Latest trip to Utah

Since Di and Brian were both in Utah visiting family, I thought I should take advantage of the opportunity to go see them too. So on Sunday after I taught my Sunday School lesson in church, the kids and I left Bryce (giving him a Father's Day present of some solitude for a few days) and drove to Utah. My mom was nice (thank you!), and not wanting me to have to drive there by myself with all the kids, flew De (thank you too!) up to drive down with me. It was nice to have another adult there to help with the kids if I needed it.

We had a busy couple of days there, going to Lagoon on Monday and to the Hogle Zoo on Tuesday, then heading back on Wednesday. It was nice to be able to see everyone and to get to meet a niece I've never met before (Savannah). And thanks to Mom and Dad T for letting me stay with them!

So here are some pictures from the trip. First are some pictures from Lagoon. Ben says his favorite ride was the white roller coaster. He had me take him on it twice. I thought it scared him the first time and he wouldn't want to go again, but he liked it. Alex (who wasn't tall enough for the roller coaster) said his favorite ride was the Log Flume. Chris seemed to like all the rides he rode on, except for Rattlesnake Rapids. He didn't like that one at all, especially because he got the wettest in our raft. Daniel's first ride was the merry-go-round and he cried through most of it, but then decided that the rides were fun and seemed to enjoy all of them.

Brian and some others (I can't remember who was in his raft) getting wet in Rattlesnake Rapids:


Ben and Alex in the bumper cars:


Chris in the bumper cars:


Alex in the boat:


Chris and Daniel in the boat:


Ben and Alex in a plane:


The 4 boys in a couple of planes:


Ben and Alex in the car:


Chris in the car (Daniel got out and is by the gate):


Isabel in the car:


And now some from the zoo. Ben says his favorite thing at the zoo was seeing the rhinos. Everyone else liked the bird show.

The boys are playing with the big ball:


Ben on the elephant trunk:


Alex, Chris, and Daniel on the trunk:


Alex showing me his ticket:


And finally, since we were all together, we thought we'd take some pictures of us all together. Unfortunately for my camera at least, one of the boys had played with it and switched it from pictures to video, so mine are video. But here's us all together:

This first one is just of us siblings. And man, it's either the angle that makes the shirt make me look huge or it's the shirt or both. It has to be either the angle or the shirt, right?


This second one has Mom and Dad with us too:


And this one is the best example of what happens when you don't know the camera is on video instead of pictures. But this is all of us as before, but with all the grandkids (except for Kady and Kelly, who were in Cedar City for a soccer camp):

Daniel's 2nd Birthday

Today is Daniel's 2nd birthday. In some ways it seems so crazy that he's 2 already, and in other ways it seems like he's been 2 forever. But either way, the day is here and our youngest boy is now officially 2 years old.

Here he was when he was just born. His face was a little bruised from coming out so fast:


Here he is when he was only 5 months old. He was already a cutie:


Here he is a year ago:


Here he was 2 months ago:


Daniel loves going to the zoo, so despite the fact that it was raining this morning, I took him with his brothers and sister to the zoo for his birthday. He was pretty excited to go. And luckily, not too long after we got there, it stopped raining. The rain did make it so the zoo wasn't crowded at all, so that was nice too.

We started out looking at the monkeys, which are Daniel's favorite. They've got an inside enclosure, which made it nice for when it was raining. After the monkeys, we headed over to look at the lions. They also have an indoor viewing area, so that was nice too. Especially nice because all 3 lions were lying next to the windows there to stay out of the rain. Ben and Daniel were the first over to look at them and were saying hi to the lions, when the male decided they were bugging him and attacked the glass. The boys all thought it was hilarious, of course, so they kept dancing by it and yelling at it to make it do it again, which it did 2 more times. The female next to the male didn't think it was nice to be disturbed from her nap.

Here you can see Ben and Daniel looking at the lions:


Here is the front view of a very sleepy-looking lion:


If you look closely in this picture, you can see that the lion's mouth is open in warning. Yep, there was a half inch of plexiglass between the boys and instant death:


In this picture, Daniel is playing with a penguin:


Here's another view:


Right as we got to the zebra enclosure, the zebras were chasing each other around and making lots of noise. The hyenas nearby thought it was pretty interesting. This one is one of the zebras coming up to say hi:


Here's a shot of both zebras:


This is Alex's picture of the hyenas. They match their rocks, so they're kind of hard to see:


Here are all the boys looking at the hyenas:


Here the boys are playing. Alex is on a camel, the other boys are hatching from an egg:


And here the boys are sitting in the nest:


And just so she's not left out, this is how Abby spent the trip to the zoo:


So it turned out to be a fun trip to the zoo for Daniel's birthday. They got to see lots of action, it wasn't too crowded, and the weather turned out to be perfect. We came home from the zoo and cut up Daniel's birthday watermelon while I baked his birthday cake. Yes, Daniel loves watermelon and was pretty excited to see me cutting it up. He wasn't even interested in the cake when he saw the watermelon. Tonight we'll eat the cake and have Daniel open his presents. I may post pictures of that later.

But anyway, happy birthday, Daniel!

Abby's 2 Month WCC

I took Abby in to the doctor this morning for her 2 month WCC. Katie was nice again and watched the boys for me so I didn't have to take all 5 kids with me to the doctor, so thanks again!

When we went into the examination room, they did the normal weighing and measuring. She is now 23" tall (a little above the 50th percentile) and weighs 11 pounds, 5 ounces (also a little above the 50th percentile). They decided they needed to weigh her twice though, since she was 8 pounds a month ago. But yes, the scale was accurate. One more pound and she'll have doubled her birth weight. They measured her head and the doctor had to measure it again when he came in the room because the 13" the nurse measured it made her be off the low end of the growth scale. This time she measured at 14-5/8" (around the 15th percentile, which is where she's basically always been with that), so it was much better.

Abby didn't want to be examined, so she cried the whole time, but she checked out okay and looks healthy. She had 4 immunizations, one oral and 3 shots, none of which she liked. After we scheduled her next appointment, I had to take her down to the lab for another cbc to basically make sure she's not anemic. She didn't like that either, although she was smiling and cooing at me in the waiting room.

So Abby decided she didn't like the doctor's office today, but she's healthy and growing well and is still very cute. :)

Ben's last day of 1st Grade

Today was Ben's last day of the 1st grade. He loves school, but he was pretty excited to be able to start summer vacation. On their last day of school they had field day and had a bbq outside. He said it was a lot of fun and got to come home with a school t-shirt.

He also came home with his last report card. He did really well, but not quite as well as the last time. He got two E's (A to you and me), 4 S+'s (B+), 2 S's (B), and one I+ (C+). The I+ was in music and was due to a lack of participation. Ben says he doesn't like music class. Kind of sad since both his parents like music. His teacher said he's been working hard to improve his behavior in class and has been doing really well. So great job Ben!

It will be fun to have Ben home for the summer and a bit strange when he goes back because Alex will be starting Kindergarten too. So we're going to do our best to enjoy the summer together.