Family Reunion

My dad's side of my family is HUGE- so when we have a family reunion we need a whole scout camp to put us. Ok so we aren't THAT big but at our recent family reunion we had about 120 people there. When my Grandma has 9 children, 68 Grandchildren and over 100 great grandchildren there is a big group of us. That doesn't even count spouses! My dad works for the Boy Scouts and has most of my life and we spent a lot of summers at the scout camp for our area when I was younger. Later when I was in high school we went back and worked there too. I have a lot of amazing memories there and was really excited to show Bryan and my boys a place that ment a lot to me growing up. And beyond that I had a lot of fun seeing my cousins that I haven't seen for a long time. I have so many my age that they are some of my closest friends.

The drive from our house to camp was LONG. But for a few hours we were driving through the mountains and the runoff in the river was amazing.

We ate at the pancake house in McCall and had a cinnamon roll bigger then my head.

When I used to work at camp I worked with my brother and 4 other cousins. I had many different cousins work up there the three years I did but this group worked my last summer. I have a picture of us in this same spot 9 years ago when we worked there. I wanted to recreate the moment.

My family.

My two year old at the waterfront.

These girls are the closest thing I have ever had to sisters. They are my cousins Kandace and Caitlin. They worked with me at camp too.

ugh- someday I'll have a nice picture of my husband with me. At least he is entertaining.
We were lucky to stay in a "cabin" to use the term loosely. It was a one room cement floor building but it kept any rain out we may have had and we didn't have to set up a tent.

My brother and I were this age when we lived up at this camp for the summer. We had a ball playing outside all of the time. What a fun childhood we had.

It's a....

BOY!!

I guess Bryan is right- he really can't produce a girl. He says he is too "manly" to produce anything girly. I don't know if I believe that but he's right about having lots of boys.

I got to my ultrasound and they told me that my appointment was cancelled and I was irritated because I had been counting down and a lot of people were waiting to know and they never called to tell me it wasn't today. Bryan and I waited there and after 10-15 minutes of waiting they told us that there was a mix up and my appointment really was cancelled but they would take me back for a minute to at least tell us what we are having. So I don't know if they baby is really healthy or not but he has to arms two legs and a heart beating so I guess that's good so far. I'll go in next week and they will do a full ultrasound to check everything. She didn't even have to tell us what it was -we could tell. Every one of my boys had their legs spread wide open so there was no wondering what they were. She did print a couple of pictures so I could show my other two boys. Ty had told me I had to tell them it was a boy, they can't tell me it's a girl. So he knew it was a boy already when Bryan told him. If it would have been a girl I think he would have been really mad. I can't believe I'm going to have THREE little boys!

Sorry the quality is so bad- but you get the idea from the picture. Yep- it's a boy!

Camping with Dad

Bryan took my boys a couple of weeks ago out camping. We have had crazy weather this year and so I was worried about how cold it was going to be. My youngest has never been camping so I was worried how he would do. They left early in the morning Friday and it gave me the day to myself which was nice! The boys hiked around and had a great day. It rained here but wasn't too bad where they went. Then that night it started to really storm where they were and around 10-11pm the winds got up to 60mph and some of the tents were falling over. It was really cold and they all decided to call it quits so I got a late phone call saying they were coming home. I was relieved actually because I was worried they would get really cold.

My little guy couldn't last though the hike. He was ready for a nap!

Part of the group. Bryan's brothers, their boys, and my two other nephews were there. Also My sister in laws brothers and a friend from Bryan's work and his boy.

My boy and his cousin. My boys love camping. And if Bryan takes all of them camping all the time I don't know if I will mind having all boys!

T Ball

My oldest is doing TBall this year. I wasn't going to put him in it until I found out our friend is couching and his boy is in it. It is so funny to watch kids the age play. They run all over the place, some even chasing their own ball after they hit it. I think he is having fun. At least he likes the treats he gets!

Sometimes it takes him a few tries to hit the ball but other then that he does pretty good.

My Hyrum Utah Mutton Busting Champ 2010!!

So we got a call from Bryan's sister on Saturday saying there was a charity rodeo in a local town and that she heard they had some spots for mutton busting still open.

For those who don't know much regarding mutton busting, here is the scoop. Mutton Busting is a fun thing they do with kids at rodeos where they pretty much ride on sheep and whoever has the best ride wins- sort of bull riding for the little kids with sheep. It was for ages 3-7 and Bryan wanted to sign up our 4 year old really bad. Bryan had grown up helping raise some sheep with a neighbor so I trusted that he knew my boy wouldn't get hurt. I'll be honest- I was a little nervous but I knew that the sheep weren't that big and the dirt would be really soft. I was only worried that he would get stepped on by the sheep but that doesn't happen very often. So we were at the rodeo for almost 2 hours when they finally called for the mutton busters and Bryan took him over to the chutes. I was excited but come to find out Bryan was really nervous because he knew the sheep they had were the biggest bread of sheep out there. Ty was a foot and a half off the ground. Glad I wasn't sure how big they really were. I should have Bryan put in his side of the story here- so if your reading this Bryan feel free to add what you want to this. Anyway a few kids went before him and Bryan told me later a lot of them were crying before they went but Ty was like "I'll do it dad. Put me on." We found out later that Ty was the 2nd to the youngest out of 12 kids too. So they announced it was his turn and he shot out of the gate and the dumb sheep took a sharp turn to the left so Ty was riding him on the side then after about 5 seconds he feel into the dirt. He cried for a second but told us that he was just kind of scared instead of hurt. He did awesome! Usually the kids would come out of the gate and fall right off. I guess that working with Ty before helped. He scored a 62 when a lot of the other kids were scoring in the 40's. He ended up tying for first with a kid who was 6. They split the winning money so he got 25$ but lost the coin toss for a belt buckle. We are going to buy one online for him so he can remember he won. Bryan was so proud. So was I honestly. He was really brave. But he doesn't want to ride the sheep again. We let him go to wal-mart and pick out whatever he wanted for his prize. He was in heaven, and telling ever person he saw there he won riding on the sheep.

For any of you who think I'm a terrible mother for allowing him to do this your welcome to think that if you want. None of the kids got really hurt and now Ty has a wonderful memory. I always feel bad for him when Blake is getting attention and he isn't so it was a wonderful day for just him. We've had to pay more attention to Blake with his potty training stuff and Ty has been really good not to be really naughty so I was so happy that he had his day. And he was good enough to share some of his new toys with his brother.

I've been trying for the last two hours to load the video but the computer had a error with blogger. Yeah, I'm ticked too. I'll try to load it later.

Tales of mom who is trying to potty train .

So the other day I decided that Blake is going to be three this fall and with a baby coming on the heals of his birthday I should think about potty training. I know I know, he will revert as soon as the baby is born! My kid was potty trained at 2! Never potty train in the summer! Only potty train in the summer! Holy cow what advice is the right advice? None or all of it. As much as I love advice from people on potty training I have learned something important- what worked with their kid may not work with mine. And most important- potty training is for the birds. I remember thinking why do people wait so long to do it. Don't they hate changing poppy diapers? Of course they do! But after you clean your first pair or poppy underwear you would gladly change a bad diaper.

So I've jump right into to working with my two year old to go potty. My little guy, as cute as he is, is STUBBORN. He gets that from his dad. I know he knows what to do but he doesn't want to do it. So I didn't allow him to have on underwear or anything and low and behold- he pooped in his potty on his own. But like I said, he is stubborn. I have to put a diaper on him for nap and he fills it up. He won't go all morning and then goes in his diaper. But If I don't put one on him he would pee all over his bed. So we bought prizes and when he fills and line of stickers from going on his chart he gets to get a prize. He is been crying for his prizes EVERY TIME he goes potty. Nice. So we are on day 3 or 4, can't remember anymore. And I think he has gone a total of like 5 times. It's a start. The kid would rather pee his pants and sit in it then pull them down and pee in the grass. Not sure what to think about his kid! So we shall see, who will break first? The mom who is tired of buying and changing diapers, or the two year old.