Ahhh, Watermelon.

This guy seriously loves his Watermelon. As soon as he spots a bowl of it he will yell to get some.

He's also really handy with the fork these days, which helps with the mess of all this eating.

And did I mention that he also loves to climb on the table every chance he gets... it would be helpful if he could get down by himself.

Sunday morning

I have some seriously handsome guys to go to church with. Just had to show them off.

And one of them way super happy to have his photo taken that more, and one was not. oh well, Can't win 'em all.

"We're Staying Here"

So, I can't say those words without using the voice of Hopper, the giant mean grasshopper from "Bug's Life". Sorry, if you haven't seen it a million times and can't automatically think of his voice in your head...
Anyway, on to a little bit of news. If you didn't know that we have spent the last couple of months trying to make some difficult decision about the end of grad school (which if Finally upon us), we have. And it has been hard. We have weighed the options and talked and talked and talked it to death. We have prayed and sought revelation and talked some more. And Finally we have made a decision that we both feel good about. I have actually been amazed that I feel SO good about it.
As the heading implies, we are staying in Utah for now. Caleb has chosen to take a position with DBN Tax, his brother's accounting firm. Many of you may be thinking, "Hmm, I didn't realize that a tax firm did scientific research?" And you would be quite correct to be baffled because they don't, actually. He will be doing accounting, primarily payroll stuff as far as I know.
These questions are part of the reason that I never thought that this would feel like the correct decision to me. Caleb interviewed for PostDoc positions and received a couple of offers and they sounded great on paper and one even had great people. When you look at the map of what a graduate student is supposed to do when they finish their long and frustrating journey, these other options seemed to be right on target. So when the position opened up with Nathan I may have flipped out a little that it was even considered an option, after graduate school you are supposed to stay in your field and continue on to some unknown career. What can I say, Caleb likes to keep us guessing, and as I warmed to this idea it just felt more correct than any other choice.
So here we are and here we will be until at least June when the kids get out of school. By that time, we hope that the course of our lives will be a little more clear to us, and the words "Ten Year Plan" won't just make us crack up like they do now.
For those that are curious-
Caleb's Thesis Defense is scheduled for 10/10 at 10am (I like that those numbers are all the same.) This is the cullmination of his grad school work and pretty much the end all. Technically his graduation date is set for the December graduation, since it has to follow the semester schedule of the rest of the U. If anyone in the world thinks they can convince him to walk in the ceremony, I would love to see you try. Honestly, I would love it, but don't hold your breath for those photos. He just isn't into all of the... for lack of better words... Pomp and Circumstance.
Give a little shout out for new adventures and unexplored territory. We're excited.

And we're walking

That's right. Wyatt has finally decided that walking is a desirable way to get around. I picked him up from my friend, Jessi's, house last week and he had finally decided not to crawl everywhere. It is pretty nice so far. He is also very impressed with himself.

We are glad that we won't have to worry about wearing holes in all of his new cute fall attire, and that we can do a little less of carrying this guy around.

He loves to spend a lot of time in his own personal cupboards of fun. It is interesting to try and find things lately, since he not only empties all of the cupboards, but he also puts it all away.

So far the walking has not caused too many falls, though I have more concerns about the climbing that seems to be coming along with it. Nothing like walking in to find him on the kitchen table. I have a feeling he is gearing up for some big stunts, since we often find him trying on helmets.

Safety first, that's what we always say. I guess, spending time with Anne has taught Wyatt that the brain is worth protecting. He is ready for anything.

Just a funny little video of his speed walking.

Henry's First Day of Preschool

Tuesday was Henry's very first day of preschool and he was definitely ready for it. When Gav started school he was still pretty nervous about being away from Mom and Wyatt, but after a week without Gavin he decided it wasn't that much fun here after all.

He is attending preschool at Bennion Elementary right next to our house. He was so excited that he gets to cross the street with the very friendly crossing guard that we always see when we are driving Gavin to school several blocks away. He also gets to attend preschool with his great friend, Josh, this year and they are two peas in a pod.

Isn't he cute?

He also has this giant locker which he could fit in, but wouldn't. Even though he did agree it would be very funny. I think Gavin is jealous since he only has a tiny locker.

Hanging up his backpack for the first time.

A picture with the big brother on the first day. Pretty strange to have both of these guys gone 4 mornings a week.

The only report I got after the first day was, "Well, something did happen? At recess, a girl pushed me down. She had on a pink shirt." When I asked if he pushed her back, he said, "No, but later someone else pushed her down." Then he gave me a little sideways smile.

Camping at Affleck Park

Somedays I wonder if I would plan anything fun for my kids if it wasn't for my friend, Caryn. She seems to be much more busy than I am and yet she never gives up on planning and carrying out fun activities for her kids, and somehow I scramble to try and tag along and once in a long while come up with a creative idea of my own. We have done some fun things this summer and even though I was pretty worn down by the 97 degree days all week, I was coaxed into coming on an overnight camping adventure to Affleck Park.

It turned out to be a great time, and much more relaxing that I usually assume that camping with my kids will be. This campground seems like a perfect one night destination, since there is no running water and therefore- pit toilets. Lets just say that neither parents or children are fans of those stinky things.
The boys also loved that we went with friends. With my kids, their cousins and friends are the equivalent of super-stars.
We had a great hot dog roast for dinner, Gavin was the only one that dropped his and that was when he thought a bee was going to attack him. Since he was stung this summer he has been having a hard time being outdoors in the Beehive State.
Wyatt, Parker and Gavin sitting around the fire.

Heisoung (a girl from Korea spending the month with the Willardsens), Josh, Henry and Gabby patiently cooking their own dinner.Wyatt loved getting super dirty and having his own chair to hang out in.We spent plenty of time around the fire trying to come up with stories to tell. Some not very scary and some a little more morbid that we would have asked for, and then there was a whole period of time when the kids got into telling stories about peeing... can always count of the bathroom humor to show up in a group of kids.Parker, the fire tamer.

Just to show how Henry's life goes, he was the only kid who fell into the stream and got wet up to his waist. They were supposed to just be throwing rocks with the dads, but no big surprise, he was in his pajamas pretty early.

I packed light so the boys had to run around in their pajamas until we went home. Wyatt was the only one who cared, since we wouldn't let him on the ground.It was a fun little trip and maybe we will get out camping again before the warm weather ends.

First Day of First Grade

And now Gav is off to rock the first grade...

Here is his cute little locker, he was pretty excited about this part. In Kindergarten they just had hooks.I feel like we had the best luck and got the greatest First grade teacher. All of the kids and parents really love her, and the rumor is that she keeps a very structured class, which I think will be great for Gav.

Admittedly, I am far more nervous about this new transition that he is. Starting into a full day of school seems like a huge deal. The Lunch, the recess, the new friends, the days when I have to work that I will hardly get to see him at all. It all just seems so sudden after a fun and busy summer. I hope that it all goes well for both of us. I'm pretty grateful that they have an early out these first few days, and at least I have Henry around for another week before preschool. This is all happening too fast for me.
What a grown up handsome guy.

The Funny Thing about Babies

There are a lot of things that just crack me up about babies. Like the way that they start mimicking adult behavior... like when they look right at you and are so serious and just babble away with some intense bit of gibberish as though you should totally understand what they are saying. Or the perfectly timed courtesy laugh like they get the joke. The way the head holes on their shirts are almost as wide and the shirt is long. So funny.
Of all of the fun little things the one that always makes me laugh out loud is how short and little their arms and legs are. It isn't always super noticeable, but when I come in to find Wyatt sleeping sprawled out, I always just laugh. Babies really have the shortest arms and legs. So stinkin' cute how they can barely even touch the top of their heads. If you want to have a good laugh, put something on your babies' head and then watch them try to get it off. Wyatt loves when we do this and laughs so hard, which I guess is good since we are always laughing at him at the same time.
Perhaps, you all know what a weirdo I am, but I know you are all laughing at that sleeping photo.

Happy Birthday Caleb

With all of the waiting to make the blog private, I forgot to blog about Caleb's birthday. He was a real humbug about the whole birthday thing, and so I invited to Loos over for dinner, so that he would have to be social and not sulk around all day. The weekend before his birthday, we were out and needed to stop for a few groceries, like milk and bread. I was debating whether or not to go to Smiths or Sams, and Caleb said, "Don't go to Sams, I don't want to have to get a giant pack of 100 oreos." Um... what? No one said anything about oreos. So I proceeded to make fun of him for days about how grocery shopping to him means stopping for oreos or ice cream.

The result of this conversation was that the boys and I decided to make Caleb an oreo pie for his birthday. It was seriously rich, but very good. I even found an oreo crust and oreo cookies and cream pudding. Very yummy.
Hopefully despite his negative attitude towards the whole thing this year, he managed to have a Happy Birthday. (he is smiling after all)

Catherine Pass Hike

So can you tell that we were super excited for the road to Albion Basin to finally open at none other than the end of July... yep, we were. The day after we went to Red Pine and the day off the road was finally clear and good for driving, we headed to Catherine Pass with our fab friends the Willardsens. We had a beautiful and invigorating Hike. I really love this one.
One of the many great views.

Great looking hikers.

All of the kids in our group... the Park family (some friends of Caryn's) came with us as well. Lots of kids running around.

Caryn and I cracking ourselves up. Mister Wyatt loves watching the other kids and all of their constant silliness.

The brothers "in real life." Except not actually... Josh and Henry.

Red Pine Lake Hike

A few weeks ago as some of the Iowa family was getting ready to leave and others were arriving, we rounded up a bunch of people and went on a hike. Caleb chose the Red Pine Lake trail, and we did something that I can't remember us ever doing on the Wasatch Front, we went hiking in the afternoon. The weather wasn't too bad and the hike was beautiful, but there was a serious bug problem. There were flies of all sizes that would come up off the trail to land on us, and the higher we got on the fairly steep trail the bigger and more numerous the mosquitoes became. When we would pause with Grandma and Henry for a little break we were attacked by some huge mosquitoes. Gross. Needless to say it dampened our spirits a bit and Grandma and I turned back with two of my boys and a few of the girls while the rest went up higher to have a snowball fight. I spent most of the hike back using Wyatt's hat to shoo the bugs off him while he was in the backpack behind me. I went to bed that night and had a dream about trying to get flies off of me. Aside from this damper on my mental psyche, we had some good times and enjoyed the more beautiful parts of nature.
My four favorite hikers...

A few other people who were good hiking company as well
Crystal, Kelbie and Lauren

These two making hiking look good-
Caden and Rich
Some of the group on one of the bridges along the way. You could really tell it was a wet year for all of the random streams along the trail that usually wouldn't be there at the end of July.A nice view.After the hike the rest of the family came up the canyon to meet us for a cookout.
The cousins hanging out together. It was a fun day that we will look back on and remember the bugs. :-)

Sparkling Cardons

Just a few photos of our pioneer day festivities. We had a great BBQ at Nathan's and a few Iowa Cardons were here to celebrate with us. We mostly just hung around, but then decided to try and burn through the stash of sparklers that Stacy and I have ended up with over the past couple of summers. There were quite a lot, but everyone had a good time. Now that Utah allows aerials we also just got to hang out on the lawn and watch other people's money explode in the air above us. Pretty enjoyable.
Libbie getting the party started.This is probably my favorite photo, just a great little shot of sweet Mia.

Grandma helping light multiple sparklers at a time.

Brennan preparing to do something dangerous, probably. The boys love playing with Brennan, especially Henry. Though since he and Rachel left town I keeping finding myself saying the words, "Just because Brennan does it, that doesn't mean it is safe for you to do." I can't wait for those two to have a baby so I can teach it to say naughty things, hehe.

Nathan helping Claire.

Gavin doing a sparkler dance.

Henry with Papa in the background.