Sidney & Nathan

Nathan is a lucky little guy. He's the only one of my children to have a Smith cousin close in age. It's really fun to have the two babies at the same time! Of course, the size difference being much less than the age difference makes Nathan look a little dumb, but that will pass in a few months.

See, Sidney can sit up all by herself. Nathan needs a bumbo. What did I tell you? It looks like he should be able to do everything she can!

This progression of pictures cracks me up. Here they are sitting nicely next to each other. Now watch what happens next:

Sidney has scooted around kind of in front of Nathan...

"I like your face, it's really soft"

"Can I use this thing too?"

"Mama, save me! This girl is in my space!"

Hot Tub Time

One of our favorite things about Grandma & Grandpa's house is the hot tub. This holds true for every single member of our family (with the possible exception of Nathan. He doesn't really seem to care, which is surprising when you consider the utter joy he shows about being in the bathtub!) Not being able to go in it while I was pregnant was really, really sad. Sure glad I never have to go through that again!

Katy likes Sidney. 1. She is a baby. 2. She is a girl. What more could you want?

Chubby babies! I just want to squish them!

Nathan was born 6 days before Sidney turned 5 months old. In this picture Nathan is 1 day shy of 5 months, so just barely over HALF Sidney's age! Wouldn't guess it from looking at them!

Most of the Morrills! Including Molly. Stop dropping dog toys/rocks/sticks in the hot tub, ya dumb dog! We aren't out here to play with you!

Ryan Shupe and the Rubber Band

At the beginning of the summer I spent some time looking around at all the activities going on around the area - library programs (I think we ended up going to 9 or 10 between 4 different libraries!), cheap movies, etc. I even thought to look at stuff happening around my parents' house, and stumbled upon a good one! Ryan Shupe and the Rubber Band was doing a free concert at Lake Meridian, about 2 miles from my parents' house. Dan has been a fan of Ryan Shupe for a long time. We went to a concert at BYU the semester after David was born, so it's been at least that long. So since we wanted to visit Grandma & Grandpa anyway, might as well go then!

I have lots of pictures from that trip. I intend on posting lots of them between several different posts. If I don't follow through with that, I'm sorry. There just isn't enough time in the day or energy in my body to do everything I want to do. I've done a better than usual job of keeping the house clean this week, so I didn't get around to watering the grass at all (bad week for that to happen!). Sigh.


Here's most of the group at the Ryan Shupe concert. My parents, Danny (home from BYU for the summer), Nadine & Scott & Brady (in town for a week), and our family all went!

David played on his DS the entire time. Well, at least he didn't cause any problems that way!

See, we were there!

Grandpa loves Nathan. :-)

Here's the three missing from the other pic - Brady on the far left, Grandma, and Scott. Actually, I just looked at the first picture again, and they're there too, just up the hill! Nope, I'm not going to go change what I wrote.

After the concert Dan & I got our picture taken with the man himself! Yay! If only we hadn't had the recently set sun behind us, it'd be a bit better of a picture. Oh well.

Summer Fun!

Making a Summer to-do list has become kind of a "thing" lately. Apparently it started here, although I'm pretty sure I first heard about it here. We did a Summer list last year, but it wasn't as cute as the one we made this year. I really like the idea. As Kimba says on A Soft Place to Land, "it helps me be more intentional with our time." It helps us remember what we want to do, as well as remind us of what we've already done! It helps keep the summer from turning into an endless stretch of mindless sitting around at home (often having way too much screen time). I was really happy with our experience last summer, so we did it again this year! I looked around at all the other cute lists out there (my favorites being the latest versions of Meg's and Kimba's), took the ideas I liked best, and came up with this:

Two months later, here it is:

I need to check off Pajama Day, we did that on Monday (Complete with French Toast for dinner! It was fun!), we're probably going to Powell's today, and I can check off Crafts whenever since we've done a couple (although not checking it off helps me remember to do more). That leaves Put on a Play (I'd like to do Goldilocks & the 3 Bears or The 3 Little Pigs. Maybe for FHE next week?), Wash the Car (it needs it badly!), Bowling, and Chuck E. Cheese (both of which we will probably skip because they cost money. Besides, we went to Oaks Park Amusement Park, I think that will have to count!). And go to the park one more time. I would like to point out that we've been to the park 9 times since summer started 2 months ago, and of the 9 only 1 has been a repeat park!

Now that I think of it, it would have been really fun to take a picture of everything we did. Maybe make a big picture collage of all the Summer Fun activities. Definitely an idea to think on for next year! Well, I got pictures of some of them at least, and here's the one that I was wanting to post:

When I put down "Make T-Shirts," I was thinking of letting the kids paint on them. Aunt Miriam mentioned doing tie dye, and I'm so glad we did! It was a lot of fun! The big boys in particular love their shirts! We made more at Grandma & Grandpa's house when we were there a week and a half ago for the "family reunion" (When does it become a family reunion instead of just a visit? All 16 members of the Smith family were there, which meant all 3 married daughters brought their whole family from at least a few hours away. Are we old enough to call it a reunion?). We really like tie dying!

Morrill cousins!

One of the saddest things about leaving Utah is being so far away from Dan's family. We didn't see them all that often while we lived there, but certainly more often than we do now! So we were so excited when some of them decided to come visit us here in Washington! Dan's sister Heather brought her family from Pleasant Grove, and his sister Becky brought her family from Glendora, California, and met up at our house last Sunday night! Between the three families we had 12 kids (10 of which are boys!) running around, so it was a little wild and crazy around here! The kids had a blast with their cousins, and were sad to have them go after only 2 days. :-( We'll definitely have to get together again soon!

I handed Dan the camera and told him to take pictures. He took 10. These are the two best of the lot:

Ryan was cranky and making angry face is most of them. Katy wasn't feeling well and refused to smile. Oh well, what can you ask for with so many kids? Especially when most of them are rather strong willed. Yes, of course I mean that in the best possible way! ;-)