Memorial Day 2013

I have got to do better about staying up to date with blogging.  This is totally my journal and I need it to document our lives!!!  I am determined to make it a priority again.  I feel like a while ago it seemed like I would blog before I would wash the dishes or fold the laundry or whatever and I was feeling guilty.  But if I were to sit down with my book style journal in my lap and write about what was going on in life I don't think one person would judge me.  I've got to get back to that again.

So now here I sit, and I'm going to finish this before I get in bed.

We were up at the cabin for Memorial Day (big surprise!!!) and one of the highlights was our little fishing adventure.  It seems like it is a "must do" activity and Grandma & Grandpa always spoil these boys with some fishing time.

I love this picture.

Marshall was a very diligent fisherman.  The other boys wanted to run off and explore but Marshall didn't want to leave his pole... It was up to him to watch it every minute so he could catch a fish.  Most everyone had gone off doing something else and Carly's pole was sitting unattended (she had already caught a fish and just threw another one out there for fun) and Marshall noticed there was a fish on it.  Grandpa let him reel it in and he worked hard for it and was very happy with his accomplishment.

See how hard he was working and how focused he was?

Cute!

  

He didn't want to touch this one...

Of course Tyler wasn't shy and showed off the horny toad he and Karter had caught.  

That must be where everyone was when Marshall caught the fish...

I didn't get many pictures of Marshall's second fish of the day because I was taking video too, but all of his patience paid off when he caught one on his pole right as we were cleaning up.  I was glad, because he had been positive that if he sat by his pole the whole time and watched it there would eventually be a fish on the other end.  I was so proud of him. I guess because this one was really HIS fish he held it for a picture.

*Notice Tyler's face in this picture.  He was not entirely thrilled for the fish to be that close to him.

In the middle of all that patient waiting, Daddy rigged up a pole to try to catch crawdads.  Macy was having a great time with that little game.

If I remember right, this wasn't even the big one they were trying to get.

It's always a good time on Kolob and we are so grateful for the memories and fun times we have up there with family.  In fact... I feel another little visit coming on.  The kids are always asking to go so I'm determined to get them there soon.  I'll make sure to take some darling pics of my kids so they can be blogged along with the other fun thing we did on Memorial Day.

Megan's Graduation

My little sister, Megan, (Meg McMuffin, Shake-a-Leg Meg, Midget, Mageegan, and who knows what else we call her) graduated high school!  At first I thought it was weird to blog about her graduation, but she's like my oldest child, really, so of course I'm gonna blog about it.  

I'm so excited for her to start her "big girl life" and try a ton of new things and do hard stuff and grow right up.  She's heading up to Weber State University in the fall and it's gonna be sad to not have her around but I'm seriously so excited for her.

Graduation was short and sweet, and the graduates did a flash mob which was fun.

It was fun to have Papa Perry in town from Japan for graduation.  

My dad and Realaine came down the weekend before to spoil Megan with attention too.

We are all so proud of her!

(Marshall was at school because he just couldn't bear to miss one day with his awesome teacher and class and their water party.  He's a big fan of Meg too, though.)

Memorial Day Outing

While on Kolob for Memorial Day we rounded up our clan and brought some stragglers (Scott's, Ballard's, and Ashcroft's) with us over to Oak Valley to shoot.  That's the boys' favorite thing to do lately.  We were just shooting clay pigeons and a few tannerite.  Someone had just dropped some cows off right there and they were so dumb!  Every time there would be an explosion from the tannerite the cows would come closer!  I'm glad I'm smarter than a cow.  Anyway... it was fun!  I think everyone got a chance to shoot and not to brag or anything, but I'm a pretty good shot :)  I'll thank my dad for that since he shared his good eyesight genes with me.

Cierra brought Sam along :) ...love birds...

The little boys were TIRED and slept most of the time.

Marshall took that chance to run around exploring with his "girlfriend," Meg.  You'll see her in a sec...

He found this skeleton and carried it around forever.

Marshall loves shooting with Daddy.

Melissa nailed some tannerite just then...

Looks like Karter woke up and was watching Marshall blast those targets with his BB gun.

There's Meg!  She's such a cutie...  

Whenever we are at the cabin we always have to check if Meg is up there too.  I hear it goes both ways too...

More Daddy-Marshall time using Uncle Brady's cool new gun.

I wish we could go shooting a lot more... Marshall just loves it so much!  

It has been fun that since he turned five and got his BB gun we have made time to go a lot more.  Before that, I can only remember one or two times that Colby took me out shooting.  :)

Oh yeah... Macy was there too.  

She LOVED those bright orange clay pigeons.  She wanted to eat them the whole time!

Birthday Boys

We kept birthday celebrations pretty low key this year, but that doesn't mean we love these boys any less!  On Marshall's actual birthday we took the boys to Antigravity (a big trampoline arena) in St. George because I promised them we would go do something we've never done before.  They were super excited to run wild there.  I left my good camera in the car (I had to ditch the "party" to go take pictures at a wedding) so all we have here are photos from my phone.  At least we have a little something :)  They played in the bounce houses for just a little bit before we all went crazy on the trampolines.  The boys had races with dad and I showed them a trick or two by bouncing off the "walls."

Here's Macy, her festive bow was in the boys' honor.

When we all made it home that night we found a special delivery on the porch from Marshall's "girlfriend," Meg Bringhurst.  A box of cookies with his name on it!  

Marshall thought that was pretty cool!

On this same day we also watched Marshall play soccer (they won 2-1) and ate lunch at Subway.  On Tyler's actual birthday we met up with some family at Krave for some yummy frozen yogurt.

On the weekend between their birthdays we had cake and presents at Grandma and Grandpa Stratton's house.  Their cousins gave them some awesome Ninja Turtle toys and the boys were freaking out as they opened them.  I got a hilarious video as well as a couple pics on, you guessed it, my phone.  (It's just so much easier than carrying around my big camera.  I'm getting lazy, I suppose.)

Dirty Boys

A few weeks ago Colby got extremely ambitious and removed all the sand from our sandbox to replace it with much softer, nicer sand.  These pictures are from the night the new sand got put in.  I wish so badly I had pulled the video camera out and gotten some footage of the kids while the sand was getting put in.  Colby and Randy (our neighbor) would bring the back hoe back and dump a load and the kids would jump to the top, grab any sticks or debris they could find, throw it out, then run like mad as the back hoe approached again.  It was hilarious!

All the boys had faces like this!  Pure exploding excitement, right here.

The fun has arrived!

We've had a big week and I hope to get it all recorded right away.  First thing on the docket is our approach into farm life.  I doubt it will get much closer than this, but I'm loving it right now.  

A few weeks ago I got a phone call informing me that "Grandpa thinks the little boys need to hatch some chicks..." and after a few minutes of securing the details I learned the process would not be taking place at Grandpa's house.  Haha.  The incubator would be coming our way and we'd get to see it all happen at our house.  To be honest, this didn't really bother me at all.  I'm not a major animal lover, but I don't mind them either.  I guess I'm fairly indifferent, but baby anything is so adorable so I was on board.

The first action started to happen on Thursday.  There was a ton of anticipation and the first little guy finally hatched right about bedtime.  We let the boys stay up to see it and Tyler named him Chucker.

Once he was hatched I was a nervous wreck.  I had read different peoples' advice and stories online (so dumb) and was nervous one might die.  Who knows what I would have done to prevent that, but I really just didn't want to kids to wake up super early all excited to see if more chicks had hatched and find one dead before I did.  So I slept on the couch where I could hear them and be aware enough to check on them.  Here's what I did for most of the night... stared at a lonely chick.

A little before 6am I woke to a bunch of cheeping and wouldn't you know it... another chick had hatched!!  After that I headed to bed and probably 45 minutes later Colby informed me we now had three chickens.  That third one really shocked me because it didn't seem anywhere close to hatching when I checked less than an hour before.  The boys were so excited to find out there were more when they woke up and Tyler exclaimed, "Marshall!!  Chucker is not alone anymore!"  It was so cute.

#4 snuck right out of his shell while Tyler and I were both in the kitchen, I was doing dishes, and #5 sat in half his shell just long enough for me to yell to Tyler to hurry and come see him hatch.  We caught the end of that one on the video camera for Marshall to see when he got home from school.  At this point we had Chucker, Black Jet, Fluffy, Crusher, and Estelle; named by Tyler, Marshall, the boys, Daddy, and Mommy, respectively.  

The sixth one hatched later on Friday and it just so happened that we were all home to see the whole process (this one was strong and fast) and Aunt Megan even got to watch on Facetime.  It was a tiny bit of a shock to her that a chick is not so cute right when it first hatches.  I sent her this picture once he finally got on his feet.

Saturday was Marshall's birthday and we were so excited for the 7th egg to hatch that morning before Marshall's soccer game.  This was the only chick that was not mostly black with some white markings. It was decided after the game that #6 would be named Pepper because of the black marking on his beak and #7 would be Ralph, after Wreck It Ralph.  He was pretty yellow looking at first but has definitely become a more golden brown.

If I had to choose a favorite, Ralph is the prettiest, Fluffy is the sweetest, and Estelle is just great because I named her and she's the smallest of them all.  Fluffy stayed right by tiny little Estelle when she was first hatched and seemed to have a real motherly instinct.  It made me assume she is a she.  We haven't bothered one little bit to be certain of genders otherwise... their names seem to have determined that instead.

In this picture, Marshall is holding Black Jet and Tyler is holding Chucker.

 This is the first five when they got moved into their little home on our kitchen table.  It's fun having them right where we can see them but they are starting to make our whole house stink so they'll probably be heading out to the garage soon.  If I remember correctly, the one on the very left is Black Jet, to the right of him is Chucker, at the very top is Crusher, the one with the most white is Fluffy, and Estelle is the small one at the bottom of the picture.

Karter and Brigham ended up with nine hatching, I think, and they and us shared a few with Great Aunt Diane so her Kindergarten class could enjoy having chicks around.  We said goodbye to Crusher and Pepper and used the money they were paid to put in their Disneyland Jar.  (Yes, we are saving for a someday trip to Disneyland.)  The plan is to sell the others as they get a little bigger because Daddy says we are not ready for chickens at our house just yet.  And Mommy wasn't sure if she did or didn't want them, so it's a good thing Daddy knew what he wanted.

I have to say, they have been a fun little distraction.  They are so cute and have funny mannerisms.  The other night I found myself staring over them, just watching instead of going to bed.  It's hard to not get attached...  I think the goal of Disneyland is the only thing that will allow the boys to part with them.  Here's Macy checking them out.  She likes them too.