This kid makes me laugh!

Mylie was in her room playing the other day. She talks to herself and sings to herself a lot (could be genetic ... Daddy?) All of a sudden I hear in her cute little singing voice ...

"Take me home
to the place
I belong!

West Virginians
Mountain Mamma
take me home."

Apparently Jeff has been teaching her some John Denver.

Look how she is growing though. So many people keep asking if she starts Kindergarten this fall. Nope, she is a late fall birthday so still two more years for her. We sure love her. She makes us laugh every single day.

Jay & Kona Hammond Family Reunion

This past weekend was our family reunion (my mom's side of the family). We had it in Provo, Utah and had such a fun time. We started Friday night at Provo Canyon with dinner, games and an awesome slide show that Dana and Bart put together. Max and Jones just look like they are playing nice with this blow up limbo pole ...

little did Seth know it would become a weapon they would use against him!
Saturday morning we gathered at the park. There was the traditional softball game. Here Darcy, Asher and Bailey are all playing first base.
Bailey helping Mylie bat. Mylie got a hit and got so excited!
The adoring fans. Grandpa and Blake.
After the game and lunch it was time for the races. Leslie trying to organize the kids into a practice race.
Then there were races by age, and then a big group race with all the kids. {Jared, Teah,Ellie, Ryder, Sage, Darcy, Mylie, Max, Asher, Lexi, Jared, Austin, Jones}
Then it was time to cool off! {Cooper, Max, Darcy, Mylie, Jones}
Some people got worn out just watching.
After the park we went to Dana's (air conditioned) church building. There was a play for the kids, a yummy dinner, a medal ceremony for the kids and lot of sharing of memories. She had asked each person to come prepared to share a memory. Like we could just narrow it down to one. I have so many memories of my grandparents. They were so instrumental in my growing up and so many of my childhood (and adult) memories are intertwined with them. This is only the second reunion since my Grandma passed away, so missing her is still so close to the surface. I had a tough time keeping dry eyes sharing a few of my memories.

It was a great time. Dana did a great job and we had so much fun! We didn't leave until 7 p.m. at we drove all the way home, but lucky us, the kids were asleep before Salt Lake and we pulled into our driveway about 12:30 a.m. Mylie woke up once when we stopped for gas, just to say, "Wow, its really dark." Then she was asleep again.

Oh and Courtney & Jason, Jill & Chan, Katie & Ben and Jon & Jess ... you were missed!

Hogle Zoo

Friday morning we left bright and early for our trip to Provo for our Hammond family reunion. (In fact, we were backing out of the driveway at 6:55 a.m. That in itself was amazing.) Our plan was to go to Hogle Zoo on the way down. The kids were SO GOOD in the car. I had packed Mylie's backpack with new crayons, a new notebook and her headphones. She sang along with her CDs for a good portion of the trip. Blakey mostly snoozed. Here are some pictures from our afternoon at the zoo.

Mylie couldn't wait to go on the train. She had her purse because she earned some money at our garage sale and wanted to take it to the zoo with her. She bought a gorilla water bottle (almost exactly the same as the gorilla water bottle she got last summer at Hogle Zoo). She loves to take pictures (not sure where she gets it from), so a $2.63 disposable camera is always a good investment prior to a trip. I'm excited to develop it and see the trip from her perspective. Of course she had to snap a picture of her cutie brother ...
and a picture of Momma taking a picture of her.
The elephant and the giraffe were the two animals she was most excited to see.

In fact, Zoo Boise is getting giraffes and lions this fall. Jeff was telling Mylie that and she asked where they were coming from. Jeff told her they were coming from Africa. I overheard her telling Bailey on the phone,"We are getting giraffes and lions at my zoo. They are coming from Africa, they just have to come through town." Silly kid.

An oldie but a goodie.

Tonight we decided that we just needed to hang out as our little family and have a laid back evening. I told Jeff he should pick a movie we could all watch (remember, we are a DVD family now). He was searching for quite a while (we have quite a collection) and finally found what he was looking for. Do you remember this tune? "Oh my chitty chitty bang bang chitty chitty bang bang we love you!"

Mylie was absolutely enthralled for the entire two hours:

• "Pirates? I didn't know there were pirates!"
• "Why doesn't that dog catcher like children?"
• "Ewwwwww!" (the kissing part)
• "Don't talk to strangers! Don't take candy from strangers!"
• "How can that car fly?"

Such a fun night. We busted out the Ben & Jerry's and ate it right out of the carton, she thought that was about the coolest! Somehow Jeff remembered all the words to the songs (he's so gifted) and Mylie picked right up on them and was singing them as she went to bed tonight. She has already requested we watch it again tomorrow. I'll take nights like this over fancy restaurants or spendy vacations anytime. An evening with my favorite 3 year old snuggled up with me ... this is what it is about!

If you are a praying person ...

please say an extra prayer for my friends John and Janelle tonight. John was in a bad motorcyle accident yesterday breaking 7 ribs, 1 vertebrae in his back, 3 bones in his neck and puncturing his lung. He had to be life flighted to the hospital. He had surgery today and appears to have full range of motion. With the vertebrae he broke in his back , apparently there is a 50% chance of paralysis. All seems to be good after surgery today. They had anticipated a 2 day stay in the ICU, but by this evening they had moved him to his own room.

My heart goes out to them. These are two of the nicest people you will ever meet, but they have had a series of unfortunate events, most recently, their house burning down last year while they were on vacation. I believe in the power of prayer and know they do too ... they could definitely use the prayers right now.

Mylie loves Janelle and calls her Gramma Nellie. I explained to her today that John was hurt and Daddy and I went to go visit him in the hospital. (I did not tell her that he got hurt while riding his motorcycle, as my Dad is at Sturgis right now on his bike and she is a very smart little girl and this would cause her even more concern.) Twice tonight, once at the dinner prayer and once at her bedtime prayer, all on her own, she asked Heavenly Father to help John feel better. Amazing how little children can reinforce the power of prayer and the faith in asking.

More than "just lucky"

So I think that sometimes when good things happen or things work out how we need them to we have a tendency to think that we are lucky. But it is so much more than that, I know that I need to do a better job as recognizing these instances as blessings, not just luck.

So I would imagine that we are like a lot of young families, sometimes money is tight, some months more than others. Especially with gas and groceries going up and the cost diapers and formula. This looked like it was going to be one of those months and as I sat down to look at our expenses I couldn't quite figure out how we would make it until the end of the month. I prayed, asking the Lord to help us, I applied for a couple of adjuct faculty jobs to supplement our income (I used to teach, but stopped when I was pregnant with Blake), but still knew this was going to be a rough month.

Friday afternoon I got home and my neighbor was outside and she told me that they were going to have a yard sale the next day and invited us to do our own if we wanted, she had already advertised and made signs. I didn't think much about it, just thanked her. I mean I have never had a yard sale, honestly I haven't even been to one. But I started thinking a bit and realized that we did have some boxes of things that we were planning on donating anyway and then I kept thinking and realized that there were qute a few things that we could try and sell. So I started gathering up some stuff. We had plans that night and didn't even get home until 10:30, we got the kids to bed and then Jeff went out to the garage and went through some things. I stayed up until 3:30 getting things together and was up again at 6:30. I thought, if we could make $200, that would help this month and sure take some pressure off. Fast forward 8 hours later, one really bad sunburn and and a grand total of $453. Wow.

It is easy to ask the Lord for help and then sit around and wait. Like I thought a check would magically appear in our mailbox, postmarked Heaven. That isn't the way it works. I worked my tail off on Friday night and Saturday, but I know that the Lord provided the opportunity for this to happen. Jeff and I were talking afterwards about how having a yard sale isn't something we would have done, or we would have thought about it and not gotten around to it. The Lord presented the opportunity but it was in our hands to do the work and make it happen. I know we weren't just lucky but that we are truly blessed.

6 months old!

Blakey turned 6 months yesterday, I can hardly believe it. He had his doctor's appointment today and he is 28 inches long and weighs 20 lbs and 3 oz. He is such a happy little dude. He loves his exersaucer. He rolls around and tries so hard to pull his head up, he doesn't like to lay around. He wants to be up and see what is going on with the world! He is eating cereal and loves it, especially if we mix it with apple juice. He doesn't want anyone to hold his bottle for him, nor has he for months, he likes to hold it himself. He is super ticklish. He loves to laugh and has a very contagious laugh that gets Mylie and I giggling too. He almost always has a smile on his face, especially if he sees his sister. He sleeps really well at night (unless he spits out his binky) and sleeps about an 11-12 hour stretch. He takes 3 naps during the day. He has beautiful brown eyes, just like his Daddy. In fact, he looks just like his Daddy. My Mom always says that Jeff will never need a DNA test to claim him. We love having him in our family!