ammon says...

last night:

me: ammon, i think those jammies are getting too small for you. i think it is time to put them away.

ammon: yeah, can we give them to michael jackson's son?

me: uhh... yeah.... maybe...

ammon: what does michael jackson's son look like?

me: umm, ask your dad.

getting back into blogging...

it's been a while i know. for some reason it has been super hard for me to sit down and upload pictures. so i'm going to start with just some funny things the kids have said or done and some milestones and hopefully i will post some pictures in the near future.

we have been sick. it was nick's turn first, now mine. looks like like the kids have joined in too. ammon has a cough and runny nose and is too sick to go to preschool today. he came up to me and sat in my lap and said:

"i don't have a bad cough any more." (cough-cough) "i just have an original one".

lucy is full of energy despite her coughs and talks about herself in 3rd person, saying things like, "baby gee do it". or "baby gee's turn". oh yes, she has named herself baby gee. it's her alter-ego diva.

ammon is getting bigger and doing new things all the time. he learned how to ride his bike with out training wheels in just a few minutes and he thinks he can teach lucy how to do it now. a couple of weeks ago nick taught him about pearl jam. we were in the car and this conversation took place:

nick: "ammon, who sings this song?"
ammon: "pearl jam"
nick: "who is the lead singer?"
ammon: "eddie vedder"
nick: "who is the lead guitarist?"
ammon: "mike mccreedy"
me: "ammon, can you say your abc's?"
ammon: ".... no...."

yeah. so i thought that might be a problem. i had been working on them with him and he just didn't seem interested. he would always sing: "a b c d e f g... w x y z." but after practicing while going through a corn maze with aunt jessica and bridget, he finally got it! and now he sings his abc's all the time. i love it!

nick has also taught him a lot about michael jackson. he LOVES all the music / videos. he says his favorite michael jackson songs are "thriller" and "smooth criminal" but he sings to "billie jean", "bad", and a few others as well.

nick took him to go see "this is it" and before they left ammon found a red blazer with gold buttons in his closet. (a hand me down from his cousin). he put it on and INSISTED on wearing it to the movie. he thought it was the perfect jacket to wear to a michael jackson movie and nick couldn't convince him otherwise. i was trying so hard to keep the laughter in but it was so funny watching nick and ammon fight about the jacket. ammon was SURE that it was the perfect michael jackson jacket and nick was SURE that he didn't want ammon to wear it out in public with him.

lucy LOVES the color pink. we were at the store the other day and she didn't have her volume control on. everytime we passed anything pink she yelled out, "PINK!!!" like, "oh-my-gosh-mom-did-you-just-see-that!" kind of like she had just discovered something AMAZING. and she did it over, and over, and over again. finally i got her volume in check and things were okay after that.

she loves to tell me the color of things. we saw a horse outside (another thing she really loves) and got a bit excited. i asked her what it's name was and she said, "a black one". so everything is color oriented now. she loves playing with ammon and giving hugs and kisses. when she knows she is in trouble for doing something naughty, she comes up to me and says, "a hug mommy" and "i love you". kind of hard to be mad after that...

okay, next post will have some pictures...

4th of July

the boy in brown is the one tierra fueded with for most of the parade. i thought it was kind of funny until she broke out into tears at the end of the parade when he took a pack of gum she wanted.

horses and 4-H princesses.

i think i'll have another...

cute-cute hair

ammon loves his cousins.

tierra is oh-so-cool in her sunglasses.

lucy and her squirt gun.

cute and matchy 4th of july shirts. ammon was so sad that no one was matching him and kept asking where daddy's shirt was.

our car was still out of commission so mom came and picked us up to take us to the hyrum parade. it is a family tradition and we would have hated to miss it. THANK YOU GRANDMA!

i bought matching 4th of july shirts for the kiddos while we were in park city (GREAT outlet prices!) and lucy and tierra looked so cute with their sparkler hair-dos. the kids had fun at the parade. lucy loved the marching band and she didn't quite get the concept of putting her candy in her bag. as soon as she would get one piece she wanted to open it and eat it and didn't care about putting any more in her bag. ammon liked dancing to any music that went by and tierra fueded with a boy next to us that kept stealing the candy she was after. good times!

the night before we missed the stadium fireworks but did some out on the road with our neighbors. thanks crystal and mark for sharing your fireworks! it was a fun, relaxing 4th of july. which was nice after all of our travels!

park city story with pictures...

these are my pictures of our park city trip. i didn't get any of our MANY trips to the pool. it was probably where we spent most of our time. other highlights not mentioned in the pictures:

playing rockband... i do love to sing on that thing. i am in no way a good singer (pretty bad actually), but when it comes to rockband/karaoke, i LOVE IT!

going with nick to watch an old sundance movie at the library in park city.

the relaxation pool with sauna/steam room and waterfall.

landon taking me to spoon me on our way home.

okay, so all my pictures are backwards in order. here goes:

magic show at the resort. turns out bridget is pretty magical and can turn pennies into quarters!

tierra was the beautiful assistant

lucy wanted to help too!

all the kids ready for a show.

nick and ammon on the alpine slide.

tierra was scared to go at first but ended up loving it and asked to do it again.

lucy said, "weee!" i couldn't go fast enough for her.

the chair lift was fun until we got REALLY high up and i was afraid lucy would suddenly jump off my lap and fall to the ground. then i was TERRIFIED!

bridget in her regal robe.

high flying arial acts. snow boarders and skiers doing jumps into the water.

they did a lot of flips and tricks. it was really cool to watch.

ammon and stockton "riding the bobsled" while we waited for grandpa, landon, josh, and ryan to come down in a real bobsled. grandpa ended up getting really sick, boy did they go fast!!

a couple of australian olympic skiers were there practicing jumps. it was funny seeing them ski on grass in their "wet suits" then strip them off as soon as they got to the bottom.

jess alpine sliding it.

mandi and stockton. this slide went faster than the one our little family went on. no one under 3 allowed on this one.

landon is SOOO cool.

the "extreme" zip line. dad didn't want to do this one after he did the regular one so mandi took his place.

josh

dad on the "wimpy" one. looked pretty scary to me!

the boys on the skeleton sled.

ammon driving the bobsled.

nick and i.

the kiddos.

fun at the park at the resort.

notice ammon "the flash" behind bridget.

lucy's funny faces.

crazy cousins while grandma and grandpa cooked dinner.

riding the shuttle to church together.

tierra in her new cute-cute night gown.

i made matching mu-mu night gowns for lucy and tierra and had enough to do one more for bridget. oh, what cute-cute girlies!

it was nice to be able to shut the door and keep the kids out of our room. nick could not wait to shut the door and just veg out on the bed while watching ESPN.

the kiddos excited about their space for the next week.

a video of the skiers doing tricks into the water.

finally!

i've been super blog-lazy. everyone keeps asking (or telling me...) to update my blog. it is 7:00am and my kids are still in bed amazingly enough, so i'm taking the time to start updating!

the last bit of june we headed up to seattle to drive nick's mom home and pick up tierra. we broke up the drive with a visit to some old friends in boise and it was fun to see them again. it was funny how as soon as we walked in their door, so many memories flooded back and we had lots to talk about. i can't believe how fast their girls have grown and kristi's fried chicken is every bit as good as i remembered it!

when we finally made it up to seattle, nick's sister had a warm welcome for us with a bbq and bubbles for the kids. the kids LOVED blowing bubbles down on the dock and aunt therese quickly became a favorite (and ammon got to see her again to remember that she does NOT look like santa clause!). we had fun visiting with kayla and seeing how much she is growing up and getting prettier every day. nelson entertained the kids with the computer and movies once they got done with the bubbles.

the next day we all went to pike's place market together. i know it sounds touristy, but ammon remembers nothing from living there and i was excited to show him the guys throwing fish. lucy was pretty amazed by it as well. we stopped by dick's, a seattle institution, for lunch.

that night nick went to the mariner's game with friends and i got to experience why staying at the holiday is the BEST option with kids. we had tried and tried to get into the hilton that therese works at, but we were only able to book one night so we stayed the other two nights at the holiday inn. the best part? KIDS EAT FREE!! so on our solo night from nick i took the kids down to the restaurant for dinner. they had also given me a coupon for the restaurant so i think i paid $10 WITH tip for dinner for all 4 of us! and the kids LOVED it, the meals are very kid friendly and they all got ice cream for dessert and a cute cup to take home! i also received a complement(?) from a stranger while we were eating. he came up and told me his wife thought i was very brave (for taking all 3 kids to dinner by myself).

they gave me another coupon the next day so off to the restaurant again for breakfast! and i have to say, the grown up food was pretty good too! i got a smoked salmon omelet, very seattle-y. that night the whole family went to the mariners game (nick's family too). it was great to be in a real baseball stadium again and fun to see griffey play. lucy loved the music and she got a certificate for her first mariners game. and the best part? THEY WON! the whole crowd was on their feet cheering and yelling, it was great!

the drive home the next day was long and exhausting knowing we were going to pack up the car again the next day to meet my family in park city, but thanks to crystal's dvd player, it went a lot smoother than normal!

thanks rust family! we had a lot of fun!

ammon is a busy bee

i have started walking again in the mornings. it is good to get out of the house and start my day a bit earlier than i have been and the kids like it.

the other day we were walking around the soccer fields and ammon was riding his bike. he kept slowing down by all the wild flowers on the side of the paths and i was getting frustrated. then when i watched a bit closer, i realized what he was doing. he was sticking his finger in the middle of the flowers to get the "honey" out and pretended to eat it saying, "mmm". what a silly kid.

fun in the sun...

with a few warm days in the past couple of weeks, scattered of course with the icky ones, we found ourselves outside enjoying the sun!

bridget and lucy are such big girls now!

look at all those monkeys!

bridget and lucy sharing a ride.

we realized later, when they weren't so into sharing, that bridget thought the stroller was hers because she has the same one at home... silly girls!

faye insisted on sword fighting with jess

lucy loves doing the dishes, but usually just wants to help when she sees me doing them. well the other day she opened the dishwasher and started unloading all by herself. look at her face, she is so serious about it, it is her big time job. of course ammon couldn't let his baby sister out-do him so he jumped into help too.

one day when nick was off work we took a walk to feed the ducks. ammon loved throwing the bread and watching the fish and ducks with dad. lucy loved chasing the ducks and trying to get them to eat out of her hand. she got really frustrated when they didn't want her bread. she just kept after them saying, "bite!" she has also discovered bubbles and they are her FAVORITE thing.

it isn't spring without a baseball game and when the raniers are in town, you know nick will be itching to go to the game for sure! our car had been in the shop and got done JUST in time to head out to the game for family night. tickets are super cheap on mondays and they have free train rides for the kids. carol and chandler met us there and that was fun for ammon.

nick was really excited to see jeff clement catch again and see and talk to the players.

carol got ammon and chandler balloon swords and i though they were so cute i had to take pictures of their battle.

i kept lucy entertained with suckers and carol got her a balloon flower, she did pretty well at the game and fell asleep in the last inning.

ammon was so cute, he saw this guy and leaned over and said to chandler, "hey, i bet he will give us high-fives!" so we walked over and sure enough, he gave the boys fives. lucy liked the bee from a few rows back in our seats (he was a big stuffed animal of course!) but when she got up close she just started screaming. nick asked her later if she wanted to go see that guy and she said, "no!"

ammon has been saying some funny things lately and i wanted to remember. yesturday we were in the car and he told me that lucy lived in heaven before she came to our family too (just like him). i told him that he was right and asked him if he thought lucy played with him up in heaven before they came down to our family.

he said, "no, jesus doesn't want us playing in his room."

funny kids!