end to a great summer

Though glad to be home, we are sad that we had to leave Herman Lake. After spending the whole summer there, we have grown to love it and made some great memories. Here are a few pictures we were able to take this summer (once again I couldn't keep track of my camera).

Above is a picture of the main house. The lake was only about 100ft away. It had a great rustic feel to it. Over to the right about 200ft was a little bunkhouse.

This summer Elai discovered he really likes watermelon. Between him and Deon they probably ate about three watermelons a week.

It was so great being so close to family and getting to see them all summer. Here are a few pictures of Elai at my parents house on the trampoline. You may notice his headband. Maybe he should have been a girl, he loves wearing them.

While at Zech's parents house Nathan showed us a stash of really funny looking hats. Zechary thought he was a farmer. It was really fun. Zech, Elai, Nathan and I wore them all day long while nobody else was home.

We were able to spend a lot of time outdoors this summer hiking a camping.

On our first hiking trip Zechary walked straight into a mud hole. Truly funny if I do say so myself.

Another first for Elai was getting to ride the motorcycle with dad. He loved it, my family would be proud.

We had a great summer and were sad to leave, however excited to get back to Pocatello and back to our normal lives. Zech has already started his last year of school. He has been busy applying for medical schools which has been an interesting experience. He should know by spring time if he is excepted so until then we are just wishing and hoping.

Mud Puddles

This summer Elai got to experience many new things. His favorite??? Mud Puddles. He had so much fun playing in the dirty water and we had just as much fun watching him.

Summer Update

We are having a great summer here in Northern Idaho. It has been great to just spend time as a family and get to relax a bit. Zechary took his MCAT test about a month ago and we are still waiting for the results. We had a great visit with some of our friends from Pocatello, but I am really starting to miss being there. We also had a great few days with my dad. It is so nice being close to our families. I lost my camera so we haven't been able to take many pictures. Elai loves the lake house. He thinks the beach is awesome. That's about it though. We are still plugging away and trying to enjoy life.

Boxes

Moving Boxes=Free Entertainment

What kind of parents would we be if we didn't take advantage of this beautiful weather? We headed straight to the park after breakfast.

Our Doctor's Visit

Yesterday we took a trip to the dr to find out that Elai does not have the chicken pox but instead has the fifth disease virus. I'm not completely sure what it is all I know is that he has a horrible rash that gets worse in the sunlight and cold symptoms. There is nothing they do to treat it, the virus just has to run it's course. As you can see, Elai was having a great time waiting for the dr to come in the exam room. He thought it was so funny that he could climb into the strollers basket.

I ran across these pictures today while trying to find some photos to scrapbook. Thought I would share them.

I love this one, it makes me laugh.

I can't believe how fast Elai is growing up.

How could you...

Not smile at this little boy. I hope your day is filled with love and laughter.

A Great Weekend...

We had such a great weekend. In between Saturday's general conference sessions we headed up to the church for our stake's Easter egg hunt. It was so cute to watch Elai hunting the eggs. He was so amazed by all the eggs that he didn't want to put them in his basket, he wanted to hold them all. We were able to watch conference at home which was very nice. On Saturday night while Zech was at the priesthood meeting I attended the Deseret Book Womens Night with some ladies from my ward. Here are a few pictures we took.

Since the weather has been bad the Easter bunny set up a hunt in our living room. When Elai woke up and saw the eggs he started running around screaming with joy.

Elai got some bubbles from the Easter bunny. He loved them so much. He kept saying "Mo Mo."

Over all we had a great time. It was so nice to be able to hear from our church leaders and to be able to celebrate the resurrection of Christ.

Gdiapers

Now that Elai has finally got a little bigger it means it's time to buy bigger Gdiapers. This excites me very much. I don't know how many of you have tried these eco friendly diapers but they are amazing and so cute. You can buy them online or find them at local stores, our Fred Meyer has them. Here are the ones I just ordered!

Check out gdiapers.com for more. PS the little girls ones are super cute!

A Day in the Park..

My Picture of the day comes straight from the swing at the park.

Today was Zech's first day back to school after spring break. It was hard for Elai and I to let him go but we managed.

More Logan Photos...

Well on our trip to Logan we took a quick trip to the mall. Elai discovered the play land. I personally think it was a hideous toy area but Elai liked it.

Here is Elai playing on the spilt soda!

He really liked the ice cubes.

Have a great day!

Our Trip!

Yesterday Zech, Elai and I had an opportunity to take a little road trip to Logan, Ut. We had an interview for a summer job we are interested in. Since neither Zech or I had ever been to Logan we decided to make the most out of our trip and to do a little sight seeing.

Our first stop...the Logan temple.

WOW, it is so beautiful. It just amazes me that the whole temple was built by hand. It is truly a piece of art.

Next stop....the Logan tabernacle.

Again...amazing.

We ended our trip by stopping in Riverspring (I think). There we ran across this old church building.


I love seeing old church buildings. They are so pretty and so unique. We had a great trip and loved our little Utah adventure.

Girls Day~!~

Yesterday was a very eventful day. It started out by me being in charge of our enrichment meeting. There is a lady here in Pocatello that makes these temple pictures that are so gorgeous and really reasonably priced. So I decided to do a temple mod podge activity. All the girls loved how there pictures turned out. Here is what mine looks like.

After enrichment a friend and I took a trip down to the local scrapbook store. It was her birthday and the store was having an anniversary sale so we had to go. While there I saw the cutest necklace. I knew instantly that I had to have one so I picked out some bead and made my own. What do you think?

The best part is that I used lobster claws to hook on the beads to the chain so they are interchangeable! I can't wait to go back and buy more beads!

I also made these earrings! The bottom ones are made out of the leftover chain that I used for the necklace.

This treat box was a make and take. It definitely put me in the Easter mood!

This scrapbook page was another make and take. We used the new cosmo cricut paper line. It just came out, I loved it so much I bought all of it.

Over all I would say we had a great girls day out. There is nothing better then spending the day making things.

debt...

Today i had the opportunity to go to lunch with a friend. She was explaining some of their financial burdens to me. After realizing her and her husband are over $60,000 in debt it make me think about my life. I might not have a nice big house, or be able to go out and buy new clothes all the time and we have a very stick budget that doesn't allow us to go out very often. But we have financial freedom! We aren't in debt. We don't have to worry about making tons of monthly payments. So I have decided our lives are pretty darn good!

Elai's First Birthday!

Saturday started bright and early for us. Elai decided to start his birthday celebration at 6am. Since I had just about everything ready for his party we sat and read books until about 8am when he decided to go back to bed. We had some of our close friends (with the exception of the Rankins) come over at 1pm for our first bbq of the year, in the snow. It turned out great! Here are some photos from the party.

Elai loved his cupcake. He was very upset when it was all gone.

Everyone was calling him the "HULK" and he almost wore the hulk costume to church on Sunday because the green frosting died his skin.

This is my first cake from scratch. Thanks to Martha Stewart and my friend Karlee, I was able to pull it off.

Elai loves Old McDonald, so in light of that we had an Old McDonald birthday. We decorated with pom poms, animals and Elai's favorite-tractors!

Now that it's over and I have time to breathe I can't believe that my baby is one. Just one year ago I held Elai for the first time. I love being his mom and I am grateful to my Heavenly Father for giving me the opportunity to be a mother.

climbing...

Elai has discovered he can climb on things. Not only that but he can push his toy basket around. So this morning I found this...

Elai pushed his basket over to the piano and climbed on it so that he could reach the keys better. It doesn't stop there, next it was over to the couch. I think I am have an acrobat on my hands.

Family Photos

Here is a sneak peak at a few of our favorite family photos that we just had done for Elai's birthday.

Another First...

Here is Elai enjoying his first ice cream cone. Can you believe his birthday is next Saturday. Where has the time went?