august church stuff

Jana's inner monologue: "Oh man, the kids look cute for church today. I should take a picture of the four of them. Past experience has taught me that this will be somewhat painful and futile, but today is Sunday, a day of renewed hope and looking for the good in the world. Maybe today they will sweetly gather next to the tree, reach out for each other in a tender sibling embrace, and look at the camera with sweet smiles of childhood joy. Yes! Let's try it!"

Rats. Foiled again.

Cub Scouts hosted a cute carnival for the families in the ward. Don't mind the lack of pictures of Will; kiddo was VERY committed to his job working the miniature golf station and rarely deviated from his work there. Jack and Carma loved the whole thing!

Couple temple dates with my cute husband. I did a name provided by the temple and looked it up the next morning - and it turned out to be a family name after all since Doris was my 12th cousin three times removed through my dad's side. So fun when that happens!

Random church pictures: Amy and Raquel and I all wore blue and white one Sunday and also we're just all super cute so we took a quick picture. Also Clyde gave a talk in primary and he's just so grown up! He also had tithing to turn in and I just thought it was so cute that he can hand it to Chuck now... Clyde disagreed with my assessment that it was a Kodak moment and made a run for it haha. ALSO, this is probably supposed to be top secret but here's a copy of Will's "My Potion" recipe. I've never actually sampled it, so proceed with caution...

 Carma found a friend at Sister Volkert's house when we were there visiting teaching! 

Chuck was more than happy to head out mountain biking with some of the young men on a Wednesday evening. Note: they didn't actually ride that expert trail, but had a good laugh at the name ;). 

This is cheesy, but I just love workout class. I don't remember what Zumba song Steph was doing here, but I loved watching six more women hop on stage to join her. It's so crazy inspiring to spend time with women of all different backgrounds and experiences and fitness levels, watching as they lift each other up and encourage each other and become stronger and happier. Love love love it. 

A ward night at the orchard landed on an evening with a lot of other things going on - meaning these guys were the main representatives there picking peaches:

Our ward held a fun father and sons activity - potluck dinner, water balloon games, and an egg drop:

 Will and Andy emerged triumphant, and Will's prize was getting a DQ blizzard a few days later with Bishop and Sister Merritt. He loved having special time with them and I'm 99% sure he only stopped talking to take a bite of ice cream every now and then ;). 

Ohhhh man, I love this. Marvin J. Ashton is one of my favorites. Continually working on creating/maintaining this environment in our home so it's a safe place for my kids to come and recharge:

Okay, first I love this because of the phone and second I love this because it's true. Frustrating at times, discouraging at other times, but ultimately how it needs to be for our growth and development and sometimes for reasons we can't understand yet. 

august adventures with grandpa!

The kiddos really wanted to hit up the 'Butterflies in Bloom' exhibit before it closed for the season, so we recruited Grandpa to come along and headed for the zoo.

We ended up having a quite a few close encounters and lots of landings on us; super fun. 

We spent some time if the African exhibit area of the zoo; Jack and Carma took turns being the teachers in the classroom right there :).

As always, favorite animals to say hi to included the zebras, penguins, and bumblebee poison dart frog?! I opted not to get close to the glass in case a Harry Potter type situation happened ;). We also enjoyed the Wallaby Walkabout!

 And of course, there was plenty of non-live-animal related fun - the giraffe slide, the rainforest slide, the playground with animals to climb on. Also how sweet is the picture of Jackers whispering with Grandpa?

 It was a lovely day at the zoo!

A couple of weeks later we headed back to Boise to meet Grandpa at the Western Idaho Fair since we had so much fun with him last year! Our first stop was naturally the petting zoo, where Will's enthusiasm rubbed off on Clyde and Carma... Jack and I preferred to sit back and mostly watch ;).

There were lots of fun exhibits inside and out - we were so excited to find Raquel's amazing drawing in the art area! She's so so so so talented! 

One of our favorite stops is the paramedics. This year Jack got to sit in the driver's seat and turn the lights on, which thrilled him to no end:

Carma preferred the back of the bus - they call ambulances buses, right? I feel like I picked that up from ER or Third Watch or something? She tried out alllll of the seats and the stretcher and then leapt  off - possibly in an attempt to require a legit ride in the ambulance? Luckily her ankles withstood the landing well and we were on our way haha.

The STEM bus was there, which was super fun. Obviously the virtual reality glasses were a fave:

 As was a booth with an actual virtual reality game! Will and Clyde both took a turn (Clyde possibly took a couple...) and had an awesome time. Clyde ended up with a pretty high score too... obviously I wasn't surprised at all that the boys love it. They spend hours jumping on the trampoline imagining various battles in their cute little heads, so this just added some glasses ;).

Grandpa let each kid pick an attraction - Clyde and Jack did the talllllll burlap sack slide, Will did the talllllll drop thing, and Carma and I opted for the ground level carousel :).

 Next year we're going to take pictures right as we get there with excited, energetic children instead of at the end with hot, tired children ;). I impressed myself pretty good with that jump though!

Thanks for the adventures Dad; we love spending time with you!

July: All of the Other Happenings

My day lillies are generally the star of June. Sometimes we'll got a bloom or two as early as May, and occasionally, as evidenced in this picture, one or two will stick around a bit into July. This last remaining day lily is representative of the possible one lone reader who will make it to the end of this post because it's l-o-n-g and not necessarily that i-n-t-e-r-e-s-t-i-n-g (I really committed to that one letter at a time thing there, eh? Shoulda gone with a shorter word...)

Clyde fashioned together a bow with which to shoot the arrows he made up at scout camp. Cutest little Robin Hood I've ever seen! *Unless you count the Disney Robin Hood. The fox? He's cuter.

Our favorite plasma playroom attendant moved out to the floor and life hasn't been the same since, so Jack was THRILLED (inwardly of course) to find Paola back in the playroom on this particular day. Their joyous reunion obviously necessitated a quick picture:

Once again Adrienne Hedger just gets our life.

One day about halfway through workout class the gym randomly lost power. I grabbed my water and keys and started to bid everyone a (fake) sad goodbye, but then everyone was just like opening doors and working out anyways because they're hardcore like that. So I walked around and took pictures and pretended to work out some more because I'm lazy like that.

Ohhh, a super fun workout class surprise: Chuck's cousin Victoria and her cute daughter Courtney! They came to support a Crossfit instructor and I loved seeing them. We also resolved to take a picture BEFORE class next time ;).

Nicole crashed Zumba! Basically just the best thing ever to see her on stage again with her crazy energy and high kicks and jumps haha.

 And blessedly girls night was while she was in town, hooray! She came late and surprised the girls who didn't know she was here. We love when all seven of us are together.

We were full into the swing of summer in July and lovin' it. One day we got two Kirkendall girls and two Curtis boys and the kids were totally in heaven:

Random outside adventures, mostly hanging out in the front yard and going to lunch in the park! Also I choose to believe that Grace took that selfie on my phone fully knowing it would eventually show up on the blog ;).

We hit up quite a few of the 50 cent movies over the summer - pictured are Boss Baby and the Smurfs - probably both better than I was expecting.

Family nerf battle. Also Carma learning how to do a thumbs up. It didn't take.

One day we got some Walker kids. Have I mentioned that I love extra kids because they keep my kids entertained? Because I do.

Library trip with the four yahoos that I love so much!

The wee ones found their way over to Grandma Pam's house on a fairly regular basis, much to everyone's delight.

Um this made me laugh a lot:

Literally me and Carma.

 Words with Friends started talking directly to me via my letters and it only slightly freaked me out... 

Also Sam makes me laugh.

I'm not sure why Raquel and I took a selfie during Relief Society, but I'm guessing the thinking was along the lines of "Why not?"

More documentation of that particular Sunday. Good times. 

 Startlingly accurate hahahaha:

THIS IS JACK. Except he can't see so he just asks me constantly how fast we're going and for some reason I tell him the truth.

Trip to Lowe's, drive documented by Carma:

Our shed! Courtesy of craigslist. I helped Chuck build the base and then Lee decided to save our marriage by stepping in and helping Chuck with the actual shed. Bless you Lee. Bless you.

 Amen. Also eating the whole package of cookies because you care about your children's dental and physical health. You're welcome kids!

This speaks to my soul. 

Ohhh, super sweet card that Sister Ostyn gave us. Such a thoughtful woman!

Couple temple trips - one for ward temple night (we walked in at the same time as Curtises and made them pose for a picture) and one for me solo. Love that place.

Ahhhh clouds and blue skies are just so pretty!!!!!

 Chuck and I bought a house! Okay, it's the house we already live in that we already bought once ;). Whatever, we refinanced to a 15 year loan so when we kick Carma out the summer after she graduates from high school, we'll be kicking her out of a house we own 100%! Yayyy! This is our picture after signing a million papers. Also my name comes first on the new loan and paperwork and that has brought me more joy and sense of power than it should considering who actually pays the mortgage...

 Oh my heck I love Will. We've been watching a lot of princess movies what with Carma's obsession and all, and so one day when Willy boy was waxing philosophical about some of the plot lines, I told him to write it all down. So here you have some of the Disney princesses with their corresponding goal/motivation throughout the movie. Have I mentioned how much I love this kid?

 Carma's already a better mom than I am - she can balance three kids while wearing heels... jk, she wisely switched to crocs before we made it too far haha. 

 Cute kiddos after church:

 Ohhh I loved this dress (hand-me-down from Angie of course). The fabric, the silver belt, the shape of it. The cute girlie wearing it. Love it all.

This text exchange is so me and Holly, I love it. Also I love her and I was so happy she was still in town when we got back so I could see her gorgeous face. Also, I need to see it again. Texting her now...

 So my cousin Amanda is amazing; she and her daughter Cecily hosted such a fun party for Harry Potter's birthday and Clyde and Will were so excited to be invited. We don't take advantage of it enough, but we love having Amanda and Cecily live so close again!!

AND THAT'S JULY YO.