what a beautiful mess

Last Saturday Trevor and I went on a much needed date.  He took me to see the new Batman~ holy goodness ...it was the best batman...ever.  I absolutely loved it.  It was over way too fast; even though it was almost 3 hours, I wanted it to go on and on.  Trevor liked the second Batman better so we had to watch it Sunday night for him to be sure. The Dark Knight is still his favorite.  And The Dark Knight Rises is still my favorite.  We agree to disagree.  However, I'm sure we agree that this is a way cute picture of Joshua: Josh was so excited to show me the rainbow on the wall and to have his picture taken by it.  Trevor and I made a deal about a week ago that I would read one of his favorite books  and he would read one of mine.  I wouldn't ask him to read Jane Eyre so instead he's reading East of Eden and I'm reading The Pillars of the Earth.  I can definitely see why he loves this book....

I've been a bad blogger lately and I'm having a hard time feeling bad about it. Summer has been busy and I've had to stop blogging as much as I was. Also I've decided that since I'd like Trevor to not fall asleep during movies at night, that we should get to bed about ten o'clock on the weeknights and only watch movies on the weekends. We haven't been able to test it to see if it'll really work but maybe this Friday? It's at least given him more rest for days he does have to work. Some of our chickens have started to lay eggs. We're getting about three a day. Of course that number could diminish if Carl keeps picking the chickens up by his mouth like he did today but hopefully he doesn't frighten them too much. Our roosters are living their last days. Trevor is trying to convince me that we should butcher them by ourselves, at our own home, and I'm trying to convince him otherwise. I have a feeling he is going to be the winner this ti...

Amy and her Lexi and Brooklyn, Jessica and her Layla, and Candice and her Asa and Kyran all came for a visit.  We spent a week together and had a really good time.  I'm sure we've all cut back a little on our eating and upped our exercise a bit  since we've been back to normal but that's just proof that we had a great time together.  We shopped, ate really good food, swam, hiked and ate smores.  I'm sure Rexburg was a huge change of pace for them all since it has a lot less people  and not nearly as many things to do as the cities they live in,  but boredom was never an issue. We are never good at taking pictures while we're together so  if any of you girls have some, will you email them to me, please?  Please?  I miss you all already and love you so much!

Either hula hooping Or dancing along with Napoleon.  We had a great weekend and I hope you all did too!

This is what Stephen likes to do while we shop, drive, eat.... It doesn't matter how often he's read the book either.  In fact I think he's read Matilda about three different times now.  And don't forget to notice Annabelle in the above picture.  I wonder how bored she actually is.  She looks absolutely, terribly bored. 

He may the have the cutest dog face in the world  but he is Naughty.  Yes, naughty with a capital N! He ate the second pair of our little 5 year old neighbors shoes today.  It cost 30 freakin' dollars to fix too.  And made me so mad at Carl.  And even after our lesson on forgiveness, I'm still not over it.  However, these have cheered me up tremendously: Speedy Brownies 2 cups of sugar 1 3/4 cups of flour 1/2 cup cocoa 1 tsp salt 5 eggs 1 cup of vegetable oil 1 tsp vanilla 1 cup of chocolate chips Mix all ingredients together and spread in a 9x13 greased pan. Sprinkle chocolate chips on top and bake at 350 for 30 mins.  Cut them up, eat them and freeze what's left in individual baggies. It's really useful to have a stash of these for when you get so mad that only chocolate will cheer you up.  It works. 

We're still alive! I'm sure you're wondering that since I haven't been blogging much lately.  We've been spending a lot of time hanging around, goofing off and relaxing.  So yeah, we're really busy... My schedule has changed a bit lately so I haven't been getting on the computer much.  I really miss reading blogs and catching up on the news of the world (as told by People.com...).  But hopefully this week I'll get all the kinks worked out and be able to fit a little more comp time in.  Thanks Scott and Jenee for coming up tonight.  As usual, we had a great night with you guys!  We can't wait for Friday...

We had great 4th of July... (this picture was taken just after eating ice cream cones) And we hope you had a great one too! There's nothing better than spending the day as a family;  going to a parade, doing yard work, eating barbecue, and letting off fireworks.  And of course going to bed way past bedtime....

Happy Birthday Annabelle! To celebrate her day, she wanted to first start out with getting Paradise doughnuts for breakfast.  After that sugary...very sugary breakfast, we drove to Palisades where she wanted to hike and have a picnic.  It's a tradition in our family to pick out all our birthday meals so after doughnuts,  we had egg salad sandwiches, chips and watermelon.  She also wanted to get square ice cream.  Trevor told everyone that if anyone saw a moose on the way there,  they would get a double decker ice cream.  And we all saw a moose. Palisades never disappoints.  And everyone got a ton of ice cream! After that we came home and found that her good friend Gracie decorated her room and  spoiled her with lots of candy and nail polish.  Annabelle was so happy to come home to that!  (that's the first picture)  Her gifts from us was a pair of owl Vans and crackle nail polish.  Sh...

Well...hello there. I haven't been here for awhile. It seems as if a lot has happened in the world since the last time I've been on the computer...which means there's lots of news articles for me to read. While I've been gone, we've done some pretty fun stuff. The most fun thing we did was go to Bear Lake for Trevor's family reunion. We all had such a great time. I don't have all the pictures that everyone took, in fact I barely have any except for a picture of us after taking a "leisure walk" to a really old tree. The walk was super easy until I stubbed my toe on a tree root that was sticking up out of the ground. Stupid root. Or stupid me for wearing flip flops. Bear Lake was beautiful as usual. We ate lots of yummy food and spent lots of time talking and telling stories (I just love to sit and listen to everyone). The Haslem family reunion is one of the most anticipated vacations for our kids. We can't wait for it to happen again in 2 ye...