ONE BROKEN ARM, 2 CASTS!

A few Saturdays ago our little Carma was playing outside with all the neighborhood kids and hurt her arm. After a solid hour of screaming, a very large, gross, bump formed, so we decided to take her to the ER. We were in the ER for about 4 hours and came out with the diagnosis: broken arm. The ER put a splint on so the swelling could go down and we went to the Dr. on Monday to get a pretty purple cast! We also went back Tuesday and got a second pretty purple cast after an incident at bath time on Monday night! Carma is a trooper and is adjusting very well. She will get her cast off on July 27th! Yea!



As you can see, the cast is not slowing her down at all!

4th OF JULY

We had such a great time this year on the 4th. We have a tradition that our friends the Lowthers come from Salt Lake and stay a few days with us. My friend Rhaelene has 3 adorable kids. Siobhan is 11, Duncan is 7 ( 8 in August) and Rory is 5. Harrison and Siobhan have been friends since they were about 2 years old and the friendship is still going strong! Every year we wait to see if things will get "weird" between them and so far the only thing they think is weird are their mothers wondering when things will get weird! Claire and Duncan are also great friends and Carma and Rory follow them wherever they go. With all the kids playing all weekend it was really like a vacation for me and Rhaelene!

Rhaelene brought all of her fancy tie dye supplies and the kids made adorable shirts! They showed them off at the parade in the morning.



Idaho falls is famous for their fireworks show at the falls every year. The show is put on by Melaleuca and brings people from all over. We braved the crowds and went down this year. NEVER AGAIN! At least not any time soon. After a near death experience ( long story- Large fireworks being thrown in the river 5 feet from my children) and plenty of drunks, I have had my fill for a while.

Pine Basin Camp

We are so excited to have Harrison home! This last week Harrison was able to go to Pine Basin Camp with a few of his friends. The camp is put on by our school district and is basically a nature camp with classes and lots of fun. This is Harrison's second and last year to go. The camp is offered to grades 4-6. This year Harrison went with 3 of his favorite friends-Kaiden, Chance and Marissa. The boys are goofy and Marissa is so great to put up with them ! They are all such good kids and they had a blast together. Harrison came home tired and very dirty.Notice Marissa doesn't look nearly as gross as the boys. She obviously took advantage of the showers at the girls camp while the boys let us know that showers were "optional".

The "Circus"

Okay, so I am using the word circus but I am not really sure what to call what we witnessed one night last week. My dear friend Niki had free tickets to the Shriner's Circus and invited me and the girls along with some other friends . I will let the pictures speak for themselves. Yes, that dog is dressed like the lady and there were 7 other costumes changes. Yes, those poodles are actually pink and blue. Yes, those are 80 year old women in mini skirts. Thankfully there was cotton candy! You can't go wrong with cotton candy and friends.

T Ball

Claire is playing T Ball again this year and loving it! She is on a team with kids from our neighborhood and that has been a lot of fun for her. Her coaches are great! They both have children on the team and the kids love them! They are better women than me. It is not uncommon for our head coach, Mikki, to be on the field directing the team with her baby in a sling and her 3 year old hanging on her leg! She is amazing.
Check out the dad in the picture where Claire is almost to first base..... totally sleeping through the TBall game!

Burley, Idaho!

One day last week we were totally bored and the only thing I had to look forward to was cleaning, weeding and laundry. I was not in the mood. I was trying to figure out how I could get out of these chores when Grey walked in the room and I noticed he was in desperate need of a haircut. It hit me- Road trip to Burley! One of my best friends, Danelle Blettenberg is a hairdresser and recently moved to Burley which is a small farming town about 2 hours away. We love the Blettenbergs. Danelle has 6 children that all fall in similar age categories as my own. The kids were thrilled that we were being so spontaneous and that they were going to get to play with their friends that they miss dearly. Danelle welcomed us with open arms! We had a great day.Charlee, helping Greyson look good for his "before" photo! Like mother like daughter!I love how they match! Greyson was so good for his cut. He loved it!Greyson after his cut! He looked so much older! Most of the red in his hair got cut out, it is so sad!TROUBLE! Charlee and Carma helped themselves to ice cream while Danelle was cutting hair. They didn't need any help. They found ice cream, bowls, and a scoop all on their own!Claire and Brookel being goofy girls!

6th Grade graduation

It is official: Harrison is done with elementary school! This is weird since I am sooo not old enough to have a child in Jr. High. Harrison had a great year this year with his 6th grade class and his teacher Mrs. Suitter.
We are so proud of him. He had awesome grades and worked really hard . I can't even talk about Jr. High yet. It makes me sick just thinking about it.

The Garden

This year we went a little crazy and decided we wanted to move our garden AND expand it. What were we thinking I wonder now that things are coming up and I am having to weed! A bigger garden? Who needs that? We hired our dear friend Eric McGary to cut out our plot and get it all ready. Imagine my shock when he informed me that it needed some good dirt the first year and that it was going to cost money. What? Yes, dirt costs money and it is expensive.! Oh, and the kids loved playing in the expensive dirt. Every time they came in from playing I wanted to scrape all the dirt off their little bodies and take it back out to the garden!
We spent a good couple of days planting and now we are just weeding and waiting. I will keep you updated. Oh, BTW, yes Greyson is wearing pajamas, a girly hat, and winter mittens to do his gardening.

Back to Blogging!

Ok, so I have been a little blogged out lately. I think it is the whole 4 kids, house, life, etc... that has gotten in the way. I really just have not found the time to update. Oh, and I also managed to create a Facebook account and of course that took up about 2 weeks of my life I can't ever get back. The novelty of FB has definitely worn off! Anyway, a couple of weeks ago my dad called wondering why I have not updated my blog. Well, that did it and now I am back to blogging!
MEMORIAL DAY:

Every Memorial Day Mike's family has a "reunion" of sorts in Isand Park, Idaho. All the Aunts, uncles and cousins get together and spend the weekend playing. We don't care about fashion, baths, eating healthy, or sleep. We simply just have fun! Mike's parents have a cabin in Island Park so we are lucky enough to get to sleep and go to the bathroom indoors.
This year the kids had a blast. Harrison had his second cousin Kobe there this year and they pretty much did their own thing all weekend long. We would go hours without seeing them. They would go off on the 4 wheelers, hunt for treasures, and play games. They had so much fun together.
Greyson was soooo funny this year. He fell in love with the 4 wheelers! He would cry until someone would take him for a ride. It was so cute. At first. Then we all got sick of taking him on little slow rides around the cabin. It quickly became a chore for Harrison that we would make him do before he could take off on the 4 wheeler with Kobe!
We had a great time this year and the laundry after we got home ( which is always my biggest complaint with this tradition) wasn't even so bad thanks to my new washer and dryer!

Grey

Our little Grey is 18 months old! He is growing up way too fast. He went in for his 18 month checkup this week with Dr. Hatch and all is well! He is a little on the skinny side weighing in at only 19 pounds 13oz. Dr. Hatch actually suggested a little less Diet Dr. Pepper and a little more whole milk! Can you believe it? The nerve. He is such a sweet boy and we are all having so much fun with him. He loves his siblings and mimics everything they do. Which can be good or bad. He still loves to snuggle especially with mom and dad in the middle of the night! He is running around and saying more words every day. We just can't get enough of him!

Not enough Laundry!!

Well, it finally happened....my dryer broke! Yipee! For those that know me know that I have been waiting for this day for years. I could not bring myself to get a knew washer and dryer until one of mine officially broke! I would feel too guilty. I even called the repair man out to deem it officially dead before I spent the money! After an entire week of research-which led to weight gain and a marriage and one friendship in jeopardy (thanks to my inability to make a decision)-I finally made my choice and here they are. Love the steam features and the size of the washer (4.4). I would like to thank Consumer Reports and all the people online who complain and praise for helping me make my decision finally! If you ever need to know anything about a washer or dryer let me know. There is only one problem now, I am too caught up. There isn't enough laundry to do!

Silly Holidays

St. Patrick's Day means an all green dinner at the Holyoak House. Usually this means green pancakes but since everyone was expecting that I went with something different. Maybe a little too different. We ended up with green pasta that looked so odd I even had a hard time eating it. We also had a list of things we NEVER have in our house for dinner like 2 different kinds of jello and green Koolaid. Way too much green.
April Fools Day meant more food fun. We had cereal for breakfast that I had secretly put a drop of blue food coloring under before the kids added their milk. Claire -who by the way is pretty ocd- was totally freaked out and refused to believe our milk wasn't bad! Too funny. For dinner we had "cupcakes" that were actually meatloaf with colored mashed potatoes on top! This is actually a mean trick because my girls really thought they were getting cupcakes for dinner at first glance. Carma handed over her cupcake after taking one bite and said "mom this cupcake is disgusting". Too cute. Mike actually had a very hard time eating all this fun food since he has an odd phobia of things that aren't the color they are supposed to be!
I would like to thank my friend Alexa -one of the best mom's I know- for the best April Fool's Joke of this year..........I taped down the on button to the sprayer on the sink and then asked Mike to rinse something out for me! So much fun!!! The best part of it all was when Mike thought it was caught on a lid and did it a second time! What am I 12?

DRAMA

One day last week Claire had a rough day and got her 3rd strike which in our house means 1 hour early bedtime! For those of you that don't know Claire very well let me tell you..... she does not handle negative things very well. We joke all the time that she is going to need anti anxiety medication by the time she is 7! We laugh about this because we don't want to cry. Claire is very much a perfectionist and rarely gets in to any kind of trouble so you can imagine how 3 strikes in one day was the end of the world for her! When it was time for bed she very slowly and dramatically went up to her room where she threw herself on her bed and cried very quiet yet heavy cries. Finally after about 10 minutes I really wanted her to go to sleep and knew she wouldn't until she felt all was back to normal. I took my camera upstairs and started shooting and this was the result. I knew there was no way Claire could stay upset with a camera in her face!

Harrison goes to Alaska!

A couple of weeks ago Harrison got a fabulous opportunity when he was invited on a five day trip to Alaska with his friend Kaiden. We were a little apprehensive at first and actually almost said no ( Mom did not like the idea of him being so far away for so long) but then we realized that we were NEVER going to take him to Alaska in the middle of winter and it was too good to pass up. Kaiden's mom Jennifer has a friend who lives in a beautiful home in Alaska and was gracious enough to host them all. The boys had a great time shooting guns, four wheeling ( in the snow??) and seeing wildlife. We are so grateful that Harrison was able to have this opportunity and will ever be indebted to Jennifer! He had a great time. We all missed him a ton and decided we like him a lot and think he should stick around a while!