Swimming Lessons

Dax loves this game--dance on the side until they
 call your name and then jump in!

Swimming lessons will end tomorrow and I am actually sad. For the last few years, swimming lessons have involved tears, sitting on the side, or dragging our feet over to the pool. But this year was different. For some reason, Mark and Dax have become much more comfortable in the water. They went down some big slides at the Lehi Pool which almost gave me a heart attack--not because the slides were scary but because they actually did it. Mark especially would have never considered something like that before. So swimming lessons have been amazing.

Mark and Dax are both jumping all the way into the water. They are starting to actually learn a few things about swimming, including floating on their back (even though Randy thinks that is the dumbest thing to learn). Today Mark actually pushed off the wall today and attempted to swim. I am so impressed with all the progress they have made this year. It makes me sad that I didn't sign them up for the next session, but there's always next year. We already have a few pool trips planned so that we can keep up that happy swimming attitude.

Mark floating.

That's Mark? What?

Mark swimming for the wall.

I just loved his face in this one.

Dax floating.

Dax only had one other person in his class and she is his cousin!

We LOVE swimming!

Mark's Birthday

I made Mark a flag waffle for his birthday.
It's upside down in this picture.

Mark is SO old. He turned seven this year and I can't believe that 7 years have gone by. I still vividly remember being in labor for so long with him and then being in so much pain after having him (Mark's birth was the hardest). I also remember sleeping on the floor in his room when he was 9 months old trying to help him fall asleep on his own. None of the other children have needed that. I also remember Mark falling and cutting his head on our back window and getting it glued back together again. I remember feeling like the worst mom ever, but Mark has had a staple in his head and stitches in his arm and lots of other injuries, so now it doesn't phase me too much. So much has happened in the last seven years...

Mark is a great reader. He loves to read books and often reads a chapter book a day because he gets so involved in the story. He is a good student and a quick learner. He loves to learn and I hope that Mark will always feel that way.

Mark is a devoted athlete. He loves to play baseball, basketball, and soccer. He is always doing one of them (usually baseball), either inside or outside. He knows all the Red Sox players and Jazz players.

Mark is a great helper. He always cleans up and he runs to grab me anything I ask him to grab. He watches Seth while I run to switch the laundry or go to the bathroom. He is working on being more patient with Dax, but they really are great friends. They lay in their beds laughing and giggling every night. I hope they will always be close.

Mark wanted Captain America's shield for his cake. I made two circle cakes and wondered what to do with the 2nd circle. My sister came up with writing Mark and making the A like the Avengers A to go with Captain America. We didn't do a big party, but he had a few friends over to play the day before and we had our 4th of July BBQ. Mark loved the fireworks this year. One more sign that he is growing up. I still remember the days of crying and covering his ears...they weren't too long ago.

Mark and his two best friends

Mark and his two best brothers

Opening presents

Flag from cake balls

Mark with his two cakes!

Blowing out the candles...kind of. The wind kept blowing them out,
so we had him pretend.

Family 4th of July Pic

Seth's 1st Birthday!

See his poor sick eyes...sad little guy on his birthday.

Seth is one! I can't believe that one year ago on July 8th Seth came home from Primary Children's Hospital. He is a healthy, vibrant one year old who walks around and gets into everything. You can't even tell that he had open heart surgery and two months later an angioplasty. The only sign is the scar across his back that only we see, and maybe a few people at the swimming pool.

Seth weighs 23 pounds. He is 30.5 inches long and his head is still in the 99%. I gave up and moved him to 18 month clothes even though he just hit 12 months. They are way easier to get over his head and fit him better, too. Seth loves to laugh when everyone else laughs. He wants to be in on the joke. Seth is always in my pots and pans and tupperware. It is constantly on the kitchen floor. Seth would much rather play with his brothers than his toys. He loves to eat. His favorite things are meatballs, carrots, grapes, strawberries, and graham crackers. He hates bananas and milk. I'm hoping that I can change his mind on the milk really soon.

Seth loves to dance and he likes to look at books on his own. Our doctor told us that Seth already knows how to get us riled up...he has that look in his eye. It's true. Whenever he is doing something naughty, Seth just smiles or make a face that says, "you know I'm super cute, right?" We constantly have people stop us and comment on his big brown eyes. I'm still not sure if they'll be a true brown, but they'll at least be hazel. His hair color is still up for grabs, too.

We invited all the family over for a big birthday party at the park. Seth was sick. He had been running a fever all day, so he wasn't very smiley. But he smashed his cake very well. Because Seth loves to spin wheels, I made him a wheel cake to smash. He seemed excited about it. Grandpa & Grandma Daniels also took Seth and Mark out for a birthday dinner. We ate in the kitchen--it was actually fun watching them prepare the food and watching the servers hustling in and out. We got some special treatment with free appetizers and a big birthday candelabra. It was a fun outing.

Wasn't too sure about the cake at first, but dad helped him taste it,
and then Seth realized it was worth eating.

Dax wanted to be right there with him the whole time!

There wasn't much left.

Getting sung to at the restaurant.

Mark helped blow out the candles.

Having a fun time!

Vacation #2: Goblin Valley & Capitol Reef

Sometimes our other blog monopolizes my life. Then I look at this blog and realize it has been two weeks since I wrote a new post. In reality, Randy writes most of the posts on our Utah Valley Family Adventures Blog, and I do the editing and pictures, but then I have to pin it on Pinterest (which I am horrible at) and post it to Facebook (which I'm not very good at either). How do people keep up with all this social media? I must be too old.

Anyway, it's all just excuses. And mostly I want to say, I'm sorry. I have a lot of things to blog about, but you'll have to patiently wait as I post one at a time. So here is the latest, meaning what we did two weeks ago. 

We went on another vacation at the end of June. We went to Goblin Valley State Park and stayed in yurts. We had so much fun and it was really the best kind of camping with Seth. He could play in the yurt which had a wood floor and not fall/get dirty outside. The yurt had a swamp cooler, so we were able to keep a little cooler in the 100 degree weather. While we were there, we hiked Little Wild Horse Canyon and our family quickly labeled it "the best hike EVER!" We visited Capitol Reef National Park and the Cleveland Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry. We wrote about all those places on the other blog, so here I'm just going to write that we had a lot of fun. Dax said he wanted to live at Goblin Valley and Mark tells everyone about the bighorn sheep we saw because that was the best part for him. I pulled some of my favorite pictures from the trip to share with you. 

In Little Wild Horse Canyon....aren't they strong?

One of 4 different types of lizards we saw.

Isn't that baby pronghorn precious?

We barricaded Seth on the porch so he could be outside, but wouldn't get by the fire.
He thought it was the coolest!

Mark looking at some petroglyphs.

Just a sweet moment

Such a big boy.

Seth loves hiking!

Mark & Dax tried to crawl in every hole they spotted...it was a lot!

Mark saw this guy laying on the ground and immediately knew it was an antelope squirrel.
We don't doubt him because he sits in the back of our van and reads the bird/animal book.

I caught them watching a lizard.

Goblin Valley is full of places like this.

Goblin Valley...blaze your own trail

We played hide and seek for a long time.

Great boys!

They loved this place.

The moon was big and beautiful all the time--day or night.

My Love/Hate Relationship with Baseball

I grew up playing softball, just like my mom did. I love it! I love going to baseball games and I went to a lot of games growing up. I love cheering for the team and singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." I love watching my boys play baseball. Mark just finished coach pitch....and, I mean this in the most humble way possible, he was awesome. He could stroke the ball! He caught fly balls and stopped grounders. Mark works hard to be good though. You will often find him practicing baseball all by himself for hours in our yard. Dax just started T-ball and is so excited. He played really well at his first game and hit the ball pretty hard. Dax also stopped all the balls that came to him and always knew to throw it to first base.

Intense--always!

Mark getting ready to hit.

Dax is SO excited about his first game!

Uh oh...just as intense as his older brother!

Now, there are a few reasons I am starting to hate baseball. First, it monopolizes my husband's and children's lives. They watch every Red Sox game, read everything they can about the Sox, and sometimes I just want to toss the computer/TV out the window. I guess baseball is a good obsession, right?

Well, a few days ago, I found out about another reason to hate baseball. It is starting to cost me a lot of money.

Mark and Dax were playing baseball together. Dax hit the ball after Mark pitched to him and lost his grip on the bat (a plastic bat, by the way), and it shattered that window. So now we have to fix it.

Then, a day later Mark was hitting with the same plastic bat but using a soft baseball instead of a wiffle ball. He fouled it off and did this to our fence.

I've kind of been waiting for all of this to happen, but now that it's here I'm starting to have mixed emotions about baseball. Don't worry, I'm sure my love of the game will win out, but right now, I'm still a little peeved.

Seth's 1st Year

I had a coupon to Shutterfly to create this book for free (I did have to pay shipping). My older boys love their books I made for them, so I was glad to get another free coupon. I hope Seth likes it. They are letting me share it for free, so I thought, why not?

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly allows you to customize your photo book just the way you want.

We LOVE Yellowstone!

Lower Falls in The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

We really do love Yellowstone! Every other year, I convince my parents and sisters to come with our family for a trip to Yellowstone. We have so much fun together. It brings back lots of memories of the trips we took when we were just 5 little girls, instead of 5 grown-up girls with husbands and children. This year we went with out my youngest sister who is serving her mission in Philadelphia right now. We missed her, but we still had a blast.

My sisters and I on some vacation
(Brittany is missing in this photo, so I am probably 8 or 9)

Look at us now...10 kids later!

We went on hikes, visited the geysers and hot pots, ate a picnic every day for lunch, slept in cabins, and saw a TON of animals. That is our favorite part, well maybe the family bonding and memories, but animal sightings are definitely one of the top highlights of the trip.

This year we spent a few days in Grand Teton National Park after our four days in Yellowstone. Our entire goal was to see a moose. And we came down to the wire--we saw two moose, both within an hour of leaving the park.

We are already making plans for 2015. The rest of this post is just a few of my favorite pictures from this trip--we took 368 pictures. Crazy right? It was hard to choose favorites, but here they are!

First, the animals...

Mama black bear and two cubs!

Coyote

River otter

Fox

Beaver

Mama moose

Daddy moose

Boy Elk

Mommy elk and baby with spots...so precious!

Now for the memories...

Seth loved walking around the cabin.

Dax LOVES waterfalls.

We hiked around this little lake with the cousins.
Randy led while I brought up the rear...just like little ducklings.

We love hiking, but sometimes 4 year old feet get tired.

Mark and Dax with Josh at Wraith Falls.

Everyone on the stagecoach ride.

A lot of time is spent using binoculars in Yellowstone.
No, this isn't staged....I turned around and hurried to snap this photo.

I love the way this picture turned out at Storm Point.

Happy Brothers!

Gotta have a walking stick.

More waterfalls...nope, he can't just smile!

Ockey boys

Hidden Falls in the Tetons--A really big waterfall.

Mark matched the flowers so nicely.

Seth and Dax before the wagon ride.

We went on a wagon ride to a cook out.
Mark is slightly afraid of the Indian in the background.

See that road? Randy must travel every possible road, so we traveled on this one.
We didn't see much, but we met some nice cowboys.
The Tetons are beautiful!