King County Fair

I went to the fair. And I brought these kids with me:

Kenzie, Natalie, Sam, Jordan, Kenna, Jack, Kimber, Alli.
It was just me and them. As you can imagine I got a lot of looks from people. And questions like "are they all yours?" Luckily most people didn't really think they were actually all mine. Some people thought we were a day care though. But we all had a lot of fun. It was incredibly hot that day though. (well incredibly hot for Washington)

I let the kids each pick one ticketed thing to do. There weren't any rides just a bunch of bouncy houses and one big slide. Sam, Jack, and Alli chose a bouncy house. Sam chose this giant dinosaur slide one. Jack and Alli went in a different animal one. Jack got scared when he got to the top of the slide so Kimber had to go in and save him.

Kimber and Kenna went on this giant slide. Kenna was a little nervous at first and sad that she didn't get to go on the bouncy house with her other cousins.

But in the end they both loved it.

The kids got to decorate hats and color beach balls.

Alli with her ball, hat, and little bird whistle that some lady convinced me to buy.

Nati, Sam, and Mackenzie. We made the doll that Natalie was holding. We spent at least 30 minutes making 7 dolls. We had to stuff them, sew the tops closed, sew on hair and eyes, and draw mouths. Some of the kids had clothes for theirs. Luckily there were a lot of ladies running this craft so we had lots of help. But it still took forever. The kids loved it though.

We watched some game shows. Alli, Kenna, and Jordan sat in the only shady spot around.

While the older kids were watching the games shows, Kenzie and Natalie sat in the stroller in the only other shady spot nearby. Kenzie was playing with a beach ball when I noticed the ball was turning her colors.

The kids went up on stage and played family feud. Kimber really wanted me to go up too, but I told her I had to stay with the babies. She kept trying to convince because she didn't think she'd be able to play with out me. But the host said kids could form their own team. So 5 of my kids and another girl created a team and played against another team of kids. Our team won.

Jordan with his doll. Before I could sew up the top part of it, he started taking the stuffing out and dumping it on the floor. That's when I decided his needed to be sewn up right away.

We also saw some animals. Jordan and Natalie were scared of a goat that was out of the cage and came by them. But over all it was a fun day. The kids were really good and happy and seemed to have a lot of fun and already want to go back next year.

Jordanator

I want to record a few things Jordan says because he's always saying funny things:

"Say nice" He says this if you ever say anything he doesn't want to hear. Like when he's in trouble and we tell him to stop doing something. Sometimes when I say "I love you" to him he'll say it to if I don't say it in a nice voice.

He likes to remind us of the bad things he's not doing that his brother is...
"I not sit on Kenzie."
"I not crying. I not go to bed." (he says that when we tell Jack he'll have to take a nap since he's crying so much)

Tonight when we in the car I told Jack he was cute, and Jack said he wasn't. So I said he's humble, and he said he wasn't. Then Jordan said: "I humble"

(in the car) "Be quiet mommy, I sleeping"

Sometime when we call him his name or one of his nicknames he says "I not Jordan boy (or whatever we said), I Jordanator.

Jordan was babbling for awhile. He would just say sounds then finish his sentence with an actual word. I'm not sure why he did this. He doesn't do it as much now though. It seemed like he was growing down instead of up for awhile. He was babbling. We moved him back into his own room so Jack and Kenzie now share a room. He kept getting out of bed and until this last week he couldn't get out of the crib he now sleeps in. But he's starting to do better with staying in bed when he's supposed to. A few nights without his bink made him stay in bed better I think. He also unpottytrained him self in Hawaii too. So now we have to do that again sometime...

Summertime Fun

I let Kenzie play outside in our backyard for the first time last week. She was so excited when she started crawling out the door and no one stopped her. She loved splashing in the water table.

We had a picnic lunch outside.

Mackenzie kept trying to climb into the pool. She loved splashing in it from the outside.

Jordan wanted me to take a picture of him.

Jack watched from inside. Doesn't he look like a baby there? Just because he's sitting inside like that watching everyone outside play. I think it was just too hot for him outside.

We met some friends out the beach last week too. It was too cold to swim when we were there so they just played on the toys then we walked around to look for ducks.

This was my attempt to get a picture of them all smiling. Jack was covering his eyes since it was so bright. Jordan was covering his eyes because Jack was.

I bought all this for $7 or $8. But most of that was the ice cream (which was $5 I think) and some cookie dough that wasn't free like I expected it to be. So for everything else it was only about $1. I was pretty excited... It would have been much more impressive if I wouldn't have needed ice cream though. But we all have our weaknesses. And mine is cookie bowls. If you're not into couponing yet, you should start now.

Growing Up

Mackenzie has been doing a lot of new things lately...

She wore her hair in crimped pony tails for about 5 minutes for the first time.

Still just crimped pony tails... But too cute to not leave out right?

Then she had her first crimped hair. (not that I actually used a crimper. It's just from braids, which she also had for the first time :))

This isn't really new. She's been getting into things for awhile. But she did recently discover the fun of unrolling the toilet paper. And look how incredibly happy she looks. This how she looks every time I find her doing something she's not supposed to do. She also likes to rip pages out of books, climb on the dishwasher, and eat shoes.

So happy

She learned how to point. At first she was pointing like a gun. But stopped after a day. It was really cute.

She had her first waffle. She was excited about it the first day or 2, but doesn't want them every day. I think she likes variety in the food she eats. Except maybe for cheese. She loves it and eats it as often as it is given to her. (She also has her first braids in :))

She also learned to clap. This picture is right after she figured it out. She was so excited when she clapped for the first time. She kept doing it and laughing. She was pretty funny.

She can also wave. She's been doing this for a month or so. She's been getting better at doing it when I tell her to say hi lately. Before she would mostly just do it at me.

She can also stand. She's not walking, except along furniture. But she'll let go of what she's holding on and stand for several seconds.

Back to Life

I was happy to get back to normal life after my incredibly busy July. And who wouldn't be happy to return to this:

A cute husband

A perfect, adorable, 10 month old princess who likes to be trouble.

A cute boy in suspenders.

These lovable brothers

who are silly

and turn brotherly hugs into wrestling

and love it.

Grandpa's Funeral

My mom, Ashlee, and I drove to Utah Monday afternoon for Grandpa's Funeral which was on Wednesday. Doug said he couldn't miss work since he'd just been gone for 3 of the last 4 weeks. But I convinced him to work from home so that I could leave the kids with him. I found some friends to watch my kids in the morning (thanks to those friends! :)) and he would pick them up at nap time so he could work all day still mostly. I was so glad I didn't take the kids. It would have been so hard with them. But it was easy for me with them not there. The drive was great. We watched movies, talked, enjoyed quietness. We stayed in Boise Monday night and finished the drive on Tuesday. We went to Stockton that evening to dinner then to look around grandpa's house. It was sad to be there without him. The next day was the services for him. He always demanded that he did not want a funeral. So we just had a small graveside service for him. Those who wanted to say something could, and those who didn't want to didn't have to say anything. Then my dad dedicated the grave. After, we had a luncheon at the church building. Then we went to grandpa's house to clean it out. My grandma was always known to keep everything. But we were surprised to see that my grandpa kept everything too. He had tons of clocks. Probably at least 50. There were also a lot of knives. Several calculators, labelers, toasters, cameras, pens, light bulbs, and a bunch of other stuff. We spent the rest of the day sorting through it all to decided what we wanted to keep, what could be donated, what could be sold, and what should just be thrown away. We found a big chest full of greeting cards. There's was really old home-canned food in the cellar. We found tons of old stuff that's probably worth a lot money right now. We took a huge load to the thrift store in Tooele. My mom, Ashlee, and I had to drive home on Thursday so Ashlee and I could get home, but my dad's sisters and their families, my day, and Richard stayed and helped clean Thursday and Friday. (Michelle also had to go home on Thursday.) It was pretty crazy how much stuff they had. It made me want to come home and declutter my house. The drive home was good. We did it one day. We watched movies and slept and talked and again enjoyed the fact that there were no crying children and no one was asking us for something at all times.

My dad and Aunt Kari and the Stockton Cafe. They were matching. These 2 were just as hard as my kids to get to both look and smile and me.

Richard and his apple beer.

My grandma and grandpa's tombstone. My grandpa designed it when my grandma died.

The back of the tombstone. A lot of them in the cemetery had the name of the kids on the back. I think that's a great idea. It would help a lot with genealogy. We walked around the cemetery after the service because I have several relatives that were buried there. It made me want to do genealogy.

Great Grandma Mary and Aunt Kari. Mary is my Grandma Riding's stepmother.

Cousin Alex and his girlfriend Ashleigh

Alex and Uncle Mohsen

Aunt Lori and Uncle Larry

Lori, my dad, Kari

Richard and Michelle

Michelle, my mom, Ashlee, me

The house the grandpa built. It's hard to see behind all the trees now. I remember when there weren't so many trees there.

This is from the first trip to DI.

Ashlee and Michelle treasure hunting. It was just like thrifting and garage saling. The stuff even smelled the same. Dusty.

On the way home we went a different way since there was supposed to be a lot of traffic and delays on I-90 which is how we usually get home. The new way was supposed to take the same amount of time, but with less traffic. The new route was very scenic. We went through Mt. Rainier park and saw the mountain pretty close. We drove through tons of trees. Doug would have loved it.

We also saw snow. We stopped at rest stop and had to take a picture with the snow. We saw the temperature change from 101 in Idaho to 58 around this area in Washington. That's a big difference.