Baby steps...

 Guess who is thinking about walking...her first steps today! She stood up and took a step without falling down...it won't be too long. So happy, so sad...
She has 3 weeks to start walking in order to be the second fastest walker in the family. I think she'll make it...

It is great...

 It is great to be 8!! And it is great to have Math in our family. He is such a fun and sweet little (not so little) guy. Math got some books in French and a ripstik for his birthday. He was pretty happy.

How about these cuties enjoying a wheel barrow ride from Gma...

Sunny Sunday

Danger is SO her middle name...she is way worse than most of the boys!!

Oh...and she is big enough to "ride" a bike. Sam pushing her is a little scary but she held on even when the g-force ramped up as Sam drove her quickly around the corners.

Add a caption...

Just for fun...these were a few of the funny moments today...
Both pictures represent something funny said so I'll let you have a quick guess and then add the real "caption"

Seth came out of his room (after changing out of church clothes) looking like this and proclaimed...

"I am Tyson. I am awesome!!"

*Tyson is my brother who always wears his hat backwards and always does a peace sign in every picture.

Sam had a comment about my shorts today...

"Oh no...you pants are broken. They have a hole. You need fix them."

seeing blue m&m's?

I hate blue M&M's. I agree that none of the colors are that natural but the blue ones really just...blah, I don't know. They make me cringe almost to the point where I can't eat them (almost). I can usually give them away to my kiddos or if you are over and want to share some M&M's you'll notice that they are mostly blue. It feels like there was a disproportionate amount of blue M&M's. It felt like every handful I got had way more blue M&M's than other colors. It was really irritating me but this was just an anecdotal accusation so I did a small study.
Over the last few weeks, every time I grabbed some M&M's I noted how many blue M&M's there were compared with the other colors. My initial findings are telling. The percentage of blue M&M's was 42%. Rather high don't you think? If it were an even and random distribution aka a flat distribution then the percentage of each color (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, brown) should be right around 16.7%. Right now the only conclusion I can draw is that either Mars Co is targeting me or Mars actually puts in way more blue M&M's than they do other colors. Perhaps blue dye is just cheaper?
I realize this reveals a portion of my personality that probably shouldn't be revealed but I know there might be someone out there suffering like me. Again, this is only the preliminary result to see if this problem warrants further review and possibly a letter to the Mars Company. I will continue to see if over a longer time and larger amount the results change and if they don't I promise (it is an election year) to not rest till I have a reasonable explanation for the over use of blue!! (ps...don't think I won't, I have called grapenuts and oreo's before to ask questions)

Any thing you can do...

Anything you can do...Lizzy tries to do better. She really does try and keep up with those boys...this is her climbing into the little footstool. She is on rampage now!

I'm a big girl now...

This little one is not so little any more. Here she is tackling the stairs. She goes up great and she can almost go down by herself. She likes to stop and dance and stand up on her way down so she still needs a little supervision :)

Sept 1st...

You know what that means in our house....Christmas music season is open!!

An early treat for the many out there that wait till Dec...my favorite Christmas song.



See doesn't it feel cooler already...and right now there are no 90's in the 10 day forcast! :)

 School has started...

This year we have two schools and two different times. Josh gets to get up early and catches the bus to middle school while the others leave an hour later. So it is year of firsts. Josh's first year in middle school. Seth's first year at school and Bep's first year watching everyone leave for school. Here is our little princess (crown and all) at the door watching her brothers leave...

Middle School!! Yeah...he was pretty nervous ;)

Not nervous...he's an old pro now :)

Could not get a normal face out of this one...also not nervous :)

A very big NERVOUS smile...but at least Kindergarten is only half day in Utah or I would miss this little guy too much!!

School starts in a few days and I have been thinking back on this last year. It has been a hard, crazy year. I am very glad it is over!!  Besides the tough life lessons there have been a few fun things I have accepted about myself.
So on the lighter side...

Lettuce. I used to think I really liked all types of lettuce and salad. This year (since I believed it would be eaten) we tried many different types of lettuce in the garden. I did not like them. My kids really like romaine and ice berg and are okay with a few others but I discovered that I also only really like romaine and ice berg. I can take all the other "fancy" stuff once in awhile and enjoy it but eventually even I would only eat the romaine and ice berg and just let others die or bolt :) So much for me being a gourmand...It is clear I should not be taken to expensive places regularly because they always have crazy salads. pride. flushed.

Warm Tomatoes. I think I may like tomatoes warm over coming out of the fridge. Of course, this isn't always possible but this summer I have eaten most of my tomatoes warm. When I go out to water the garden in the morning I just grab a handful of grape and cherry tomatoes right off the vine and stuff them in. I don't even wash them. Gross. But I love it, they taste so good. I did that with the broccoli too and it was very tasty.  I am pretty sure the same applied for peas this year too. I only really love them when we sit outside and just eat them straight from the plant. We had lots of fun eating straight out of the garden this year (and my mom's garden) so maybe I just like warm veggies ;)

Frosting.  I used to think I didn't like frosting. I was the girl who always scraped it off cakes. It would give me a gag reflex. Then I had children. Eventually they started wanting frosting on things :) My friend made a cake one time with the most delicious frosting (she is a trained chef) so I got that recipe. It was the only frosting I thought I could stand but I didn't make it often cause I still thought "I don't like frosting." A few years later I remembered that I always really liked the frosting my mom made for my dad's special birthday cake and I like the cream cheese frosting I made for pumpkin bars. It occurred to me that maybe there was something different about these frostings. Eventually I figured it out. They were homemade with butter. It is store frosting that I don't like. I am not trying to be a frosting snob although I know it sounds like that. Those are the facts though. Just a few weeks ago I bit into a cupcake I thought had homemade frosting on it and I basically had to hide my face to keep everyone from seeing me gag. See, it isn't my fault. Even in a blind test where I thought I was getting something different it still caused a gag :) I can stomach costco frosting but that is about it. Once I accepted this fact I have spent the last year or two discovering the lovely world of all different frostings from cooked to peanut butter to whipped cream (and especially this summer with my SIL trying to copy gourmet cupcake frosting ;) Just a few days ago my neighbor brought me some cake with frosting and I consumed in an Olympic like time (need recipe Ang). It finally sealed the deal. I love frosting ;)

Soft M&MS. When I moved to Texas suddenly every M&M I ate was soft. I hadn't really had soft M&M's. I thought I didn't really like them soft but there was nothing I could do about it except store them in the fridge and that made them too hard :) When we moved to Boulder my M&M's were not soft anymore so I was happy but then after awhile I realized I missed the warm M&M's. Now if my computer is on I'll set them next to it so they will get warm. Gross I know. Or I'll do other things (Ferris Bueller. Bus. Gummy bears :) Even MORE gross.

Showering. I don't really like it. It feels like a job. I know so many people love it. They feel refreshed or it wakes them up. Man, I just feel like I used up energy. Fortunately, I can type all these sentences without adding a "gross" because I do it plenty often but I have finally accepted it does nothing for me unless I am actually really nasty.

When we were dating, John (tactlessly) asked me if I thought I would eventually become boring to him after he knew me for long while. My only reply was that I had lived with myself for almost 2 1/2 decades and I still didn't bore myself. I added in my head (tactfully) - and please realize that I had known John for 4 years by this time - that I often got much more bored of him than I ever did myself :) And here I am again...decades later still not boring myself :) It is fun to change and grow albeit painful most of the time. I can just imagine how un-boring my mid-life crisis or menopause is going to be!!

BEAR LAKE

School is about to begin but we had one last trip....
Bear Lake! It was beautiful and no internet! Thanks to my sis-in-law we were able to stay right on the lake. We had a paddle boat, kayaks, tubes and even a paddle board one day. It was perfect. The boys loved being able to just run out into the lake and play. We had fun doing walks and going to get famous bear lake raspberry shakes. My brother biked around the whole lake (50 miles!!). We went and hiked around the Paris Ice Caves. Games inside and out...There was lots of good food and one giant storm that blew things away and justified hot chocolate :)