Typical Fun!

Today has just been one of those boring yet wonderful days full of nothing reportable but still so busy!

Today Matthew was out playing with his friends and he said "Hailey Colette is my best friend ever." I hope he always feels that way and realizes that although friends are GREAT and so important, there is nothing that can replace the love and friendship of family.

Lately Hailey has been LOVING her bath! She sits up and loves to splash the water like crazy and suck on wash cloths (gross, I know). Then when she's done it is very important that I leave her in (or Matthew throws a HUGE fit and says to put her back in) while he gets in and they play for a few minutes of overlap time while his bathwater fills up before I get her out. That is her favorite part.

Wind Cave

We hiked up the Darby Canyon trail to this amazing cave last weekend. It was a KILLER hike, but I'm sure it wouldn't be so bad if we didn't have the kids with us.

It was absolutely beautiful and definitely worth the sore backs and necks (Curt carried Matthew on his shoulders whenever Matthew got too tired of hiking. Matthew actually hiked a lot. And I had Hailey in the moby wrap the entire time of course.)

Here's proof we really went INSIDE. (I'm a teeny tiny speck down at the bottom with the kids. if you can even see it)

We went not only for the beauty of it all, but Curt heard there were great fossils there, which there were. Here's Matthew fossil hunting.

Here's a few of Curt's finds. I thought they were pretty cool!

After we got out of the cave we had to find a warmer place (I think they call it the wind cave because a fiercely COLD wind blows out of it) and have a few snacks. I had no idea it would be such a long hike so we were ill prepared, especially with water. But it was still awesome anyway, and we had more water at the car when we got back.

Matthew gave the hike TWO THUMBS UP!

These two pictures are just from helping with a bit of landscaping at my parents' house the other day.

Camas creek area

Last Saturday we were craving an adventure so we drove out Kilgore area to explore the camas creek stuff. Mostly Curt had heard that there is a lot of obsidian scattered throughout that area, and since that is his latest collection of choice, we went a looking! We had it planned to eat some lunch there and go for a hike, but the drive was too long and we got hungry so we ate on the way instead :) By the time we got there Matthew had fallen asleep for about 10 minutes so when we woke him up he was GRUMPY!! So the hike didn't turn out so well either since he was too whiny to walk much, but then we went by the creek and he cheered up throwing rocks into the water.

Curt found an amazing specimen and Matthew was almost as excited about it as Curt was!

Hailey loves looking in the mirror!

I would be grinning at myself like that too if I were that pretty!

A simple prayer

Tonight Matthew's prayer went something like this:

"...thank you for gramma grampa at da house, thank you for leia, ben, ben's mommy, leia's mommy, mommy, daddy, matthew, hailey. Thank you for dat BEAUTIFUL two rainbow and toys, books..."

There is no way Matthew's prayers could escape the attention of our loving Heavenly Father.

I love to see the Temple

There was a beautiful sunset tonight after a rainstorm on our drive home from Sunday evening at my parents' house. I asked Curt if we could drive up to see the temple and he happily took us there.

We weren't the only ones with this idea. We drove past about 5 other "photographers" :)

As we pulled past the temple Matthew started singing "I love to see the Temple" and it just melted my heart!

first braid

Curt ran his fingers through Hailey's hair at church and said, "I bet her hair is long enough to braid!"

kabling! my eyes grew big with excitement and as soon as we got home.......

What is he thinking?!

Outdoor/wildlife/ecology foofraw! Curt should be a PHOTOGRAPHER! He took this amazing picture of Matthew today at the park (only because I last minute opted to bring the camera even though we have 500 pictures of the park thank you thank you very much)

luckily things worked out that we went to the park BEFORE he faceplanted on the sidewalk after taking a corner too sharp and biffing it with his trike. He's got a nice couple of road rashes. One large one on the forehead, one smack dab on that incredibly "distinguished" nose matthew was BLESSED with!

I did it!

I'm sure this is old news to everyone else, but I finally figured out how to do collages on photoshop.

haha, teehee, have a laugh. At least I know now and it really is easy.

These pictures by the way I love because I absolutely LOVED doing Hailey's hair this day. It's the double pony pull through loop piggies. Or that's what I call it and it was the first time I gave it a try on her hair!

LESSONS Learned!

Lesson #1:

Don't get complacent thinking that even though the car broke down once before and "rested" a few days and started up again means that it is now in working condition.

It's not.

Took the kids with me to the grocery store to buy milk. Loaded them up in the car, backed out of my parking spot, put the car in drive, went forward maybe 10 ft and sputter sputter bibbely booooo. wouldn't start again. Kind chancerbyers pushed the car back into my parking spot (which was a sweet spot by the way).

Lesson #2:

Don't think that just because it's the backroom and by the back door that you can leave it messy at any time. You never know when a kind person helping you will be required to walk in it to help you bring in your groceries.

Mercies Shown:

So I have known all along ever since the neon broke down again that this spurt of miraculous dirveability wouldn't last, but I've just been trying my luck, saying a prayer before I turn the key, and using it anyway. It's so incredibly inconvenient to only have one car. I guess this time I forgot to pray before I started the car. But that doesn't mean that I was left completely alone to fend for myself. Divine help planned for one of my neighbors to just HAPPEN to be walking right past my car into the grocery store just as the car died. She has one little girl and she was only buying one quick thing and then she came back out to help me load up the kids, my groceries, and myself into her car and she graciously drove us home. I think what I learned most of all from this; and this is lesson #3:

Good Works Abound.

McCoy Creek etc

Last weekend we camped at McCoy creek with my parents. We did some fishing, Curt did a little gold panning, hiking, and we swam in Palisades Reservoir

This picture is of Hailey sitting in the truck while Curt and my dad were out fishing. It got too cold for us! She is sitting up now so good!!! She wants to do it all the time!

just before our LITTLE hike

Matthew calls these "Puff Balls" and he always wants to blow them like giant dandelions.

Leia and Matthew reading the Friend together. Leia is one of Matthew's best friends and our neighbor. there are only a couple of kids his age around here! The rest have moved on and out of college by the time they have a three yr old. oh well. we'll get there some day!

I don't know if Matthew thought of this on his own (I wouldn't put it past him) or if Leia suggested it (he'll do anything she asks) but I thought it was hilarious!

Outings with Kara and her kids

Last weekend Kara and Lance came up with their kids. While Lance went off fishing with my dad for two whole days Kara and the kids did some fun things with mom and us. We went pretend fishing at the duck park, we went to the splash park, rigby lake, Arctic Circle, and saw Toy Story 3 at the drive-in. We had a ton of fun!

by "gathering rocks" we were able to get Matthew to wade out waist deep....and ENJOY it!! And it was actually a fairly cold day. we had to leave because of a rainstorm coming in.

This is matthew's self portrait. And he was practicing a few of his letters. He's such a smartie!! He can write his name. He sight reads a whole bunch of words. He can count to THIRTY now except he still skips 18 and I don't know why...

Her serious face says otherwise, but she REALLY enjoyed this shoulder ride from daddy!

What a baby model!!!

Hailey 6 months old

I can't believe my little baby is already halfway to her one year old birthday! Time is sure flying by!

15 lbs 11 oz

26 inches

Hailey is so amazing! We are so lucky to have her as part of our little family. She is now trying to sit up (she's getting pretty good but not quite there yet for longer than maybe a minute). She still absolutely loves Matthew and will laugh at him for no apparent reason except she loves him. Her smile can make your day. She loves to sleep but you have to be really quiet because she has bionic ears and will wake up if you aren't careful. Hailey eats like a champ which is such a sweet relief for us after Matthew's pickiness!!! When she's really happy or excited she'll either swirl her feet or kick her left leg. They say you can't tell until kids are way older, but I swear she's going to be left handed. Who knows really though, but so far she seems to prefer the left 4 out of 5 times. That picture of her sleeping in her crib is her favorite way to fall asleep. I'll lay her in there on her back and she'll roll over, stick her foot between the slats and hum until she falls asleep. We've started trying to get her to drink out of a sippie. She thinks it's absolutely wonderful! I love her white tan lines in her fat creases on her wrists! She's really getting into books and tries to grab anything that is within reach. Loud noises really scare her (even if they're not so loud, again with the bionic ears) and I have to be careful if I'm holding her while she hears a loud noise because she'll start pinching me out of panic! She HATES the vacuum, so my floors don't get the thorough clean I would like. Hailey is such a sweetie and we are so glad we get to be her parents!

New Family Pictures

Another attempt.

Good except for Hailey's belly button and the kids looking off. It is really hard to get a good family picture with little kids!!!!!! It MIGHT help though if Curt were willing to sit there and smile for more than 3 shots...

Curt says we're done until Hailey turns at least one.

dang.

Montana

We spent the weekend in Hamilton with Curt's parents. It was a crazy trip, but fun! Friday night we had lightening strike a tree about 165 yds away and start a fire! Curt and his dad had to race to it in the dark and work on putting it out until the fire department came. By the time they came though Curt and Maurice pretty much had the fire out. It took them a couple of hours. Curt's property growing up borders forest service land, so he's kind of been spoiled that way. His back yard is a mountain chain! If they hadn't have seen that fire and been able to put it out who knows how many miles, including their house, would have burned! This pictures is of the 3 big trees and the one little tree that got struck. The boom was so loud it hurt our ears and the flash was so bright it was amazing!

Above is Curt's mom riding on a motorcycle with Clint (Curt's brother). She is so funny! She had no idea what she was getting herself into!

We love going to Como! This time we talked Venice into going with us.

It was fun getting to see a lot of the family!! Hopefully we'll get another car soon that's actually RELIABLE and we can make more trips up to Montana!