Uli's Birthday

We have been celebrating Uli's birthday with him for about 7 years I think. Carter would bring him every summer, and I would make a cake for him, and we would have a little party for him. I have made some neat cakes for him. After a few years, Carter started trying his hand at the cakes. He made a cool pirate cake, space shuttle cake, and air craft carrier cake. Last yeat, Uli and Reed shared an Army cake, and they helped decorate it. It has been a fun tradition. You know he's growing up when they want a grown-up cake. This year it was chocolate cake, with a cream cheese swirl, and chocolate chips melted on top. It was really good, but in some ways, I miss all of that disgusting colored globs of frosting. I guess I don't miss that as much. I just sometimes can hardly believe how fast these kids are growing up. Sometimes I wish we could suspend time for just a little while longer. But I know that is not possible. So I guess the trick is to just enjoy each stage as they come, and make the most out of the time we have with our kids. We love Uli, and are so glad to have shared so many birthday's with him.

Not only is he choosing grown up cakes, he is lighting his own candles!

The kids all enjoyed celebrating with Uli!

If You Can't Stand The Heat, Get Out Of The Kitchen

We spent 5 weeks of our summer without our swamp cooler. We ordered a part that was supposed to take 1 week to come in. Well, it took WAY longer that a week. Then, when we did get the part, it was the wrong one. To say that we were frustrated was an understatement. But we lived through it, and somehow survived. During this time, we bought a picnic table off of KSL.com and started eating out on the patio every night. It really helped, and it really pleasant to be out there in the evening.

One night we had Navajo taco's. They were so yummy and colorful, that I decided to take a picture. Nothing I cooks usually looks yummy, or very colorful, so when I do come up with something, I need to document it!

When we finally got it fixed, I was in heaven. I won't take cold air for granted again. We are so blessed with our conveniences.

Natural History Museum

We went to the Museum of Natural of History with the kids and Uncle Scott on free museum day. We had a good time, but there were so many people it was nuts! The kids didn't know that though. It was fun to have Uncle Scott come along.

McCray's Birthday

McCray had a a great Eighth birthday. Aunt Erin and Uncle Kelly gave him a camera, and he got a couple of other gifts. The best part of his birthday was that he gets to be baptized.

Blessings From Our Garden

Our garden is coming on strong. I have really enjoyed it, especially since we got the earwig infestation controlled a little better. It is great to be able to go out and pick what you want to eat for dinner that night. I just wanted to show some of the things I picked one night.

Look Mom, I caught a fish!

This year we had a Payne family reunion on Logan. We had a wonderful time. There is nothing better than spending time with your family. We all really enjoyed it. One morning while the guys were out shooting, we did a little fishing pond activity with the kids. They put a rope down over the balcony, and then Grandma Payne would fill up their bag with a treat. Now that is my kind of fishing!

I can actually stand to eat this kind of fish!

The kids each got a Pez dispenser. Andrew thought his Thomas was pretty neat.

All of the kids showing off their treats.

We also went to the city park to the fishing pond. We went a couple of years ago, and it was so beautiful. This time it was really mossy and hard to not get your line caught in gunk.

Henry was hoping he could scare a fish onto his line? :)

Morgan got all comfy to do her fishing. Maybe she was on to something. She was the only one who actually caught a fish.

All of the kids had to come and check it out as Uncle Kent was trying to put it back into the water.

Reed trying his hand at fishing.

Camille enjoyed it for a few minutes.

Grandpa was helping teach the kids how it is done.

Look what Wesley caught! Way to go Wes!

This was a lot of what we caught- MOSS!

I love this picture of Jason and Luke. There's nothing like hanging out with your dad fishing.

Thanks Mom and Dad for a wonderful reunion!

Temple Square With the Halgrens

After our family reunion, Lindsay and her kids came and stayed fro a few days. We all really enjoyed having them here. We mostly let the kids play, but one day we took them down to temple square to see the childrens museum. They seemed to have a really fun time.

They had a little exhibit about families, which included babies. Morgan and Clara thought that was pretty great and spent a considerable amount of time mothering their little babies. I think it is amazing how little girls are drawn to babies, and know how to take care of them at such a young age.

The others kids found lots of other neat things to play with.

Ellis enjoyed the magnet maze

Reed and McCray built temples out of some neat blocks.

Lindsay and Ellis enjoyed playing with the sheep.
(Great picture of you Lindsay)

Oscar had a great time- the kids were showing him the sheep puppets, and he was cracking up!

Henry was coloring the stained glass windows.

After the museum, we waled over to see the temple. What a bunch of great kids!

Days of 47 Youth Festival

After the kids were in the Days of 47 Youth Parade, they had a childrens festival downtown. I am SOOO glad that we went. We all had a blast!



Joy and her kids came with us to the parade and the park, which made it that much more fun.



Everything is way more fun if your cousins are there!



Everything at the event was FREE. That was so nice for the kids. We usually never do things like this, or just let the kids choose one ride or something like that. This way they got to do whatever they wanted, as many times as they wanted to. They had bounce houses, slides, obstacle courses, you name it. Home depot was there and each kids got an apron, and a wooden project that they could make. Tons of neat things.



One of the things I thought was the most fun, were the fire trucks. There were two trucks there. One got it's hose out, and was spraying the kids. They would spray the hoses and tons of kids were running through them. I really got a kick out of it when the prissy ladies were in the back trying to not get wet. The mischievous firefighters could see them, and would turn up their hoses, and SOAK them. It happened to us a bit too. Those hoses don't just spray a little mist. They soak you. This was so much fun to me. The boys really had fun with it too.



Joy and her boys got it, but the boys didn't think it was very funny....

They had a miniature Union Pacific train that they were giving rides on. The kids really love this. It was really neat.





There is nothing like a fun day playing with your family to make a person happy. Thanks Joy and kids for joining us...We are so glad you were able to!