Busy, but fun!

We had a lot of fun this past weekend, but didn't actually take many pictures, in fact I only found pictures of Jaron on the camera, but oh well, he's still cute.

Jaron loves to be outside and he loves to be around his brothers.  Logan especially can always make him laugh.  :)

So, this past weekend we had some fun BBQs.  The first one on Friday was for our Ward Dinner Groups, where several families get together and have dinner or games or something.  Almost everyone in the group showed up.  We ended up having it at our house and the weather turned out to be perfect so we were able to eat outside.

We had some good food and good conversation while all the little kids just ran around and played.  Other neighbors started coming out to visit too.  I think we were outside visiting and playing until about 11:00pm  which is really late for us.  The kids were outside until about 10:30 as well and having a blast.  I thought for sure they would sleep in the next day, but alas, their idea of sleeping in is staying in bed until 7:00...mine, I was hoping for at least 9:00

On Saturday we had a Neighborhood BBQ planned and has been for about a month.  There were a couple new families that moved in recently that said they could come, so we were looking forward to visiting and getting to know some new people.  It turned out pretty good.  Morgan had to leave a little early because we came into some tickets for the ReAl Salt Lake soccer game. He was originally going to take Logan, but Logan was busy with friends and didn't want to go, so he took Damon instead.  It was good for them to have some father son time and they both enjoyed it.  Logan can have the next turn.  :)

Again people were out late visiting, so it was about 10:00pm that night before we all got to bed.  I think they slept until 8:00 on Sunday morning.  Still not enough though and it proved to be too much for the kids on Sunday.  Sacrament meeting was a nightmare.  We just kept rotating through the boys who had to go out with Daddy, he had to take out each on in turn.  In the end, Logan got sent home to do "reverent" time until everybody else got home from church.  As soon as he finally sat still for about 5 minutes he fell asleep.  Same thing happened to Damon when he got home from church and had to do his "reverent" time.

Later that night we were out sitting on the porch enjoying the weather and the boys wanted to come out soooo bad, but lost that opportunity from their earlier behavior, they did not like that.  Poor Damon even said, "we apologize...I know, can we go back to church and try again and we promise we'll be reverent."  Hehe, we'll see how next week really goes.  :)

All said and done though, I'm glad that the boys had a fun and busy weekend playing with friends and soaking up the summer time.  I love my boys so much and love seeing them grow.  Until next time...

Canning Craze!

I found another new hobby!  I really like canning.  I always avoided it when my mom was doing growing up. It always seemed so complicated and time consuming, but after a really good R.S. Enrichment Night about pressure canning, specifically meat, I knew I had to try it and I loved it.  Yeah, that might be a little lame to some, but I thought it was fun and I loved seeing the finished product.

My first attempt was chicken.  It was super super easy.  Buy chicken, Cut chicken, put in jars, add water, put in pressure canner, play Angry Birds for the next two hours.  Of course there are a few details in there that are quite important that I left out, but that really was the basic jist of it.  My neighbor came over and helped me this first time, but I think I could do it by myself now.  Meat is also a lot less prep than say fruits with all the blanching, peeling, cutting, etc., but I think I might still try my hand at peaches in the fall.

It's definitely a project to start and do after the kids are in bed and some of the prep can be done the day before, but in the end the first batch about breaks even, as opposed to just buying the canned stuff from Costco (which we have in the past and liked).  That's mostly because I had to buy all the jars the first time, but next time I'll already have the jars and I'll only need to buy more lids, which are fairly cheap.  Then it will definitely be cheaper.

We tried some of the meats at the activity too and they were great.  Up close it really doesn't look that great...kind of like brains floating in formaldehyde, but I've tasted it and it's awesome.  And it's already cooked so all I have to do when I need something for dinner is grab a bottle and I can use it in just about anything.  My next bottling endeavor will probably be some roast beef.  That rarely comes around Costco, but it makes delicious burritos, enchiladas, salads, etc.  Until next time...

Trager turns 2!

My little man turned 2 on July 19th.  We had Morgan's parents over for dinner and cake and ice cream.  It took Tragon a second to figure out how to open the presents, but he got it eventually and he's got big brothers to help him out.

 Tragon has been such a fun boy.  He has been the easiest baby by far out of all of them, but when it comes to toddlerhood, he's also my sneakiest.

 He's always ready to play rough and tumble with his brothers and can do a mean body slam. :)

 He still loves Thomas the train and anything Cars.  He drives his cars around the house singing or humming the Cars and Cars 2 theme songs.

 He has a good heart and pretty quick to share most of the time, unless he feels like you're just going to steal something from him, in that case you better watch out, because he's quite the hitter.

 He loves his brothers and always wants to be playing with them first thing in the morning.  He used to love food, but is going through a picky eater phase an flexing his independent muscles more often.

He'll talk your ear off if you're not careful and he's not that shy at all.  Most of the time I can understand what he's saying, but a lot of the time it's random babble and words.  He started talking in full sentences rather than one word at a time.  He loves to parrot and mimic anything he sees around him that gets any reaction....negative or positive.  :)

We sure love our Tragon and hope that he had a wonderful birthday with more to come.  He has been such a joy and a blessing to have in our family and we can't possible imagine life without him.  Happy Birthday Little Man.  Until Next time...

Summer Catch Up

This is going to be a little random as I try to catch up on the last month or so, and it will probably be backwards, but there are some fun things we have done lately that I want to make sure I remember.  The week before the 4th of July I took the boys down to St. George to give Morgan some time to work on some Weber teaching stuff.

We had planned to go after the 4th of July, but my mom was flying in to Salt Lake from Atlanta the last week in June and called to see if I wanted to come down early and she could drive down with me, then I would only have to make the trip alone one way.  I had a few things to re-arrange, but boy was I glad that my mom was with me.  Tragon hadn't been feeling too hot a couple days before.  Probably because he dumped out a box of cereal and ate all the green marshmallows.  He was throwing up green slime for the rest of the day, so I was a little worried about the car ride.

Of course, it ended up being Logan that couldn't keep his food down.  We stopped in Nephi at Burger King and got some smoothies to share.  Logan pretty much drank the Strawberry Banana one all by himself (it was kind of nasty).  Sidenote: While we were in Nephi the fire over by Delta was filling the sky with smoke and ash and we were actually having ash fall on us.  We didn't stay very long so we could get back on the road before any roads closed.  So, just a little while after leaving Nephi, my mom decided to sit back by the boys in the back seat and play with them a little bit.  Good thing she did because not too long after that Logan threw up the strawberry smoothie.  It looked pretty much the same going down as coming back up.  Logan filled up the cup to the very tippy top, but still had some left, so I hurried and handed back our only half empty drink of Sprite...he filled that to the top too, but never spilled a drop.  Of course, if you know my mom she's back there gagging and almost losing it too, thankfully she didn't, although Damon almost grabbed the cup of vomit and tried to drink it thinking it was a smoothie, he was pretty put out when we told him not to drink it.......sooooo glad my mom was there or it would have been a really big mess.

We made it to St. George with a little more fussing and crying, but arrived in one piece and not too worse for the wear.  It was super hot though the entire time we were down there.  We actually played inside most of the time, but on a couple evening we would get the sprinkler out and put it under the trampoline and jump in the water.

 That is actually one of my favorite memories and favorite things to do, is to jump on the trampoline in the rain or with water.

 The boys had a blast and even got me out there.  I didn't get totally soaked, but I did get pretty wet.

 It was so hot though, that I dried off in no time.

 I hope that I get opportunities to do fun things like that with my boys more and teach them and show them the fun stuff I used to do as a kid.

 Brittyn (my niece) and Jaron got along really well.  They would both smile real big at each other.

 After jumping on the trampoline I got the boys towels so they could lay out and get dry.  They covered their faces because the sun was so hot it was "melting" them.

We had a lot of fun in St. George, but really missed Daddy!  He missed us too.  :)  The drive back home by myself wasn't too bad actually.  I could definitely feel the prayers of family, because when the kids were screaming or crying or fighting, I just knew that they were safe, not hurting, and really I couldn't do anything about it, so it didn't really stress me out as much as I thought it would  Those are some simple tender mercies that I was grateful for.

We made it home and unpacked and headed up to Morgan's parents house for a 4th of July Celebration.  We had some yummy steaks, played in water, and did some fireworks.  It was really fun to be outside and just let the kids play with all their cousins, I think they had a really great time.  Needless to say, when we finally got home that night everyone was really exhausted and slept very well.

In other news, my baby Jaron has been eating solid food for several weeks now.  I never started my other kids this early (about 4 months) but Jaron was going through a major growth spurt and hungry all the time.

 Morgan's sister babysat for us while we went to Benihana for a work dinner (super delicious).  I fed him right before we left, but he acted like he was starving not long after we left, so Bev gave him a little applesauce and he loved it!

 Since then we have added Sweet potatoes, Pears, and Bananas and so far he has done great with pretty much all of it.  I still nurse him about every three hours and then he has solids 2-3 times a day too.

 And I tell you what, he's definitely been a lot happier since he's been getting more to eat.  :)  Except now he is constantly covered in drool and teething.  He doesn't seem too fussy by it, just really slobbery all the time.

 During the summer months when all the neighborhood kids are out of school we have been trying to have more playdates, almost everyday.  On one crazy day we had some kids here, some kids there, and then swapping, and anyway, lots of fun.

 This is Tragon with his friend from Nursery.  Usually Tragon does not like to share his chair with other people, so I had to get a quick snapshot.

I can't remember what they were watching, but it did keep them occupied for quite some time.  It's really cute watching them play together.

Jaron takes after Logan in that he likes to be tossed.  Some of the best laughs and smiles we got from Logan were when Morgan and I would play catch with him and Jaron is just the same.  

He had just woken up from a nap, so his smiles and laughs weren't the greatest, but it's always hard to get that on camera.

Damon likes to be on the computer more now and is getting pretty good at controlling the mouse and knowing what he can and can't do.  They love watching Disney Jr. and they found this clip of Buzz and Lenny having a staring contest.  They watched it at least a dozen times (literally, no exaggeration) and every time Damon would just bust up laughing.  It was pretty funny, the movie clip doesn't do it justice, but it's here anyway.

It has been quite the summer.  There have been lots of major fires this summer, more than I ever remember, and it's been really hot lately, but we have found ways to still have fun.  We'll usually have friends over or play outside in the morning and then try to do fun activities in the afternoon.

I'm looking forward to the rest of our activities this summer and then Logan gets to start school.  I'm really excited about that.  So until next time....