Jury duty, swimming, potty training, and an old friend

A few things this week:
-On Andy's day off this week he got called into jury duty and then got picked to be on the Jury out of the 70 people called. So the one chance we had to play with dad this week was gone. Andy was there Tues, 8:30-5:00 and Wed, 8:30-7:00-then headed to work for the rest of the evening. I think, other than being inconvenient he enjoyed being on the Jury.

-I am trying so hard to potty train Garen. I am so tired of diapers, but wet underwear is no fun either! We are making progress, but it's slow going.
I put the little potty in front of the TV so Garen will sit longer. Well one day I left him down their for a minute and I hear, "I did it." Apparently the cartoon was to good to look away from and didn't seem to notice that the aim was way off!
There is a little broken part on the bottom of our TV and he just so happen to pee right in there causing the TV to short out and stop working. My first thoughts were "well no more TV for us since buying a new one isn't really and option right now." But later that day it magically turned back on with the volume at 53 and on some strange station and it works perfectly again. Close one-no more toilet right in front of the TV.

-We blew up our pool again and the kids had a good time playing in it-

-Friday Natalie and Nick stopped in on there way to Washington D.C. It was fun to talk with them late into the night. There's nothing as good as spending time with friends you've loved and trusted for most of your life.

Since I didn't take any pictures while she was here and I missed my Flashback Friday, here's me and Natalie in the past-

8 Months Old

I can't believe she's already 8 months old. On top of that I can believe she is crawling and climbing on everything! Her new trick is to climb up the couch and let go and just stand there. I'm not ready for another walker and her getting into everything!
Except for these painful teeth and this little cold she has, she is mainly happy and all smiles! We love watching her little personality come alive!
two teeth-

waiting for her bath to be ready-

Flashback Friday

As Summer is quickly coming to an end, I think back of all the good times I had with my sisters during the Summer as a kid!
Sara, me, Amanda-

Garen's first Movie Theater Experience and Maddie fishing with dad

We got home from our Bear Lake Vacation on Tuesday just in time for Maddie to go to Ballet. Andy still had one more day off from work so on Wednesday I took Maddie and Garen to the Summer Movie, Monsters vs. Aliens. We have had several movie nights at our house but this was the first time Garen had been to the theater. I gave each of the kids their bag of snacks and Garen didn't even open his till half way through the movie. He just sat back in his chair and stared at the screen with big eyes. He enjoyed the experience. And of course Maddie loved going to the movie as well! She had already seen it so she enjoyed telling us what was going to happen next.

After the movie Andy needed to squeeze in some fishing before he returned to work, so he took Maddie for the evening. They didn't have much luck this time with catching fish, but they still had fun. They enjoyed the beautiful sunset and finding rabbits.

Bear Lake Vacation: Staying with Grandma and Grandpa

Andy's Grandparents were nice enough to let us take over their house for 5 days in Bear Lake. We truly enjoyed our time there. If we weren't at one of the places listed in my other posts we were relaxing and having fun with the grandparents.
The kids loved all the wind chimes hanging everywhere, the talking stuffed animals-mainly the talking deer head, the humming bird feeder that brought plenty of humming birds right up to the window to watch, throwing sticks in the creek that runs through their yard, playing croquette, making long roads out of grandma's blocks. Andy and I enjoyed the late night chats with grandma Janene, watching a movie with them, and looking through grandpa's old history books and baby pictures of Andy.
We also enjoyed seeing Grandma Jann, Grandpa Boyd, Amber, Zeb and Levi on Saturday.

Andy, grandma Janene, grandpa Roger-

Sophie loved the singing deer until I put her foot in its mouth, in which she full out screamed, not cried, screamed like a girl-

Everything was so beautiful as the sun was going down, I would make the kids go around the yard with to the barns, the grass field, and the creek so I could take their pictures. They were good sports and I love the pictures I got. I didn't get any of Sophie because she was always to tiered by 8pm from her lack of naps-

thumbs up-

I even got Andy in the picture action-

Andy and the kids found a dragonfly that was barely alive and freezing so they tried to save it. Maddie was cute and would go check on it every few minutes-

playing in Grandpa Boyd's truck with cousin Levi-

Sophie and Dad just chill'en-

Garen loved driving this Tractor around-

One cool baby-

Why do we buy toys when they could just play all day with a stick?-

play Croquette-

A little video recap of our trip-

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com