Humphreys Peak

Bruce took his boy scouts to hike to the highest natural point in Arizona, elevation 12,637 feet.

I asked Dallin what his favorite part of the hike was, and he said immediately, "ALL OF IT!". (Dallin lives for Boy Scout stuff, he loves it, he was born to be outside exploring) He told me how cool it was that when they were close to the top, a plane went by and they were higher then the plane.

Bruce had 1 scout who did not want to do the hike and Bruce had to push him the whole way. Bruce said it was a tough hike, and that combined with being in charge of "helping" this boy up to the top made him seriously want to stop at the last peak before the end and call it good and wait there for the rest of the boys to come back. Bruce said the thing that kept him motivated to get himself and that boy to the top was that Bruce had the troop flag in his back pack and was in charge of getting it to the top to take a group picture with it.

Bruce gave the awesomest reflection the next day in Key Scouters meeting about doing our duty as leaders to help these boys "stand high on a mountain top with their banner of righteousness unfurled". I loved hearing Bruce speak with conviction about such important things. I love him.

What Matters

I had no idea being an adult would be so stressful, darn it. So many big hard decisions. When I am so so stressed out I am so thankful for the beautiful thought that in the end all that matters is that we love and obey God and teach our children to as well, the end. It brings me peace to know I am trying my best at those things,

even if I mess up other things.

Lily and Sophie watching TV together on the couch in a blanket

I am loving having 2 little girls,

I've never had two in a row before.

Another Birthday

For Logans 9th Birthday, we had a

BEYBLADE COMPETITION...

We had official score cards, 3 different competition bowls, ESPN Sports JAMS playing and a microphone to announce each round. They spin these Beyblades and the last one left spinning wins, and only that person makes it to the next round. We officially had 2 boys cry, and a 3rd boy I am pretty sure was about to cry but he excused himself to the bathroom. They were pretty competitive.

ha ha

We had to take a break for some pizza and cupcakes.

After the 3rd boy cried, I asked Emma, "Whats another game we can play??" She is awesome and said "The thimble game"... that is the best game ever and the boys played that for an hour! You'll just have to come to our house to see what that game is, its a family favorite.

Logan's buddy is an amazing little piano player, he entertained us with "The Chimichanga Song" while Emma sang it in the microphone...

(If you have a talent we know about, and you come to our our house...

we generally beg you to share)

Happy Birthday to my piano playing, Cub Scout loving, snuggling with mom, Straight A student... Logan!!

Bad idea

↓ the audience ↓

A few weeks ago Dallin and Logan started hanging up handmade posters advertising a "PYROMANIA" show coming up, charging admission (to help pay for smoke bombs and such)... they planned a day, called my sisters and parents, and invited them to the

BIG SHOW.

Parenting breaks you down, I don't know what I was thinking, but I let them. They were so excited. Even though nothing they did was super dangerous, they had a lot of build up to each show item, and had a fire going on stage in the fire pit the whole time... with Emma MC'ing.

My whole family came, I made them dinner before the show. Uncle Jefe was way excited and said he wants to be involved in planning PYROMANIA II. Bruce and I said NO, we aren't doing that again, we decided that even though nothing went wrong, we probably shouldn't really encourage that sort of thing (and had a talk with them afterwards about the dangers of fire).

But for one night the boys were

way excited.

Little Pies

For Miss Lily's 6th birthday we had the cutest little

PIE MAKING PARTY...

Ashlin puffy painted names on all the little aprons. And my sister Chrissy came to help. (Thank you!!)

I demonstrated on a big pie, while they each made their own little pie. They chose from cherry, blueberry, chocolate cream or banana cream. We have lots of little rolling pins that Bruce made by cutting up large dowels from Lowes.

Look at my cute little birthday girl making her lattice top.

While the pies baked, they opened presents.

I am still sad this little girl turned 6... doesn't 6 seem so much bigger than 5? I wanted Lily to stay 5 forever.

For the birthday treat they had the big chocolate cream and banana cream pies I made... so they could take home the little pies they made.

The party turned out so cute. Some people may think this was a lot of work, but I loved it. It was so fun baking with all these little ones who were so excited about their pies.

Thank goodness Bailey's mom called me

and told me I had to do a baking party for Lily's birthday! :)

Sweet Ride

Loving the new wonderful weather...

Last week Lily was so excited that on Bruce's day off he hooked up the tandem bike to his, so he could bike ride Lily to school. She was so proud to ride up to school on her neat-o double bike.

(These tandem attachments are so cool, we've used this for all our kids)

♥Dads are the Best♥

THANK YOU STATENS!

Sophie got a surprise package this last week...

and we laughed so hard at its contents.

Sophie is obsessed with birds right now, especially chickens. She calls them "chicken-birds". Last month she left her chicken webkinz at the Statens house when we stayed there.

We waited for Sophie to wake up so she could open her package... and it was not only her long lost chicken, but a whole box filled with chicken stuff! ha ha ha ha ha

A chicken movie, chicken towel, chicken book, ceramic chicken...

a dancing chicken....

a chicken pen....

even a chicken oven mitt...

ha ha ha

her favorite by far was the ceramic chicken, she couldn't put it down

Here's a video I took of her, the first 45 seconds are the cutest, then she gets a hold of the chicken pen and is distracted

Really, Sophie has a little bit of "Chicken OCD"... you really have to understand how obsessed Sophie is with chickens to get how funny this package was. Sophie talks about "chicken-birds" every day and finds them everywhere we go.

Now with so many new chickens,

hmmmm, what does she play with first?

THANK YOU STATENS!!!!!

SO SO FUNNY, AND SOPHIE LOVES HER NEW CHICKEN STUFF!