New Me

My wonderful husband let my go and get new haircut. He also told me I should get it colored too. I took my kindle and just enjoyed reading while I was pampered.

I had some interesting conversations with the kids when I got home. I thought you all would enjoy them too.

Mommy: Katie, do you like my new hair?
Katie: Noooo.

Mommy: Annie, feel my hair. There is a lot less now, huh!
Anne: Yeah and it has yellow in it.

Heat Wave

I did his hair for church a couple Sundays ago and realized that it is getting a bit too long for that up top. But I have no idea how to trim it.


My kids love to feed Hyrum and they are pretty good at it too. You notice how dark the house is. We had all the blinds down to keep the heat out.

You can't tell but he was eating the dirt from one of the plants. so I just put him in the bath. He loves splashing the water. He could have stayed in a lot longer if I would have let him.

We tried to beat the heat by eating ice cream and popcicles, swimming in the pool...

...and sitting in front of the fans. It is hard not having air conditioning in temperatures in the high 80s, with tons and tons of humidity. It was a very long week. It is cooler now and I am loving it. I hope it last the rest of the summer.

This Week

We made cookies. They were so good and the kids were such good helpers.

Gma made this beautiful and delicious dessert. We loved it!!!

She got her pants all dirty. So Gpa got her some of his shorts. As you can see she wasn't too enthusiastic about them. I think it is cute though.

Uncle Richy helped me on evening by talking to him and entertaining him over skype.

Saying Good-bye

Our friends are moving several hours away. It is always hard to say good-bye. Jenny has been such a good friend and help to me while I have been in Germany. I just love her. Jared and Ben were friends growing up and did so much together. We have loved spending time together and watching each other's families grow. We have had so many good times together. I hate that they are leaving. We will have to visit you all up at your new place and bring some Ben and Jerry's ice cream for old time's sake. I just loved this picture of them.

We decided we need to do one last get-together before they go. So we had them over to our place. We also invited the Schwartz family, since they are good friends too. We played soo many games with the kids. They were fun to watch. All the adults prepared the lunch while the kids watched a movie, then decided to eat while they were still occupied. It was so nice to have a meal to just sit around and talk, and not need to worry about feeding and managing the kids. We fed the kids once the meal was over. The boy on the left is the son of our friends, the Schwartzes, who were also there. He is 3 months older than Hyrum, but a little behind in physical development. Hyrum is so much heavier and chunkier. It is amazing how different every child is. And I don't know what happened genetically to make these two so different. The seemed to like each other. I saw Jonah passing this cookie (it is in Hyrum's mouth) to Hyrum.

Grandpa's Walk

I finally got the pictures of this walk from Ray's cell phone.
Gpa took the girls on a long nature walk a couple weeks ago.

They found many neat things, like this grasshopper.

They must be my children.

We have these hop fields by our home. The hops are what beer is made from. It is fun to see how these things made, even if we don't drink beer. One of my ancestors work in the hop fields on a manor house in England, before crossing the plains to Utah. I feel like it gives me a glimpse into his life.

I have the cutest kids.

These are the treasures they found. The yellow ones in the center are my favorite wildflowers here. It is amazing how many different kids of wildflowers there are here.

Sweet Moments

Yesterday, Jared took Anne and Alicia out for some special time. So Ray and I took Katie on a walk. We saw so many wonderful animals and insects. Germany has to many types of wildflowers to list. I love them!!!
We ended it with ice cream. She had hard time eating it fast enough until Gpa pushed it further into the cone. In the end she stayed surpisingly clean.

On the way home we found God's footprint in the sky.


Earlier this week Jared took me on a special date. First we did a little shopping. Then we went to a fun swimming pool in our area. It is great place for families, but it was nice this time to just be the two of us. After swimming we got some food. Jared had arranged for us to stay the night at the hotel we spent our wedding night. When we got there he told me that I could do whatever I wanted. He had packed our bag. It was wonderful to not have to take care of kids or be woken up early in the morning. Of course, we stayed up waaaaayyyyy late designing Rike's wedding announcements. But I love working on projects with Jared. It builds different parts of our relationship that other things can't. It actually one of my favorite things to do together. I also got to read to my heart's content.


The next morning we woke up late (my body loved not being awoken by children). After we had a late breakfast at a bakery we headed into the city. They now have bike stations all over the city, where you can rent bikes and then return them to the nearest station at your destination. We grabbed some and rode around a lake in the city. I saw a part of the city I had never seen before. It was really quite nice. We stopped by our friends's house and visited for a while. We have such wonderful friends. Jared rode back to the car, picked me up and we turned mine in at a station down the street.


After a little more shopping (Jared got some nice clothes he needed) we headed home. I absolutely LOVED it!!!!! My husband is such a sweety.. It felt like a late anniversary trip. We both needed it. And I was even excited to get home to the kids...I love them, but sometimes I need more than just one night away. But this was perfect!!!!