Butte Hike

We took advantage of a beautiful Saturday morning to hike the Butte. It was Charly's first hike and she did great! The bugs were awful! There were parts that we ran through just to get past the bugs, but we had a good time.


Charly was amazed at how tall the trees were.
She would get behind and run as fast as she could to catch up with the bigger kids.

Caitlyn loved this big rock on the side of the trail.

Stopped at the lookout...
Two little hiker men.....

...and a hiker princess!!

Caitlyn, Mom, and Emmy

The girls..................
David and Caitlyn

Yummy trail mix!

Proof that David was there ;)

Emmy just wore herself out with all that walking.

Dawson loved being outside and loved being a "Hikerman" even more.

Austin carefully removing the unwanted elements from his trail mix.

A girl and her Daddy....

All in all it was a great day. We didn't make it to the top since Charly couldn't handle the boulder climbing and having Emmy in the carrier threw off my center of gravity. But the boys have vowed to return and try again another day. So maybe there will be another adventure at the Butte this summer!

A warm afternoon in the sprinkler

It was very warm afternoon one day and the kids wanted to play in the sprinkler. (All except Austin who stayed inside to get some quiet time.) They tried really hard to spin in circles through the water spray. I caught them in different parts of their spin which is why some of the pictures are of weird positions.

My beautiful Charly bug...


Charly didn't want to run through the water so she would run around the sprinkler.

Caitlyn did pretty good.

Dawson was pretty good at getting all the way around.

She finally ran through a couple of times.

Kindergarten graduation!!!!

My little Caitlyn graduated from Kindergarten this week on Thursday May 19th. I'm so proud of her she did really well and had the equivalent of straight A's. It was a difficult time for me with a cranky toddler, fussing baby, and the now infamous chair incident. But when all was said and done we were very proud of our little girl!!


Caitlyn gets her diploma from Ms. Johanson
Getting ready to perform

I love the little kindergarten songs...

Winter sure is a cold season ;)

4 seasons in a year...

I think she is blowing me a kiss...

Or givingme the evil eye!!!

Caitlyn was so good getting ready to sing.

Campfire FHE

A couple weeks ago we had a campfire FHE. Austin built a fire and we roasted hotdogs and then made smores, all in our back yard. The kids had a blast and I think even the dogs had a good time. The weather was perfect, nice and sunny with a slight breeze. It felt so nice to be outside after a long winter.



Austin's fire building in progress

A thumbs up from the fire builder.

Father and daughter making some smores.

Emmy just couldn't stay up for all the excitement. ;)

Isn't she so pretty?:)

Slappy was waiting around for an opportunity to share in the goodies.

On of my handsome boys. Dawson was playing football most the time of course.


You know the old saying, 'Smoke follows beauty". ;)

Mmmmm!! Marshmallows!!!

Charly just couldn't help herself. Most her food ended up on her face.

This week was filled with Charly moments. We got a glimpse of how fun it is to be a two year old. I'm sure there will be lots more moments as time goes by. But here are a few from the week...



On Saturday she helped Daddy fix the dryer. (now if only it had been sucessful!!)



Charly the mechanic ;)

What happens when the day is just too full of adventures...

So cute when they are asleep!!!!!

Charly decided that she needed to be the great bug warrior and get all the bugs that might be lurking in the house.

And she wrapped up the week on Friday by playing with her popcorn while her big brothers and sister were out playing....

Painting with popcorn is fun!!!!

At least she is happy!