Catching Up

Okay, just to warn you, this is going to be a whole bunch of unrelated stuff, but I thought they were all blog worthy so I'm just going to do it all at once. Every time I sit down to put something on here, my mind goes blank and I can't remember what I was going to do. I blame it on sleep deprivation. So, random thing numero uno:

My mom brought a frog over for the kids. This is unusual because my mom is DEATHLY afraid of frogs. She is (I'm not making this up) afraid that they will jump on her face and suck her brains out. Yeah. Enough said. So she had Sara (my brand new sister-in-law) catch this frog that she found outside and she brought it in a tupperware over to my house. What am I supposed to do with a frog? I have no where to keep it! She also brought some flowers from the reception, so we decided to let the frog "sleep" in the flowers while the kids ate their lunch. Sure enough, the frog disappeared. My mom was supposed to babysit that night and I was afraid that the frog would jump on her and she'd never come over again. When we got home, she hadn't seen the frog, but Sara found it hopping around the toy room. We put him outside and haven't seen him since. Here's some pictures. I caught the kids on video tormenting my mom with the frog, but it's too big to put on here, so just imagine Nicole chasing my mom around the living room with a tiny, harmless frog in her little hand. Pretty funny, I know.

Random event numero dos:
My brother got married!!! I know, this should probably go at the beginning of the post and it certainly could have a whole post all to itself, but this is the best I can do for now. David and Sara got married July 5 in St. Louis, MO. I flew back there for the wedding when Ben and the kids were in Utah. They had a reception that night in St. Louis and then had another one here on Saturday. It was a perfect night and everything was beautiful. I took my camera to get lots of good pictures, but I only ended up taking one picture. Do you want to see it?

Yes, that's right. The dessert table. I think I had 4 or 5 slices of cake. It was so good and the pieces were quite skinny, so it was easier to justify it at the time. Anyway, we all love Sara to death and we are soooo glad she's part of the family now. Here's a picture I took of the happy couple last night. Maybe I'll get some of the wedding pictures someday and you can see how beautiful she looked in her dress. The kids love her to death, despite the "I don't care" looks on their faces here:

This leads us to...
Random event numero tres:
Ben is playing in a city league lacrosse team in Hillsboro. Yeah, if you're thinking, "wow, that's a long way to go to play lacrosse for one hour" you'd be right. But he loves it so I guess it's worth it. I went to one of his games last night (my mom kept the baby, thanks!) and he looked great! We were sitting too far away to get any good action shots of him playing (didn't want the super hard lacrosse balls to fly in our direction) but here's a shot of him just before the game started.

Yes, he's grinning like an idiot because he's so excited to play. He played in high school and college and even coached high school lacrosse in Utah. I'm glad he gets a chance to play every once in a while, but it's a very violent sport and he always gets hurt (there's blood all over the sheets from some sort of injury at last night's game) so I hope he doesn't play too much.

Finally, to finish it off...
pictures of Tori:
She's starting to "look like a real person" in the words of my brother. I thought she looked pretty cute :-)

Our Day at the Park

We went to the park today for playgoup. It was a little chilly, but that's what jackets are for! Tori actually did pretty well (which means I still had to hold and bounce her, but she didn't scream the whole time). Tyler played with Tanner (his favorite friend) in the dirt and Nicole seemed pretty bitter about the whole thing. She played by herself most of the time. It was a little out of character for my little social butterfly, but she seemed to want some alone time, so whatever. Then I noticed that she was with some of the other kids a little ways off. When they all came back, everyone had these purple stains on their hands! It turns out they were playing in some berry bushes. Nicole said she put one in her mouth but it was too sour, so she "spitted" it out. I was glad. Hopefully, they were just blueberries and nothing harmful. Anyway, here's come pictures from our trip to the park today.

A trip down memory lane

So I found this on Janelle's blog and thought it looked pretty fun! Humor me okay?! I'm curious if you remember things that I don't.

Here are the directions:

1. As a comment on this post, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.

Just Pictures

No time to write, but here's some cute pictures of the kids (and one of Ben cuz he's a hottie). I've been busy keeping my kids from killing each other, keeping up with laundry, and keeping myself sane. Maybe if I give up on the sanity issue, I'll have more free time to blog. :-)

Watch my garden grow!

I took a picture of my garden when I first planted it, but I can't find it. It would be much cooler if you could see the before and after shot, but I guess I'll just have to count on your imagination. Just picture a bunch of really tiny plants. And now here's what my garden looks like today!



And that's AFTER I harvested a bunch of my basil yesterday (homemade pesto!) and seriously hacked away at the zucchini. Anyway, I blame it all on the fertilizer we used (llama poop, thanks Ben!).

On a funnier note, yesterday I walked outside and found my children with their hands full of rocks and Nicole tip-toeing around saying "here kitty, kitty, kitty" in her sweetest, most innocent voice. Poor cats, they never saw it coming. Here's some cute pictures of my not-so-innocent kids.

Holy Cheeks

I would like you all to notice that her cheeks are so big, you can't see her ears. Only the tops of them. Have you EVER seen bigger cheeks on a baby? Seriously! It's amazing. This picture is a week old; they are probably bigger now. I managed to lose my camera (hopefully I'll find it soon!) so I haven't posted in a while.
Here's a quick update from the last week:
-Ben and the kids spent a week in Utah with Ben's family. The kids had a BLAST and I stayed home with the baby for a "vacation".
-It turned out not to be much of a vacation, it was more like being a single mom with a new (very fussy) baby.
-After multiple doctors visits, we found out that Tori has reflux! We've got her on a baby antacid and she's doing much better now. Last week was very long and very hard (that's what she said, sorry, I couldn't help it) and I'm glad Ben's home to help with the baby again.
-I flew to St. Louis on Friday for David's wedding! It was a beautiful sealing and the whole day went off without a hitch (except that David's best man came to the temple with a temple recommend that had expired 6 days earlier and they wouldn't let him in). Flying with a baby is never fun, but she did pretty good. Luckily I had tons of help from my parents (especially my dad) so I didn't end up in tears.
So that's the gist of what happened at our house last week. I really wish I had some cute pictures from the wedding or some pictures of the kids on vacation, but alas, I suck and I lost the camera. Stupid small camera.