Jack’s Prayers

I quickly wanted to write down Jack’s prayers lately:

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank thee this day, and the food and bless it, and protect us, and the gospel, and go to grandmas and grandpas, and go to gram and papas, and maggie come to our house. Thank thee that Jesus be born, and Santa bring us presents. Name Jesus Christ Amen.

 

I just wanted to remember this. Their prayers are so sweet, and I love hearing what he is grateful for. I love that we are getting to the point that he understands how to pray.

Iona Park

We frequented Iona park. They played and I monitored Lukes attempt to eat the bark..

I love how they are sitting in this picture.

Baseball

We enjoyed one Chuckars Baseball game (or about half of one) and an icecream cone to boot!

More Lake.

Swim Lessons

Luke and I endured many many swim lessons.

Swimming. swimming.

Oh the fun that we had at the lake and water park. Best summer fun EVER.

this was the best idea. To contain the babies Luke and Spencer, we filled up the little raft with water and they had their own little sand free pool. My car was packed full all summer. With the shade, towels, beach toys, life jackets, cooler, chair, blanket. Luke played a bit in the sand and lake as well. And he did consume a fair amount of sand. We usually went with Torrie and kids and some of their friends. But talked Kara into joining us once and got to hang out with Mary and Atli a few times. We were probably at the week an average 2-3 days every week.

Jack enjoyed swimming out with me to the water slide in the lake and going down with me. He was pretty brave getting dunked under the water. He really honed his swimming skills this summer.

Nothing cuter than a chunky baby in a grandpa had and speedo.

and onto walking…

good thing we had protection…

You would not believe the comments we got while he had the helmet on, it was pretty normal to hear parents explaining to their kids “Oh, he must fall a lot so he has to wear a helmet”

Really? what walking 10 month old doesn’t fall a lot? While it was a major bonus, so NOT the reason to put them and you through torture..

My Little Piggie

Jack would occasionally flood my garden to create his own swimming hole. I am a freak and always worried about kiddie pools and worry about them drowning so I never let them get one. So Jack had to improvise. But on the plus side it watered my garden.

Summer Fun

At the Zoo in Idaho Falls. It was nice and shady and cool that day.

4th of July fun waiting for the fireworks in the usual spot in Menan.

Wade, Ellie, Jack.

Dan and Luke.

Luke learned to crawl..

over the summer Luke catapulted through crawl, walk, run.

T-Ball

This summer Jack played T-ball. He enjoyed it. Dan got to come to quite a few games to cheer him on. Luke and I soaked up the sun. Here is the play by play…

Mickey Mouse

Jack has recently discovered Disney Junior on the ipad.. otherwise we have never watched disney or mickey mouse… he is a little confused on the name however:

“Mom, I want to watch Squeaky Mouse.”

Birthday Boys

My friend Katy Paskett was kind enough to take my boys picture together on their birthday. I love it! Thanks Katy!

Birthday Party with the Millers

Luke with Aunt Torrie. She got his birthday hat on him for about 2.4 seconds. I brought those party noise makers… note to self… never again.

 

Jack and his favorite gal pal Ellie. Look at my sad looking cake, not so great the second round. I was so not cut out to be a cake decorator.

Jack, Ellie, Luke, Grandma, Ezra, Torrie, Wade.

These kids will do anything to come to Grandma’s house, it is the best place in the whole world. I love how grandma and grandpa always are so welcoming and spend so much time listening and spending time with their grandkids.

 

Jack has a shy nature as you all know. So this year I have put him in anything and everything. He did swim lessons all summer and recently passed to the next level “eel”, he did T-ball in June, he enjoyed that but he definitly was interested in the dirt and grass and dandelions and collecting pinecones… he was in the outfield a bunch. And getting the bases down took awhile but it was so fun to go sit in the sun and watch him play. It was really good for him.

It snowed the other day (of course all the snow is gone now), had lots of fun building snowballs and snowmen and sliding and snow angels. Love that boy.

What has Mom been doing?

I know I am guilty of chronically posting about my children. And that’s about it. (Being a mom and all sometimes I forget that I do stuff as well, its just never as exciting or cute, you know?)

I have been taking care of our home, I love flowers and taking care of outside stuff in the summer time.


This year Kara inspired us to raise some chickens. They have been SOO fun. When we went and got them Jack was so excited he was beside himself, and was so excited to have chickens in a box. (they put the chicks in a little tiny box to take home). We have raised them from chicks (That was probably the funnest part.) We had them in a tote in our garage and Jack loved to watch and hold them. They are so adorable. Then they got bigger with feathers and started hopping out of the tote, so we needed to build a coop. I looked some up online and knew what I thought we could do, but Dan didn’t see my vision so I decided to take him to Cal-ranch to show him some of theirs to get an idea… and we came home with a Cal-ranch pre fabricated coop. Its perfect for the “small urban farmer”.  They are just now starting to lay eggs. One lays brown eggs and another just started and lays green eggs. Jack loves collecting the eggs every morning and having green eggs for breakfast. Most of the summer we let them free range in our back yard, we have never had such a great garden with the help of their fertilizer and it has helped our grass also, but by the end of summer I was tired of the chicken poop on my back porch so we decided to build a small fence (the lower half). But they kept getting out so I thought they must be flying over (even though we clipped their wings… that was an adventure, but in my defense I did watch a youtube video to see how it was done  lol) Anyways they kep getting out so we decided to make a taller fence, so now our fence looks REALLY redneck. Next year we plan on putting a nicer looking fence up. but for we will look hillbilly. At least noone can see it but us , I always say keep the front your pristine and the back can be toys and mess and fun! I really do love my chickens. We also used to put them in the coop at night and one night Dan was doing it but they wouldn’t go in for him, he got really frustrated and started herding them with a baseball bat… we are glad to still have 5 of 5 chickens. They like me more than Dan lol, they will follow me around the yard, and I can pick them up, they love to see the boys and will play around them.
This summer we also went to rigby lake.. A LOT, at least once a week sometimes 2-3 times. Seriously the funnest summer activity. We love going with Torrie and kids they have so much fun in the sun. My trunk was full all summer with the necessities of lake going.  Jack got really comfortable in the water and he would even go on the water slide with me. ( he wears a life jacket all the time of course, and had a sweet life jacket tan line). Luke also enjoyed the lake and playing with spencer and trying to eat the sand. Boy the tub was full of sand each time we got home and washed up. We talked Kara into joining us once... she thinks we are crazy. We did float the canal a few times with the smiths. That was also fun, but Luke couldn't join us on that adventure.

Brotherly Fun

These two love playing together. In some ways it was nice that Luke started walking at 10 months, then he can keep up with Jack. Luke really enjoys wrestling and tackling Jack. He is a pretty rough little guy.

Pumpkin Patch

Every year we celebrate the “Great Pumpkin”. Gram and Papa were in town so we went to the Red barn and their pumpkin patch.

Just one of the pumpkins.

Gram , Jack, Luke, Papa.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE fall and winter. So this is always a fun time.

Cowboy

Jack got a cowboy hat and boots and electric toothbrush.. lucky boy.

Baby in Boots

For some reason there is nothing cuter than a Baby in his diaper with boots on. And playing with his tractor that he loves. Pop Pop Pop brrrrr. Im not really sure how to spell out a tractor sound.  Luke is NOT interested in playing with the baby toys, or the baby tractors..he want the real deal.