Someone is One!

Adam turned one year old a few weeks ago.  He is doing big boy things like FINALLY sleeping through the night (mostly), saying some english words, and just barely started walking!  It is amazing how fast they seem to move from baby to toddler once they start walking and talking.  Adam says a few words like Mom, Dad, "side" (for outside), kitty, mow (for more) and Aaa (for Anna).  For weeks he was walking along the perimeter of our rooms, clinging to the wall,  or holding onto our hands (such backbreaking work!) but just this weekend he decided to go solo.  He has been so proud of himself, and we are so happy for him. 
We had a fun time celebrating his birthday.  Being child number 5, there weren't a lot of things he needed or more clutter that we wanted, so Mom and Dad gave him a toothbrush and balloon for his birthday.  He loves his toothbrush!  His siblings really spoiled him by raiding their bedrooms and wrapping up some of their old stuffed animals and toys they thought he would enjoy.  Afterwards we enjoyed some strawberry shortcake.

 

It's hard to believe a whole year has gone by.  One sleepless night after another, and eventually he's turn one, much faster than seems possible during those midnight hours.  Adam is getting more and more personality.  He is giggly and good humored, he hates to nap, and gets overtired often.  All the children love to play with him, and he loves all of our attention.  Good job walking Adam!

Fireflies!

No kidding!  Tonight my family and I saw fireflies, which is highly unusual for these parts.  Elsie was so excited, she was jumping up and down.  All of the kids had fun watching the blink-blinking of the insects.  It was a blast - almost as fun as fireworks, really.

Pygmy Goats

This post should have been done a month ago, but I wasn't on top of things enough (I rarely am).  My kids are still talking about the sweet little pygmy goats we saw and how fun it would be to have one as a pet.  These goats would make lovely pets, but Mom is feeling a bit too maxed out at the moment to add anything extra.  At least we got this one experience with lots of pictures.  Mike must have had the camera though.  He deserves to be in these pictures because he was the one who found this sweet pasture in the first place and took the kids to it.  

Kimball especially had a way with these goats.

Goofy Elsie

It takes one a while to figure out what's going on in this picture.  Elsie's got some crazy ideas!

Yellowstone!

 Our family made a second trip to Yellowstone a couple weeks ago.  This time, instead of three kids, we had five in tow.  We went in the spring with the hopes of seeing some wildlife, and we had some great success!  We have some dear friends who reserved us a campsite at Mammoth campgrounds and helped us capture some great finds in the animal department.  One of which was a nest of baby great-horned owls near our campsite.  Our friends had a nice camera, with a large lens, so he took some pictures and sent them to us.  He captured the picture of this baby owl, which is about 3 months old.  There were two babies in a very large nest.  It was fun to see them.  This was the on the top of my bucket list of things to see while at Yellowstone.  Peter also loves owls, so it was fun for the two of us.

 

Come to find out, Mammoth is also the Elk Maternity Ward for Yellowstone.  There were at least a dozen elk lounging around Mammoth, waiting for their babies to come.  while we were there, a couple baby elk were born, but we missed seeing them.  Apparently, one of the baby elk got eaten by a grizzly bear right near our camp site.  We were eating pancakes at the time, so we missed that too.  I'm not sure if I'm sad or happy about missing that one though.  At the end of our stay, there were a couple elk that meandered right through our camp ground, and we got some great pictures of them next to our trailer.  We saw bison and baby bison, several pronghorn, we had a close encounter with a deer on a hike, and another close look at a mama black bear with her three little cubs right off the road!  It was very thrilling and memorable.  The kids learned a lot just by watching.  Just as we were leaving, Elsie got really close to a Golden Mantel Squirrel and took a picture.  She was soooo excited about her "good find", and her ability to sneak up and take a good shot with her camera.  Definitely, the animals were the most memorable on this trip.  

Of course we also made sure we showed the kids Old Faithful and we saw some hot pots and such.  That was fun as well, but it rained the majority of the time we were there.          

Another fun thing we did while we were camping was go hiking.  We had fun on the suspension bridge on Hellroaring hike.  On our various hikes, we saw lots of flowers, wild strawberries, birds, a waterfall, and Peter even found a piece of petrified wood. 

 

Another memorable experience Mike and I had was meeting all sorts of people who thought we were such oddities because of our large family.  The first day our camp host said there was a guy from National Geographic taking pictures of people from various cultures touring Yellowstone.  Our host said he was going to recommend our family.  We never met the photographer, but I was surprised our number of children outweighed our very Caucasian backgrounds.  We got lots of looks, comments, and waves from lots of people.  I felt like I was one of the animals at times.  At one point, Mike had Anna on his back, Adam on the front, and was hiking with the two older ones while I carried Kimball a few feet behind.  A lady saw Mike and asked if he wouldn't mind turning to the side so she could take a picture of him!  As I watched the humerous event a few feet away, I was laughing and feeling appalled all at once.  Mike tells me he's famous now.  We also drove into Gardner one evening and treated ourselves to Pizza.  We made such a spectacle of ourselves!  Adam was knocking down everyone's waters, and we kept cleaning up spill after spill.  We were scrunched into this tiny booth (because that's all there was) with kids climbing on boosters and high chairs.  There was no room to set pizzas, so we just emptied the pizzas from the trays as they brought them.  While we were about 3/4 of the way through our meal, Mike told me to look around the room and see if I noticed anything.  I realized our rambunctious family was on one side of the restaurant, and everyone else had been seated on the other side of the restaurant.  I was pretty embarrassed and realized we needed to hurry up and eat so the poor restaurant could have their half of the building back!  It was a lot of work with young kids, and we made quite a spectacle of ourselves, but it was well worth the experiences and memories we made.  

We owe a big thank you to our friends who gave us their old family trailer.  We know when it was given, it was full of their own family memories, and it was more than just a trailer to them.  We are adding our own memories with it, and we are very grateful!

January Tea Time

For Elsie's birthday this year she wanted to celebrate it with cousins.  I asked my mom a month or so in advance if she wouldn't mind holding a little tea party for Elsie and her cousins for her birthday.  My mom, ever so nonchalantly, agreed.  As the day grew closer for the tea party, my mom kept mentioning little things over the phone like, "Oh hey, I just found these frozen macrons and picked them up," and "I ordered some cute hats for the party," as well as, "I just put a little cake in the freezer for the big day."  I slowly gathered this wasn't going to be a little tea party.  I told my mom I'd bring a bouquet of "garden" flowers down.  Elsie has a cousin whose birthday is about 10 days before her own, so we decided to make it a party for two.
I had stayed up way too late a couple nights sewing some aprons for Elsie and her cousin, Eden.  I'm not much of a seamstress, so it took longer than it should have, but they turned out really cute.  I had let Elsie pick out the material for her apron, and being the animal lover she is, she found one with deer on it.  It was nothing close to what I would have picked out for her, but it ended up turning out and really reflected her personality.
The tea party was drawing nearer, and Mike and I and the family drove down the night before and stayed at his brother's home.  From there we picked up another of Elsie's cousins and headed down to Nonny and Poppy's.  While we were headed down, we found out Eden had just come down with strep throat.  It was a devastating blow.  She took the party favors from Nonny's house and headed home, missing her own birthday party.  I think that is about the saddest thing for a little girl.
When we arrived, the spread was beautiful!  We all ate on beautiful china tea cups and enjoyed our choice of teas and hot chocolate, crustless sandwiches, pudding, cake, cookies, and mints (all of which were miniature bite-sized).  The girl's all donned on their cute hats from Nonny (complete with flowers and ribbons), and set their dolls they had brought in a miniature seat next to them.  We sat around the table and talked about general points of interest and said things like, "Thank you, but I shall have no tea," when we were full.  It was so fun, and Elsie was so impressed.  Afterwards she confided in me with a big smile, that she had no idea Nonny would give her such a fancy tea party. 
Elsie got some really thoughful presents also.  She is really into American Girl books and the mini-dolls.  My mom gave her a new mini-doll and Eden had given her a mini-doll as well that had been given to her.  I was so impressed by my sweet niece's dear heart.  Elsie loved them both.  Aunt Michelle gave her a miniature tea set that came with a set of paints (which we had so much fun with!), and I gave the aprons.  It was such a hit.
 Later, for our family birthday, Mike and I made a couch and two beds for her doll house and American Girl dolls, and her other grandma took her shopping and bought her a kitchen set for her doll house as well.  Elsie was really spoiled by both of her grandmas.  Each of them really went out of their way to make her feel grown-up and special.  Thanks again Nonny!
I can't find any pictures, so sorry!

The Living Christ

Several months before Christmas I was inspired by this talk given in a woman's conference.  During the talk, Sister Marriott expressed her desire to memorize The Living Christ by Christmas.  I have had a 12 week program to memorize The Living Christ on my computer desktop for several years, waiting for the right time to try to memorize it with my children.  It's always seemed like such an insurmountable goal to do with my children.  However, this time, this year, the timing was right, and I took a leap of faith as I started with Day 1, "As we commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ....".  Day 1 lead to Day 2 and so forth, until after many days and lots of prayers, my two oldest and I memorized the document.  Through the process, all of our testimonies were strengthened as we  reflected on Jesus Christ, "the firstborn of the Father, the Only Begotten son in the flesh, the Redeemer of the world."  This was our gift to our Savior this Christmas, because ultimately, He is The Gift.