Pioneer Day Parties!

We celebrated Pioneer Day starting on Tuesday with Kristi and Bryson and Lexi and Lydia. They came over for a brunch of ham and potatoes, cornbread and squash. And we made butter and used the buttermilk to make buttermilk donuts. Delicious! Kristi had made suckers with her kids and brought some to share- Lydia found them! Here she is eating four at the same time :)



Then on Thursday we had another pioneer party with Madison, Kobi, Grace, and Bella. We made muffins, butter and rasberry jam for a tea party and we also made aprons for all the girls.
Our lovely tea party group!


Here's Maddy in her cute apron- notice how it was already used for making the jam!


Then, on Friday- the REAL pioneer day- we met Kristi at Pioneer park for a picnic and some pioneer activities. We went in teepees, pioneer villages, played with stilts and climbing teddy bears, saw people spinning and blacksmithing... pretty much everything that pioneers did, we did. :)

Hyrum and Weston in the teepee :)


This was my favorite thing in the Pioneer village- the Pioneer potty chair!

These boys are NOT pioneers... pioneers were not that silly!

Lydia is not a pioneer either- Pioneer babies were not this cute!

Pretty sure Wendy is not a pioneer either... Pioneers did not pose!

Hyrum and the story of the Tooth

One day Hyrum went to Largey Grandma's house. He was eating a cherry and he bit down on the "nut" inside of it which made his bottom front tooth kind of wiggly. That was about a month ago. Little by little, the tooth started to get more loose... By about July 22th, 2009, that tooth was so wiggly it was turning gray! Time for the tooth to come out! Hyrum was eating a graham cracker and when he bit down on it, the whole tooth popped forward until "it was sticking out like a cannon ball shooter!" Hyrum wiggled it and twisted it until it popped right out!

Here are the after shots- one tooth down!

The tooth was just a little guy but it left a nice big hole in Hyrum's mouth.


This is the tooth pillow Hyrum made once his tooth started getting REALLY loose. It worked great to put the little tooth in, put under his big pillow to wait for the tooth fairy to come.

The Tooth Fairy came and brought Hyrum a 2 dollar bill! I used to get a dime for each tooth- I guess that's inflation! But the Fairy left his tooth and this note that says Hyrum might want to keep his first tooth...
Hyrum, being the ingenious boy that he is left this note and his tooth under his pillow again the next night:

It says "Will my tooth work again?" It didn't work again, but Hyrum didn't need it to BECAUSE
The next week he had ANOTHER loose tooth! The second bottom tooth was kind of loose in the morning, a little looser by the afternoon, and while we were driving in the car to go pick up Daddy from school, Hyrum was eating ANOTHER graham cracker and suddenly he said,"Mom, feel my tooth." I said, "Hyrum, I just barely felt it before we left. It hasn't changed THAT much." But finally, at a stop light, I reached back and felt it and it was SUPER loose! Even before we got to BYU, the tooth had popped out! So now, Hyrum looks like this:


What a hole! The Tooth Fairy gave him eight quarters for the second tooth. And Largey Grandma matched that like she did for the first tooth (what a nice grandma!) And that is the story of Hyrum and the Teeth!

Birthday week!

So 29 years ago my dad came home from work on the late shift (he was a Provo policeman) and my mom decided it would be funny to attack him with a pillow. Then she ran and jumped on the bed for defense pose, putting herself into labor and the next morning: I was born. I really like to spread my birthday out a little so even though my b-day wasn't until Wednesday, Tuesday I planned a girls day out to Park City and hit the outlets for a little birthday shopping! Kristi let us pile in her van: me, Kristi, Lydia, Wendy, Jenny, Jade and Jessica (that's what I said, "girls" day out!) I got a cute hoodie for fall (makes me excited for a cool down) some shorts for Hyrum, hats for both the boys and of course, made a stop at Harry and David's for some strawberry sticks.

Here's the boys in their hats :) They humor me...

Wednesday I woke up to a happy house covered in streamers and balloons and birthday signs (Thanks to Robby and Wendy who used their late night for some good :) I went to a little pilates class at the rec center, came home, got dressed and headed to Kristi's for a delicious lunch of BBQ chicken wraps and the most delicious filled cupcakes! She had her house all decorated cute too and they even sang to me... here's the pics:

Kristi's cute table, favor bags for the kids and my little b-day basket. Don't I have a nice sister?

These are the beautifully plated coconut, strawberry/cream cheese filled cupcakes with real cream and coconut on top... YUM!

Afterwards, Wendy went on a speedy run to Cozy to get the shirts I've been wanting and Kohl's to get the dress I've been wanting. It was my kind of shopping- run in, find what you want, buy it, run out... Then I finally made time to put my cake together (Zach baked it for me). I had issues with a theme but thankfully, Kristi gave me a giant bag of Skittles so I had something to work with and it turned out delicious!

Here's the cake- funfetti with rasberry filling, chocolate fudge frosting and skittles. :)

After some Pizza Hut ( my fav) all of Zach's family, Robby, Wendy, and my Norviel grandparents came over for cake and ice cream. It was fun to get together with everyone: Thanks for celebrating with me and thanks for the presents all!

Do I feel old? Nope! I love my life!

The Bishopric

One day our good friends the Harris's came back to Utah to visit SO the "Bishopric" had to get back together to remember the good old days. Zach had some of the best times of his life serving with Kevin and Bishop Bliss so we like any excuse to hang out with them- especially if it involves Brick Oven!

Allie, Collin, Hyrum and Weston!

Little adventures...

Sometimes it's just fun to take a little adventure... Today, Zach wanted to work out, we were bored. So, we dropped him off at the BYU RB and went on a secret mission to ride the tallest elevator on campus!

The first elevator in the Tanner building was BROKEN so we had to climb the stairs...

But we finally made it to the top!

Then, we worked our way to the TALLEST building on campus- the Kimball tower!

11 stories up we stopped to take pictures of the fabulous view. :)

This is outside by the Wisdom Tree sculpture... This is Weston's worried look. :)

And thus concludes the secret mission: Elevator.

I love a parade!

Happy July! This is my favorite month of all! First, the 4th, then my birthday, then the 24th, besides all the swimming and BBQs, bonfires, etc. It's a great time of year! To start off this July right my family (meaning my Mom, Dad and Cindy) came up from Roswell for a little visit...

Here's the sisters! We were eating at a little yogurt place in Spanish Fork... very tasty!

We took Wendy and Cindy to the BYU art museum to see the Walter Wick display. It is so fun!

Me and the boys at the Balloon launch. This is one of our own traditions we started a couple years ago. The balloons are so big!

Lots and lots of balloons! The boys love to watch the fire blast into the balloons.

Another tradition... going to the 4th of July parade! We are sitting on the grass, under a tree, watching the parade- perfect!

We also walked around the Court house to see all the little booths and do all the fun free things. The boys liked the race cars, the Star Wars guys, the big bouncy slides, the pioneer gun display and the Snakes!

This is the giant python- 15 feet long and SO heavy! Sorry, you have to look carefully to see the snake...

We also watched one of Zach's old students sing and while I forgot to get a picture of her I did get a picture of these guys- Truman is their band's name. They are the sons of one of the members of Diamond Rio who is a member of the church... They go to BYU and they were really good!

To finish off our 4th, we BBQed at Zach's parent's house and then walked over to the temple grounds to watch the fireworks from Stadium of Fire. This Zach's artistic rendition of a firework... actually it's just a photo of one of the Stadium of Fire ones. The pictures come out pretty cool!