Spencer is cool

Spencer is my homey...

And he sleeps with deadly weapons, like water guns!

Visit to Grandma Daly's house

Then we made it over to Bremerton (about a 2 hour drive from Seattle). Here played with all the old toys my parents have saved, went shopping a bit and just relaxed as much as possible. Richard helped my Dad in the yard one morning, so here they are resting...
Garrett got to go for a ride in my grandparents' Jazzy.

Spencer also started sitting up a lot better while we were in Washington, but not as well as Garrett did when we were there 2 years ago...remember his abs? The other photo is of Richard (Richard is the one in orange).

I also took the boys to a new park in Bremerton...that was a nice quiet morning.

Visit to Grandma Thornton's house

So we made the journey to Seattle, stopping over in Nampa Idaho over night with Ben's mother. We made it there with not too much trouble, just juggling baby happiness with eating times, etc. On the way through Yakima, I noticed my temperature gauge was running pretty hot, and later I had the thermostat replaced...hopefully that was the problem. Anyway, so here are some pictures of us at Ben's parents' house. Ben's sister Becky and her 4 children were there too. We also made a visit with Mindy, Ben's oldest sister who recently had her first baby, Jackson. We all went to the Woodland Park zoo together and it was a lot of fun.

Spencer is learning the joy of food, so here he is sporting some pureed sweet potato. No, he's not a red head despite the orange eye brows.

This is Spencer with cousin Jacob. Cute, eh? (His Dad is from Canada!)

Summer Lovin' Reading

We signed Garrett and Richard up for the summer reading program at the Public Library. We had a goal to read 30 minutes each day with Richard, and 20 minutes each day with Garrett. I have to say I did my best to set aside time to do this each day, but often it just didn't happen. Then my husband, the wonderful father that he is, swoops in and saves our goal. We made it! He would come home from work (the few days he has time) and would sit down with them and make up the time that I lost. Ben loves spending time with the boys and teaching them valuable lessons, and hopefully the boys will remember these times with their Dad.

July 24th Camping!

Spencer is almost sitting on his own. He leans forward too much, but he's getting there! I remember Garrett would lean BACK and we'd expect him to fall over any second...that boy had great ab muscles!

This is Garrett at about 7 months old at my Mom's house.

This is Spencer on our July 24th over night camping trip. He likes camping. :) We went to Nunn's Park up Provo Canyon. We used Ben's new gas grill I got him for Christmas, and we had hot dogs and chili, and made s'mores. Then we did some sparklers in a nearby Orem neighborhood since fire works weren't allowed up Provo canyon. The boys were pretending to go fishing with their long sparklers. Then Spencer and I went home for a quiet, uninterupted sleep. We got up once at 6am, and then got to sleep until 8:30am! Lovely! Thank you Ben for letting me sleep by taking the boys camping! Woohoo!

In the morning Ben and the boys were up by 7 and they went on a little walk up by Bridal Veil falls. I'm glad I at least thought to pack jackets and socks...it was cold in the morning!

Happy Birthday Sarah!

Today we celebrated Ben's sister Sarah's 20th birthday. We had a BBQ and I made a butterfly cake. I forgot to take a picture of it before we ate it, but this is all that is left of it. We also got the pool out for the little boys, and the big people to dip their feet. :)

Little Richard

Richard keeps telling me when he grows up he's going to be a Dad. Don't you think he makes a great show of it? He is so kind to Spencer; always talking to him and playing with him. The baby laughs so much when Richard is around. Garrett and Richard try hard every day to get along...it's not always easy. I love little Richard so much. He always tries so hard. Before swimming lessons today he told me was going to put his face in the water (we practiced in the tub last night) and he did it! And he liked it! He loves riding his bike outside. He is so thoughtful of other's feelings. He loves making us happy. He loves hugs and reading. He's a great boy.

Daly Family Reunion

The family tree has grown a ton since we saw it last in 2003. On mine and Ben's branch that year it had a leaf for "Baby". This year there are 12 leaves for great-grandkids for Arthur and Delna, with one more on the way.





We had a great time at the lunch. Garrett couldn't keep still for more than 2 minutes, so he and Ben ended up wandering the halls of the little branch building, but I really enjoyed hearing the stories and presentations about our great-grandmothers.






Ben made us some really neat T-shirts. Arthur's family color this year was yellow. Check out the iron-on he made...:)

There was a pinata for the little kids...and Grandpa even got to take a few swings!



The blur on the trampoline is Garrett. Several kids got to take a turn as the adults spiked them up in the air. Garrett is a dare-devil and he showed no emotion, but afterward he said he liked it.




We did go to the old cabin to show the boys. Here are a few shots of them as they walked around with Cousin Warren, one of Tom's sons-in-law.Ben of course had to scope out the ol' outhouse!...I didn't notice that they had actually gone inside it...And, the T-shirt Garrett is wearing is either mine or Shannon's from the reunion back in 1987...cute, huh?

Summer Fun!

We were able to get together with my Dad's cousin Elloise and her husband Glen at their cabin in Provo Canyon. They made a scrumptious BBQ's dinner with salads. We chatted and got to know Peyton, their 12 year old grandson. Their other grandson's name is Garrett Stephen, which of course, is a fun coincidence, except our son is Garrett Steven. We enjoyed the cabin visit. I found our helmets and dug mine and Ben's bikes out of the shed for the first time in about 3 years...Garrett got a huge grin on his face when he saw me ride past him, sort of saying "I didn't know Mom could ride a bike!"

We also had a backyard birthday party for 5-year old Gavin, Richard's little neighbor friend. They had a huge inflatable water slide and water balloons and a pinata. Really fun party! I was impressed with how Richard swung the bat, pretty good form actually!

Thomas bedtime

I love comparing previous pictures with current ones. So here's a trip down memory lane...where did the boys' genes come from? They're all so different!

Chuckie Cheese Birthday Party!

Our good friend and neighbor, Sergio, celebrated his 5th birthday party at Chuckie Cheese and we got to go along. Here are just some shots of the boys at the party.

Carnival Extreme!

We went to the Strawberry Days parade in Pleasant Grove on June 20th. The weather just barely held out. It threatened to rain the whole time, and it did for a little while. We sought shelter under a roofed 3-walled picnic area. I was surprised no one else did. We ate our picnic lunch and then scoped out the carnival across the street. We only did the roller coaster, and I won the toss as to which parent got to ride with the boys...just kidding, but I wanted to go so Ben was happy to oblige. I don't often say "I really want to do this" so when I do Ben is usually very happy to let me do what it is I want. In this case, a simple rollercoaster! It was really fun, but after about 4 turns I was ready to get off, and yet, it went around a total of 9 times. I counted. After naps we went to the carnival at Alberstons just down the road from our hosue. The only thing I wanted to do was the ferris wheel, but I got talked in to going on what would become Richard's favorite ride, the Tornado! Garrett liked the motorcycles and the cars the best. I laughed so hard when I watched all 3 of the boys coming out of the house of glass...Garrett tried going the wrong way and ran SMACK into a pane! It was so funny! Poor little guy. :) He is tough; it didn't even phase him!
It started to pour around 4pm, so we really didn't get a lot of use out of 'unlimited ride' wristbands and we were quite disappointed, aside from being super wet. But we went home and had dinner, dinked around the house, had baths and got pajamas on, and then, Ben stole Richard back to the carnival at 8 because the sun had some back out! They were there until 11:30pm! Ben said Richard went on that Tornado ride about 20 times...he must have his Daddy's stomach, not mine! Even though Richard doesn't look it, he absolutely loved the carnival! Here he is with 2 little neighborhood friends and Ben. I could fill a whole blog with all that we did, but we'll just say they definitely got their money's worth.