Randomness

So, I never put baseball pictures of Tyson, and he sure hasn't let me forget about it. Here are some pictures of him. He did really well this year and progressed alot. He really improved and gained confidence in hitting, and fielding too.



This is what I call Ty's goofy picture face....he loves to do this every time I take a picture. In fact I have a hard time finding a picture where he is NOT doing this!


There, that's better...isn't he handsome?

He is number 27.

Ty gets really mad when he gets a strike, and we are really working on sportsmanship.

Okay, some pictures of Fiona...she is growing so fast.

More randomness....when Grace wakes up in the morning, her hair is CRAZY. It is like a poofy cloud around her head. The other day she woke up from a nap on the couch, and I just had to capture the look for my blog...enjoy. Also, she is not posing. This is her, "I'm annoyed at you" look, which makes me nervous for her teenage years!

Gracie recently told me she wanted her hair to be "as long as a giraffe's neck." So I have stopped giving her her signature "gigi bob".....we'll see how it goes.

Then Cort Got Hurt

Cort got hit by a car while riding a scooter. It was really scary. I had Ash's kids for a couple of days, and I took one funny picture of Henry in some of Fi's clothes. Notice, I look a little frazzled. I just kept looking at Ash's kids and had to stop myself from crying. It was such a relief that Cort wasn't hurt worse than he was. He is still in pain, but he is alive.....
The following is an excerpt from an email I sent my mother-in-law:

"Well, I had my grandma visit this last week, ran the young women 2 day fundraiser garage sale, my uncle and other grandma came for a cousin's wedding, lots of baseball, planning for girls camp, and oh yah,....the whole Cort getting hit by a car thing. Having 8 kids makes me realize how easy 5 is, ha ha. Did I sign up for this? But it is so strange, I have been feeling an overwhelming sense of joy and well-being. Maybe Cort's accident put it all in perspective...he could have died, instead he will be okay. I am so grateful for family and friends who love me...and an AMAZING husband, who I love more today than when I got married. Life is good."

So even though Ash was out of my life for awhile, I had a birthday party to throw, because Carolina Jones turned FIVE!! Carolina is an amazing little person. She has strong ideas and opinions about almost everything. She is so smart, like crazy smart ( I know all parents think this about their kids....) But alot of the time, I look back on my day and see how she worked me. She will be an amazing woman, strong and independent and well, bossy. These kind of people are not the easiest kids to raise. But I just remind myself that the same things that make her challenging as a child are actually really good qualities when found in adults.

She is really creative. Grace and her play, and pretend alot. They create whole fantasy realities. They are always talking in different voices of whatever character they are pretending to be. Right now they love to play "the Chipettes" from Alvin and the Chipmunks the squeakquel. CC is Britney, and Grace loves to be Elinore.

For Carolina's birthday we went to the park with cousins to play, have cupcakes and open presents. Here are lots of pictures:

The girls...

The boys, sans Dougie...he was there, I promise, but was running around during the pictures and somehow didn't end up in the shots. Sorry Angelique!

I was glad to have Brooklyn there....could I rent her sometime KK?

I had to put some pictures of her opening presents. She is so fun to buy for because she loves EVERYTHING!!! Look at her face in this shot, she love horses right now.

All this last year, Carolina would pick up things in stores and ask for them. I would always say no, and then she would come back with, can I have it for my birthday? (Robbie does this too) I would always say yes. So I started getting nervous as her birthday approached. So I told her she could pick 3 things she really wanted. Alot of thought and consideration went into this. By the time her birthday rolled around she had all her presents planned out for her 5th, 6th and 7th birthdays.

So I got her the squeakquel from Grandma Connie, which she wasn't expecting. I love her look of pure disbelief.

I couldn't resist this picture of GiGi with a cupcake. Notice she ate all the frosting off.

Happy Birthday Carolina Jones!!!

More May

My computer has been broken since the spring. It has all my pictures on it. My brother was able to save them all, and it looks like he may even be able to fix the computer too. It is great to have a computer super hero as a brother. I haven't been able to blog though. I think that blogging without pictures is pretty boring. I just put some pictures from my camera onto my laptop though, so now I can get caught up on my journaling. And because this is a journal for me, I have to go back and document what I have been doing this summer.

May, as I stated in a prior post, was ALOT about baseball. But it was also about school winding down. Wow, the end of the school year is a busy time! To follow are pictures of Carolina's pre-school graduation, the dance festival and other randomness.

This is Carolina Jones with her teacher Miss Cindy. This is an amazing teacher. Carolina had such a great experience in preschool this year.

This is the dance festival at Aspen. If you click on this picture, you can see Ty front and center. The picture with Jack didn't turn out.

Just a picture of Fi. I wanted to document what she was looking like. She got her first 2 teeth when she was 7 months old. She is a tiny, skinny girl, who is super long. She is extremely wiggly, hardly ever holding still. My mom says she just looks like a blur on skype. She love to hollar at the top of her lungs.

My Grandma Jones..."AHA" came to visit for a week after having been in Almo for memorial day. I love these pictures. My girls never leave her alone. I love having her here with me.

Here they are dressed for church!

This is Jack, with best buddy Brody! They were on the same baseball team.

Now Let's Go Back

We got together this spring for a law school reunion. Joey had a tight group of friends in law school. They met up right away, during the first week, and were inseparable the rest of the time. They were such a fun group of people!!! We decided it was time to get together and catch up, so we rented the same house from Christmas for a fun weekend. We had so many laughs and made new memories. I was nervous to go, with a new baby I didn't feel like I was looking my cutest...you know how it is for reunions...but within five minutes of being there I could tell we were in for a fantastic weekend. I love these people. It gave me such a good feeling to see everyone doing so well. They are all great people who work hard to raise their kids, make a living and show up for their church callings.

One crazy thing happened. The girls went shopping on Saturday and left the boys home to hang out...big mistake!! Two of the guys climbed on the roof of the house and jumped into the pool. Greg ended up in the ER with two broken heels and soft tissue damage in both legs...they told him he would have to be in a wheelchair for 6 weeks, and maybe have to have surgery. It was his 17-year anniversary that day. Jen was a good sport about it. They have 6 kids, and a foster kid and Greg is in the Bishopric, which begs the question: do boys EVER grow up??? It was so scary, because he could have gotten hurt worse. I don't know that he will ever live it down!

Jack's Special Day

I left off my blogging in May...I will have to get back on track where I left off sometime soon. This summer has been so hectic and busy for me. There has not been any "downtime" really. I want to blog about Jack though, for all the friends and family near and far. Jack got baptized yesterday. It was a very special day. He was so excited and ready for this big step in his life. He is an extremely thoughtful and spiritual person. He asks amazing questions....an example: the other day we were talking about repentance and he told me that his brother Ty say that he tries to repent every night. I said, yes that it is good to think about your day and what you could have done better and then to just keep trying. He said: "how can this be true repentance mom, if Ty just kicks me again the next day?" I suggested that he focus more on his own behavior and what he needs to do in his own life...to which he replied: "I know mom, I'm just really worried about my brother!" He makes me laugh so much!

And now, lots of pictures:
Gramy eating breakfast with the girls: I took a picture with Jack and each one of his siblings. (except Fi, who was a real pill the whole morning!) Mom and Dad, we tried to keep you in mind with Jack's peruvian tie.

Jack picked Cort to give the talk on the Holy Ghost, he did such a great job, with tons of visual aids. It made me smile so big!

I know Justin won't love this picture, but the other one was blurry, and I want him to get credit for being there! ha.

Jack with his best friend Brody. They used to be the exact same height, so they looked like twins. Brody has sprouted up recently. I told Jack he is a late bloomer and will get tall right before his mission.

I love you Ike and Linh!

This is Ella Brown, the other child that got baptised. Their family is best buddies with ours (Amy Brown is the YW president and I am her 1st counselor, and their son Casey is Ty's best friend). They had A TON of family there, so it made for quite the boisterous occasion!

Jason and Kaelynn.

After the game Joey, his mom, Jack and I went to buy him some scriptures, go out to lunch at In&Out and run some errands. It was such a wonderful day. I am so proud to be Jack's mom. He is extremely smart, verbal and busy. He really keeps me on my toes.

May Means Baseball

May was all about BASEBALL for our family. The boys both play, and they are on different teams. They have 2 games a week and practices besides, so we are pretty much at the ball field every night. It is pretty crazy with all the kids, but also fun. There is a "snack shack" with cheap candy, and the kids are really obsessed with buying treats. They are both getting good at the sport. Jack loves to play to the crowd, and get people to cheer for him. His best buddy Brody is on the team with him, which has been great! (A team dad takes lots of great pictures and sends them to us...so lucky!)

Tyson has really improved. Joey says he is very "coachable". I have watched him turn in to a real hitter. It is strange to watch your little baby do stuff like this. When the ball is coming towards him at shortstop, I hold my breath and just hope he can catch it. When he makes the play I feel so happy for him. He hasn't struck out too much, but when he does...wow, he gets mad. We have had to have lots of talks about sportsmanship. It is really fun to see him evolve from the silliness of t-ball, to the seriousness of little league. Every year it gets more like real baseball. The kids can actually field the ball. The other night Ty crushed one way out to the outfield, I thought it could be a triple...then the kid way out there actually caught it! (I will post pictures of Ty playing later...I don't have any yet.)

Joey is obsessed with baseball. The competitive nature of his fantasy league is quite intense. Because he has "players" on so many teams, he watches LOTS of baseball, not just his favorite teams. So, if you are interested in what I have been doing for the last month....its BASEBALL.

My Cool Cousins

This post is written by Tyson, age 9.

On June 27th my second cousins are coming.They are staying for 9 days and for the 4th of July.Their names are, Cooper (Floyd) age 9, Ryland (Ry)age 12,Dane (Monkey)age 7, Bryson (Cowboy) age 4, Colter,age 1 and uncle Cannon. They are all boys.

We like to stay up late and watch suns games and play basketball. We also like to play video games and put pictures on my computer.

Almost every 4th of July they come here and we stay up late. And we like to have sleep overs. Last time they came Ryland got the swine flu.

Last time I went to Arizona we had a 3 point contest and whoever made it got 1 buck! And I made it and so did Dane we went to the final round. But he won so he ended up with 2 bucks.It was still awesome.