Quick trip to Cedar

On Thursday afternoon we headed down to my mom's for Grimshaw family photos! We stayed at Hilda's cabin, which was beautiful and it was fun for the girls to play with all of their cousins on that side of the family.

Cutie tooties in the back row (time for a van).

Here's the view from the cabin. Beautiful!

 

When you're waiting for thirty some-odd people to get ready for family pictures, there's lots of down time! So here's some shots I got when we were all dressed up and not too pooped out yet (you'll see what I mean by pooped out when you see our family pictures that were taken a few hours later...)

 

So glad I got this shot! Just a few minutes after this picture was taken, Edison had a major blow-out and was swaddled in his blanket, naked, for the big family pictures.

Caught her right in the middle of a yawn.

Precious

I'm so so glad that these two are close in age. They are 19 months apart and do absolutely everything together. They fight, for sure, but at the end of the day, they rely a lot on one another. I love that.

Sweet Alexandria is so good to our girls.

Here's the whole Grimshaw clan.

The girls. (Who are much taller than my mother and I!)

   

Jay and Bradley. Love this picture.

Yep, we really like this wonderful man my mom married.

After the big group shots, we changed into more casual clothes for our family shots. But it was nap time and our kids were pooped, especially little Hazel who ended up having a bit of a flue bug. So this is as good as it gets with over-exposed shots of a tired, tiny bit ornery family. Gotta love pictures!

This little one is always happy. Love that.

I have to give the photographer props for enduring to the end with this one. I was so desperate for a good shot that we had my mom feeding her Wheat Thins to keep her happy as we followed her around the woods, trying to get her to smile. David and I played peek-a-boo as energetically as we could, but this is the best we could get!

On Friday night, we headed home so that the girls could be at their final gymnastics performance the next morning. Busy weekend!

May

May 4th:

I've always been obsessed with our babies' bottoms. So so cute. 

You have to enjoy them while you can.

Hazel practically did this bath all on her own. She was so proud.

Still enjoying this bottom too.

On Cinco de Mayo, the girls went to a birthday party at a nearby park (one of those lovely kind of birthday parties where you kindly drop them off and pick them up when it's over!) so David and I worked on the garden while the little ones slept.

I planted half of my seeds and then saved the other half for when the girls got back to help me plant.  I think having a garden is such a great learning experience for kids. Too bad I'm not better at it!

1 1/2 months

Sweet and wonderful.

May 6th, Sunday
Didn't make it to church until Sacrament meeting today (ahem, which is the last hour). Hoping to get better at that someday soon. A few months ago, David and I were asked to say prayers in Sacrament and David forgot to tell me until we were all sitting there with arms folded, me included, and he jerked his head up and said, "It's you!" So we were asked to say the prayers again today and this time I got the phone call, so I knew about it. And I forgot. Once we were all sitting there again with our arms folded, waiting, David once again reminded me, "It's you!" And because I was taken off guard and I wasn't fasting because I just had a baby, I prayed for the speakers who had prepared talks. On fast Sunday.

We so enjoy going to Kevin and Vicki's on Sundays. The girls love playing on their new swing set, but they don't know how to pump their legs yet to swing themselves, so if David or I go inside, Hazel talks Charlotte into pushing her. So funny. And we do bells! Vicki has taught us a few songs and the girls are pretty good. Ellie helps too.

Monday morning: ready for Joy School!

Here's Ellie walking around the house in my heels and a sign that says, "Quiet, please!"

Weeding our strawberries.

On Monday night, we headed out to the trails for a family night outside.

Big family of little ones.

After our hike, we found a patch of grass and ate some lasagna that I packed into a huge tupperware. Hazel complained the entire time because the tall grass was tickly and I forgot a blanket, but we survived. She can tend to be the high-maintenance one, like her mama.

 On Tuesday, we did an activity time on the letter "I" and read a book about inchworms. Then we painted inchworms onto our tiny flower pots where we had planted bean seeds for the letter "G" (grow).

 Afterward, we spent the rest of the morning weeding our strawberry patch, swinging on the swing and polishing our hypnotizing skills on the baby chickens...

Even Charlotte did it for the first time! I'm so proud and excited to tell my Dad that I'm teaching my children well.

My babies