Pioneer Day

(I seriously need to get caught up on my blogging)

For Pioneer Day, the city of Ivins had a parade. Our ward had a float and the kids were supposed to dress up like pioneers. Isn't Terek cute? There was no way he was getting on the float.Brenner was asked to be on the stake float. So, he got to be on there with his friends, Treyson.
He dressed up like Tom Sawyer. He had on overalls rolled up.. he was so cute (why didn't I get a close up pic?)
In the evening we had a going away party for Josh, Melanie, and Tanner. They moved to Oregon. We are excited for them, but we will totally miss them.

Good luck and have the time of your life!!!

"Little" Family Reunion

I'm so behind on blogging:)

A couple of weekends ago, we headed up north for the Little Family Reunion. My mother in law, Rosalie's family. Her maiden name is Little, so this is all of her siblings and their kids.

The boys always have tons of fun with their cousins.Zack, Alexx and Joren
Cali and Terek
Alexx
Brenner and Cierrah.

The reunion was at a park.

That night we took the kids to 7 peaks. They loved it and had tons of fun. Next time we want to go to 7 peaks for a whole day!!!

Crawdad Huntin'

In an effort to try to keep these kids busy, we thought we'd go crawdad huntin'. When Shellie was down a couple of weeks ago, we took the kids down to the river. We discovered that there wasn't really a sandy beach or anything to play on, but there were people there catching crawdads. Since we weren't prepared that time, we decided to go back.The crawdads are in some rocks under the bridge.
They aren't too big and I'm too chicken to pick them up with my hands... I liked to use a cup.
We took them home and cooked them for a bedtime snack. Joren wasn't scared of them anymore once they were dead.
I'm not sure if Joren really ate one, but Brenner loves seafood, so he ate a few of them.
Joren has been begging to go back, so I'm sure we will head that way again soon.

HIstoric St. George LIve

Last summer, the kids and I went on a few tours. We toured the Jacob Hamblin Home and the Tabernacle. The kids (mostly Brenner) really liked it and wanted to go on a few more tours. Well, we had heard about St. George Live historic tour and thought it would be fun. You get to visit a lot of the historic sites in St. George... all in one tour. And you get to ride on a shuttle bus. So, we got Sydney to go with us and headed off.The kids' favorite part was the bus.
(I have to admit, I would not do this again... until they are much older. They did not really take us on tours of the buildings. Mostly we sat in a room and listened to an actor dressed like a particular pioneer talk and tell their story. It was almost as bad as fighting the kids through sacrament meeting).
By the time we got to the Daughters of Utah Pioneer Museum, we gave up. They took us to the basement and got us settled in to listen to another person talk. They weren't even going to let us go into the museum at all.... huh? The kids couldn't handle any more. So, we bailed on the tour and went into the museum. We saw many pictures of our ancestors in the museum.
And the boys got to sit on chairs made by their great, great, great, grandpa Benjamin Frederick Blake. The museum was really cool and they had fun looking at the stuff in there. We had missed our bus, so we had to walk a couple of blocks back to our van... oh well.

So, it looks like I still need to take the boys on a tour of the Brigham Young Home and a few other historic places in St. George.

Visiting Friends

Last week, the boys and I headed to Salt Lake. Our main purpose was to visit friends. Our friends, the Headricks, live in Denver. They were in Salt Lake visiting family. So, we first headed to see them. Brenner was excited to see Dylan. Dylan was Brenner's 1st best friend. They started playing together before they could even walk. They lived across the street from us in our house in Oquirrh Park in South Jordan. The Headrick family had 3 boys about the same ages as my boys. This is Joren and Jack.
After moving to Denver, the Headricks had a baby girl... Hollyn. She was cute and smiley and just adorable. It was so good to see Rachel and her kids again. We have definitely missed living across the street from them.
Our next stop was Daybreak. Brenner and Joren really wanted to see Sam and George and Lily. They took their bikes so they could ride around the neighborhood with their friends. George and Lily had a baby brother (Hank) that we got to see as well. We missed Brynlee and Parker, but hopefully we can catch them next time.
Next stop was the Stringhams. The kids had fun playing with Dane, Ella, and Bryce. I had fun scrapbooking with Cami... until Joren's mouth started bleeding and I ended up in the emergency room. (That would be why I have no picture). I totally would love to plan another trip to stay at Cami's and scrapbook way into the night... we'll have to figure out a good time:) Thanks Cami for helping out the the kids and for letting us stay.... you really are the best!!!

4th of July

I thought it would be fun to have the kids go to Kanarraville for the 4th this year.... that's what I always did for the 4th as a kid:)
Sunday night we decorated their bikes for the parade.
Brenner and Joren both won in the races.

(Terek was too shy to race)
Don't they look handsome in their patriotic t-shirts? Super fun weekend!

Our Wyoming Visitors

This past week most of our family went river rafting. So, while Lucas was on the river, Shellie, Legacy and West stayed and played with us.
We had a LOT of fun jumping on the trampoline with the sprinklers (this is Ky and Kaylah... they are Shellie's sister's (Shahr) kids).
We went to Cars 2 and did a little shopping at the factory stores.
We always love splash parks.
Bubble baths every night.
Cute and smiley West.
We love feeding the ducks.
And we had our own little firework show.
It was so fun to have Shellie, Legacy and West here!!!

Metal Mouth

So, about a year ago when we still lived in South Jordan, Joren had 6 cavities filled. Right after we moved to St. George, one of those teeth became abscessed and he had to have a root canal on it. Then, in January or February, we noticed that his fillings were starting to fall out. So, we took him to our friend that is a dentist. Somewhere along the way, Joren has gotten scared of dentists (and doctors), so he wouldn't let the dentist take x-rays or look at his teeth. So, we tried again... and failed. We took him to a pediatric dentist and he suggested that Joren would need to be put to sleep to have his dental work done. So, on July 1st, Joren had dental surgery.This picture was taken after Joren had taken the medicine to make him "relax." During his surgery, he had the tooth that had the original root canal removed (it had gotten infected). They put a spacer in its place. He also had two more root canals as well as about 5 crowns. He's been quite sore and not wanting to eat. His mouth and throat were hurting. Then, in the middle of the night Wednesday morning, Joren woke up crying and his mouth was full of blood. I couldn't really tell where the blood was coming from and I couldn't get it to stop bleeding. So, I took him to the ER. (Just as a side note, we were staying with my sweet friend, Cami, in South Jordan). Terek came with us and the three of us spent all night in the ER. They couldn't get his gums to completely stop bleeding... just slowed down most of the way.

We got back to Cami's at about 6 am and went to sleep for a few hours. Then we got in the car and headed home. We went straight to the dentist. He had pretty much stopped bleeding. The dentist isn't quite sure why he keeps bleeding. He thinks he may have some type of bleeding disorder so we are going to take him in to get tested for that today. My theory (and the dentist agrees) is that Joren has a metal allergy. After he makes sure he doesn't have a bleeding disorder, he's going to check for a metal allergy. If that's what it is, Joren gets to go back to surgery and have all of his crowns removed and replaced with non-metal ones!!!

I will try to do better at keeping everyone posted. In the meantime, please keep Joren in your prayers. He's a scared little boy.