Bear Lake

I'm adding "Buy a Cabin at Bear Lake" to my list of "Things To Do Once I Write a Best-Selling Novel About a Young Wizard who Loses his Ring and Has to Fight Werewolves and Pasty Vampires." Catchy title, no?

Every year we're lucky enough to get to spend time at Mike's Grandpa Penrod's cabin at Bear Lake. This year we planned to arrive early Friday morning, which means we arrived late Friday afternoon. It was just in time to spend some time on the beach with Josh and Sherrie and their kiddos before they had to take off.  The next day we got to spend time with the rest of the family. 

My favorite moments were building a sand birthday cake for Uncle Scott, watching the girls play "steal the rocking chair" from Gpa Penrod, and hitting at least one good golf shot on the hole the guys made by the beach. 

Here I am in the best picture of me in my swimsuit. I am at the post-baby stage of "Wow. She Should Not Wear a Swimsuit."

The guys studying the golf hole they made. It was a pretty difficult shot past two water traps.

Hannah proclaims that she doesn't like boys, but Koy is okay. 

The girls in the "warm" water. Why is it warm? Well . . . 

A nice big beach and the kids chose the sand in the walkway by the cabin as their favorite spot. 

Gma holding Hannah because she was cold. 

Jared and La-la looking fashionable and carefree. 

We love Bear Lake! 

A Hot Breakfast

Cold cereal makes me happy: Captain Crunch, Marshmallow Mateys, Raisin Bran, Chex, Cheerios, and my personal favorite Cinnamon Toast Crunch. With most of these I might as well just pour myself a nice large pile of cane sugar for breakfast, but that wouldn't crunch so satisfyingly.

One summer in college I lived on cold cereal. My favorite roommate that I cooked with had just gotten married, and another roommate owned the kitchen table and took it when she moved out to get married. I have sad memories, that were only brightened by the deliciousness of cold cereal, of sitting on the kitchen floor balancing a bowl on my knees three meals a day. It was cheap, but I'm pretty sure my running career suffered from lack of nutrition. Anywho, I shouldn't be surprised that my girls also love cold cereal.

Kenzie cries and goes on a hunger strike when I try to make pancakes or eggs. Hannah just pretends to eat them and really spills them all over the floor. I only have enough strength to gear up for a meal-battle once a day, so usually I just give in a pour a nice bowl of cold cereal for them and then I try to force them to eat fruit too. But sometimes I feel guilty about this and I resolve to make them a more filling breakfast, something that will "stick to their ribs." This not only happens when I feel guilty but when we run out of cold cereal or milk. You know, hardly ever.

Since I haven't hit up one of those $1.00 per box sales lately, this week we ran out of cold cereal. Thursday Hannah woke me from my sleeping stupor at 7:30 a.m. and I quelled her "I want cereal. No. I. Won't! eat eggs," cries with promises to let her help me make them. So together we cracked the eggs, cleaned up the spilled eggs, poured in some milk, cleaned up the spilled milk, pushed the eggs around the pan, and let the spilled eggs coagulate on the stove.

When Kenzie woke up she wanted to help too. Our kitchen is small and once the girls each push over a chair to the counter I can't reach the counter or stove and then they start fighting and when a hot stove is involved I go a little ballistic and usually send them to their room while the hot breakfast gets cold. It's a great plan that unifies us as a family.

But I decided to change it up a little on Thursday and told Kenzie she could help with something else. We have to take turns. Then I finished the eggs with Hannah and got out the blender to try an avocado smoothie recipe from my Family Fun magazine. Hannah was upset that she didn't get to help with that and so she threw a fit.  Once I safely installed her in her room, Kenzie and I proceeded to make the smoothie.

Cooking with kids takes about five times as long as cooking alone. And it takes about 10 times as many paper towels. Our hot and nutritious breakfast was served at 10:00 a.m. And my kitchen still hasn't recovered.

Hot Breakfast: 0; Cold Cereal: 100.

Blessing Ellie

Photo by Alisha Siddoway

I know this is possibly the most beautiful baby you've ever seen, but that's not all she is. Since Mike blessed her to follow the examples of her grandmas, aunts, sisters and mother, she is going to be the most talented, smart, funny, kind girl in the world. And that's just by following my example. Okay, not really. She's lucky she has all these wonderful women who love her to give her really good examples to follow and to balance out my faulty parenting. 

Ellsie-Bellsie was blessed August 1, 2010 and Mike gave her a beautiful blessing. We named her Elizabeth Anne (after two of my favorite literary characters). He cries every time he gives our babies a name and a blessing and it makes me a little teary-eyed too. The baby blessing ordinance, with the men who will help protect and lead the baby forming a circle around her, their hands supporting and holding her, is one of my most favorite. 

Afterward we went to the Hooper Civic Center and ate Cafe Rio copycat food. Mmmmm! 

Thanks Alisha for the awesome photos! You are so talented! (I'm sure it helps when your subjects are so naturally good looking.)

Mom, I need to get the picture I took with you and Dad and Ellie to put right here. (Ah, here it is, finally)

Grandma and Grandpa H on blessing day at the Civic Center where we had the luncheon.

Grandpa and Grandma C holding Ellie on blessing day in their backyard.

One week later Ellie's cousin Breanna was blessed. It will be so fun to have a cousin (two cousins!) so close! 

Fun with Ellie

Kenzie's favorite activity lately is to take a running start at Ellie while she is lying* on her playmat on the floor and yell in a somewhat scary voice, "ELLIE BELLIE WHAT'S THE MATTER?"

I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the thing that is the matter is that someone is yelling and stomping toward her small and floppy head.

I'm not sure where Kenzie got this crazy-loud "I've been smoking in a gravel pit and I swallowed some of the gravel too" voice, but she seems to think it's the voice to use with Ellie, frequently using is to "comfort" Ellie in the car, while she's swinging, or just to offer her a bit of loving sisterly advice.

Kenzie also enjoys growling at Hannah, among other amusing past times. Sisters are the best.

*I totally had to look up lying vs. laying. I can never remember how to use them.

The Spudman-ator

While Mike spent last weekend swimming a mile, biking 25 miles and running 6.2 miles, I spent the weekend calling people by the wrong names. (Go Josh!) We both excelled at our events.

For the past three-ish years, 2007, 2009, and this year we've gone up to Burley for the Spudman triathlon. We go up with Matt and Cristina and Cristina's parent live there and let us stay with them.  

I've done the Spudman twice and now Mike's done it three times. When I say that I've done it, I mean that I have limped in to the finish in 2007, and in 2009 I did the swim and bike and dropped out for the run. That was an awesome bike ride though. 

I always manage to come up with some excuse like, "I had a baby 12 weeks ago," or "I have a fracture in my foot," or "I'm a wimp," to get out of really doing it. Someday I'm going to really train for it and then those potato trophies had better watch out. This year my excuse was, "I just had a baby seven weeks ago and my butt is not getting on a bike."  

Mike usually trains half-heartedly and then goes out and does awesome-- an annoying habit of his. But this year he "seriously" trained, at least more than his usual one week before panic workouts, and he did extra awesome! Bodacious!

Overall time 2:22.18.7; Swim: 21:11; Bike: 1:09.15; Run: 48:03.  Alright Mike! Good job.

This year a whole posse of us went up to do the race. Here's all the guys looking oh-so-nice in their before-swim attire. Mark (far right) had the fastest swim (19:04) and bike (1:07:34), and Mike had the fastest run (48:03) and the best overall time. Sorry ladies. He's taken.

Matt and Cristina made this trophy for the winner out of our group. It's gracing the DPC right now and will remain there until someone is able to beat Mike, and that means it will be there FOR-EV-ER.

 

The awesome finishers, Mike, Mitch, Caroline, Ryan, Matt, Dunk, Kristin, Mark. Before we went up Melissa, Caroline, Cristina, Kristin and I tie-dyed shirts for our group. Mike is just happy he has a new shirt to wear to work.

We left Hannah and Kenzie with their cousins and had a nice little vacation with just Ellie to take care of. Cristina's parents even watched her while I cheered for Mike.

Way to go Mike! I'm totally going to beat you in the swim next year.

 

The jump from two to three children

Picture taken by my lovely and talented sister, Alisha Siddoway

Everyone asks, "How is it to have three kids now?" Well, really it's great. It's just like having two, except now if I want to ignore my oldest two instead of blogging, I breastfeed. 

But really, ask me this question again when Ellie is crawling. Then I might growl. Until then though, we've got sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows going on at our house.

Ellie is our transportable baby. Since we've had her we've been running around doing this:

Playing at the splashpad at on base.

 

Celebrating Aunt Shaelynnie's marriage and adding a new uncle, Uncle Ali!

Giving daddy an airhorn for father's day. Because that's just what Mike needs, an airhorn.

Celebrating the birth of a cousin, Kyla (on the left).

And celebrating the birth of another cousin, Brianna, born two days after Ellie.

Getting too much candy at the Hooper and Clinton fourth of July parades

Hiking by Rainbow Gardens. We made it about 1/2 a mile.

 

Then we had to eat lunch and pretend to be bears. Raaar.

It's no wonder Ellie insists that she sleep in her carseat. And don't ask me why these &*% pictures are all over the place. Sometimes I hate you, Blogger.  

           

Summer Haircuts

I'm not the only one who got a haircut. I finally made good on my threats to cut the girls' hair. I wasn't so dumb that I yelled, "That's it! If you don't let me comb your hair I'm cutting it off as short as Daddy's," as I might have once or twice earlier this year. How do you think that trip to the hairstylist would have gone? Instead I calmly called my friend's sister and set up appointments. Then I said in a falsely cheerful voice, "We're all going to get summer haircuts girls, and today we'll celebrate our last day of long hair with fancy hairstyles." All the while I was thinking, "And then you can stop screaming every time I pick up a comb."  For the last day of long hair I gave them french braids (which they never let me do). And then we headed off for our fun and exciting haircuts.

This is the before shot. But they've just been hiking in the hot sun and eating chocolate, so their faces are a little dirty.

Mwah! I love it. They even comb their own hair now! And bonus! Kenzie doesn't chew on hers anymore.