What Have We Been Doing All Summer?

So, what have we been up to the last couple months? Lots of random stuff. Like going to garage sales...

Picking strawberries and making jam for coming year...

Looking extra cute at Heidi and Blake's wedding...

Hosting a pirate party for friends...

Planting the garden...

Having a "coolest rock" contest in a cave in Utah...

Turning 1 year old...

Visiting BYU campus and Utah relatives...

Pulling Cassie in the wagon...

Looking at a snake while hiking...

Watching the garden grow...

Watching TV...

Fencing (Derek- on the far left)...

Rolling around in a giant bubble ball...

Learning how to go potty...

Going for a walk in the forest...

Painting the kitchen (before)...

And after!

More to come soon!!

Funny kids and Cats

Kara has been pretty crazy the last few weeks. She has started being obsessed with shoes, and wants to wear them to bed and all day long and trade them throughout the day. She has stopped napping early in the afternoon, so she is very randomly tired and falls asleep in the late afternoon in weird positions and places. We basically did nothing exciting during Spring Break because, frankly, I was scared to take them all somewhere by myself! The only place that we went that was out of the ordinary, was to Noble Woods park about a mile or so from our house. There's a little wetland, some forest areas, and trails throughout. We walked around for about an hour.

Kara's craziness led to her falling off a table onto the corner of the bookcase and giving herself a black eye. It happened on Saturday afternoon about 10 days ago. She had a big goose egg, which gradually went done to puffiness until Tuesday, when all the swelling went away. It looked like she was wearing purplish/black eyeshadow with a greenish yellow up into her eyebrow and out like a triangle on the side of her face.

Now, it is just a dark red line in the crease of her eyelid! I'm just happy that it didn't do serious damage to her eye!

Cassie is just SO cute! I hope her eyes stay blue!

Spencer wanted in on the picture. He thinks he looks so awesome like this...

Then Derek started doing his "bottom dancing"- that kid can really move his hips!

In other news, Derek had his first Pinewood Derby. He put all sorts of Star Wars dudes on the top. Larry was quite anxious to try to do it right. Anyway, something must have worked because he placed 1st or 2nd in all the races he was in. He had a really fun night.

Derek also got 2nd place in his school's 1-5th grade Spelling Bee! He won a pretty sweet-looking pencil.

4 kids in a tub! This was Cassie's first time in the big tub with her siblings. She wanted out pretty quick. The water sure got high after everyone got in!

Yesterday, Intel had a special Blazer night. We got to meet Patty Mills, wander around the Rose Garden, eat tons of food, get airbrushed with Blazer symbols, and play games. It was very fun!

Miranda is SO psyched for her birthday. We made this dog bags with her invitations inside. It's going to be a dog-themed party. I'm going to be face painting all the girls as dogs, we're making ribbon collars, eating dog-bone cookies, and doing other dog-related stuff.

Kara and Cassie are sure growing up so fast. Cassie is crawling now, and her first tooth just broke the surface. She's 9 months old and the most content baby ever...

This video was taken after Cassie had been playing with Shadow's tail for at least 5 minutes. Every time that she grabbed his tail, he would swish it around and she would giggle. I think he finally got fed up with it.

Random Feb/March

Lindsey and Kara have had lots of bonding time. They like to make little beds and pretend to sleep in them. For Valentine's Day, Larry and I went to our Stake dinner/dance and got some pretty decent pictures!

The kids got lots of valentines this year. Miranda even got this giant heart from a boy in her class!

Lindsey took a dance class that she absolutely LOVED! She really liked dressing up all fancy for it, too.

A few weeks ago, Larry cleared out the garage and put up our little basketball hoop in there. They also have balls and bikes. That's what's a little hard about Oregon- it's so wet! And Lindsey and Kara always want to play outside with the big kids, so now they can just go in the garage. Spencer has really enjoyed shooting hoops. (Larry has also made me a real blazer fan!)

Penny and Shadow are wary of Cassie, but have let her touch them. She is SO close to crawling forward. She does a great backward crawl...

Lindsey and Kara love to trap each other under the laundry baskets! Kara is really enjoying it!

By the way, we are planning our trip to California now! We're going to Disneyland, Sea World, and Lego Land at the end of April!!! I'm very excited!

Cassie 2010

Cassandra Denise joined our family on July 5, after an easy labor and delivery. She was very pleasant and content even from the very beginning. I think they only thing that was a little weird was what a noisy sleeper and eater she was! She sounded kind of like a cat purring for the first couple days. It quieted down during sleep a little after that, but she was still loud while nursing-- sounding like a little, high-pitched horn--while she drank. Cilla took these awesome pictures of her when she was 2 weeks old and really NOT in the mood for a photo shoot.

Cassie has been swaddled from the get-go, and still likes to be mummified for her night-time sleep.

Cassie seemed to just join into the daily life of our house pretty easily. Maybe it was just because it was summertime, but it seemed like she and the rest of the household adjusted pretty quickly. Maybe that was partly due to the tremendous amount of sleeping she did at first- and that she hardly ever cries.

Cassie was blessed in August . In her blessing, I remember something unique- that music would be important in her life. I know she loves musical toys, listening to piano lessons, and listening to me play the guitar. I guess we'll see what she likes in the future...

Cassie was born with a lot of dark hair (at least by our standards). She is the only one of our kids to have ANY curl whatsoever! Gradually the sides and back fell out- leaving a curly mohawk. Now, the mohawk is gone and a light brown fuzz has replaced it.

A mischevious grin...

Happy while watching me cook. She often hung out in the bouncy seat while I made dinner.

She loves to suck on her hands, fists, or fingers for fun. I was wondering if she was going to be a thumb-sucker, but she doesn't consistently suck on her hands. She usually just whimpers if she wants her pacifier so she can go to sleep.

Here she is with her cousins, Michael and Hailey. It will be fun to see how similar/different they will be as they grow. Michael is 6 weeks younger and Hailey is about 12 weeks younger.

Many people haven't ever heard Cassie laughing. She is generally so quiet and content that she doesn't say much. In this video Spencer really gets her going! It's really cute!




Here's an example of her loud sleeping.

Cassie has changed so much! She's now 7 months old- rolling, sitting, playing with toys, clapping, laughing, eating from a spoon, and making some funny sounds. We love Cassie!