To Do List

This morning Abi made a "to-do" list for herself. (I'm guessing she learned this by the quiet example of her older sister Melodie who always has a list of to-do's.) So, this is what Abi's list looks like: 

Starting from the top left corner: Get dressed. Eat cereal. Brush teeth. Play legos. Pack for Scofield. Draw. Make Bed. Fold Clothes. Clean up Legos. Jump on trampoline (I loved that picture). Read. Eat a burrito (loved that one too). Play with Duplos. Empty dishwasher, draw. Eat a cherry.

On my to-do list: Go shopping for watermelon lemonade supplies for Scofield. (that recipe is a summer keeper), water my pretty flowers, they make me sing:

...and, oh, 100 other things. There's always a lot to do. I'm doing pretty good at taking time to slow down and enjoy the little things, like our first two tomatoes! I love our little garden.

One month of summer vacation is already over, so go enjoy it, have a happy weekend!

One Year Old

Today is a big day! Natalie is one year old. We started off celebrating on her birthday eve with some cake and ice cream. Her big brothers held her hands so she wouldn't touch the flame as we sang happy birthday. Then we lighted it again and sang again.

And she got more freedom to move with each repeat. She would clap for an encore and we'd sing it again. Ethan kept her away from the flame and again and again we sang to our birthday baby.

Encore!!

Isn't she just THE CUTEST THING EVER?!?!?!? 

We'd all giggle as she clapped and would want to see her do it again so we'd sing again.

Natalie loved the singing. I think she could tell that we were all singing for her. She liked it.

This morning we let her open her presents outside on the trampoline. She thought they were just drums to hit and make music with, and was very content to use them forever that way. The kids were anxious to show her that there was more inside the presents to be enjoyed...

Abi helped her open her new cell phone! She was pretty excited about that.

She's such a happy baby. Love these kids. My hands and heart are full, thank you Lord!

Birthday Eve

Guess who's turning one tomorrow! Yes, a whole year of killing us with cuteness, pink, and sleeping in our bed.

One year and she's old enough for pigtails now!

More like bug antennae. Yes, bug works, cause she's cute as a bug.

German Blood

Did you hear about today's game? The biggest humiliation in the history of Brazilian football. (And that is a country that takes their football history very seriously...) "Germany destroys Brazil" It was 5-0 at the end of the first half. "Fans in shock and tears" Great pictures here, and this picture was our favorite as we laughed at how sad it was.

So Joseph, Ethan, and I tuned in to the game around the 60 minute mark and kept checking the ESPN live feed about the game. They really got creamed. We were skyping with Corey to see if he was aware of the bad news. Final score: 7 to 1. It was so very humiliatingly sad. Ethan feels a great sense of loss since he thinks he's practically a Brazilian now. I had to let him know he has German blood in him, so try to feed that ego right now. Hibbert, my maiden name, is English, but it is derived from Hilbert (German) ~ which is derived from Hildebert (German) ~ which means "bright battle" from the Germanic elements hild "battle" and beraht "bright". So those Germans had to fight a good battle, cause they've got battle bright blood in them, just like us! And if we're German, then we've still got a team in the World Cup! We've been cheering for several teams the past few weeks ~ the US, Chile, Costa Rica... they've been eliminated one by one. Now Brazil's gone so we get to claim Germany. We're hoping to go see the Netherlands vs. Argentina game tomorrow. Natalie, you ready for the game?

Pictures from the Costa Rica vs Netherlands game, these are blurry cause it's hard to make this up and coming soccer star to stand still when there's a ball within reach!

Wait, first things first... let me get my princess crown on right.

(those little legs!)

Let me try again.... There. Perfect.

Say it Natalie ~ futbolfutbolfutbolfutbol

It was fun during the last game, she'd clap and cheer and wave her arms whenever we did, so it seemed like she knew what was going on in the game.

Gooooooooooooooal! Nataie's excited.

Do the wave!!

I think Natalie was cheering for the Dutch, cause when the Netherlands hit the ball off the crossbar in the Costa Rica game a few times, Natalie kept signing "What's up with that!?"

Ok, that's enough pictures of my baby girl that I'm in love with. And Wesley had a friend b-day party today. Wes and Tess (and Abi) went swimming, then home for cake and ice cream. 

 This was like his 5th birthday cake I think. No more, Wes, your birthday is really over now.

Beautiful Creations

I am so in love with flowers lately. I keep taking pictures, hoping to have a stack of art ideas that will provide me the inspiration to draw or paint a picture of one of the photos I take. Someday. The daisy's in our front yard ~ so pretty, they just make me sigh with contentment.

I meant to take the picture before any started to wilt, so I was a bit slow, but I'll paint them unwilted on that someday when I actually paint or draw something, but I should stop procrastinating. I have this little quote on my fridge "You know all those things you've always wanted to do? You should go do them." I've got a goal to do something by November this year... So anyway, yeah, I'm a little flower camera happy, took a ton of pictures of the Feverfew at Scout Camp last week. As I walked to the checkout today at Costco I grabbed my lil' point and shoot for a few snaps of the bouquets for sale. Kinda silly/weird, but I couldn't resisit.

Such loveliness! And today I spent 4+ hours with some high school friends working on our reunion plans. We went up to Solitude to see the place where we are going to have our 20 year party next month. Such beautiful gorgeous views of the mountains out of every window.

It's going to be a lovely evening. I'm excited. Although the whole thing is still a bit overwhelming.

Hopefully we won't lose to much sleep over it this next month before we arrive at the big event.

Holiday Weekend

We had a great holiday weekend. It started off with the 4th of July Fun Run, Joseph got 2nd place. Watch out for him next year... I got like 5th among the women. Maybe I'll try for next year too.

followed by a delicious American breakfast. No, not cereal.

Then we watched the community parade. I had Wes and the 4 little girls to watch. They did great and I wasn't stressed out at all! Go USA!

Corey and the other kids were playing in the band in the parade! Natalie's ready to clap for them as they float by...

Go Granite band! So they went through the parade and then performed again at the carnival. After the parade I was going to go pick them up, ...but Corey had the keys. So my options were: walk a half mile down to the carnival with 5 kids. No. Walk a half mile home with 5 kids. No. Wait for Corey to come back. Yes. So we waited for like a half hour in the warm July sun then we moved into the less warm shade and chit-chatted with neighbors and it was a perfect Summer day. Corey eventually came, then we went home and took a nap.

Then we went to Holladay for a great firework show and Peter Breinholt in concert, so fun! We had a picnic, played games with cousins. And Sophi put handful after handful of red dirt from the baseball diamond onto her head. Nice!

The firework show was awesome!!! Works out much better since we live in the "fireworks prohibited" area of the valley. Did you like the show Hyrum?

Natalie did. Sophi and Natalie did great, they just needed to be snuggled.

Then today we went over to Corey's parent's house to watch the World Cup, Costa Rica vs. Netherlands. I think we have a future soccer player in the family She can't walk well yet, but she's not letting that small detail slow down her game, Go Natalie! Go Natalie!!!

This is what Natalie does when you tell her to focus on the ball:

The game went overtime and then to penalty kicks. Costa Rica lost, but they did good and had a ton of lucky breaks. Would have been fun if they won, but still fun to watch. Ethan doesn't like the Netherlands now, he thinks they flop a bit much and took cheap shots hitting and pushing our Tico brothers. I could get into this soccer thing, but probably shouldn't, cause I've already got more than I can do... So then at 5:30 we were headed up to the mountains to our friend's cabin, we love our neighborhood friends. Friendship is even more enjoyable in nature :) 

It's fun to see it now with all the snow gone. Natalie liked the rocks. Life is good.