Katie is One!

Katie turned one on Friday! Where did the time go. She loved her birthday. The kids thought it was so much fun. They all blew out her candle for her.

She was tasting the cake the whole time. It was pretty cute. She would just stick one tiny pointer finger in the frosting then lick it off. Smart little baby.
The she got a real piece and didn't quite know what to do with it.
Didn't take her long to figure it out :).
She loved opening her presents. I hate to be repetitive, but man she's the cutest thing ever!

My mom made Katie this cute little card. Believe it or not Katie actually held it and looked at it for a while. She loves books, so she really liked this. It was her own piece of paper that no one took away. I am just so glad it didn't end up in her mouth.

My little sister Laurel made Katie this sparkly little skirt. My older girls were pretty jealous.

That night after Katie was in bed we went to an adult only sibling and spouse party. It was such a riot. We of course were late because David decided to make 2 deserts instead of one (SO worth it ). We talked and played games till midnight. Good times, good times. We missed you Wendy & Jose and Laurel & Brandon!

The first day of school.....Happy? or Sad?

I never know if I am happy or sad when summer ends. I love being able to clean my house without having to stop a million times to get something for someone, or help someone do something. Every time my house gets trashed during the summer I think "just a few more weeks." But then that time comes, and I'm sad. My kids, on the other hand, were very happy to start school. They started school on Thursday July 31st. Ben started kindergarten, Emma 2nd grade and Joelle 3rd. The morning went smoothly. Since we don't leave till 10:45 they had plenty of time to play. Silly me forgot to take pictures at home so here we are rushing pictures in the school parking lot. They were good sports.



Ben and Addy Kidd are in the same class. I think that helped. Addy was a little apprehensive about school at first, but she ended up very happy and loving it.
The one thing Ben was most excited about was playing on the kindergarten playground every day. He'd been talking about it for a whole year. It was like getting to go to the park every day. He was so happy when we finally got to school. Then came the sadness, we found out that there was a heat advisory for the day and they wouldn't be able to play on the playground. He was sad, but he held up really well for his teacher.
It only made it worse when we had to sit outside right by the playground for role call.
Here is the best one to me. This is his one last forlorn look at me and the playground. :)
Despite his sadness he loved school. The teacher told them they would have a surprise on the second day. When I picked Ben up the next day I could hear him telling the girls, "We got to write our names in this stuff, that I can't remember what it's called, but it was so fun." He was all excited about it. I was talking to Mindy after school and she asked Addy what the surprise was and Addy said somthing along the lines of "we wrote our names in pudding and it wasn't even cool cause it didn't even taste good." I had a great laugh at the whole thing, Ben couldn't remember the name of pudding and Addy didn't like it because it didn't taste good. Ahhh, the silliness of children. It doesn't get any better than that.

I love the mountains, I love the rolling hills.....

We went camping last weekend with my older brother Mike, his wife Amy and their four kids. My little brother John, his wife Tiffany and their baby Kaylee also came. We loved it! I was freaking out on the way up there because of some serious looking dark clouds. As we got closer it started to pour. Needless to say, I was not happy at this point. Then we missed our turn and went up a little higher toward the rim, it started hailing. The whole time I was telling David that it wasn't possible to camp in weather like this, that we weren't going to be able to find Mike, and that we should go back down to Payson and get a hotel room. Well, David refused to go back until we found the spot we were looking for. As we got closer to the spot, the rain started to let up and David found Mike. Everything worked out great. It never rained again and the weather was great. The girls told us later that while we were lost they both prayed that the weather would get better so we could camp and that we would find my brother. Ahhh, the faith of little children. We really had a great time.
Sorry people, I know that there are a million pictures here, but it was so much fun, I couldn't leave anything out.

David is the best. I thought you would all like to see the man I fell in love with. He gave me this look and I was sold :). Who wouldn't be?

This is my little brother John, isn't he so cute :)!
This is his wife Tiffany and their baby Kaylee. Aren't they cute too?
Joelle and Josie were hardly ever separated. Between playing Spirit (the horse movie), and finding worms at the creek, they never had time to be bored.
Katie loved the outdoors. Walking on uneven ground didn't even phase her she just kept going and going.

Marcus kept finding walking sticks for all the kids.
No worries, no one got hurt, it was all fun and games.

Emma was the biggest helper with Katie all weekend. Anytime Katie would cry she would find her and take care of her. Katie was pretty happy with it all. Emma carried her everywhere.
We hardly ever saw Jake. He was happy to lose himself in the great outdoors.
Here is David doing what he does does best.



How cute is my niece Kaylee. She was a very good baby on this camp out.
We went down to Haigler Creek on the 2nd day. It was the highlight of the whole camp out.






Katie would have stayed in the creek all day if she could have.

The water was FREEZING! But the boys were brave!