Gwendolen is 1

Because she's too small to care and our schedule was a little crazy, Gwendolen got to celebrate most of her birthday a few days late. The actual day of her birthday (Oct. 4), Analee gave her a present she picked out and paid for all by herself.

A rubbery, spiky ball from the dollar store. Gwedolen loves it.

Then we waited until all the extended family's schedules aligned (much like the stars, it only happens once in a century) so we could have a birthday celebration the Monday after her birthday.

We had cousins,

 

 Bennet, Emma and Gwendolen play with cars.

cupcakes,

Winnie eating her "Sweetheart" cupcake with strawberry jam-flavored frosting.

and presents.

Winnie getting help from at least three people in opening her gifts from grandparents and parents.

It was fun to have uncles, aunts, grandparents, cousins and sisters help us celebrate Winnie turning one. She's such a sweet, cute little girl. Our family wouldn't be complete without her.

If you want to see more pictures, start here.

Miri-ism #17

While using the restroom at the store.

Miri: Mom, I smell something dangerous in here. And it's not my pee.

Rebekah at General Conference

This past weekend was the start of a wonderful Grover tradition. Because Rebekah is now 8 years old, she is old enough to attend General Conference in Salt Lake City. We hope to do the same thing with each of our girls as they turn 8. With Rebekah, we were able to get tickets to the Saturday afternoon session, so we planned a special parents/daughter trip to see the prophet and apostles.

Saturday morning we dropped the three younger sisters off at Grandma and Grandpa Scott's house and drove down to Utah. It's amazing how much easier car trips are when you have only one child in the car and when she's old enough to operate the Kindle, drink pop without spilling and tell us ahead of time when she'll need a bathroom break.

We listened to the morning session in the car. After we arrived in Salt Lake, we parked the car, rode TRAX for three stops and walked to Mormon Pioneer Monument Memorial Park. Even though I've been to downtown Salt Lake and Temple Square more times than I can count, I had no idea this little park lay nestled between cute houses just east of where Seth's grandparents lived when they were serving as missionaries in SLC.

We ate a picnic lunch of egg salad sandwiches (Rebekah's choice) at the park and viewed Brigham Young's grave, as well as the graves of Eliza R. Snow, a couple of Brigham's children and a few of his wives.

After lunch it was time to walk to the Conference Center and get our seats. We were in the third row of balcony eight, to the left of the podium.

Phone picture of Andrea and Rebekah in our seats at the Conference Center.

Seth and Rebekah waiting for Conference to start. It's amazing how every seat gets filled in that enormous auditorium.

It was neat to be able to sustain the prophet and apostles while sitting in the same room as most of them. I especially appreciated Elder S. Gifford Nielsen's talk and Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's.

After our session, we took Rebekah on a hunt through the Salt Lake Cemetery to find the graves of several groups of people:

Prophets

All but four latter-day prophets are buried in the Salt Lake Cemetery. The exceptions are Joseph Smith (buried in Nauvoo), Brigham Young (buried in the Mormon Pioneer Monument Memorial Park which we visited earlier that day) Lorenzo Snow (buried in Brigham City) and Ezra Taft Benson (buried in Whitney, Idaho). That means we saw the graves of Wilford Woodruff, Joseph F. Smith, Heber J. Grant, George Albert Smith, David O. McKay, Joseph Fielding Smith, Harold B. Lee, Spencer W. Kimball, Howard W. Hunter and Gordon B. Hinckley.

 

  
Ancestors

Rebekah has nine direct ancestors buried in the Salt Lake Cemetery. They are: Homer and Asenath Duncan, Henry and Ann Grow, Maren Jorgensen, James and Isabella McGhie and William and Alice Strong. In preparation for our trip, I did some research and came up with some short summaries that tell about our family so I could print it off, put it in a binder and carry it around the cemetery. (The boxes next to the names are there so we could check them off as we found them.)

 Click to see it large enough to actually read.

Other Notable Figures

We saw several apostles (Neal A. Maxwell, Orson Pratt, Willard Richards, James E. Talmage,) as well as hymn authors (W. W. Phelps, William Clayton) and Joseph Smith's bodyguard (Orrin Porter Rockwell).

 

After our cemetery tour, we drove to the Gateway and treated Rebekah to quite the eating experience at Tucano's Brazilian Grill. Bekah has been somewhat of a picky eater; when she was younger and told to eat something she had decided she didn't like, she'd often audibly gag it down. However, at the restaurant she was exceptionally well mannered and tried several new things (fried bananas, chicken hearts, quail eggs, etc.). 

We gorged ourselves, then drove to Aunt Susan's in South Jordan to spend the night. Upon our happy awakening the next morning, we got ready and drove north in time to eat lunch with my parents at their house and take all our girls home.

The trip was a choice experience for me, as I hope it was for Rebekah. We enjoyed getting to spend some good bonding time with her and remember what a sweet, fun little girl she is.

To see more pictures, start here.

Return to hunting camp

Back when it was still archery season, we made a second trip up to the great outdoors of Island Park (link to the first trip).

Rebekah thought it would be a good idea to try eating a roasted grasshopper. On a plate. With a fork.

Eating the leg.

Miriam getting read to by Grandpa Dennis.

Winnie sporting Seth's camo hat.

Andrea letting Winnie play with her sweatshirt strings.

Although we had fewer injuries on this trip, it was a lot wetter and windier this time around, so we actually cut our visit short. Instead of driving home Sunday morning so we could attend our afternoon church, we packed everything up Saturday evening and came home then.

Big sister

Miriam loves being a big sister so much. Sometimes a little too much. But on this lovely September day, she loved her just the right amount.

Miriam feeding Gwendolen a bottle.

Snuggling up to her baby sister. This picture reminds me a lot of ... 

... this one, which was taken when Winnie was one week old. She's grown a little bit since then.

Catching up

Sometimes you take a bunch of pictures and upload them to your online photo album but fail to blog about them. And then sometimes you take the time to post a bajillion different things.

Nearly a month ago, Rebekah and Analee were in school when Miriam, Gwendolen and I were running errands downtown. Since we had a few minutes before we needed to drive home and put the baby down for a nap, we stopped at the temple.

Miriam had to pose in front of the fountain. Andrea had to take a picture with her cell phone. 

We spent some time in the visitors' center where Gwendolen carefully checked out the Christus.

Miriam used the touchscreen to color a temple or two.

It's such a blessing to live so close to the temple. We rarely go a week without driving right past it. I know I love to see the temple, and I know my girls do too.

Bekahism #51

After finishing our Beaver Ponds hike in Yellowstone, Analee persuaded Grandpa Scott to follow the boardwalk by the Mammoth Terraces for a while to take pictures of her. The rest of us followed.

Andrea: Girls, do you know what that big gray cone is called? Devil's Thumb.

Bekah: (Snickering on the boardwalk.) So, the devil just stuck him bum up out of the ground?
Andrea: Devil's THUMB, Bekah. Not Devil's Bum.

Yellowstone hike

As a part of our Yellowstone hiking tradition (one Yellowstone hike with Grandma and Grandpa Scott per year after you turn 6 years old), we braved the Beaver Ponds trail on Saturday.

Our whole group at the start of the hike near the Mammoth Terraces. Aunt Jessica, Andrea, Grandpa Scott, Grandma Scott, Analee and Rebekah.

For more than half the hike, I thought the Beaver Ponds wouldn't live up to Lone Star Geyser or Fairy Falls. (And for a while we weren't sure we'd get to the Beaver Ponds, thanks to several trails that led away from the main one and confused us.) But after lunch when we finally saw the ponds and wildlife, I changed my mind.

 By the biggest pond. Two beaver dams located below created this pond.

Enjoy a comprehensive list of the animals we saw while hiking:

American dipper. We weren't sure what this bird was when we spied it, but after getting back to the car and reading through the What I Saw in Yellowstone book I had purchased before the hike, we discovered what the bobbing bird was.

Beaver. You think this would be a given on the Beaver Ponds hike, but according to what we read, it's more unusual to spot a beaver than it is to not. But we saw one swimming through the water on the biggest pond (it made a v-shaped wake in the water and swam a lot lower and faster than the ducks) before it disappeared beneath the surface to go into one of the beaver lodges.

Deer. From a distance, it was hard to see if the four-legged critter we spied on the opposite bank was a deer or an elk, but after watching it for a while, we determined it was a mule deer.

Frogs. When the girls decided to stop here for a while to check out the stream running from the biggest pond ...

... we all took the opportunity to rest. After we'd been standing there a while, I looked down and was surprised to find one of these guys hanging out in the water just feet from our feet.

Grandma Scott found a second one close by.

Mountain bluebirds. Even though we weren't in Idaho at the time, it was fun to see a couple of our state birds flitting through the air and periodically landing on sagebrush.


Elk. As we came to a flat meadow near the end of the hike, we saw a couple of people ahead of us passing close by a cow and a calf. They were staying on the trail like good hikers do; the elk were totally unconcerned as they passed by so closely. As we got closer to the elk, I was surprised to see another cow/calf couple in the sagebrush right next to where we already were.

When Rebekah called Seth to tell him how close to the elk we had been, she told him they were "one or two yards away." I told him it was probably closer to 10.

The first set of elk we initially saw headed down into Mammoth as we approached the end of the trail.

Despite it being Analee's first 5-miler, she did amazingly well and insisted on leading the group most of the time. Rebekah, being the seasoned Yellowstone hiker she is, did well too. She insisted that we keep with tradition and get ice cream afterward. (She remembers the most important parts, you know.)

To see more pictures, start here.

Fair

We knew the results of my photography entries already (my parents went before us and spilled the beans), but we decided to take the girls to the Eastern Idaho State Fair regardless. Who can pass up animals galore and delicious fair food?

 Miriam putting together an alphabet puzzle in the puzzle tent.

Seth showing me the solution to a bent nail puzzle while holding Gwendolen.

Rebekah "milking" a "cow."

After the girls took turn with the fake cow, they each got to pick out a box of flavored milk.

At the petting zoo. Miriam fell in love with every variety of goat there. She would take the goats' heads in both her hands and even kissed one.

Rebekah petting a calf.

A billy goat gruff ... or so we thought.

Every girl got to pick a treat to eat on the way out. Analee and Miriam chose cotton candy (Miriam made the biggest mess). Seth and Rebekah chose ice cream. I really wanted a Tiger Ear, but the line so long that I decided not to make everyone wait for me.

Library parties

If I haven't extolled the virtues of our public library, let me do so now. Our library is INCREDIBLE. The children's department has so many fun things for kids to do: story times, carnivals, reading programs, parties, acting for kids ... I could go on and on. And because it promotes literacy and is 100 percent free, I like to take advantage of everything we can.

Case in point: August parties. Every week in August, the library allowed children to sign up and attend a party with a different theme. We wanted to/were able to attend two: Fairy Land and Elephant and Piggie.

The fairy party had a general fairy theme. The librarian's read a couple of fairy stories. The kids got to eat pixie sticks and other treats. They played a freeze tag game involving wands. They made fairy headdresses. The posed next to the elaborate backdrop for cell phone pics.

Miriam in her fairy attire. She picked out her outfit all by herself.

As did this little fairy/babushka. 

Bekah decided to buck the trend and dress as a vampire girl. She thought that every fairy story needed a good antagonist, and a vampire was the obvious choice.

The Elephant and Piggie party was based on a hilarious series of books by Mo Willems. (If you have young children and you haven't read any of these books, I command you to drop everything, go to your public library and check out AS MANY AS YOU CAN!) The girls love these books and couldn't wait for this party.

The librarians acted out two of the books, the kids ate a picnic on the floor (one of the books includes a picnic in the storyline), they made sack puppets of Pig and Elephant, they colored pages and they posed with props and by their favorite characters.

One of the titles in the series is We Are in a Book! So it's a joke. Ha!

Analee in her pig attire with Piggie. (Check out her tail.)

Gwendolen had to check out the backdrop.

Rebekah as Elephant and her stuffed seal Orangey as Piggie.

A word about Rebekah's costume. In I Am Invited to a Party!, Piggie receives an invitation. Elephant decides to help Piggie get ready for the party. He wants them to be prepared, so first they dress up in fancy clothes, then in pool attire, then in costumes because he's not sure what kind of a party it is. Hence Rebekah's dress, witch's hat and pool ring. One of the librarians immediately understood her costume and unofficially voted it as the best.

First day of school

Rebekah was oh-so-excited to start third grade yesterday.

As was Analee (in the first grade sense).

We've been looking forward to this day for a LOOOOONG time. You know those paper chain Christmas count-downs? My girls each had their one counting down to the first day of school.

And now poor Miri doesn't know what to do with herself during these long days. I thought she had somehow gotten past the "Mommy play ponies/Barbies/Polly Pockets with me for a couple of hours" stage, but it turns out that it's a seasonal thing.

Labor Day weekend

We go to to hunting camp ... a lot. It's kind of a Grover thing. So you faithful blog readers shouldn't be surprised to hear that this Labor Day weekend was spent in the great outdoors.

 Sometimes we eat a barrel of cheese balls at camp.

 And get really messy.

 And see how many we can stuff in our mouths at one time.

 And take pictures of all of it.

 Miriam "driving" the "motorcycle."

Andrea wearing Gwendolen and going for a walk to the quarry.

 Miriam "taking pictures" of me. She holds her hand over her eye and says, "Kuh-KUH!"

 Rebekah, Mack, Analee and Tav on our walk to the quarry. See those BB guns? When we get to our list of injuries, those will come into play.

Rebekah running through the quarry.

Shadow picture of Winnie strapped to my front.

 Watching for chipmunks so they can shoot them with the BB guns.

 Miriam on a ledge at the quarry. She was a little worried about the drop, as you can see from her face. She was never in danger of falling, though.

Ana "practicing for our hike" by climbing higher in the quarry.

 Bekah thought the way Winnie fell asleep in the Pack 'n Play in our tent was funny.

 Seth holding the squirrel pelt he harvested with his trusty bow.

Unfortunately, our holiday weekend included a list of mishaps and inconveniences. 

• On the walk back from the quarry, I got zinged across the back of both legs by an errant BB. One of the boys had reportedly shot straight at a rock, so it ricocheted and hit me. I don't have a picture of it because (1) no one wants to see the back of my pasty thighs and (2) I don't think it left a mark, although it stung like crazy for a little while.
• Also not pictured is the random nosebleed Analee had. That poor girl bore the brunt of the camp injuries, as you'll see below.
• Ana got burned on her neck by one of the boys who liked poking sticks in the fire and then waving them around to see the smoke rise off them. 

The burn on Ana's neck.

• A whole nest of hornets made daily visits to our campsite. They were buzzing around the food, around the water barrel and around us. By the time we left, the sting count was up to four: Grandpa Dennis, Uncle Jim, Miriam and Grandma Susan. After I went home with the girls, Seth got stung three times, as did Uncle Doug's dog Roscoe.

Miriam's hornet sting.

• I didn't see any of them buzzing around, but Analee's poor neck testified that some of those pesky gnats that bite around the nape of the neck were also visiting camp. Interestingly, Ana was the only one who got bit. 

Ana's neck. Although she was the sole gnat victim, she had at least five bites. 

And that concludes our injury list. On to happier times!

Miriam borrowed the Papworth's bow (or "bowanehwo," in Miri's words) and was practicing shooting it backwards. 

Seth pushing Winnie and Miriam in the stroller and Ana hunting for wildflowers while on a walk.

 First roasted marshmallow for this kid.

 Winnie getting the most of her 'mallow.

 Grandma Susan reading library books to Miriam and Analee next to the fire.

 Old Grandma brought her Nandy bird to camp with her. It often sits on her head like that. It's the cutest thing.