We Love Our Brilliant Children

Mark's First Birthday

Yes, I still want to blog. Yes, I have three children in three different sports right now. Yes, I am getting their uniforms clean right before they need them. Yes.......

Mark had a really great first birthday. He is just now finishing up his "thank-you" cards.

He is absolutely precious. We have the best time during the day to be together just the two of us. He still takes a morning and afternoon nap. I love to go and rock him and read to him with out any other noises in the house. He is rather sad in the mornings to see Mike go and then to see the big yellow bus take Abby, Ben & Emma away. I guess I am just not as cool.

My First Olympic Distance Tri

Well here I am finishing my first Olympic distance triathlon a couple of weeks ago. I had a CRAZY summer and did not get to train as much as I wanted. BUT.... I did finish so I can check that off my list!

It was a 1 mile swim, 25 mile bike (in the Shenandoah mountains - which meant at least 10 miles were uphill - there aren't any hills to train on in Chesapeake :) and I finished off with a 10k. Let's just say the 10k was not pretty at the end. I wish I had Lisa McKee there pushing me a long again.

Mark's Trick

Mike wanted me to post this:

Emma turned 8! Ben has had 27 stitches this summer! and Mark started walking!

My baby girl turned 8 at the end of the July. She wanted a fun "glamor" party. So we invited a bunch of girls and played pass the cell phone ( a version of musical chairs), dress-up relay tag, guess what glamor tool is wrapped up in wrapping paper and we did makeovers for all the girls and took their pictures and put them in their party bags filled with other glamor accessories. It was a lot of fun but I am glad it is over.

The next day was her birthday and she got to get baptized on her birthday which is pretty cool!
This is a picture of Emma, Mike & I, my mom and dad (Rexanne & Karl) and Mike's parents (Dave & Dea).

Last Wednesday I thought it was the start of our more relaxing summer. I had a good run with Schylar Robertson in the morning and then we went straight to the beach. We had a blast playing at the beach. When I got home I literally thought "Wow! This is what summer is supposed to be about." Thirty minutes later Emma accidentally hit Ben with a golf club. He was very brave considering all the blood. I took him to President Merrill's office to have him stitched up. Now he has seen a plastic surgeon 6 times in his life. He had 15 stitches put in and needless to say we now have a rule no one can stand near anyone who is swinging a golf club.




To end on a happy note... Mark started taking a few steps last night. He has walked later than my other children probably due to the fact I am not pushing for his extra freedom and that the children are happy to carry him where ever he needs to go.

4th of July

I thought I should put some 4th of July pictures up before it is the 4th of August. When we lived in our old house I asked Mike to build a swing set for the kids during the 4th of July weekend. It ended up being 104 that weekend. Since we are in a new house with out a swing set I suggested the same idea - "Why don't you build a swing set this 4th of July weekend?" Thank goodness it was in the low 80s.

Did he do a great job or what?

Our Trip to Utah....Back in June!!!!

I know, I know....where have I been? I have been trying to keep my head above water. It doesn't seem to be working though. Any suggestions?

We had a great time visiting Mike's family and we also got to see my brother's family (Michael) and his new baby boy - Landon. Wow! I can't believe they have three kids now. Michael is going to the Y and is living in the married housing there at Wymount. We told somebody that, when we got back to VA and they said they called those apartments the "bunny hutches".

We got to take a tour of the LDS studios - where they film lots of stuff.....Mike's cousin works there and gave us an awesome tour. Here is a picture of Mike and Mark taking really good care of the costumes.

Of course we had to go to Cafe Rio!


We went down to St. George with all of Mike's family. Mike and I love St. George. This was the second time we have been, and we loved it even more. This is us at Snow Canyon.

This is Ben after he did a "Michael Phelps" butterfly (without goggles) into the corner of the hot tub in the pool. The funny thing about this is that Mike and I were already at the "instacare" place getting Mark's ears looked at when Mike's sister (Kym) called telling us Ben needed stitches. Mike wanted him to get the stitches done there and I wanted him to get them done in the ER at the hospital in the same parking lot - with a plastic surgeon because it was on his face. When Mike saw the gaping hole between his eyes he agreed that Ben needed a plastic surgeon. The doctor said he could see the bone. Ben has been to the plastic surgeon three times in his life now.


We had a chance to stop at Cedar Breaks on the way home. It was gorgeous and cold.

We also hiked up the Y at BYU. WOW!!!! that is a steep climb. It was a beautiful view once you got up to the top.