catching up

Cake Boss in my Kitchen! Olivia and her friend made a three layer cake with fondant frosting, all by themselves!!!! It had palm trees and starfish and sand (Brown sugar) and it was amazing! they were so proud of themselves, and the sense of accomplishment that they had was unreal! They kept saying, "can you believe that we made that?":) They were pretty proud of all their hard work.....approximately 5 hours of baking! But they had fun!

The process.....

Olivia stole my camera and took this picture....Baby Drooooooollll, Gross!

First Day of School! Random pictures but I thought they were fun!

Family Pics by Mandy Williams!!!

So it has been 4 years or so since we have had family pics taken! (By someone other than myself) So when I met Mandy Williams at story hour this summer it started the wheels turning in my mind.....and we finally had family pics taken (wether the kids wanted to or not!) Mandy did an amazing job, I would highly recommend her! But you be the judge!

We went to Packsaddle Lake on August 7th with my Bro's and Sis's. It was alot of fun!

Their was a make shift diving board at the Lake......

(I think that is Ben jumpin in)

The kids were very brave and swam in the lake!!!!! (usually they are quite afraid of water)

and it was a cold lake too!

Olivia even went off the diving board....with a little help from Lindsey!

And a little more help!

Hanging out in the shade!

Mommy time!

Playing in the creek!

Ben, the best camp chef in the whole wide world! When can we go again?


The kids didn't want to get out of the razor! They really enjoyed Casey's new toy! I can't believe I let them ride in it, Olivia told me they about tipped over! At least they have seat belts and a roll bar!

The Wheeler Reunion! We froze for saying it wa s the 3rd of July! But the lighting was great for pictures..... This is for my Dad. We missed you!

Eating pulled pork and salads and OLIVES! of course.

Chatting with Dad..... Forever!
Service Project.....Still a project!

Minute to win It!

Everybody Loved the Elephant March!

Sizzlin' Summer

Wow, to start the summer off we had a family reunion. ( mom's side of the family, the Ball reunion) We had the annual easter egg hunt on Candy Mountain....




Brooklyn was helping her Dad find lots of candy!

They were enjoying a shady spot after the hunt!

I see some CANDY!

Easy Candy!

On Your Marks....

GET SET........ Go
THat WAs the First Reunion!

THe Rest of the Day was spent in Lewisville having races, playing Minute to win it! And EATING!

WE Braved the family vacation again and went to Lagoon! We bribed the kids, and set the goal that when we finished reading the scriptures we would take them to Lagoon.....Well, we finished the scriptures and so we went to Lagoon. Here are the pictures to prove it!

Yellowstone Park

So, We finally went somewhere!!! Yeah! Greg has a job in West yellowstone, and had a free hotel room, and Last weekend we could get into the park for free.....So we loaded the kids in the van (yes, we have a van now....) and headed out.... Funny thing, the van is segregated. The boys have to be on the drivers side, and the girls on the passenger side.

Straton traveled very well!~Thank You!

The kids loved the hotel....we didn't even go swimming, I guess cable TV is entertaining enough!


The first thing we saw when we entered the park was a Black Bear! Look closely, it is under the pine tree on the right! We got to watch it walk all the way up and over the hill, it was just moseying along! Guess when you visit Yellowstone a telephoto lens comes in handy...

Then we saw some Elk...


Oh, Look!, Kids! Aren't Kids Lovely! Such a rare find, especially looking like they love each other and are having fun!

"Hey Mom, can we go down to the river?"
Moving on....We headed to, You guessed it, Old Faithful!

Along the way we saw some buffalo (Bison if you are politically correct)

The beginning of the show, above, and the grand finale! It was 130 feet high, and lasted a couple of minutes! ( I know because I was nursing in the visitor center while the show was going on, so I bugged the ranger and got all sorts of good info.) Olivia is photographer here! It is so nice to hand the job over....Didn't she do a good job!
The kids waiting for the show to start, woops out of order....oh well.Brooklyn being her own person, standing alone, tired of everyone else....Or just being 2 and saying...."I can do this myself"
Some thermal feature along the way home. Olivia was photographer again....guess where I was....Yep, Nursing In the van! Vacations are so much fun!

Pretty....
Stinky, at least the wind was blowing away from them, (According to Greg)

Mars...
Olivia is such a good Photographer!

The End