oh august

I'm so behind in blogging. Somehow I've gotten it into my head that if I look at other people's updates, that's just as good as updating my own. I'm going to try to get back to my every other week pattern of blogging. Maybe.

The end of July I pulled out a Pinterest activity for the kids. They dropped colored vinegar onto a tray of baking soda for at least an hour. Win!

The face I get when I pull out the camera.

We sure loved playing in the pool this summer. Although as the season progressed, stranger and stranger accessories were added to the pool.

Me and my little buddy. (Pictures of me don't need to be quite as large as the pictures of the kids.)

Playing with some stickers from a "How I Feel" book.

Nate is the manager of the service department at work now, which means he is big and important, obviously. After a particularly grueling week, he smoked brisket for all the men that he supervises. I got to drop the food off at Gunthers since it wasn't done when Nate left for work. I took the kids with me and we made a day of it. We stopped at In'N'Out to grab some lunch, then took it to Cabela's and had a picnic out on the grass. Then we went inside to look at the fish and stuffed animals. I also bought way too much delicious fudge.

My personal favorite was the honey badger. Because it don't care.

How sweet is this? Colin was holding a sleeping Kate's hand in the backseat on the way home.

The kids pulled out a bunch of stuffed animals and post-it notes and played store. Colin wrote the price tags. We paid with pretend money. After an item was purchased, the price tag went in the huge Mr. Potato Head.

My generous neighbors called me up and told me to come pick some corn in their cornfield. So I did. Nate's parents came and helped and we picked, shucked, cooked, cut, and froze somewhere in the neighborhood of 88 pounds of corn. Awesome!

The amazing balancing pirate baby!

Colin's outfits are always priceless. I'm going to miss them when he grows up and decides he's too cool.

Gray stole a board book from another mom during Sunday school one Sunday in August. He ran several rows up the aisle, lay on his belly to look at the book, and carefully placed his head down on the pages. He stayed that way for a long time. Like a really long time. I told Nate what was going on and he told me to go get Gray. I said no, because why mess with a good thing? But Nate wasn't about to let a sleeping baby lie, so he went and got Gray, who immediately woke up. Good call, Dad.

Aww, what a sweet pink-diapered little boy. I'm glad they play well together.

One Saturday I decided we were going to have a Family Fun Day, even if it killed us. Nate and I took the kids to Thanksgiving Point to the natural history museum. The hands on stuff was fun, but the kids couldn't have cared less about the other exhibits and fossils.

Gray's 1st Birthday!

Gray turned one on the 13th (which also happens to be his cousin Donovan's birthday). I made Very Hungry Caterpillar cupcakes because Gray seems to always be Very Hungry. As you can see in the picture, a certain disobedient 4-year-old boy sampled the frosting when I wasn't looking. Gray got his own small cake to eat. I thought I would need to stack two for the head, but I didn't, so Gray got to eat the other one. Cupcakes are the traditional 1st birthday food at our house.

Cousins enjoying their treats.

Beautiful messy boy.

Gray had a lot of help opening his gifts. He has really enjoyed playing with everything these last few weeks. His grandparents/aunts/uncles really know him well.

Gray is starting this whole dress-up thing early. He loves to wear masks and chase the other kids. He brings his accessories to me and whines/grunts until I put them on him.

Western pirate princess?

She's so weird. She still sleeps in the strangest positions/places.

A pictures Colin took of himself with my phone. I find many of these when the house gets unnaturally quiet...

A picture Colin took of me and Gray.

Gray's sweet BYU onesie from his Granny. He always looks good on game day.

I have no words.

How could you not love this child?

The joys of learning to eat with a spoon. It creates so much more work for me, but it keeps Gray entertained.

Kate's crazy hair. I gave her several braids in an attempt to make her hair kinky/fluffy. When we took the braids out the fancy hair lasted for all of 20 minutes before it fell flat. Guess she has straight straight hair like her mama.

Kate loved having crazy hair.

The kids starred in a horse swing photo shoot for Papa's horse swing business. (Check out this website to see the swings and my adorable kids!) This is one of the reject pictures, but I love it.

Stay tuned for another update, coming at you in about 30 days...