Pumpkin Patch

I love our local pumpkin patch. It reminds of one we visited in Syracuse once. Lots of fun things to do and totally free!! (Except the pumpkins.) There's a little corn maze that you don't need a map for, plenty of pumpkins to choose from, farm equipment to check out, and my boys' favorite, the hay pile. A few pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Jonah was so excited about the pumpkins. He loved them very much!

Here's a lovely shot of all the boys at the start the corn maze. We have plenty of shots at this spot where one of them is looking where he should be. All together? Fat chance!

The wagon! Jonah was sooooo excited about the wagon. He did not want to get out.

And finally, in the hay pile. Jonah just sat while Sterling and Hyrum jumped in around him. He laughed and laughed! They were funny doing their flips and pretending to slip off the edge.

As a side note, Brandon noticed the other day that it had been a while since I've blogged. Yep. That's true, and probably not going to change. This whole teaching my kids thing is keeping me pretty busy!!!

Sionara Facebook!

I'm sorry to announce that Facebook and I have come to irreconcilable differences and will therefore be ending our relationship. Please pass any condolences on to FB. I'm positive heshe needs it more than I.

School Daze

We're getting into the groove of school here. I figured it would be a big challenge, and that is proving to be true.

But there are cute smiles and lots of hugs and kisses. (Hyrum is making letters out of Lincoln Logs. Only straight letters please.)
The boys truly are pretty proud of their accomplishments. (We still don't have our curriculum books yet, so we're working out of two first grade workbooks I'd picked up to review and get into the swing of things.)
And fortunately, I only have to keep Jonah entertained with something for about an hour and then he goes down for a nap. It's amazing what can keep a one-year-old's attention! And when he's done, he throws it all on the floor. That's obviously the best part.

The only problem is, last week I forgot to do laundry. My own schedule needs some rearranging.

Bragging on me!

Look what I made!!

I know you probably could have done it too, but I'm pretty pleased that I could do it!! It's for a missionary night Brandon is hosting at our ward for the youth. He wanted them all to have their own invitation for it with missionary tags. I couldn't find a clipart I really liked, so my trusty Microsoft Publisher came to the rescue!

I'm happy to share, or pass along the easy-peasy instructions. If you are handy with Publisher, you could make them super quick.

Anyway, there will be some more bragging on me coming soon as I finish projects for the craft fair. Please don't mind my swelling head.

Dress-up!!

Yes, even boys play dress-up. Right now we have Batman, Spiderman, and...

Jonah the Lion!!

CAMPING! Camping! And... camping.

We've gone on three camping trips this summer. I'm seriously tired of doing all the laundry that follows, but we've had some really great trips.

The first was with Brandon's cousin and family to Diamond Lake in southern Oregon. Right after the van died. The logistics of this camping trip were interesting. We ended up borrowing my dad's truck to go down. We squeezed the boys into the back of a Ford F-150 extended cab and drove for eight hours. It actually wasn't too bad. We'll call it bonding.

The lake was amazing. And the weather was fabulous. I even got a sunburn one day! This is my idea of camping. It got pretty chilly at night but as soon as the sun came up it was nice and toasty.

The main goal for Brandon this trip was fishing. And he did plenty of it! He'd go out every morning around 5:30 and bring in his limit around noon. Then we'd spend the afternoon together.

The boys got to go out, too. This is a pic of Sterling, Hyrum, Dylan (back of the boat) and Ty (in the front). We met these cousins last summer and Sterling and Dylan hit it off. They were the best buds and this summer they picked it right back up again.

Hyrum caught his first fish!! He was not interested in holding it, thank you very much.

Sterling went out with the guys one evening. He lasted about ten minutes and then was bored out of his gourd. But, once you're out there, you're out there so he had to tough it out. That was his last fishing trip in the boat.

He did, however, enjoy riding one of the bikes. We tried to bring ours but those were not high on the priority list and when the back of the truck was full, bikes were left out.

Jonah pretty much kicked it in here for much of the time. Well, he crawled around and got filthy dirty, too. Isn't this a great shot? Kate, who we were camping with, has a fancy camera and knows all the lighting tips. She should go pro.

She got this great shot of Hyrum, too.

And this is what you get after five days of camping and fun. Three boys sleeping in the back seat.

But, wait, there's more! Next we went on a trip to the ocean in Oregon for a family reunion. Tell me if this was a crazy decision. It was 90 degrees and sunny at home. It was misty and 55 degrees at the ocean. Total cloud cover. I wore two sweatshirts and a jacket to stay warm. I was happy to be sleeping in the back of the suburban for this trip. The boys got to sleep in Brandon's parents trailer with their cousins. They loved that.

It was a short trip, so not many pictures, but...

Sterling got buried.

And soaked. BRRR!

Hyrum got a great view of the ocean.

And cousin Molly got a piggyback ride! As for me, I huddled by whichever campfire I could find.

The last trip was another shorty. A quick weekend at the coast here in Washington, where, again, it was plenty toasty at home but cold and rainy 60 miles away on the ocean. Go figure.

But we did enjoy jumping waves. Sterling also became a pro at riding his bike sans training wheels here! He's awesome.

Hyrum showed his boy side. Slugs. He loved them. Picked them up. Found them new homes by our tent. One even came home in our tent, unbeknownst to me until I put it up to dry out. Nice.

Don't let the crazy man in the shorts fool you. The water is freezing!

See? I had on two sweatshirts.

Our kids could play in the sand all day. Good thing we needed to eat or we would have never convinced them to leave!!

Even Jonah loved it. It was hilarious watching him crawl around in the sand. He did this crazy crawl that I might have to get my hands on the video of.

Phew!! That was a lot of pictures! I enjoy camping but I am very happy to have no more camping trips on this year's calendar. Maybe if we were going somewhere warm and dry I might change my mind.... Oh, wait, I just remembered it took me two days to finish the laundry from this last trip. Next summer sounds great.

What a day!

Our bishop has an amazing little piece of land with a hand-built cabin on Lake Cushman up here. He and his wonderful wife were kind enough to let our Relief Society spend the day there yesterday. No kids, no husbands, just a bunch of girls sitting around chatting.

We got to the lake and found out we had to cross the lake in a boat to get their land on the other side. It was beautiful.

This was our view when the morning clouds blew off. Just the setting and the company would have made for a pretty exceptional day. I invited my mama along to spend the day with me.

I was on the planning committee for this day and thought I knew all that was going on. I was extremely surprised to see tubes on the dock!!

My mom was pretty excited, too. She raised me to be a water-loving girl and as soon as lunch was over we were the first at the dock for a ride.

We had a blast. Here we are enjoying a nice ride. I should have kept my legs down like my mom did. My knees kept knocking together and I have some nice bruises to show for it.

And here we are holding on for dear life!! We were proud to say we didn't get dumped and we had soooo much fun. Maybe next time Brandon suggests we find a boat I might not talk myself out of it...

So, there was this other tube there. It was a two-person that was a little more wild and no one would go on it with me! Not even the young, just-graduated ladies. There was one young woman there with her dad, who was driving a boat, and I asked her if she'd ride with me. It was an awesome ride. Like, seriously, hang-on-for-your-life, air-borne kind of ride. We had a blast. And we have matching bruises this morning to show our tubing credentials. Mine's from my knee hitting my cheek-bone as we were being thrown from the tube and her's is from banging her eye into my shoulder as we were being tossed around.

I haven't had that much fun in a long, long time. I love playing on the water.