Andrea is 37!

I don't always post about my birthday, but I had to because of the incredible cake Ana dreamed up and Bekah and Ana made happen.

The girls know I share a birthday with Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, but they just recently learned that my birthday is also the anniversary of when Joseph Smith received the gold plates. So they made this:

Ana made the cake and the fondant. Rebekah helped engineer the kneeling Joseph Smith.

And then we went to Palisades for a picnic and a walk.

Birthday family selfie.

Eastern Idaho State Fair

Way back in September (September 4, to be exact), we took advantage of Wednesday early release and spent an afternoon and evening at the Eastern Idaho State Fair. Fun was had by all.

Checking out the poultry exhibit. 

 Miriam and Winnie posing. Winnie MAY have requested that she have her picture taken in several of these cutout photo ops.

Miriam petting a goat at the petting zoo. 

 Ana pretending she has food so the goat will love her.

Winnie with her treat of choice: cotton candy. This girl loves cotton candy.

The great escape

"I think there's something in here!" I loud-whispered to Seth around 1 in the morning.

Abruptly yanked out of his peaceful slumber, Seth jumped about a foot off the bed and exclaimed, "What?!"

"I think there's something in here. I heard it scratching in the corner. I think it's a hamster. I saw it."

"But the light is off."

"I saw it!"

Seth dutifully came around to my side of the bed. "Where?"

"Behind the boxes."

"If it's anything, it's probably a mouse."

He moved one box. There was nothing behind it. He moved another box.

Nothing behind it, either.

"I'll go downstairs and make sure Bidoof is fine."

"Sh! I hear it!"

Obviously skeptical, he ignored me and turned away to leave the bedroom when I said, "It's a hamster!"

"It's a hamster?"

"It's Bidoof!"

Seth returned to my side of the bed and stared most disbelievingly at our lovely pet hamster who had just come out from under our bed and was sitting on his hind legs in the corner of our bedroom.

"Hey, little buddy," Seth said after he had shaken off his stupor. He knelt down and picked Bidoof up.

Our cute hamster in a laundry basket. That's the only place I could corral him for a photo.

I heard Seth go downstairs, put the hamster back in his cage, then use copious amounts of packaging tape to seal the top compartment of the hamster's cage. The part with the broken latch. That the hamster had completely ignored for months, and we figured he would ignore for the rest of his existence.

Seth returned to bed, and we had a good laugh at the absurdity of the entire situation ("I was sure you were dreaming!" Seth told me), then realized what a journey our sweet little rodent pet had gone on during that early morning.

First, he had to lift the lid of his hideaway and climb out.

His hideaway at the top of his cage. Now with lots of packaging tape!

Then he had to drop down from the cage to the floor.

It's quite a drop from the shelf on the entertainment center to the ground.

Then he had to climb one set of stairs ...

Stairs leading from the family room (where the hamster cage is) to the living room.

... followed by another.

Stairs leading from the family room to the bedrooms upstairs.

Then he had to enter our bedroom and go to the far corner.

Our bedroom, with the far corner visible from the doorway.

And then he scrambled around the boxes I keep in the corner by my head of the bed. 

The boxes Seth moved to find nothing since the hamster had moved from the corner to under the bed while I was turned away.

Which is the unlikeliest place we figured he'd go. He could have ended up in the crawlspace, and we never would have seen him again. He could have ended up in one of the girl's rooms and had a heyday in there since none of them sleep light enough to have heard him ("Especially me," Rebekah commented since she removes her hearing aids before bed every night). He could have ended up in the mouse trap under the family room fireplace that is a mere 10 feet from his cage.

The mouse trap (and dust bunnies) under the fireplace.

We figure heaven must be watching out for the little guy, because instead of him going missing and causing a lot of heartache for his owners, he came straight to us and allowed us to pick him up and put him back. And since he's named for this guy:

Bidoof the Pokemon.

I guess we had our own little game of Pokemon Go in the wee hours of Thursday morning.

Family photos

It has been a couple years since the last time we took family pictures, so I asked my dad if he could shoot some more for us. I told him I wasn't sure where we should go for the pictures, but I mentioned Fall Creek and Twin Bridges as possibilities. He had just been to Fall Creek with the varsity scouts, so he thought that would be a lot of fun. And fun it was.

My favorite shot of the group.

 Our cute girls.

Us.

But what you don't see in the polished shots we hang on the walls is the adventure it was to get eight people (our six + my parents) (five of us in skirts) to this point.

Traveling downhill from the road to the bank of the river. Remember, Miriam doesn't like heights. This took a lot of encouragement from several people to get her where she needed to go.

Wading through water to the falls. The mud is so thick and squishy here that it was a trial getting your shoe unstuck with every single step.

Climbing up the falls.

Did it take more time than we thought it would? Yes. Did we get wetter/muddier than we anticipated? Definitely. But was it worth it? Absolutely.

Labor day weekend

After the first week of school, we got to enjoy a four-day weekend in Island Park with family and woodland creatures. Ana went on her first archery hunts. Seth and Bekah devotedly went on all the hunts. The rest of us spent time at camp reading and playing. We also got to attend church with about a million other people in Island Park, and Grandpa Dennis and Grandma Susan hosted a big Dutch oven dinner for friends and family in the camp Sunday evening.

 Ana, Seth and Bekah in camo before Ana's first hunt Friday evening.

Winnie and Miri shooting arrows at targets. Winnie loved the archery range so much and spent a good deal of time over there. 

Miriam reading on her Kindle while she rests her feet on a furry ottoman. Peach LOVES going camping with the family. 

The "fairy fort" Aunt Rachel helped the kids build on Monday. 

Miriam driving Grandma Susan on the four-wheeler. Grandma taught her how to drive on this trip.

School starts

This is a big year for all the Grover girls, academically speaking. Rebekah is starting high school (this trimester she has three band classes and four honors classes), Ana is starting middle school (and already has had to do some class swapping because she wasn't placed in a single elective of her choosing for some reason), Miriam is going into fourth grade and starting GATE (gifted and talented program), and Winnie is skipping first grade and going straight into second.

The girls with their grades (Bekah's in ASL).

 The girls with their bags (and instrument cases).

The girls walking to the bus stop. Due to a shortage of bus drivers, Miri and Winnie now have to catch the bus at 6:59, which means we get to wake up earlier. Bekah carried both her trombone and euphonium onto the bus the first day. But that was Bekah's only day riding the bus to school. She has marching band during zero hour, which means she gets a ride with a neighbor (who is also in marching band) and has a class before school officially starts. She starts at 7, whereas Ana and the rest of the secondary students start school at 8:45.

Summer miscellany

When something doesn't warrant its own post but it's still worth sharing, it ends up here.

 In preparation for an upcoming addition/remodel, Seth and I bought this sectional, covered it in plastic it and stored it in the shop until we have a space for it.

When we had the Wilde cousins over for a couple of days, Miriam and Cooper made this expansive LEGO village.

Winnie with her Play-Doh ice cream cone. Well after Memorial Day, we packed up the kids to visit cemeteries and eat at Big Judd's. 

Winnie reading a Magic Treehouse book in her bed. If I ever thought to myself, "Where is Winnie? I haven't seen her in a while," I'd have to remind myself to check her bed. More often than not, she was in there reading. As of last count, Winnie has read 58 of the 60 Magic Treehouse books.

Winnie buried in the sand in the side yard.

Seth, Miriam, Peach and Ana at the dog park in Idaho Falls. We thought it would be a fun family date to take Peach to the dog park. It was the first time any of us had been there. Peach really couldn't have cared less about the dogs, but she loved saying hi to all the people.

Ana and Bekah playing ukuleles together one Sunday morning.

Ana with her ice cream at Black Bear Diner. After a long, tiring softball tournament, we let Ana choose where all of us should eat afterward.

Bekah and some of the all-you-can-eat sushi we had for her birthday date. We've determined to take each girl out for her birthday throughout her teenage years.

Winnie and her swollen eyes one Sunday. 

Miriam and her swollen eye the same Sunday. After church I took both girls in to the pediatrician to see what the heck was going on. Our Primary president didn't even recognize Winnie at church. The pediatrician was fairly stumped (why would one girl's upper eyes be swollen while the other one's lower eye was swollen?), but gave us some allergy medication samples. The swelling went down on both girls' eyes within a day or two.

Group selfie during a side yard hot dog roast while Seth was on a work trip.

Winnie eating a unicorn. Or sucking on a unicorn toothpick that came from Oakley's birthday cupcakes.

Miriam playing with Easton through the sliding glass door at Oakley's birthday party.

Miriam, Seth and Winnie during their annual sleepover on the trampoline.

Bidoof participating in the tea party Winnie set up for her and Seth in the family room.

The portrait Winnie drew of me while we were on our trip to Virginia.

Seth getting his portrait drawn by Winnie.

Right after our trip to Virginia, I took both girls to the orthodontist for a swap-a-roo. They went in with Bekah sporting braces and Ana being bare-toothed ...

... and came out just the opposite.

The egg smiley face I inadvertently made one morning for breakfast.

Ana, Miri and Winnie participating at the annual Snake River Roaring Youth Jam.

The lion sleeps tonight. Winnie dressed up as a lion at the Youth Jam.

The scrapes on Winnie's face sustained from falling out of a tree. One weekday this summer, Winnie came in from the backyard bawling. She said she had been climbing a tree and fell out. Remembering her broken wrist from two years ago, I asked her where it hurt. She indicated her upper arms and her head. I asked her to move her arms around to see if they hurt worse when she did. They seemed okay, so I comforted her and ran to town to do some shopping. When I got home, she came to me and said, "Mom, my head still hurts, but I don't remember why." Alarm bells went off in my head, so I asked her, "You don't remember what happened? You fell out of a tree." She looked at me skeptically and said, "I don't think so." I ran her to the pediatrician's office, and the doctor said she had definitely sustained a concussion. She gave me care instructions, and I told Winnie she wasn't allowed to do cartwheels, somersaults, play on the trampoline, climb trees or play on the swingset for a week. It was a long week, but her recovery went well, and she's back to normal.

Winnie and Miri sporting some cool pineapple-themed accessories after they were gifted to us.

Ana's picnic-basket-turned-book-basket-on-a-cart. Her library bag wasn't big enough, so she converted this to store her books, card and reading log.

Ana holding her baby cousin, Tayzlee, while on a quick there-and-back trip to see Tayzlee get blessed in sacrament meeting.

Grandma Scott dressing Tayzlee in her blessing dress while Winnie entertains her.

Winnie, Miri and Ana sleeping in the backyard on cots.

Winnie giving Grandpa Scott a hug after he was set apart to be in the bishopric of the singles' ward.