Benji's Big Trick & Puppy Tummy time?

Nelly, seeing Cal on the floor for his tummy time, rolled up right next to him and rolled on her back looking for some tummy loves. It was so cute. Our Birth Mother Cassie's & her family -dog lovers-have a Yorkie named George and English Mastiff named Cookie.(if I remember right) They also have a friend who brings their Mastiff over often named Bowzer...

Dan Schools Benji in the arts of Bike Ridding.Lesson One did not Last Long...

Benji Decided lesson one was a lot of work and wanted his training wheels back on...(Turns out he surprised us a few days latter while I was inside with Baby Cal, Benji pulled his bike out on his own and figured it out solo! Now we have a pro bike rider who is itching to ride and "pop a wheelie" on his way to school.

Way to Go Benji We are so proud of you!!! You have amazing Determination to teach yourself how to ride your bike and so quickly!

Slightly crass...But made us Laugh!

Imagine our Surprise when we opened up the bag of cookies intended for Benjis Valentines and found...LOOK CLOSE....

"Happy F*%ts Day"!

Benji got a big hoot out of it too..For the next week he would say "Happy F*%ts Day!!!"and Giggle up a storm!


Our special Valentines day Family Night Dinner... followed by a special candle lit chocolate molten lava cake dessert for my mom, 4 sister, niece Ryelle and my sweet hearts Dan & Benji.

LOVE YOU!

Puppy Love-Nelly- We Love you!

(Benji took about 5 photos of Nelly on V-day)

Did I mention my latest project. I finally got the black antic table I wanted...After many coats of paint, and lacquer. I love it!

Muddy Mud Pit & Mr Crabby Patty

Last October....The family went for a nice walk...When the boys left the trail and wondered down to the receding river, mom was not in exploring shoes so I left the boys to trail blaze on their own. This is what I welcomed back home...They were covered head to toe in mucky river mud and Benji discovered a new friend. Mr. Crabby Patty the Crawdad he just had to bring home!
(Note Yes I know Benjis pants are down, the mud was cold and he was anxious to get in the bath.)

After the big clean up (hosing out all the clothes before they hit the washing machine) and a complete scientific examination of the crawdad (yes Benji is a science enthusiast & we learned more then we needed to know about crayfish) we all got in the car and drove back to the river to send Mr. Crabby Patty home and set him FREE...

More Summer Memories

Who's this cutie you ask...This little bright eyes is one of the latest additions to our family...My sister Chelsie and her baby Ryelle moved in with us the Aug 19th. We are thrilled to have some of my family here in Utah. Yes WE even Dan, he is the one who suggested Chelsie come live with us. And we have had many fun times together sense.

SO this is Benjis favorite chair...the first two weeks here Ryelle was really interested in it and would come up to Benji while he was sitting in it and make her way in it, Benji would just sort of get out of her way...Very polite like...Chelsie & Dan would affectionaly call her a bully. (not the best choise of words in hind site and we have sence stopped saying that) Then he fought back and we are trying to teach him to share and how babies really dont understand sharing. Its been fun to say the least for 2 first born kids to come together and struggle to share.
As you can tell they really do love eachother and do share well at times too!! We spent as much time as we could in the pool. Both Benji and Ryelle are little water babies-well I guess benji is a water big boy and Ryelle is the water baby. He would swim pulling her in the water behind him. Great times.

We went on a carriage ride at farm country together and visited all the animals.
We tried to get Benji to ride the pony-he said he wanted to but the ride ended early in tears.Received a package from Grammie and Poppy a small Peruvian bag perfect for holding chalk for his chalk board. And as always the candy nestled inside was a huge hit.

Im usually surprised when I upload our pics to find that Benji stole the camera a few times, actually every chance he gets he takes pictures...some of them are not that bad, heres one of his favorite subject, his best friend Nelly. Recently he discovered the zoom feature.

Two first born only child's lives collid- Benji is learning the wonders of having a sibling-sort of

They have some great moments together. Here they are playing the classic laundry

basket-boats. I love this memory, pirates, row row your boat or watch out for the crocodiles (mommy), the options are endless and the giggles are many.

We had a great day at the Dino museum. Our friends from our old neighborhood came up for 2 dollar Tuesday at to play at the park. What a blast. So nice to see our great friends, above Elizabeth and kari playing with Benji in the Dinosaur museum below Benji lines up all the Dino's and Ryelle soon makes a king Kong swipe (Im sure her attempt to play with Her friend) and knocks them all down greatly upsetting the Dino master Benji.
Ryelle loves other children and latches on to Baby Mathew my good friend Diana's second baby, Sammy's brother.

Amazingly huge!

Benji and Sammy pairing off discovering together. Zoi and Benji posing under the monstrous Dinosaur Skeleton.

After the Great Thanksgiving Point Adventure all the friends met over at our house for a BBQ. Even the Spouses came. It was so nice to have so many of our friends up to visit in our new home. I was really frustrated with this move because we had made such nice friends and we really had a good group to get the kids together with. I was worried the move would be to great a distance, as it had been with some other recent great friends moving. Sarah, Omel,Ethen, Asher, Oliver and Jessica,Laurence, Neal and Paul. This had been very hard on Benji and Me and note those great friends who moved were also about his only friends that were boys. That brings me to the object of the childrens play by the end of the night they each collected some toy of Benjis and morphed them into hair styling products.

But hey

if Dans Manly enough to have his hair and nails done by cute little girls then Benjamin is too.

Dan and I got out for a night of laughs with brian regan at the outdoor theater.

Benji became better friends with my mission comps son Benji. Yep same name two cute little guys.
Story time with Daddy Dan aka uncle Dan.

Two supper heros. Two good friends. Sammy and Benji
The Best Daddy Ever!!! I love my two boys.

Do we really have that much junk?

Do we really have that much junk?
D.I. was proud

What I will remember about this move is it’s the one Dan fell in love with plastic wrap…
If it doesn’t fit in a box wrap it in plastic. From a couch to a vase, wrap it in plastic! I mean we went through 3 rolls of giant sticky wrap. Dan Had Fun!!!

And I venture to say we will never move again with out it!

Wow. Looking at my calendar amazes me what we got done in so little time. Thanks to Nana and Charitie if you hadn’t come I know it never would have happened so smoothly, and it if did happen at all I think Dan and I would be in marriage counseling for the next 6 weeks we are in the rental. Having Nana their really help lighten my mood…as I was not particularly happy with these arrangements Dan made.
We finished packing the last of the house from Saturday to Tuesday May 10-13th and took the load to storage 20 min. away! (to bad Dan had forgotten the key & had to call me before they could unload the truck!) We had amazing neighbors and friends show up to help they were awesome.
The rest of the week was spent making more trips to storage and the rental then we thought we would be, and cleaning, painting & mending our home.
Benji never made it to bed before 11:30 pm & the rest of us usually saw morning before “hitting the hay”. Yep Dan underestimated how much time it would take to get it all done, & how much junk we had to move, but the painful memory fades and in the end we left the home looking great, so good in fact Benji & I were not the only ones sad to leave it.

Does that saying “leave the place looking better then when you got there” apply to your home or just your camp sight? I mean I always feel good when we clean up the campground to look like no one was there but leaving your home looking better then when you lived there just doesn’t seam fair. I mean cant it be that nice while you live in it?
Here is a list of all the projects that we where too busy to fix while living there & then were miraculously completed in less then one week while moving…
Fresh paint in
kitchen
3 bathrooms
dinning room
front door frame inside & out
touchups throughout the house
Caulked
3 bathrooms
1kitchen
Replaced
9 Blinds
1 bathroom Faucet (we used cold water for year!!!)
Many more little unmentionables
Amazed!!! Are You Not?

hiking

This pic was taken April 26th is already outdated, now they have started framing the house!











We went hiking up a canyon Tuesday morning with some friends if you can call it hiking when you are with 4 kids, 4 & under and 2 dogs. It was nice to get away from the packing and moving clutter of our home. Benji kept declaring he had discovered dinosaur fossils in the rocks. He is stoked for his Dino themed birthday party.