4th of July

This year with the 4th of July on a Sunday, we had church, then in the evening we went over to Brian's parents' house for our regular Sunday dinner with the rest of his siblings and their families. We had cheesy meatloaf, fruit, potato salad, rolls and I'm sure there was more but I am forgetting now. I made desserts and I couldn't make up my mind, so I made three different things. The best thing that I couldn't get enough of was Creamy Lemon Crumb Squares. SO YUM! They were really simple to make but oh so good. It almost tasted a little like lemon cheesecake, but there was no cream cheese in the recipe. It's making my mouth water just thinking about it!

After dinner, Rob did a fun game with the kids (and the willing adults). They had to find the piece of gum in a bowl of whipped cream and then blow a bubble. Eliza did it, but Libby didn't want to get her face dirty! Ellie and Hattie did it but they had to find four M&Ms in the whipped cream. I got roped into doing the one with gum. It was good for a laugh!







The kids played and played until it was time for fireworks. This year so strange in that all of our kids watched the fireworks without being scared! ...a first for sure! We waited a while before we left, but we still ran into traffic on the way home. It was a fun 4th.

Other pictures from the 4th:

Ruby--9 months

Ruby is just growing up way too fast. She has been army crawling for about a month now and she sure can get around. She also loves to stand up at the couch or one of her table toys and just play. She loves to give kisses and play peek-a-boo. She is such a happy baby and loves to be around her sisters. Libby takes the most interest in her, so she'll reach for Libby and want her to hold her. It's darling.

Vacation at Grandma's (and Grandpa's)

This summer my mom wanted to have each of the school age grandkids over for a several-day sleepover one-on-one. After we got home from the trek, Eliza had her week with my mom. My mom documented their time on her blog more in depth, but they had a great time. They made an album with Eliza's track pictures, visited my dad at his summer program that he does, went to the temple visitor's center, made cookies, went out to eat, saw Charlotte's Web at Broadway Palm, etc. etc.





She had a wonderful time being spoiled! :)

Libby's week was while I was at girls camp. She didn't want to go to the summer program as much, but instead she and my mom made two albums--one with her gymnastics photos and the other with photos from her Go Fish! musical.

Libby also got to go with my mom for her haircut, and Libby got her hair cut, too. She got it cut quite a bit--almost to her shoulders. It looks darling.

My mom said Libby couldn't get enough of playing cards either! They played cards night and day. Libby also got to go to Broadway Palm along with the rest of her cousins. They all loved the play.

They made brownies and played more cards. On Friday I got home from camp and Brian had the rest of the girls up at the cabin for the night, so I went to my parents and they took me and Libby out to Oregenos. They both had a super time during their vacation at Grandma and Grandpa's. Oh yeah, they also made a zillion of those bead things that you melt with an iron.

Ellie gets to have a one night sleepover coming up and she is super excited about that.

Father's Day

Since we were going to be gone for most of Father's Day, we gave Brian some of his gifts before we left. He got some much needed new tennis shoes and a t-shirt. When we got home he got a button down shirt and a football to throw around out back. My girls and I are so lucky...he is such a great father!

Summer Regionals

Every year the brokers from Brian's region at work get together with their families for Summer Regional meetings. Usually we go to some resort in the valley, but the past few years, they've chosen a farther destination. This year was in Rancho Mirage, California, which is just south of Palm Springs. I wouldn't choose that place as a vacation spot, but we had fun. We left Friday morning and made the 4 or so hour drive to our hotel. We were tight on time, so we put everything in our room and then headed to the first meeting. We took the kids to their kids activities and Brian and I went to our first meeting. Basically it was just introducing each other and spouses. After that meeting, we had the spouse's meeting. This year we were supposed to bring our favorite "excellent" thing. I brought my favorite hair brush and hair product--a CHI hair shine (thanks Brooke for hooking me up!). So as we went around and introduced ourselves, we also told about our favorite things. Then we chose a name and that person got our stuff. The person who gave to me was a husband of a broker and he was so funny. Just a funny old man, who really didn't know what we were doing. I ended up with a box of Raisinettes and a little quote wall hanging thing. I think maybe his wife did it for him. The spouse in charge of the meeting gave us a little box of some of her favorite things, one of the product partners gave each of us a little box of the small Paradise Bakery cookies and the regional leader gave every spouse on of her favorite things--a Pancake Pen. After the meetings, we picked the kids up. The ladies in the infant room didn't want to give Ruby up. They wanted to eat her up! They loved her. We always laugh though at those things--they always feed them way too much! I was gone probably 4 hours and she had had two full bottles. They said she was still hungry. HA! Sure she was, but you just don't keep going and going. Anyway, we just laugh about it. That night we had a family dinner and games. After dinner, they played "Minute to Win-It" games. Eliza had a lot of fun doing a couple of the games--she did the one where you put some Vaseline on your nose and try to transfer cotton balls from one bowl to another and she did one where you have a tissue box belted to your back and you try to bounce all the ping pong balls out of it. Somehow Brian got out of doing anything, but I got nominated to do the one where you have a banana hanging from a belt and you have to swing it to get an orange in side a hula hoop. It was quite a site to do and see, I'm sure!

The next morning Brian had meetings, so after our breakfast, I braved it and took the girls to the pool. They had fun--it was a big pool and they had a slide. Ruby ended up falling asleep on me, then Brian came after his meetings.





We swam for a while and had lunch, then we headed out to the really good outlets nearby. We scored some really good deals at the Quiksilver outlet. They had a major clearance and I got my girls a ton of Roxy t-shirts for $5.00. I think they are set for shirts for school clothes. Now on to finding shorts.

We got back and got ready for the final awards dinner. The kids went to the kids club again, then Brian and I went to dinner. The dinner was yummy (salad, beef and fish, asparagus, potatoes I think, rolls, and a super delicious caramel cheesecake). Throughout dinner they did awards for various things. They do some funny awards like "fertility awards" and I got one of those for having had a baby within the past year. I think people thought it was for people who were expecting so someone came up after the dinner in disbelief and said, "Are you pregnant again?" It was pretty funny. Brian got one for being in the top 10 of the region for "Customer Service Excellence." They call and survey the clients about the financial advisor's customer service, so that was neat for him to get that. Then they do production awards and he got the Jack Phelan Award for having a certain level of production and he was the fourth highest producer in his region. Their regional leader said some really nice things about him as she called him up front, just about being a hard, quiet worker and a great business owner.

After dinner we rounded up the kids. Ruby ate a lot again and they said she was "rattling." We were like, huh? I guess she was making noises when she was breathing. She healed quickly because we didn't hear it again. We got a kick out of that. The next morning we got packed up and came home.

Felt Flowers

My friend Kari turned me on to these felt flowers. I made about 15 in one day. They are so fun and cute.

Motherhood: An Eternal Partnership with God

Hope you like this as much as I did. Might need a tissue.
Motherhood: An Eternal Partnership with God

Pioneer Trek

It's been so long since I posted I doubt anyone checks my blog any more! I am so far behind it's almost too daunting to want to try to catch up. June has been a CRAZY month for us. We had the trek, summer regionals for Brian's work and girls' camp. But we survived everything. I'll start with the trek.

There is so much to report. Maybe I'll have to scan my journal pages in and post those. But just some highlights...We had such a great "family." Brian and I were a ma and pa to 10 kids, ages 14-18, and we had a "big sister" and a "big brother." Our big sister was Riki--a fun girl whom I had known a little bit before. Our big brother was Troy and he was older than Brian and I. It's funny because I worked with him when I used to work at Barrett-Eastman. He was such an amazing help! He helped push/pull, knew how to dutch oven cook, etc. We would have been hurting without him! But we had amazing kids and absolutely no problems or drama with any of them. We have even had a "family reunion" already with them since the trek. It was this past Tuesday--we got pizzas and sodas and the kids brought the desserts. We swam and they played ping pong, air hockey and foos-ball. The first day of the trek was long. We started pushing at about 10 and didn't finish until dark around 9:30. It wasn't as bad as I expected, so that is good. I had heard of other treks pulling in around 1 or 2 in the morning, so I was thrilled! Brian and I weren't allowed to push, so we did a lot of encouraging, I bandaged up blistered feet, held our "baby" Belle, and just walked.

The woman's pull was touching. They reenacted the men and young men being taken to march with the Mormon Battalion, leaving the women to pull the handcarts. Before we started the girls and I gathered and had a prayer, then it was time to push. We were down one girl, leaving us only 5 to push the handcart (I still wasn't supposed to help). There was a time we couldn't =move the cart and I turned around and saw a group of girls from another handcart run up behind and start pushing us. It was like being rescued by angels. I couldn't imagine having to do that for months like the pioneers really had to do. The 20 or 30 minutes we did it for was hard.



A really hard part of the trek was when we had to bury our "baby." Before the trek, each ma and pa had to make a sand baby. My mom helped me make it and we discovered why they make us make them. I had invested a bit of time and energy into this baby, so I was attached to it. We named the baby Belle after my great grandma Mortensen, Emma Belle. She wore a pretty white dress and my mom made the cutest bonnet from a vintage hankie. The second morning of the trek we had to tell our family that our baby didn't make it through the night and we had to have a funeral. Whenever I thought about what iI would say I would get teary, but that morning, I thought I could do it without crying. I WAS WRONG!! I totally cried from the beginning! After we told them, Brian took the boys to dig a grave and the girls helped me get Belle ready. My mom had found a really pretty ivory silk dress at Savers, so we made that her burial dress. We stitched three tiny bells on each sleeve in honor of her name. We met up with the boys and Brian conducted her funeral. He even got choked up, which he never does! It was so hard imagining if we really had to do that and imagining how the pioneers did it so often. The boys found a nice spot of ground with pink flowers covering the area. After the funeral, I gave them the little gift I had made them. I made the girls a necklace--it had two silver rectangles that I stamped (with metal stamps) "blessed" in one and "honored" in the other. Then I hung a little red bell on the necklace. The boys had large washers that I stamped and then hung on suede cording and I also put a tiny bell on it, too. I wanted them to remember that experience.



It's getting late, so I will write more later.

Busy Saturday

Last Saturday was SO busy. I woke up crazy early and went on a little 7+ mile hike at Thunderbird Mtn. with Terri and Shelly. Then I hurried and got ready for a camp meeting. Brian took the girls to clean the chicken coop, then to the primary activity day at the pool. It was a weird day for it because it was unseasonably cold, windy and cloudy! They had fun though. We met back home for a few minutes before going to our neighbor's daughter's 1st birthday bash. There was a big blow up water slide, sno cones, popcorn machine, swimming, BBQ, etc. We came home for a few minutes before getting our babysitter and Brian and I heading out to a BBQ for some people from Brian's work. It was like a pre-get-together for the summer regional coming up. We did a bunch of errands after, then came home. I was exhausted after a long day!!

Here is Ellie and her cute little friend Stella. My neighbor Zana's mom and sister came this past week from California. They've visited several times and Stella is her sister's daughter. So every time they have come, she and Ellie get together for a play date. She was over a lot this past week for lots and lots of playing. They all had a blast!

Memorial Day

On Memorial Day we went to the cemetery and visited Brian's grandma's grave as well as my grandma Doris' grave. The kids washed it and placed flowers beside it. It's always a neat sight to see all the flags out that day.

Be Back Soon

Been busy with summer, pioneer trek, getting ready for summer regionals for Brian's work and girls camp. I promise to update soon!