For The Record.....

She DOES NOT take after her mother. I have NEVER watered my garden while topless and wearing a sequined skirt. Just so you know. Plus, I don't think I could pull it off as well as she does.

Flashback Friday: August 4th, 2007

Today's Flashback Friday is from August 4th, 2007. This was the day that Ethan was baptized and Evelyn was blessed. This was a crazy time in our lives. Ethan was supposed to get baptized on June 30th, 2007. I was due with Evie on the 4th of July, so we headed towards that date with trepidation about how we were going to pull that off. He was so excited about getting baptized that I didn't want to make him wait til August if I could get away with it. Well, obviously, things didn't go as planned.

Evie was born on June 25th, I still thought, "Okay, I can do this. With some help I can pull off a Baptism just days after getting home from the hospital. I can do this." Well, before we left the hospital Evie ended up in the NICU for five days. So, we weren't even home the day the Baptism was supposed to happen. Ethan was a champ and dealt with it so well. I felt horrible, but what was I supposed to do? (More on that whole story another day.)

This photo was taken the night before the Baptism. I felt so bad for Ethan, just minutes before it was our turn he got so sick. Luckily he rallied and we were able to continue on and get it done.

I love this photo of Evelyn. It is exactly what I wanted her Blessing photo to look like. We almost didn't end up with it either. They had taken a bunch of photos of her that didn't work. We were just about to call it quits and bring her back in another day when she suddenly sat very calmly like this. I yelled at the photographer to hurry up and take the photo!

These photos were taken at our home right before the Luncheon.

(clockwise: Janet and LaVere, Nate's parents; my Mom, Tana; and my Dad and Fran)

(on left Great Grandma and Grandpa Jackman)

Broken Wings

Monday afternoon Ally broke her arm, again. This is her second broken arm in seven months. On this particular day I was babysitting my nieces Rebecca and Janet. All four of the girlies were downstairs dancing and twirling in various dress-ups to one of my Hilary Weeks cds. Well, graceful Ally tripped on one of the thousands of toys strewn about the "dance floor". As she was falling she put her arm out to break her fall. It definitely broke her fall all right. When Nate's sister Wendy and her hubby Brad (both work in emergency/medical services) showed up to get their girls they put Al in a homemade splint. An ice pack, a dish towel, an Ensign and two rubber bands did the trick. Off we went to the doc. She ended up with a buckle break above her left wrist.

Yesterday I took her in to get her actual cast put on. She chose purple with pink stripes. Isn't she too beautiful for words? I gotta tell ya, it scares me. She is growing into such a beautiful young lady. Last Sunday she came out of my bathroom with my rhinestone earrings and necklace on, with her hair perfect and smelling like a Bath and Body Works tester table. She was so pretty with her perfect tan and her coordinating outfit, not to mention the lip gloss she had slathered all over her lips. It was definitely a sign of things to come. Did I mention she had her purse too? Scary cute. I'm not ready for her to be a young woman, but I am afraid she is heading down that path. ((sigh))

Anyway, she will be in the cast for 3-4 weeks. Not exactly how you want to spend your last weeks of summer vacation. She's a little bummed. When she broke her arm last December she was at "Grandpa's Sledding Day". I wasn't there, I can't remember why, but I sent Nate with the kids. Al came home with a buckle break on her right arm. She apparently flew off the sled and again put her arm out to break her fall, and again it did. Last time she chose solid pink.

The happy day she got her cast removed. She didn't love the smell or the dry skin but she did love that she could itch her arm without sticking a foreign object down her cast.
Counting the Unbroken Broken Leg from last August this was Ally's third "break" in 12 months. Time to give it a rest sisser-pie.

Wordless Wednesday: There Literally Are No Words

(sydney and ally, july 2010, bear lake)

So We Went To Bear Lake.......

We headed up to Bear Lake to spend the weekend a few weeks ago. We hung out at my sister Heidi's house. The kids loved playing outside.

They played a lot of "make believe". Plenty more "make believe" headed your way tomorrow. Trust me you don't want to miss it.

We headed to the Lake and had a great afternoon at Nate's office retreat with some of his fellow coworkers.

Ryland was doing a great job of canoeing by himself, until.....oops!

We had a great time! I love heading to the Lake!

Moth Encounter

About two weeks ago I was out watering in the garden when the kids came running to me in a bit of a tizzy. It seems they had found the "World's Largest Butterfly!" "Come look Mom, hurry! Before it flies away!" I walked around the corner out of the garden and looked where they were pointing. Even with my glasses on, from a distance, I thought I was looking at a bat! It was dusk, the sun rapidly setting but as I got closer I could tell that it wasn't a bat or a butterfly, but in fact a huge, giant moth. The first two pictures do not do it justice, size wise. It looks like any random moth in a closeup. I was so grateful for my nice camera lense so that I could capture a photo of it without having to get to close.

I took a photo from this angle to try and convey the sheer size of it's body. It was about the size of my pointer finger. To give you some perspective I snapped this photo of Ally with it. Look at it in comparison to the size of her head! Isn't that unbelievable? I have never seen a moth of this proportion. I must admit, it was creepily fascinating.

Photo Shoot Sunday: August 1999

This was one of the very first Photo Shoots I made one of my kids endure. This little cutie patootie is my firstborn, Ethan. Isn't he cute? I remember this was taken while we lived with my parents for 6 weeks while we were in between places. We had just moved out of the mortuary and we were waiting for our Ogden house to close so we could move in. He was about 2 months old.

(August 1999)