Fire!

    It's always nice to have a fire in the back yard which we did twice over the long weekend we had.

  I thought I'd share about McClane and how cute he was being yesterday.  I already posted about it a little on Facebook yesterday but those who might not see facebook I'll share again how cute McClane can be.  He is actually quite a good little helper even though he can also be a big stinker and mess maker too.  He regularly helps me do laundry, pick up toys and throws garbage away whenever asked.  Well yesterday he decided to help scoop poop from the backyard and got the shovel and rake out that Greg uses for that chore and when he couldn't quite manage to make those two tools work together he went ahead and just picked the poop up bare handed and threw it in the shovel which was pretty darn hilarious.  Then just minutes after this, and after I thoroughly washed his hands, he was in the back of Greg's work truck, climbed up on the roof and was jumping on it like a trampoline.  Naughty but I still couldn't help but laugh.  Then while Greg was blowing all the leaves in the yard McClane insisted on taking over and was blowing the leaves himself.

He's just too cute!
 

   So that's all I've got to share for today.  It looks like some yucky weather is heading our way so I need to enjoy this fine Saturday as much as I can.

Update and Hiking

    So it's been awhile since I updated the kid's pictures in my kitchen where I have them displayed so nicely.  So I asked my kind brother-in-law, Blaine, to come with his fancy camera and take a few shots of the kids for me and he did a great and quick job of it and I think they turned out quite nicely.  I've never had pictures taken one day and then have them printed and up in their frames the very next day and total spent, $10 bucks!  Blaine really was the bomb, he even came on his one year wedding anniversary which was especially kind of him.

Brock is 4 and a 1/2 and too cute!

Handsome Carter is 7.

Isaac is nearly 10 and the sweetest boy ever.

Kayli is 15 and a one photo wonder

Mark is 12 and quite the handsome young man

And McClane is about the cutest sad 2 year old I've ever seen.

As you can see McClane was far from cooperative for the photos but he's still cute!



 So that's the update and now here are a few of the many, many photos Greg took of his recent hiking adventures.  Mark and Isaac joined him on his latest one.

Aren't the colors just spectacular!

Rosie's turning out to be a great hiking companion.

Mark and Isaac are also great hiking buddies.

It's all about the journey, not a race to the top.

Nothing like a good freeze dried dinner along the trail.

Three cute hikers.

Isaac had a blast.

   So that's our photo update and hiking adventures.  Before you know it we'll be celebrating Isaac's birthday and Halloween.  We won't discuss how NOT excited I am for the coming winter weather!

It's official!



     It's official, this little guy is now 2 and is about the cutest 2 year old I've met in a long time!  We had his birthday cake, and the like, last week, but this is him on his actual birthday.  He also had his two year checkup a couple weeks ago and weighed in at 29 lbs. and is about 35 inches tall.  The doctor's visit was a bit abnormal for me.  All my kids generally enjoy visiting the doctor and rarely cry aside from getting their shots but McClane is definitely not like his siblings.  He cried the second I put him on the scale so I had to be weighed (JOY) and then hold him and the nurse than figured out the difference.  He then continued to scream when I put him up on the table to be measured and checked out, I was holding him down nearly the whole time.  But as soon as the doctor or nurse left the room he'd be totally fine.  Then the dreaded shots came and after all four were administered he was given a sucker and immediately stopped crying and was totally fine.  I don't think the shots even bothered him but having the doctor and nurse touching him was just too much.  He checked out healthy and fine and the doctor warned that he was just going to get better at climbing, running and getting into mischief and I told the doctor I didn't think that was possible because he's already quite a professional climber and general trouble maker but I won't let my guard down yet!
     The rest of our week has been normal and well.  Greg took Mark and Isaac hiking yesterday after school and they had a great time and then Greg treated me to movie and dinner.  We saw "Taken 2" and if you haven't seen the first one I'd recommend seeing it before seeing the second but they're both great, intense movies.  Liam Nesson is AWESOME!  And dinner was at Buffalo Wild Wings in Lehi near Costco and it was loud and a definite sports bar and the food wasn't bad but a little spendy over all but it was just nice to get out for a few hours and have a nice date with my husband.

Cousins and Fun in the Canyon

   So we had the privilege of having my mom and my youngest sister, Marie and her cute little girl, Lottie come for the weekend and Brock took to Lottie pretty well, minus the one morning he came and said, "The tiny girl is being mean."  The tiny girl, that cracks me up.  Five boys and this one little two year old girl came in and threw them all for a loop.

Seriously, this was too cute!
 

    So while my mom and sister were here we had the annual Kmetzsch gathering up at Mutual Dell and the kids had a blast.  I took a few photos of some of the kids but they would not cooperate on taking a family photo and I wasn't in the mood to fight with them so here are a few of the snapshots of a few of them.

Now just imagine the other five standing in front of the tree with Brock like I had envisioned.

Or all six of them right here would have been cute too.  These two are pretty cute all on their own though.

Rolling down the hill is always fun.

This looks like fun, McClane is trying to throw sand on his big brother.

Can you say, "Exhausted"!?

   Then we had a week early birthday celebration for McClane so we could have two Grandma's and one Grandpa there and here are a few photos of that little party.

Happy two years of life McClane Thomas!!  (This might be the only photo I got with Grandma B in it.)

He's not sure what to think of the thing behind him.

But he totally understood the bowl full of chocolate cake.

Oh, ok, now he gets it and yes, he likes it.
 

   Tomorrow will be McClane's official birthday so we'll pick up the traditional balloons for him tonight but that will be about it.  It's just crazy to think he's two years old already, the time goes way too quickly!
    It was sad to send off my mom and sister and Lottie (I really need a little girl close by to do hair occasionally.) but we enjoyed what time we did have with them and all the pleading from the kids for Grandma to stay just wasn't enough to keep Grandma from returning to all her "orders".  I hope those pouches are all done and delivered by the time we get to Heaven;-)

Temple Tour!

     Remember when we went to Brigham City to tour the Temple and so did everyone else!  Let's just say there were a few people touring the temple at the same time and day we were there.  It was really fun though and I know the kids loved their early dinner at Maddox (Thanks Grandpa Ralph!!) as well as their bus/shuttle ride to and from the temple.
     Here are a few photos of our adventure.

Maddox Fine Food sign!

All the Ralph and Judy Kmetzsch family was there minus Melissa and her little family and Heidi and Blaine's son Ben.

Brigham City Temple

We enjoyed our tour and are now ready to get back on the bus with a few of the thousands of others at the temple that night.

They could have spent a lot more time on the bus, they loved it.

Don't mind Kayli in the background, she always looks like that;-)

     That about wraps up our Temple Tour experience.  Tomorrow is the dedication broadcasting throughout all of Utah which should be a special experience.  (And I don't mind admitting I'm happy of the break it's giving me from my regular Sunday responsibilities.)

Nasty Spider's!!

    So I had another run in with a huge wolf spider.  Thankfully this time it wasn't on any of the kids but close enough.  I was watching a movie in the basement with McClane and out of the corner of my eye I see this huge spider crawling up the wall from the side of the couch, right where McClane is lying.  I hurry and jump up and get McClane to move and then head for a shoe but when I get closer to the spider with the shoe I chicken out and decide only the vacuum will work for me at this point, so I get the vacuum but I have to make sure it's close to me so McClane can't turn it off while I'm sucking this nasty thing up so finally I'm ready and thank goodness the thing just stayed where it was and didn't try to run but dang, that thing was huge and this time I did take a picture.  This spider is almost an exact replica of the one that was on McClane last week.

He may not seem that huge in this photo, but believe me, he was big but I wasn't getting any closer to take the photo!
 

   Thankfully the rest of the week was spiderless, at least as far as I know.  I think it just might be a good idea to fumigate.
    And just for your viewing pleasure here's a shot of two of my cute boys sleeping together.

Greg had just gotten home from the Father and Son's camp out and McClane was just ready for his regular nap and found this to be the best spot to take one.

This is a photo Brock took while riding along in the stroller during one of our regular morning walks.  There's no denying, we live in a beautiful place.  You just can't beat those mountains!!

And here's a photo of my little "rock star".  Seriously, he's too cute for words in my oh, so humble opinion;-)

   So that's it for this week.  Tonight we'll be getting our first chance to see the Brigham City Temple and having a tour before its dedication next week so I'll try to remember to post photos of that special event next week.

Redo

    I'm in the mood for change and to make things simpler if possible.  I'm always trying to make things simple and lately this one part of the yard has been driving me nuts so after a friend suggested eliminating it all together and just add more grass I said, "Done"!  Now done means, "Greg, I have a project for you to do this weekend with some help from me;-)"  So here's a before shot...

And here's a mid-project photo....

And here's how it sits today...

    Some people are missing the little pathway and don't love the idea of change but I'm happy and I think Greg is too.  He at least got to deal with the electrical mess that was attached to that light post so that was a bonus but of course a ton more work but a three day weekend was all Greg needed and project COMPLETE!