funny kids

2 things happened today that made me laugh, so I had to put them on my blog. Austin and Betsy ran into my room and started posing and saying they were "fashion girls". They looked cute, but the thing that made it so funny for me was that their clothes actually matched. The girls play dress-up all the time, and love to dress themselves in the morning, but rarely do their clothes ever match. So I couldn't help but laugh when they actually matched, and looked so cute.

Joseph was playing with the legos for at least 2 hours today. It was out of the ordinary for several reasons. Joseph hardly ever plays with his legos, and he was playing with them like Betsy would. Betsy loves to organize things, and pretend they are people and play with things forever and entertain herself for a very long time. Joseph was doing the exact same thing he organized them into different colors and kept rearranging them, and I caught him "talking for them" just the Betsy does.

Betsy's birthday

My little Betsy is growing up so fast. I can't believe she is 5 years old and in Kindergarten already. She is such a sweet little girl, who is so helpful, and kind, and caring. This year she had a birthday party at Biggs water park again, and had a wonderful time playing in the water, having lunch, and eating cupcakes. On her actual birthday on Sunday, we had cake and ice cream and opened up more presents. Poor betsy hardly got to open her presents, Austin and Joseph and Samuel just couldn't contain their excitement at her presents, and were basically opening them for her. She was pretty happy and had a good birthday. She loved having her Grandma and Grandpa Hardy here for her birthday, that made it really special.

Joseph Basketball Game

Sorry the videos are in the wrong order, you should watch them backwards if you want to see them in order. Joseph has been in Basketball and has enjoyed it very much. He is decent at defense, and enjoys running around the basketball court, they have a couple of really talented kids on his team, and his team is undefeated. My parents were in town, so I was actually able to watch Joseph play, and video tape it. Joseph has a little bit different defense style, but it is effective. He waves his arms pretty big and fast, to block the other players. At one point in the game, (at the end of the second video) Joseph and another boy crashed, and they both hurt their knees, but after sitting out for a little while Joseph wanted back in the game (I was proud of him). Also Joseph liked to try and get the ball from the referee, the ref would hold the ball up high, and Joseph would jump up and try to knock the ball out of his hand. Once Joseph succeeded the ref tried to get Joseph to give the ball back, but Joseph just passed the ball to another player, and the ref shrugged and the game went on. The second time Joseph did it, the ref got into it a little and kept holding the ball up higher, but Joseph kept at it until he had knocked the ball out of his hand again. But as you can see in the video, after Joseph hurt his knee he was kinda gimpy, and hopping around a little bit, and it looked pretty funny. But he had a good time, his team won, and he enjoyed his game.

update

I haven't written anything in a while. The kids and I have been busy having a fun summer. We've played at the parks and pools many times, we've gone on walks and bike rides, and some days we've just layed around and not done much at all. We went camping for our ward campout in July and had a really good time. The kids had a blast exploring in the forest, going down the zipline and playing with friends. We went on a hike to a waterfall, and had a good time, except Betsy and Samuel both refused to walk back, so I ended up with Betsy on my shoulders and carrying Samuel in the front of me, after a while the Bishop relieved me of Samuel and I just carried Betsy the rest of the way, that was a pretty good workout for me. Yesterday we went to Biggs water park, which is a shallow play area with fountains and slides for kids. It is so fun to watch the kids play. We were there with our friends the Lairds, and Betsy and Austin and their friend Carriane were swimming around, going down slides, slithering around in the water and having a blast. Samuel was throwing himself in the water over and over again, going down slides and loving it. Betsy isn't quite as scared of the water this year, which is nice, and Samuel has lost a tiny bit of his fearlessness, and isn't quite as dangerous, although he is still pretty crazy. He would go down the slide backwards, forwards, on his tummy, back, or whatever would come out first after throwing himself down the slide, he saw a little girl plugging her nose while going down the slide, and he tried that too. Joseph has been doing a summer camp this week, and has been enjoying everything he gets to do there, and I have been enjoying not having to tell him to get off the T.V., computer, or video games all the time.

rock climbing pictures

Here are the pictures of Joseph and I rock climbing at Smith Rock on our vacation in Oregon.

I'm blessed with the most unusual 2-year old

I realized tonight at dinner that I have the most unusual 2-year old. We picked beans from our garden tonight for dinner, and ended up with a mountain of beans. Even though my kids like the beans, I was a little worried that we wouldn't eat them all, but I shouldn't have been. Samuel had 4 helpings of beans, he probably ate 2 1/2-3 cups of green beans. Samuel loves all fruits and vegetables, no matter what vegetable I put on the table he seems to devour it. He is always bypassing the other items at the dinner and asking for seconds of the vegetable. He frequently has 2 or 3 helpings of salad, and loves to eat a whole carrot for a snack, or cucumbers(which he eats like a carrot) He loves broccoli, artichokes, corn, asparagus, zucchini, squash(all varieties), peas, tomato's, jicima, beets, and potatoes. I can't think of a vegetable he doesn't like, he even likes the leafy greens, like spinach, kale, and Swiss chard. Samuel hasn't also been a vegetable fan, but has become a lover of them in probably the last 6-12 months. My kids are all good at eating their veggies, but Samuel tops them all. While we were picking beans, he couldn't even wait for them to be cooked, he would just pick them and pop them in his mouth. If someone were to ask what my secret is to get kids to eat veggies, I would say that I eat them a lot, I cook them a lot, and I'm always trying new foods and make a big deal about everyone trying them and asking what they think about it. I also cook the veggies by themselves a lot of the time, since kids generally don't like their food mixed up with other things. Also the Garden helps to, the kids help with the garden, so when they have helped grow the food, they are much more inclined to try it and like it.

the girl's dresses

I started these dresses for the girl's in January while Travis was at NTC, and I've now completed them, the girls were pretty happy with them, and they were excited to wear them to church today. I'm still working on the matching purses for them, but I'm taking a little break from sewing to catch up on the cleaning. We've had a pretty good week, we spent a lot of time at pools, which is the only way to stay cool in the heat, it has been over 100 degrees almost every day. Although that is nothing compared to the heat where Travis is at, but he is such a trooper, he hasn't complained once, he is amazing. The girls had dance camp, and their performance at the end of the week was really cute, I took pictures from my new phone, but I still need to transfer them to the computer.