Who'd of thunk...

We've been parents now for 11 1/2 years. With each child I've always wondered who would be the first to cut their own hair. As a parent of 5 you just know that it's a matter of when, not if, it's going to happen. With each child I've thought, "This is the one", but been so grateful when they'd each pass that age that I thought they knew better. The one thing that I'm starting to learn with this whole parenting thing is that you should never underestimate a child's ability at any age.

Just two weeks ago Jacob came upstairs with a mischievous grin. He showed me a hunk of hair that he'd taken from the front of his hair. He was just hanging out with his friends, and I guess he was looking for a shock factor. Well, he got it from his mother! I went downstairs and found hair all over the bathroom sink. I didn't get pictures because the whole that he left in his pate was pretty easily blended in his spiky do.

I thought we were past the shock of the whole hair cutting thing. Then a couple of days ago, Arianna came walking in with a pair of scissors and a sick look on her face. She had been trying to cut the elastic out of her ponytail when she cut a big chunk of hair! We're still trying to decide whether or not to cut it short, layer it, or just try to blend it into hair-dos until it grows out a little more. We'll post pictures if we decide to cut it. I just never thought it would be two of my older kids to break our 11 1/2 year no-hair cutting streak.

July Fourth Festivities

Our Independence day celebration started Thursday, July 2nd with the Hyrum City fireworks. We watched the skies all day due to a lot of dark rain clouds, but thankfully we were able to watch the show. We are able just to cross the street and sit on our neighbors yard and have a great view. The kids loved them! Kali asked the next day to see them again. I guess you can't give your kids everything they ask for!

On July 3rd, Rory took the kids up to the fireworks that are in the USU stadium. They were joined by Uncle Blaine and Aunt Necha. They said the pre-show was great. And due to the wind, they had ashes raining on them during the actual fireworks. They got home about midnight. I stayed home with Grandma Mann (who is visiting Utah for the summer) and Sabrina and Kali. It was too late of a night for us girls! I worked on July 4th dresses for the girls (which they've refused to wear since - they're not pink) and Mom kept me company.

July 4th started bright and early for me. I decided the day before to run the 15K Freedom Run. I started to wonder what I was thinking about mile 3, but I made it through all 9.3 miles and lived to tell about it! After coming home and getting everyone ready we headed to the Hyrum Parade. This becomes just a good way to get free candy for the kids. I'm not sure they could even tell you what was in the parade, but they love it! Here is where I actually had the camera.

WAITING FOR THE PARADE TO START

WE LOVE GRANDMA'S STORIES

JAKE WAS LOOKING TO GET SQUIRTED...

THEY GLADLY OBLIGED

MY CUTE TWEEN

JAKE WILL EAT SPIDERS, BUT NOT PIZZA OR SPAGHETTI

BRING ON THE CANDY!

Then July 5th we were able to enjoy a nice BBQ with Blaine, Necha, and Grandma Mann. Our kids are deprived because we do our own fireworks show in the light of the evening instead of waiting until 10 pm when it actually turns dark. But after this long, busy weekend we were more than ready for a good nights sleep.

A quick trip to Malibu for the weekend

We met with the Lamb family at Guinivah/Malibu up Logan Canyon for the weekend. With the exception of being rained on a bit we really enjoyed ourselves. We walked up to the amphitheater Friday afternoon and had an impromptu talent show. I forgot our camera this weekend so these are thanks to Miranda's camera and the only time I remembered to take pictures was during the talent show.

OUR WALK TO THE AMPHITHEATER - KAMBREE & SABRINA

CAMPING WITH 10 KIDS MAKES YOU CRAZY

AN INSPIRING RENDITION OF TAYLOR SWIFT'S "LOVE STORY"

ARI WAS TRULY IN HER ELEMENT ON STAGE

SABRINA ENJOYED PERFORMING TOO

JAKE ENTERTAINS US AROUND THE CLOCK - NO STAGE NEEDED

THE VON TRAP FAMILY SINGERS

MIRANDA WHITTLING HER WALKING STICK

KALI SANG "I AM A CHILD OF GOD" FOUR TIMES

The eyes have it!

Miranda got contacts! She's excited and learning to get them in and out. It's fun to see her bright eyes again!

Our Farr Out Camping Trip

We jumped at the chance to go camping with my brother Jordan and his beautiful family this weekend. We just went up Blacksmith Fork Canyon, but it was lots of fun. We lucked out with the rain staying away for most of the time we were there. On Friday we went up to a spring/waterfall - Gray Cliff Spring. The kids had fun playing in the water. Rory and Jordan were laying bets on who was going to go down the water pipe that went under the road. Thankfully, neither of them followed up on the dare (maybe Erin and I are rubbing off on them a little!). We relaxed by the fire, ate good food, and just enjoyed being together.

Note to Self

This is just a reminder to me to NEVER get so behind on my blogging. As a family we really use this as our family history/journal/scrapbook. Falling a month and a half behind just snowballed into an entire day spent at the computer playing catch up. In my defense, May was the busiest month I have had in a long time. I used to complain that December was hard, but it has nothing on May. The kids have so many end of the year type activities. They're wonderful, but juggling schedules became even more of a trick. I think the thing that really did me in was adding yard work to my already full "to-do" list.
When we moved into our house we fell in love with the beautiful yard. Having come from my last home that had one un-successful little garden and one small shade covered flowerbed, my understanding of what it would take to make the Garden of Eden that we'd moved into actually live and thrive was, to put it mildly, underestimated. Lets just say between my black thumb (I can kill a marigold) and the weeds, our oasis has turned into the lone and dreary world. My goal for this spring was to bring it back to some of its natural beauty. Putting a big sandbox in one of the flowerbeds, and a swimming pool in the garden area helped tremendously, but it's still taken more time than I had anticipated. My hope is to some day enjoy yard work. This is the yard to teach me, and maybe someday when the kids are all grown and I'm not trying to pick the toys and clothes up that seem to make it to the floor as I clean a different room, I will enjoy conquering the noxious weeds that overtake my poor petunias.

On top of that I've made five dresses, refinished our fire-pit benches and our bedroom dresser. So that's my excuse for not having commented on everyone elses blogs, though I've enjoyed them all! I just haven't gotten to the computer like I'd like to. It just took all day and 14 posts to play catch up. Hopefully I've learned my lesson!

School is out, It's party time!

The kids' had a fun last week of school. Sabrina had a water party. Jacob went to the Dinosaur Park one day and walked a mile to a neighborhood park to eat lunch and play the next day. Arianna went to Hardware Ranch and another day she had Pioneer Day when she got to dress up in pioneer clothes and walk to the above mentioned park to play pioneer games and practice their square dancing. Miranda got to go on a canoeing field trip with her class.

The kids had amazing teachers this year. Our hats go off to all that the hard work that they put into teaching our kids. They were loved and will be missed.

Mr. Allen and Miranda (We need more male teachers!)

Mrs. Rich and Arianna (She was going to retire last year, thank goodness she waited!)

Mrs. Sanders and Jacob (This picture was taken at the first of school last fall. Jake's grown a lot!)

The kids had worked so hard all year we decided they deserved to go out with a bang. The bus stop is at our house, so we shared doughnuts and juice with all the kids.

Alyssa, Arianna, and Lindsey

Miranda and Sage

Jacob and Ethan

When the kids got home from school we had our third annual School's Out Water Party. It was so much fun. We invite the mom's along so I can visit too and don't have to watch all the kids. It makes it a fun afternoon for all of us. Rory won a big swimming pool last year at work, so we put it in our garden spot (it makes for fewer weeds and fewer plants for me to kill) and the kids had a great time. We ended up with 35 kids and about 8 moms!

We had lots of water guns...

and lots of snacks!

The older kids enjoyed the bigger pool.

We probably had a dozen in there at one time.

This was what all of the kids looked like at the end of the day.

Miranda and her friends decided to have a "late night", since sleep-overs aren't something the majority of the kids do around here. They popped between our house and a neighbors. Around nine when they looked bored already, Rory went out and built a fire and the kids made smores. Now that is a full day! Needless to say, when they all went home at 11pm I was glad to shut the door and listen to the silence that once again presided in our home!