Shakespear Shuffle

Lately

So, here are pictures of what we've been up to lately.  The weather has been perfect for many outdoor adventures. Not too hot (meaning below 75) & not too cold (meaning above 50).

This is my new favorite picture of the kids. This is at Nana & Poppie's new land they've bought up here in MO & hopefully they'll get to live on someday. 

 

There are many reasons why I love my husband.  And not too far down the list is that he is a Trekkie at heart.  Now before I married him the man hadn't really watched much of Star Trek but he quickly caught on to how awesome & significant it is.  Even to the point that he ate boxes & boxes of cereal to acquire a free Science Officer shirt.  And he was awesome enough to wear it to the new Star Trek: Into Darkness.  Which was awesome by the way.  The only thing that could have made it so much better was if William Shatner had made a cameo appearance.  Maybe next time.

These pictures are adorable! Lollipops from the doctor's office.

We had a few days of playing in the light rain and/or after rain wetness.  We better get used to it & those days showed me that we can still have lots of fun even if everything is sopping wet outside.  

 

Walks may be preferable to going down slides & swinging when it is wet though

 

Nana & Poppie bought about 60 acres of land about 50 minutes from us & are hoping to retire up here someday.  We went to check the land out & spent the whole morning exploring & playing in the water & weeds.  It was a perfect day & a gorgeous place to play.  It will make a perfect spot for a family reunion. I had a revelation while sitting by the river.  It has always kind of irked me that Hyrum doesn't seem to like being outside a whole lot.  At least that's what I have assumed because I have a hard time convincing him to play in our yard unless he's riding his bike.  I don't really want our kids to be the types to just want to sit around the house playing video games all day.  But while I sat there watching him crawl & hike all over the place exploring & finding critters (like a big black snake-yikes!) I realized he LOVES being outside it just needs to be on his own terms.  He doesn't like our boring yard because let's be honest it is pretty boring but he loves to go exploring & poking around parks & nature trails etc.  He was trying to scale anything rockish which reminded me of Brigg which of course makes me nervous :)  I'm sure it won't be long before he wants to hike some tall mountain somewhere. Anyway it made this Momma happy & I need to make more of an effort to get our outdoorsy time in in places he loves.

We let the 3 biggest boys have a camp out in the back yard alone.  Except it was just way too exciting for Justy so we made him come inside around 9:30 & then they finally all fell asleep.

We have finally finished reading the Book of Mormon as a family!  Hoo-raw!  We started reading it every night when Hyrum was somewhere between 18 months & 2 years so it took us about 5 or 5.5 years to read it.  But we only read a couple of verses at a time for a long time.  Lately we've graduated to reading more & more as the kids can listen better.  We celebrated by enjoying Orange Leaf yogurt.  (Ok I have a confession to make. I don't like frozen yogurt.  I really don't. That's it.)  We started the Book of Mormon over again & we'll see how long it takes us the second time through.

We had a family home evening lesson on Faith & we planted little grass seeds. We compared the seeds to having a little bit of faith & as we try our best to obey Heavenly Father it can grow into something more.  With all the rain we've been getting the kids plants are growing pretty darn fast.  They love to check on them every day.

My friend Olivia is making hair bows & selling them on Etsy.  They are adorable & Emma likes them as you can tell.  I think Hunter did her hair in this picture.

Playing in the front yard.

 

A happy Mother's Day picture.  I can't imagine my life without my kids.  I love having the great blessing to be a Mom & to stay home with my kids & to love them.

The kids love the book series Henry & Mudge.  One of the books is about Mother's Day & Henry & his Dad always make funny food for the Mom.  Hunter really wanted to do the same thing.  So after breakfast in bed (crumbly cake & fruit salad-yum!) Jeremy & the kids made my pineapple sofa & lemon & strawberry & apple people on a chocolate bar & it made a great snack after church.

We were at a gas station one morning & I looked up in the mirror at the top of the van & there was Hyrum's face staring at me & just about scared me to death-good one Hyrum :) 

We went to a butterfly park for Mother's Day & the kids picked me flowers & weeds :)  I love it when they do that.  Jeremy trained Hyrum & Hunter to give me flowers a long while ago so pretty much whenever we go outside somewhere someone or all of them will pick me some beautiful weeds.  Better than roses I say.

I think this peony is gorgeous.  I may need to plant some.

This big 7 year old graduated from 1st grade with flying colors & is now enjoying his summer vacation.  His teacher, Dr. Burton did a great job with him.  She has a PhD yet chooses to teach 1st grade.  I never had the guts to ask but I assume it's because she loves the kids & to teach & I admire that.  We need good teachers everywhere!

I also had a birthday.  I'm 34 now.  No, I don't want to talk about it.

To make it a little easier on me Jeremy made one of my dreams come true by buying me an entire Black Tie Cheesecake from Olive Garden.  Sighhhhhhhhh.  It was delicious.

As you can tell from the picture on your right Dallen knows what the good stuff is around here.

 

This is typical Emma for you.  Loves her necklaces, pretty clothes & Princess "hat" but is usually packing some type of weaponry.  She's got to with all these boys running around.

Lining up for church

And we have been spending a lot of time being sick around here.  Lots.  But that's just how it goes when you have kids.