Uncle Craig & Aunt Kristin's BBQ

It's Colten (wish I had had a bubble wand like this when I was a kid):

About to wrestle and Brady was looking straight into the camera:

Pegging each other with playground balls:

Taking each other down:

Andrew about to be taken down?

Finally got both the boys in one photo, smiling - rather goofy poses - but then again, that's them:

Cayden (planning his next move?)

I'm not sure if Kaylee felt left out or was just enjoying NOT being teased by the boys:

Running straight into the camera, obviously too close - that's why his head is cut off. What I'm going for though is Andrew smiling:

This was the only photo I could get of Jackson - he was having a blast and didn't sit still for a minute:

We never did get Nat in a picture - she was doing her own thing ;)
Colten puts up a great smile - cutie!

The moon was awesome looking tonight:

Stacy's kids all thought the photo below was the best shot, they're funny:

uhhhhh, that'd be Aunt Cheri determined to take a photo while riding in the car! I'm sure at photo contests, the winning photos judged by children would be completely different than those of adults =)

Baptism & Sealing gifts

I took a Take 5 candy bar and used it for an LDS baptism gift. It says 'Gabe made covenants with Heavenly Father at baptism':
T - take upon his name
A - always remember him
K - keep the commandments
E - endure to the end
5 - serve others (I used the 5 for an S)

This candy bar worked out perfectly!

I found a neat print online of Jesus being baptized and printed it out, framed it and added a little Word Art - top says 'I'm trying to be like Jesus, I'm following in his ways' from the Primary Song.

Below is a Sealing gift I made. I took a photo of the Seattle Temple and gave it an 'effect' in a drawing application, added personal information and also added a white object each family might wear and placed it in a silver shadow box:

The baby symbol is a bow tie, the dad's is a hankie, the sister's is 2 gem bobby pins, the brother has a flower rose made from ribbon and the mom has dangling earrings.

Happy Birthday Andrew

My nephew, Andrew, is 4 today. I called to wish him a Happy Birthday and he immediately asked when he could come stay with me and then just wanted to talk with Uncle Jonathan. I barely got in a happy birthday wish....and in the background of him running away, an 'I love you too'!


We let him open his gift 2 weekends ago when we were visiting - we got him cargo pants and a shirt - he seemed to like it - I didn't ask him if he would have rather have had a toy =) He really liked the candy on top of the gift!!

The wrapper was still on when he was making this face!

Cya Later Nat

We scrunched and curled Nat's hair, she's going to spend some days with Grandma now:

Nat helped me box up all the craft stuff that was now in our dining room from the flood - so she earned some $ to spend on a new pair of jeans. We went shopping at Ross (love that store!).

Nat picked out these:

Nat had $10 leftover, so we found this cute dress on clearance for $6.99:

And Nat spent the remaining $3 on 2 headbands, this is the brown one, the other is black:

I bought Nat a new pillow:

Nat says it has great support!

Nat made Grandma a friendship bracelet:

Cinnamon Rolls

For Activity Days today in the area of Developing Talents, we made Cinnamon Rolls from scratch and homemade Maple Frosting - yummo!

We also made Friendship Bracelets while we waited for the rolls to rise and bake.

This is Natalie's bracelet - the girls all made their own bracelets following some complex instructions - great job!

Nat's visiting

I highlighted Nat's hair, then a few hours later she told me her mom said that she had to wait to get her hair colored until she was older.......uhhhhh, is Auntie Cheri in trouble now? Nat assured me that her mom meant an all over color and Nat just has 'streaks' of blonde in her hair.

I weaved a hair-tie into Nat's hair - cute!

I painted Nat's nails French manicure with orange polish, the big toes have tiny little yellow flowers on them:

Happy Birthday Jonathan

08/08/08 - cool date =)
it's a theme birthday this year - happy 37th!
this is the card I made Jonathan this year - it's a backpack:

Jonathan would have qualified in the Olympics for backpacking if only they would have held the event ;)
http://en.beijing2008.cn/
this is what the note says:

http://www.myoan.net/backpacking/jargon.html
this is the cake I made - it's a giant S'MORE:

the marshmallow frosting went....ummmm, everywhere, but it was still tasty! =) it was a graham cracker cake and super yummy chocolate frosting too.

this is the gift he got - it's a nalgene water bottle, backpacking stove, pot and dish and fuel from REI.

Flowers in my Garden

One of my favorite flowers is the Hibiscus, so naturally I have a plant growing in a planter on my deck - they are happy flowers =) I love the yellow and orange ones, this red and orange one is the color we have this year, it's really pretty too:

And one of my Dahlia's finally bloomed too:

It doesn't look like a typical Dahlia, but I really liked the look of it, so I had to have it ;) Its name is Sean C. I bought my tubers from duckpond77@msn.com - Guy was very helpful and patient to the ignorant first time buyer =) I love my flowers!!!

What's up with that *smile*

Andrew with Grandma - yes, he is smiling, although he looks frightened - LoL

Colten & Andrew (forgot to wash their faces) - someone also forgot to show Andrew smiling requires an upward curving of the corners of his mouth ;)

These photos could easily otherwise indicate him feeling annoyed?

Baptism for my Niece & Nephew

Happy 8th Birthday Natalie!!!

Ethan turned 8 in June and Natalie turned 8 today!

They got to share their baptism day! Natalie was baptized by Uncle Michel and Ethan was baptized by his dad. Grandpa Rulon confirmed Nat and Jonathan confirmed Ethan.

Ethan opening his baptism gift:

It's Natalie's birthday cake:

But the Baptism cake was the bomb, it was the Funfetti cake with Funfetti frosting - yum!

We bought Nat bed sheets for her birthday!

Flying Bug

Taking a photo of this insect actually gave me the 'willies'! The only thing worse at that moment would have been the insect landing on me!!! And my neighbors would have called 911 because of the screaming and commotion they would have heard ;) I do not like bugs, I do not like them more than slugs! This thing was 2 1/2 inches or more - probably 3 inches - and that's just too big. It's amazing I like gardening so much ;) I don't even know what kind of bug this is - I don't recall seeing this bug before and I remember ALL traumatic events in my life - haha

Gold Finches

We had a visitor - or visitors - first it's Emma and Rylee and the other visitor is a chick that isn't afraid of us when we approach! He eats and then sleeps in the bird feeder. It doesn't fly away when we're watering our plants or walking by or even splashing in the hot tub. Emma and Rylee wanted their picture with it - hehe

We were supposed to be working on a talk Rylee is giving in Primary on August 10th, but the hot tub won over as the activity for the afternoon ;)

Other Gold Finches below, I think we've counted 8 or so on this bird feeder at one time! They do not let us approach - LoL