More and more family!

After the outing on the first day we came back to the cabin. Again, not a bad place to be!

There was a lot of fun to have.

Like bubbles...

From 2011-07-11

hot tubbing...

From 2011-07-11

water hopscotch...

From 2011-07-11

and hanging out.

From 2011-07-11

Each night we played a big family game together. These pictures are from our "Minute to Win It" competition. We found out that some of our family members have some unlikely talents.

In this competition there are five needles stuck in the box. You have to thread the needles only using one hand. Gabriela was a pro.

From 2011-07-11

This picture is the show down of who can empty a box of kleenex's the fastest. Abigail was able to pull hers out in a train and emptied her box well before her older sister.

From 2011-07-11

Here Mckayla needs to blow the cards off of the deck leaving only the bottom card on the glass. She got it!

From 2011-07-11

Gordon and Ethan are shaking their booties to try and empty their boxes of ping-pong balls. This was so entertaining to watch I don't even remember who won.

From 2011-07-11

This was a puzzle show-down. Amber blew Steve out of the water with this one.

From 2011-07-11

Next was a super silly challenge that we all got to try. We put Oreos on our forehead and tried to get them into our mouths without using our hands. We did it in three different shifts so everyone got a change to watch the silliness as well. Boy did it make us laugh!

From Collages

It was so great to have fun with our extended family. These are some wonderful people who are just fun to hang out with.

Don't you wish you could be a Maple?

We just got home from a really fun family reunion. I was so glad to go and sad to leave. I think if it weren't for the lack of sleep I would have wanted to stay twice as long!

We stayed in a beautiful cabin in Heber, UT.

From 2011-07-13

It was perfect. There was a big living room for gathering, a giant kitchen we all wish we had in our own homes. The backyard had a grassy area for playing lawn games and a hot tub that was used every day by the kids and every night by the adults. In the basement was a theater room and a fabulous game room. It was equipped with a pool table, ping pong table, fooseball table and a weight bench.

From 2011-07-10

In another room in the basement was a family room type room. There was a table in there that was set up with craft supplies. The kids were allowed to make whatever they wanted. This was genius, the girls would disappear into their creative world for hours. I saw crowns made out of pipe cleaners, microphones made with styrofoam balls, and so much more.

We like to take a big family picture when we get together. This usually causes me a bit of stress since the last two reunions I've been named photographer. I think this one actually turned out pretty good. Our instructions were to choose a solid color for our whole family to wear so individual families could be picked out from the group. It just turned out that everyone chose cool colors for their families.

From 2011-07-11

Not that we needed to leave the cabin for entertainment, but we did go on a few outings as a group. Our first one was to Cascade Springs. It is a pretty area with boardwalk paths built over natural springs. My family has been several times over the years. It was fun to share it with our spouses and children who had never been before.

My sister, Barbara has a picture of herself at Cascade Springs when she was a toddler. She was leaning over the side to touch the water with her hand in the picture. Since Barbara's son, Davey, is the same age as she was in the picture, Barbara asked me to try and get one with Davey in the same pose. Davey would have nothing to do with it. He did not want to touch the water and was upset at being a model. But he's always cute, no matter his mood.

From 2011-07-11

From 2011-07-11

From 2011-07-11

From 2011-07-11

Davey's slightly older cousins weren't afraid at all to look over the edge and kept on trying to see what we were pointing out to Davey.

From 2011-07-11

Here is a picture of the area.

From 2011-07-11

My cousin Maria and her baby.

From 2011-07-11

Me with Gordon and Grant (aren't you proud of me for handing off the camera for a picture!)

From 2011-07-11

Amber with some wildlife she found to love.

From 2011-07-11

From 2011-07-11

My mom and her sister, the original family our reunion stems from

From 2011-07-11

There is, of course more, but I think that is enough for one post. More to come!

Update on us

It's been a while since I did a real post so I thought I'd do a "Christmas letter" type update on our family.

From 2011-05-14

Gordon is doing great at his job. His former CEO recently retired so there has been so adjustment for the company as they get to know their new CEO. But Gordon is excited to work with him and is feeling like the changes are positive. Gordon continues to be a great handy-man around the house. He recently finished installing wainscoting in the little girl's room, at my request. Gordon is working in the young men's organization at church. He loves that this calling takes him on fun outings. My only problem is trying to get him to not volunteer for every one! He went water skiing earlier this month and is preparing to go on a 50 mile backpacking trip next month!

I am taking the summer off of school. During the last school year I was forced to take another lab science class for my business major. Because of that I found a love for chemistry! I have taken two chemistry classes now and will take another in the fall. I'm planning on majoring in Chemistry now. I am going to school part time, and I don't know when I will graduate. (Everyone asks that.) I often feel divided between school and home, so I try to not take too many credits at a time. At home I am quite the painter. I've painted almost every room in our house. We've lived here just over a year now. I only have the laundry room, one bathroom and a hallway left to paint. I'm trying out gardening this year and planted a vegetable garden in our backyard. Gordon installed soaker hoses so I hope with just weeding left, we'll get some yummy fresh food this summer. And just as a little fun trivia, I was able to cut 17 inches of hair off and sell it about a month ago.

Lily just finished the 4th grade. She loved her teacher and has promised her that she'll visit her often next school year. Lily participated in Book club at her school and Battle of the Books this year. For that she had to read assigned books then be quizzed on trivia from the book. She really enjoyed being part of those groups. Now Lily is enjoying the summer with a stay with some friends (without parents!) and biking, rollerblading and swimming as often as she can. Lily is very helpful around the house (when she's in the mood.) She will often take care of Grant for me, or take it upon herself to make breakfast or lunch. She has gotten really good at making pancakes and quesadillas.

Eve graduated from Kindergarten. She is still singing the songs she learned for her graduation. She did really well in school and made a lot of friends. Eve is doing well reading beginning level books. Eve jumped right into swimming this summer doing really well at swimming farther and deeper than she ever has. Eve is still very girlie-girl and loves to dress-up and play Barbies and ponies. Eve has gotten a lot better at working around the house in the last little while. For a period there both Gordon and I were frustrated because we couldn't figure out how to motivate Eve to follow directions. But as Eve has matured, she has become more willing to do what is asked of her.

Abigail is four. She just finished up her first year of preschool. We did a Mom co-op preschool with some friends. She loved preschool and still asks when it will be another preschool day. Abigail made some tight friendships in preschool and loves to see those friends as often as she can. Abigail is doing great on emerging reading and writing. She can write all of the names in our family plus several other words. She is a great little artist too. I think having two older sisters who love to color and write and really helped push Abigail along in this.

Grant is one and a half. He is learning to talk and is mimicking lots of words until we try to get him to do it for a performance! His favorite word on those occasions is "Mo" (no). He calls both Gordon and me "Mom" even though he can say "Daddy". It's really funny to watch Grant when Gordon drives home from work. Grant recognizes the sound of Daddy's truck and will start dancing and calling "Mom!" so excited to see his daddy again. Grant is, of course, walking and running well now. He also recently learned how to push chairs around in the kitchen to be able to climb and reach the sink. He loves to play in the water. He is voicing his opinion often, saying "Mo" when he doesn't want something. He has learned a little sign and it's really helpful for us to know what he does want. He can sign "drink", "more", "down", "ice cream", "book", and "food".

As a family we're planning on several camping trips this summer and looking forward to a family reunion next month. We are excited to have been so blessed with such a great home and love to have others come to eat and play with us in our yard. We have three fish and two turtles as pets.

That's it for our update!

2011-06-06

From 2011-06-06

From 2011-06-06

From 2011-06-06

These are the pictures I took of the smoky sunset in NM.

Discovery

It really surprises me, how vast the difference is between boys and girls. I knew there were differences, I just didn't know how soon they would come. When my girls where one and a half they were so cute playing "house". They would put pencils to bed with dishcloth blankets. Everything was either a baby or a way to dress up. Grant is 19 months old now. Today he discovered Legos. We had a huge bin of the giant legos in a closet. The girls haven't really played with them for quite a while, but I knew I should save them. Grant saw them this morning and has been playing with them all day! He has cried every time I had to drag him away for silly things, like diaper changes and meals. It's such fun to watch him grow.

Found! Can you guess where?

1 ball
1 barette
1 bow
1 crayon
1 dryer sheet
1 headband
1 leotard
1 lint ball
1 necklace
1 pacifier
1 sponge
9 tissues
1 toothpaste box
1 tube toothpaste

From 2011-04-05

I bet you can guess who put it all there!

Just a little note.

I just wanted to write a little note because I am one year past when I had my tumor removed. So I have been cancer free for a year! It actually felt like pretty easy cancer, at least compared to what my dad went through. But there was some anxiety and tears as I worried about it, and definitely some uncomfortable procedures. I am so grateful for a good midwife who caught my slightly off numbers in the blood tests and a good specialist who did his job well and a good surgeon who removed the tumor without leaving me too much of a scar. So my cancer was caught very early and was able to be taken care of before it did too much harm to me. I am also grateful that my sister and her husband were able to come out and take care of my kids while my husband came with me to the hospital. It was really good to know that my kids were in good hands.