8 Years in the Making...

Yes...Bo has graduated!!!!  Four kids, a business, two apartments and two houses later he is finished!!! Graduation was last Friday.  Of course, Bo is a business management graduate.  We are so happy you never gave up.  It wasn't an easy accomplishment considering the important things in life you had to juggle.

Here's some pics from the big day.

Sad that this was the best family pic we could get that night.  Should have done it before graduation....ohhh well.

Thanks for taking such good care of our family babe.  I love you!  You are such a great dad!  The kids love you too! :)

Your Happily Ever After: Deiter F. Uchtdorf

Today's lesson in R.S. was on Eternal Marriage and someone in our class brought up this talk. She said she had read the talk to her daughter to show her that "happily every after" doesn't just come, it is worked at. I wanted to read it and see if it was something I could read to Hailey so she could understand this as she grows. As was looking it up I came across this video.

On another note, hailey is scared every night when we put her to bed. I can never tell if she is really scared or just playing me. (But she won't go anywhere like the garage or another part of the house by herself during the day either.) I've been trying to get her to learn to be brave. I showed her this video and explained a little as it was going.  I was mostly just doing it as a bed time story with a moral. Then I asked if she understood anything from it. She said, "I need to not be scared." I didn't expect her to say that, but I was glad she got something from it. She wanted to watch it again. It seemed to really help. We'll see tomorrow night I guess.

I thought some of you may like it too.

Here's a link to the acual talk http://lds.org/general-conference/2010/04/your-happily-ever-after?lang=eng

Jackson's 3rd Birthday

Ok, so I am really late at blogging this. But, I had to make sure I put this on hear. Jack turned three on June 18th. He wanted a Cars themed party, so I thought it would be fun to have it at the warehouse and watch the movie after he opened presents. It was so much fun watching him open presents. He loved every minute of it and every present.

Here is the before picture of the cake. I guess Jack thought it needed skid marks on it and decided to try and drive the cars around on the frosting when I wasn't looking.

I just had to put this pick on his face was too cute!

At age three Jack:
Is Hilarious and has the cutest facial expressions
FINALLY isn't eating everything in sight (thank goodness)
Runs everywhere he goes
Never slows down and is falling asleep playing with something all the time
Tries to carry Brayden around the house (gotta watch that)
Loves helping me bring in groceries, but not so much with chores
Sleeps on the floor by Conrad every night even though we put him to bed in his bed

I have to add a story about groceries. I had just gotten back from a trip buying food storage and had carried some stuff in. I turn around to get more and here Jack is carrying a 5lb carton of honey in both hands up the stairs in the garage. It was so cute.

Jack loves:

His Dad and Conrad

Food, especially treats

His balance bike

Anything with wheels

Race cars

Hugs

Carrying heavy stuff

Pizza

Movies

We love you Jack! You are so fun to have in our lives. We are so grateful for you! We can't wait to see what the next year brings

Robin Egg Nest

We found a bird nest in our play set the day everyone got to our house for the reunion.  It had four blue robin eggs in it.  Last Saturday they hatched.  Well, there are three tiny baby birds.  I'm not sure what happened to the fourth, but I was happy to see that three made it with a bunch of little kids playing within reach of it all week.  That momma bird gets a chirping away when the kids get up in there and play.

I wonder how long it that nest will stay in the play set...

 Photos courtesy of Hailey

What a slacker I've been!

I have a new obsession and that's why I've been such a bad blogger.  I have read 15 books since January.  Every extra minute I have I read.  For me, that's a lot since all I've read in the last 10 years was the Twilight and Hunger games series.  But, I'm trying to find a new balance so I have a new goal of blogging once a week again, and start running at least 3 days a week again.  I went running outdoors tonight for the first time since I had all of my weird neuropathy issues a couple of years ago.  It felt so good.  I've done a little treadmill running, but I forgot how nice it is to run outside.  That should start me off with a better balance and now that I have typed it on here I have to do it, right? 

Well, what have we been up to lately?  My grandma turned ninety on May 14 and we had a big party for her.  It was a lot of fun and all of our family was able to make it.  It's always fun to have everyone together.  Thanks for the pic Brooke, I stole it from your blog. 

We also had a late Easter Egg Hunt that my mom put together that weekend.  Our kids had been looking forward to it (especially Conrad who was taking about it from Easter and still brings it up.  He loves it.)  Of course I forgot my camera! 

The kids have started their summer sports and I'll be posting some pics soon.

  Last week we had a family reunion for Bo's side.  It was a lot of fun.  We went swimming at Green Canyon, went to Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat at the Playmill in Yellowstone, and it was Stampede Days in Rigby so we went to the parade on Saturday.  The kids had a blast and got quite a bit of candy. It was the perfect mix of going and relaxing.  Bo took the boys fishing with Grandpa Porter, Sonny and Taylor, and Myles and Ericksen.  They had a blast.  That is the only pics we have from the week. I don't know what my problem is but I keep forgetting my camera!  (I wonder if it's the 1000+ pics that I am working on photo booking and unconsciously don't want anymore.)

Ericksen and Myles in background

 Ericksen and Jack who decided to walk into the Teton river.  At least it's more like a canal.

 I'm not sure what's going on with Conrad

 Sonny and Taylor, Jack and Grandpa Porter

 The kids and their square ice cream cones

We have a lot of other fun things coming up.  I'll keep you posted!