the ex-young women's backpack

ex-young women's backpack, you say? what on earth is that? well, I'll tell you. it's what happens when you plan an activity for which the yw have been asking for ages, and then they all bail out at the last minute (minus two) so you bring your family and have a grand old time anyway. thanks yw for not coming! I think I should try to plan more of these...on days when no one can come, of course, excepting the Turners, who were lots of fun. here's the crew of reliables at the Ruth Lake trailhead - Jacksons, Turners, and one other yw. gratefully, the Rom on my shoulders thing didn't last too long. you have no idea how relieved I was when Jim persuaded him to walk on his own two legs (which happened conveniently right after I said, "you are SO going to owe me a backrub later!") but I think having him walk on his own was worth forfeiting the backrub.












my backpacking girl. note the baby strapped on the back. anytime I tried to say how proud I was of my backpacking kids, she reminded me that SHE was the only backpacking kid, since Rom was only walking, and not actually carrying anything but his blanket, which didn't count.
okay, seriously. how gorgeous! I'm thinking this is the perfect time to be in the uintas. as long as you don't freeze. I don't have a picture of our completely frost-covered tent in the morning, so just imagine, and be glad that the girls in our family brought along our down jackets (the boys apparently still have no nerve endings.)











breakfast time. happiest time of the day. tutti-frutti oatmeal and hot chocolate by the fire. I couldn't choose between these pictures.






couldn't choose between these either. I hope this isn't indicative of what their engagement photos will look like in twenty years or so (not with each other, obviously.) remind me to nix the double tie-dye look at least. but for our purposes here, the tie-dye was intentional for small kids in the woods as we approach hunting season...


fun fun fun. do this. go here. be happy.









and if you haven't taken a trip up for some fall glory yet, do that too.

what do your kids sing about?

yeah - he is ours. Eat your heart out.



or maybe he'll eat yours


**Disclaimer - Marie is worried that this is a little braggy. Well GOOD. IT IS. If you could document proof that your kids loved you then you probably would too. Who knows how long it will last anyway. It will only be about 10 years now and he'll be a teenager and we'll need to watch this while we cry ourselves to sleep at night because our kids hate us. ****

I've also been considering a whole post about the "braggy" nature of blogs so I'm glad you brought this up. I've heard a lot of people say they don't like blogs because people just try and make their lives look cooler than everyone else's and they are not very true to life. Here is what I have to say to that. DUH! Blogs for me are here to remember the good days, not the days that I want to kill my kids. Besides, I tend not to take pictures of temper tantrums and although I don't hit my kids why would I use this fun space to tell you about the times I feel tempted? I'm not really interested in remembering those days of my life. I do however love documenting the good times so that is probably all you are going to hear about. If you want real life - come on over and hang out. You are welcome to join our chaos anytime.

Here is another real life moment. Laine the Hurricane has no idea how to smile. Here is the required first day of school photo moment.

ice cream goatee

I've been really good lately on my Thursday night daddy night and I haven't been to McDonald's with the kids very much lately. In order to save on money as well as to save on nutrition I've been coming home and making them ramen noodles. It has been going pretty well.

I gave in tonight however and we hit "old mcdonalds" as the kids call it. So here is the thing. Have you ever been to a fast food playland and been just a little concerned about some of the other kids playing there? Most of the time it is not an issue but I worry when there is a kid you can smell all the way up from the top of the plastic space ship. You know what I mean? Or, there was the time a nice cute little girl came down the slide but with a funny wet streak all the way behind her. I hate those days. Not only that but have you ever had to climb INTO the playland? Of course you haven't, your kids are probably perfectly obedient but mine are not. I'll tell you what - it is gross in there. Lots of smelly, dead skin, peed on stuff is all I have to say. Seriously. Sick.

SO, anyway, we hit the playland and the kids were really excited. Just as I was getting out of the car however I realized that we might be the dirty smelly family today. DANG! I hate it when that happens. The kids and Marie went on a school field trip with Lainey's whole school. They went to the Great Salt Lake (which I'll let Marie talk about later) but they came home REALLY dirty. (sand, dirt, salt, brine shrimp, the works) As I went to get Romney out of the car I realized he wasn't wearing any pants. Not really anything out of the ordinary so I grabbed his shorts to put them back on only to realize that they were completely full of sand. As Romney stood up....he was also full of sand....and his diaper was wet. Did I mention he had a runny nose and the remnants of a small cough? I tried to put his flip flops on only to realize that he had some seriously gross feet and of course no socks for the sock required playland.

The car was off. Laine was out. Rom was unbuckled. It was way to late to back out. We were committed and we were about to be the dirty family that would leave a trail of grime and muck through the plastic train and down the twisty slide.

Even though I took my nasty kids to the playland the highlight was that they were so good I didn't have to follow them in their filth to get them out of the plastic jungle when it was time to go. I said, "time to go" and they both immediately came. I was honestly so confused I almost sent the two little urchins back into the playland to find my kids. Once I realized they were my kids the only option left was to buy them ice cream so they could let it melt over their black hands and mix with the sand in the car seats. It seemed like the right thing to do.

beach birthday

still august...boring, I know. but beachy birthdays are just too fun:

receiving her birthday phone calls

the cake - complete with sugar frogs (laine's obsession for the week)

the food roundup pinata (who knew food roundup had pinatas!)

cake on the beach and a bunch of cute and silly kids

and I can't leave out a picture of the poor frogs who were the highlight of every day at the beach (as were these darling girls who Laine ADORED, along with their other cute sibs. for you who know, Lainey sounds a lot now like a little Hannah. it's subtle, but it's definitely there!)

more august

August was not only full of fun activities but also this conversation....
Laine - Dad, why are geysers so hot?
Dad - because the water is heated by the inside of the earth. The crust of the earth is very thin here.
Laine - why do they shoot up into the air?
Dad - I don't know Laine, why do fools fall in love?
Laine - DAD! It is because they kiss. Weird huh.

Plus - cabin birthday fun for Jim and Laine...........the awesome Jacobsen/Dunlop families that included Laine and Rom in their tie dye fun and took care of my family while I went back to work....










.....here is me trying to imitate Rom....or is it Rom trying to imitate me?

......and Zion with awesome friends!
Laine told me that we were going to the top of this giant slickrock. I couldn't tell her that it was too far and we couldn't make it so we set off. If we hadn't been afraid for our lives about 5o ft from the top she would have made it.








(click on the middle picture to see how high we were)












For Cath who made fun of our last family picture - here is another. This is the where's waldo/molly edition.
And finally...my favorite picture of the summer. It was taken by 3 year old Molly. She included a few of her fingers but still framed nicely I thought.
and for those of you still reading - a few posts ago Marie took a pot shot saying that I may "accidentally" tip over the canoe so we couldn't have our camera on the river. Just because I accidentally tipped over her grandma once she just won't let it go. Sheesh. Talk about a grudge.

august, retrospectively

for starters, I've tried uploading pictures about fifty million times so far, and for some reason or another it keeps not working. so I'm running out of patience and this post is getting stripped to bare bones. that's probably lucky for you. also, it turns out that somewhere over the summer I totally lost any ability to stay caught up on anyone else's blog - much less comment. so, to all you fellow bloggers out there, I hope we can still be friends.

moving on to more interesting things...here comes august.

Rom: gave up the bink (encouraged by shameless bribery).

worked unsuccessfully at trying to figure out how to get those tricky shoes on the right feet (or his feet on the right legs depending on who you ask).

began mounting a bound-to-be-successful bid for "dirtiest child" and continues his infatuation with water. and sticks. and rocks.



continued perfecting the look of "I'm way too cute/innocent to be in trouble for destroying daddy's birthday cake, right?"



Laine: is growing up! august was Laine's month full of sun and beach and birthday and fun.

she became an official beach babe, jumped off the pier by herself, was my huckleberry picking friend, and made more silly faces than anyone else










(sorry for the dark photos - click on the pics to see her face better. it's worth it!)

back from summer sabbatical

well, we've done our very best to squeeze all of the goodness out of our summer, hence our long absence from the blog. we've spent some time in Montana, a few days in Jackson Hole, fun days with friends all over the place, a weekend in Zion.... we've been on the move, for better or worse (and my children's current meltdown suggests possibly worse) but we have had some fun along the way.
just hanging out at the tent cabins at colter bay (jackson hole). we had lots of fun canoe adventures here, but never with our camera lest jim "accidentally" tip us all into the water along with our camera.

we love the tetons!

laine's first experience standing up behind the boat! yahoo! she kept yelling to us in the dingy "and I'm not even scared! those big waves don't even scare me!"

more to come...later.