Emily

This girl got her ears pierced this summer!!
We usually do ear piercing for the 7th birthday, but the girls...all of them...were begging and begging for me to let Emily do it now. Emily is not at all good with pain so I thought if she is begging now I figured I'd better get it done before she gets herself too worked up and scared to do it. We are all glad that Dad was good with it too. Emily did great...just flinched a little and we also realized that doing it during a relaxing day in the summer will be much better than being in the mall the 1st part of December/Christmas season!

Oh...and one more stipulation! I told the girls that I do NOT want to hear about this 20 years from now. Anyone with siblings understands this one right?! "Mom was so much more lenient with the younger ones. She let Emily get her ears pierced before she turned 7!" It is written here! They ALL begged and begged! :)





I have really missed Emily this school year! She is gone all day and I miss the fun things we would do together and of course wish that we had done more! I really miss seeing that sweet smile over top of the Guess Who board! She has transitioned amazingly into being gone all day! She is a hard worker and wants to make her teacher happy so I know she will do great!

We miss you Emily Lynne! We love you beautiful girl!

Taylor

Here is our cute Taylor Marie! But usually we see her like this:



This girl is full of so much energy! She was pretty sick last week (just a fever...not at all related to the story below) and anyone that saw her in her lethargic, exhausted state knew that something was definitely wrong. That was not the Taylor Marie that we all know and love.

We learned some interesting things about Taylor this summer. She has what we (hopefully respectfully) call the Michael Jackson disease: Vitiligo. She's had these little white spots all over her body, but mostly around her knees, for quite some time and this summer we really noticed that they had gotten bigger and even spread. When I saw the one on her eye I knew I wanted to get her right in. We have tried a couple of different things and have recently had huge success with a certain cream we've been trying. I wish we could get decent pictures to show the difference between this first picture on Matt's camera phone:



and the pictures below where the pigment is starting to come back where her hair follicles are. It is so interesting. These spots used to be pure white...which is scary for a girl that loves to be in the sun, but we have kept sunscreen on her and tried to do just as the Doctors say.

My dad was visiting with a sweet lady in California who had the same thing. It seems like now there are more and more treatments for it but when she was young there weren't any and so hers has spread all over. She and her husband were talking about how maybe they should spend the thousands of dollars to treat it, but as they thought about it the husband had said something like, "You know....I fell in love with you and married you because of who you are. Whether you have the spots or not I'm still gonna love you!" They decided to not mess with the treatment.

We thought that was a sweet story. Taylor has such spunk and energy that people just love her for who she is. It's been nice to know what this is and yes, even see some results, but if she were to live with this her whole life she is definitely the type of girl that really wouldn't care! She is so care free and full of life that she will take whatever comes her way!
Love you Taylor girl! You are beautiful inside and out!

Kaylee

Hey hey hey! I am almost completely caught up on all pictures, posts, and journals. I did NOT do very well on writing in the kids' journals last year, so since I have 5 kids and there are 5 days during the week each kid is gonna get a day where I will just type for a few minutes some of their comings and goings and funny sayings from the week before. It just needs to be short because short is much better than what I accomplished (or didn't accomplish) last year! This week I'll do a blog post for each of them too and that should tie up all of the loose ends and random pictures from summer!

Is this Kaylee girl growing up too fast or what?! She is my little buddy lately. She likes to stay closer to my side and when there are parties or gatherings she seems to gravitate to the adults a little bit more lately. She is definitely in that little girl to young woman transition mode!

I LOVE everything about having a girl as the oldest! She is a 2nd mom which really is so helpful....sometimes we have our moments. She is so good about being one step ahead of me and knowing what it is that I am going to want help with.

I LOVE my Kaylee girl! Her siblings love her too! I was gonna say she has such a sweet bond with Thomas...then I was gonna say with Kierra....then I realized she has such special bonds with all of us in the house. She takes care of us and we love her for that! She is always busy (usually on the computer) working up some sort of game or activity for the kids to do. Here they were playing restaurant and she had quite the menu with a cover and everything! She does so much fun stuff for all of us!



Last week we were able to go on a little mommy/daughter date to see THIS concert up in Salt Lake. We went with some great friends and had a blast! Those 2 girls keep us young and LOVE the stage! :) They are beautiful!

Kaylee! You are wonderful! Love you!

National Anthem time again!

National Anthem time again!

Every year with the Lehi Children's Choir we do 1 or 2 ball games and the kids LOVE it!

Here we are rehearsing!
These were some of the better videos and pictures that I've gotten. Poor Catherine...in past years I always seemed to stand right behind her to take the pictures and the videos...this year I wised up and took the video from the side....meaning no beautiful backside of Catherine ;) and I got all 3 of my girlies in the shot!



Now we wait! It was warm warm warm down there! (and stinky) :)





And we're on!



We had a great time watching the game...even though the Bees lost!
We LOVE that Grandma and Grandpa come!
It was a great night!

Friends

Wow, as I look back through pictures to get caught up and make sure I didn't miss anything I see that we really did have a great summer playing with so many friends! Every once in a while I remember to capture the moments. I wish I could capture more to remember everyone that we LOVE to be with all summer long!

...there was musicals...



...creating recipes...



...school...



...dress up...



...lunch dates...



...Florida friends...
(...no wait...those are Wyoming friends!) ;)



Some unhappy friends trying to get in through the screen!
(sorry for the graphic picture...yeah for Grandpa Gardner who "got the mouse!") :)


...the royal spa treatment...

(hmm...looks like the older girls got the better end of this deal ;) actually...they all look like they are having a blast!
Our basement has smelled so good all summer long!)





...toddlers and tiaras and many a fashion show or play...



...and many other friends and get-togethers that I wish I had taken pictures of!

I think of the many nights out in someone's driveway or with teenagers running around playing 007! I feel like I pull my camera out and point it in people's faces too much, but still I wish I took my camera out more to capture just the relaxing days and nights of summer.

Thanks for a fun summer everyone! Hope the 1st week of school has been going well, and hey...the weekend is coming up! :)

Antelope Island

The Saturday before school started we decided to go to Antelope Island. We wanted to do one more thing before school started and go somewhere we hadn't been. Then we decided to drag some friends along too! :) It's an interesting place and quite a drive in 2 separate cars when you'd rather just be hanging out and visiting with friends, but we had a great time!

It really is a pretty barren land and we only saw a few buffalo. There were some campsites and nice pavilions there so it might be fun to camp there close to the water, but there are zero trees, so it would be hot!




We stopped in at the visitor's center, then went to one of the pavilions for lunch and then went to the water.





The mommas and some of the younger kids didn't get to go quite as far out into the water as the older kids, so we stayed closer to the little rock island, but those that went further had a blast! The Great Salt Lake is exactly that...a lake of salt....so you float. Matt talked about how if you inhaled you'd really float up and then as you exhaled you'd sink back down, but you really could never drown. I wish I could've gone in further to take pictures of them floating and to try it.

It was a fun trip. We need to look around more, because it would be fun to go to the lake again, but not have to drive clear around to antelope island again. Maybe the marina on the west side....we'll have to ask around. We LOVED having our good friends with us! You guys are awesome! We'll have to plan another adventure soon!



Ha ha! That sand was HOT HOT!! Hurry!