This is one once again one of those posts that is more for my benefit than anyone else. I feel like most people who read this blog are either a) family or b) good friends who I don't stay in regular contact with. If you fall into category a, you already know a lot of this. If you fall into category b, I would probably willingly tell you all about it. If you don't fall into either, there must be a category c, the blog stalkers that I didn't know existed. Whoever you are my readers, here is a long, long story. It all began at the end of July. The weekend of Anders' birthday had been a rough one for me. I hadn't been feeling very good-just slightly ill. Tired, slightly nauseous at times, and just an overall feeling of malaise. That Sunday had been particularly bad-Ellen was terrible in Sacrament Meeting, the family we normally sit with was gone, and I had someone make some comments to me that (in my four years of parenting) were about the most rude and judgmental I h...

I took the girls through the Alpine Loop to Cascade Springs last week. We went on a Tuesday morning and it was a lovely trip. There were very few people up there and the weather was perfect. We stopped by the river for a picnic and had just a pleasant time. Utah is beautiful-and this fall the colors seem extra brilliant. Here are a few pictures I took.

Ellen woke up nice and early this morning and by the time I couldn't ignore her complaints  and yells of "mom" to get out of bed, she was ready to greet the day. She started jabbering to me immediately about her "poop" diaper and then immediately headed off to find Summer once she was changed. She started to call out "Summer" and found her in the bathroom. She went and talked to her for a minute and then came to find Anders. She walked into the room, squealed "Dad" and then came running. She giggled a bunch and gave him kisses. She climbed into our bed and kept asking to watch "a show" on my phone. When I refused, she gave a little screech and then continued to give more kisses and jump on Anders. After about a minute of that she went back to find Summer, who was still in the bathroom. She jabbered to Summer for a while longer and then shut the door to the bathroom with Summer still inside. She came and found me and said "I shu...

Ellen is talking a lot these days. For the last few weeks I've wanted to write it all down and am finally getting to it. It is amazing how different her vocabulary is from Summer's beginning vocabulary. Most of what she says are things that Summer currently says on a regular basis. Ellen also understands pretty much everything say to her. We communicate rather well and I can usually figure out what she wants. Anyway, here is what she is saying: 1. I need help! 2. Help me! 3. I did it! 4. More 5. All done 6. All gone 7. Mom 8. Dad 9. Summer (this is the cutest!) Summer has been gone a couple of times this week when Ellen has woken up from her nap and she's wandered around the house looking for Summer saying "Summer" over and over. She does this with Anders sometimes as well. 10. Hi 11. Bye-bye 12. Stuck! or I stuck! 13. Uh-oh 14. It's okay 15. Poop 16. Cup 17. Nisha 18. Baby 19. no 20. it's mine 21. Yeah 22. Moo 23. Hot 24. I no nee...

Yesterday I was mowing the lawn as the girls played around me. After finishing in the front yard, I told Summer she needed to come with me to the backyard while I finished. She was busy building herself a boat out of our old stump and was not too happy with my request. She tried to talk me out of it by letting me know that she "didn't have time to go in the backyard." (She tried using this same excuse on Sunday when she didn't want to go to church.) After that didn't work, she changed tactics and said "Mom, even Nephi doesn't want to go into the backyard." Apparently she thought Nephi was some kind of trump card and if he couldn't do it, she couldn't do it-which is kind of true. If Nephi wouldn't do something, I really think Summer should do it. However, I think Nephi would have been obedient and gone into the backyard....

Today was one of those days where I'm pretty sure church laster 6 hours instead of the normal three. In fact, I'm pretty sure today was twice as long as normal. I feel like I spent all day keeping kids happy, reverent, and not fighting. So instead of re-hashing today, I thought I'd record a few funny things that Summer has said lately. 1. Today at church, Summer had quite the conversation with the Bishop (Anders witnessed this, I did not). He asked her if she was a big girl. She told him yes and that she was getting bigger and bigger and that soon she would have to go outside soon. 2. This evening while I was trying to cook dinner, I told Summer several times to go find something to do. After about the 4th time, she got mad at me and said "Do not ask me that any more otherwise you will have to go sit on the step." That is exactly what I tell her when she keeps whining and asking me to do something over and over. 3. We had a major thunderstorm a couple of nig...

At the beginning of April we spent a few days with some of my family camping at Arches. My brother reserved one of the two group camp sites a year ago. My sister Melissa was there with most of her family (minus the two oldest kids), Ben was there with his family, and then several of Ben's inlaws were there as well. We had lots of room in our campsite and it was a beautiful place to be. There were a lot of rocks in our campsite to climb on, more sand than you could want, and it was so nice to be actually in the park.  These next two pictures are of our campsite. Both photos were taken from on top of the same rock, looking different directions. Our tent was the blue one and the whole area was our site. It was lots of fun for the kids to have a large area to roam around in. Anders and Summer in our tent.  Summer and Spencer playing in the sand. Most of our group. The hike to Delicate Arch is one that I don't think we will ever forget. W...