From the Month of Boring Blog Post Titles

The extras from August...

Because I'm now leading the music in primary, Simon has been spending his church hours with Dad, which generally ends in the clerk's office because Chris is the membership clerk. Sometimes, that's just too tiring and it warrants spontaneously falling asleep on the floor.

Also, Simon doesn't like haircuts.

Family movie night.

Megan being cute.

Ben had quite a time out one day when I came out of the bathroom and discovered that he had been "doing art."

Even I didn't realize the extent until I starting scrubbing it off. Which he hated, by the way.

I will note, however, that it was dry erase marker. We dodged a bullet on that one.

Ward Campfire

We were all set for our ward campout this weekend...until it was changed from a ward camp-OUT to a ward camp-FIRE. While some people still camped, I totally chickened out and we only went up for the evening activities.

We were the first ones to arrive and Chris got the dutch ovens going for our dinner.

Don't play with fire, kids.

Heather and Brandon were next to appear. As ward clerks, Chris and Brandon are part of the bishopric organization and therefore were responsible for a dutch oven dinner. That got a little tricky when it the thunderstorm started, but those never really last long in Albuquerque, so we were ok.

The kids enjoyed being outside, even though we left in a bit of a hurry and no one had jackets except me...

More people staggered in over the next couple of hours.

Bishop Gardner made a pineapple upside-down cake for his dessert contribution. The kids enjoyed "helping."

We were impressed.

Time to eat!

There was a bit of a "talent show" with skits and songs.

Heather and Brandon sang "The Cat Came Back." Chris and I joined in from the back of the pavilion, which actually kind of confused some people with the intermittent surround sound we had going.

Our family sang the "Something Went Terribly Wrong" song. It was epic.

It was a fun night. Simon didn't love the cold or the wet, and he managed to get quite the scratch across his face, but I think he'll survive.

Congratulations to Heather

A year ago, Heather started the Weapons Internship Program at Sandia--or WIP. Last night, she graduated.

Congratulations! I know it was a lot of work for her and that she is very excited about what she's accomplished. Go you!

A Goonie Zoo-vie

For the last several years, my mom has bought us a zoo membership for Christmas. Yeah...pretty much the best Christmas present ever. It is well-used every year.

This month marks Member Appreciation Month at the Albuquerque BioPark, and thus the Zoo hosted their first annual ZOO-vie. They opened the zoo in the evening after regular business hours and showed a movie on their big inflatable screen. Because, you know, every zoo should have a giant inflatable movie screen.

The event actually started with a treasure hunt around the zoo.

We ran into our friends Holly and Gabe Turner. The kids had fun running around with Gabe and I had fun visiting with Holly. Heather and Brandon came with us, but they wandered the zoo on their own and we just ran into them occasionally in our wandering.

The movie finally started once it got dark around 8:00.

We watched the Goonies. Chris and I had each only seen it once, and interestingly, that one time was together when we were in Alaska 13 years ago.

The kids didn't really care for the movie, but it was a fun adventure anyway. Simon was way too tired the whole time, but stayed awake until the bitter end. He seriously crashed about two minutes before the credits rolled.

Overall, a fun family night.

All My One Year Olds

I must be feeling nostalgic lately, because I keep going to look up old pictures of my kids. Yesterday it started when I realized that Simon had been wearing the same outfit that Ben wore on his first birthday.

I get a lot of comments on how similar they look. Everyone had always said how much Ben looks like Chris, now everyone says how much Simon looks like Ben. But no one says that Simon looks like Chris...

And just for fun, here are pictures of everyone on their first birthday. I did not remember that Jane had so much hair! Ben was the bald one.

Audrey Jane

Megan Leigh

Benjamin Ryan

Simon Edward

For the Birthday Boy

Happy Birthday to Simon Edward!

I can't believe it's been a year. He has already lived in three houses and two states. He walks (or runs) everywhere we'll let him. He has six teeth. He carries his own diapers to the garbage can. His hair grows so fast that he's already had two haircuts. My baby isn't so much of a baby anymore!

We started our festivities with balloons in the morning, a family tradition.

He spent a good chunk of the day walking around with a balloon between his front teeth. Don't worry, Grandma Karrie, none of them ever popped.

We had a pretty laid-back day, since all the other kids are in school now (YAY!). We ramped up the excitement again come dinner time with German pancakes and pears. Oh yeah, livin' it up for the one year old.

Heather and Brandon joined us for present opening.

As usual, Birthday Boy took a while to catch on to what he was supposed to do.

We got it open! And then he just stacked the balls on top of the next present...

So I opened it for him. Apparently so he could then stack the blocks on top of the third present.

At least he really enjoyed playing with each thing once he saw what it was.

Instead of cake we opted for doughnuts.

Blowing out the candle is way beyond a one year old's comprehension, but hey, tradition.

He seemed to enjoy the treat.

Though maybe a little less towards the end...

The other kids lasted longer.

Post-doughnut, we played games while Simon, ahem, entertained himself in the other room with all his new toys. He didn't seem interested in Tenzi. Or maybe it's that I don't let him play with dice.

I think this birthday was a success!