Missing Pickles and Sedona

We are missing one of our sweet babies. After the wedding we took a count and noticed that our Tessa had stowed away with Aunt Kate, Uncle Kent and Sweet Afton and gone to live in Utah. We will pick her up in a couple of weeks when we go up for a family reunion and boy, will she be in trouble when we get her home! Just kidding, man you guys are gullible. She really is gone, but she isn't in trouble, silly.

But she is having such a good time! Aunt Kate, the talented and beautiful ballerina, teaches at a dance school up the road and our Tessa gets to take dance classes, lots and lots of dance classes! She loves it so much, I get little calls from her throughout the day telling me about the most recent class she went to. She did have one little homesickness pitty party a couple of days ago but has since decided that she is having way too much fun to come home. We miss our funny girl and it feels unbalanced at home but we are excited about the opportunity she has to play with her Auntie and Uncle and cousin and get to do lots of special things. So to help ourselves feel better we went to Sedona for an overnighter with my parents at their timeshare. Ryan missed out because he had to work, sucker. And my Mom left the evening we got there to be home in time to help my sister Whitny deliver baby number 6. She had him at home in the tub (on purpose), she did great! And he is a beautiful little baby.So we lounged about in Sedona, we ate our breakfast outside because when you are outside in Sedona you don't drip sweat which is unique for us Phoenicians.
Then we went for a very tiny hike in the backyard, Jeffey only wanted to look at rocks and try to find creepy crawlies.
They were nice to each other.
Alana and her scared to death look, I peeled her off after I took the picture. She wasn't that high.
Fearless Leah Bug.

I did it Mom! She is such a sweet little peanut, I like her.
Pretty Red Rocks of Sedona and our funny lookin' group.

Bath time which Peter LOVES.
There were two tubs at the place and we had them both going at the same time, boys in one (except for when Pete started out with his sisters, he was so mad when I took him out but very happy to see that I was just relocating him to a different and just as good jacuzzi tub) and girls in the other.

We had such a lovely time on our mini-vacation. Thank you Mommy and Daddy for letting us stay with you! And also, the Emmons' came down from Flagstaff to see us for a little while and play at the pool, of course there are pictures but they are on my Dad's camera but little Coco is getting so big and it was lovely to see my Gaby friend again, it was hard to recognize her without her huge belly though :) Tierney and Avery are just as darling as ever, it was fun to watch them run around and play with my kids.

Happy Wedding Day!

We just got back from the temple where Jessica Joan Livingstone and Mitchell Lee Clerc (the "c" is silent, it's french) were married for time and all eternity.

Yeah!
Photos by Steve Watson (he rocks)

Giggles

Tonight at dinner Ryan was giving the kids instructions:

Ryan - Fold your arms, and until you hear "Amen", you will keep your eyes closed.
Jeff - What's "a menu".

Later the conversation turned to a recent skirmish between Jeff and Tessa and I just thought what Tessa said was funny, it went something like, "He didn't punch me on the trampoline - he punched me on the swing set!" Who knows why it tickled me but I think I was already giggling from the "menu" comment so I just kept finding them entertaining. But the incident with the punching was funny too, it was a couple of days ago and these are the complaints I heard between sobs and tears;

Tessa - Mom! Jeff punched me in the face! (lip bleeding)
Jeff - (with a completely straight face, he totally bought what he was selling me) Mom! Tessa bit my knuckle! (he had a little bit of Tessa's blood on his knuckle).

Summer Fun

Post swim team practice Sponge Bob Squarepants marathon. Good times.

Lake Pleasant

On Saturday we got invited to go play at the lake with Jessica and Mitch on his Dad's boat. Sweet.

There's the lovebirds. The wedding is in 16 days!

Ryan showed off his huge muscles and his fantastic tan
(I was kidding about the tan part but serious about the muscle part).

The kids were taught by Mitch's sister Leah who is an expert 10 year old knee-boarder. She really did a great job teaching them how to do it and they all took to it very quickly. Here's Jeffey, he did great, he could have ridden all day. He never tired of being dragged by the boat,

and he grinned the whole time.

Here's the two Leah's. Our Leah did great, she grinned and loved it. She and "Almost Uncle" Mitchell rode together later and were fun to watch.

Tessa was up on her knees the fastest of all our kids
(but don't say that near Jeff or Leah or you will have a big argument on your hands.)
She was great at it but did get tuckered out earlier than the other beasts.

Then there was me and Jessi. I liked it a lot even though I was laughing so hard at how weak I was it weakened me even more. I'm not sore anymore though so that is good.
Sunday was a painful day for me.

I like this picture of Ryan, he had fun and he is so cute.

Thanks Clerc's, Mitch and Jess for the wonderful day.
And Big Thanks to Terry and Arnon for watching Alana and Pete for us!

Bye Bye Birdie and Hello Chicks!

Tessa and I went to see Bye Bye Birdie today, it was so fun! I got the movie from the library yesterday and we watched it and she loved the music and story so she was excited to see the live action play.


Her birthday is tomorrow and she feels pretty fancy. We went and got her some nifty new shoes before the show and she was so cute walking around in them. When we went down steps in the theatre she would say, "Watch me walk down the steps." and she would gently step down the two steps like a lady, so cute.


And then. . . We have baby chicks! We checked them today and found that Dotty and Fish Blob (Blobby jumped on the chick band wagon just last week, she's been cozied up next to Dot trying to snatch chick glory) had managed to hatch three little chicks. There are two fluffies that look like they've been hatched for a day or so and one that looks like it just hatched. There are also two eggs under Fish Blob that are in the process of hatching. We'll keep you posted on chick totals :)



Sad that the video is so dark here, but you can hear them. Here's a picture.

That's all three chicks amongst their adopted mothers, Fish Blob on the left and Dot on the right.


Smile and say "Cheep!"

The Best Thing I've Ever Seen

Ryan was asked to dance with these boys at a graduation party on Saturday night. I am so very in love with him.