The Best Present....

When I see this little book come in the mail, I feel like it is Christmas. This little book makes all the blood, sweat, tears,(okay I am exaggerating) frustration, TIME, dedication, late night hours, etc. ALL WORTH IT! My kids love our little blog books and I love looking back over the year at all our accomplishments, vacations, set-backs, and every-day living. It is a great way to journal and remember all of the little things that happened in our lives.

Peyton's Birthday Day

Cincy and Mammaw bought Peyton this backpack. He was so excited to have his initials on it.

His first B.O.M. and scripture case

Brynn and Landen picked out this gun to get Peyton, they were so cute and really excited for Peyton to open their gift.

Since Peyton had has his bday party with his friends the week before, we really didn't do much on his actual birthday-day. We had a lot going on with it being fair and rodeo week. A lot of family coming in and just having fun with everyone. I made Peyton his favorite breakfast, pancakes and eggs. He requested to have green pancakes. We sang Happy Birthday to him and he had to wait for Tyler to come home at noon before he could open his presents. On Sunday we had more cake and ice cream at Grandma and Grandpa's house and more presents. He had a great birthday and even lost his third tooth (one of his top teeth), so he was visited by the tooth fairy for his birthday. Now my little seven-year old is going to be starting the second grade and I can't believe I have a second-grader!

Camping at Lava

This last weekend we wanted to go up and see Mark and Savanna and do some school clothes shopping. They had already planned on going to camp and swim at Lava, so we tagged along with them and Uncle Dave, Aunt Connie, Cody, Clinton, Lacy, and Taylee. It was fun to camp and just relax and enjoy our familie's company. Baby Grant has grown so much since I seen him last. He is crawling all over the place and is pulling himself up. We camped on Friday and then on Saturday we went to Lava. The water was pretty warm, but when you got out of the water, it was freezing. Peyton went on all the slides, including the new speed slides they just put in. Everyone except Connie and I went on the slides. Clinton jumped from the high platform, he was the only one brave enough. Brynn and Landen wouldn't last in the water for too long. We just kept getting in for a little bit and then out for a bit. The day ended with Landen scaring us all to death and taking a ride in the ambulance to the Pocatello hospital. It was a fun trip...all except for the end of course.

Peyton's Birthday Party

This was Peyton's "off year" as far as big birthday parties go (I only have a big bday bash every other year), so he wanted to have his birthday at Party Hardy which has blow-up toys for the kids to play on. He invited four of his friends from school and we had pizza and cake afterwards. Peyton was so excited and kept asking me all day when his party was finally going to be here. The boys had a lot of fun and I think they were pretty worn out afterwards. Peyton was given some really fun gifts. I can't believe that he turns 7 this week!!!!

Camping

Gathering fire wood

Landen caught the first fish and Peyton helped him.

This time he wasn't terrified of holding the fish. He told me it was because he is big now (I think it is safe to say that he is officially potty-trained).

Peyton was scared to lift the lid off the bowl with the snake inside.

We had our first camping experience for the summer last weekend. Our summer has been so CRAZY we haven't had a free weekend until now. The kids loved it, of course. We went fishing and rode the four-wheeler, cooked hotdogs, didn't get any sleep, and ate smores. The weather was perfect, not too hot or cold. It rained and stormed for a little while and we had to hang out in the tent for awhile. It took a couple of baths before the kids were clean again, but it was worth it!

Spudman Triathlon

This year Tyler participated in the Spudman. It is a local triathlon where you swim one mile, ride a bike for 24 miles and then you run for 6 miles. Ty is an advisor in the Teacher's quorum and all his boys and their leaders were participating. They all did a great job and worked really hard to accomplish this. Some of them were in teams and some of them did the whole thing by themselves. Tyler did the whole thing himself and finished faster than he expected. He really didn't have a lot of time to train this summer so he did great considering how much he trained. We were all proud of the boys and I was proud of Tyler. Landen and I went around to different areas so that we could see Tyler a few times while he was racing. We first saw him on the bike and then we saw him running a couple of different times. We stood with some friends about a 1/2 mile from the finish line and we were cheering everyone on. They would all tell us thanks for cheering and would pick up their pace a little bit. It was really fun to be there. By the end Landen was really hot and was really grumpy. But I was glad we were able to go and be with Tyler!