Sharon and Brad's openhouse

While I'm not in top form, my sister and her hubby are doing great!  I thought I'd share a couple pictures from their Openhouse yesterday. 

The sweet newlyweds...

Evelyn abandoned me for someone who is more sympathetic to her plights... such as her popcorn bag ripping when she rips it out of my hands instead of taking it nicely.

New Grandpa again... 2 new grandbabies in 3 months.

Evelyn and both grandmas

The Gilchrists

The cake cutting... after about 10 years of making everyone else's cakes, Sharon made her own.  It was super cute and the fruit was super yummy.

Evelyn and her "Bear Lake friend" Kat  (my cousin Landon's youngest)

Tball

Shoe shopping for daddy

Bear Lake week 2

When it got warm we gathered sea shells in the sand, made hand puppets, played with cousins, etc...  I'm so grateful for family and Bear Lake... gave me a recharge.

 

Sam and Braiden

Ada and Emma

Maggie and Evelyn

Ada "posing" for the camera

Evelyn, Devin, Jordan and Lance

3 headed mermaid

Seth and all his ducklings.  They all went on a frog hunt, didn't find any frogs but did find other cool things like golf balls, sea shells, etc...

Jordan was upset that Evelyn was teasing Seth by taking his hat away.

Bear Lake Week 1

Last week, Jer was on a week long scout camp... and I really needed time away. So, it was a good thing that it was an Ellis week at Bear Lake.  I took the kids up there on a cold day and we stayed until it got warm.  It was so fun.  The kids just played at the cabin, playing Sammy's games, drawing with sidewalk chalk, swinging on the swings, etc... We couldn't get the fire started the first day, but lucky for me, we were able to stay in the cabin which is warmer and I didn't have to set anything up except beds. 

 

 

New niece

I have a new niece!  Susan is a sweet little bundle and I can't wait to get to know her.  She was born on Thursday and we went up on Sunday to hold her and steal her away from everyone else.  Congrats John and Diane!  You done good!





Laundry

Of course, the day that I get all caught up on laundry from Jers camping trip, our camping trip and just a back up of stuff I hadn't washed....

Both Sam and Ada peed the bed.  Ada's still in pull-ups, I have no idea how she keeps peeing the bed with a pull up on... The best part?

1- Sam insists that he didn't pee the bed.  It's just a giant puddle of sweat, that happens to smell like pee.  He was also very angry that I insisted on him taking a shower and changing his bedding, because it's just sweat.

2- Ada just got up to get dressed this morning.  She only does this if she's peed the bed.  When I caught her at it, I told her to go jump in the shower and get clean before she comes and helps strip the bed.  I didn't yell, but I did tell her that she needs to tell me when she pees the bed so we can take care of it.  She had a total crying break down.  She would rather not "get in trouble" for peeing the bed and would rather just let the pee dry on her sheets and sleep on it tomorrow... and not shower and just have pee on her the whole day... I have never assigned chores, put in time out, etc... when she's peed the bed.  I have lost my temper when she pees the bed for several days in a row and I've been washing sheets over and over again... and I've made her change her sheets.  Does that constitute "getting in trouble"?  I guess in her mind it does.

Grrr children.  Enough tantrums and just take care of the problem.

Another one bites the dust

So Ada just lost her 9th tooth... And I do mean lost it.  She didn't realize it was missing for a while.

Dear Scout Camp Daddy

Today went pretty well. Ada loved her first day of ballet. She danced all the way to the car. We ran a bunch of errands and your Dad brought Emma and Lizzie over to browse our movie library... I think they're in heaven. I thought about mowing the lawn but did some Internet shopping instead. I took the kitchen garbage out and an still have the heeby jeebies. I opened the garbage can lid and a bunch of little crawly worms came inching out of the can... I can't think of where they would come from except maybe the ribs that turned green after three days in the fridge... Maybe they had worms too? Bleech.  I'm not sure what to do to kill them, I'm not sure if they'll spread out die out... But I want to take a shower now.

potty training and bike training

Ada finally was brave enough to ask for the training wheels to be taken off her bike... I'm very proud of her.

Evelyn asked to be put into panties this week.  She does really good until dinner time... then she's done and doesn't want to bother.  We'll keep trying.

Evelyn was skating on the Candyland game... very carefully following the game board.  Cutie.

water

I've been watering the lawn a bunch this week... it doesn't seem to do any good, but maybe I'll keep the grass from dying.  But that means that my kids are all very wet pretty much all the time.  The other day, we just turned it into a swimming party.  All the Simonsen's grandkids that were here for the week and some neighborhood kids came.  They turned our slide into a water slide and had "carnival" dunking games involving a bucket and a ball.  It was really fun to watch. 

Fencing competition

My kids are losing steam, maybe because I am... we just had another fencing competition.  They were not excited.  Sam got 2nd though, so he was pretty proud of himself... it was the first time in about a year that he's placed over Ada... Ada got 3rd and was pretty disappointed.  I've asked one of the fencing dads that fences at BYU to coach the next class during the summer.  I think it would be good for the kids to have some teaching variety and maybe get more motivation and fun out of it.  And, I won't be teaching a class 9 months pregnant. 

Sam

Ada

Sam and Ada fencing each other

Our class, Evelyn, Ada, Sam, James, and Daniel

Daniel was less excited to get a medal... he wanted the trophy, but his brother got it and Daniel came in 4th.  Poor kid, life just isn't always what we want.