Photo a Day: Somewhere You Went

Monday afternoon was HOT. I don't know if I've ever said that about an Idaho spring before. So I called Pete and suggested we get some KFC and have a picnic at the park for Family Home Evening.

But Monday evening was a little windy, and started to get overcast quickly. We stuck with our plan and got some food and went to the park. After eating, my kids just played and played and played. It got windier, and colder, and even rained on us a bit. But my kids didn't seem to mind. They continued to play in the dirt/mud, slid down the slides and got wet butts, and ran up and down the steep hill in that park.

Not pictured: Brock, because he and Pete left to get some ice cream. Which we still haven't eaten. For some reason I always forget about having ice cream in our freezer.

Photo a Day: Green/Hair/Funny

Okay, I need to preface this with telling you that I think that what we did was funny. Probably this was more dorky than funny, but I'm a dork, so there you go.

My cute little nephew loves a lot of girl things, like painted nails, My Little Pony, etc. Part of the girl things he loves includes long hair. Here he is, in the middle of my two kids:

Which, I must point out, he's Ivy's age, but I think he's taller than Troy. My sister makes really tall kids. (Also, Jakob in the background is a spaz and a half.)

Anyway, Micah doesn't have long hair. In fact, he has short, platinum blond hair that's so, so cute. So to make up for it, he wears "hair" around, which ends up being an old T-shirt. Lately it's been a green tank top that I think belongs to his older brother.

So Micah's "hair" got left at my house. We decided to take ransom pictures of the hair for my sister for our Family Home Evening. You know, instead of having an actual lesson about love and kindness or something. So here we are, modeling the "hair".

Jakob's spazzy model face:

I was going for a picture that was more like the shirt had its hands up, but this is what we got instead:

Again, I was going for a beard for Pete, but it was too small. So it's like a bank robber instead:

I just realized that none of my ideas turned out as planned. I have vision, but not execution. I was going for three-headed monster, but again they didn't all fit quite right:

 I can wear little boy clothes!

 A skirt for Ivy:

 And a kangaroo diaper:

We sent these pictures to my sister, along with a ransom note about bringing us Black Dutch Fudge for its safe return, but then we ended up going over there and taking it to them right afterwards.

We would make crappy kidnappers.

Bir-Cay-Ding, Part 3

Here is the third and final installment of the fabulous Bir-Cay-Ding. YAY!

(I would have gotten to this sooner, but we've continued to be busy.  I really will post about those things, too.  Remember: good things come to those who wait.)

So, the wedding.  First of all, I just want to mention that I'm so glad that Chris and Lexi got married, because Chris is a super awesome guy.  I can tell they fit each other really well.

July 30: pre-wedding
While we were getting ready after our horse ride and ski lift ride, Lex and her cute/awesome/amazing bridesmaids and Chris and his groomsmen were out gallivanting through the woods getting their pictures taken.

Then we got to join in the picture fun.  Lexi's wedding colors were a true orange and royal purple.  I was out with my mom shopping the week before, and we found these awesome orange ties, so we got them for my three boys and Pete to wear.  And Ivy was a flower girl for Lexi's wedding, so she had a way cute orange dress that my mom had made.  I completed the orange ensemble with a sweater and a white flowery skirt.  Which, I just realized, I don't have any pictures of myself.  I really need to hand the camera over to Pete every once in a while.

Here's Brock:

And Troy:

And Jakob:

Here's Ivy, holding Lexi's wedding bouquet.  Ivy was being shy at first about pictures, but then later on warmed up about it.

And here are my handsome boys.  I love how they all match, even Pete.

Here are Lex and Chris, ready to do the Toyota jump.  (Or is it Ford?  I really can't remember.)  Lex looks like she's getting ready to jump into some cold water or something.

The ceremony
I think I already mentioned that Lex and Chris chose Grand Targhee as their wedding site.  Lex really wanted an outdoor wedding.  Even though it was bright and sunny and warm earlier in the day, at about 3-ish it started getting cloudy and started sprinkling.  Then it started raining pretty hard for about 20 minutes or so, right before the ceremony was about to start.  There was a tiny little room just inside, and we asked if she wanted to set up in there, but Lex, being the weather girl she is (or something), said to wait just about 15 minutes.

And about 15 minutes later, it stopped raining.  Perfect!  It was a little cool out, so my kids were cold, but it was the perfect temperature for the adults.  It stayed rain-free the whole ceremony (it started getting windy near the end, but not too bad), and as soon as it was over, it started raining again.

Then the aisle walking began.  My parents led out, because my dad officiated!  Cool, huh?  He had been a bishop a while back at Ricks (which is now BYU-Idaho), and they checked the laws for Wyoming about marrying people, and it was totally okay.  Which, by the way, my dad ROCKED it.  I've always admired his teaching/speaking/officiating skills.

Lexi's friend Mark Doubleday, who is an EXTREMELY talented musician and composer, played his cello for the ceremony.  He's the one that helped Lex help me and Pete when we rapped at our ward talent show.  Let me find the link....okay, it's here.  And that's my cute uncle Kurt holding the umbrella for him.  Kurt also helped wipe down chairs after the rain for people to sit on.  He's such a great guy.

After the bridesmaids and groomsmen walked down the aisle, it was the flower girls' turn.  I really didn't know if Ivy was going to do her part.  In these kind of performance situations, she will either ham it up, or freak out and cry and scream or run away.  I really had no idea.  Chris' cousins, Maria and Julianna, were the other two flower girls.  The older girl, Maria, who is 8-ish, started to explain to Ivy what to do.  And Ivy got all excited about it.  So I sat down, but was at the end, in case I had to jump up and rescue Ivy.

But man.  She started throwing the flower petals on the ground.  And when she decided to do it, she was going to THROW the CRAP out of the FLOWER PETALS, DANGIT!  Maria had to kind of drag her down the aisle (they were both holding one of the baskets), and Ivy threw and threw and threw.  She had a blast.  And they were all just so stinking cute.

(That's a better shot of the dresses my mom made.  Cute, huh?)

And there's the beautiful bride, with Gramps.  My grandpa rocks, end of story.  His jacket was super sweet that day, too.  It was blue, and made of...suede?  It was really soft.  I asked him about it, and he said it was really really old.  But it was beautiful and in great shape for how old it was.  He's such a cute guy.

The flower girls stood there during the ceremony most of the time.  Ivy ran to my mom after a while, and I think Julianna jumped ship, too.  It's hard to see in this picture, but Ivy gets this confused look on her face.  She had it on during the whole ceremony.

There was a part during the ceremony where Lex and Chris read their individual vows to each other.  I got all teary when Chris read his to Lex.  (Um, and I just realized that blogger erased a bunch of what I had written right here.  Stupid blogger.  But let me sum up: Chris talked about how they met and how he knew they would be together.  Lex talked about how excited she is to start their life together.)

(Yeah, I probably just totally botched that up.  Lex, I hope you and Chris have your real vows somewhere.  I KNOW they are more eloquent than the craptastic summary I just wrote above.)

Like I said before, my dad did an amazing job.  Near the end, he read an Apache blessing of sorts.  I really liked it, so I found it on the internet.  For your reading pleasure:

Now you will feel no rain,
For each of you will be shelter to the other.
Now you will feel no cold,
For each of you will be warmth to the other.
Now there is no more loneliness,
For each of you will be companion to the other.
Now you are two bodies,
But there is one life before you.
Go now to your dwelling place,
To enter into the days of your togetherness.
And may your days be good and long upon the earth.

It was just a beautiful ceremony. I cried, and laughed, and got chills...it was just so wonderful.  I'm so glad I got to go and see it.

Oh, and after Chris kissed the bride, he dipped her, and kissed her again.  Lexi's face right before the dip was so funny-her eyes got really big, and had a look of "don't drop me!"  It was funny.

Party time
Like I said, I was warm enough, but it was a bit chilly for my kids.  After the ceremony, everyone headed over to the tent they had set up, where we would eat dinner.  I ran and got jackets for my kids (because even though we were mostly encased, the cold air was still coming in).

Here's Lexi.  Doesn't she just look so beautiful and so happy?  Which, she had her makeup lady come up to the resort, and got her makeup airbrushed on.  Sweat free, smudge free, tear-proof...she's a thinker.

They had toasts, where the Best Man and the Maid of Honor gave little speeches, as did the parents.  Lexi's Maid of Honor was a girl named Kate.  Let me tell you, Kate ROCKS!  She told this awesome story about how Lex would talk about Chris when they first met, but they (Lex and Kate) had a nickname for him of Javier.  It was so funny!  Also, there was dancing later on, and when the DJ was doing a crappy job of picking out songs, Kate kicked him out of his chair and took over to find awesome boogie-down songs for us.

We had this amazingly yummy dinner.  There was a strawberry-spinach salad, and chicken (or fish, but I'm a chicken girl), and...is it called twice baked potatoes where you bake the potato then pull out the insides and mash them up and put them back onto the skins?  Well, if it's not that, then that's what we had but I don't know what it's called.  I'll call them Prettily-Presented Potatoes.

And here's their cake.  Chris designed it.  I know that their colors had something to do with their school colors or something, but I know I'm going to get it all mixed up.  They met at BSU, so that's the Bronco thing on the top tier.  And something about a team that starts with a C, which is also Chris, and something with a team that starts with an A, which is also Alexis.

I'm SOOOO into sports, can you tell?

But what I CAN tell you about the cake is that it was deliciousness wrapped in amazingness.  Each layer was a different kind of chocolate.  One was German chocolate, one was Mexican chocolate, and the other was...I know I'm not remembering right...like a double dark chocolate or something like that.  I had a slice of the Mexican chocolate layer.  It supposedly had cinnamon in it.  But all I tasted was super rich, moist, yummy chocolate.  Oh, mama.  It was so good!

Lex and Chris cutting the cake:

...And then Lex and Chris shoving the cake into each other's faces!  When Pete and I got married, I told him I would kill him if he got cake on my wedding dress, so he placed the cake nicely in my mouth.  Not Lexi and Chris.  Oh, no.  This picture below is Lexi, mid-fall.  Chris totally pushed his bride down!  It was funny.

The aftermath of the cake shove (you can't really see the cake smeared all over his face unless you enlarge the picture).  Chris:

And Lex:

But all was well.  They got cleaned up, and had their first dance together.  (I really don't remember if they danced before or after the cake shove.)

And here's the bride dancing with her dad.  I love this picture-such a sweet moment.  (My dad is so cute.  And Lexi's hair was to die for.)  Say it with me: AAAAAWWWWWWWWW!

At this point, my kids had had it.  They had gone to bed super late the night before, woke up super early that morning, and then had a really busy day.  Troy could barely keep his eyes open during the dinner. The DJ dude started playing music after the dinner, and normally my kids boogie on down, but they were not about to do it in public that night.  Ivy danced with me, but her tights kept falling down and pulling down her undies, so I'd have to keep fixing them.  She tried to get people to dance with us, like Pete or my dad or my mom, but no one was ready to boogie...yet.

Although, I danced with Ivy, and then I kept making faces at my kids.  Jakob was about to die from embarrassment at his dorky mom, but I didn't care.  Yep-I'm one of those parents, that thinks it's really funny to embarrass my kids.

We took the kids back to our room, told them to open the door under ZERO circumstances, and...then went back to boogie.

It was so fun to dance!  And, of course I don't have pictures of it, because I was too busy having a blast!  They played way fun music, some of which was old school (old school meaning when I was in high school, or even junior high).  Like, "Killing Me Softly" by the Fugees, "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" by the Proclaimers (which I first heard when I attended my first EFY at 14 years old-YIKES!), "Pour Some Sugar on Me" by Def Leppard, and "Cotton-Eyed Joe" by the Rednex. (Yes, quite the variety.)  They also had Beatles songs, and Black Eyed Peas, and Tao Cruz, and Beyonce's "Put a Ring on It".  Which, at that point, I wish I would have known all the dance moves to that song, because that would have been awesome.  I know, like two moves.

So, yeah.  WAY fun.  And Lexi's bridesmaids had some sweet, sweet dance moves!  After a while (a LONG while), we were worn out, so we went back to our room.  (Not to worry-we had checked on the kids periodically during the dancing.)  And, surprisingly, they were still awake for some reason.  I would have thought that they'd be out cold by then.  Oh well.

Well, that wraps up Part 3.  And I really did save the best for last, huh?

The Short Version

I think I am the President of the Procrastinator's Club.  Of course, I wouldn't know, because procrastinators would just put off having their meetings, wouldn't they?

Anyway, I've been gone WWWWAAAAAYYYYYY too long from my blog.  And so much has happened!  But I'm afraid if I try to do super detailed posts of everything, then I won't get around to doing any posting at all, because I'll just fall further behind.  So, I'm going to do the highlights, and you can fill in the details in your mind.  I trust you to make up awesome things.

So, without further ado...

Pete had his birthday.  He got a computer mouse, and then some drawings done by the kiddos.  It was very chill.

I started a chore chart for my kids. Jakob had been doing bathrooms with me for forever, and the other kids didn't have any chores.  I revamped it, and now we have a rotation of several chores.  My kids have been really great about doing chores-eager, even.

I have to supervise them, but for the most part they do pretty well.  A couple of weeks ago Troy was on dusting, and I didn't know that he was trying to do it by himself.  Needless to say, I had to scrape off oodles of dust stuff off of my dresser.  But he tried, and I guess that's what counts.

I also got a laundry basket for each of my kids, and now they fold their own clothes.  I have to help Ivy a lot, but they do well folding their own clothes.  I'm not quite ready to have them try and run the washing machine by themselves, but it's helped me a lot to divvy out their clothes for them.

Brock lost his two top teeth in the last little bit.  I love the toothless smile.

We spent mother's day with my parents.  It was really fun.  My mom is a spaz.  She's so cute!

My cute friend Sara got some free tickets to a show called "Handsome Little Devils", so she invited me and our other friend Anna to go. The actors do a lot of juggling tricks-that kind of thing.  It was really impressive. And I got pulled up on the stage!  The actor next to me had me hold some roses out in front of me, and he whipped the tops of them off while balancing on a ladder!  It was really cool.

We had an Easter egg hunt at my parents' house, in the 400 mile-an-hour wind.  Idaho "spring" is very, very windy.

Ivy had her third birthday.  For some reason, I always space on the candles for cakes.  Also for some reason, I had a brand new "1" candle, but that's it-no others.  Awesome.  So that's how we ended up with two matches as the other candles.

She got some clothes, and some hair things, a Tinkerbell doll, and the movie Bambie.

I was outside on a Saturday, and Troy ran out to be with me.  His hands were in his jacket.  He tripped, and fell flat on his face on the driveway.  I saw the whole thing and couldn't do anything to stop it.  So very sad.

A few days later, Troy graduated from preschool.  He loved preschool, but he is so ready to go to kindergarten in the fall.

And speaking of graduations, Brock graduated from kindergarten.  Their program was really cute, and I thought I would cry a lot, but I didn't.

(Okay, so here is where I tried to insert a video of Jakob's piano songs, but it wouldn't load.  Good job, blogger!  So, maybe someday I'll get it to load, but until then, just pretend that you can watch that video here.)

I had my piano recital.  I've been teaching Jakob this year as well.  He did an awesome job!  He was all, "My legs were shaking a lot!"  And I don't know why he decided to stand while playing, but whatever.  He did great, as did my other students.  I played as well, and did pretty good, but botched the end of my last song.  Oh well, though.  It's not the first time I've messed up a performance, nor will it be the last, I'm sure.

Also, I look like Beaker when I play the piano: my eyes are really wide, and my mouth turns down at the corners.  It's neat.

Right after school got out, I got sick, for a week!  It was way super awesome.  I love being sick.

We took a quick jaunt to Utah for Pete's mission reunion.  I was a little bored but I think Pete enjoyed seeing some of the people from his mission.  We hung out with family, and went to Thanksgiving point, to the dinosaur museum there.  I had no idea why Ivy is crying in the above picture.

They have a digging spot at the museum, where you can uncover "bones".  All my kids enjoyed that part.

All of my boys have individually told me that they want to either study or dig up dinosaur bones.

We ate at Benihana on the way back home.  The kids' menus folded up into hats.  Troy zonked out with his hat still on.

And, this last Sunday, Ivy decided to take some scissors to her own hair.  The pile of hair she chopped off is in her hands in this pic.

She did a very thorough job on both sides of her head.  It was very mullet-esque.  It's kind of hard to see in the pictures of it.  Needless to say, we needed to get it fixed up.  I figured a cute little pixie hair cut would work.  And, of course, all this happened before I got her 3-year-old picture taken.  Because I've been really on top of things lately.  (Pres. of the Procrastinator's Club, remember?)

Here it is, all fixed up.  Pete thinks it's kind of boy-ish, but I think if I keep a barrette in it then it will be feminine enough.

Well, that pretty much catches us up to speed.  Sorry it's not heavy on the details, but I just wanted to get 'er done, you know?  So that maybe, someday, I can step down as the President of the Procrastinator's Club.  You know, when I get around to it.

Beatle-mania

There it was, in the corner of my newspaper: a headline for one of their articles.  I flipped open to the page, and lo and behold, the article about the band 1964.

And my heart did a little leap of joy, and I went “EEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!”

1964 is a tribute band that plays all Beatles songs.  They dress like them, talk, and act like them.  They even played their instruments the way the Beatles did.

I saw this same band when I was in 9^th grade.  My sister and I went, along with a couple of our friends.  Somehow, we got front row seats at the Civic Auditorium.  When the band started, we jumped up and started dancing.  But the guy behind us didn’t like it.  He poked us, and yelled “Sit down!  We’re trying to watch!”

So we went into the orchestra pit, along with a bunch of other teenagers.  We danced in pure Beatles bliss.

Anyway, when I saw they were performing up at BYU-Idaho, I immediately called my two Beatles-loving sisters.  They were both all over going to the concert like white on rice.  I think they both went “EEEEEEEEEEEE!” too.  I called and got tickets.

And so we went.  First we got burgers from Five Guys (YUM!), and then we headed on up.  I just love spending time with my cute sisters.

We were singing at the top of our lungs, and boogying in our seats.  At one point the band told everyone to jump up and sing and dance to “Twist and Shout”.  After that, my sisters and I couldn’t be contained in our seats any longer.  They had an area in the back where people could dance if they wanted to. 

There was a boy, about 10-ish years old, who was spastically dancing around, and was totally off-beat.  There was an older guy, maybe in his 40s, who had his two little girls dancing with him.  He was dancing exactly the way my dad would dance with us girls when we were little.  There were some couples trying to ballroom dance to the music, and I wanted to kick them in the shins.

And then there was us.

1964 only plays the early Beatles stuff.  There were a few songs with which I was unfamiliar.  But then they played my favorite Beatles song, “In My Life”.  The band told us to pull out our phones and call someone to share the song with, and I called Pete.  I was so excited that it was “In My Life” that I was all, “petethey’replayinginmylife ilovethissongsomuchcanyouhearit listenlistenlisten!!!”  I asked him later if he heard the song at all, or what I had said, and he was all, “Um, yeah, phones don’t really work well at concerts, I couldn’t hear anything.”

After they were done, we all clapped and cheered, and stomped, and yelled for an encore.  They came back out, and played four more songs, just right in a row.  We ran up to the stage, along with most of the audience.  We danced and sang some more.  There was a guy in front of us, that, when they started the third song, he turned to his friend and said, “This is just BLOWING my mind!”  It was funny.

Then it was over.  My cheek bones hurt from smiling and laughing.  (The “Beatles” would joke around in between songs.)  My throat hurt from yelling and singing.  I was a sweaty mess.  But I was also high as a kite from adrenaline.  It had been wwaaaaayyyy too long since I had listened to Beatles music.  I love, love, love the Beatles.

And here is my favorite Beatles song.  (Pete, when I die, you need to play this at my funeral, k?)