Random--Last summer post

This post is mostly going to be pictures. I take LOTS of pictures of my kids and here are some of my favorites from this summer.

The kids have been so fun to watch grow this summer. I am amazed at how much they have bonded and grown to love each other lately. Raelin and Ryker play so well together and they are such good buddies. They both love Alaina and love to help with her and play with her. Alaina is just learning that they are fun to "play" with and she follows them around wherever they go.

Raelin's shirt is fitting for her pose, but I don't think she did it on purpose. She was just hamming it up for the camera.

Our sunflowers were pretty amazing this year. They were enormous!

Brice started off playing with Alaina, but anytime Brice is on the floor (which is often to play with all his kiddos--he's such a good daddy), Zuma thinks she should have all the attention. Jealous box!

I was playing with Ryker's hair and then he looked at it. His eyes went way crossed and I said, "Oh, Ryker, you have to let me get a picture so you can see what you look like!"

What is it with kids and dog water? I can't tell you how many pictures I have of Ryker drinking out of the dog bowl when he was little. At least Alaina tried to clean it up (with her bum and a towel).

I could take pictures of this baby all day. Okay, I'll admit it; sometimes I do.

She loves to chew on Otter Pops when she's teething.

But by the end, her little cheeks are all red from the edges of the wrapper rubbing on her face.

One day, Brice set the kids up on the porch with some tomatoes and tomatillos from the garden along with a few other ingredients and let them make their own salsa. They had a blast! I love how the pictures show their personalities so well; Ryker's cutting board is a jumbled mess of veggies while Raelin's is neat and organized.

It's been fun to watch what Alaina chooses to play with. She loves trucks and cars and tractors and she also loves stuffed animals and plastic animals. Actually, whenever she sees a real animal she squeals with delight and giggles whenever they get close to her. I love it! And of course, everything goes in the mouth. The dogs don't seem to mind slobbery tails or ears...

One day I found the kids playing camping. The little sneaks managed to get a hold of some real marshmallows and they were upstairs (another no-no for food!) roasting them on pens over their paper fire. I just couldn't scold them; it was too cute and clever!

Ryker loves to help in the kitchen. He calls it his special day whenever he gets a chance to help. One day, Brice let him (at least I think Brice let him--he may have done it of his own initiative...) make pancakes. He was so happy!

For some reason I don't have many pictures of us camping this year. But I promise we went a bunch of times. I think Zuma was hoping Ryker was going to share. Little beggar.

Well, that's about it. It was a busy, crazy, whirlwind of a summer and we had a great time!

California Trip

Still catching up on life. Sorry for the delay in summer story-telling. Okay, so, California. Brice has been bound and determined to get the kids to the beach this summer. It took some serious finagling, but we made it. Unfortunately, Raelin came down with a nasty flu bug the day before we were to leave. She was throwing up and had a fever. Here she is asleep in the doorway of the bathroom. Poor thing was tired of going back and forth, I guess.We kept an eye on her and prayed that she would stop puking because no one wants to spend 8 hours in the car when they are puking and no one wants to spend 8 hours in the car worried about puke getting on the car--it's a disaster to try to clean. Been there, done that. We also checked with family to be sure that they weren't opposed to hosting us despite the illness. Alternatively, we were willing to camp until Raelin was better (we love camping, so that wouldn't have been a big deal). Anyway, she slowed down with the throwing up just in time for us to decide to go. We had hoped to go for the whole 2 weeks Brice was out of school, but then we found out that Raelin's school started in the middle of Brice's break. So it was a much shorter trip than we'd hoped, but we went anyway. When we got there, Raelin was still sick and she started burning super high fevers. When I say high I mean 104.5 and 105 degrees! She had several cold baths to get that temp down fast. We took her to the doctor who said she had a virus and that it just had to run its course. Fortunately, when her fever was down, Raelin was happy and playful. She only felt yucky when she was burning up. We went through more medicine in that week with this one child than we have with all three of our kids combined over the course of their lives. I don't give medicine easily because I think it helps people to have a stronger immune system to let our bodies fight illnesses on their own, but with a fever that high, I wasn't willing to just let it burn or even to give a half dose to bring it down a little without killing it like I normally do. We were on her ever 6 hours with the Motrin whether the fever was back or not. Just keep it away.

Ryker was also still crawling from his see-saw injury the day we got there. I think he started walking (tentatively) the next day. So we were pretty much laid up at Brice's parents' house for the first 3 or 4 days. Brice's sisters both came up with their kids so we could all play and have fun together. It was great to see everyone and I love watching all the cousins play together. They have a ball!

We spent another fun-filled afternoon with Jack and Sue. They are some friends of ours that we just love! Brice helped frame their amazing house and Jack has been working on the finish work himself for a long time. It's the most intricate, ornate work I've ever seen and it's beautiful! SO we love to visit and see the progress they've made on the house. This time they took us to the pool for a swim and a BBQ. We had a blast! Thank you Jack and Sue!!!

At the end of the week we finally made it to the beach. Both kids were well and could play and run and we had a great time. We stayed at my grandma's house in Agoura, so we were close to the beach I went to when I was a kid. I love Zuma beach (that's why I named my puppy Zuma).

It was kind of a chilly day. I chickened out about really getting in the water, but I taught Raelin how to catch sand crabs and she LOVED it.

Raelin didn't like the cold water much either.

Ryker and I build some cool sand castles.

Ah, here's Raelin catching crabs.

We dug a really deep hole. I think it's the deepest one I've ever helped dig. The kids are standing up in it and it's as deep as Raelin is tall.

Then we buried Brice, Raelin, and Ryker in it. Raelin was getting a bit smashed and was not happy, but I had to get some pictures before I let her out! She was pitifully sad, but it had to be done.

And Alaina was a little sand monster! I gave up after about five minutes of trying to keep her from eating the sand. There was just no hope. Unfortunately, I didn't do a very good job of catching her poops in the days that followed so it was awful to wipe off her little tushie. Sand poop is a pain in the rear. (hardy har har. Yes, I can hear you moaning at my awful pun.)

I love the sand goatee.

Eating sand.

Eating more sand.

And seaweed.

We took the playpen because she doesn't sleep so well in my arms. It's a pain to lug, but she got a good nap so it was worth it. Here, she is just waking up, ready to...You guessed it! Eat more sand.

A couple of artsy pictures.

And last but not least, my wonderful husband. I just love him! He's the best.

My grandma and grandpa were headed for a cruise in Alaska right when we were heading out to California. It was quite a bummer to miss them, but they let us stay at their house and it was wonderful! We had such a great time there. They have worked on the yard a ton and it beautiful! Complete with a fountain and a little... what do you call that thing? A pergola? There were walking paths all through the garden and orchard and the kids had a blast running and playing and riding scooters.

I went to get things ready to go at the end of our stay and I left Alaina downstairs playing with some toys. When I went to check on her, this is what I found:

What!? Climbing stairs at 7 months!? No way.

So, that was our Cali trip. Thanks to all you who hosted us and put up with us and our sick kids. Sorry to those of you we couldn't visit due to Raelin's cold and the small window of time we had to stay out there. We miss you!

Epilogue
Incidentally, Alaina came down with a different cold when we got home (runny nose and cough) from the one Raelin had and then, right as she was getting over that, she came down with Raelin's high fever throwing up cold. Ugh! What a mess! There have been more sicknesses going around our family in the last few months (Hellloo! It's SUMMER! Not fair!) than ever before. What's the deal?

P.S. I'm not in the mood for proofreading today. Sorry for the typos. Maybe I'll come back and fix them another day if they bother me too much, which they probably will. I'm such a nerd.

Jesse, Carmen, and The Timp Caves

Jesse came out to Utah one last time before moving to Cali. We miss him :( . He brought his girlfriend, Carmen out to meet the family as well. I think Carmen is wonderful! And they are so happy together!My dad wanted to do something fun all together so he took us all to hike up to the Timp Caves. We'd been on a few hikes this year where we wished we'd had a leash for Ryker (see the post about our hike up to the Y) due to the unforgiving nature of the terrain along side the trail. This, we knew, would be one of those hikes. So I went to buy him one. When I told him what I was getting, he whined, "Nooooo, I don't want a harness!" Then I saw one that was also a backpack and it was only $2 more so I said, "Ryker, what if we get you THIS one that is also a backpack. Since you don't have a hiking backpack yet, maybe you can use this one to carry your water and snacks. What do you think?" "YEAH! I WANTED a hiking backpack!" Perfect.Our hike was lots of fun! Jesse traded off carrying Raelin and Ryker on his shoulders the whole way up! I carried Alaina, but she only weighs 13 or 14 lbs. Raelin and Ryker weigh 30-35 lbs. I was very glad for the harness and Ryker has a great time pulling Granddad up the hill when Uncle Jesse wasn't carrying him (carrying Ryker, that is. Jesse didn't carry Granddad!). It was a short hike, but super steep. I can't remember the stats, but if Brice does, maybe I'll have him add them later. The caves were amazing! It's crazy to think about the first people that ever went in there. It would be unnerving to be in some of those big caverns with only a little candle. Or to climb around on the slippery walls without being able to see what your climbing towards. How far down is it? Some of the places where the first cave explorers came in were really scary-looking even with all the lights that they have in there now. Imagine not knowing that you were 50 feet off the cave floor! At one point the tour guide turns off the lights so you can experience the complete and utter darkness. It's a really cool and kind of freaky. I'll bet the first explorers hit their heads a lot...Carmen was worried about earthquakes because the caves are right along a fault line. The tour guide consoled her by saying that it would be over so fast (our lives, that is) that we would never know what happened.

The whole group of us! From the left: Brice, Morgan, Alaina, Russ (my dad/Granddad), Dee (my mom/Grammie), Ryker, Jesse, Carmen, Raelin.

The kids.

Ryker was not into taking pictures but we coerced and bribed and finally got a few good ones. He was tired and grumpy but Uncle Jesse really wanted some pics of his nieces and nephew to take home with him.

Raelin, Ryker, and Brice on a precarious precipice. Brice likes giving me heart attacks. Beautiful landscape, though!

Pictures to go with Ryker's ER post

I mentioned in the post about Ryker's injured hip that he looked funny crawling around outside especially. Here are some pictures of him picture of him trying to play with Raelin in the yard. Unfortunately, he just wasn't fast enough to keep up.

He spent a lot of time just sitting in this chair. I think it reclined enough that he didn't have to put much weight in his pelvis; it seemed to be pretty painful for him to sit up straight.