Owen laughing

We love this.  Whitney's little baby talk voice, and how much Owen loves it!  What a lucky boy to have 2 big sisters who adore him.

Owen's first swim

We got to take Owen for his first swim a couple of weeks ago!  Grandma and Grandpa Murray have access to a pool, hooray! So here we are:

 Owen wasn't sure what to make of the pool!  He didn't cry, but he didn't smile either.

 He just kind of endured it, he wouldn't make eye contact until we got him out!  So funny.

 Whitney the little fish!

 And Katie.

We love swimming!

our summer so far

We have been doing a lot of Star Wars watching, and acting out:

 including using the Force!

 I have repeatedly, constantly, found Katelyn in this position- or on her tummy or back.  She didn't even notice me taking this picture.  It's so crazy to me that she loves to read so much at this point.  To me reading= thinking, and I can't believe all the ideas that she must have bouncing around in her head!

 The other day Kate made this sign for Eric and put it on the door in the garage so he'd see it when he got home:

 And then it cracked us up because a couple of hours later Eric told the girls they couldn't watch Star Wars because they hadn't done any chores.  They disappeared for a while, and then we found this 6-paper creation placed in the hallway upstairs for him to find:

 "We are mad at you Dad" with tons of angry faces drawn in!  They got over it pretty quickly, maybe because they had gotten all their anger out while making the sign!

Here's Whitney being Whitney!  She begged me to take a random picture of her with some stuff.

 So then I took a random picture of me and my boy, undone hair and all.  I love my Owen!

 Owen has learned to stand on Eric's hand, and they do it every day!  He smiles so big like he's so proud of himself every time!

 Owen got to meet Grandpa Murray!  We love summer when we get to see the Murrays lots!

 The girls and I had our own "Art Camp"- for a week we did two art projects a day.  It ended up being less work and mess than I expected, which was great, and they loved it, which was also great!  Here they are with a few of their favorites.  And yes, Katelyn is wearing a dragon costume.

 We've gotten to see our newest cousin a few times- Meet Cleo Scarlett Murray!  She is so tiny and CUTE!

 Whitney loves babies, and she's very confident (maybe TOO confident!) holding them.

 We got out the "fun chair", as we call it, for Owen.  He enjoys playing with all the toys, and talking to the pictures of his aunts and uncles- here he is smiling at Aunt Melissa. :)

 Katelyn is getting better and better at playing with Owen!  Whitney used to be the favorite because she was always up in his face, but she's been kind of loudly emotional lately and I think he's a little scared of her sometimes!  So he seems to enjoy Katelyn's calmer ways, and she has responded by playing with him more. I am loving watching my children's relationships grow!

 And in our latest installment of Acting Out the Scriptures, you can see Helaman (Whitney) and the 2(,000) stripling warriors.  Me and Kate were the mothers/Lamanites.  Good times!

a swimming post and cute video to follow!

the kate's birthday

She woke up with curlers in her hair- we put them in the night before so she'd have "cute hair" for her birthday. And she got a pink scooter from Grandma and Grandpa Murray!

 Then stamps and books from Grammy and Grandpa Jamie

 Owen enjoyed the wrapping paper of course

 and Whit gave her Star Wars toys of course

 We gave her a new bike!

 She had a monkey birthday party!

 And Grandma was the baby holder :)

 Only 3 of the 6 kids I let her invite came, we were sad and I made a mental note to let my kids invite more kids in the future, because they don't all come!  This is Adalie, the famous Aaron, and Emberlyn.

 the sweet/ghetto homemade monkey pinata!

 Whit getting some candy out!

 the cake

 so cute

 for Katelyn's birthday activity she wanted to go on a hike!  usually we go bowling or to jumpin'jacks or a movie, but we love a request that's FREE!  So we got out the hand-me-down backpack our neighbors gave us a few years ago and took Owen on his first hike!  He did great!

 Here's Whitney running ahead, with dirt on her bum from falling :)

 The waterfall at the grotto- using the camera timer

 she wanted her own picture :)

Then we went to Wendy's for dinner, went home and took the training wheels off her bike, put on a bell, and off she went!  A little more cake and we called it a night. :)  I love love this sweet girl.  She is so big.  I am so excited and happy for her to keep learning and trying new things!  She is so brave and smart and talented and fun.  And my mom was right, she has entered the six year old sillies!  She thinks she is hilarious, and that itself is hilarious. It's going to be a fun year. :)

updates

excerpts from a letter i just wrote to our missionary Kurtis...

Katelyn- is a reading machine.  She’s out of control- like, reading chapter books, staying up late in bed reading, I can’t find her and I’m searching for her everywhere and I finally see her in a corner somewhere or laying on the floor or a couch or walking slowly out of the bathroom totally glued to the page of a book!  I don’t know how many times in the last 2 weeks I’ve had to say “Katelyn, put down the book for a minute.”  It’s SO cute and I just love that she’s finally figured it out, that she can read whatever she wants!  She can learn things and find funny things and meet new characters… okay so maybe you don’t love reading Kurtis??  I think you don’t particularly love it.  But I do, and she is so totally me!  I’m so happy that she has found something to do that she loves.  And now Whitney wants to learn, so she’s more willing to practice letter sounds. 

Which brings us to Whitney- she’s little miss extreme!  Either hilariously happy or terribly, loudly, violently angry!  She’s loving riding her scooter and her bike with training wheels, and she and Kate are taking a sports class this summer- they practice a different sport every week.  So last week was volleyball, and she spent the rest of the day bumping a balloon around that they got in class, with her arms together like they taught her, it was so cute.  I think she’s going to be a good little athlete, in some sport!  Whitney is so hilarious with Owen, she has this little voice she uses just for him, and he LOVES it.  He’ll be sitting in his little chair and if he can see her he’ll stare at her and start making little noises until she looks at him and starts talking to him and he just lights up with a huge smile and squealling happy noises and kicks his legs, he loves her.  Even though she bugs him constantly!  Anyway, I also have a funny story about the girls that I put on my blog, here it is:

The girls just burst in the door talking at the same time asking if they could "go on a jeep ride with Aaron" (little kid jeep).  I said yes if they got some shoes on, they leaned out to tell him and he said something that made them both erupt into peals of giggles, then they ran upstairs talking and laughing excitedly about the prospects of going on a jeep ride with a boy... as I cracked up imagining this exact scene 10 years from now!  hilarious!  apparently girls of all ages get excited about a jeep ride with a boy.  Let's just hope in 10 years it's still with a cute boy that I trust who's their good friend, and that they will still accept my conditions so readily. :)

So this happened a few days ago.  Then tonight, we were coming to the table for dinner and Whitney peeked out the front door for a minute, then ran back to the table saying “I just saw Aaron riding his bike and I waved and said hi to him and he said hi back and SMILED at me!” She was covering her mouth with her hands and laughing and wiggling with excitement as she said this, and Eric and I were just dying laughing, Eric’s like “how old are you???” It’s so funny that a girl that young can have that kind of reaction to a boy!  We’d better watch out!  He is such a nice kid though, I can see why she likes him. At least I know she has good taste. J

And Owen- I guess his update is kind of with Whitney’s.  But also, he is learning to roll over, and he can stand balancing on Eric’s hand- do you remember Eric doing that with Katelyn? 

As for me- I’m just trying to keep the girls entertained this summer- we had an art camp at home last week, and now we’re doing “history camp” using some of Elizabeth’s old American Girls books.  They have cool info about how people used to live, and little activities you can do, it is fun. 

Eric’s doing good, work has slowed down just a tiny bit, he actually went in at 7 all last week, instead of 6am like he has been for the last year!  It was so nice!  We’ll see how long it lasts.  And he actually got to go play in a golf tournament for work last Friday up in Heber City, that was a nice perk, first time that’s ever happened.  And for scouts last week (he’s the Webelos leader) he built this sweet rocket launcher out of PVC pipe, you use a bike pump to build up pressure and it shoots water-filled soda bottles like 30 feet in the air!  Of course the boys loved it, but so did our girls and all the neighbor kids, and so did Eric!  It was hilarious how excited he was to work on building it after work for a couple of days beforehand.  The girls were amazed that he built a “machine” that did something so cool.  J 

  

P.S. Katelyn just came down saying she’s not tired and I told her to stop thinking about things so she can sleep and she said “I can’t turn off my brain, it’s electric!”  Okay…. Silly girl. J