Catching Up...

Wellllllll.... the blog got pushed to the bottom of the priority list since the prom post.

We had to start getting our house ready to sell, which was not fun, and its been listed all summer (blek, even more not fun keeping it clean with kids home for summer), have had lots of big decisions on our new house, and with 6 kids to boot, its been kicking my rear.  Don't think the stress of it all leaves me no time to eat though.  Why can't I be like those people who lose weight when they get stressed... instead of... well, the opposite??  

But since this is our "Family Scrapbook"... here's to catching up.

We left off in Spring... so here are the 'Cliff Notes' of the end of the school year:

Ashlin's darling friends threw a surprise party for her and Lauren for their 17th Birthday (nooooooo time, STOP moving!)

End of the school year talent show. Logan played "Don't Stop Believing" on piano, and Emma sang "Love Song" while playing the accompaniment on the piano.  They were darling.

Dallin informed me 10 minutes before 20 kids arrived that he had planned a party and invited a bunch of friends over to play "007".... True story: the first 4 guests had to help us quickly clean the house.  ha ha.  But I was just excited for him that kids really came. :) Big spring for Dallin, finishing jr. high and now going in to high school.

Lily dressed like the cutest 50's girl ever for "Decade Day" at school

Emma loved the Grand Canyon Field Trip with her sixth grade.  Big year for goodbyes for Emma, no more elementary school!  But she's excited for Junior High AND that she is so close to being allowed to wear make up. (RULE: No makeup until Jr. High)

Her wonderful 6th grade teacher whom she loved and told me daily funny stories about.

 Logan got his BEAR award at Cub Scouts... now only a few more months in his moms den.  (Sniffle Sniffle, I love being his Den Leader)

Lily just keeps losing teeth... but the picture below is actually to document that when she was sleeping out on the deck with her siblings one night she got like 20+ mosquito bites on her little face.  It was so sad.  This picture doesn't do it justice... multiple people asked me if she had the chicken pox.  

 Dallin did lots of helping Bruce with the low voltage wiring in our new house.

 The end of the school year was a big one for Logan, because its his last at his elementary school.  Even though he is just going in to 4th grade, he is switching schools.  It was a hard decision, but we'll see how it goes.  Here he is bringing a garbage bag of home popped popcorn for end-of-year party. (Bonus to owning an industrial popcorn popper is that when you forget you were suppose to bring a treat to share for the party, your always covered with popcorn, ha ha!)

 Had to get pictures of Lily's LAST daddy/daughter Tandem bike ride to school that they did every wednesday last year (when weather allowed).  She would look forward to his day off all week like the cutest stinking thing ever.

So the kids all said GOOD-BYE to another school year...

and hello to another summer!

Now that there is less than 2 weeks of summer vacation left, I am going to try to post daily to get caught up to date.  Poor Logan said to me tonight, "Summer went by too fast".  Always does.  Same with life, and it makes me sad.  I always say to myself that I'm going to stop committing to so much so we can just slow down and enjoy the ride. 

Sophie's Birthday

My sweet Sophie turned 3 last week.  

And she had the cutest birthday party at our friend Sara's amazing pool with just my family.

Lots-A-Cousins!

I was leaving on a trip the next day and so my sweet sister Carrie offered to make the cake.  Sophie requested a "birdie" cake... so Carrie made a nest cake with cute 'baby bird hatching out of eggs' cupcakes!

Sophie is such a fearless swimmer now and jumps to us over and over again.  So cute.  The pool was huge, with a kiddie pool, huge jacuzzi, rope swing, 2 slides and a cliff to jump off of.

Check out this series of 3 pictures of Bruce's flip off the cliff:

Tarzan EMMA...

aaaaaaaaaw, Sophie and her grandpa:

A lot of showing off by Bruce and Dallin. (above)

True Story:  A week after the party Bruce was getting in the shower and I said, "What is that huge bruise on your rear from??"  It was like 6 inches by 6 inches at least... and well... turns out it was from  all his cannon balls/jack knives and cliff jumping at Sohpie's party... ha ha.  He had a soar rear for the whole next week!  :)  Boys....

And look... Coop-a-loops is sharing with the birthday girl!

 Happy 3rd Birthday Sophie!

It is so sad that my baby is getting older.  She makes us laugh every day.  Whenever we tell her that she is going to preschool in a few weeks, she cries, plugs her ears and tells us to "stop talking!".  She is not happy about it (even though its just a few hours a week).  Note: she is equally against getting potty trained.  Ugh.

**Photographs taken by the amazing: Sara Coral Photography**

The Dance

 Ashlin just went with this sweet group of kids to Prom last weekend.

She was asked all the way back in March, by a nice young man named Trevin.  He put tea light candles in our driveway, and lit them to spell: 

 (with a poem on a mirror next to it)

Then the stress followed of finding a beautiful dress that is also modest. We did it though, so pretty!  Ashlin's friend Lyndy did this beautiful braided headband thing with her hair.  She asked me to curl the back for her (aaah, the pressure).

 She looked so beautiful.

The Ladies:

The Gentlemen:

The Group:

The Moment:  My 12 yr old niece Lexi came over to see Ashlin get picked up for Prom.  Lexi and Emma scheduled their babysitting job around being here for "the moment" Ashlin was picked up.  All the little sisters were so excited in anticipation.  It is so so so sweet to have lots of girls.  They love this stuff.  They kept telling Ashlin how pretty she looked, "like a princess".  I was trying to get the house clean so it would look nice in the picture, and Bruce was not thinking of anything I needed his help with on his own.  I threw down pajamas and yelled for him to put them on Sophie so the baby had clothes on when the handsome date arrived.  Did he do it?  No.  I discovered that when Trevin knocked on the door, came in, and Ashlin walked down the spiral staircase in her beautiful dress, perfectly sprayed hair, looking like a princess.... holding hands with her naked baby sister who walked down the stairs with her.  I groaned inwardly.  Oh well, so much for the perfect moment.  ha ha.  (PS- the mother cared, not the daughter... when naked Sophie walked over to Ashlin at the top of the stairs and cried, Ashlin just lovingly took her hand and walked down smiling and elegant with the naked happy Sophie by her side) Then we discovered that I am not a wise mother who knew how to pin the boutonniere on any better than Ashlin, we took some pictures... and they were off.  When they left our house, Bruce said sadly,
"She looked so grown up".

PS)There has been a lot of talk around here lately about boys, boyfriends, getting together, breaking up, sad tears, new boys coming around, etc... and I am just so thankful for a daughter who talks to me about it all.  I love this girl.  Aren't I annoying that I say that so much?

Grandpa's Slide

The framing on our house went up so fast!  I can't believe it.  

This picture was taken weeks ago.

Turns out there are a lot of choices to be made when building a house. 

I LOVE our stairs to the basement.

But this is NOT how they originally did them. They originally framed them like a hallway down to the basement (mistake) and we had to change that, move walls, and add beams, so it would be more open.

You can access our stairs from the family room or the hallway.  Love it.

And once you get down to the basement, you can see that our slide has arrived.  Yes, we will have a slide going from our main level to the basement.  Kind of crazy.  Bruce's dad designs playground equipment for schools, and he got us a deal.  It's going to be called the "Grandpa Vernon" slide.  He really is having a dedication plaque made to hang by it, ha ha.

 On top of making lots of choices for the new house, we are trying to get some projects done in our current house so we can list it for sale here in a few weeks.

Re-stain the stair bannister, Check.

That was probably a little deceiving that I started the post with "Welcome to our house" then didn't follow with a picture tour of the whole inside, ha ha, sorry.  More pictures to come.