Piute Reservoir

We went camping to Piute a couple weeks ago. We had such a great time. We found this "Enchanted Forest" of cottonwood trees where there we no people. The trees were huge and provided some great shade and they were full of Night Herons and Great-horned Owls. (For a bird-watching family, this is quite the highlight!) Ben made a teeter-totter out of a huge log and we spent much of our time there. We also waded in the lake (the water was way to cold to actually swim), ate some delicious food, did a little rabbit hunting and fishing (more luck with the rabbits than the fish), and made some great memories. Thanks Ben for always taking us on such fun adventures!


Check out our sweet teeter-totter!

Sean can climb!

Nothing like little boys and lots of dirt!

Dad...do you see what you've started? Kyle thinks he needs to pull up his shirt in every family photo:)

MAYHEM

To anyone who ever looks at this blog...sorry it's been a while. We've been too busy having fun:) I would get the desire to blog, then think of all the things we've been doing and I would get overwhelmed with all I wanted to post. Lame excuse, I know, but it's all I've got.

So...I'm just going to skip the last few months and go straight to the good stuff:)

We were able to go see my parents in Hawaii while they are serving as missionaries on the Big Island. It was absolutely amazing! And crazy! And in a word...MAYHEM! That's our new family motto...MAYHEM It just seems to sum it all up. But our trip was fantastic, better than we ever dreamed. It was so fun to see my parents and see what amazing missionaries they are. A few days after we left they held a baptism for 13 people! Wow!

While we were there, we went to beach every day, we ate shave ice (but only once due to the amount of spilling and sliming that was occuring to other people's shoes and clothing that caused them to give us dirty looks and move away from us), we swam with turtles, we snorkeled, we boogie boarded, we watched the sunset, we ate AMAZING food, we had an unfortunate potty incident involving a large scary dog, we swam in swimming pools (sleep-deprived Riley even fell asleep once while in the pool), we visited the ancient hawaiian place of refuge, we got tans, we were like a traveling boy circus (we got comments/questions about our 4 boys several times each day), we caught ocean fish on bamboo poles with grandpa (whom Sean and Jason woke up at 5:45 am with poles and mackerel in hand) and we had the TIME OF OUR LIVES!!!

Happy Day

We are having a wonderfully relaxing Sunday here...we had muffins, peaches and chocolate milk for breakfast, some geese just flew by honking, Sean Jason and Kyle are getting some pre-church jitters out by playing football in the snow and building snowmen, Riley's taking a nap...does it get better?

My mom made me, Kyle and Riley these CUTE hats! Kyle and I wear ours all the time. Riley will wear his for about 5 minutes, which is quite impressive actually. Thanks mom!!!

They really are best friends.

This one cracks me up. Such funny boys we have. I love how Kyle wants to do whatever the 'big boys' are doing.

My AWESOME friend Katie threw me a 'better late than never' 30th birthday party for my 31st and we had such a great time! Check out her amazing cake. This was the first time she ever made fondant and it was so cute! Inside was a mint chocolate layer cake. Yummy!

These are my super fun friends. Thanks everyone!

The pre-party celebration was me, Kirstin and Katie night skiing. I LOVED it!!! I am so lucky to have such great friends.

So the next week, I had to have Katie teach me how to make fondant and this is what we created. Sweet, huh? Inside was a vanilla cake with lemon curd and buttercream frosting. Not bad!

Riley's sucker after a haircut. I think he is looking so much like Sean did.

A Few Snapshots of Life

We haven't fallen off the map, we've just been enjoying the BEST holiday season ever! It was very relaxed and fun. Here is an update on the past couple of months...

We took family pictures. We set up a tripod in the field, put our camera on timer, and got some great shots.

Halloween...Kyle was a "bad" pirate, Jason was GI Joe Snake Eyes, Riley was a pirate (till it got cold and then he was a fleece zebra), and Sean was a ninja.

Decorating our homemade gingerbread house. Yummy!

Ben and I celebrated 11 fantastic years together! I feel so lucky every day!

We built a snow igloo in the backyard. It is still standing!

Jason took Ben duck hunting. Kyle was as excited as they were.

Christmas Eve sliding on the ice at the lake.

Christmas Day...

Riley had no problem understanding what all the fun was about. Of course, he had as much fun with the packaging as he did with the presents.

Kyle's face here says it all.

Kyle and Riley playing with their Book of Mormon action figures from Elder Grandpa and Sister Grandma serving a mission in Hawaii.

Jason, our big Broncos fan, got a Broncos jersey, Broncos poster and even a Broncos ornament.

Sean sporting his much-desired football helmet and pads. So tough!

Latest and Greatest

It's been a little while since I blogged. Here's a few pictures (maybe a lot of pictures)...

This is what Sean and Jason do after school every day. They do their homework and chores, then play football until dinner. Life is good!

This is Riley and his best buddy Ryan. Don't they look like they could be brothers?

My high school had an alumni night that, of course, I couldn't pass up. All of my sisters and I went to it and had a blast. Yeah, we still got it:)

Ben was able to speak at a BIM conference in San Francisco, so I went with him and we had a great time. This is us on the Golden Gate Bridge.

This restaurant was SOOOOOO good, we went there both nights that we were in SF. The seafood was amazing. Their Scoma's boat was docked right by the restaurant! We might need to take another trip there just for the food:)

My family was able to spend some unexpected time together in Colorado. My grandma was really sick so my parents took a 2 week break from their mission to help her and it happened to be at the same time as my cousins wedding which all of us siblings were going to anyways. It was a fun time together! And my grandma is doing so much better.

Our boys got to play football with their grandpa...it doesn't get much better than that.

Jason was able to go to a BYU football game with Ben. This pretty much sums up the greatness of it all.

This is Kyle with his cousins playing on the 4 wheeler in the garage. Vrroom!

This is Riley with his cousin Lizzy. They followed each other up these steps.

This needs a little explanation... Jason and I went to Pumpkinland for his field trip. He and I got really lost in the corn maze and finally cut through the corn because we couldn't find how to get out. I think this bothered him a little. I was just happy to get out. The next week I took Jason, Kyle and Riley with our friends back to Pumpkinland and Kyle helped Jason find the way out. It was very exciting! I love Jason's face in this picture. It's kind-of how I feel now that I have finished posting this blog:)

Riley Turns 1!!!

This is a little late, but our little guy turned ONE!!!! Wow! Time goes by so fast.

Riley Thomas May is the sweetest, happiest boy. He loves cars, trucks, motorcycles, 4 wheelers, basically anything with wheels. When he sees something with wheels, he makes car sounds with his lips, it is so cute! He is talking a bit now and says a few words, he is taking a couple of wobbly steps and he smiles a lot. He laughs most when his brothers and entertaining him, especially Jason. He loves to be outside and eat dirt. We love his smile and his curly hair.

This is the best cake any of our kids has ever had on their birthday. Our neice, Erica, babysat on Riley's birthday and I came home to this. She is awesome!



Riley chose to go to McDonald's for his birthday dinner. (Okay, we all like our fries and chicken nuggets)


Did I mention that Erica's cake tasted good? Check out Riley's grin.

I know that someday we will cut his hair, but it might be a while... How cute is that!?