Utah summer in pictures

Before we get too far past summer, I'll start trying to get some of these pictures from our fantastic summer in Utah up. 

Starting with the trip there.

Riding ponies at Thanksgiving Point. Ashton refused, Diesel screamed bloody murder as soon as they started moving, and Cash looked like he was going to throw up the whole time... 

and Phoenix took it like a champ.

I mean seriously, these were harnessed 4 foot ponies people.  I'm not sure why I have the wimpiest family of 4 boys, but whatever.

Parades, sunsets and fireworks:

And trying to get 8 boy cousins to look decent in a picture all at the same time?  Impossible. Even at Temple Square.

 

Thanksgiving Point children's garden -

 

And check it out - a picture of my dad as a baby with his hair clippings.  Pretty exact match next to Diesel.

TMI

I must have deliberately forgotten how I posted a year ago about never flying by myself with all 4 boys again.  The flight home from Utah this week pictured me wrangling a screaming baby trying to arch out of my grasp on one arm while the other arm held the barf bag across the aisle for an air-sick Cash, with the twins alternately yelling and whining or getting yelled at not to fall asleep since we're just landing and have to clean up whatever mess ensues from the air-sickness, get to the air train, across the airport and onto the next flight in less than 40 minutes (they're near impossible to rouse once they fall asleep). And I thought I was doing so well and that it would be manageable because we did manage to get the barf in the bag. Throw it away, no big deal, move on.  Until I look down and see it all leaking out the bottom.  Of three different bags we had to use.  Seriously???

Anyhow, onto other unappetizing subjects.

Like my children giving out way too much information.  Must boys always announce every bodily function?? Will I ever again walk into a bathroom not to be greeted by a toilet full of un-flushed poop?

Cash especially is in an un-censored chatty phase. Recently we were with some friends when I overheard him talking to one of the boys about Ninjago.  The boy was saying how he had never seen the show and I hear Cash saying, "That's what you do when your mom is still asleep in the morning."  At this point I started walking over shaking my head starting to say, "Yeah, so it's probably not like that in his family..." and I see his friend looking at him so confused saying, "But, but... my mom is never... my mom is always there..."  Um yeah, you don't really have to advertise that to everyone.  :)

Then I asked Cash one day if he wanted to go to the store with me. When he said no I jokingly asked if he didn't want to go because he had crazy hair (he just had serious bedhead).  I overhear him a minute later talking my brother's ear off.  "I'm not going to the store because my hair is crazy.  I have crazy hair because I got lice. One time I went camping and then the next day I woke up and had lice. Then we had to cut my hair off.  Then my brothers got lice and then we all had to...."  Ok, ok, thank you for the skin-crawling conversation that no one asked for.

Then one day when my nephew observed him and asked if he needed to go to the bathroom he loudly announces, "I'm just fixing my pants, not grabbing my penis!"  I mean, in some ways it's good my boys have inherited my bluntness, but um, can we at least tone it down?

My mom was seriously dying at the lack of refinement my children exhibit.  I mean, you can remind your kid to say thank you when they forget, but it's a little hard to backtrack when all the family is out for Sunday dinner and you just happen to look over to see the kid who has walked in to the table bend over and touch his toes exposing a bum full of poop waiting for a wipe. Seriously, why can't I break them of that habit??  Why do they not get the just call me from the bathroom routine? This is by far not a one time occurrence!

Not to mention the gas.  How do you get your kids not to pass gas right as their walking by someone's face?  Or sitting on someone's lap??  Seriously, these boys....

I wonder if it's an I-have-a-lot-of-kids problem.  I'm sure if I just had one I could be more on top of his manners every time he did anything, but can you imagine how crazy I would go if I was nit-picking (ugh, I remembered I hate that phrase) every little thing every one of them did all the time? I'd lose my mind.

So I'll just say a global excuse us and hope you can over look the raw depiction of every bodily function emitted from my children.

Classy and refined.  That's the way we roll around here.

Wedding festivities

One of the highlights and reasons for our trip to Utah this summer was the wedding of my cute sister Shauna.  She's so creative and the party she planned for her wedding was perfectly suited to her fun-loving personality.  And they did it all themselves - including making the cutest backdrop for their photo booth.

 

(With a little cameo from Diesel.)

 

 

Seriously, how can this not make you happy?

 

 Diesel enjoying all the balls she had out for the kids to go with her "Hope you have a ball!" idea.

My niece saw the cutest idea for these lights, which they adapted a little and were so cute although my pictures didn't nearly do them justice to how cute they were and how festive they made it look.

 Can't wait to see all the real pictures their photographer took!

 

A big congratulations!!!

Advice

Today in Sunday School the teacher asked about the lessons we'd learned and the best advice we'd ever gotten from our parents. Answers followed such as - always be 5 minutes early, do your best in everything.  Not wanting to sway from the direction the teacher was probably taking the lesson, I didn't answer but immediately my mind thought of a letter my mother had written to me in college:

"Always wear lipstick, even if you go jogging. You never know where you may meet your future husband."

So, having no daughters to pass that on to, I thought I'd share that little gem for those of you that do.  :)  Sound advice, people, sound advice. 

Stripling Warriors

We're in Utah and went to the Bountiful parade for the 24th of July (a Utah holiday) last weekend. By far, the coolest entry in the parade was this:

2,000 young men from the surrounding area joining together to march in the parade representing the 2,000 stripling warriors from the story in the Book of Mormon.  My nephew was among them, and literally, it was thrilling to see it. People were on their feet going crazy the moment they came into view.  While this picture doesn't do justice to the massiveness of the whole 2,200 of them that were actually there, or the 10 minutes it took for them all to pass, it's still pretty darn cool.  (And thanks to whoever this guy is that I got it from on facebook.  :)

There are some things that definitely come in as a stark contrast to Miami. The only parade we've been to there featured lots of very large women in very small clothing shaking their booties in such a way as to make you cover your kids eyes and say, "Woah, I thought this was a family show, people."

So yep, a nice reprieve from sin city.

You can read about the story here (v.10-23) and here, but here are a few of my favorite excerpts and why it is a favorite LDS story (and especially tender to a mother of all boys like myself):

"And they were all young men, and they were exceedingly valiant for courage, and also for strength and activity; but behold, this was not all—they were men who were true at all times in whatsoever thing they were entrusted.

   
Yea, they were men of truth and soberness, for they had been taught to keep the commandments of God and to walk uprightly before him.

  
 Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives; yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them.

    
And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers knew it."

Cutie Pants

And in case you haven't seen the lusciousness of his crazy-curly hair:

A few pictures with the bros:

And while he's stinkin' cute, Ryan and I learned that we have both independently referred to him as "The Hulk." When he gets mad, there's really nothing like it - it's like a scene straight out of a movie. You can see it building...building...then he explodes into a fit of rage - sweeping his arms across the nearest table or dresser sending papers and paraphernalia hurling to the ground; rushing at chairs and trying to throw them to the ground; slamming the drawing easel into the wall, looking to smash throw or bite any nearest object... it's really something else.

And he's a daddy's boy like I've never seen. As soon as Ryan walks in the door Diesel starts yelling if he's not being held by him within about 2 seconds. I never take care of Diesel when we're both home because he'll have nothing to do with me! Here we are visiting his favorite person at work at the hospital on Father's Day.