Home Sweet Home

The Ranch  Brighton and Adaira got to spend a whole week up in Seligman with Grandma & Grandpa Owens in June. They had a great time playing "crybaby marbles" and lots of other games, riding the T-REX and staying up late. What a great (partial) break for me to have just Dale & Daisy at home for a week!  When it was time for them to come home, Justin drove up there with Dale and spent the weekend. Let me tell you that having the older three all gone for a few days is quite relaxing! Dale of course loves adventures and dirt, rocks, mountains, etc. I'm sure if he could talk he would say how much he can't wait to be old enough to accompany his older siblings up there for longer periods of time.  Love Dale's smile on command here...  Apparently Adaira decided to twist her comb into her hair. It was so bad that Grandma had to cut some of her hair out to get it loose! Thank you so much Dale & Joanna for having them up there! I think it fe...

Oh the Summer We are Having! June 8-10th I am so far behind! For starters, I created a chore list for the summer to give the kids daily chores and responsibilities. Along with the chores are lists of small and fun activities we can do each week (go to the library, bowling, swimming, have friends over, etc.). These items are my rewards to them for doing their daily chores. I stole the idea from my friend Heather here . Anyway, as a bigger reward for consistency I listed four large activities they will get to do this summer: Legoland, Grandma Jo's, Camping, & the cabin. It was easy to put those because we already had plans to do them anyway :) So the kids have been doing pretty well at their chores, which is sooo helpful for me! For their "reward" they got to go to Legoland (thanks to Grandma & Grandpa Ellsworth, who were planning on taking all who could come anyway). On the drive over, I pulled out our camera and found that for whatever reason it wasn...

Brighton's First Scout Camp! When Brighton turned 8 he was able to join our ward's cub scout troop. He hasn't been able to attend pack meetings because of baseball, but he was able to attend his first scout camp May 31-June 2 at the Heard Pueblo Day Camp in Phoenix and he was in Heaven for three days! He thoroughly loved all of it and I don't think he had a complaint about anything. He was gone from approximately 2-10:30pm every day for three days and I loved hearing him talk about the fun he was having and being so enthusiastic about returning each day. Justin was able to go as a leader on the third day and got these shots for me. I can tell just by looking at the different activities that Brighton was 100% happy to be there. Maybe we should get him a rope to practice at home so he can have some skills to catch our crazy Ram if he ever gets out. No doubt Brighton can't wait to do it again next year!