4th of July

Nate decided to do yard work instead of going to the parade.

Almost parade time! My brothers slept out on University Ave. to get a good spot for everyone. Since they already had the spot and all I had to do was show up, I decided to go hang with them. Parades aren't always my favorite, but the kids love them, and I love my kids.

Trying to get a picture of all of my kids in their red, white, and blue. 

Jude and Maggie are good friends.

My cute sister-in-law and her cute girls.

I won these awards at Army.

Gray!

There were a lot of boys in the flag tossers this year. I liked it.

Dees is fer the Newsies!

The Little Mermaid!

Waving to the princesses!

 Pipe band! My favorite!

It's like half a dozen Lil Sebastians!

More princesses!

Kung Fu Panda!

Colin!

Missionaries!

I deleted all the other marching band pictures. But rest assured, there were marching bands.

Princesses!

This was just a cool float.

After the parade we met up with Brad and DeAnna and kids and went for a cubscout hike so Donovan could get his Wolf award.

We also did the lame fireworks kids like at Granny's house.

And had a water balloon war.

The big boys got in on it, too.

Then we had a cousin sleepover, and I got the short end of the stick because I traded my one girl for 3 extra boys.

I took the big boys to a neighbor's house to watch the cool aerial fireworks, and they did not appreciate them.

3rd of july

Some fun times in Primary. Tracy Hawkins (the Primary President) gave a great lesson on Moses' traveling temple. She bought a model of it on Amazon and put it together. The kids were so impressed! Now I want one, too.

I was the substitute music leader for a couple of weeks which was super scary. But we had fun reviewing program songs in different voices, thanks to my fun spinning wheel of choices. This is the boys doing the Grandma voice, hitting themselves in the throat really fast to make your voice warble.

We also did Opera styles.

And Army styles. I can't remember all of them now. I think there was Robot and a few others. Like 8 total.

The junior primary tried to build their own temple.

colin's baptism

Imma just post all the pictures, because I like all of them and this is my blog.

Nate loves jumpsuits.

Kate refused to be in the picture.

Trying to take a picture of the three of us, and I don't like how big my arm looks.

My arm looks better, but Gray tried to get back in the picture. I love how Nate is pushing him back out of frame.

Papa and Dad and Son.

I guess my brother Ethan had already left by this point.

It was a lovely morning. Colin was so into the talks and trying to be good. I tried to remind him that the special feeling he felt was the Holy Ghost. I hope he remembers that. I held it together pretty well and didn't cry too much. We had donuts and flavored milks in the pavilion of the stake center afterwards. It was quick and easy and we didn't have to let people into our home. Winning.