Take Me Out to the Ballgame

During the second week in August, the ward had a Pheasants baseball scouting activity for all the scouts and their families. They reserved tickets right behind home plate and we all enjoyed a night out at the ball park.

 Emily and Alish Black. Emily is pretty lucky to have such a sweet friend and she absolutely loves her. It makes my job pretty easy too! We love Alish and the Black family.

Some of our good friends, Phil and Mandy Stephenson

 Another one of my very favorite families in the whole world- Jon and Val Jensen and their cute kids Daniel, Andrew, and Sarah. We spend a lot of time with these guys and our kids have a blast together.

It wouldn't be a baseball game without some of the game food. Matthew was pretty excited to come with me to get hot dogs, popcorn, and some nachos for everyone. 

Dustin Bechtold and Jeff. These two crack me up, maybe it's the fact that they're both physicians, and just have a lot in common but they could sit and talk together all night if we let them!

Matthew and Rowan Black. We love the Black family, and especially love their Australian accents!

 Not the greatest picture of the family, but it was the only one we got with everyone in it. There were too many friends, and too many fun things going on to be bothered by taking photos. We had a fun night together enjoying friends and the baseball game.

A few of the scouts: Rowan Black, Daniel Jensen, Jacob, and Callum Black.

 They let the scouts run the stats for the night, and Jacob was pretty excited to be able to run some of the Strike cards down the line. It was a fun night for scouting.

Random August

Matthew's fascination for tinker toys and building things is still going strong. He'll keep himself busy for hours coming up with all sorts of fun creations. One of his favorites is swords. He was also showing me this handy new way he has of carrying his swords around. He was pretty pleased with himself.

I found a fun little bubble blowing machine and the kids had a blast with it this summer. Sometimes mom just can't blow enough bubbles fast enough for everyone to catch (at least not without getting seriously lightheaded...) This little machine was the perfect solution and also allowed me to capture pictures instead of doing all the bubble blowing.

This little girl can wake up with some serious bedhead sometimes. I still can't help but think she's the cutest thing ever, even with that crazy hair orphan look.

One afternoon in August we got together with a bunch of my friends from workout group. We decided to do a pizza/pool afternoon at Ann's house with all of the kids. It was a perfect day and so much fun. The kids ate pizza, jumped on the tramp and played in the pools for hours. Of course that gave all us women time to visit and have fun ourselves. I had pictures of the group, but they seem to have gotten lost off my phone so at least I have a few of the kids.

Jeff officially earned the title of 'coolest dad ever' the afternoon he brought home a bunch of dry ice and all the ingredients to make homemade rootbeer. The kids were eager helpers and had fun filling our kitchen full of dry ice steam. The rootbeer was great on a hot August afternoon.

10 Year Anniversary- 08/01/12

A 10-year anniversary is a big deal. I can't believe we've been married for a decade! Originally we had hoped to do something exciting to celebrate, but unfortunately it was the summer of all summers for family reunions, weddings, etc. So sadly, the celebration would have to wait. We had just gotten back from our 2-week family reunion vacations, so on the actual day of our anniversary we ended up just going out for a night out. We had dinner at Texas Roadhouse and caught a movie. 

It was actually the first time we left our kids without a babysitter. We put Emily to bed early and let Jacob and Caleb be in charge of getting Matthew in bed once their movie was done. I can't believe our kids are getting to this stage- we still use a babysitter, but for that night it worked out fine. 

Even though it wasn't an exciting trip, it was nice to go out with just the two of us and enjoy the evening. I feel so blessed to be married to such a wonderful man who I can truly call my best friend. It seems like yesterday we were kneeling across the alter from each other being sealed for time and all eternity. Now, 10 years later, 4 kids, many years of schooling, different states, houses, and circumstances, we love each other more than we could have imagined ten years ago. I love every minute we spend together.

At the end of the night, we made a quick stop at the store to pick up a couple things. Along with everything else, I had had a slight suspicion and decided to pick up a pregnancy test as well. I guess it was a fitting and exciting surprise to take the pregnancy test the next morning and see two pink lines.

 It's kind of fun to find out the day after your 10-year anniversary that you're expecting baby #5! I had my suspicions, but then while waiting those long 3-minutes, I had myself convinced that it wasn't going to happen since it was just the first month of not preventing a pregnancy, and that it would probably be good to have a little more time anyway. Finally when the time was up I picked up that test and there were two dark lines! It was a shock and a fun surprise to see those two lines. I immediately felt happy, excited, nervous, scared, and blessed all at once. I figured out that this baby would be due on April 12th, 2013- the same day as Jeff's birthday. We wouldn't say anything to people for a while, but we are so thrilled to add another precious spirit to our family. It was definitely my favorite anniversary gift!

Random July

I still have three family reunions to catch up on from this summer, but before I fall even more behind, I decided I'm going to try and catch up as much as I can on the past months. 

One afternoon, Matthew came to me with a big bucket of flowers. He had picked them just for me and was so excited to give them to me. It didn't take too long to figure out that he had cleared off the rest of the flowers from our bushes out front, but it was so sweet I just couldn't get upset with him. I love this sweet little boy. 

We got to celebrate Father's Day with this wonderful guy. We started off the morning with waffles topped with fruit and whipped cream. We all feel so blessed to have this wonderful man in our lives. Jeff is such a great husband and father. The kids all adore him and love spending time with him. I'm grateful he enjoys spending time with them as much as they do with him. I'm also glad I get time with him as well! We love him!

Emily got a new swimsuit and was so excited about it. She calls it her "swim-soup." I just love this little sweetie. She's just as wonderful and sweet as she is cute.

This has to be one of my favorite investments of all time. I picked up this handy little tray for $1 and it quickly became our 'summer snack' tray. Having three boys, we always have hungry kids around! This makes it perfect to set out snacks that they can munch on. Fortunately they all love fruits and veggies, so it's a great way to get more in while making it fun and look cute at the same time.

Swimming with the Jensens

 One afternoon in July after our morning gym class, Val Jensen and I decided to head to one of the local swimming pools with the kids. Daniel and Andrew are Jacob and Caleb's age, and Sarah is a little older than Matthew and they have a blast together. The older boys pretty much ran around together going down the water slide over and over. Val and I just visited while we watched the younger kids play in the shallow area. The local pools have a rule that they have everyone out of the pools for 10 minutes every hour. It's actually kind of nice because all the kids come back to the towel areas and we were able to enjoy some snacks and visit with the kids for a while before it was time to get back in the water. It was a fun afternoon and I'm glad we have great friends to enjoy the summer with.

Office Surprise

When Jeff's office staff got the great news that Jeff passed his oral boards, they decided to throw a little surprise party/lunch one afternoon at work. Linda, Jeff's office manager called me to coordinate schedules to make sure I could be there. I arranged for my friend to watch the kids and was able to sneak into the office without Jeff knowing. They had a room all decorated and catered a yummy lunch. It was pretty fun when Jeff opened the door and everyone yelled, 'surprise!' He had no idea. It was fun to spend the afternoon with Jeff and his office staff- they're all such great people, we just love them, and I know they really love working with Jeff. I'm sure proud of Jeff and how hard he always works. It was a fun afternoon.

Outside Fun

There's nothing like water during a hot summer. Even little pools and slip 'n slides can be a blast when it's hot enough. It was fun to pull these out every so often and just play outside. 

 Sidewalk chalk was another favorite, as was just sitting outside watching construction workers or anything else. The long summer days make you just want to be outside all day.

Board Certified

In July, we got the wonderful news that Jeff passed the oral section of his boards- part 2 of the examination, which meant that he was now a Board Certified Ophthalmologist. He felt so fortunate to have passed every part on his first attempt. I know it was because of his hard work and dedication in studying, with help from above. Many others have had to retake at least one section of the boards, it's not easy to pass and they automatically fail 33% on the written section. 

We left the kids with a babysitter and went to a new restaurant to celebrate. The food was great, but my favorite was the creme' brulee  dessert. It was fantastic. More than anything it was such a great feeling to celebrate Jeff's accomplishment. He's a pretty awesome guy.

4th of July

 We had a beautiful, sunny and hot 4th of July this year. It was warm enough that we decided to skip the parade and take the kids to a movie. We usually go to the dollar theater after the movies have been out a while, but we decided to go see the new Pixar movie "Brave." It was pretty cute, even though it was a little scary. We had lunch afterwards and Jeff took the older boys to pick up a few last fireworks for the evening while I put Emily down for a nap.
We were originally going to go see the big fireworks downtown, but we ended up getting together with some friends to play, eat, and set off our collection of fireworks instead. Between Jeff and Ewan's collections alone, we had enough firepower to demolish a small building! There were some pretty impressive fireworks. It was pretty comical to watch the pyros at work- that included all the fathers and most of the boys.

 The kids had fun running through sprinklers and sliding down the slip 'n slide that afternoon before we started the fireworks. They pretty much ran back and forth between the water and the dessert table. Emily was in heaven with all the girls taking care of her and playing with her. We love these girls- they are wonderful!

 With the men taking care of the firepower and the kids playing and having so much fun together, we women enjoyed sitting back watching the show, taking pictures, and talking. Perfect way to spend the evening if you ask me!

 We were fortunate to end the evening without any casualties - if you don't count Matthew's shirt which happened to be the bulls eye for a stray bottle rocket. I'm grateful it wasn't anything serious, he was fine. But it was pretty funny to see his reaction. It scared him more than anything.

 It was so fun to watch all the fireworks go up and see the kids doing their sparklers. It was sure fun to be able to celebrate the holiday with friends. And it really makes you reflect on what a blessing it is to live in a country where we are so blessed to have freedom. I'm grateful for all those who have sacrificed for this great country.

 I couldn't resist this picture of Emily. She didn't like the really loud fireworks. Funny girl!