Visitors From Minnesota

Our favorite Minnesotans, the Palmer’s (who should still be Oregonians), came to stay with us for a week.  It was great!  We haven’t been all together with them for a long time.  It’s been so fun to see our friendship that started early in our marriages last over the years.  We love the Palmer’s and we loved having them stay with us. 

We spent time watching the big kids get to know each other again and watching the little kids play and bond over marbles and goldfish crackers.

Spent even more time wondering how these little kids…

Dallin & Emma--4th of July 2001

…turned into these big kids.  It seems like just yesterday we were pushing them in their strollers as tiny babies.

We played Face the Cookie.  Emma was the only one to get that cookie into her mouth! 

We spent a day at the zoo.  We were happy to see Arianna a lot while the Palmer’s were here, we especially had fun with her at the zoo.

Dallin was sick that day.  =-(

Isaac and Grace loved the zoo.  We will definitely be visiting again this summer (while they’re still free to get in!).

The petting zoo was a hit.

The polar bear put on an awesome show for us and it was fun to see the kids’ reaction to it.  They loved it!

The lorikeets are always fun.

The best part of the day was just being with our friends at the zoo.

Reed’s sunblock.  Reed and Sandy are always fun to be around and we appreciated them letting us tag along on their family outings.

Cute girls!

Lanna and I continued our never-ending quest of getting a good picture together.   We also tried to get back to the good ‘ol days by crafting a little.  We started making a pretty necklace, but that’s as far as mine got...started.

Unfortunately the Palmer’s were plagued with sickness while they were here.  That was sad, but we still managed to have a good time. 

The highlight of their visit was the weekend we spent at the coast (that will be another post).

It was just so nice to spend time with our good friends and to get to know their kids better. 

We love you Chuck, Lanna, Dallin, Grant, Callie & Ava!  Move back soon.

Father’s Day 2011

Here are three kids who absolutely adore their

Their mom adores their father as well.  He’s a pretty darn good one!  Good enough to get breakfast in bed, complete with the lyrics of his all-time favorite Primary song, not to mention the Danishes he begs asks for every year.

The kids were so excited to gather around him on the bed as he opened his presents.

He got new DAD pictures to replace the ones from last year on his desk at work.

And new running duds for his new hobby.

How thankful we are for the kind of dad Lee is.  He takes his role as a father seriously and leads our home with love.  I can’t believe how lucky and blessed we are to have him.

Later that evening we went to Grandma Dorothy’s house to celebrate my awesome dad.   These grandkids also love their Grandpa Mike!

He was proud to show off his “many names of Grandpa” shirt that we made him.  I think he looks pretty cute!  We love you Dad!

Father’s Day was a good day to remember all the wonderful dads and grandpas in our lives.  We love you all!  It was also a good day to eat yummy food, including dessert that was, of course, chocolate!

Worth the Work

Our garage sale was worth the blood, sweat and tears (yes tears.  I wanted to cry several times as I saw baby clothes, shoes and gear leave my garage…).  I am not a fan of having garage sales.  But, we had a lot of baby stuff and we need a dishwasher.   Thankfully the first day was beautiful and we stayed busy all day.  One woman was about to get boy/girl twin grandchildren and she wanted to stock her own house with baby supplies.  She alone bought a large amount of our double items.  Unfortunately, it poured the second day.  We were only able to stay open for a couple hours and we pulled in a measly $40.  We made plenty the first day to make up for the bad second day and we far exceeded our goal. 

The outside pictures were taken after most everything had been cleared out-it went fast!

So, as soon as we get some time to go shopping, all that hard work will hopefully translate into something like this:

Huge thanks to Kaitlin and Tenley who spent the weekend with us and helped with the kids.  They took Isaac and Grace to the park and to the library during the worst of the craziness. 

Oh, What Do You Do In the Summertime?

We really liked our summer plan last year, so we did it again for this summer.   For family home evening right before school was out we sat down and planned what we wanted to accomplish and the fun things we wanted to do.  We made goals and we revamped the chore chart.  We went over the calendar and set up a schedule.  Best of all, we made a big list of things to do that answered the question “What do you do in the summertime?”.  We divided them into four categories: We Go Places, We Do Service, We Eat Good Food, We Do Fun Things.  We’re excited to mark things off our list!  We put it all together and made command central.

Once the planning session was done we enjoyed a fun, summer treat. 

Don’t look too closely at the cups.  I accidently bought cook and serve pudding, and then poured it into the cups while it was still too hot.  I’m such a good mom to feed my kids melted plastic!

Of course we can be flexible with all our planning.  Summer is all about lazy days and reading good books as far as I’m concerned!  But, we like having a purpose and a plan.  We’ve already had to readjust since Emma was moved up a level on the swim team.  She went from practicing for an hour each afternoon to practicing two hours in the morning.  Kind of threw things after we had planned them, but we’re being flexible! 

Bring on the sun and fun!