Tessa's Ditty

On Sunday we made an announcement to the kids that they were very eager to share with the world so when we went to have dinner at Ryan's parent's house that evening they were all anxious to spill the beans.  I told them they were welcome to make up a skit or a song to perform for everyone after dinner if they wanted.  Tessa was the only one to take the suggestion all the way.  She wrote a song and bravely stood and performed it (that girl is a performer.  PS - she made the school play, The Little Mermaid, she will be Adelle, Ariel's sister also a princess and a sea creature.  She is pretty excited and has been showing it by singing Little Mermaid songs for weeks.)

We are very excited and looking forward to meeting our new little friend in May.

Last week Jeff went to Rocky Point with Uncle Chris, Aunt Heather and Oliver.  He had a fantastic time.

 

They found interesting critters.

 Made a habitat for said critters.

 Played in the sea.

 Some more...

Alright, they played in the sea a lot a lot.  We missed him but we are glad he got to go and have lots of fun.  Thank you Chris and Heather for taking him and bringing him home safe.

Ultimate Birthday

October is the month for birthdays around here.  At least it is the month for all the cool people's birthdays.  I had a multiple of five birthday myself and had a big party, it was pretty awesome.  Just because all of the 50 people at the party were actually there to see Grandpa is beside the point.

All of the following photographs were taken by the talented and patient Steve Watson.

 

 This is Ryan's Grandpa.  We celebrated his 80th birthday on October 8th.  He has a large posterity.  He is a great man, everybody loves Grandpa Bateman, me included.  He has a great smile and is so kind and loving.  I am grateful for the fantastic daughter he raised and for the marvelous son she raised.  He is a keeper and I see a lot of Grandpa B in him.

 

5 out of 6 of their children were there and 15 of his 22 grandchildren and 21 (plus two on the way) of his almost 29 great grandchildren were there as well to party with him.

It was a little bit crazy at times.

 But don't worry, there was lots of cake so the kids didn't have to run out of energy.

We loved playing with the out of towners. This is one of our favorite travelers, Aunt Kirsti (Ryan's auntie, she is just a smidge older than us) and her three kids.  She stayed with us a bit and the kids had great fun playing together.  We missed Uncle Brad, he had to stay home in freezing cold Edmonton to work.

 Jeffey is getting too big.  He was supposed to be my little baby.  Last week he went jetting off to Rocky Point with Chris, Heather and Oliver to play at the beach and build Legos.  I actually missed him a lot.  I think I'll post pics of his trip in a bit.

Buggy is growing up too fast as well.  I am sensing a pattern.  She is growing more and more lovely.  Their Primary Program was yesterday and it was her last one.  She is a sweet girl and had a great time taking care of the babies that came to the parties.

 

Pickles is on the soccer team at school (so what if I haven't blogged since school started?).  She is really enjoying being on the team.  She is one of the youngest girls, we are a K-8 school so it is a bit intimidating at times to see her out there with the bigger girls.  But she can run fast (thanks to Ryan).

Wello is too darling.  I've been enjoying helping out in her classroom about once a week, most of the time Alana doesn't know I'm there because I'm making copies or cutting things out in the work room, but it is nice to be on campus and be spotted by the kids occasionally.  I think they like seeing me there.

I love this picture.  Petey has been doing well at school, he is liking being a big kid.  He is still kind of the boss of me, but lately he has taken to apologizing after he shouts at me, "I'm sorry I yelled at you, Mom".  I think he is learning.

  

This one makes me very happy.  These two are trouble, trust me.  But I love them both a whole bunch.

Thank you for letting us celebrate your special day with you Grandpa!

School

 School started this week and it is lovely. 

 Even though the five of them came home with 2 hours worth of  forms for me to fill out (the same forms four times over...), it is a small price to pay for a quiet house and kid learning.

 Jeff says he is excited about the awesome things they will learn this year.  They will even get to dissect animals in science!  And learn about world wars and so forth in social studies!  Rad.

 Bug is excited to be in 6th grade (practically middle school!).  She even has a homeroom teacher!

 The 5th graders are even going to different teachers for different subjects!  Pickles is excited to be in almost middle school too.  She is pretty giddy.  And as I looked into her tear filled brown eyes this morning when Jeff took her bagel, all I could think was, 'She is so pretty.' 

 Alana gets to have the same teacher for third grade that she had for first grade.  Pretty awesome!  She is actually getting bigger, I promise.  She has been going gangbusters on reading every evening, Junie B. Jones totally has a Peep in her Pocket.

 Punkin Eater gets to go to preschool.  He goes to a different school than the big kids and as I drove him there the first day he said, "Are you going to take my picture and give me a hug and a kiss?"  He is all for fair treatment.

He is still getting used to having a school career.  He is bummed that he isn't as big as cousins Zeke and Afton who are kindergartners this year.  But his chin goes up when I remind him that he is bigger than Stone and Yubsie.  And he always will be.

Next year they will all five be at the same school for one year until Jeffey heads off to be a high schooler!

Aack.

I had to...

The award winning photographer, Arnon Livingstone, gave me a disk of the pics she took on our trip to Canada.  It is so very handy to have had a fabulous picture taker on our vacation.  So here are some of my favorites.  Above is Alana at Waterton Lake.

 

We took this one because when Phil first saw the bee boxes in the fields he said, "Why did someone leave their legos in the field?".  So we thought a photo would be cool, unfortunately as you can see by the kid's faces, being in close proximity to a million bees was not a happy thing for them, they were all mad as hornets about being made to pose for a photo in front of bees, and it amuses me. 

They were very good sports about rubbing gravestones and did a really great job.  They made some beautiful rubbings and had a great time doing it.

 

This is from the family history treasure hunt.  They were looking for Great Great Great Grandpa Will Redd at the library and found him.  Peter's eyes are excited!

This was taken during a long family history day.  I just love their faces, they did great.  And I think they secretly liked most of the day.

 Here is Grandpa B telling us a story about when he was a young boy at this very school and the scrapes and fights and adventures he had.  He had great stories and the kids liked them a lot.

 

  

This was taken shortly after the above pics, I LOVE this picture.  Note Alana's face, and Grandpa's face.  An ant crawled on her foot.   We learned that Canada ants don't bite, unlike their mean AZ cousins.

 I climbed down from the path to get the video of Leah falling in the river at Red Rock Canyon. 

 

 

 

 

 At the squirty water park with Brad and Kirsti, the kids had a great time soaking Uncle Brad.

  

Lots of pretty grassy steep hills to hike up.

Happy campers.

Ultimatum

Peter:  Mom!  Give me a rice krispy treat now!  Or I will get out of the family and join another family!  Now Mom!  Want me to get out of the family?  Mom, want me to walk away now?!

softly: Mama, could I have a rice krispy treat?  Or else I will get out of the family, now.

So, any families out there who feed their children rice krispy treats for dinner, I have a four year old for you.

Finale finally

Our Canada trip was really too fun.  Here are the last few things we did while we were there...

We had another fun afternoon at Aunt Willi's house. The kids were wacky crazy. They loved playing in the hot pots. Ryan arrived that night (hooray!) and the next day we did fun things together. This place is called Big Rock.  It is pretty strange to see this huge rock out in the middle of the plains.  It was supposedly left there a long time ago by a passing glacier.  We climbed on it. The kids did great at climbing, well, all but Phil. Phil is a cautious soul. He kept saying, "I'm gonna die! I'm gonna die!" He survived. It was a really fun place to play. The kids were sad to go and wanted to go back. Ryan got invited to play softball with his cousin, Nathan's league. He was happy to be invited and he did well. The kids and I went to watch the first few innings then we had to head back for the family dinner. We were glad we went at the beginning of the game, in the first inning their team scored 11 runs and never again did they score. So we saw all the good stuff. Their team won and that is nice. Ryan got to run and play and the weather was lovely.

We had to go home the next day and that was sad.  We stayed that first night at Uncle Mike's in Cardston.  We all love it there, Uncle Mike is a great man and Aunt Jane is such a sweetie, we certainly ate well at their house.  Ryan and I got to go to the temple that evening, it was my first time at the Cardston temple and it was so lovely.  It was a nice way to spend the day before a long drive.

We woke up the next day and headed out, we made it to Idaho in the late afternoon and met my parents, who happened to be staying in Soda Springs for a bit, in Lava.  We rented tubes and rafted down the river there in town, the river was warm because of the hot springs nearby, the kids were a little scared of the river at first but they quickly decided it was the best thing ever!  It really was so fun.  I floated that river when I was a kid and it rocks (also there are pointy rocks, keep your feet up!).  My Daddy took video and maybe he will send me some so I can post it (hint hint).  We had dinner with Mom and Dad then we said goodbye and got to Katie's in Spanish Fork that night. 

The whole of Utah is under construction so it took a while but we made it, eventually.  (Those stupid barrels all over Utah are so annoying!!).  Kate had taken her family to Iowa so we didn't get to see them, but we appreciate them letting us stay anyway!  We went to sacrament meeting at a random ward that met at 9 and we were on the road for the last leg of the journey.  It was lovely and overcast and rainy a bit and we were happy to arrive home last night!

Today I mucked out the car and washed it and I've done a lot of laundry and cleaning.  The kids are anxious to see cousins that they've missed so we are off to do that now!