Gwen's Golden Birthday

10 years old on July 10th! Thats fantastic age for a golden birthday. Gwen has been planning and thinking about this non-stop for the last 2 weeks.  We planned it down to every detail.  She had breakfast in bed and opened her first present, a metal golden crown that she wore the rest of the day. 

Then we spent the rest of the day getting ready for her party that night. Mary came down to help me set up!... so helpful.  Lunch was egg salad sandwiches and she opened a few family gifts: golf clubs, golden golf balls and fruit mentos.  

Her party was a special spaghetti dinner with golden foods like cheese sauce, corn on the cob, garlic bread, cantaloupe and pineapple, sprite and lemonade.  Chris and Todd were the chefs and waiters and acted in character accordingly.  Then after some time on the trampoline, the girls came in for a relaxing Spa treatment. 

With spa music playing and essential oil misting, the girls washed their faces, applied toner, face lotion and then either a mud mask or a peel-off mask.  While the masks dried, they soaked their feet in milk bath water and I massaged them for a minute or so. 

Then they peeled off the masks or washed them off and then it was back upstairs for a golden dessert/snack bar, cake, ice cream and presents. 

Gwen went back and forth on what kind of cake she wanted but she settled on a lemon blueberry donut cake. 

It was so great to celebrate our Gweny. She's thoughtful of other's needs and wants and such a deep thinker. She's the first one to read her scriptures and complete the related 20 Question worksheets.  She is so coordinated on the trampoline and looks like a gymnast. She loves to sing, rhyme, solve puzzles (she learned how to solve a 3 X 3 rubix cube in one day), play make believe with her younger brothers, and go for walks/bike rides with me. She loves to watch crafts and pranks on youtube, studio C and is getting into Psych when its not too scary.  She is quick to say she's sorry to me, and is sensitive to how others are feeling.  She loves food, but doesn't overeat, and is such a joy to have in our family. We love our Gwen!

Theo's walking, MS dinner and Freddy's tooth gets pulled

Theo loves to walk. Max and I were standing near him where he was holding onto the couch and as Max and I walked away to put the popcorn bowl back in the kitchen, Theo grabs onto Max's shirt as he passes! Max doesn't skip a beat and continues his march to the kitchen and Theo manages to stay on and in sync by the skin of his teeth and they walk in tandem for 15 feet before Theo falls. It was super funny. 

We had some MS friends over for dinner! Jessica Smith, our trek daughter and McKenzie Gines! We love to see old friends. 

Freddy had some major cavities at our last dentist appointment and one was bad enough that the dentist wanted to pull the tooth before the decay spread. By the time we got in a week later, there was some fluid build up and leakage... it was a good thing we were taking it out! Their laughing gas was already in use by someone else and so the dentist sort of wanted to postpone it but we went ahead cautiously to see how Freddy would handle it without it. He did amazing! He was pretty inquisitive and kept asking the dentist questions and messing with his lip after it was numb but he stayed still and squeezed my hand through his discomfort.  I was so impressed.  He was pretty excited to put his first tooth under his pillow! The tooth fairy must have been really backed up with all the new COVID-19 procedures that it didn't come the first night, but it BARELY came the second night... a few minutes after Freddy woke up and complained about the tooth fairy not coming AGAIN. Poor 4th child. 

July 4th!

We got together with our Archibald family on Friday, July 3rd for a Cafe Rio Salad potluck at our house after Chris and his brothers and dad had the occasionally annual Independent AGA golf tournament.  I'll let Chris put in some details about how the round went, but I do know that Chris won it. :)   I was running around like crazy most of the day trying to get the house clean for the party. I had had some down days the previous few days and so the house was NOT in good order.  I felt a little pressure to have the house looking really good to show Chris' parents that we're taking good care of it and it would be the first time that Edward and Kayla saw it since we've taken it over.  I was trying to fit too much in and was painting a final coat on the mantel a little bit AFTER Chris' mom and grandma came, behind their backs so they wouldn't feel awkward about me not being 'ready' for them. It was kinda funny. Not that they would've cared one bit! It was a fun to see family and eat good food.  Insulin is allowing me to eat more of the yummy food at all our family dinners and its helping me not feel so sad about diabetes. Modern medecine is great. 

On Saturday we went for a family run and almost did a 5K. Chris and I ran pushing Theo and Max in the stroller, Freddy and Alec biked and Gwen and Charlie rode scooters. Then we got ready for our Betteridge party up in Herriman. We invited Thom and Brittany's family to join us and it was a lot of fun.  We planned to do some fun water games like kiddie pool kick ball, and other lawn games.  We planned the food last minute so it was just a big BYO meat/buns and a few sides. So basically we had tons and tons of food.  We also just sat around talking under the gazebo for a lot of it so we didn't play very many games but we did get in a good game of kiddie pool kickball.  We sang some patriotic songs before eating the traditional flag cake and by 8:30 we all left to go get ready to watch the fireworks from our own houses. Jared and Ashley's family and Todd a few of his big kids joined Thom and Brittany and our family down in Provo at our house to watch the Stadium of Fire's fireworks. They were lighting them off from 3 different locations around the valley, one of which was just south of our house a mile or two.  We thought it would be the perfect place to see them. Turns out they were a little bit farther away than we thought so they were mostly along the horizon but we could still see them and our neighborhood was shooting off big fireworks like crazy so it was still really entertaining and festive. We had sparklers and pop-its to share as well. 

Happy Birthday, America! We love you.

Utah Evening Weather

Two things I appreciate recently are the evening summer weather here and Max's cuteness. Its been pretty hot during the day but without the humidity its still bearable to be outside... but only just. When the sun goes down its a different story, its perfect! The air is still warm but the heat is way less. Chris has been doing a daily routine with practicing golf in our backyard.  He has a net set up on the front of the soccer goal to hit balls into from a little practice mat and he uses his birthday gift: a swing speed monitor to help him gauge how far the balls go.  While he does that, we sometimes let the babies stay up late enough to jump on the tramp or hit balls with him.  Also on Friday nights our neighbor friends have been having kids over for a Late Night/ Night Games from 8-10. They love this! Chris and I love it too. Its given us some fun walks or trampoline time with just Max and Theo. 

Max loves the trampoline. He's pretty fearless and coordinated for one so young. Theo doesn't mind it, as long as he's touching mommy or daddy.  Thats pretty much his M.O. for anything. He loves to play with us and climb on or claw us. He especially loves us to hold his hands while he takes steps!

Alec's 1/2 birthday and Theo's first steps!

Alec wanted to celebrate his 1/2 birthday this year and spread some birthday love around the year instead of piling it all on the day after Christmas on his actual birthday. He helped us pick out used mountain bike from KSL (albeit a week or so later!), chose some cupcakes to make and share with his cousins up in Herriman.  Then we had a fun family 'Nailed It!' experience lego-style. Nailed It is a tv show on Netflix where average bakers are asked to make really difficult cakes and then they get judged for the one who looks/tastes closest to what its supposed to be. (They usually are all pretty hillariously FAR from actually 'nailing it.' )  Inspired by that show, Chris picked out 4 household objects for the kids to try and recreate with legos and then Max helped him judge and awarded Gwen the winner.  Alec was in a good mood all day and just happy and easily pleased. He can be so amazing that way.  His lego creation was a hippo and was really really good.  We love Alec and are so glad he's in our family!

Theo has been standing for a while and sort of taking steps here and there, but now he's really getting into it. He's so brave and just walks into an empty space with no close objective! Most kids will only try to take steps towards something close.  If we put ourselves in his line of sight, he'll just lunge for us.  Whenever he falls, he usually just grins real big and laughs a bit. What a cutie. 

Justin and Radene stay with us

Justin and Radene stayed with us for a week after camping. It was SO NICE to have some one-on-one family time together. We've never been able to do that before. Turns out, we get a long really really well. It was so enjoyable. We stayed up late every single night talking...either about our love stories or about mini cabin ideas!

Justin still had to work from home, but Radene and I (along with Chris sometimes) still took the kids out to do fun stuff. We hiked the Y and Battle Creek Falls, went to 2 movies at the Sera Movie Theatre, walked around BYU campus, ate JDawgs and BYU Creamery ice cream, hung out in Herriman and played around at home. We also went on a date with, Mom, Dad, Hailey, Tiff and Todd and ate Bombay House on BYU campus, and had people over for a salad potluck. Sarah and German weren't able to come to anything we did all week because someone in German's coworker's family had covid-19 symptoms and they were worried they were exposed. Also Ashley had family visiting so their family were busy most of the week. 

It was really sad to say goodbye to Justin and Radene and their kids. We had so much fun with them.  After a busy few weeks, the first thing Chris and I did after waving goodbye was to pay Charlie (in screen time) to babysit Theodore so Chris and I could take a nap!