Jonah's Happy #11

 You've had a birthday, shout Hoo-ray!

We celebrated Jonah's 11th birthday in July and he had a great day.

We started with his birthday breakfast (which he ate so fast I didn't even get a photo) of homemade cinnamon rolls, eggs, bacon, strawberries, and orange juice.

 He opened one gift and it was a kendama, one of those weird toys that all the kids are carrying around these days. I've tried it, it actually is pretty fun and addicting.

We went to church where he had Happy Birthday sung to him in primary and he brought home 3 or 4 large candy bars from his teacher, the primary presidency, and various other people. I can't believe next year he will be going into Young Men's and receiving the priesthood! So crazy. 

After church we got ready for his party and had his birthday dinner of chicken roll-ups with gravy, peas and carrots, blueberries and watermelon, and lemonade.

Now, the pictures uploaded out of order and I am not going to fix it. But he had grandparents over and his Uncle David and Aunt McElle. He opened gifts and got a Fifa Wii game, Holes the movie, ear buds, and  kindle Fire Tablet from Andy and me, money and a gift card from G and G Collette, a bean bag chair from Grandma Claudia and Papa Bry to play his new tablet on, and money from aunts uncles, and great grandparents. It was a good day. We love our Jonah Boy.

 He requested a sour cream fudge cake and vanilla ice cream. Delish, as usual.

 Birthday Boy!

Jonah at 11:

This child, my oldest son, what can I say about my baby boy? I love him with a fierce love. He is so much fun and can be the funniest kid ever. He is highly entertaining and he is an amazing example to his little brothers. He is kind and sweet and includes others. He is determined and smart, and sometimes a little lazy. He is my pride and joy.

Jonah has become an amazing soccer player. He is so quick with that ball, sometimes I hardly see it as he kicks it to the goal, because it is just a blur. He is still the lead scorer on his team and so dang fast. He will go out and play soccer all the livelong day. He'll play with friends, he'll play with his brother, he'll play by himself... he isn't picky. 

Jonah loves to have fun. He is usually down for anything and I can get him to join me for a late night treat run or a walk after church. But he also likes to chill out and enjoys his alone time. He has always been a "self-entertainer" and never tells me he is bored. Well, hardly ever. He can always find something to do or something to play with. He will take his fishing pole and ride his bike down the hill to the park with a pond and fish or search for crawdads all by himself. He usually invites a friend or his brother (which I love) and he can spend hours just playing outside. He can think up any kind of imaginative game and get all of his siblings to participate. 

Jonah loves sports, much to his dad's delight. He will watch tennis, football, basketball, soccer, anything! He loves sports. He loves to play them and loves to watch them. And he is pretty darn good, too. He also LOVES electronics. The wii, his DS, his Kindle, anything. He loves to stick his face in front of anything electronic. He's good about following our rules though and doesn't spend more time on them than he is supposed to.

Jonah is a good friend. I often have parent's of his friends come up to me and tell me that Jonah has been such a good friend to their son. They'll tell me of experiences where their son was sad and Jonah made them happy. It makes me a proud and happy momma.

Jonah is a smarty pants. He excels in school without even trying. Because of this he can become lazy, but he still always does well, if not his best. He is the same way at home. He will do his chores, but just enough to get by. He usually doesn't do his best unless I make him do it again or remind him to do his best the first time.

Jonah is my smallest child. Baron and he share clothes and Bear weighs more and has bigger feet. Jonah is still taller, but I think Bear might pass him someday soon. Despite that, the kid can eat, but only if he is in the mood. If he isn't, he can go without food all day long. I constantly have to remind him to eat in these instances because he is so dang skinny. But if he is in an eating mood, he will eat as much as Andy. He likes most all foods and has recently become more attached to sugar and treats. He used to never eat treats but lately he loves them and I am not thrilled about it. I have to remind him to eat healthfully. Luckily he loves fruit and veggies, especially blueberries, broccoli, and peas. He loves fish, too. Cereal and pancakes are his favorite. 

Basically, Jonah is a pretty awesome kid. I am so glad I am his mom and I love, love, love him. He gives me the best hugs and always tells me he loves me. He is never embarrassed when I give him a kiss in front of his friends and I can't get enough of his mischevious half-smile. I love him so much.

Happy 11th birthday, Jonah!

July!

 July is the best month. You're in the thick of summer and it feels like it'll never end. Vacations, swimming, playing all day and half of the night. Hot mornings, cool nights, and everything in between. I love it.

Baron finally learned to ride a 2-wheeler bicycle in July, while we were up at Bear Lake. He's only 7 years old, and the oldest of any of my kids when he finally learned, don't worry. But it's done and he's a pro (kind of, he still falls all of the time.) He's been getting a lot of practice.

After we got back from Bear Lake, Daphne's soccer team had a few fun activities planned. Andy went along with them on a hike up Bell Canyon, which looked absolutely beautiful.

Also, the day after we got back Jonah headed up to Scout Camp with his troop and my awesome dad went with him as a leader/helper. It was so nice of him. The reason Andy couldn't go with Jonah was because we had our ward camp out the same night. I wasn't too keen on going by myself, so Andy came with me and the other kiddos, while my dad went with Jonah. They had a lot of fun, at least, that's what I have been told.

Our ward camp out was so much fun. After arriving, setting up, and eating a yummy barbecue dinner, we had a little program with hilarious skits.

 Bear was asked to play Goldilocks in a skit and I have never laughed so hard. He was hysterical.

 It rained on us, and the kids complained of being pretty cold. I had Magnus in my bag with me, so I was toasty warm. Sorry kids! :)

 The next day all of the families participated in a C.O.P.E.S. course. It was a terrific experience to share with our kids and I would love to do another someday when they are a little older. The camp out was so much fun and I am so glad we went.

Kaylie had been asking me to do this crazy thing to her hair for awhile so I finally took a day to do it. It took about 7 or 8 hours. She has massive amounts of hair and she wanted a tricky thing done. I posted her inspiration photo below Kaylie's "before" photo. It turned out really cool and it was fun to spend the day together. I love doing cool and crazy new things even though it makes me nervous. I am just glad Kaylie trusts me so much and that she's so chill when it doesn't turn out exactly how it should have. Her ends weren't as blonde as the photo, but it still looked really neat. 

Ever since Magnus' brain surgery, he has accidents quite often. And by often I mean once or twice a week. It's rarely a poop accident, but when it is, it is not pretty:

After that clean-up, I needed a girl's night! Haha. Love these friends!

 Funny Laylah after a crazy Young Women activity.

 I got a new job back in May at Primary Children's Hospital (which I am loving, btw!) I didn't start until July because of some scheduling issues. I quite both of my part time jobs as I would be working full time at my new job. The one at the rehab center was not hard to leave, but my stylist job at Ulta Beauty was very hard to leave. I loved that job and my clients, and my co-workers, and my perks, and my discount, etc etc etc. I still miss it. it was so much fun with a great atmosphere and fun people.

 For Pioneer Day we celebrated at my parent's house, as per tradition. We always do a big family sleepover (outside in tents and on the tramp). We had a delicious barbecue and did fireworks before bed.

My mom made Waffle Love waffles in the morning with every topping imaginable. It was way too delicious.

The next night we celebrated with our neighborhood. During the day everyone does sidewalk chalk all over the sidewalks and driveways in the circle. We always do a big potluck that night and then fireworks afterwards. It was a fun night.

We did our own fireworks the next night in front of our house. After that I was fireworked out for the summer :)

 A couple days later we went camping yet again, this time up to Pineview Reservoir. We went with Andy's family to celebrate his dad's 60th birthday. His entire family was able to come except for Terra who is serving a mission. It's always lots of fun and lots of crazy with his huge fam.

His siblings put together a skit from memories of them all growing up and it was pretty funny.

We played lots of games and the kids ran around everywhere. Lots of food and sugar was consumed and we finally got all of the kids to bed. All of the adults sat up around the campfire until late into the night, laughing and talking, and reminiscing. It was so much fun... until Daphne came out of the tent to tell us she had puked. I banned her from sugar for the rest of the trip. She's my little puker and if she eats too much junk she always ends up tossing her cookies. It was a mess but we got it cleaned up. Yuck.

The next day we all headed down to the beach for a day on the lake. Lots of fun was had there as well.

I don't think these cousins ever get enough of each other. We got a photo of them trying for a pyramid. Haha.

And a photo of all 20 grandchildren, ages 1 to 14.

We had a little incident one night after the girl's had a riding lesson with aunt Kaylie. Laylah was riding Nika, Kaylie's new horse, and she lost her stirrup. She squeezed her legs to hang on, which is a signal to canter, so Nika did just that, as she should. Laylah lost her balance and fell off, right onto her hip. We thought it might be broken but luckily it wasn't. She was in a lot of pain for several weeks though. Poor girl.

 I let the kids sleep out on our tramp one night and the next morning Magnus came in with NINETY-TWO mosquito bites! (yes, I counted). This kid must be extra sweet. The other kids had a couple each, but 92?! So weird.

 that red rash on his face is actually a ton of little bumps aka bites.

 They got huge and red and swollen a couple days later and everyone kept asking if he had chicken pox. We even had him tested, though he'd been vaccinated. Nope, it was indeed mosquito bites. Yuck.

 I got together for a night out with my Ragnar ladies and we reminisced about how crazy we are. It was a really fun and memorable night. I love the people in my life. I am a lucky lady.

And that is July! One for the books. Oh, minus Jonah's birthday. That's coming up next!