So, I'm so far behind, and so about to give birth, that today I'm going to attempt to load some photos, and to label them, and thats about it. But its been on my to-do list for 6ish months, so here we go!!
Jareds ENTIRE side of the family came to visit for a week this summer, and everybody stayed. . .at our house!!! We are so blessed to have this home where everybody can stay. We didn't even feel smooshed, I don't think!! Things really got started on Saturday July 14th up in Logan with an extended Family Get Together. Jared got the ball rolling, and then some aunts helped with the details, but everybody was so happy to see each other after so long, and agreed to not wait so long before getting together again.
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| The whole family!! |
This first picture is of all of Jareds 1st cousins. They haven't seen each other in a long time, but all have great memories from their growing up years. I don't know who all these people are, and Jared probably won't ever get on here and label this photo. . .but here it is!
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| Cohen and Kennedy...and my feet...I was so tired that day!!! |
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| Some of the cousins (2nd cousins really) are very creative little girls and decided to create a play for us. I think it was a talent competition like X factor or something. Cohen wanted to be in it and they let him be the Onrey English Judge or something. |
 Here's the house that Jareds dad grew up in. It is directly across the street from the Logan temple. In fact, here is the view from the front yard. . . |
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| Pretty stunning, right? |
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| Jared has so many wonderful memories of Logan and of his grandparents home there. Here's Oma pushing the boys on the swing in the front yard. |
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| Jareds cousin owns the house now, so we weren't trespassing or anything! |
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| Here's Cohen and Evan looking at their Great-Grandparents grave. Cohen is middle-named after this grandpa, Jay. |
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| Evan |
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| Will |
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| Ryan |
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| We drove up the canyon a bit and saw a place where papa liked to go fishing as a kid, and in college. |
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| Here's all the grandkids dressed up for church on Sunday. It looks like we're missing Ryan. . .but the back row has Evean, Camden, Cohen and Kennedy holding Colston, and the front row is Will, Easton, Addie and Sophie. |
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| We caught a huge snake in our front yard on Sunday... We haven't seen one like this around before or after, thank goodness, but it was quite entertaining! |
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| Here's everybody checkin' out the snake!! |
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| Here's the kids acting out the story of Lehi and his vision of the Tree of Life. . .it didn't go as smooth as I had planned, but it was still cute. Nobody wanted to do any of the 'bad guy' parts, and as soon as another part was introduced, those who already had a part wanted to switch. . .whatever. . .it was cute |
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| Here are our 'flags' from the Family Olympics. |
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| In this game, you had to throw marshmallows into a bucket on your teammates head, and whichever team got the most was the winner. |
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| Here's Papa showing off his injury from the 'Pop on Pop' game!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!! We bought an enormous water-balloon-launcher and you got to try and hit your dad from across the yard. He's the only one who actually got hit, and it was pretty brutal!!!! |
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Bad picture, but this is Jared and John gutting the fish they caught up at Silver Lake on Tuesday night. Fishing with Papa. . .I hope my kids actually remember this kind of thing!!
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| 'The Sleepover'. . .this is good for cousins, right? And yes, Cohen and Evans room is still purple. I swore it would be the first room I painted when we moved in. . .well, we've gotten the entire upstairs done so back off!! We at least bought some paint for it. Now I've just got to squeeze in the painting, right in between squeezing out a new baby and all of the holidays! Ha! |
Cohen and Evan are finally on their first official soccer team!!! Yay!!! They are The Lions, and they love learning how to play, and especially playing real games against another team. Evan is crazy about it! He asks me every day how much longer until they get to 'verse' another team. And he's a quick little player too. I don't know, he just may end up being the soccer star in our family!!
So, I know I'm a little late. Sue me. But this was too cute to not post. And of course I've lost the cutest part. I know I didn't throw it away, so when I find it, I'll take a picture and insert it in the right place.
Cohen learned all about Leprechauns at school the day before St. Patty's Day (it was on a Saturday this year) because while they were out of their classroom, a sneaky little Leprechaun snuck into their classroom and tipped all of their chairs over!!! Mrs. Holbrook (the best kindergarten teacher ever) told them they could build a trap and try to catch one over night.
He built a little trap out of a #10 can, and a little ladder, and put all of his plastic gold money in the bottom to lure the Leprechaun inside. He figured that since the ladder was on the outside, once the little guy got in there, he wouldn't be able to get out.
What do you know?! That sneaky little Leprechaun took all of his gold and left him this note (just the shamrock part):
So, here's where I've failed. Cohen decided to write a note back to that sneaky fast leprechaun and see if he wanted to be his friend. The note was so cute, all in kindergarten handwriting and spelling, and I've completely lost it!! AAAHHHH!!! Anyhow, Cohens note said:
It was Cohens turn to be the VIP in class the next week, and he wanted to put his notes on the poster he got to decorate, thats why they are glued on to a poster!!
OK, so since my husband is such an amazing photographer, I know that I will NEVER pay for school pictures. Until now I was thinking that it would just save me a lot of money. . .never did I imagine the hideous nature of the picture that would be sent home. They have this ridiculous system that you have to pre-pay for the class photo (which I did), but you post-pay for the individual photos. . .I think it probably hurts them in the end, because honestly, who is going to pay for this crap after they see it? You can 'opt-out' of the individual photo beforehand, or if you don't they'll just send home the whole package to you and you return the pictures that you don't want to buy. Now, I was curious to see what their pictures would look like, so even though I knew I wouldn't be buying, I didn't opt-out either.
Boy am I ever glad I got to see these beauties!!! I have a million things I could say about it, and yet, I am speechless!! Here. . .take a look-see for yourself. . .
And they want $15 for the first sheet!!!!! You can get all 5 for a mere $35!!!!! What a deal!!!
Needless to say, I will allow my children to have their individual photos taken from now on for a few reasons. . .so I can be reminded of what an amazing photographer their dad is, and so I can be thankful I have boat-loads of actually beautiful photos of my children. . .and so we can all have a good laugh!!
So, we have a lot of those awesome spider-infested bushes in our backyard. Since we don't own our own garden (did I never tell that story, remind me to one day) we decided to rip out the hideous bushes and build a terraced-garden. I'm really excited for it, but since I have no energy lately, I really don't have the motivation to finish it. . .besides the fact that the wonderful neighbor who does own our garden has been really understanding about the 'mis-understanding', and has offered to let us use a portion of that garden this summer, which will be sufficient for my gardening needs. Needless to say, here is yet another project that we've started, but that we probably won't finish until next year!
Jared got curious about how to get rid of our spider-bushes, and read up on a few different methods online, one of which included just chopping them all down with your big trimmers, and then renting a root-grinder and grinding out all of the roots. Another suggestion sounded a lot more fun, and A LOT less time consuming, so we tried it and it was AWESOME!!! We had this whole section done in 1 hour!!! Here's the process. . .in case you ever want to get rid of your own spider-infested bushes. . .
