Look-A-Like

How many times do I hear about how much Bonnie looks like Isaac? I think it’s the eyes. They both have my eyes. My grandma would call them smiley eyes. I've never particularly liked them since they tend to disappear when I smile, so it looks like my eyes are closed in most pictures, but it appears that this is what I have passed on to my children, well two of them at least.

Isaac loves it when I give her a little girl version of a Mohawk, like the one that Isaac wears himself sometimes. I have to admit that they are both very cute kids!

Still Growing

She's still doing it, getting bigger. This past month Bonnie has started to sit up on her own and has been eating a little bit of solid food. She has found her feet and likes pulling them into her mouth and she is extremely attached to mommy at bed time.

Lake Powell

Last week Dennis took a trip to Lake Powell with my brother, my dad and a few other "mature" men. The group usually make this trip twice a year, in the spring and then again in the fall, but Dennis hasn't been for a couple years so he was really excited to get away and enjoy some time doing something he has fun doing.

They took three fishing boats down and stayed on a house boat for four days. All together they brought home more than 100 fish, they endured a down pour of hail the size of marbles, were close enough to see the clouds that formed the tornado at Bull Frog, and had a great time! They didn't touch the shore the entire trip they just spent the whole time trolling or on the houseboat.

I'm so glad that he got to do this. We missed him a ton though and I got a little OCD, which is how I managed on my own, I clean! (You can tell he's back cuz the house is a mess again (smile).

Scarry Larry/Jungle River

Jacob has been taking piano lessons from Tina for a few years now. She has been just great for him. He loves going every week, I never have to remind him to practice and he is doing awesome. He has such great potential in this area. Just like his dad! I love listening to him play. Yesterday he had a piano recital where he performed two numbers Jungle River and Scary Larry. He never feels nervous, he just likes to play, so he got to go first. He did a great job. It was fun to watch him. (I tried to upload the performance so I could share them, but I guess they're too big.)

Bottled Fruit

Today I have sitting on my counter 14 quarts of peaches and 13 quarts of pears. There is just something about seeing your finished product. In a couple days I'll have the kids put them downstairs in our storage room, but for now I'm just going to leave them there so we can look at it and know that all the hard work was worth it.
Jacob and I had a pretty good system with the pears. He was pealing them and I pitted and sliced and put them into the jars. I did break one jar thus the reason for only 13 quarts instead of 14, but I think that is the first time I've ever done that. I bought my own water bath caner this year. Kind of nice.
We still have quite a few peaches left and a few pears, but the kids are enjoying fresh fruit for now. Also this is the first year that our peach tree was loaded, which isn't enough to bottle, but maybe next year I'll be able to save $30 and just use our home grown ones. And they are delicious!
One of my favorite treats is peaches and cream. I've had this since I was little. Canned milk poured over sliced peaches with a little sugar on top. Yummy!!

Cake Sale

It that time of year again. . . no I'm not talking about bottled fruit or dried cornstalks, or even pumpkins sitting on the porch, I'm talking about the Scout Auction. Every year our local scout group puts together a friends of scouting auction to raise money. As is tradition, each scout bakes a cake with his dad to donate. This year we had two cakes to bake so . . . Dennis and I went with divide and conquer. The boys picked their theme and we did out best to make it happen. This is what we came up with. The boys were happy. . . mission accomplished.

Family Vacation

standing: Khora, Jacob, Luke, Isaac
sitting: Afton, Sariah, Karley, Walker

(Khora with her favorite rocks.)

We were finally able to take a little family vacation last weekend. We took 4 days off and went camping up our favorite canyon. We had a trailer, 4 wheelers and good friends. We had so much fun. The kids played so well together and the time went by so quickly. We went hiking, fishing, 4 wheeling, and on a fun drive to look for elk. So nice! We loved every minute of it. It was a little hard to come back home and get back into the routine though.