Mother's Day cookies, Trip to Utah, Island Park Family Reunion and Swimming Lessons

As you can tell from the title, there have been a lot of things going on in our lives lately.  Being busy makes time go by so fast!  In the midst of all of this Teecee and I catered a graduation party and did another graduation cake as well as a wedding cake.  Brice took four summer classes in the four weeks after spring semester that he is in the process of finishing up right now.  We had a really rainy first week in June.  The moisture was a huge blessing for the land.  Now the ground is wet enough that the grass in the hills is growing for our cows to eat.  We got the garden planted the first week of June before the rain, and it seems to be growing slowly, except for the weeds. :~)  The flowers have been brightening my days with beautiful blooms since this spring.  I love spending time outside enjoying the fresh air and the green everywhere.  The weather has warmed up a lot this week until today.  It is cool and rainy again.  That should be expected since our ten year class reunion is being held outside today and tomorrow.  At least the heat won't be an issue.  I can't believe how much my life has changed in the past 10 years since high school.  I hope it will be fun to get reaquainted with former classmates.  I think that the family BBQ tomorrow will be the best part of it all because our whole families are what life is really about now, not just the individual classmates.

We made tulip cookies for our mothers and grandmothers this year for Mother's Day.  I think that they were a hit with both the kids and the mothers.  Kellon and Barrett love being able to frost and decorate things on their own since they have to just watch while we are decorating cakes.  Putting on the sprinkles  was the favorite job besides eating frosting. 

Aubree was always willing to clean up any messes.

I got to go on a road trip to Garland, UT (20 minutes from Logan) with Mom, Teecee and Aubree the first week in June.  Mom planned the trip to go visit her sister (Marlene) and family out there a long time ago.  Then she invited the rest of us girls to go along.  We had a good time together.  It was fun to have time to visit and laugh a lot because we don't get to see each other as much as we would like day-to-day.

I went to the Logan Temple with Marlene and mom one day.  Afterwards, Teecee, our cousin, Valyn, and I all went shopping in Logan.  It seemed wierd to be all alone in the stores because I didn't have anyone else to keep track of.

We went to Salt Lake City to visit Temple Square and the LDS Conference Center.  I thought that we had perfect timing to see the beautiful wildflowers in bloom on top of the conference center

Teecee, Aubree, Valyn, Me, Marlene, Mom

flowers on top of the conference center

Teecee, Aubree, Valyn in conference center

I am so thankful to Brice for giving me the opportunity to get away for 5 whole days before I have the baby.  I also owe Annette and my Dad a great big thanks for watching the boys the days that Brice was in summer classes.

I had one day at home to get stuff done before we left to go to Island Park, ID for a George brothers family reunion.  We reserved a cabin big enough for the whole family to stay in and a garage for all of the four-wheelers, of course.  It was fun for kids and adults alike to spend a few days in the mountains playing.  The weather even cooperated with us, so we got to go on four-wheeler rides everyday.

Cardston (cousin) and Barrett

We visited Mesa Falls one day.  It was amazing!  The falls are huge and make this lush, green area around it because of the mist.

Another day we went to Big Springs where there is a natural spring with huge fish to watch.  The seahawks and muskrat got most of the bread we were trying to feed the fish though.  That day we also went into West Yellowstone to watch movie at the IMAX theater.  That is the most realistic movie I have been to.  It felt like you were right on the cliffs and flying over the mountains--it made Aubree cry sometimes though.

The past two weeks have been swimming lessons for Kellon and Barrett.  They had them every weekday at 9 am.  I am so proud of how much progress they have made since last year.  Kellon has really overcome his fear of the water and Barrett has matured a lot in his ability to take instruction from the teachers.  They both got to jump off of the diving board today.  That still scares me, but I didn't tell them that. :~)  The pictures are really dark, but hopefully you can get the idea.  I took some cute video that showed the little fish in action, too, but I don't know how to put that on here.  Aubree was a great spectator.  She wanted to get into the water so bad, but she settled for playing with the other younger siblings that were up in the balcony watching, too.

Pictures of the Kids

It's been about a month ago now that my sister-in-law Annette took pictures of the kids in our orchard when it was all in full bloom. Aubree decided to be a stinker and not give her usual smile very freely. Kellon had the cheesy grin a lot, but Barrett was his genuine self. I love a lot of the pictures, so it is hard for me to pick a few to post. Annette and the kids really did a great job!

Aubree did get in a few good grins.

I have now come to realize for myself that the more kids you get in a picture, the harder it is get all of them to stay still and smile all at the same time. I can't imagine working with four next time. :~)

What a handsome bunch!

We had to get one on the four-wheeler for Daddy.

The boys told Aunt Annette to take a picture of the bees on the tree. We were all amazed that she actually caught one in this shot.

Past Two Months in Review

Okay, I know that my "long" stint of consistently blogging was not all that long, but now I am trying to make up for it.  I have been taking some pictures all along, but the call of the outdoors has been stronger than the call of my outdated blog.  We have had a few really nice days, some even without wind.

I am so proud of Kellon!  He has learned how to ride a two-wheeler bike so quickly.  I finally convinced him to let me take off the training wheels after he was having trouble making sharp turns and riding over big bumps with them.  He was really nervous for the first time, so he thought it would be a good idea to try it out on the grass with a helmet.  He never even missed a beat in the transition.  There were no crashes and still haven't been any major ones (that I know of) in the past 1 1/2 months on two wheels.  Now Barrett gets the tricycle all to himself, except for the occasional passenger named Aubree.

For those of you who don't know, my sister, Teecee, and I do some catering and custom baking in our "free time" under the name Sisters' Sweets.  We got the the opportunity to have a table at a bridal fair in Cody at a beautiful new hotel called Cody.  It was a fun day for us to spend together, and Brice is really good about watching the kids while we do our little events.  It was fun to visit with passers-by and try to drum up some business.  We don't do any paid advertising, so this was our attempt to get our name out in some different crowds and towns in the Big Horn Basin area.  I am not sure how successful it was, but time will tell.  I think that getting to eat the leftovers was worth it.

What do you think--is it real or fake?

These are some tuxedo chocolate dipped strawberries and petit fours (sponge cake dipped in chocolate frosting)

One of our specialties, especially around the holidays is cheesecake.  This is real, and we enjoyed eating it all up afterwards.

Our appetizer sample was bruschetta (like Italian salsa) with toast and crackers.  Behind the food is our portfolio of wedding cakes.

This pirate birthday cake is our latest creation.

We dyed some pretty awesome Easter eggs on Monday after Easter Sunday this year.  I am not big into the Easter bunny or the non-religious parts of Easter, so we usually save them for after the actual holiday.  I did get away with dyeing the eggs while Aubree was sleeping since I was unassisted in my supervision efforts.  The boys couldn't believe we could still eat the eggs after we turned them orange, green, and some unnamed colors.  We all enjoyed the egg salad later in the week though.  Kellon even commented that he could eat egg salad sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday because they are so good.

I don't know what these faces were all about except maybe fear after I threatened them not to spill any of that dye.

Aubree had a memorable experience with the potty seat one day.  She had been wanting to sit on the potty, mostly for fun because nothing productive in the way of training ever happened.  That evening I was trying to fix dinner when she wanted to sit on the potty.  I told her it would be a minute, so she went into the bathroom by herself.  I should have been suspicious at this point.  Soon after, there was screaming coming from the bathroom.  I found Aubree with the potty seat stuck over her head and very distraught.  Instinctively, I just pulled it off, but in the process her eye got cut.  We got so many comments on her eye in the following days.  Most of the time I would tell the whole story to just about anyone.  I know in 15 years she will really love looking back on this experience.  These pictures were posed about 2 days after the incident, so the cut did look even worse at first.