R is for Relatives and Reunion

We had such a wonderful 3 days last week! My dad's family finally decided to have a reunion after 8 years, and my sister Patti and her whole family came up, along with my brothers Kevin and Craig. Since everyone was here, minus two sisters out-of-state, Patti and Kevin were sealed in the Provo temple, my nephew's wife Tami received her endowments, and my nephew Isaac blessed his new baby Levi. It was so awesome to spend time with this part of the family that we only get to see every few years, as they all live and work in Cheyenne WY. We are so proud and happy for all of them! After so many trials in her life, Patti deserves all the happiness and joy that came from this moment. We are so happy to have her husband of 5 years be sealed to our sister and by extension, our entire family. You're stuck with us now, Kevin!

Thursday: Tami's endowment. In order to make it to the temple in time, I had to speed a lot, and run up the hill and stairs, and caught everyone just in time heading to the endowment room. Whew! I was a sweaty mess, but so happy I made it! This is my mom, Tami and nephew TJ.

Kevin, Patti, Tami and TJ

Kellee, Tami and Summer--my three nieces-in-law (?)

Friday: Patti and Kevin were sealed for time and all eternity in the Provo Temple, with most of our family present. Again, missing were two sisters, whom we felt the absence of, but it was SO wonderful to have most of my family in the temple together. It's the first time I've been present to see a sibling sealed, as I'm the youngest of 7. Here's Patti and Kevin coming out of the temple together.

This is my Mom, Patti, and brother Craig. (I didn't get the memo about it being black/navy blue day)
See? That's me in stick-out purple! Along with Scott, my sister Julie, and BIL Kevin.


Later on Friday: Levi's blessing day. Since everyone was here already, my nephew and his wife Summer blessed their new baby, Levi, at my Mom's. He is such a cute baby! Even if he is white and not brown like his grandpa:) Isaac did such a great job with the blessing. Here's my sister, nephew Isaac, and baby Levi.

Isaac, big sister Alexis, and baby Levi. I told you he was cute! Here's proof.

Saturday: LeBaron Reunion. We had to go to Mutual Dell up AF Canyon for the reunion, and almost didn't make it. Their were rock slides across the road, and other debris, due to the heavy winds and rain we had that day. What a weird June it's been! I was so excited to see my cousin Becky, whom I was great friends with growing up. We lost touch after we both got married, but reconnected when we found out we were both expecting boy/girl twins last year. I find it funny because we both married a Scott, and had boy/girl twins due one month apart, but as mine were too impatient to wait, ended up only 4 days apart. (I won the race!) We also realized that the other cousin of ours in the family who has boy/girl twins also married a Scott. How weird is that??? We lined all four babies up on the couch and they almost looked like quads. Funny, since my twins were born at 5 lbs and hers at 7 1/2 lbs. They caught up, apparently.

Max and Camri Frahm, Keaton and Waverly. Mine looked like albinos next to these beautiful bronzed babies!

Looks like Waverly is feeling right at home with her second cousin, or whatever they are to each other. Never have figured that out completely.

For my contribution to the dessert table, I made cake pops, which I found the recipe for on Bakerella. If you've never read Bakerella's blog, you are missing out, I tell you! She is great fun for all baking nuts like myself. I wanted to make the cupcake pops but Walmart does not sell flower-shaped cookie cutters, much to my irritation! These are time-consuming, but turned out so cute! And yummy. This is the only picture I was able to take, as these little guys here made us late leaving our house.

H is for Hobe

The girls went to Camp Hobe this year for Savannah's third time, and Irelynd's first. Camp Hobe is an overnight camp for kids (and their siblings age 6+) who have, or have had, cancer. It takes place in Tooele canyon for 5 days, 4 nights. It is an amazing thing these people do. Most of it is run on donations and sponsorships. Most of the crew are volunteers, from hospitals and former patients. They do a lot of fun stuff. This year they had a holidays theme, with an Easter egg hunt, costumed trick-or-treating, New Year's Eve bash, Christmas morning presents, and other fun activities.

This will be Savannah's last year going, as she is 3 years past treatment, which is the cut-off, in order to accomodate all the kids who want to go. She opted out last year, as she got too home-sick the year before, but with Irelynd going this year, she decided to attend her last year with her sister.

We took them up on Monday morning, where we signed them in and released them to the care of one of the camp volunteers. I had mixed emotions leaving them there. I knew Savannah would be fine, but Irelynd looked too little to me to just leave for 5 days. I was proud of her the way she went with such confidence and didn't have any reservations about staying...ok, a part of me was a little sad that she left my side so willingly. Does that make one a good mother, or a bad one, if one's young child can so willingly part from the mother that birthed, suckled, and loved that child for so long? Beat's me, but she insisted she didn't miss us at all when I saw her again on Friday. That must mean that I'm a fantastic mother that can instill such confidence and security in her child in only 6 short years! Wow, I'm amazing!! Or something like that...

Making name tags at the check-in table.
One last picture for the road to remember them by...

Walking away with the counsellor. One last look back, and then they're gone.

Friday is skit day for the parents picking their kids up. Wow, that's a L O N G 30 minutes.

Ok, they look all in one piece. Whew! We all made it!

Irelynd showing off her camp book.

In Savannah's own words, "we went swimming and we did archery and we did really fun arts and crafts. Oh, and every year the boys change the arts and crafts cabin to 'farts and craps.' We had a Halloween party and we went trick-or-treating. And they turned the medical shack into a haunted house and we went through and saw all the scary stuff. My favorite part of camp was archery and swimming."

In Irelynd's words, "It was really fun. We slept in cabin 12. My buddy was Isabelle. My favorite part of camp was going swimming. We had a big New Year Eve party and it was really fun. We found presents outside our cabin for Christmas. I got a mom and a baby bunny. For the fourth of july we got our faces painted for dinner and they had a carnival. The food was good. Oh, except for the pizza."

L is for Letterboxing

For anyone who hasn't gone letterboxing, you have to try it! It's a kind of treasure-hunting, similar to geo-cacheing, but more low tech, with the treasure being the tupperware box containing a stamp and notebook inside. Look up letterboxing.org for more info. We tried it for our letter L, and we had a blast! The kids were skeptical at first, but found the fun as we hunted through the drizzle for the box at each location. For the three that we searched for, only one was still in its place; I guess the other two were too old. This time we took along cousins Chloe and Madilyn to help. We were honored to have Madilyn join us, as this was her 6th birthday!

First clue took us to Canyon View park in Spanish Fork. What a cute group of girls! We had to climb several flights of stairs amongst poison ivy, but found only an open hole where the box should have been. Dang theives!
Clue #2 took us to the river trail in west SF. This is our version of the Whomping Willow.

We found it! Yay! We were all so excited to finally find a box! We stamped our marks in their book as proof that we were there and reburied it. We can't show you exactly where, as that would be against letterboxing code:) You'll have to hike over there to find it yourself!

D is for Donuts at Discovery Park with the Dutson's

This one is self-explanatory and needs no description...
Brighton and Olivia

Savannah, Emma Dutson, and Irelynd

3 little monkies hanging from a tree...

Missing: Wyatt Bentley (who left early) and Aidan Dutson (asleep in his mother's arms)

Z is for zoo

This summer, thanks to a tip from a friend, we are doing the ABC's of summer. Every Tuesday and Thursday through the summer, the kids come down the stairs to find a letter of the alphabet on the front door. They have to guess what we're doing that day that starts with that letter, and then we go do it. I've been so excited to do all the fun things we have planned this year! The summer is speeding by! We don't go in order of the alphabet. We started with A (I forgot my camera so the pictures are on my phone and I can't figure out how to get them off!). For Z we went to the petting zoo at Thanksgiving Point with our friends, the Dutson's. We also took along cousin Grace, as she was staying with us for a few days while her parents were out of town.

Emma Dutson

Cousin Grace

Olivia Dutson (she did not enjoy the ride!)

Irelynd

Savannah--right in her element

Brighton hates pictures, so I couldn't get him to look.

The kids loved feeding the animals, especially the goats.

The girls' dream room

In this same house (I think) was this beautiful play room. As my girls are convinced fairies are real and find evidences of them daily, this would be their dream home inside of Home. Notice the stage in front of the tv? And the little doors to the side went back to another small room behind, only accessible from here. The murals behind the house are of London at night.

I never want to grow up!

Brighton's dream room

These photos come from my favorite home at the Utah Valley Parade of Homes this year. Scott and I have been going since before we got married. (That's 14+ years, if you're counting. Last year, due to mandatory bedrest, I missed it.) This room had Brighton written all over it. Someday, when I have oodles of money and time, I will decorate my kids' room like this. Though, at 16, he might not appreciate it anymore...

The laundry basket was a garbage can. So cute!

Even a play room!

Look at all those tools! Brighton's eyes would pop out of his little head.

I guess he didn't like the color

We should just call this "Brighton's Corner." We really should. He spends so much time here lately, mostly for trying to ride the babies. This time was for trying to change the color of the carpet in Scott's office. With the help of a candle Scott left on his desk, and his handy-dandy screwdriver, Brighton tried his hardest to make the beige carpet match the red walls. He did a pretty complete job, and would have succeeded if not for the tell-tale smell of Christmas Memories wafting through the air, and red grease up to his armpits. Wax does not come out of carpet easily. Red wax even less. Luckily for his future wife and kids, this carpet is slated to be ripped up and discarded in the future for real wood floors.

No, we didn't kill him. But, in his best defense, he zonked out on Scott's now fragrant carpet. How do you stay mad at a sleeping boy as cute as this?? (Not to mention he smelled like Christmas)

Notice his death grip on his tools? This hammer goes everywhere with him lately. It came with a whole game set, a hand-me-down from our neighbor. Forget the high-tech gadgets--he's in heaven with just a hammer. Shoulda named him Bob.

Just me and Mrs. Butterworth

I came down for breakfast one morning to find Brighton at the counter, saying to no one in particular, "I'm firsty" with the syrup in hand.

Arr Matey!

We went to a pirate party with the UVMOM group at the Scera park in Orem. Jessica put a lot of work into it, and I think the kids had a fun time.



Savannah let Scott draw her into a pirate lassie. She blindly trusted him, silly girl, and this is what she got--the bearded lady. Notice the butterfly effect? She was a good sport about it anyway. But Irelynd wouldn't let Scott near her face. Smart girl!



Washing this off was a fun thing to do later that night in prep for church the next day! *&%#@! I wonder if people wondered why her eyebrows were a darker shade than normal?

Instead she got tatoos on her arms. And hands. And fingers.

I wonder if she painted this? I'm impressed. You're hired for our next birthday party, Jess!

The kids went on a treasure hunt for treasure, of course. What's a pirate party without treasure? Arrr! They found it under a bench. Hand-stamped bags with ring pops, tatoos, Reeses (Savannah made sure to eat those first. They have a habit of disappearing around our house. It's weird.), and plastic rings. Shiver me timbers!

Waverly enjoyed being outside and crawling around. Keaton sprung a fever and wasn't up to being a pirate.

Payback

Irelynd loves bugs. Irelynd also loves to knock down the bee nests around our yard. The bees fought back last week and won. While swatting at some bees busy pollinating the flowers in the front yard and minding their own business, she must have gotten one really mad and it stung her right under her left eye. It started out as just a small bump, but in the morning, this is what we woke up to.

And the next morning, it just got worse.

The next day was probably the worst of it. Her poor little eye was almost swollen shut. (Dang bee--this would have been a really cute picture of her, wouldn't it? Nice lighting, background, hair done. Double dang!) I'd like to say I feel bad for her, but she was warned. And I'd really like to say she'll learn from the experience. But with Irelynd, that is an uncertain conclusion as well. At least she didn't suffer any pain with the swelling, and got over the embarrassment of it quickly. With Irelynd, it's never a dull moment!