Miracles DO happen!!

So, I thought I would shock everyone and actually put something on here! Especially now that Megan won't have internet for a few days, hehehe. This will just be a lot of pictures, one tenth of what I've taken, of what we have been up to. All in backwards order, of course, because it just wouldn't be a Melinda blog post if it was all the way I wanted it! So, enjoy!
P.S. I promise that after Alex starts school again I willpost more often. Right now we (mostly me) are just in survival mode!


These are the only pictures I took this weekend while we were at Jackson Hole. Why, you ask? Because even those these kids look cute, I remembered that Jackson Hole is not designed for children. Particularly if you are by yourself with three of them, and one of them is Alex. I quote from myself this weekend, "No, Alex!! You cannot get on the wolf statue! It is $85,000!!!" (And I wasn't kidding. It really was.) It was a hard weekend. But I got these cute pictures out of it!! And, we didn't break anything. :)

They look so innocent.

I won tickets on the radio to the Folk Dance Festival! We had lots of fun, but it didn't seem like there were nearly as many people as there used to be.

At the splash park in Rexburg. I didn't get any pictures of Alex because he wouldn't hold still long enough! It took Tristan about an hour to get in the water this much.




The kids all rode the carousel, which they loove. I kept losing Lainey and finding her back over there, hanging on the bars and watching. Here she is sitting next to a total stranger on the bench, happy to have someone watching with her.

A picture of the kitties before we took them to the Humane Society to get adopted. They are back now visiting for about a week, because there were two kitties brought in who turned out to have distemper. So they asked if we would take them back home until the vet gave the all clear. They are such amazing sweet and cuddly kitties, I think they might already have homes. They run around and play with anything and then curl up on you and sleep. It is fun having them again, but they poop and eat a lot. Don't like that so much. Tristan still thinks Elephant is "his" cat. Elephant lets him carry him around like a baby. If we didn't already have a kitty, we would have a hard time deciding which one to keep!

Alex getting his face painted like Spider-man at the Roaring Youth Jam. He was soooo excited!! I forgot to take an "after" picture, but it was pretty cool. All they use is tempura paints, so I think I should get some and Alex can "earn" getting his face painted. He went to sleep with it on, that's how much he liked it.

At the Reed's Dairy Family Day. We had lots of fun and saw cows. The kids were very happy.

They had free horse rides. All the kids loovved that. It made me wish I had Sprat, thinking about how good he was with the kids and how much they would love him. Trying not to think about it.........

We got 25 cent ice cream cones. It was worth going just for that! Alex decided he didn't want his, and so he gave it to a very willing Tristan. We also went on a wagon ride all around the farm and they had tours of the plant and a petting zoo. It was fun!

A picture of three of Shaylene's 5 kids. They stayed for the week and it was lots of fun and really tiring!!

Alex's 7th birhtday. Not great pictures, but proof that we had it!

Deciding to rip the carpet up at 9 pm on Saturday night! Only after we saw how pretty the wood underneath was did we decide to do it. Phillip helped us and I still didn't go to bed until 3 am. Totally worth it though. We love carpet, but it was sooo old and stinky and I couldn't stand it anymore!!!

Just a funny picture of Tristan.

At Dawnetta Hot Springs. The kids had so much fun! I tried to zoom in on this picture, but it wouldn't save it. But do you see how Tristan came out of the tunnel with his hands behind his back? He's so silly!

I took this picture just for Mommy. Tristan thought it was really fun to float face down in the water so he could look around, I guess. But it looks kind of shocking.

I tried to zoom this one in, too, so you could see the huuge smile on Alex's face!

These are pictures at Girl's Camp! We had sooo much fun and I loved being up there again. All of the girls were so great and I think we all had a really memorable time. This picture is of the water fight that Bishop Baird started. He got all the girls soaked. But Sister Nielson got him back the next day while we were eating square ice cream cones, when she threw a whole glass of ice cold water in his face! Go Sister Nielson!!!

Getting Sister Nielson wet. He might regret that later. At the top of Table Rock. I love that hike, and they needed another female leader on it, so I was happy to volunteer!!

Brother Scholes and Bishop Baird pulling Rexanne around in the wagon after she hurt her ankle on her hike. I wonder how much a ride costs if you aren't hurt?

Tristan sitting on the huuuggge pile of dirt (it is bigger in real life) at the side of our house, that is waiting to be wheelbarrowed over to the side yard so we can have a garden next year. (Can we say "run-on sentence"?) It is a big job that I keep hoping will magically get done if I ignore it long enough. That hasn't worked so far.

Well, that's all for now. Hope I didn't bore you too much. Oh, and I might as well tell all my thousands of readers out there (yea, right) who don't already know, we're expecting again! I'm about 14 weeks now, the baby is due February 25th. We're very excited. I'm not sure if I am more excited about that, or about Alex starting school again in two weeks. Hmm... I'll get back to you on that one. So now I, too, can start working on my basketball figure, as Maria so aptly put it. But so far, it is looking more like a whale. I really have to go now, because Alex is getting up from his nap. (Yes, he is taking them again. I tried to have him not take them, he is getting crazy. I figured, I don't know if he needs them or not, but until school starts again, I need them! So, "release the secret weapon!" Or in other words, wake Alex up from his nap.) I'm not even going to proof-read this right now. Gotta go! Bye!