Happy Birthday Nathan!

Happy 6th birthday, Nathan! Here's our Darth Vader cake (and our wierd Star Wars cake that looks like a blob from some strange planet ... Sam called it a "moon rock" cake.)

School Days

Here are a couple of cute kids on their first day of school. Nathan's was taken last Tuesday (he was a week late starting because of his stay in Primary Childrens Hospital). He's enjoying kindergarten, although he gets a little bored with learning the sounds of letters and counting to 10 (he prefers long addition and subtraction and reading Harry Potter books).

Becca started the week before Nathan at Tecia's preschool in our neighborhood. She loves Tecia, her friend Mia, coloring, and doing crafts and activities. She is learning the same things that Nathan's kindergarten class is learning. Hmm.

And just in case you didn't get his e-mail updates, here's Nathan in the hospital recovering from a pretty substantial problem. In the middle of the night on the 20th, he started throwing up lots and lots of blood. The ambulance brought him here for blood transfusions and to figure out the cause of the problem, and we stayed for 8 days. He has portal hypertension (a clot in his portal vein) that had resulted in "bleeding esophageal varices" (bleeding veins in his esophagus). They fixed what they could the first time they put a scope down, but we'll be back in tomorrow for another scope. We appreciate everyone's prayers. This has not been Nathan's favorite experience in life, although as you can see from the pictures, there's nothing wrong with his brain ... he played board games non-stop in the hospital after he came-to. Well, until he discovered their PlayStation.

Nathan & Becca fed us dinner on Thursday

Nathan and Becca with their Silver Lake Flats fish. Yum!

Camping Trip

This week we camped at Granite Flats campground up American Fork canyon. In the morning we fished at Silver Lake Flats. It was beautiful, and the kids were very successful. They caught their limit within an hour.


And the first thing we did when we got home was throw all four of 'em in the tub ....

A couple of sillies

Finally ... a hair cut

I hadn't trimmed a single hair off this lady's head in her whole life ... until this week. We chopped off about 6 inches. The 6 inches are now tucked safely away in her scrapbook, her hair's much easier to comb through, and she likes the compliments she's getting.

Becca's photography

I like her style ... she asked me if she could borrow the camera and she came back with these. Very nice. Too bad the lens was slightly shut on the second photograph.

Trekking, fishing, and cemetery searching

A couple weeks back, Brent and I left the oldest 3 with their aunties and took Owen on a pioneer trek. Well, we just showed up to play music for them, camped one night, ate their food, and then watched them pull their handcarts away while we loaded up our truck (cheating, I know). Owen was a fantastic camper, and he enjoyed the square dance for the most part, too. On the way out, Brent did some fishing and we visited the Newton and Clarkston cemeteries where we have ancestors buried. It was a lovely trip (minus the rush-hour traffic).

The peanut butter fingers culprit

Sam smiling through the peanut-buttery lens he just smudged.

Just some recent snapshots of an extremely chubby baby

This baby is one huge kid. We used to call him "preemie" ... now we call him "creamie" 'cause he likes his milk so much. We also call him spoiled ... I feed the cute little chipmunk whenever I need him quiet, since he won't take a binkie. 19 pounds at 4 1/2 months, that's 95th percentile. Sheesh.

He loves being a part of things. His siblings take pretty good care of him.

Roses & lilies

Flowers from our yard

Turns out we kind of like to work in the yard. Last fall when we bought the house we put in the sprinklers and sod, a few rose bushes, and some bulbs. Now we're reaping the rewards. Here are the roses and lilies from my front bed.

Speaking of this, I'll have to take some pictures of Brent's spectacular garden. We've been eating peas, spinach, berries, and a few chiles, and today we picked the first squash. We can't wait for the tomatoes to come on.

Owen is growin'!

Was this kid a preemie? Not even four months old and look at those cheeks!!! Owen is such a fun baby.

Thanks to our wonderful friend Heather Wilson for the darling blanket sent all the way from Fort Worth.

Birthday Season

Just got through birthday season here.
Owen came in February. Sam was March.
Becca was April.

Here are some pictures of Sam and his
"goong goong" (choo choo) cake, and
princess Becca with her Dora cake.

Harry Potter addicts

Brent and I have finally been reading the Harry Potter series. We're addicted. We're half way through book 7 now. Nathan has sensed our enthusiasm, and has decided that he would like to read them too (even though he can barely read "Go Dog Go"). The other morning I came down to breakfast to discover my pre-kindergartener diligently reading the first page of this Harry Potter book.

Who's eye's who's?

Can you guess? What a variety we have! A green, a brown, a blue, and a black. This is odd, I know, but the kids love me to take their pictures, so we did close-ups for this picture taking episode. Okay, Becca's the one with the long hair; baby Owen is blue, of course (bets on whether they'll stay that way ... ???); Nathan is our brown, bottom left; and Sam's eyes are charactarized by the inability to distinguish the pupil from the eye color and the cute little freckle on his eye lid.