Here's some stuff

We've had a lot going on and I have a lot to post about, so this post is going to be a big mish-mash of everything.  I'll start in order of oldest to youngest. 


Everyday, she's shufflin'.  She walks around pulling some random item out of a drawer, than walks down the hall, drops it off, then grabs something else and takes it somewhere else.  She just shuffles stuff around all day.  Here she actually got into the cabinet so she could empty it more efficiently.

Annie particularly likes undies, and always puts them on her head. Here she is with her favorite, Lily's star undies.

She likes to ride this wooden horse.  She clicks her tongue while she rocks.

She slurps any liquid she can find, especially puddles outside.  Here she is slurping spilled milk off the floor.

Jackie-loo has had a big couple of months.  He finished up his first year of preschool.  He loved Ms Denise so, SO much.

He got a haircut.  He had some beautiful, long luscious locks. Here is his new short hair, he loves his chicks, he loves holding soft things on his belly, and he loves running around in his undies.

He learned how to ride a bike!  It was amazing, he told me one day that it was "bike day" and it was time to take off the training wheels.  I was right in the middle of something, but he went and got me the wrench.  He knew which wrench to get and even called it a wrench.  We took them off, walked down to the church parking lot, and on the first little push he was off and riding all by himself.  After 2 minutes, he was riding through puddles, bumps, making tight turn; it was honestly incredible. 

He was so proud of himself.   

While watching food network we were ogling something tasty and PJ, my brother-in-law visiting from Oklahoma (more on that later) taught him the phrase "I'd be all over that." To explain, we said that you would say that for anything that you really like; like food, or toys, or a bike.  Later, when there was something else tasty on TV, Jack said "Mmmm, I'd ride a bike all over that."  That became the catch phrase of the week.
Here he is having Mini Wheats for breakfast with his angry birds.

Jack says the funniest stuff all day long.  Meredith, my sister-in-law, said "If I lived here, I would just sit and listen to him all day long, because every single thing he says is hilarious."
Here are a bunch of really funny, innapropriate stories:
One day when Jack had to go to the bathroom, #2.  He of course tells us every time, and this time Jared said "Hey, I have to go too.  I'll go in my bathroom while you go in yours."  Jack said very seriously. "OK Dad, but remember, It's NOT a race."   Jared and Jack do sometimes have pee races.

Once Jack kept beeping (farting), which is of course, HILARIOUS, and he said "It's a Fart Festival!"


Jack likes to beep and point it at you.  Once he walked over to Jared and I stuck his butt out and beeped, laughed, and walked away.  A few seconds after standing still, he started patting his bum.  I said "Do you need to go check your shorts?" and he said all dejected "I think I pooped."  Sure enough...


Lily finished up school, which was a happy, but also sad day.  She loved her teacher and her class so much.  School will never be the same.  I wish I could go back to kindergarten. Lily and Mrs. Ferrin.

Provost has a dance festival at the end of school.  I remember how much I loved it when I went to school there.  Lily's class did the Macarena. She is a hilarious dancer.

Lily is a little reader!  It's so exciting to watch her learn things that seem so hard, but she's doing it, and doing great.

We went to an event at the library with the author of the Skippyjon Jones books.  It was fun, and now those books are some of their favorites.

She's such an amazing girl, I'm so lucky.

On to Jenny.  I'm still super busy every day with stuff like trips to IKEA, 7 peaks water park, the library, the farmer's market.  Plus all the boring stuff, like cooking, cleaning, taking care of sick kids, blah blah.  I'm trying my best to work out and eating pretty healthy.  I've been having a lot of problems with headaches for the last year or two, but have been doing better recently.  I'm not that interesting and don't say that many funny things, so I'm going to move on.

Spring came and Jared has been lovingly caressing each blade of precious grass in our yard.  He got a new weed eater/blower thing and loves it.  Here he is with it.  Note that there is still snow.

Here he is letting Jack in on the fun.

Jared is also doing fine at work and has taken out the J Breezy (sailboat) a few times this year.


Up next is the chickies.  I've declared this the Summer of the Chick, because they seem to be the focus of much of our time, we love them so, so much; too much.  One day as I was gazing lovingly out the window at them, I saw Sizzles, my favorite, jump up on top of the coop (she likes to be up high) and right over the fence into the backyard of our neighbors who have two stupid, little dogs.  I bolted through the house, out the door and magically jumped right over the 6 foot fence. The dogs both had her in their mouths and were tugging and feathers were everywhere.  I thought she was a goner, for sure.  I grabbed her and she was alive, but not looking good.  I took her home and was terrified, she was missing a big chunk of skin right off her tail, she was breathing weird and I didn't think she would make it.
I decided that she was worth a trip to the vet, or at least that it was worth trying my best to spare the kids the grief of losing another chick.  The nurse laughed on the phone when I asked if they'd see a chicken, but she said yes.  They gave her some antibiotics and a cream to put on her, but I stopped short of gassing her and giving her stitches for another $100, her tail would just be lopsided.
She's doing great now, but her best feature, her beautiful, long, shiny-black tail is mostly gone.  I'm bummed, she was going to be my prize-winning show chicken, but I'm so glad she made it.
Sizzles is the brown one, second to the left.  She's a Welsummer.

We all especially love going out in the evenings to hold and pet the chicks.  We love to feed them dried meal worms and watermelon.  Here are the kids saying goodnight.

Jamal and Ruby (the cats) are getting along well with the chicks.  Jamal has had a Blue Jay problem for a couple weeks.  Every time he'd go out this crazy blue jay would squawk and jump around him and even peck him.  It follows him all over the yard and Jamal would just ignore it.  I thought that it seemed to be territorial, and trying to scare him away.  Sure enough, one Sunday morning there was a tiny baby blue jay fledgling that had fallen out of its nest into our backyard.  Then there were two blue jays going crazy.  Eventually the baby bird made it back, but it was fun for us to watch the drama and try and protect the baby. This is the mom bird about to peck Jamal's tail.

Easter was great, as usual.  We did the annual back yard Easter egg hunt.  Both kids wore bunny hats which were slightly wacky.

Stoney helped Annie find her eggs.  She loves Papa so much.

Annie loved it, she was a sweet, fuzzy, little Easter chick.

I made a fun Easter meal, which included jello eggs and these adorable bunny and chick rolls.  It was extra fun since our actual chicks were the same size.

We had my niece, Cate, come visit for a week.  She fits right in between Jack and Annie, so it was really easy to just throw her in with the other kids.  We had fun with her, she's a sweet little pumpkin.

Here are all the grand kids with my parents.

Jared's sister Meredith, her hubby, PJ, and one of their kids, Brayden, came for a week from Oklahoma.  We had a great time.  

The kids had an especially fun time playing with Bido, because he's an extremely rare example of a nice, pleasant, teenage boy.  Here he is in a kiddie pool having a water fight with a bunch of neighbor girls.

We went to the balloon festival, children's art festival and fireman's breakfast in Springville.

We went up to This is the Place pioneer park.  It was a good old-timey time.

On a tiny train.

There was a petting zoo with a burro named Jack.

Pink piglets, this one is Annie's best friend.

I loved this parade of geese. A mom, a dad and their fuzzy babies.

A mom, a dad and their fuzzy babies.

We went camping at Payson Lakes.  Jared stayed home because he's been busy at work.  It was beautiful and we loved it...until night came.  Nobody slept.  I got really sick in the night. Lily woke us up with the birds at 5:30.  Here is we all are warming up in the camper in the morning. Jack slept in very late in our tent.

Some day camping will be fun again, I hope.  The kids still had a great time.

We have this picture of all three kids.  Grandma in that chair, with that bandanna, and that purple blanket.  Maybe even all in that stripey sweater.

Annie in the lake.

Jackie's leaf boat.

We swam in the lake.

At the lake.

We went to the Thanksgiving Point Tulip Festival.

Jack marks his territory while observing the beauty in a secret garden area.

Jared loves hyacinths.

Even Jesus loves chicks.

I love this picture, Jared was mad because we were trying to take a nice picture but Jack kept making wacky faces, Annie was eating dirt, and Lily was sitting and showing her undies.   I love it because it is so perfectly them.