Off we go

In six hours we'll be leaving the great state of Virginia to head out west. We're hitting the road hard; we're planning on going 2099 miles in two days with a 6-month old. Wish us luck! We'll be back online soon, tired but happy in little Stockton, Utah! :)

35 Favorite Summer Memories In No Particular Order

1. Giving Melodie and Cassidy awesome haircuts! (I don't know if they thought they were awesome, though!)
2. Family "Shrek the Third" movie night.
3. Taking Mom and Dad out to ice cream after Stake Conference.
4. Kripsy Kreme breakfast on Mother's Day.
5. Cinnamon Roll breakfast on Father's Day.
6. Picnic at Great Falls with Loralee and Jeremy.
7. Jeff playing with a million little scouts at Cub Scout Day Camp.
8. Someone making chocolate chip cookies like every other day.
9. Riding the Metro into Washington DC for the 4th of July.
10. Cassidy painting my toenails.
11. Watching the kids swim at practices and meets. Go Tsunamis!
12. Learning how to make really good homemade pizza.
13. Natalie's homecoming day from Italy--lots of cool stories and even presents!
14. Taking Jeffy in the pool.
15. Going to Jeremy's Under the Sea Kindergarten Concert.
16. Going to Loralee's End-of-Elementary Concert.
17. Kimi and Matt's Wedding.
18. Relief Society Temple Trip.
19. Navy Decision Temple Trip.
20. Seeing Melodie in her play costume and make-up.
21. Seeing Hilary for all of 8 hours.
22. Our goodbye dinner.
23. Fun dinner at the Chapmans.
24. Going on walks around the lake with the kids.
25. Playing tennis with Cassidy and Melodie.
26. Feeding Jeffy peas for the first time.
27. Watching the little boys play with Jeffy.
28. Renting movies for the big kids.
29. Seeing all my grandparents and lots of aunts and uncles.
30. Cassidy making Jeffy giggle.
31. Watching Zach's Birthday Party chaos.
32. Introduction to Blogging and Digital Scrapbooking Worlds.
33. Jeffy sleeping through the night for the first time!
34. The kids' piano recital.
35. Teaching 7-8 year-old primary kids about Jesus.

Thanks for all the great memories, everyone! Love you!

What a Sweetheart!

We got electronic copies of Jeffy's portraits. They are sooo cute! Here are some of my favorites.


This one is my all-time favorite.


Can't tell really well, but the blue really brought out his eyes.


What a smile!


Cute little shirt, huh? Thanks Gramma!


I just love this little guy.


He really liked eating that sponge.


Hee hee.


He smiled for every picture! What a great kid.


I'm telling you--he loved that sponge!


Just relaxin' in the tub.


P.S. Don't copy and print these please. They're copyrighted. Thanks.

Three Pricks and a Haircut

The two major events of the last few days: Jeffy's 6-month shots and Jeff's new military-style haircut.

I have to say, ironically, the shots went better than the haircut! The first thing Jeffy got was an oral dose of something. The nurse comes in, says that babies usually dislike this stuff a lot, then sits to give it to Jeffy. He opens his mouth for it, takes some of it in, makes a interesting face, then swallows and opens up for more. He liked it! He also took the 3 shots very well. He screamed of course, but not for long. Considering what it could have been, it went great!

Then, today I tried to give Jeff a military haircut--one that's super short on the sides and back and a little longer on top. I cut the sides short, then tried to blend the line where it met the top, but I did a very bad job. Eventually we gave up and shaved the whole thing! He looks very different. I don't think he's planning on keeping it like this; just a preview of things to come! :)

What do you think? :)

The Case of the Missing Video Camera

So, Jeff and I have a video camera. Important little thing when you have a baby, right? Well, we got it out one day back in May and left it on the desk by the phone. By the end of the day it was gone. I asked each kid if he'd seen it, and each kid answered no. I was pretty sure, though, that Jeremy (my six-year old brother) took it and was simply lying to me. He was the only one home when it disappeared, so it made sense. But, I could never get him to tell me anything. Now here we are, in the middle of July, and Jeff decided enough was enough.

He took Jeremy on a walk to try to get him to tell us where it was. At first, he wouldn't because I think he knew he would get in trouble. Then, when Jeff said he just needed the memory inside and that it was ok it if was broken, Jeremy finally said "well, I may have seen a video camera over here." He took Jeff to some bushes by our house and there was the camera--outside. Who knows how long its been there. We brought it inside, and amazingly, it still works! And . . . there were about 40 little videos of Jeremy and his friends. So, the kid stole our camera, used it with his friends, left it outside through many thunderstorms, and then lied to our faces multiple times about it.

A weird thing is that somehow one of the little neighborhood kids, Brandon, had it for a while, and was using it inside his house without Jeremy. And his parents were there too. So, that makes me wonder-- did his parents know he had the camera? Did they wonder where he got it? Did they feel any kind of obligation to find out whose it was? Or did they just say "finders keepers" and not care that their son had suddenly appeared with a random video camera? Disappointing.

At least we have the camera back. And it works. This in itself is a miracle. And none of our videos on there were deleted or damaged. That's a blessing.

But, here's the real question: what do we do about Jeremy? And do we involve Brandon? Jeremy really needs some kind of punishment or something--you don't just lie like that! (and steal, good grief) I don't know. What do you think? I'm asking sincerely. Leave me a comment and give me some much-needed advice!!

Today Jeff's

Navy Recruiter is coming to our house to "indoctrinate" him. Sounds exciting, huh?

Jeffy's First Portrait Session

Today Jeff and I took Jeffy to get professional portraits taken. At first, I was rather hesitant, thinking that maybe we should try to do some ourselves--and Jeff just downright didn't want to bother--but we both were glad we did.

He was such a good little boy! And we had a good photographer who was able to get Jeffy to smile really big for every picture. He took most of them in an adorable little red, white, and blue polo that looked great. Then we took some little bathtub pictures and those were great too! We had a hard time picking which ones to order because they were all so cute!! Of course we ended up buying more than we intended to, but we got a really good price so we both felt good about it. It'll be about two weeks before the hard copies come in, so we might have to have my folks pick them up for us if we're gone already. We get online access to them in about 10 days, so we'll post some then. We got copies for our parents and grandparents, so as soon as we get them, we'll pass them along!

Overall, it went very well and I'm super excited to see the final portraits! :)