June 2009

Here's the June highlight reel...

WE did celebrate fathers day to the best dad around. He got a fire pit for the still unfinished backyard, but we were able to have some fun smores roasting events and other fires through the summer!

We spent quite a bit of time at the Lake Park at our neighborhood lake this summer. The boys loved the sand and water- and the spidermonkey park that is there as well!

If you look at the pic larger, you can see the wheat they picked to chew on- like a "real" cowboy!

My good friend has a brother that has horses. He happened to have 3 colts born about the same time so she took us over to see the horses. I couldn't pick just one pic of this outing!

The strikers had their last game. NOt to worry, soccer started again in August, but Tyse was so excited to get his first sports medal!

The neighborhood held the annual ladybug release party at our community gardens. This pic was especially hard for me to pick because we have so many great ones with boys covered in ladybugs and playing with dad!

We went to the Chalk Art Festival at the gateway with the other Madsen's and the Valentines. The chalk was AMAZING, but the boys and cousins LOVED playing in the fountains at the end!

Our friends are part of the England family and they work for the family trucking business. So one day Dad England brought home a rig to let the neighborhood boys crawl all over! The boys were in HEAVEN!

We attended the Air show at Hill Air Force Base. The boys (including kent again) LOVED it and had the best time crawling under and around and through a ton of different planes. Even Ollie LOVED watching the demonstrations.

June was fabulous... now on to july!

Calling for Addresses

Dear anyone who actually still reads about us,
In my organizational overhaul of our house, I have apparently lost our address book! I would love to have you send yours to me so that I can send out christmas cards! The sooner the better... I know you are all dying to know what we have been up to this year, especially since I am completely blog deficient! HEE HEE!
thanks,
Beka

Last friday we were lucky enough to get to go to the first session of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Dedication. It was such a neat finish to the whole temple process we have been to. I almost felt like I was sending my kid to college or something...we spent so much time there I can't believe it is actually up and running! During the session President Monson mentioned to the church's project manager that he had worked tirelessly on this building for a couple years and today they are taking it away from him for good and giving it to the Lord. That is almost exactly how we felt- it was very strange to think we couldn't just head on over with the boys any time we pleased! I guess if you have to give it to someone...

We got to sit in the largest sealing room on the 4th floor- Kent's second favorite room in the building, so that was really special for us and we were accompanied by Kents brother and his wife. It also happened to be President Monson's birthday- he is 82. So I am going to say we spent his birthday with him!?!

What a blessing we have to be so close to so many temples. Within an hour we can get to 8 temples. We happen to live in the only city in the world where there are 2 temples. What an amazing opportunity for us to serve and strengthen. I can't wait to get back to work!

Cascade Springs

A while back my sis was in town with her family. After they hiked Timp, we convinced them to head out to one of my favorite places in the Provo Canyon area- Cascade Springs. Here are a couple different pics from that place. Emitt, Jenna, and Laurene by the falls

Laurene picking out the fish in the pools

Tyse climbing the trees by the boardwalk,

And my favorite spot in the area- the old bridge that spans the spring flow. I haven't been up here since the fires that burned the whole area. I though that the bridge would definitely have burned, but it is the same old one...

What a beautiful place!

Tyse's Big Week!

Tyse had a HUGE week last week! He has been waiting forever for 2 big events and they happened within 2 days of eachother!

As you can (kinda) see in the picture, he lost his first tooth! A week prior he bit into a corndog a little too enthusiastically and loosened it quite a bit. He played with it for an entire week, and then he decided he'd had enough, so he just pulled it out by himself. Good thing too- neither Kent nor I are squeamish about many things, but apparently loose teeth creep us both out! The tooth fairy made his debut to a raving review.

His second big event was that he started KINDERGARTEN! YAHOO for all. He has been waiting not so patiently for over a year now, so he is finally able to get going. He is exactly a week into it and still loves it. I am learning more about 5 year old boys. Apparently they can absolutely love something and not remember a thing about it. Every day I ask him how school was and what he did. The answer is always the same... "Great! I don't remember." Now how can a child that can remember even the tiniest detail about something I make a mistake about not remember what he has done for the preceeding 3 hours of which he has apparently loved? I felt better when the neighbor boy came over and told me the EXACT word for word answer. Now if he could just get a cell phone and a diet coke with his happy meal the world may become just.

Summer vacations chosen by the kids

Tyse and Emitt were playing a game where they had "tickets" to go anywhere they wanted. Tyse asked Emitt where his ticket would take him, Emitt decided to go to see his first little neighborhood friend that moved away about a year ago. Tyse replied, In a spectacularly skeptical voice, "OK, Emitt, You go to Arden's house. MY ticket is taking ME to heaven. Maybe I'll see you there someday."

Tattling

My boys have sure been on a tattling streak as of late. It seems as though some days all I hear are "Mom, Emitt's..." fill in the blank. Usually it is that he has gone swimming in the fishtank or he is dumping litter out of the litterbox or he is climbing the shelves in the pantry... or any of the other 2 year old isms that I so love.
If it isn't about Emitt, it is "Mom, Tyse..." followed by pushed me, hit me, spit at me, said poo poo, etc. We are trying to crack down on the potty talk.
Anyway, the other day I had had it. I could not tolerate another tattle. I st down with the boys and tried in my best nice mommy fake voice that if they tattled again, they would spend the rest of the afternoon upstairs in their room. I think I scared them a bit because it was silent as I got out some snacks and we sat at the table listening to the radio.
The other thing about my kids is their strange obsession about the radio and who sings what song. Tyse has been doing it for years and now Emitt is doing it right along with him. So they are pretty rehearsed as to what is on the radio and who is singing it.
So we are sitting at the table eating a snack in silence. All of a sudden out of the blue, Emitt says,
"Mom, Taylor Swift just said stupid" in his best tattling voice. Yup. She does say stupid in that one song. And he caught her. And I didn't follow through with the afternoon in the room- I was laughing too hard.