Temple Open house

Today I took the kids to the Oquirrh Mountain Open house. They loved it. Matthew said he felt the spirit stronger in the temple than he had ever felt it before. We then went to IKEA for lunch. The kids love the mac and cheese. We then went in search for Jeans for Montana and school. James has grown so much this last year, he has no pants to wear. We went to D.I. and Savers. I love buying jeans that look like they haven't ever been worn for 4 bucks. Especially since James will only wear these pants for 4 months at the most. Jacob kept saying "this is a good day." I totally agree. It was a good day.

Lamb Day -- Part Deux

Laura is in bed, so I think I'll add a few pictures from our Lamb Day experience.

Lamb Day Pits. Each pit is rock lined. The fires heat up the rocks to cook the lambs overnight.

Excitement before the lambs are put into the pits. (I think we need more of the family there next year!)

James and Matthew. The coals in the pits are shoveled out before the lambs are put in. (The red streak in this long nighttime exposure is several shovels full of hot coals being carried out of the pits.)



Fountain Green knows how to throw a parade.



Paul and Isaac at the parade. Getting candy at this parade was much easier then going Trick-or-treating.



Roasted Lamb on its way to the city park where they make the sandwiches. The lambs cooked in the pits for about 14 hours.



I couldn't resist getting a picture of these handlebars!

Yummy Lamburger sandwich -- with mustard. (Now don't you feel bad you didn't come to the party!)

The Magical House -- 30 second nighttime exposure. (Yes, we did talk about the EOTW, and no, we did not have a visitation.) Kudos to anyone who can name the constellation seen above the house in the large version of the picture -- hint: its also the name of Draco Malfoy's son -- yes, I just saw the latest Harry Potter movie a few hours ago.

I need to add a little story . . . At the parade there is lots of candy thrown to the crowd. A couple of the floats thought it would be fun to throw water balloons with some of the candy, which made for some wet fun on a hot day. They also had a firetruck in the parade that sprayed a lot of water on a few people. Now imagine the surprise when the driver of the firetruck was hit in the face by a water balloon thrown from the crowd -- a water balloon, from one of the previous floats, that had not exploded.

I have no idea how Matthew ended up with that unexploded water balloon!!!!! I promise we didn't encourage him to throw the balloon . . . too much.

Lamb Days

This weekend was Lamb Days in Fountain Green. We stayed in the most magical house. My kids just love it. My sister Emily and her kids came with us which added to the fun. We watched them shovel the hot coals out of the pit where they roast the lambs for sandwiches the next day. Early the next morning James and Emily ran the 5K. James came in 3rd in his age division, which was pretty good considering his age division was 13- 19 year olds. Gordon and I had a terrible nights sleep. (I have no idea why my mom put double beds in that house!) From now on Gordon and I shouldn't even try to sleep in the same bed- it just doesn't work. We had the traditional pancake breakfast followed by the parade. I love small town parades! They throw out tons of candy for the kids. After the parade the kids played on the slip n slide and the adults tried to sleep. Morning sickness has the better of me still and I ate 2 lamb sandwiches, usually I think they are gross, but today the mustard on the sandwich was delicious. I think I'll go drink some pickle juice, it's sounding pretty tempting right now.

Morning sickness

It's day's like today that I just love it when the sun sets and I know I made it through another day. One more day to check off my morning sickness calendar. It's frustrating to have my life put on hold. Especially summer- my favorite season. I don't get anything done. No laundry, no dishes. I barely get dressed by 11:00 am. I lay outside on a chaise most of the day. I just can't stand to be inside- the smell of the air inside makes me sick. Last night a dear friend brought dinner. Tonight Gordon brought home Chinese- I have been craving egg rolls. Now I just want the time to pass so the kids will go to bed and I can crawl into my own bed and go to sleep. I am convinced some stages of life you just get through. If someone told me to enjoy every day, I think I would punch them. I will endure, but boy will I be glad when this is over.

Oh happy day!

Bridie's birth

I have a secret. We are going to have our 7th baby Feb. 1, 2010. We are so excited! The kids have been so good and cute about this whole thing. I went to the doctor (I have the best doctor in the world! No, it isn't Gordon) for the first time today. I have been having some minor complications and I wasn't sure about my dates so we were trying to keep it as quiet as possible. Gordon had me convinced that my due date was into March. That isn't a very nice thing to say to a pregnant lady with really bad morning sickness. But my due date is sooner than I thought so I have less morning sickness ahead of me than I had planned on (the best news yet.) and I heard the baby's heartbeat today. I have been so sick lately I didn't know how I was going to take another 6 weeks of morning sickness. But now I figure I have only 2-4 more weeks! Now if someone could just make the last 4 weeks of my pregnancy go this fast.

A great day

Thanks for the beach towels Mom. They got used today.

This summer the kids and I have had the hardest time finding a pool that we are all comfortable swimming at. It's so hard to keep track of all the kids swimming at such varying swimming levels and I hate the PDA and revealing swimsuits (porn at the pool) I expose my older boys to at some of the pools we have been to. Today we tried a new place I had heard of but never tried. It is actually a reservoir with a sandy beach and it's free. When you have 6 kids a couple of hours at a pool can be really pricey. So we thought we would try it. I wasn't expecting much. It didn't have water slides, water toys, etc.- just plain old mother nature. Sand, water. The kids had a great time. They swam around the pond, then played in the sand then swam some more. I didn't have a single kid say they were bored and want to go home. I had to drag them away after 3 hours. They can't wait to go back. I think this will be our new favorite spot.

Connections

Jacob's cotton candy mustache.

The kids watching the parade.

Matthews facial cotton candy.

My honey and my baby

They think they are too cool to go to a parade.

I love parades. The man I married doesn't like parades. Luckily we have connections that make our parade going so much easier. Our friends own some apartments on University Ave. We park in their underground parking on the parade route and they save us a spot in the shade. We show up right before the parade starts and leave right as it ends. With 250,000 other people going to this parade, it saves us a lot of headache. Gordon doesn't mind going now. Julia and Terry have joined us the past couple of years. Now if my kids would just sit so I could watch it.

Nauvoo

Nauvoo temple. Our private tour was a highlight. Gordon and James also did baptisms for the dead.

Being at Carthage on the martyrdom and listening to my dad give the address. It was a hot day.

Spending time with my parents. My mom did all the cooking and provided fun toys for the kids.

Hannibal, MO. The Mark Twain cave was awesome.

Independence, MO. This is in the visitors center. 10 families lived in this cabin. And I thought we were crowded in our house.

We just got back yesterday from a wonderful vacation to Nauvoo, Il. Things went much better than I had hoped. We spent time with my parents who will finish their 18 month mission in October. It was sad to see how much the kids had forgotten my parents. It was great to see the kids become reaquainted with them. On the way back to the hotel one night the kids said "Grandma is so nice. She would never get mad at us. She must love us even more than you mom." As we drove through the countryside I realised how much I miss the midwest. I miss the rolling hills, the trees, the green, the farms and farmhouses, the little towns, the fact that you have no point of reference as you drive (here the mountains let you know where you are going), the openness of if, the little towns. Most of all I miss the good, good people. They are the salt of the earth. I miss them. Things I do not miss- the heat and humidity in the summer, the freezing cold winters, and the bugs ( yuck! I hate bugs! But the kids really loved the fireflies).