Busy days of Summer....errr.....Falll.....

I can't believe that it has been almost 2 months since my last post. I rarely look at blogs anymore and have had SOOOO much "blogging guilt". I have needed to update my blog with tons of pictures and things that happened this summer. This will be a LONG, CONSUMED by pictures post, so congrats if you make it to the end.

So I guess I will start with the first event found on my memory card....

Camping at Paul Reservoir:

At the end of July my whole family was able to go camping together. Despite the flies, the rain, and the mosquitoes we had a blast!! I have so many fun pictures so I will just have to share my favorites.

The Scenery:

Emily caught the biggest fish out of everyone, look at that genuine smile!

The boys shot guns, while everyone else plugged their ears. We have some pretty sharp shooters in my family!

 

There are not words to explain this picture! Caleb loves Grandpa Empey!

 

Camping isn't the same without a huge fire and lots of smores and smiles!

 

My whole family (including Coal the dog)-Love them all!!

After camping we came home to a broken pipe-ugh!

 Old, broken pipe.....

 New Pipe....Looks much better!

 My kids who love tractors!!

Although it was bad to come home to a broken pipe we were totally blessed! My brother happens to work for Steadman Construction and I so I called him up, he called his boss and he came the next day. We had no water except for our emergency supply (which we used a ton of) so it was vital to get it fixed soon. His boss, Jeff dug up the pipe and replaced it all on the same day. When I asked him what I owed him, he was so nice and only charged me for the rental fee and not his time. What a kind gesture!! So if anyone ever needs any work done, Steadman Construction is who to call!

Next event....Summer Fun Days-Playing in the irrigation at Grandma and Grandpa Tanners...

Emily asked me all summer long to play in "Grandpa's Pool". They were really excited and Ben's Mom got in the water with them. They had alot of fun!

Our next adventure for this summer was swimming lessons:

Emily LOVED it!! She started out a little scared and ended up passing the class. She was so proud! She is now is level 2, she struggled the first day but is coming along every lesson.

Little Miss Sassy Pants!!!

Finally....SCHOOL STARTED!!

Emily has been so excited and asked me for weeks and weeks when school was going to start. It finally came and we went and met her teacher. She loves her teacher, the kids in her class and loves to tell me everyday what they did. I love to keep the cute little crafts they make, they show her personality so well. I can't believe she is in preschool, she has grown so fast!

So I feel like I am some what up to date. This isn't everything that happened but some of the fun highlights. I look forward to many more fun things this fall and winter...

Guess what???

Yep...I am pregnant!!!

On July 1st I had a good day, a really good day!! We had been praying and fasting as a family to have another baby and on this day I got a positive pregnancy test (I think I have taken over 100 of them in the past year and a half). I had prayed the night before and knew I was pregnant, but that one positive test made me SO happy!!! I have been more sick with this baby than before but it is well worth it! I know that it is what the Lord wants and that makes me happy and more appreciative of life.

I went to the Dr. today and I am 9 weeks pregnant (2 weeks further than I had thought...bonus) and will have yet ANOTHER March baby. March 8, 2011 to be exact. We are SOOO excited!

 Baby # 3

P.S. I think it is a girl.....I can't wait to see if I am right. Ben thinks it is a boy so I always love to be right when he is wrong...hee hee hee

Valiant Faith

 I love this song:



At Girls Camp our Stake Camp Leader and her daughter sang this song. I fell in love with it and have listened to it over and over again! The more I listen to it the more I feel like it applies to me and my everyday life. I love the first line "Too many people are just sliding be and missing the meaning of life" HOW TRUE is this. I have told myself OVER AND OVER again that I need to relax a little. Life is too short to worry about the little things in life. Since I had kids I have tried to keep my house in a tidy order ALL of the time. Do you know how hard this is?? If you have kids I think it is possible... for a couple of minutes. I don't have time to clean all day or run around being the referee of the house. My kids will grown up too soon and I will soon wish they were little again!! If all I do is worry about me, I feel like I am missing the meaning of life!!! I want my family and my Savior to be the center of my life.

Another thing I have thought about is my own personal righteousness. I have asked myself many times if I feel like I am doing ALL I can do to please my Heavenly Father. I wonder if I have sufficient faith to make it through the rest of my life. I sometimes find excuses to not be the BEST me I can be. I have heard it said that if "we do not have time to read our scriptures and say our prayers everyday we are way more busy than God ever intended us to be." I am NOT busy and I still find that there are days when I haven't taken the time to converse with my Heavenly Father. Why give us that opportunity to grow closer to him and give our burdens to him???  I still forget or not take the time to search the scriptures. I know they can teach us so much.

I want to "follow him fearlessly all of my days" this is the end goal, this is the reason we are here and the REAL meaning in life. I don't want to be someone who lives the gospel "halfway"!! I want to be an example to my kids and know I did EVERYTHING I could do to teach them the ways of Christ!

 

Summer Fun Day #3

Because of the fire at the INL Ben had Wednesday off from work. We decided to spend that day as a family. We counted it as one of our Summer Fun Days. We went to the "Wolf to Woof" Display at the Idaho Museum. It was a lot of fun!! I really like the Discovery Kids Area, my kids had fun climbing through tubes, dressing up and just plain being kids.

The discovery kids area, the people there were so helpful and wanted us to have fun!

Ben thinks he is an elk..???

My little pioneer girl, isn't she so adorable!! I love the bonnet!

This is a pretend avalanche tunnel. The dog above is there to show what it would be like to be stuck in a tunnel and have an avalanche dog find you....my kids thought is was really cool!

The Temple--a MUST see, the pictures displayed there are amazing!

It is fun to see how my kids re-act to The Christus Statue. I believe that the more familiar they are with what we believe and what Christ did for us, the closer they will become to him. I can't wait for the day when I can be in the temple with all of my kids, what an amazing event that will be!

It was a great day!!! I am glad Ben was able to spend the day with us, we love spending time with Daddy and Grandma Sheri!!!

I am proud to be an American!!

I AM proud to be an American and to enjoy the freedoms I enjoy. I can think of so many things I am grateful for and the freedoms I enjoy because I live in America. Today I want to give a big shout out to my Brother-in-law Max. He left on Wednesday to serve in Afghanistan for the next 6 months. So while we are here enjoying our freedoms there are so many over there fighting to keep our freedoms. Max is in the Air force and recently graduated top in his class with a language degree. We are so proud of him and admire and love him. So not only THANK YOU to him, but to all of those men and women who are on Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq or wherever they may be. I know some of them haven't seen their families in months, maybe years, I know some of them are hurt badly, I know there are some who are missing or are prisoners of war and I know I could never bear to see the things the see and mostly I know MANY, MANY have died in their fight. We owe so much to them!!

Happy Independence Day!!

Summer Fun Day #2-Train Ride

For Summer Fun Day #2 we went on a Train Ride. We had to wait out in the cold wind for 30 minutes, but it was well worth the wait. We boarded the train around 9:30 am. We even got to sit by some friends of ours. It was a lot of fun...it really made me want to go on an Amtrak Vacation someday.

As Caleb would say "All aboard, let's Go!!"...

We were able to sit on the 2nd floor (or the double decker part) of the train and as we were going I saw SO many things that I had NEVER seen before. I have been down the old highway hundreds of times and I can't believe what I have been missing. I kinda had a bird's eye view of things being way up high, it was pretty cool! Now I know why people have always wished they had wings....

Caleb said "Hi" to every cow, fence, canal, train, big truck, he saw. He also loved the bird's eye view...all those cows he'd been missing out on!

Emily and her little friend Violet. They had fun sitting by each other.

 We were so sad when the ride was over. It was a bit bumpy and swayed in a few spots, but it was so much fun!!!

Ben's Mom and Grandma even made a cute train cake for a treat after our ride. It turned out really cute and the kids LOVED it! Emily decorated the front of the train...

***And for a fun little train fact: when a train blows the horn while going through town, long ago the people of the town knew it meant "The queen has arrived"...funny huh!

I also wanted to include this fun recipe. It is Key Lime Pie and I made it with the limes I got in my bountiful basket last week, it was DELISH! Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 1 (9 inch) prepared graham cracker crust
• 3 cups sweetened condensed milk
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 3/4 cup key lime juice
• 1 tablespoon grated lime zest

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a medium bowl, combine condensed milk, sour cream, lime juice, and lime rind. Mix well and pour into graham cracker crust.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 5 to 8 minutes, until tiny pinhole bubbles burst on the surface of pie. DO NOT BROWN! Chill pie thoroughly before serving. Garnish with lime slices and whipped cream if desired.