Catch up on Avonlea

I've got to play some catchup. I swore up and down that all of my children would have equal shares of pictures, clothes, time, stories read, etc. WRONG! Life is so crazy busy, I know I have missed out on recording some of the DARLING things my baby is doing. So here goes...

Avvy thought Olivia's hair flower was great...right in the middle of her head!

Avvy at 16 months:
weighs 23 lbs - from our smallest baby to our biggest! She has super squishy baby fat thighs! Gotta love them! She also has a mop of hair! How many other babies have enough hair for "piggies" at 15 months!? Couple of drawbacks to that: everyone thinks she's waaaay older than she is, and those darling little hair band/bows look pretty silly with her hair poofing over the top of them!

She loves to smile for the camera, or even a fake camera. If you say "cheese" you're going to get one!

She loves animals, dogs, cats, bunnies. She will squeal in delight when she sees them.

She LOVES Spencer, being outside and bath time (clothes and all)! If she hears a door open, or the bath water running, she will run you over to get to it - or out it! She also loves dirt, playing in it, making mud, eating it! She thinks it's great!

We have discovered that she has a pretty sensitive egg allergy. She can't eat even a bite of something with eggs in it or she will throw up for a good 24 hours. But she is a GREAT eater other than that! She can eat an entire can of spaghettio's, a whole single serving of mac and cheese, two bowls of cheerios and a whole can of peaches - but not at the same time!

She doesn't say many words: dada, this, that, hi, hot, mama, but she jabbers more than our other kids ever did, and I have a feeling that when she talks, she'll not stop! She also loves to sing and will yell out her songs during sacrament meeting, or family home evening or in the car when we are driving.

She loves to sing "Popcorn popping" for Family Home Evening and she loves to lead the music!

She does not like to share! If she is sitting on my lap, and one of the other kids sits on John's lap, she will scream and run over to sit on his lap just to get them off. They think it's hilarious to go back and forth between us and watch her scream and run to get them off.
She also will have a handful of crackers and keep her other hand in the box so that no one can get passed her to the crackers. It's cute at this age, but something we will have to remedy in the near future!

Avvy LOVES her babies! She sleeps with them, carries them around under her arm, takes them for walks in her little stroller.She loves to dress them in whatever she can find: diapers, shirts, Matthew's underwear - which the other's find hilarious and she doesn't see anything wrong with it whatsoever. Pretty funny!
She loves real babies as well and SCREAMS with joy when she sees one (or even just their carrier).

She is so funny and so smart, when she wants something she will come and pat us, jabber a long string of her "words" and then lead us to what she wants. She has also learned to climb everything - thanks to her brothers, and if we won't get something for her, she'll climb up and get it herself.

She loves to play peek a boo, this little piggie and "where's your button?". She loves to pull up her shirt and show anyone her "button"!

"Where's your button? There it is!"

She loves to be involved and observes everyone around her and does what others are doing. Case in point - sustaining people to callings at church, she is always enthusiastically raising her hand about two seconds behind everyone else and then grins all pleased with herself. Super cute!

We love our Baby Princess!

Olivia's Birthday

Olivia turned 7. That's seven years old. One more year to eight. One more year to accountability. When did she grow up?

Olivia weighs all of 38 pounds as of her seventh birthday. She is all legs! She has gotten so tall and so thin (big surprise there). She is starting to look like a young lady and not a little girl.

She has lost two teeth (finally)! We were pretty sure the dentist was going to have to pull them out. She is a sweetheart (most of the time), she is very opinionated, likes everything to benefit her and is definitely our "debater". She is so excited to be on the count down to her baptism and we see her pause in her choices and can almost read her thoughts as she decides if she is "choosing the right".

She LOVES dresses, skirts and anything frilly or frufru. It's a battle waiting to happen if she is expected to wear anything other than those things.

Her favorite things right now are her American Girl Doll Felicity, reading American Girl, Junie B. Jones, and Magic Treehouse books, and making any sort of art or craft project.

She wanted a Minnie Mouse birthday party. We settled for Red, black and white and some SUPER easy cupcakes! They turned out great!

Happy Birthday Princess!

Proud to be an American

Truly this title says it all. My mom's family is one of the most "patriotic" families I have ever known and as a result raised us to be the same. Militarily strong, anthem memorizing, moved to tears, traditional...patriotic.

It's tradition

Spencer was given the privilege of being one of these 200 scouts. Such an honor for him.

The Fourth of July means for me:
Memories of my sweet Honey. A true Yankee Doodle - born on the fourth of July and everything. I miss him everyday!

Looking at Olivia who was almost our Yankee Doodle and thinking how much Honey would love her (and all of our kids)!

Corn on the cob, watermelon, dry ice rootbeer and homemade ice cream.

Auntie is such a good sport!

Lounging in the backyard...

Fireworks: big time at the stadium and small town on the street in front of our house...

Campouts in the backyard...

Our sweet children...with flags...dressed in red, white and blue

Standing in sacrament meeting to sing "The Star Spangled Banner"...

Watching the tears stream down John's cheeks during the patriotic musical performances...

Avvy was hilarious with this mask, not only did she want to wear it (unusual for a baby), but she also had a FIT if anyone else touched it! So funny!

I love this time of year! I am so thankful for the blessings and freedoms we have!

Ragnar 2011

John and I had the honor of being invited to run on an elite Ragnar team sponsored by Elden Dattage towing (well, I think it was more of a 'they wanted John on the team so they got me as well' sort of thing. Thanks guys for letting me tag along!). It has been a great learning experience for me. It started last year as John ran Ragnar with the D-Towers and called me throughout the race from Logan to Park City. I could hear the excitement and longed to share the experience with him. So I "trained" for the Wellsville Founder's Day 5k by running two lengths of a block sidewalk and then walking one, running two, walking one until I could run a full block and then two and then two miles and finally 3.2 miles. I ran my first 5k and finished that with a very slow time of 39 minutes. But I did it! John also ran it and came in 7 seconds behind the 3rd place runner - a defeat he intends to remedy this year...

My first leg - and my best one!

Van #2

John also ran the Hyrum Freedom Run 15k and placed 1st in his age group. Then he went on to tackle the Top of Utah marathon and finished that in 3 hrs. 27 minutes. I was so proud of him! So began my desire to join him in his running glory. I never expect to achieve anything other than a free date with my husband and possibly an eventual love for running. We're still working on that!

Crossing the finish line.

But I did achieve my goal of running Ragnar - one of those things you say "I want to do that next year" and never do it. I don't like to make goals to do something I never intend to do, so it kind of became an obsession. Through a twice herniated disk in my back, two "runners" running schedules to balance with who took care of the 5 children, an executive secretary calling that eventually carried over with an Elder's Quorum President calling and starting a new business, this had been an adventure getting here!! But we did it!

We had an amazing and super fast team - them, not me - who worked their butts off for an average mile time of 8 minutes and 30 seconds, carrying my average of ten minutes. I did give it my all however, so I am happy! And next year I will be even more ready and faster!

Ben, John and Alicia

Hand off to Heidi

Ashley and Ryan

Ben - smoking along

I absolutely loved being able to spend the time with John. He is an amazing athlete! Most of his averages were between 6:15 and 6:50 minute miles! Like I said, he made up the difference from my pace. It was amazing to watch his body work, and made me want to work harder to be as physically healthy as he is.

John on his first leg, averaging 6:15minute miles!

Not even winded after his run!

We finished the all day, all night race in 27 hours and 26 minutes. Which is AMAZING!! It is so much fun to see people pull together to accomplish a pretty difficult task and I think that 192 miles through towns, mountains, nasty hills and night and day qualifies as such. We had a blast!

One of the nasty hills - this one was Ashley's

We've already signed up for the next races, John's 15k and 5k and my Epic relay and 5k - which I plan to run in 30 minutes (or under) this year! It tells a lot when, as I began training for this last year, one mile seemed like a LONG way! Now, during Ragnar, they put up signs that say "one mile to go" and when I saw those signs I thought to myself "Hey, I'm almost there! One mile is only a few more steps!" And next year, I'll take on the Top of Utah half marathon, and hopefully then I'll think "Four miles is only a few steps!"

The closest I can get to the May Day Program - Ephraim Elementary

Our amazing little school has a folk dance festival each year. Due to the lack of seating, parents are not invited - MAJOR bummer! But for the last four years, Spencer has been telling me about the awesome "skeleton dance" that the fifth graders get to do. He could not say enough about it's awesomeness! It's the right of passage for the fifth graders. How could I NOT come (and the music teacher did say it was okay for the fifth grade parents)?

Olivia's first grade folk dance.

Boy do I wish there was space for the parents. It made me remember our "May Day Program" at Ephraim elementary school where we practiced songs and dances for months until we had it perfect just in time to show off for our parents with our final performance held at Snow College.

You can just see Spencer in the center circle.

Spencer is at the back of the line. Unfortunately they did not allow us to take better pictures before they sent the kids back to class and the parents home. We had to stand against the far wall, so we got what we got on pictures.

I love these little small town schools!