Sunday, May 29, 2011

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day! (Belated) I love being a mom!
I am so thankful that my mom passed on to me her LOVE of sewing. It is such a fun creative outlet for me. However, I'm not so great with deadlines, self-imposed or not...Hence our Christmas dresses became Mother's Day dresses! But I like to pretend that it was planned that way all along. Really though, too many other pressing matters, projects, and activities got in the way! A diaper bag, a pioneer trek, a 5th b-day party, etc., etc. Life. You gotta love it!
I wouldn't be a mother without these two handsome fellows! Thanks for making every day a Mother's Day, Steve-bo! I am so spoiled to have actually landed myself a guy who regularly washes the dinner dishes, takes out the trash (with only a few "gentle" reminders), and does the laundry. Oh my! What did I do to deserve this? I pitty the poor fool who tries to date my daughter! Unfortunately, her daddy has set the bar pretty high!
Ok, so next time I'll try to keep little Ian Buddy in mind when planning the coordinating wardrobe. In the meantime, you rock those hand-me down Sunday clothes like no other, little boy! We still love you!

Our Days in May

Watermelon. YUM!
Here are pictures from the Fathers and Children camp out. I love our ward. It was a great Mother's Day present to have a little time off. Never mind the fact that I accomplished none of the planned sewing and cleaning tasks. I did, however, enjoy lots of time lounging around with my lady friends, sipping smoothies, planning date-night babysitting swaps and having a brunch party with gourmet treats made by Lu!
I have to narrate this picture above. Stephen says it went a little something like this, "Hey Ian, stand in from of the tent for a picture!"
"No, Dad!" Ian loves to run. Even more than that, he loves to be chased! He cracks me up. Speaking of running and chasing, his favorite "hiding spots" that he runs to when being chased or doing naughty things like eating butter straight from the stick are under the dining room table, under the piano, or behind the rocking chair. Sneaky, sneaky!
Brooklyn sportin' the trusty headlamp. Ian is eating who-knows-what.
The "sleeping" arrangements. HA!
Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after a pleasant rest!
Thank you Crestline for hosting yet another ward camp out.
Ian loves sticks! They are so handy and versatile. Mostly, they stand in as swords. He carries them with him in either a pant pocket or the ankle band of a sock.
The other day, Ian grabbed a 3-pack of small, colorful rubber-scrapers from the shelf @ Target. I thought to myself, 'Lame impulse buy, but sure! I could use a few of these since my miniature one at home is broken.' Come to find out, Ian thought I was buying him a 3-pack of new swords! When not in his pockets, I'll find them stashed under the piano alongside a play plastic slotted serving spoon, also another "weapon" of choice. I'll save the knife stories for another posts. This kid is ALL BOY!
Here's Brooklyn checking out a fancy dancy telescope at the observatory by the campsite. I should NOT mention this, but in case you think I didn't notice or that I think my children are perfectly well mannered, Ian is digging for gold in the background.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Happy Easter!

Surprise! I decided to let my supermodel sis. and her daughter DAISY represent this smattering of family photos! My guess is that some of you thought that either you landed on the wrong blog or that I went for a hair, face, and full-body make-over! ;)
You'll find the less glamorous sister (that would be me) with the hubby and kids below. :)

Here I'm trying to procure a smile with a smooch!
Ian with the boys.
My brother and his supermodel wife and stunningly well-coordinated Easter clothes. Check out the bow tie on the little guy. Mom, you rock!




The proud grandparents claim their 7 grandkids under the age of seven.
Sisters Lilly and Daisy. So precious!
The biggest and smallest girl cousins. The only other little girl, Lilly, wasn't too interested in the camera at the moment.
The Badger kids. I think Ian was just bribed to smile for some candy.
Pip, Jeff, and their 2 flowers
The happy egg/basket hunter
Ian buddy with his basket
The big girls with our matching shirts. Thanks Mrs. Easter Bunny!

Popsicles



Beach Weather, Briefly





The Trek

The second week of April, Stephen and I became "Ma" and "Pa" Badger to a group of youth in our stake. It was quite the authentic pioneer adventure! I had no idea that we'd be treking in super dense fog one day, and tredging through snow the next. It was just so fabulous to know that we were doing this for "fun" and not "for real." Wow. I have so much more respect for those wonderful pioneer ancestors of ours!
Before the trek began, we had several preparations to make, including a family flag. I went a little overboard on the detail. I know this surprises you all. Here's our group on one of the days when it was totally foggy. Can you see that most of our pioneer outfits were totally swallowed up by our modern coats and cold-weather gear. Good thing I spent so much time on the flag that I did not end up making my own pioneer costume, but borrowing one from the stash Grandma Grace had made for Aunt Margaret's seminary class. Sadly, the skirt and apron now have a recently added band of beautiful brown "prairie lace" (stained mud and dirt) to boot.
Here are some of the horses we passed at Riley Farms, the ranch that hosted our Trek.

See this kid? He's showing how the fog is so dense that the edge of the path looked like a great abyss.
We all just kept warm as best as we could. See one of the family flags on the back of that wagon? It was really cute. It had a lamb and a lion on it.
This is Sister Arrington, our ASL interpreter for the deaf "daughter" in our group.
I tried to keep our spirits up by singing pioneer songs from the songbook they gave us all. Unfortunately, our group wasn't too into it, so I mostly felt geeky singing by myself or with one or two other people. Awesome.
Here's a temporary pet lizard that was acquired along the way.
The Arrington Family walked ahead of us in this picture. Our interpreter was the daughter-in-law of President and Sister Arrington. It was President Arrington that called Stephen to the high council.
Here's another view of other handcarts behind us.
Here's the biggest Red Rover game I've ever seen played during a lunch break one day. See the storm clouds looming?
Here's a picture of one of the handcarts fording the river on a raft that the men put together. I was happy to help out in the effort by supplying the men with a spool of thread which was attached to an arrow which was shot across the river. The other end of the thread was tied to some twine, then the other end of the twine was attached to a rope which eventually pulled the raft across the river.

Here's the beautiful scene to which we awoke to the next morning. We were not surprised at all though because while the majority of the trekkers spent the night in a crowded barn, Stephen and I decided to have a quiter night and a softer floor outside. We pitched our tent under the roof of a wooden patio area.
Here's one of our boys standing just outside of the barn where people slept warmly. Neither the barn sleepers nor the tents got much sleep at all that night!
REAL ICICLES!

The skies cleared somewhat, but the trail was still super slushy and filled with muddy potholes. YES! Our favorite!
Stephen enjoyed a nice little snowball fight. The boys quickly learned that this Badger does NOT back down.
See the tussled hair and red splotchy skin? All signs of a fun little play fight!