Little engineers

I need to keep reminding myself that it doesn't need to be a big deal to update this blog. :) I have plenty of fun pictures that should be posted! For instance, one day at least a month ago, I went into Pierce's room to see him and Mattie constructing this really fun ride for their toy hamsters. (We have a large and thriving family of toy hamsters!)  I'm not sure where they got the idea, but they made a carnival-type ride that eventually ended up holding all 8 hamsters (I think there are more now) and could spin them around without tipping.  Great engineering!  (Matt and I are naturally very proud.)


Oops, there they go!


Some repairs.








Hamsters tenderly placed.



They ended up taking it all apart and making a sturdier base, and then the whole thing worked perfectly. But in these videos you can see even before modifications, it worked pretty well!

The preparation:

Here it is actually running.

Soccer tournament and special guests!

We had such a special weekend - Grandma & Grandpa Pierce came down to visit for a couple of days! We really appreciate them taking the time to make the long drive down to see us. Pierce had a soccer tournament and we were happy that they could come & see him play. He and his team are a lot of fun to watch play soccer. They had a couple of good games and he scored 3 times, which was lots of fun.  Somehow I avoided taking any pictures with Grandma & Grandpa... sorry... we love you and were so glad that you came!

Our silly Zoe didn't want to be cold... you never know around here this spring - it's been pretty cold and windy - but it was only a little chilly, and the hat & mittens soon came off.


I love this hat.  I made it for Zoe at the end of winter, and then didn't get a picture of her wearing it when it was actually cold out.  She also loves these white shiny mittens which I believe Santa gave her a couple of years ago.  The whole ensemble is 100% Zoe.


I love their faces when they are playing.




Pierce is always so relieved when he scores.  He took a LOT of good shots during these 2 games - he really wanted to score!  Once he does, we all feel much better.

Mother's day family portraits

I'm stilllllll not done posting vacation pictures. And I even went through them all this last week, working on a little project which I can't write about here for a couple more days. :) But I will get back with them soon. In the meantime I wanted to post our family pictures from yesterday. I love my family so much! I'm really grateful that they humor me once a year on Mother's Day with some "official" family portraits.

A day at the beach

Still working on these trip pictures. It's so fun to look back at what an amazing time we had! I wish we lived in Florida! :)

You'll have to forgive me for this post - I have a lot of pictures of Zoe and Pierce, because they were the ones staying close on the sand.  And I didn't want to take the camera too far out into the water. 

We went to Jetty Park at Canaveral Seashore, just north of Cocoa Beach.  It was a gorgeous park near the an outlet that the cruise ships take out to sea.  It was the perfect day with the perfect temperature and we had a fantastic time.  The bigger kids spent most of the day in the water (the disastrous consequence was some awful sunburns for Colby, Casy, and Spencer... somehow our kids have an easier time tanning).  They body surfed, jumped the waves, went WAY too deep and were shouted into coming back, and had a wonderful time.



Zoe dancing at the beach:

I think this was taken after the deepness policy of "no deeper than waist high on the shortest cousin in the water".  I felt much better after that.

Some lunch on her face along with the sun!


The big kids got really good at the body boards!






We rented some chairs and a couple of umbrellas, which helped the adults relax. When we got a little tired of all the sand and water, we went on a hike over to the pier.  There were little sea turtles swimming around in one area, and a fisherman even caught one while some of us were watching.  (He put him back in the water, where the turtle swam away, hopefully unharmed.)  There was a terrible fishy smell.  And three huge cruise ships sailed to sea right past us, which was really fun to watch.

We finished up with a wonderful dinner at a big pier in Cocoa Beach.  We got to sit, eat seafood (and alligator), and watch the sun set through the big windows over the water.  What a great ending to a perfect day.

A day a Wekiva Springs

Wow, I am really having a hard time getting to this blog. But something is better than nothing! I'm still happy I started. And now I will get back to our vacation adventure last month:

I'm not sure why this picture is here, but as long as it is, I'll write about it so I don't forget.  This is a compilation of their pictures from the Mt. Everest ride.  It's hard to see (they don't actually like you to take pictures of their pictures) but you can see how happy we all are!


On Saturday we decided to take a theme park break.  (I know, can you believe we wanted a break???)  We went to Wekiva Springs, one of Florida's many natural springs, and a state park we'd never been to before.  It was SO beautiful.  Unfortunately it wasn't clear from the website that the main activity was really going to be swimming, so we weren't super prepared for that.  Mattie forgot to bring her suit at all (we wrapped her up in my swimsuit) and most of the adults didn't bring one either.  But we bought some snorkels (even though we had some at the house too...) and the kids - & Matt - had a fantastic time in the beautiful spring water. 






It wasn't really very warm, but with a towel to wrap up in, and some sandwiches and snacks, it was great!


We happened to be there on a day when the parks service was sponsoring an art contest.  So there were a bunch of painters competing to finish paintings in just a couple of hours.  This guy was a pro, and not in the competition (I thought doing such a big painting was kind of showing off).  Some of the paintings were great, some I did not love.  His painting was... certainly big and striking!  In any case, how neat is it to go to a park with lots of artists!


I believe the kids were capturing tiny little fish in a mesh sack for their own "aquarium".








Seeing this really makes me want to go back!


Zoe had to be coerced to go in the water.  The water wasn't real warm, and the day wasn't real warm, so she mainly wanted to look at the water and eat snacks.  But we rented the life jacket, and I thought she should get some use out of it!




We all went on a really nice nature walk along some boardwalks and trails.



And then suddenly we were all hungry for dinner, and the bitey little flies came out, and we took off in a hurry. But it was a wonderful way to spend the day!

i.r.o.n.y.

What could be more ironic? After my last post, where I was joking about Zoe's first word that she can spell being h-i-t, she h-i-t her friend on the head with a shovel, and the shovel had a sharp edge (not being intended for use as a whapper), and her friend ended up in the hospital with 2 staples in her head. Nice. I don't think Zoe will hit again. (There are so many bad consequences! Not to mention that she loves her friends, and was sad that she had gotten hurt.)

Zoe has (also) been doing the cutest thing that I need to record.  She has been learning about the earth's creation at church, and at home saying things like "When Heavenly Father made our house..." or "I'm so glad Heavenly Father gave us this dinosaur washcloth!"  I remember Pierce one time was missing a lego toy that he really wanted, so he said a prayer, and then found it in another room.  He told me that Heavenly Father "reached down and put it in the basket."  I love their faith.  And I feel like they're almost exactly right - Heavenly Father did bless us with the means to buy this house (and the dino washcloth), and blessed someone with the inspiration to design & build it just the way we like it.  And He blessed Pierce to know where to look for his special lego (which he had earlier left in the basket). 

Oh, another thing - this is Zoe's "Julee" dress.  She wears it a lot.  It's very teeny so I make her wear tights and a leotard under it in the winter, but that is a rather unsatisfying way to dress up, so she's always very relieved when it's warm enough out that she doesn't have to wear anything under it.


I got a new light - it's a ring light & it makes this cool catchlights in your eyes.  I hope I use it a lot. :)  Mattie & Zoe modeled it for me.