Jewels of a Child

Visit From GG and Papa

We had a wonderful visit from GG and Papa in July.

We went to a Loons game, played bingo, went on boat rides,

they watched us jump off the dock and boat,

we played games together, and just enjoyed our time together.

Temple Blessings

David and I had the most fabulous opportunity to be escorts for

this wonderful couple their first time through the temple.

Not only was it their first time through the temple

they were also sealed for time and all eternity in the temple this day.

To be there to witness this ordinance filled my spirit with

how important the blessings of the temple are.

I am overjoyed for this couple and am indeed grateful we

had the opportunity to serve them in this way.

A Day at the Beach

My cousin Joshua who is about Christian' age came back from Afghanistan and Christian really wanted to see him so off to Muskegon we went to have a day on Lake Michigan.

There was not a lot of swimming except a jump in by Christian on a dare from my cousin Jim. The lake had turned(after a storm the lake water on the bottom comes to the top and makes the lake about 54 degrees) so not a lot of swimming was done but fun was had by all!!!

Burying David except his face

Jensen made himself a driftwood jail

Christian found himself a quite wiggly piece of ground to take nap on.

This by far saved the day. My cousin made this for the kids. He dug out a whole in the sand and used the dug out sand to make a slide then added this tarp over the sand slide and the whole and then the kids filled it with water. Super Duper fun!

This is by far one of my favorite places in the whole world. I love the town we live in but if I had to choose one other place I would build myself a house right here!

The 4th of July

A Breakfast of Stars{love my pancake pen}

Pizza for lunch at our absolutely favorite pizza place

with a little walk around downtown.

Our table all set for our Bar B Q dinner

Followed by fireworks with friends and strangers alike.

Since I have been the Pirmary President I totally understand when they say you are the President of the children in the ward and that means the ward boundries because I am finally used to strange children come up to me and talking to me and the one pictured above is no exception.

I found these great glow in the dark flags and the kids loved them!!!

Splash into Summer

If you look at me or my children and think to yourself boy they are tan well this would be why...

we spent a lot of our summer

here!!!

I have spent almost 100 hours treading water at the end of the diving pool

watching my children jump and dive

into the pool!

All of the younger kids took private swimming lessons this year and can I tell you for all the classes we have taken before they have grown leaps and bounds by far more this year than any other year and I directly give credit to the fact they had a wonderful teacher SARAH and they were taught one on one. I want to talk about each one a bit.

David he could float on his back and do the freestyle a bit but that was about it. He was very comfortable with the water. After this summer of classes he is a pro at the freestyle, back stroke, elementary backstroke, and the breast stroke. He also does the sitting dive, kneeling dive and standing dive and can dive down and touch the bottom of the pool with his hand and he also can kind of do the butterfly. He actually loves it so much he has asked to take more classes during the winter months.

Julianna could doggie paddle. She would stay close to the edge most of the time and when she would venture too far away she would get a little panicky. Now she is swimming all over. She can do the backstroke and freestyle and do all the dives David can do. She likes swimming but soccer is true to her heart and so in the fall soccer will be her activity!

Jensen as some might know Jensen's body was about 75% covered with eczema for the first year of his life and was controlled mostly by medication but also no full bathes. When he was 18 months old this was his first real exposure to being immersed in water and I will tell you he screamed for the first year he hated the water. It then toned down to crying and then he was fine but in pools he would hold onto me for dear life. It is at this stage that one day he was going from the dock to the boat and at that moment a wave pulled the boat away from the dock and he fell in and was swept under the dock and his fear of water increased. Getting in his face was a no no he would fall into a puddle crying if water got into his face. The last couple of years he has gotten better with the water but still putting his face in to swim absolutely not. I could get him to jump off the side to me but to just jump off the side and go under absolutely not. We had a huge break through with him at the very beginning of the summer after 3 hours of trying to get him to jump off the diving board he did it with a life jacket on. After one class with our gem Sarah he jumped off without it on. He has no problem putting his face in the water now or having water on his face and he actually braved going down the slide{with a little help from dad}. He can do the freestyle now but often reverts back to the doggie paddle. Huge huge milestones with him!!!

I also was able to get all of my children to jump off the boat and the back of the jet ski this summer which I have been trying to do for 3 years. Even on one boat ride Jensen asked if he could jump off the boat and swim to shore..AMAZING is all I can say absolutely amazing!!!

ARGGGG...He's 7 Matey!!!!

At Jensen's request we had a Pirate Birthday Party and this is what I cam up with:

To see more details of his party you will need to go here.

Happy Birthday to my boy "who was born to be funny", love you little guy!!!

He has been such a blessing I still remember the day I felt I should get pregnant again and I started to sob. I also remember telling my husband he would have to have a holy vision for that to happen and they day he stood in the door way and said this baby is going to change our lives and then I started crying. I can tell you that for all those tears shed he has made up for it in the laughs he creates!!!

Backyard FUN

I am always surprised at how much a few simple

items used together can create so much fun!!!

You can also see in the back ground of the pictures another little

{even though it is not so little now}project going on ~ they love their little gardens!!!

A Graduate...Me...Really!!!

I can hardly believe I have a graduate but I do!!!

I couldn't be prouder of the young man he has become.

Congratulations Christian!!!!

{I had to have a picture of Travis too}

LOVE THESE BOYS

I am sitting quietly in my living room when these 2 explode through my front door exclaiming that I need to be ready for a fashion show. Apparently the went to salvo(salvation army) and went hunting for 70's wear and beach bum apparel and this is what they came up with....

Not only is this so funny, they did it with the intention of wearing it to their

Track Award Night and they did!!!

26.2

If you read this post you would know Christian qualified for states and you would also know he injured himself at regionals...these 2 meets are 2 weeks apart from each other and so for good measure why don't you run a marathon in between the 2.

I still am shaking my head about the whole thing.

When his injury happend we tried to change it to a 10K but the rules are clear you can't change which race you will run. We thought the morning of maybe we would be able to change it in person and if it couldn't be changed he just wouldn't run. Imagine my surprise when David returned with no Christian and I was so excited that they let him change his race and again imagine my surprise when they didn't and he was running the marathon.

He had never to this point ran more than 6 miles and most of his current running training had been running all out for 800 meters. He is in fabulous shape but running 26.2 miles with no training is craziness and he is just the crazy to do it.

He finished ... not only did he finish he came in 4th in his age group with the time of 3:16 which is amazing so amazing in fact we learned later he was 6 minutes shy of qualifying for the Boston Marathon...6 minutes. When he found this out he said, "If I would of know the time to beat I would have done it" and as I have looked at the first half time and last half time I believe he would have!