Happy Fourth!

 Chris, Jonny and I went for a drive and a picnic for the Fourth of July.  We drove down to the Snake River to see the Swan Falls dam.  There is a nice grassy area with trees so we enjoyed the cool breeze while we ate our lunch and then we explored around for a while.  There was a walkway that went completely across the river, so we walked over that, too.  Jonny was kind-of nervous about walking on it the first time so he rode on his daddy's shoulders but he was brave enough to walk on his own two feet on the way back.  To finish up the day, we went over to our cousin's house for fireworks.  Jonny started out watching the fireworks with his hands over his ears so they gave him some earplugs and he wore those until the fireworks were over.  He was even brave enough to hold a sparkler this year!

Family Reunion 2012

My 2012 family reunion was held at Massacre Rock State Park again this year.  It's a nice little campground--especially because it has flushing toilets and showers!  There are all kinds of big rocks around the campground and the little boys loved exploring!

It was a little on the hot side so we were grateful that Aunt Melanie brought her snow cone machine!

Jonny enjoyed eating hot dogs and s'mores cooked over the campfire--especially the marshmallows!

Jonny hasn't slept well in a tent before, but this year he did.  I guess he was exhausted from all the running around and playing with cousins!

This was almost all of the family that came.  One of my cousins got away before we took the family photo.  We even brought our dog this year, since our backup animal feeders were away on a family reunion also.  We had to keep Mac on a leash while we were at the campground.  Jonny loved walking Mac all around and it seems like all of his cousins did, too.

Super Dad

When I picked Jonathan up from nursery on Sunday, he excitedly began telling me that his dad has super powers and that he was a super dad!  I quickly understood what Jonny was talking about when I saw the Father's Day card that he colored in nursery!  He was pretty excited about that card and we even had to hang it up on the fridge when we got home.

Since we're on the subject of super powers, I'm going to tell you a funny story that happened a couple of weeks ago.  We have been building a chicken coop out back with a big run around it.  We had unwrapped a roll of chicken wire to put around the run and found that in addition to the plastic, there was a long, thin wire wrapped around the roll.  We pulled the wire off and set it aside.  It was kind-of in big loops from being wrapped around the roll.  Jonathan found it and started talking about super powers.  He climbed up a dirt pile that was next to the chicken coop, put the wire on his arms and kept chattering about super powers.  Then he jumped from the dirt pile and landed on his bum!  He sat there for a minute, and you could just see him thinking about what had happened.  He finally said, "I don't have super powers," and shook his head.  It was kind-of sad to see the bubble burst on his dreams of having the super power of being able to fly!

Mr. Independent

 While we were outside doing yard work last Monday, Jonny disappeared into the house and reappeared back outside.  That is usually not a good thing (think cat food dumped into the dry beans in the food storage, for example).  After a few minutes, I went to check on what he had been doing.  I discovered the tortilla package taken out of the fridge and sitting on the counter.  I found Jonny sitting in a chair outside, munching on a tortilla.

 It appears that he pulled a chair up the counter, used the kitchen scissors from the knife holder to snip at the package until he could get a tortilla out.  I'm guessing that's what happened because the chair was back at the table and the scissors were back where they belonged, the smart little turkey!  Jonny is definitely becoming Mr. Independent!

Sod!

 This little pile of sod is all that is left of two huge pickup loads of sod we put out in our yard.  We didn't plan on putting out any sod this year but when we got some for free, we couldn't turn it down.  We had to scramble because we did it kind-of backwards:  we got the sod first and then we got the yard ready for the sod.  That's because we got a pickup load free from the sod farm that is right behind our house.  They were cutting sod and Chris asked one of the workers if we could get some of the broken pieces that were left behind and he said we could.  So we jumped right in the pickup and loaded up as much as we could!  We got that put down and then a day or two later, our ward members from down the street asked us if we wanted some sod.  They were cutting out the grass around their pool to put down gravel and had a bunch of rolls.  They brought us a huge pickup load so we spend several more evenings pulling weeds, raking and putting out sod!  It was enough sod to almost fill up the weedy spot at the side of the house.  It is so nice to have grass instead of stickers!

Mother's Day 2012

For Mother's Day this year, we invited Jonny's Grandma Vicki and the family over for a barbecue.  We also invited our neighbor Sierra over for a while.  Jonny had tons of fun playing with all of his cousins.  He was also entranced with the cooler of soda that Uncle Andrew brought over.  Jonny doesn't drink much soda so he thought that having his own can of root beer was quite something!  I didn't let him have the whole thing all at once though--I poured a little bit in a cup and made him eat some food before I would give him more.

This is Grandma Vicki and all of her grandkids.  Do you know how hard it was to get a semi-decent picture of eight kids under the age of eight?!

Fixing the Tractor

Jonny gets to play with his cousin Rowdy nearly every weekend if we go to Grandma's.  Those two are about 11 months apart in age and are getting as thick as thieves.  Grandma has an old John Deere pedal tractor with a wheel that likes to fall off.  One morning, we found the boys "fixing" the tractor.  They had lifted the heavy wheel up onto the axle by themselves and then found some tools (a wrench and a ratchet) to fix it with!  They were so serious!  It was cute!