Harvest time and other stuff....

This is the peach tree in our backyard. This beauty produced many lovely peaches for us so we gave some away, made peach jam, and canned some. I am loving these fruit trees in our backyard! The apricots came and I was able to make apricot jam also. It's so exciting to watch them grow and the kids have been loving them.Here are just some of the bag fulls of peaches! My counter tops were covered.
We also have pear and apple trees. I have been learning alot about canning, which is something I have always wanted to do. It's a good feeling having all of those pretty fruit jars on the shelf!

Jonah

This cute little man got two teeth on the bottom and his two vampire teeth are starting to come down just in time for Halloween!

Jonah has turned into such a daddy's boy! Gosh he just loves it when Gary walks through that front door. He gets so excited and gets the biggest grin on his face.

This is what he does when he gets mad, he buries his face into the ground. Lately he has been getting really mad if he can't play with the cell phones or if we close the bathroom door to try to keep him away from the toilet. We are just such strict parents aren't we? Ha ha.

Here Jonah is grabbing a dirty sock which he proceeded to stuff in his mouth directly after this photo. Everything has been going into this little portly man's mouth these days! Watch your toes around him, he got mine the other day!

Violet

This picture is the epitomy of Violet. We were at Ryker's swim lessons every morning for two weeks, and this is the sassy little attitude I got to deal with on the sidelines. Good thing she is so darn cute.

I found during swim lessons and soccer, my bright red lipstick would keep this little lady entertained. Although, it would usually end up all over her face!

This is sweet Vi with her best friend. Ripley got a hair cut and she thought that he was a new dog. She kept following him around and calling him King.

Violet has been loving horses! A pink princess horse is probably the best thing that she could ever dream of! She is such a little girly, girl princess. I love it! I wouldn't have her any other way. I'll take her sass and all!

Ryker

Little Mr. Kermit the frog body, that's what Gary and I call him. He has got the cutest little skinny body! Here he is at swim lessons. We went to the clearfield aquatic center while he was off track and he loved it. He learned some new techniques and enjoyed his time in the water! He is such a little fish.

He gets better and better everytime we put him in lessons. As long as he likes it, we'll keep putting him in!

SOCCER

Ryker has a love for soccer. This is him with his blue whales team! He got so much better this year. It's been exciting to watch his progress and enthusiasm for the game increase. He is a great forward and he keeps up with the ball pretty good too.

Coach Simi (our neighbor) was sweet to give the kids medals with their names on them, he went through calling all the kids names one by one, and had them stand while he gave them their medals. He said something good about each of them. He said the best thing about Ryker was that he always listens when he tells him what to do. It was a great confidence booster for the kids!

The red sharks team.

Ryker scored his very first goal ever with this team! It was the second to last game of the season. We have been rooting for him for some time now to score a goal because he always says, "Mom i'm gonna score seven goals today" and we always just tell him to try his best and have fun. But we really were so excited when he got that first goal because he has wanted it for so long!

Here he is #7!

Go Ryker!

Adventures....

Jonah bugs

Did I say this kid was mellow? Wow things can change fast! He has learned to turbo crawl all over our house. Some of his favorite hot spots are the bathroom, dog bowls, dishwasher, and the stairs! He also favors putting small objects into his mouth. He is definently in that " I just gotta keep him alive" phase in life!You'd think with all of this crawling the rolls would dissapear. But he still has these scrumptious little rollies all over his legs, hands, and feet. I love it!

He can fall asleep in the oddest positions!

Here he is with that sweet little innocent face gettin into the dog food!
My little curious george.

Dishwasher fun!


He still loves his little snuggly friend. He smashes him into his face to go to sleep!
The ONLY thing that will slow this boy down is watching his favorite show Baby Einstein.
Violet
We have this awesome park right down the road from our house. We take the kids down there sometimes and walk around. Here are some pictures of Violet at the park.

My little drama mama.

She is starting to love friends! We had a new family move in across the street and they have a little girl Violets age. Hanna came over to play one day and they were downstairs being awfully quiet. Gary went to check on them and found Violet with the Halloween make-up! Apparently she decided to give Hanna and herself a little make over. Hanna wasn't too happy with her look!

Ryker
The park is an adventure for Ryker!
He catches bugs, collects odd plants, and looks for frogs.

Searching the waters for frogs.

Ryker had an All about me day at school! He got to make a poster with his favorite things on it. Here is what he wrote his favorites were:
Color- Light blue

Food- Chicken enchiladas

Friends- Bridger, Braxton, Audrick, Tyler, and Jordyn.

What you want to be when you grow up?- A paleontologist

Gary made a great video of pictures of Ryker to share with his class
It was a fun day for him!

Soccer Season started! We put Ryker on two teams. The red sharks, and the blue whales. He is loving it and getting better each game! Here he is as goalie for the blue whales!

BOATIN'

We went up to Pineview lake for some boating with Grandma Jen and Papa Shane. It was a beautiful day!

Ryker learned to jump off of the front of the boat. I am surprised he would do it! I have to muster up some courage to do it myself! It's a pretty far drop, but he was loving it!

Gary got to do his favorite thing: swim!

Violet got to do her favorite thing too: snuggle with dogs!

Jonah and Ryker playing around!

Grandma Jen and Jonah buggers. The view at pineview, so pretty!

We are looking forward to the adventures that Fall will bring!

Family Pictures

We had our family pictures taken by my Mom. We took them in an alley way by Kaysville theatre. It was very cloudy, and looked like rain, but we still hoped to snap some shots before the downpour. My Mom did a beautfiful job. I love pictures where your just being yourselves! She captured us perfectly. Everyone's doing their own thing as you can see.


These are just a few of them. She took many others that I loved too. Right after we got done with the shoot it started pouring rain! We also saw a double rainbow shortly after that.

Dinos and kiddy love.....

We made a trip down to the Hogle zoo with the kids. I could have sworn we went on the hottest day of the year but, I would do it all over again just because they had such a good time. They got to see the animals, ride the train, and see the dinosaurs.Ryker loves, and I really mean loves, Dinosaurs. He is infatuated with these creatures!
So needless to say, he was in heaven.

Violet joined in the fun. I think Ryker's love of dinos is rubbin off on her a little. As you can see how sweetly she is hugging this vicious T-rex as if she were hugging her dear old grandma.

Jonah

I seriously ask myself every day how I got so lucky to have such a sweet and mellow little guy like this one. Sure we've had our times when it wasn't all peachy keen. But now, I mean wow, this baby is wonderful. I promise i'm not sugar coating it at all. I could have 11 kids if they all had the temperment he has.

He has grown so much in such a short amount of time. I cannot believe he is seven months already. He is still my "prize pig" and he takes the cake as far as any other seven month old baby i've met as far as size goes! He started crawling now so I know this chub will start coming off and it makes me sad. I love my squishy guy.

He has a pretty good older brother who lets him squeeze his nose!

Some of his favorites are: Ripley! Oh how he loves this dog. I've never seen him giggle the way he does when he giggles at our dog. He loves watching Ryker and Violet play, loves being outside and grabbing at low branches on our trees. He eats pretty much anything except green beans.

One of my favorite things I love about Jonah bugs is his smell. Gosh he has this sweet baby smell I could rub cheeks with him all day and just breath him in. Oh and his fuzzy hair is extra soft and sticks straight up I love that too.

Violet

I love this little lady. She has the best hugs. She will hug you all day long and never let go. I love it when her and Ryker play! They have started playing together alot. She has really started taking on some of Ryker's personality traits. The other day she was jumping off of the couch with her arms straight out in front of her and she was shouting "Superman!" I have caught her in Ryker's room a few times kissing his Batman doll on the mouth. This batman doll is about the size she is so it's prety funny and a little too realistic looking!

She says hello to everyone lately! Strangers, shoppers, people on the street. You name it. She is very friendly!

Oh yes, and she loves her room. She spends alot of time independently playing in her room these days. She is our little room dweller.

She remains very girly. She loves princess things and barbies all of that! She insists on wearing a skirt or dress everyday and most of the time you will catch her wearing her favorite red tutu!

Ryker

This guy has started first grade. Yikes, my first week without him home I was sad. The house was so quiet and boring. I didn't have this little ball of energy keeping me on my toes! I missed him and I still do. The second week was better. Ryker is so busy all of the time so I just came to the conclusion that it's awesome that he has something productive to do with his day and that he can focus that energy in a positive way. Gary and I went and ate lunch with him and we even spied on him a little, while he was at recess. He looks like he's having fun playing with friends, learning, and growing, and just being a kid!

One amazing thing he learned to do this summer is to swim all by himself! He swims in the deep water without floaties! I'm tellin ya once this boy gets something in his head that he wants to do he just does it! I was so proud of him. He's my little fish!

He's also still my entertainment! He is such a character. I love his personality and all of that imagination he has. He's constantly pretending he can speak spanish. He really wants to learn!

First grader! This year I am ecspecially noticing which subjects Ryker is interested in. He loves Dinosaurs, collecting rocks, catching bugs, and watching our garden grow. He is so curious with nature and science. I always try to read him fictional story books but he really loves animal fact books! My little science nerd! I love it!

So I was taking a nap on the couch when Ryker puts this dragon fly right in my face! I couldn't believe he caught such a big one!

His first book home from the school library! A dinosaur encyclopedia!

I love how each of my kids has their very own personality. I am truly learning the phrase "every child is different" I wholeheartedly believe that every child has something that is unique about them. That goes the same for us grown ups too! we all are unique.