Peter and The Wolf

This is one of our favorite pics of Lincoln His imagination goes wild! Today he was Peter and the Wolf. In the pic you can see that he very planned out his adventure very carefully. He has his seat, that he bought himself from a garage sale for $1. He is holding his own toy gun, ready for the wolf. Under his chair you will see a backpack that he brought everything outside with. It's placed under his chair until he's finished. The pumpkin in front was holding his gun and is now ready to put the wolf in after he shoots him. The chair next to him is simply there to hold his snack, a well-balanced diet of cheerios in a cup! His hat is obviously to shade his face. It was so low over his eyes that I requested him pull it up for the picture! Thank you, Lincoln! Now, if anyone came outside he would yell, "Sorry, can't come out here! I'm busy hunting." That was it. And he kept facing forward. We had a great time watching him through the window. Did he catch a wolf, you ask? You'll have to ask him the next time you see him!

Samuel's Birthday-7

Samuel loves his birthday in the summer since we can swim every family party. Since his birthday landed on Sunday this year we decided to make him a cake. Well, as you can see, my kids don't care what it looks like. This football cake was made and the frosting was so runny! He had fun decorating it himself, though, and best of all eating it! His cousin, Daniel, is also in the picture. We love having him over to play a lot with the boys. They live so close, so we were able to invite them over last minute for cake and ice cream when we sang to Samuel.

Hyrum the Lego Man

Hyrum LOVES legos! He has been receiving lego magazines for about a year now and found a contest he wanted to enter. We don't know the results yet, but he's spent a lot of time and thought to creating this space ship!

Our July Blessing

So, as Greg is the Scoutmaster in our area he volunteered to attend Geronimo. Boy, was he in for a lot of work which I'm sure paid off. He left for the week and I was faced with my own fears of being alone. Yes, even though I have six kids I depend so much on Greg that this was good for me. I found myself on my knees quite often pleading for strength to get through the next moment and I can testify that the Lord is always there! I felt His strength. As I reflect on the week I think of Peter. I, like Peter, was "walking on water" the first few days and everything went smoothly. When my doubts set in, however, and the following 3 days were shaky. Prayer, strength from good friends, and trying to exercise more faith is what carried me through. Yes, he'll be going on future week-long adventures, so I'm excited to see what it will bring.

Now, the funny part of all this (I can laugh now) is what surprise Orson brought to the week. As you can tell by his shirt he really means no harm. If you can't see it, it says "it seemed like a good idea at the time." He is full of curiosity. It's expensive to have a curious son around, though. Midweek, of Geronimo, he was going about tapping windows, wall, and finally the TV with a door handle that had been broken off the back sliding door. The wall and windows survived. The 50 inch HDTV did not! Boy, my heart sank knowing the price of this and how fun it was to surprise Greg with the purchase when we first moved in.

So, the rest of the story? Well, we kept it up for a week. I informed Greg over the phone when he called to say hello. I think he was missing us enough, for his response was, "I love my son more than the TV. Oh well." My fears subsided! I never thought I'd ever say this, but it has been the biggest blessing! A week after Greg was home we carried the TV down from off the entertainment center, turned it so the screen was against the wall, and asked the boys if they would like to help take it apart. Boy, oh boy! They were as excited as if we were going to Disneyland. For the next hour Greg and his 4 sons had screw drivers, the power drill, and wire cutters and had a blast taking this apart. They each kept a piece of it for a remembrance, which I think have all been thrown away by now. Yes, this was recorded as part of school!

A blessing, you say? Yes, and here's how. When there's no HDTV the stations are limited! What's on the basic stations? Nothing we want in our home, so it has been quite peaceful. Since we can't replace the TV for a while, we've brought a smaller tube one from upstairs to put on the entertainment center for the weekends when we want to turn a movie on for the family.

I could go on, but I think you get the point. Yes, this will be a remembrance!

Taylor Reunion 2009

The week after the Phelps Reunion we enjoyed one more reunion up in Pinedale! The kids were in heaven with two weeks of vacation!

Phelps Reunion 2009

We loved the time we spent with the Phelps family for 3 days the end of May. Greg was in charge and planned all the activities around town here. We enjoyed all of it! I think the kids loved the Zoo most of all!

Heritage Graduation 2009

Since I'm trying to catch up, I found some fun pics to add to the blog. Greg and I planned to attend the graduation for Heritage Academy back in May. When Mary heard that Brooke White was coming as the keynote speaker she really wanted to come. Mary loves to hear Brooke sing and has the desire to become a singer with high standards, like Brooke!!!

Mary's Creation!

Mary's been having fun learning more about the computer! You'll have to see what she created.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Father's Day Gift

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Sew! Sew! Sew!

I loved making this apron for Greg's mom! It was my first Lily Apron and Greg even modeled it for me. My mother-in-law was ready for her Birthday celebration!

One Week of EXCITEMENT!!! (ha ha)

We've all heard of Curious George, right? Well, I'm wondering if I need to rename my son George. His curiosity is keeping me on my toes. Since this is one week's worth of excitement, I thought I'd blog it for future posterity! Here's what he's been up to this week:

• He loves to paint w/ permanent paint in his brother's room. The design was amazing! The clean up was a pain.....
  
• While walking to his bedroom to get a diaper he chose to leave a trail on the floor so I would know exactly where he was. More stains and the smell is never bearable!
  
• Mary's fish is now in Heaven. He's safer there, though. With an overwhelming amount of food being dumped in his bowl every other day and being stirred round and round with a FORK, I think I'd rather die & be flushed down the toilet also!
• One of Orson's past time favorites is painting himself with Desitin, the baby ointment that doesn't come off! I thought he was over that, but he lovingly reminded me that putting any ointment anywhere under 6 ft. is bound to be spread around.
• He loves to dress himself.....anyway he wants. I love to let him! I've been dressing babies long enough. The picture is an example of one of his styles. Did his Dad teach him this? hmmmm...