I was gonna do this long ago

Remember how I said I'd probably post photos of our newly landscaped yard? Well, I'm finally getting to that. Here are a couple of the "before" shots: I know that the front looks kinda green, but those are all just weeds.

And here are the "after" shots:

Here's the shed Steve assembled on our side yard.

It's been wonderful having a yard that isn't just dirt, rocks and weeds!

Baby and Camping

No. Our baby didn't come while we were camping. But I've got a couple of photos of her for you to see from our latest ultrasound. So cute! Here she is looking like she's yawning. I think she looks like Eden with that wide bridge to her nose and her chubby cheeks.

So we went camping and it was a lot of fun! Becca "helped" set up camp by trying to drive the stakes to the tent in.

It was beautiful there!

Jonah rapidly set out to find bugs.

The kids and I shortly after we got everything all set up.

We played Monopoly and Jonah made a fool out of me.

Gotta make smores-

I didn't think Steve was going to be able to make it, but he surprised us and showed up at 10 pm that first night! I had only brought one tent (a 4 man) thinking he wouldn't be there. So we were squished in there pretty good. But it was nice to have another adult there--even if in my delirium, his snoring kept making me think a bear was outside the tent growling.

The kids sure looked cute in the morning all huddled up together. You can't see Celeste because she is buried in her sleeping bag. Steve left before they even woke up :(

But the kids and I took a nice little hike in the morning.

We did a little watercolor and charcoal art too.

The 2nd night the Butlers came up and hung out for dinner.

I'm looking forward to going again...when I'm not pregnant that is.

Life

Ok, I'm done complaining about Summer.
What's up with my blogging lately? I just don't have the passion in me anymore. The only motivation I am feeling with it lately is to keep a history of our family's life. Help me!

So on with our family's happenings. Here's Celeste and Kennedy- a.k.a. MC's of our recent "Talent Show" here at home. I was laughing so hard during this that I just about peed. Good times. We went to the symphony with my parents, and other extended family. I love the symphony.

Eden got baptized. It was a nice ceremony. She was so thrilled she had the fit of the giggles in the font. I remember getting baptised and feeling the same way. My Grandpa Waite confirmed me and I was shaking with laughter the entire time. I was just so darn happy. Eden really enjoyed her experience. And her dad did a nice job too. Isn't he handsome?

We had a quarterly activity for Primary and it was utter pandemonium! I've never seen such a wild activity. I have to say it was my favorite I've been to though.

It was the state championships for baseball here. We got to see our nephews Hayden and Tyler participate. Both teams did awesome. Hayden's team got 1st place and Tyler's 2nd. This is Tyler getting his medal. All of our nephews are so cool. We are quite proud.

We just got back into town from the Boise area last night. We were only there for 24 hours. But we enjoyed getting to see Megan, Amy and Steve's family too. Wish we could have seen more people! Reed and Alysa had their beautiful baby girl blessed yesterday. It was a very quick trip, but fun. Unfortunately, this is the only time I remembered to pull the camera out. At the cemetery saying "hi" to our baby.

On the way home from Boise, we listened to the book "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch. He's the professor who died recently of cancer and left behind 3 small children and a lovely wife. The book was a tribute to them and left me feeling quite sentimental for my family. We all were very touched by it.

As a result I feel like making a little comment to each person in my little family.

Steve- I honestly don't think there is a woman out there who loves and admires her husband as much as I love and admire you. And you deserve it. I feel so lucky you chose me 11 years ago and still choose me today. I love your goodness, your integrity, your patience and how you treat me so darn nice all the time! There are too many good things to say about you to even scratch the surface in this moment. But I want you to never doubt you are crazy loved and admired and appreciated. I sure hope that forever with you is gonna be enough for me. Because I can't seem to get enough of you these days. My gratitude for such a heavenly marriage runs very deep.

Celeste- I'm really proud of you. I want you to know that I consider you a friend. As you grow, I hope that our friendship will continue to grow, because I'm starting to appreciate it more and more. In my mind, I find myself looking to you as a sister at times more than my daughter. I am not your superior. If anything you are mine. I love that I can talk with you about pretty much anything. I am amazed at your gifts and talents. Your mind can comprehend things well beyond your years. I am confident that you will make a beautiful wife and mother some day. I can already see so much of the inherent gift of mothering that you have. I am also confident that you can accomplish anything you want. You have been given the gifts and talents that will enable you to accomplish difficult things. Whenever you have spoken to me about your wishes and dreams, I have no doubt you could accomplish them. I think you are going to do greater things in your life than I've ever done.

Jonah- I don't like to talk about your bipolar disorder a whole lot because of various reasons. But I want to mention it now. I know that bipolar disorder is a very real trial. I know it makes everything feel so much more laborious than it really should be. I also know that God intends for you to be a much better and stronger person for it. And you will be. I know it. I really do. At the tender age of only 9, you've already struggled with this for 4 years. And it hasn't been easy. But I can already see you working through it. I'm very proud of you for it too. I don't ever want it to be used for an excuse for bad behavior or not excelling in life. Because I know you can overcome it and you will. And you will be a better person for it. I can see many gifts in you. You have a certain tenderness at times that blows me away. You have a lot of faith. So many times your prayers for our family in times of distress have visibly and quickly been answered. Prayers that when I uttered them, seemed unanswered. You are also quite smart in a way that is hard to get recognition for. You can figure scientific or technical things out that I myself cannot. It comes naturally to you. I sense that there are great things in store for you in life. I am excited to see them come to pass.

Eden- Just like Celeste and Jonah, you have been given great gifts too. I don't feel like I can take credit for them in any way either. You were born sweet. You were born with such empathy and kindness. You are grateful and who doesn't love being around a grateful person? You care about others and will often put their feelings ahead of your own. What a special thing that is! You have always been so likable to those around you. I know you'll have a happy life because of your gratitude and unselfishness. I feel that those two qualities will be all you'll need for happiness in your life. I hope that in addition to that, you will learn to appreciate the value of an education and get all you can. But I've never worried about you and I don't anticipate I ever will.

Becca- What a joy you have been to us! You brighten our home with your little body and big personality. It's been so fun to see you grow and see your siblings and daddy get wrapped around your little finger. My heart melts sometimes when I'm just looking at you and I find myself inadvertently smiling. I had to talk your dad into having you. But he admits now how happy you've made him and he's so glad we had another child. Maybe that joy you've brought us has been instrumental in convincing your dad to allow more children to come. I thank you for that. You've been fun! In my eyes you've been my baby for so long, that I guess, I've fought the urge to see you as anything but that. I'm beginning to see some cleverness in you lately though. I see your mind really starting to figure things out. You're gonna do great.

Benjamin- I know to some it seems crazy how I talk about you. But I don't mind. You are still in my heart. I wish you were in my arms! I see babies now that were born when you should have been and I imagine how life would be if you were crawling around too and keeping us on our toes. I still cry at times when I think of you and the heartbreak I had at your loss. You are very much a part of our family though. We all believe we'll be with you again. And the thought makes us happy. It also motivates us to be worthy of that eternal unit with you there. You are talked about often and loved always.

Charity- I've wanted each of my babies desperately. But waiting for you has been the longest. The anticipation for your arrival has almost been unbearable! I know that when I found out you were a girl, I struggled. But I assure you that I am very happy you're a girl now! A while back we had a Family Home Evening about coming up with a family motto. We talked about various ideas, but we finally settled on "Think outside yourself". We've tried to make that a big part of how we live as a family since then. Charity is my favorite virtue. I want to give and I don't want money or any material object to be more important to me than people. Charity in that sense is not the only part of it that is important to us. We want to be charitable in our actions socially. We need more patience in this world and letting other's bad behavior roll off our backs. To me that is the part of charity I want to always remember to embrace as well. So with all that in mind, your name has begun to really grow on me. And we are excited for that. In a way you will be a symbol and reminder to our little family of that. A reminder of the time in our family when we really decided to try and think outside ourselves. I want you to know that already we all love you. We are so excited to see you and hold you and shower you with love and affection. You'd really get a kick out of seeing all the hugs and kisses my belly already gets. We adore you.

Summer Woes and Pros

Top 5 Things I am loving about Summer:

1- Not having to spend hours on homework each day with my kids.
2- Not having to get the kids up for school by 7 am each day.
3- All the fun activities we've been able to do.
4- After 7 weeks of Summer I'm having a hard time coming up with any more positives. I miss year round school!

Top 5 Things I'm not liking about Summer:

1- I've said "Shut the door" a million times.
2- The flies that keep swarming the house because said doors keep being left open.
3- The constant disaster my house seems to be in.
4- Feeding kids around the clock. They just eat all the time! It's like I'm a 24 hour cook and housekeeper.
5- I rarely can take a nap and I am very tired from being preggo.
6- Do I have to stop at 5?

More Summer activities

Ok, here's a random cap of some more stuff that has been happening here:
We went to Build A Bear again and this time we made a bear for our baby girl. I had an audio recording of her heartbeat that I got at the doctors office and we had them put that sound in the stuffed animal we made for her. I think I like going to Build a Bear as much as my kids do. For Family Fun Day we went to a fun place where the kids did this XD Theater ride over and over again. They loved it. They had a screen outside of it that you could watch them and I took a photo of them in there. It was cute watching them do this!

They earned over a thousand tickets in the arcade.

And we played a round miniature golf.

We got a cement pad put in for our shed and I had the kids put their handprints on it.

With the Summer reading program at the library the kids earned some prizes for getting in about 1000 minutes of reading each. We got passes to the local water park.

I braved it alone with them and had a few scares there. But we had a good time and I left there a very grateful mother taking my four children home with me alive.

Tim and Brenda came up for a short visit. It was so nice to get to spend time with them and Jesse.

We spent the fourth of July with Anna and her family and Tim and Brenda.

Tim bought a bunch of illegals in Nevada to keep things exciting.

And here's a very washed out photo of me at 7 months preggo. Don't know what happened here with all that bright light, but there you go.

This is what you see on the inside of our front door.

This is what we recently found scrawled on the threshold of our slide/swingset. We got a kick out of that. Our landscaping is done by the way and we love it! I'll post photos of that probably later.

My parents and Emily and her family are here this week. Last night we went to the Oquirrh temple open house.

Life is good. Seriously good.

More details

So I know the time of Eden's baptism now. I wont be sending out invites as we are only a week and a half away now and by the time I order and send them out, it's gonna be pointless.
The baptism is at 9am at our stake center. Afterwards we were going to have a brunch at our house, but we just got our sod down last night in our yard and they said nobody can walk on it for 3 weeks. As we were going to have so many people here, we were going to have it in the yard. That wont be happening now. So we will still have the brunch but will either do it at the park by the church, or in the pavilion outside the church. Hope to see you there!

You are all invited

To Eden's baptism that is. I wanted to send out invites to everyone, but I'm waiting on the Primary Presidency to tell me what time it's gonna be at! They told me on Sunday it will be at either at 9 or 10:30 am and they will let me know which in a week probably. So I thought I'd better let you all know here so you have a heads up.

She'll be getting baptized on Saturday July 11th at either 9 or 10:30 am at our stake center by our house. When I know the exact time, I'll let you know. Afterwards we'll be having a brunch for the family and friends who have come at our house.

Call if you can make it and I'll give you the address, I don't want to post the address online. Also so we know how much food to buy.

Really, you are all welcome to come. Eden is very excited to be baptized! And I think she is very ready too.

These were some of my favorite photos from a shoot my buddy Dana took of her. Thanks Dana!

Bad Blogger Update

I haven't been blogging for 2 reasons. First, I've just been busy with keeping my kids happy and entertained this Summer. Second, I'm kind of sick of the computer. I haven't been in a mood to Blog, Facebook, email, whatever. It's just gotten old for me. But maybe I'll get back into it later. We'll see. But we are all very happy and well here - so no worries!
I thought I would go ahead and post what we've been up to though so you know what's going on here.
Celeste started taking gymnastics.
Becca too.
We took a trip to the zoo with some friends.
My three oldest kids were in a fishing club for 6 weeks.

Jonah had his Pinewood Derby and we've been working like crazy on Scouts. He became a Bear CubScout back in Feb, but with school and homework, we didn't get much done. We started working on it once school got out and today he finished doing all he needed to do to earn his badge!!!

I've also been working with Celeste, Jonah and Eden on their Faith In God Awards.

Here we are at Laura Bingham's book signing in Spanish Fork. She is Steve's cousins' wife. She recently released a great novel titled "Alvor".

We've been going swimming.

Eden had her very special 8th birthday party at Build a Bear Workshop. Very fun stuff there! She's such a sweet girl and we are so grateful she's our daughter. She had a great birthday and is looking forward to her baptism in a couple weeks.

We went to the Paleontology Museum with the Butlers.

We've been to a few of the Butler boys baseball games.

And more swimming.

A trip to Chuck E Cheeses to celebrate Eden's birthday and Becca breaking her thumb sucking habit...finally!

Lots more has been going on this Summer that hasn't been pictured. Like:

-Tutoring a few hours a week

-Bugs and Gardening camp for 3 days (all kids)

-Art Camp for 3 days (just the girls)

-Science Camp for 3 days (Jonah)

-Decorating our baby's room (me)

-Getting our yard landscaped and fencing in! (hired help-thank heavens)

It's been a great Summer so far. I'm getting huge and uncomfortable and am beyond excited for our baby's arrival!

That's it for us for now.