Happy Birthday Superstar!

Our Superstar is nine years old! It's amazing to think that it's been that long since he came to join our family. He's always a surprise and always enthusiastic(for good or bad) about everything going on around him. We're so glad he's in our family and keeping us on our toes.

Here he is with the Ironman action figure from Grandma Barton. She came to stay with us for a couple of days and took us to dinner at Golden Corral(Superstar's choice). Since the food makes or breaks everything for Superstar, that made for a pretty special day.

Here's the spooky cake made according to Superstar's instructions--complete with vampire, ghost, jack-o-lantern and spider on a web.

The big hit of the birthday was the "happy birthday" jack-o-lantern made by yours truly at Superstar's request. Silly Guy was really wishing this was his birthday so that he could have one too!

Recent Events :)

There have been several events during my blogging break the last couple of months so here are some highlights--not necessarily in chronological order-- Sonny Pie went on his first date! It's a little wierd for me to see him doing that...he's still my little boy. He went to the homecoming dance with a very nice girl and they had a lot of fun--mostly playing games with friends before(imagine that).

Juice went off to Snow College. Here she is with some friends when she was home for the weekend. I don't have any pics of her at school. I better get some from her. She is having a good time--meeting lots of people and working hard!

I ran a 5K!!!!!! Remember a couple of posts ago when I said I was going to become a runner? Well, I'm on my way. Three other girls from my ward were running in the same race so of course we needed a picture of us all together. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be(it certainly wasn't easy either!). I'm running another one this Saturday!

First day of kindergarten. Cutie has been going with me to volunteer at the elementary school for pretty much his whole life so you can imagine his joy at finally being able to go to school for himself. He loves it and is doing great!

First day of 3rd and 5th grades for Superstar and Silly Guy. The first day of school is always an exciting day(especially for mom!) Sonny Pie is a junior in high school(I didn't have a picture of him from the first day). He's taking hard classes, working hard, and doing great. He's really happy!

Our great vacation---part 2---Yellowstone

When we left Sonny Pie at Camp Loll on Monday morning we drove back over the awful dirt road and then into Yellowstone and camped for two nights. The kids were so excited to see all of the geysers and hot pools! Cutie kept asking me who built them and how did they make it. When I told him Heavenly Father made it he was amazed. This is Mammoth hot springs which is amazing. It is far north and a long drive but so worth it. It is different than anything else we saw in Yellowstone due to limestone there which is not in the other places. It is really strange to see the dead black trees sticking out of these beautiful formations!

Here are the kids resting on our long hike to see all of Mammoth. We missed having Sonny Pie come with us to Yellowstone.

We saw a lot of wildlife, especially bison. Silly Guy was so excited to see animals, but got bored with bison after a couple hundred. Animal-wise this golden bellied marmot was the most exciting thing. We stopped at a picnic site to make some dinner and this little guy was just sitting on the rocks. He let people walk right up to him to take pictures and even feed him(that wasn't us!) He came pretty close to us on his own. He wasn't afraid at all.

Here we are by Emerald Pool which was really beautiful. The rock inside the pool was yellow and the water was very green. We learned that the color of the rock was due to bacteria--different types of bacteria were different colors. The different colors in the water was caused by the temperature. The brighter the color, the hotter the water. Very interesting!

Cutie and Superstar at the lookout near lower falls.

Our great vacation--part 1--Camp Loll

Camp Loll is a Boy Scout camp located between Ashton, ID and Yellowstone National park. Sonny Pie worked there all summer last year and returned again this year, so we decided that we better visit him and see what is so attractive to him there. It is a wonderful place! (The dirt road to get there is not so wonderful, but the destination was worth it!) It smells like Christmas there due to the large number of evergreen trees and in fact it was Christmas while we were there. The staff celebrate Christmas every July 25 with a gift exchange, Christmas tree, and even lights! This tiki was carved by our bishop when he came to scout camp with our troop. They camp in the same site every year marked carefully by our bishop.

In the lake --- poetically named The Lake of the Woods --- we found many minnows ready to nibble on whatever---or whoever---entered the water. As you can see here, the members of our family quite enjoy having their toes nibbled.

OK....Juice doesn't like having her picture taken. This was the best I could do. She was very ready to defend herself with silly string.

Here we are at polar bear springs, about a 1/2 mile hike from the camp. The scouts have the opportunity to sit in it and recline under this waterfall for the count of ten to get a special polar bear award. We thought it was better to just take some pictures:)

And here's our whole family together for the last time until the holidays. Juice will leave for college ( :S ) before Sonny Pie gets home. They miss each other by just two days!

Me?..... Become a what?.......

A few weeks ago some little voice in the back of my mind said to me, "you should become a runner." That was quite an unbelievable thing for a voice in my mind to say since I have always really hated running.
My dear husband has been a runner since he was young--in middle school he ran 10 miles just for fun to see if he could do it. He runs every day during his lunch hour and he ran in the 15k Freedom Run on July 4th for the fourth time. I've always told him I'm not a runner. I like to walk---really fast and as far as you want, but I don't run.
I have several friends who like to run, and some who even run marathons. I have always thought it's not for me. I HATE to sweat, and even more to have people see me sweat! But then this little voice......It may have something to do with Andrea, my friend who was "invited" by someone she knows to train for the St. George marathon. She wasn't a runner either although I don't think she objected as strongly as I did. Anyway, she's training with her friend and is doing great.
So I Googled "how to become a runner" and found some suggestions and here I go.....
For the last 3 weeks I've been getting up at 6am and going running following this plan:

http://www.halhigdon.com/beginrunner/plan.htm

From the very first day I had more energy all day. I think that's partly just from getting up. I really am a morning person. It's difficult having a husband who is a night person because he wants me to stay up late with him, then I'm tired in the morning and don't want to get up. Anyway, I haven't managed to go more than three times a week. I'm determined to go four times this week and then we're leaving town for six days. I don't know if I'll be able to run while we're gone.
Even with my inconsistency it's getting easier. Maybe I really can be a runner. I don't think I will ever run a marathon....I don't really care about that, but maybe some year I can run with Stephen in the 15k?

Happy Birthday Cutie!

We had a fun water party for Cutie on his birthday with a pool and slip-n-slide. We invited all the kids nearby. It was really fun. This little girl in the center would stop whatever she was doing to pose for the camera. I had to be sneaky to get pictures of anyone else.

cupcakes and ice cream sandwiches!

The boys just wanted to stand on the slip-n-slide to make the water spray higher rather than sliding.

Cutie had a fun day.......especially with those goggles! He insisted that we get some for the party!

Victory! (at least for a moment)

My three boys think life is dependent on computer use. For quite some time every spare moment has been spent begging to play computer. I have been very strict that they only get 15 minutes per day on school days and 30 minutes on Saturdays. Unfortunately that leaves a lot of time for begging and arguing with Mom about the computer.

I decided that I want to cut back their computer time even more. Every summer I give them a checklist of things to do before they can play--things like clean rooms, make beds, read for 20 minutes, do 5 minutes of service, etc. Each day of the week we have something fun we get to do after the checklist is completed. Go to the park, watch a movie, go for a bike ride, play computer. I only gave them one day to play computer which they thought was absolutely horrible. The first two weeks of summer break were spent arguing as usual about computer playing time, but I held my ground and said they could only play on Thursday which is play computer day. That didn't sit well with them AT ALL.

But here's the victory of it. This week I didn't hear them ask to play the computer for three whole days before today(Thursday) and when Superstar came to tell me he had completed his checklist he didn't even remember that today was computer day! I had to tell him!

Woohoo! I know it won't last but I'm celebrating today:)