Sunday, August 18, 2013

May = school out, mayhem, outdoors, and Mother's Day

My husband knows me so well and suggested after coming home and seeing me little stressed about life, that we venture down to the nearby campground and take some photos. He knows how it relaxes me and makes me feel human again! 

This has become Julia's new smile...insert shaking of head here!


Anthony is such a good dad and always takes time to explain things to all the kids. 

He also takes them on all kind of adventures! The kids love it! 


Matthew has definitely developed a wacky sense of humor this year. He'll do about anything to get a laugh and usually has all of us in laughing in no time!

Peter with his marching stick!

Andrew's model prose! 
Not really...I'm just not sure what he was doing at this moment!

We then went up for a drive near the temple! Always a peaceful view!

Julia and her awesome smile!
The last day of school this happened! Matthew found a small hole in one of the bean bag chairs. He commenced to make it bigger and then dumped the contents on the floor. When we discovered the mess, all four kids were rolling in it and had then clinging all over the clothes. The kids then preceded to run through the house, dropping them everywhere! Was not one of my finer mommy moments!


 Anthony sent pictures to his family and the video and one sister-in-law commented on how well we handled it and that we didn't even yell. I quickly corrected her and let her know that there was yelling! It took a solid hour to clean up all the balls. We had to suck them up with the hose and then dump into a garbage sack. But they was so much static that the ones in the sack would cling to the ones being poured out. We finally crunched up tin foil and put it in the bag and it helped. Anthony got the shop vac that we had just recently invested in and tried sucking some up but forgot to do a step and so it shredded the balls and plastered them on the wall behind him! It was awesome!! We can laugh now and were in a couple of days! What a way to start summer!



Loves being a little monkey!


This was our memorial day project! We built a firepit!! 
It has been the best thing ever! It took all day because we were making it up as we went! Our first marshmallow roast was a success. 


In primary, the leaders had the kids fill these out about their moms. This one is Matthew's! 
I love the 3rd, 4th, and last question!! 

Sunday, August 11, 2013

The Rest of April

We spent the first two session of conference at our house and then went to Firth the next day to do an egg hunt and watch the other sessions. One of the activities we did was make bead necklaces and Peter and Andrew made key chains from craft lace! That was bar far the favorite! 

Apparently Julia and I were exhausted one day after church! 

We attempted to grow our own lettuce! It didn't work so well! One of those not so good pinterst ideas! 

She must have been really tired! She only does this if she is completely exhausted! 



Peter's Baptism

Peter was baptized on April 13, 2013! It was a cold and miserable day but inside the warmth of the Spirit warmed us all! (Oh that was soooo cheesy!)


Peter's cousin Jilysa is two weeks older then him and so they got baptized on the same day! 

Grandma and Grandpa Tietjen got home from their mission just in time! 




This is Peter's other cousin Jarsden! Peter really looks up to him! 


Alex (Jarsden's bro), Peter, and Jarsden

We didn't get any pictures with my family because they were being awesome and went to my house to finish all the prep work for the luncheon we had afterwards!

Monday, August 05, 2013

March

Some day our kids are going to put together a band and be rockin'! They can constantly be found playing the guitar or beating on pot or pan! 

One night Anthony and I bought Wreck it Ralph for the kids on Amazon and we finished painting our basement. I know it looks like a puky pink but it's actually a dark brown that really makes our basement feel comfy and homey! It only took us a year to get all the walls painted! At this rate, we should have the whole house done in about 6 years! 

March 13th Anthony's parents arrived home from their mission in Australia! It has been so awesome to have them home and to feel complete as a family again! It makes me homesick for my brother and sister but I soon we will all be together again too! 

To do Julia's hair it usually consists of one episode of her choice of cartoon and my working as fast as I can to get all the tangles and snarls! She's getting better about sitting still but we can't go without our Dora the Explorer! (Thankfully she has moved on to old Disney cartoons with Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck! My sanity was saved!)

All my family came over to celebrate Peter's 8th birthday and my brother, James, 27th! Naomi had started to crawl around by this time and was keeping us all entertained! 

Grandpa and Jacob are quite the buds! 

Great Grandma Monson brought cupcakes for everyone! This is Peter blowing out his candles! 

James got numbered ones! There's no way that we could fit that many candles on two cupcakes!


Jacob sneaking into daddy's candy!

Peter got the game of Twister for his birthday! It was a hit till we lost the spinner! 

This was the highlight! The game of Battleship!
Too bad the pieces only last a few days!


The big one! 
The first remote control car to enter our home!

Doesn't he look so excited?

Peter was so excited to start scouts! This was his first day! 

One day after the boys had earned up enough money they each bought yo yos from Amazon and they got to paint them and decorate them! 


Matthew and Julia got to do water colors!


Such concentration!


Forgot to rotate this one! Opps!
They tore up our road for almost four months while they replaced pipes and the road top! It was crazy!


The rest are from Peter's friend birthday party! We did a pizza theme!
They did a chef relay where they had to put stuff on and then run to the other end of the room!
We did a balance a ping pong ball on a spoon as well!


Then we broke out the Kinect!