A fun filled weekend

This weekend started out with driving to Mark's family's house. We got there a little earlier than we'd planned and his parents were out at a dinner. On the way down Brigham stated- Mom I feel really sad because our family is all over the place. This is after Alex had stated something about being excited all day to see his family. Brigs then stated that when we were at Island Park he was happy because so many of our family was there.

Saturday was didn't see much of Mark's dad as he was in meetings. His Dad got released as Stake President. It was nice to be there, and I could kind of picture what it was like when my dad was released a few months earlier as a counselor. It was a bit of a long day for the kids as we were in the chapel over 3 hours and then we made them stay in their Sunday clothes. (They weren't too happy about that). My brother blessed his little son, Travis, which we drove to see. That was really nice. We were sad not to see much of them, but had a lot of fun chatting with them before the blessing.

This is the only picture that I was able to get the whole weekend. Here is Lissie with the goggles as we drove to my bro's family's place. This is also the only nap the kids got. Well the kids were tired, so I didn't take the goggles off for the blessing, to limit the amount of chaos.
It was really nice. Then we headed back to dinner with Mark's fam for a quick bite to eat before heading back home. It was nice to be there with everyone, and missed those we weren't able to see. Taylor did finally reach the point where the only people who could help him were Mark and I, though everyone was great to help out and offer to help. We're glad we could be there for these 2 special occassions. Thanks to all for accomodating us!

We're ready....

Here are Brigs' and Lissie's backpacks. They love having them.
Here' they are with a couple of their school supplies.
Here is Taylor cheering for the Red Sox.

Here are the first 2 cobs of corn from our garden. Brig and Alex shucked them, well sort of.
We went swimming. They had a cool slide.
Taylor's first time swimming. He got a little wet. This was our choice for the weekend. We also played at this really cool play place and watched Prince Caspian. We had a fun time.

First day of school and First day riding the bus

Here's Alex already to go to school. He was pretty excited. We surprised him with his backpack with school supplies inside. Lissie wanted to be in the picture to.
Here's Alex standing in line waiting for school to start.
Today Alex got to ride the bus to school. Here he is waiting at the bus stop.
climbing up the stairs,
getting off the bus. I followed him to school to make sure he knew what he was doing, and went to the right place. He didn't even know we were there until Brig and Lis screamed goodbye to him out the window as he walked into class. Today he figured he gets to play for a bit before the bell rang!

Lissie and Brigham also have their own backpack and a few school supplies as well. I haven't gotten to take a picture yet of them, but we will and you'll see. They were pretty excited about that. They're going to do a little bit of playgroup learning things with some kids, so they are ready:).

Taylor's blessing and Visit from the parents

This is Taylor after his blessing in his outfit. All the boys have worn this suit with different ties. Als the kids have used this blanket.
Here are all the kids before we left for the blessing. The boys have matching ties! We had lots of visitors for the blessing. Marks family-his grandparents, aunt and uncle, mike and jerrica, his parents and jon and joe. My family-my parents, laree, betsy and tanner, nikki and chris and jax, mykenzie, and jayden (and payton in spirit, he's still in the hospital). Most of them stayed at our house. We enjoyed having all of them here. It was a really nice day. Sorry I didn't get pics of all the visitors.

my parents stayed a couple of days. They made the rounds to see all the new babies. Monday morning my parents spent doing science experiments with the kids. This one was funny to watch. Their looking at how things looked bent in water.
Then we went and visited some sites, where we had a picnic. Here's Laree.
Here's looking out.
Then we visited one of the schools in the area for Laree. Here's Betsy. There is a pic of her with the kids and she looks like a star with her kids trying to evade the paparazzi.
This is a pic of my dad with Taylor. I have a picture of him sleeping while holding everyone of my kids when they were a baby, just like this.

Well the next day the kids all were sick so we just sat around talking until my parents and Betsy and Laree left for their next stop. It was really fun. My sister took lots of pics and gave them to me but they are not accessible at this moment. We had a lot of fun having them here. The kids loved it.

CAMPING!! and CONGRATS

So about 1/2 hour to an hour after my sister and her husband left, we had more visitors show up. Mark's aunt and uncle stopped by and hung out with us for a bit before we all left to go camping. I packed (hadn't done that yet) and got ready to leave. Mark's parents and two brothers also showed up. We had lunch at our house for everyone and had a fun time. We got to show off our house. We then went up to the Buffalo River Campground to camp. It was a beautiful site that we had, right next to the river. We stayed there for a couple of days on the weekend. Mark's aunt and uncle were really nice and let me have a shower before heading off to church. We missed the block of church, we had the wrong time. So since Mark's uncle is a bishop and his dad is a stake president, they felt it was appropriate to have our sacrament meeting as a family. We had the whole thing with a couple of testimonies. It was really nice.
Lissie and Brigham were a little zonked from the few nights earlier of partying. This is what happened on our drive to church.

Later that afternoon we ate and relaxed and had supper before we went home. These are the Martins (minus Mark's bro D. Martin). I guess it would be more acurate to say the grandkids named after mark's dad with him.

We went back home for a few days because Mark had to work and didn't have enough vacation. It was nice to camp but it is a little more difficult with a little baby. We did sleep in a tent trailer the one night. The end of the week we slept in a tent. We passed the days by going to a baseball game for Mark's work party and we went to the movies and Mark's bros family came and spent the day with us. We went back up Thursday night. We had a blast with all of mark's family that were there, and were sad we missed a couple of them. Danny and Haley were awesome and took the kids swimming in the little river. Mark's cousin also helped out with the kids. They did this so Mark was able to go white water rafting with his other Brother.

We had a fun time and it was great to have lots of entertainment for the kids to do. They absolutely loved it and were sad when we had to come home.
This is a picture of Taylor on the way home.

We had a great time and we got back just in time to see one of our good friends from before we moved. She stopped by and we later got to see her cute little boy. (julie and Logan). Fun times.

Also, We found out that weekend that my brother is getting married. Congrats Jamie and Michelle. We are so excited for you guys. Sorry its taken a bit to get this posted. We can't wait to meet Michelle. They get married in December. Great month to get married! :) I'd post a picture here but I don't have any of you two.

My Twin and Her Husband Visited Us

My sister and her husband came up and visited us. We had a blast. THe above picture looks like how Jim spent most of his time. The kids had a blast playing with him.
They woke them up nice and early in the morning. Mark and Jim and Alex and Brigham went to the cave and hiked around. (Sorry no pics) and then Lisa and Lissie and I (with Taylor being held) had girls time. It was funny to watch Lissie enjoy the conversation and try to participate. We then did makeup (pics on Lisa's camera). Lissie even painted Lisa and my nails and did some makeup. Lisa then took Lissie to the store and they got some brownies and some beautiful flowers for me. Lissie was so excited to go. Princess treatment for her!
Then of course they both held Taylor. This time Lisa brought her husband, but Lisa has flown out for the birth of all my children. How awesome is that?

Here she is with Taylor.
Then this is all of us. Brigham is there. You probably can only see his hands, above Taylor's head. He ducked down.
Then we all said goodbye. It was a quick visit, but we had a lot of fun. We tried to talk them into going camping with us, but unfortunately that was not possible for them :(. Maybe next time.
We're so glad they came we had a blast. We only wish we could see them more.

Teresa, the 4th of July, and a few odds and ends

We had Mark's cousin over a couple of weeks ago. It was a blast. She was going to school close to us. We had a blast having her over and just talking. The kids loved having her here too, and told her everything they could think of . It was fun. We only wish we could have had her over more, but she has now graduated. (congrats to her).
This is Alex holding Taylor. He is the ultimate big brother and helper. I had him hold Taylor while I was getting supper done and it was awfully quiet for a while. I came back and this is what I found, both of them alseep. (Alex had been running thru the sprinkler, hence the lack of a shirt).

This is Taylor giving a thumbs up the day Payton was born, and the day after we found out about Travis (a few days after he was born). HE's pretty excited to have 2 boy cousins to run around with when this side gets together.
The fourth of July, Mark's parents really wanted us to come down. Taylor was only a couple weeks old, but after some influence from them, we decided to come down. I only took pictures of this part of the day, unfortunately. We had a breakfast in the canyons with mark's family and then went swimming and the a bbq and fireworks done by the family. It was fun. What made it funner is that we also got to see a couple of my sibblings a couple of times. IT was a blast. I think the swimming was the kids favorite part. I'll post a couple of the pictures.

Her's Alex. He also had fins on at one point. Mark's uncle's friend invited the family over to do this. He had little lifejacket suits for all the kids. Thanks goodness because my kids just like to jump in. SCARY.
Here's Brigham jumping in with Aunt Cynthia. Lots of great family helped make it fun for the kids, since I couldn't swim.
Oh this was suppose to be last. This is something the boys have discovered to prepare for the next day. I think its pretty funny.
And here is Lissie all decked out. She also put the fins on at one point.
THen this is me chilling with my brother on the sidelines. The pictures of me were hideous, but I thought it was cute to see Taylor laying down, wiht my bro in the background.

We still have lots to post, so stay tuned. I haven't been very good at posting things, since I've been a little busy. I only got my cute nephews' births because I'm was so excited, but I have some other great things. Hopefully I'll get them up soon. Camping and a very fun visit with my sister and her husband, my brother getting engaged, but until next time.....