Jewels of a Child

Happy Tenth D4

For his Birthday I had been working on redoing his room. I had a couple of more projects to finish up the morning of so while Christian kept them occupied I went to finish up the few things and hurt my back lifting a sign to hang onto the wall. Not just a little hurt like uncontrollable tears hurt and since I had been spending so much time on his room I had left any party prep to do that day.

As I spent the rest of the day in bed with ice on my back I felt horrible his birthday party was not going to be like I like them to be but I knew I had to do something. I did manage to take them to their swim lessons and after I thought if I can have them carry everything at the store I can do something and so I made this cake for him out of his favorite round ice cream sandwiches and as you can see by the look on his face he loved it!!!

When will we have his party hmmm...I am still working on

that one but it is going to be a huge surprise when I do!!!

Camping 2012

We love this campground...if we asked our children if there was only one thing we could do all summer they would say camp here without question across the board.

This year we moved our campsite from our usual area to the area that backs up to the creek that runs through the middle of the park and this was awesome. They spent hours finding these guys...red striped salamanders and they are fast little buggers I tell you that..it was hard to get a picture of them.

We took a walk down to see the sunset and it was gorgeous

{I shoudl have waited a bit longer ot take this picture}

They have these fabulous classes 2-3 times a day, this one happens to be on ladybugs and the kids enjoyed the craft after the class.

This class happens to be on turtles and they brought out all kinds of turtles to see.

Just before this class started they fed a snake a frog and during this class Christian videoed the whole process..yuck but soooo cool at the same time.

Here is my most favorite place again and they had a blast building castles and motes this one was huge and a couple of levels too utilizing the log.

Here's Jensen taking a break from the action

Still working on getting that first level high enough to reach the top of the log.

Dad and Julianna building too!

Christian relaxing in the inlet.

Julianna with her frog she caught.

Christian going in for a death roll

{they love watching alligator shows together}

so this was a riot to see them be so playful with each other

And now you will see why everyone was taking a rest see that half black circle to the right of the log that is Christian's head and he is roughly 15 feet away from shore and standing up. Those waves were huge and powerful and so fun to play in but exhausting.

You would walk out about waste high and then let the waves bring you in

and then get out of the lake and walk back down to in front of our

blanket and do it all over again and after 10 or

so times your legs were like jelly so we would rest and then go back out.

I was just glad that this time when we were here it was not

54 degrees like it was a few weeks prior.

Another must when we camp is go to the drive in. They love the drive in and this time it was extra exciting. During the first movie Christian is like is that a skunk. Sure enough about 25 ft away from us was a skunk and once we shined our light on it he went back to his bushes

Well in the middle of hte 2 movies Julianna needed to go to the bathroom and who does she run into the skunk, tail raised and all. Luckily for her as she pointed him out to her dad he just grabbed her hand and ran the other way and avoided the doom that could have ensued.

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!!!