping the kids entertained. I was surprised at how how much he fit into such a small time period. We were only gone for an hour. He even helped feed the kids. Joe was home by then so he helped too.
Everyone relaxed for the afternoon while the kids took naps. I was busy making homemade Hot Dog and Hamburger Buns so that Emily could eat them. Tim helped me make some mini pies too.
After the kids woke up from naps we went to the Caldwell City Pool to go swimming because they have free swimming on the fourth of July. We had a lot of fun. Especially because we got to see Jared working. We swam about 30 minutes and then they had to clear the pool because a child had pooped in it.
Then we went back to our house and my parents came over and we all ate dinner. After dinner we did water bottle rockets with a rocket launcher that my dad had built that morning. It was so fun to see, and I think that Emily loved it most of all. It was amazing how high we could get them. I was a little worried that they were going to land on our neighbors cars though because they kept heading that direction. They wouldn't have hurt anything, but I didn't want them to get upset.
After the rockets we headed over to Melba to watch their city fireworks. They were really good, but I think that we will stay closer to home next time. Getting out of Melba was kind of crazy because there was so many people that had come in from out of town.
By the time we got home last night we were all exhausted and ready for bed. It was a fun day.

Our Busy Week

This last week was very busy. At the beginning of the week we decided to move our living room around. It wouldn't have taken so long but we have two bookshelves filled with books. We had to take all the books off, move the shelves and then decide if we wanted to keep all the books or not. Here is a picture of what it looks like now. The bookshelves used to be on the wall that the couch is on.

Later in the week we decided to can cherry pie filling. We bought 5 lbs of pie cherries thinking that would be a lot. We were only able to get 4 jars of pie filling from it. On Saturday Rachel came with me to the church orchards and we were able to pick 25 lbs more for half the price that it cost me for the first 5 lbs. Joe and I will be canning these tomorrow. We are excited to have yummy homemade pie filling.

On Friday I took the kids to Settler's park to meet up with my friend Julee. After she had been there about 20 minutes Madison decided to walk behind the swing Emily was swinging in and she went flying. It was one of those slow motion moments where I saw it happening, but I couldn't get there in time to stop it. She ended up with a large bruise on her cheek. Friday it was very swollen and really hard underneath so we took her to the doctor to make sure that everything was okay and luckily all is well.
Friday night I took Emily and Madison to the movie in the park while Joe stayed home with JJ and did homework. We watched Star Wars: Clone Wars. I was worried Friday evening because it was looking like it was going to rain, and every time I have tried to go it has been rained out. Luckily no rain came down and we were able to see the movie.
All in all we had a great busy week.

Cleaning the house

I have finally found a system that seems to work for cleaning the house (at least for me). It is at flylady.com. She breaks everything up into babysteps to begin with. After you complete the babysteps everything has a zone. You basically work on a zone a week and at the end of the month the entire house has been deep-cleaned. Weekly chores are simplified and included in an hour clean done once per week. She also suggests using a timer to keep yourself on track, and recommends only doing cleaning 15 minutes at a time and giving yourself permission to stop when the 15 minutes is up. Another big thing is decluttering your house which should be done before you start doing the deep-cleaning zone work. She also talks about 2 minute hot spot cleaning and 5 minute room rescues everyday. I have been using her system for about 5 weeks and it has helped so much. I don't feel like I am cleaning all day anymore and not having anything to show for it when I am done because the house still looks like a mess. Joe finds it easier to help me clean because there is a system to it and he knows what to expect. I have also found a place for almost everything. We are still working on the decluttering part, but I am getting close to finishing. My friend Julee told me about this website years ago and I wish I had gone to it then because it has helped so much.

A weekend of Camping

This past weekend we went up to my grandpa's cabin with our family. Joe went to the ward's fathers and sons outing so he wasn't able to come with us. We had a great time. Emily, Madison, and I went on a hike with Ben and Sara and had fun looking at the places Ben & I used to build forts with Dean and Mathew. The forts are all gone now, of course, but in some places there was still piles of wood. Madison kept telling us to be quiet because there was bears. Emily had a great time picking the pretty flowers. On Friday night we roasted marshmallows and had smores. Yummy! Emily decided that she likes these brown marshmallows better than the ones we make at home on our BBQ. We came home Saturday after lunch. It was a really quick trip. Joe had a good time on his father's and sons outing. Next year he might even take JJ along.