sleep and beans and stuff

I do not enjoy getting behind on my blog. It doesn't feel like we've been up to much, or that I have taken many pictures, but I still have tons of pictures on my camera to unload. The highlight of this week is that Kate is finally sleeping through the night, and she's in another room! We haven't gotten her in with Colin yet, but at least she's no longer in my bedroom. Getting her to sleep through the night was really just a matter of getting her in another room I think. She's done great so far. It took a little tough love the first 2 or 3 nights, but since then she's gone right to bed and stayed asleep. Nate's good with the tough love part. I'm not. If it weren't for him I would be in there giving her snuggles every time she made a noise. I can't help it. Nate makes me stay in my room and watch a show turned up loud enough that I am distracted from the weeping and wailing. It's a good thing we get to be parents together.

My sister, Heather, came home from South Africa this week. This was also exciting, but not as exciting as Kate sleeping. She's been doing a field study thing through BYU in East London, South Africa. (Apparently they are very directional down there.) She came home all fancy with her African beads and her tongue clicking and her world-traveler, hipster attitude. Just kidding, she's great. And it's nice to have her home, especially since she is willing to baby-sit my kids.

We have been canning green beans from the garden for what feels like decades. I think we're about finished with that finally. We're still getting green beans, just not in quantities that we can can. Can can. We were canning 10-15 quarts of beans twice a week. It was tedious, to say the least. Colin loved it. His grandparents and cousins came over, he got to play in the garden, and he got to snap the beans into pieces.

Diana and Sarah came over to play one day, but I didn't take any pictures. We were supposed to swim in the pool, but instead it rained and we played inside.

Tomorrow is my anniversary. Nate and I have been married for 6 years! Woohoo! I have a feeling we'll be married for even longer, but that it will take a while.

Here are some pictures from the end of July when we were working on green beans. Bry is my special helper.

The girls were really helpful—they were even kind to Colin as he learned how to snap the beans.

A few beans.

A blurry picture I don't feel like deleting.

A beautiful fuzzy baby.

Colin with his friend Spencer.

Everyone thinks it is so cute when their toddlers dress up in their shoes and push their strollers around the house. It's still okay when it's a boy toddler, right?

It was "cold" one day, so the kids got to wear long pants. They loved looking out the window and watching the storm.

They were also adorable as they chased each other around on Kate's blanket.

Watching out the window again.

Another bean-picking day. This time we set Colin up with his own little station by Papa.

I just loved how he was posed during his nap. It would be cuter if I turned the picture, but I won't.

Kate likes to try taking her shirt off. It gets annoying at meal times, but at other times it is cute. (Colin thought it looked like fun too.)

Kate is good at balancing. She can stand on her own for a few seconds at a time, too.

I have several pictures of Colin smiling and sitting exactly like this.

dad's day

So, 2 months later I finally took the pictures for Nate's Fathers Day present. I'm a little behind. Maybe in another 2 months I'll have the pictures edited and printed and in the frame.

And don't worry, I'll post for realsies later. Probably tomorrow.

booty reader

I just had my booty read by The Booty Reader on Old Navy's website. It was pretty hilarious. My booty sign was BADONKADONKUS. I'm not sure what that means, but it was fun to do anyway. Check it out for yourself.

i take a lot of pictures

I don't always take a lot of quality pictures, but I sure do have a lot to sort through when I get ready to blog.

Here's my attempt at getting a picture of my kids playing together. On opposite sides of the room.

On the 15th we had a visitor come over to play. Molly is my friend's sister's daughter. Or my mom's friend's granddaughter. Or whatever. She's adorable. The Snow daughters were up from Texas for their brother's wedding, and apparently Molly wasn't behaving while they were trying to run some errands, so she came over to play at my house (where she was an angel the entire time). Colin is about 6 weeks younger than Molly. Too bad they don't live closer together because I think they could be good friends. Here they are sitting in the chairs with some animal friends.

When I tried to take a picture of Molly and Colin eating a snack I could only get one of them to look at me at a time.

After lunch we went swimming. Awww.

She sure is a cute one!

And here is my beauty of a Kate in all her fat-faced glory.

Molly was picking up the blocks in her mouth and then spitting them out on the other side of the pool. It's funnier in the video. Colin just loves measuring cups. And spatulas. And hot pads. But I only let him have measuring cups in the pool.

Colin telling Kate to "wake up!"

On the 16th Colin was a little under the weather, for like an hour. He was sick with a pretty high fever, but he only acted sick for like an hour. After his nap he was back to his old self.

We love our garden!

I can't think of a caption about Sam and the hoe that doesn't come out sounding dirty.

On the 20th we had Park Day in my ward. (Moms and kids meet at the park for lunch and chatting and playing.) It's the highlight of my month. I had to take my mom to work in order to have her car in order to make it to the park.

Then I had to pick my mom up from work since I had her car. Colin loves going to the temple and seeing the fountains.

I had a really hard time getting him to turn around and look at me so I could take his picture in front of the temple.

Kate, after eating her first biter biscuit, which she loved.

Since Nate had Friday the 23rd off of work we took the kids to the splash park in Highland. I love Colin's hunched shoulders.

After the park we visited my brother Grant. He lives really close to the park. Colin had a blast chasing the cat around. Grant, Nate, Kate, and I watched one of Nate's co-workers who is a "professional" wrester. She was on Comcast On Demand under Utah Sports UCW wrestling stuff. Her professional name is Morgan. It was a hoot to watch. And also a little uncomfortable. Look her up if you can!

After Grant's we headed up to Cabela's because Nate had a gift card from work we wanted to use. Colin loved looking at the big animals, and he also enjoyed the guy cleaning the aquarium.

And now for today. Mapleton has a 24th of July parade, and each ward has a float. I thought I was supposed to help with the float, but something got mixed up. Colin thought he wanted to ride on the float, but since I wasn't going to ride with him he changed his mind. We found Granny and Papa and watched the parade instead.

This is for my sister, Heather, who is in South Africa and probably misses her best friends. They sat across the street from us.

The sirens scared my sensitive kids.

Colin made out like a bandit in the candy department. Papa was especially enthusiastic about helping him gather it up.

Go Navy!

This is our neighbor across the street—the infamous Mary's father. He's on the city council.

He came over and gave Colin an entire handful of candy.

A bicycle built for 4.

I took the kids to the park for the funtivities after Kate took a nap. We got a popsicle, a snow cone, bounced in the bouncy house, and hit the fishing pond twice. A good time was had by all.

That blue blob in the back is Colin.

Tonight we tried to go to the other park for more funtivities, but it wasn't fun, and Colin lost his hat, and that made me upset, and it was hot, and we missed the helicopter dropping 800 ping pong balls onto the park, and then we came home. A crappy end to an otherwise wonderful day. G'night.