Look Who's One Year Old!!

Baby Griffin is One Year Old! I can't believe it. This has been the quickest year ever. We had the whole gang over (and I mean GANG, the boy cousins are all like a little wolf pack when they get together) for the traditional destruction of a cake and presents. Griffin was very timid about the cake, but he figured it out eventually.

Look at that face. I swear, I sometimes think I could have four more.

We had two cakes, one for Griff, and one for the rest of us.

Lots of cute gifts. Thanks everyone for coming, and for being such great Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins. We love you all.

This little guy has been the sweetest, most adorable little thing. He is so mellow. I am sure by this time next year he will be as crazy as the rest of the group, but today he is just an angel. We love you Griff Monster, Happy Birthday!!

No Girls Allowed!

This is why Griffin was born a boy, and I will never have a girl. How would a girl survive this kind of chaos? The boys (of course) had to get in on the cake destroying action. Coleman started it off with a face plant into the cake. . .

Brady wanted to try some too. . .

Then Matt pushed Hyatt's whole face into the cake. Little boys, big boys, it doesn't matter, they are all BOYS!

Then my mom leaned over to try and save Griffin from all the chaos, and he reached up and got her too! You have to be brave to hang out with this group.

Meeting With the Bishop

When I was younger, a phone call from the Bishop's house meant one of two things, and they were both bad! Times have changed. Our very good friends the Cluff's invited us to go up the canyon for some family night fun this week, and it was a blast. Bob happens to be our Bishop, but he is still willing to hang out with us. See how grown up I am Mom and Dad! No, actually, we have been friends with the Cluff's much longer than Bob has been our Bishop. I first met Jill when we had just moved into our house. I was invited to a baby shower for a woman that I had just met, and barely knew. I felt kinda weird about the whole thing because I did not know anyone there. I sat across the table from Jill and listened to her talk, and I immediately knew that I had to make friends with this woman, because she was my kind of girl. We have since become very close friends ( she was called as my visiting teacher shortly after that baby shower, so she really had no choice but to talk to me) and I consider myself lucky to spend time with her and her cute family.

Side note here: After Jill and my other great friend Natalie had been my visiting teachers for about a year and a half, I leaned over to Natalie in the middle of a lesson on visiting teaching in church one day and asked her who she was assigned to visit. She looked at me like I was some kind of an idiot, and it took me a full 30 seconds to figure out why. I wanted to die, I was so embarrassed. I am always saying stupid stuff like that before I think. All the treats, all the long talks, all the laughing, and I just nullified it all with one comment. We laughed so hard in the middle of that class I almost had to leave. Jill and Natalie still spoke to me after that, and for that I will always be grateful.

This is the gang, they all got in the river the second we got there, and of course caught a snake. Maddie is Hyatt's age, and Will is close to the the same age as the twins. They all play together so well, I love it.

Jill is the best kind of friend, she is tons of fun, and super thoughtful, AND she lets me gripe to her about anything, and she still likes me the next day. Griffin loves her! She is also the best cook I know. She brought her "secret" lemonade (as Maddie called it) to dinner, and it was delicious. You know you are a good cook when you even have your own special lemonade, the stuff I brought came in a 2 liter bottle.

Here is the latest addition to our wild animal collection. It is starting to look like an episode of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom around here. Just once I would like to go on an outing and NOT come home with a new member of the family!

Bob and Matt cooking the grub. By the time we got around to dinner it was dark, and the kids were freezing. We made a valiant effort though, and the food was still delicious, even if we couldn't see what we were eating. I like THESE meetings with the Bishop, I think we should have them more often.

Blue Blooded

How are my children so blue-blooded, when I am a genetically predisposed, die hard Runnin' Ute? It is simple, they love their Daddy! They want to do everything he does, and I just simply can't compete. I think I am softening a bit however, because it is starting to be less and less fun to cheer for the Utes with four people booing and hissing at me. You know how rotten those BYU fans are,(wink, wink)
try living with some!

I think this will be the new weekly tradition, they had so much fun. Brady asked me if we could do Griff's hair blue too, I of course laughed and said no. It was when Matt said "Why not" that I started to think my family is seriously demented. What's a girl to do?

Labor Day Catch Up

I took the boys up to the cabin over Labor Day weekend. We had to leave Matt behind because he had to get caught up at work (that is the lie that he told us, but I knew it was because of the BYU season opener. . . he has a sickness). It turned out that all of my siblings except Clay came too, so it was a blast! We always have so much fun up there when everyone comes. The boys love their cousins, and it is so fun for me to get to spend time with my siblings, especially Cam and Traci who I don't get to see very often. We crammed as much as we could into a weekend, I even got a little kayaking in with Kris, Mom and Kristalyn. These are just some random pictures of the weekends festivities. My cute mom got up early one morning and hid "treasures" in the forest for all the kids to find later that day. They loved it, and they loved the loot they scored. The zip line is always a favorite activity
Brady and Cole with Carson and Chase on our way to do a little fishing. It turned out to be very LITTLE fishing, see 2 pictures below. . .
My little man in his waders, he looks so cute, like a small giraffe in a pair of hip boots. Those legs, oh to have legs that long and skinny!
This is why the fishing was nixed, the water behind the boys is the dam below Hebgen Lake. They had some kind of problem and couldn't get 2 of the gates in the system to close properly, so the water level in the Madison rose several feet in a few hours. It was kind of exciting actually, the fish cops were telling everyone to get off the river because it was so high, and they were not sure if the dam was going to hold. We thought it was exciting anyway, but the boys just thought it was lame because we couldn't fish, and they couldn't get down by the water.

Cousins on the back steps. Look at all of these boys and poor Kelli in the middle of it all. She is such a good sport though, she puts up with all of them, and they LOVE her! Some kids just don't want to grow up. Even if they are 6 foot 7, and have legs that drag down on the ground when they ride the zip line.
The kids ride this thing in the back yard all day long. It is so much fun, they never get tired of it.