Fun with cousins

Something I love about living in Utah is that it is middle ground for my family.  It seems like there is always someone coming through, especially in the summer.  I love getting to check nieces and nephews into sports/EFY camps and being their transport service.  I love hanging out with them.  This summer first Tom came to visit.  He stayed with us in between camps so we had some extra time to play.  We went hiking up to Donut Falls which was fun but crazy busy.

 All smiles!

 We loved Tom coming along.

 We also got to have Sam and Seth come out.  I took Seth down to basketball camp.  Sam was supposed to go too, but since he broke his arm, he got to hang out with us instead.  We got snow cones...

and went hiking...

and went to Lagoon.  I hope he had fun because we sure did!

 Except for maybe Abby.  We kind of just brought her along on some of the kiddie rides like the roller coaster.  It was so funny to hear her be like, "Woah".  She did this one twice though so that's a good thing!

Sara rocked her awesome glasses all day!

Matt turns 12!

Matt had a big birthday this year and to say he was excited for it would be an understatement!  It was also his last day of sixth grade and elementary school.  He is really looking forward to middle school.  I offered to let him skip school but since it was just a party day, he decided to go.  The sixth graders had been practicing softball and they got to play some of the teachers and the principal that day.  Matt was really excited.  The teachers ended up winning but it was mostly just because they had to hit the ball hard because they were all too old to run the bases fast.  I was talking with Kate's teacher afterwards and she said, "Oh, I pulled a hamstring running to first base!"  It made me laugh.

 Sadly, Matt is not having as much fun cheering for the Rockies since they have a bit of a hard time winning games.  And especially now that Tulowitzki has been traded...  He asked for lots of Angels gear this year.  I'm ok with that.  Hopefully soon the Rockies will get it together and he'll come back to us!

 Another exciting thing for Matt was to get braces on!  Woo hoo!  He had no idea what was coming.  But his crooked teeth have been bothering him for years.  He hasn't opened his mouth for a picture in a long time which has made me sad that he's felt self conscious about that.  It's sad to see kids lose that innocence.  The braces were rough, but he's gotten used to them now.  There are SO many orthodontists in Utah.  It is overwhelming to try to choose.  I literally chose this one because this sign cracks me up.  His office is right next to Kate's dance studio so I've laughed about this one for years.  Our dentist knows him and said he was a good one and we met him and he seems pretty laid back so I hope it's a good choice!

 After the braces, before the pain!  This isn't a great picture of him but I love Kate's photo bomb!

 Another exciting thing was to take him to the temple to do baptisms for the dead.  That was a very special night.  Matt has done some work looking for ancestors and he was able to do the baptisms for some of the males and I did the females.  That was pretty neat!

 He also got to go to scout camp for an entire week!  He had an awesome time.  He has a good group of boys to be with and I'm glad about that.  We missed him but we had some good girl time when he was gone.

 Before school started Matt and his friends wanted to go do baptisms for the dead again.  I'm so glad he's got such good friends!

I teased him and Elijah about being matchy matchy twins!  Ha ha!

This has been a fun summer and birthday for Matt.  A lot of neat things happen when you turn 12!  I didn't get any pictures of the weekend he was ordained to the Priesthood.  We were so glad to have so much family come.  Matt loved especially having his cousin Tom and Scott be able to be here. Pretty awesome!

Cattle drive

The kids, as always, were very excited for the cattle drive.  Unfortunately, we had to squeeze it in between baseball tournament games so we didn't get to stick around for very long.  The kids still had a great time, especially because they got to ride horses for so long!

Actual cowboy work at the beginning.

Oops, the cows are the other way!

Hanging with cousins and horses!

Abby was definitely scared of the big horses at first, but she quickly warmed up to them.

Pretty soon she was even willing to sit on the saddle.

Sara was in horse riding heaven all day!

As was Kate. 

All the kids got to ride by themselves.  They felt pretty cool.

I think Sara rode every one of Grandpa's horses.

It was all fun and games until Sam broke his arm...on the four wheeler.  He and Matt were riding and, well, an unseen ditch was sort of in the way!  He was a pretty tough kid though.  And how about that splint made out of a hammer and an ice scraper and duct tape!

Hanging with the cousins is the best part!

Here's a video my sister in law made of the day.

Random video catch up

These videos are all from the end of the spring.  I definitely need to take some new ones.  Especially of Abby on her bike and Tulo.

We got Abby a strider bike.  She's pretty fast on it now.  Hopefully it will help her ride a big bike sooner because she won't ever be on training wheels and she's already learning how to balance her bike. 



I'm grooming Abby to play basketball.  I want at least one of my children to.  And she's pretty tall right now... And she loves balls...

Sara loves gymnastics and does it everywhere.

Sara can now do a back walkover and is close to a back handspring.  But this was a big moment for her!

South Jordan fun.  I love that we live in a little bit country town.  Kate, Sara and Matt all did it and got somewhere between 9 and 12 dollars, or something like that.  Fun!

She loves her dog!

At our stake carnival, Kate and Sara both did the dunk tank.  They had fun.  I only got video of Kate.

Baseball season

Matt was very excited for baseball season to begin and I was very glad. I'm glad that he has something that he enjoys.  He has played on the same team as a few boys for the past few years and has gotten to be pretty good friends with them. We were all looking forward to this season. 

The coach gives out a game ball after each game. Throughout the season it's amazing how each boy legitimately does something to honestly earn it. It might be something that they have specifically been working on and not be flashy but they've worked hard. I was very proud of Matt because there were several games that the coach could have given him the game ball but for whatever reason gave it to someone else. I told Matt he might not always be the showiest player but he's become very dependable and consistent and I'm very proud of him for that. 

It turned out that Matt's team was pretty awesome. They tied with another team for first place in the league!! To break the tie they looked at the number of runs given up and Matt's team gave up the fewest runs!! My coaches always said defense wins games. It turns out that defense wins championships too! It was totally exciting!!

These girls have gotten to be pretty good friends. They spent a lot of time playing at the park together and we'd all bring various toys to play with. The joke of the season was one boy threw one of their my little ponies on top of the snack shack and it stayed there all season. It was pretty funny. It was a fun season. They made it to the second round of the tournament and got eliminated but that was ok. They had fun and learned a lot.