Gavin & Owen's Time with Grandparents

Gavin & Owen went to Idaho to spend time with Granny Jane & Grandpa Rick. They were gone from July 21-24...just the right amount of time to be away from home. They had such a great time. They went to a park in Rexburg with Abbie, Avery, & Jette:





They went to Tautphaus Park/Zoo with Granny & Avery:






They went to Wingers:


They went "crawdad fishing" with Grandpa & his friend, Leonard:



They saw "Mr. Popper's Penguins":

They played Wiffle Ball with Grandpa:




And on Sunday morning, they got up and got ready for church. See, our ward meets at 9 am, so the boys are used to waking up Sunday morning and immediately getting ready to go. However, Granny & Grandpa's ward doesn't meet until 1 and the boys didn't realize that. Imagine Granny's surprise when the boys walked downstairs in their church clothes at 8:30 am! So instead of going straight to church, Granny had them change into their play clothes and they helped her make Monkey Bread:

And finally it was time to put Church clothes back on:

We met in Tremonton to get the boys later that evening. I hope my boys will always remember these special times with their grandparents.

Empty Nesters for a Weekend

Granny Jane came to Utah Wednesday, July 20. She spent the day with us and we finalized a few things for Callie's upcoming wedding. The next day she went with us to watch the boys in swimming lessons. Here's Gavin learning how to dive and jumping off the diving board.



Owen learning to float and playing a game in the water.


Cam diving off the platform and jumping off the high dive.



Then we went to McDonald's and Granny shared her Wild Berry Fruit Smoothie with Madi & Han. The boys got Happy Meals with Star Wars toys and they made the babies giggle with excitement!



When Granny left that afternoon she took Gavin & Owen back to Idaho with her. They were gone Thursday-Sunday and I will post about all the fun they had when she sends me the pics. Grandma Tisa invited Cameron to come spend the weekend with them. He left Friday and will be back sometime today (Monday). I'll blog about that later too. That left Spencer and I feeling like empty nesters. Of course we still had the babies but you can get a lot more accomplished with 2 children when you're used to hauling 5 around!

Our home teacher, Chris Metzger, who is a member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, gave us tickets to the MoTab's Pioneer Day Celebration on Friday night. Callie generously gave up her Friday evening to take care of the babies. When we arrived, the section we had been assigned to was already full so they told us to file down to the "Plaza", which is the floor seating. Although we couldn't see the entire choir, we could see the monitors and hear the entire program. It was a very nice event and we feel so lucky to have such a great Home Teacher!

Our friends, Cliff & Sarah Sharp, came to Utah for the weekend and we got to spend some time with them too. We went to dinner at GoodWood and went to the ReAL soccer game. We didn't get home until LATE but had such a good time!

We were, however, very ready for our boys to get home. Our house seemed so empty and quiet and we were glad to reunite with Gavin & Owen Sunday afternoon. We're all anxious for Cam to get home today!

Babies First Bath & other Baby Pics

The title of this post makes it sound like I haven't bathed my babies for 10 1/2 months. That is not the case. We were gifted the most fabulous baby bath that fit in the kitchen sink.

Although the babies were getting bigger and bigger, I couldn't quit using the baby bath. It was just SO convenient and made bath time easier. But recently, we were in a hurry and the babies needed a bath. So I decided to run a bath in our garden bath tub. The babies absolutely LOVED it! They think it's their own private swimming pool. Thanks to the Hertzler family for the bath toys & bath towels! (Cam, Gavin, and Owen were took turns taking these pictures.)





A few weeks ago, our friends John & Rebecca Bateman came for a visit. They are in the process of moving to Boise and we'll miss them a lot. Lucky for us, they love the twins (and the boys) so hopefully they'll come visit whenever they are back in town. Rebecca snapped these shots with her cell phone or iPod (I can't remember which.)



When Aunt Kate was a little girl, all she wanted for Christmas one year was a puppet. Dave & Tisa looked every where for one but all they could find was flower that had a mouth. Then the package from the grandparents in Hawaii arrived and when they opened it, there was a MONKEY PUPPET! Kate loved it! Fast forward 25+ years...We were visiting Dave & Tisa's and Tisa handed the much-loved, brown, fluffy monkey to Spencer. He slipped it on his hand and started "talking" to Madi and Harrison. They too love it! It's now a favorite every time we visit.

Both babies are starting to crawl and making our jobs a little more eventful. Harrison still prefers to army crawl but is happy to have a few obstacles to go through, over, or around. Madi didn't mess around with army crawling and immediately got up on all fours. She is a quick little lady!

It's Personal!

It's with much hesitation that I finally get this post out of my head and publish it. I hesitate because it's a very personal matter...but I think I'm finally ready to talk about it. Weight loss. There, I said it. I think I've always struggled with my own body image. I always thought I was overweight and needed to lose a few pounds. But looking back at pictures from high school, college, wedding, etc...I realize it shouldn't have been such an issue then! That was before nearly 11 years of marriage and 5 kids. I've been a little jealous of people as they started a weight loss program and succeeded but I also knew that it wasn't the right time for me to focus my energy on weight loss. However, on May 14, 2011, I joined Weight Watchers! I discussed the decision with Spencer (only) but really felt like it was MY time. I had decided to put my whole heart into it but didn't want to tell others in case it didn't work for me. I had a million reasons in my head as to why it wouldn't work and didn't want anyone to ask me how it was going if the progress was slow. I'm happy to report that Weight Watchers has worked! I hit my first goal of losing 5% of my body weight on June 10th, then hit my 10% goal on July 15th, and have (to date) lost 27.2 pounds! It feels good and it's only the beginning.

An Afternoon

Last Friday, July 8th, we needed to get out of the house! It was an overcast day so we couldn't go swimming, we didn't really want to go to a park, but a walk and picnic sounded fun. So Cam helped me load up the bikes and the double stroller, I made a picnic lunch, and we drove over to Emily's apartment. She lives near a walking trail so we parked in her parking lot and started walking. We walked and walked and walked. (Really the boys rode and rode and rode. I walked and walked and walked!) We stopped and ate our picnic lunch and then kept walking. When we were 3/4 of the way home, Owen just couldn't ride his bike anymore so we left it near the road and he walked with me back to the car. Then we drove and picked his bike up before coming home. In all, we went over 2.5 miles! That's a long afternoon.