Kate with earrings

Kate got her ears pierced for her birthday.  She has been begging to get her ears pierced for awhile.  She was pretty excited.  We went to the mall, and I had to take along the boys.  They were really good sports.  Here are some photo's of her in her new earrings. 

Here she is sitting in ther chair waiting to get them done.  She was so brave, she didn't even cry.

Kate is Eight!

Kate turned eight yesterday!  That's right she hit a huge milestone.  We celebrated by throwing her a Birthday party.  She had a "pretend" sleepover party with a few friends.  The girls all came in their P.J's.  They polished their nails, styled their hair, and decorated slippers.  Then they played a few games and each girl got a new pillow and pillowcase.  Then they had Cake and Ice cream and watched a movie.  They all had a really good time, and I think Kate really enjoyed it.   

Brigham City Temple open house

Here are some photo's of the Brigham City Temple open house.  Kirk and Kate were way excited.  As you can see from the picture Benjamin was not as excited, in fact he didn't really want to go at all.  I hate to make light of the temple, but I had to chuckle when Ben said that he didn't want to get baptized in the "pond".  He said this really loud as we were walking through the baptisimal font.  It was a great opportunity for our kids to see what a temple looks like on the inside.  When our church builds a new temple they allow the public to walk through parts of it before it is blessed or "dedicated" as we call it for worship.  It's amazing how hard it is to get four young kids through a temple open house. It wouldn't have been so bad except that Benjamin insisted that he be carried.  You can't just allow a three year old to have a major temper tantrum in the middle of a temple.  So he got his way.  I carried Benjamin almost the entire time, and Dan carried Jence.  It was still a neat experience to do as a family.  Kirk informed me that he wants to get married in that temple, I was glad it made an impression on him.  I hope the kids continue to make going to the temple their goal.  I know that setting that goal early in my life has made a huge difference in the person that I have become, and also the values that I try to live each day.  I know that going to the Temple brings me closer to Christ, I'm so grateful for the peace that I feel in God's holy house. 

I took this picture of Benjamin picking his nose,

then showed it to him, that's how I finally got him to smile in

this photo above!

Jence 10 1/2 months

Jence when did you grow up to be such a big 10 month old baby

You love to eat, eat, eat, and eat

You love to be held in fact you scream every time I set you down

Your favorite foods are the healthy fruit shakes daddy makes for you with our blender

Your hair is looking a little red, perhaps mommy got her red head after all

You smile at strangers, then shyly turn your head to the side, or put your face into my shoulder

You are so excited to see daddy, you always go to him which sometimes makes mommy jealous

You have loving brother's and sister who like to climb into your crib to play with you

Kirk especially loves to hug, and carry you around sometimes so much that it makes mommy nervous

You have the biggest smile

You like to grunt a lot

You are the cutest baby on the face of the Earth

I want you to stop growing and stay at this age for a few more months OK

Kate's temple photoshoot

Okay so I took about a hundred pictures of Kate tonight.  I guess I got a little carried away!  Kate is getting baptised in October so I thought it would be nice to do her pictures of her in her baptism dress before school started.  She decided to take them at the Bountiful Temple.  I just didn't realize that they close the gates to the Temple on Monday nights.  So we decided to head on down to the SLC temple instead.  Of course that meant more time in the car, and  I was really worried about loosing my light.  The photo's were a bit grainy because I had to take them at at really high ISO setting.  But of course sometimes negatives can become positive.  I played around in photo shop and learned how to get rid of grain in a digital picture.  That's what I love about digital photography, it is forgiving if your willing to spend alot of time editing the photo's after the fact.  Although they say it's best to just take a great picture to begin with.  Here are a few of them, I'll post more when they are ready. 

Kate was a real trooper.  She was a wonderful model, and did some great poses.  I'm so excited for her Baptism, I can't believe she is getting so grown up.  She is such a little lady.  We saw a bride and groom taking some pictures, and I couldn't help but think how fast the last eight years have gone by.  I realized that my little girl is growing fast, and someday she will be her getting her pictures taken at the Temple again in another white dress.

Fourth of July celebrations

I have always loved the fourth of July.  It's fun to carry on traditions that I remember as a child.  I bought flag tee shirts for the kids in hopes of helping them gain some patriotism, I'm so grateful for all of those who have fought to preserve our freedom over the course of our countries history.  It is an honor to wear a flag, and I'm so proud of our colonial history, and our founding father's.  This year we started out the celebration with a yummy breakfast at my parents house.  Then we headed to our city's parade.  About half way through I asked Dan "why do we do this every year again?"  Standing in the sun watching trucks drive by gets old after the first 20 min. or so.  To answer my question, we do it because it's a tradition, and the kids love it.  Then we went over to the park carnival to let the kids spend their allowance money.  Kate bought an oriental umbrella, Kirk got a sword, and Benjamin got a squishy ball thing.  This is actually one of the highlights of the fourth of July for the kids.  They love buying toys at the carnival.  They had a lemonade stand a few weeks early to earn some money to spend at the carnival.  I'm glad they were able to find something fun to buy. 

Then it was off to Bear Lake.  Dan's parents just finished building a home on the lake there, and we couldn't wait to spend our first few nights there.    The water is so blue that it almost looks like the ocean.  We spent a lot of time in the sun, the kids played in the sand, went boating, and kayaking, and played with all of their cousins from morning til night.  I have to admit it was probably one of our favorite trips because it was so laid back.  We just did what we felt like doing and slept when we felt like sleeping.  I think we will be spending more weekends up at bear lake this summer!  That night we watched fireworks over the lake.  Bear lake had technically banned fireworks, but it looked like some of the neighbors were lighting them anyways.  They gave us a pretty good show.  Most of the fire works were shot off over the lake, so I don't think it was a fire hazard, it might of startled a few geese, but other then that it was safe. 

Here is the photo I took of the moon shinning on the lake.  It was the most spectacular orange moon I had ever seen.  I was glad I could capture it in this photo.  This is what it looked like, I've never seen anything quite like it.  The moons reflection shined across the entire lake straight to our shore line.  It's another reminder that God loves his children so much that he gave us such a beautiful earth to enjoy!

Baseball 2012

Baseball season!  Okay so I'm a bad baseball mom.  We missed Kirk's baseball team pictures this year.  All of the kids on his team got pictures except for Kirk.  It was crazy because I usually at least remember that I forgot something.  But honestly I have no recollection of even hearing about when his pictures took place.  Kirk was feeling really bummed ( I don't blame him).  So I did a little impromptu photo shoot of him after his last game.  It's times like these that I'm really glad I have a nice camera to take these kinds of photos.  Kirk has really enjoyed baseball this year.  I think it's his favorite sport, which makes me happy too because it's one of my favorites as well.  I grew up loving baseball both of my brothers played, and my Dad also was an awesome player for Weber State.