Miller Family fun with noodles

We must have been pretty bored after dinner 2 Sundays ago. After we finished eating the spaghetti, the boys started playing with the leftover noodles. Jared and I decided we better join in. Jordan is Harry Potter. Jared is a football player. I am the lady in our ward who Jared elbowed in the head while playing volleyball. (She had to get stitches, sorry again Brenda! It really was a collision from both sides. Jared didn't elbow her on purpose.) Ethan has mad eyes. Lincoln is Master Shifu from Kung Fu Panda. Benson is a baby who just had spaghetti, but you can't really see that from this angle. Are we dorks or what?! We had fun anyway!

Fun 4th of July at Delta Reservoir

Jared's Grandma has some great "oceanfront" property on the reservoir in Delta. We love to go skiing there, and the weather held out to make it a great day all around. Fortunately for all who are reading this I was the picture taker today. There will be no pics of me in my swimsuit. Sorry!

A freezing Ethan and Lincoln next to the paddleboat.

Benson about to fall over from laughter on the kneeboard. (No, he isn't quite old enough to go on the kneeboard yet.) The little chunk should have had his lifejacket on, but I promise we were standing right by him! We put it on immediately after this shot.

Ethan posing....need I say more?

Sorry about the two videos side by side, but I couldn't get it to move and I wasn't taking the time to reload it. The one on the top is Jordan and Jared kneeboarding. The one on the bottom is Jared thinking he is pretty tricky. He wouldn't let me put the video of him totally wiping out on here. It was a great day!

Benson's First birthday

My baby turned one this week! He is so big....and I mean chunky too! He is such a good boy and pretty easy to make happy. These pictures are a little out of order, but it is all good. He has a smile and laugh that kills us all (see video). I decided to go with an elephant cake instead of a bumblebee when I thought about the stain of all the black icing that a bumblebee would involve. Here is the before picture of the cake.

Here is the birthday boy in between some of the festivities! Benson's eyelashes are everyone's favorite part about him!

Benson taking a big handful of cake in his mouth. It didn't take him long to figure out more is better.

Here is the video of Jared making Benson laugh from just a few weeks ago.

Happy first Benson! We love you!

Trip to the zoo

We have had an eventful couple of months and I can't seem to get to my blog. Oh well! Here is an update of just this last week. We went to the good old Hogle Zoo on tuesday with some of the Millers. Here is Benson enjoying an eye level view of the groundhogs.
Benson, Emilia and Sammy waiting for the bird show to start.

Here are the boys who weren't all too excited about turning around and leaving the giraffe behind them.

Shana and Sammy and giraffes.

This elephant was chewing through some of the wooden poles. We all thought it was cool how he broke it with his tusk first.

Do I have a teenager already?!

Jordan, just newly 9 years old (Birthday pics will come later) is acting a bit like a teenager. It is so sad! He has just now decided it is no longer cool or ok to kiss your mom on the cheek! I told him it was not gross, and I will force him if I have to. At cub scouts, the cubmaster makes the boys kiss their mom on the cheek after they get an award. Jordan was getting his wolf badge in a few days. I told him that he better not make a scene like a lot of the other scouts did. He just needed to straight up kiss me on the cheek and not do a gross out face! He said he couldn't do it. I said he WOULD do it. (This was all a light and funny conversation...we were both laughing the whole time.) He then asked why? I told him that moms like to get kissed on the cheek by their son, and it makes them sad when their kids make gross out faces. He proceeded to tell me it doesn't make moms sad. I sais "I am the mom here, and I am telling you it makes moms sad. Who do you think knows more about how moms feel, me the mom, or you?!" Jordan then replied....."Um, MOM, like 5 girls are in love with me already, I'm pretty sure I know what they like!" GASP, WHAT?!!! Where has my little boy gone? I cried I was laughing so hard. I always thought that self confidence was the best gift you could give your child, but there is a fine line between self confidence and cockiness!

Needless to say, Jordan had to practice kissing me on the cheek. At pack meeting he kissed me on the cheek as well....although there was a slight hesitation! He is a good kid, and we love him. (Apparently a lot of girls do too!) I hope I can keep convincing him that moms deserve kisses from their boys and that a little humility goes a long way!

Twin Falls

The 3 older boys really cheesing it up!

Benson was glad to be out of his carseat!

On our way home from Boise we stopped by to have our picnic lunch and see Shoshone Falls. Unfortunately there was a 2 mile line of traffic to see the falls, so we opted to not have our kids sit through that much longer of a car ride. We went to the actual twin falls down the road and that wasn't busy, so we had our picnic there. The kids thought that waterfall was cool enough. I thought it was cool that I got a rainbow in that last picture!

Our trip to Boise...

We had a great time visiting our good friends in Boise last weekend. Here are the babies! Benson and Molly were so good! The dads got in a little golfing. The moms got in a little shopping, and the kids got in A LOT of video games and trampoline time!

The kids are having a hard time looking away from their Saturday morning cartoon to have their picture taken! (Except Ethan who is doing a very nice "next top model" pose with his leg! It is even funnier when you zoom in!) A couple of the kids even turned their head and smiled for the picture, but their eyes were not leaving that cartoon!

This is for all my SNL fans out there. I taught adorable little Annie how do do this little bit for her mom (who didn't know I got it on video....Enjoy Andrea!)