FINALLY PICTURES!!! YAY for me :)

THE SNOWCONE OBSESSION CONTINUES

So, this is the bad thing about going months before posting about my pictures, but either way, here we are getting snow cones.  An extremely common (like, more common that we'd like to admit) occurence for the Maynes family :).  It must have been a much needed break from something though, because these pictures bring back a nice sweet feeling.  One of my "I'm so thankful for my cute family" moments.  Ahhhh.

Looks like it's making it so I can't enlarge these again.  Annoying.  Oh well. 

KELLY'S STAR FOR A DAY

Here's Kelly on her Red Carpet, during her Star for a Day, birthday present from Grandpa Hatch.  She had the opportunity to make a movie and then be a celebrity that night before the premiere of her movie for her family!!  Fun stuff.  I think she had a good time.

MOVIE IN THE PARK

Movie in the park!!  That was a lot of fun!  We saw Brave.  It was a little late at night though... not sure we benefitted from the late night/early church situation.

NOAH'S ON WHEELS!!!  TWO TO BE EXACT!!!  THANKS BRADLEY!

Here's Noah when he learned to ride his bike!!  What a cool little guy!  His big brother Bradley, taught him how!! 

Buddy loves chasing Charity on her bike... he could use the exercise :)

HANDCART DAYS PARADE / DAUGHTERS OF UTAH PIONEERS FAVOR :)

This is us after the Pioneer Day Parade.  We looked awesome thanks to my friends' clothes.  I was grateful!  I have some shots with me in them, but those are stuck on my phone.  One of these days I'll pull all of those off... maybe...

SPLASH PARK!!!

Obviously I can't get enough of this kid and his adorable face :)

Splash Park!

JACK JACK WALKING!!!!

Walking!!!

MAYNES FAMILY PICTURE DAY

(the rest are stuck on my camera, for some reason they were corrupted... love that)

Almost all of the Maynes Grandkids!

MAYNES FAMILY REUNION 2013

these next few are from Nate's Dad's Family's reunion 

We had such a good time there.  I loved meeting some of Nate's cousins for the first time and talking with everyone.  So many family resemblances.

SHADOWBROOK GIRLS DANCE CAMP RECITAL

These are the few shots I got at the girls' Dance Camp Recital.  They did such a great job!  I still can't believe they pulled it off!  I love that they're mine. 

FAMILY CAMPOUT- SOUTH FORK, OGDEN CANYON

These are all the pics from our family campout this summer.  I was so glad we finally made it out!!  Only twice this summer, but it was a lot of fun.  We loved having this little river right next to our campground.  Buddy especially made good use of it :).

is this one going in the book--- ABSOLUTELY!!  LOVE it :)

We watched this crazy girl jump off this cliff into the reservoir that we ended up not being able to play at.

This was when we were at Pineview.  Buddy sure had a blast. 

It wasn't quite the same without the jetskis, but we still managed to have some fun :)

Once again, Bradley was our fire-man.  He is amazing at building, starting, tending to, and even cooking over the fire!!  I'm really proud of his maturity with it all!  He really does a great job and keeps everyone safe in the process.

Here's teh cool cave we hiked to :)  The kids loved it!  They got John and Heidi to go inside!

Brothers.

We had the most amazing bacon for breakfast that morning.  I LOVE cooking bacon over the fire... not sure why, but it always tastes so good!

These two crack me up.  They're adorable to each other.

Jack didn't love camping that week.  But he was able to get around a little on his own.  I think next year will be his year :)

We made cute "Bleach pen shirts" this year, instead of the tie dye.  I think the kids enjoyed it.  It's a little more hands on and they were able to personalize them a little more and get creative.  I liked it.  Less mess of course too.  They turned out pretty cute.

MAKEOVERS

I don't love this picture, and I"m sure we could have done less eyeliner :).  But this was me after the first one.

Charity looked great!

Kelly too.

We had a lot of fun letting Heidi do us up!  Good times!

MISCHIEF!!

THE FIRST GIRL COUSIN ON THE HATCH SIDE!!!  WELCOME, BABY SAVANNAH!!!

I don't think any of us could get enough of her!!  Such a sweet baby!

All the girl cousins!  (wish I'd had time to fix the coloring on this!)

We loved her dainty little hands!

LAVA HOT SPRINGS CAMPOUT WITH THE IDAHO MAYNES

We wore ourselves out just looking for firewood! :)

The catepiller

And that's all for now!  Gonna have to head on back up to my Dad's for the rest of them!!

Journaling Week of 9-1-13

Day of Rest?
Jack was not loving church on Sunday.  He was okay for Nate and even dozed off a little, but when I got him for the second hour.... it was not pretty.  He was totally not interested in ANYTHING I had to offer, even walking him around in my arms like he usually enjoys, he was thrashing and screaming, he was out of control!  It was so sad!  And I was totally losing my cool (literally, I was sweating like a crazy person).  I finally decided that a walk outside was in order.  Once I got out there and he still wasn't calming down at all, I just gave in to the thought Satan had started putting in my head earlier to just take him home.  I began walking in that direction.  This NEVER happens in my world!!  We don't EVER leave church.  For ANYTHING!!!  Luckily, we only got a house away from the church when the Spirit knocked some sense back into me.  It was actually sort of funny it was more like a "what are you going to do when you get home that you can't do here?"  And yeah, there wasn't anything at home that would help that I hadn't been able to try there.  So I turned around.  I'm so glad I did, too, because it wasn't all bad.  He did okay in Sacrament meeting, I think Nate ended up taking him out for part of it, but really, I was SO GRATEFUL I stayed.  Nothing is worse to me than missing church.  I hate it.  So I was glad that I had turned around.  I really loved the testimonies that were given, including my own little Charity, Kelly and Bradley!  It was a great meeting.  I'm just happy it all went the way it did :).  9-1-13

LABOR DAY
The Maynes family had a little gathering on Labor day, a BBQ at the park in Daybreak.  It was a lot of fun for everyone.  Poor little Bryn broke her hand though, in a crash on the scooters.  That was pretty exciting for the rest of us though :).  She's such a cute girl.  Jen did her little "You might be a Maynes if..." activity.  Which prompted a desire in myself to create a list of "You might be a Hatch if...."'s.  Which has really been quite entertaining with my sibs, maybe I'll do a post of them....
It was a nice holiday.  Glad to have the kids home with me :).  9-2-13

MANICOTTI
So I made seven pans of Manicotti this week!!  I hadn't planned it out that way, it just kind of happened because I accidentally bought too much Ricotta cheese, and then had extra of everything else (on purpose, which is strange now that I think about it, but whatever).  I was able to use the 3 for my dinner group, one for Savannah Marie Hatch's family, one for a new move in in our ward (a really funny couple who just got married and were leaving on their honeymoon the next day... they were older and this was second marriages for both, but they were hilarious!), one for Grandpa Hatch and Dawn to come and enjoy with us, and then one to leave sitting in the fridge because we were completely Manicottied out!  (Well, only for a few days before we are the last pan... we'd really had enough with the leftovers and such) I was pretty proud of myself :).  I think it was good, but Jack, he LOVED the stuff!!!  He couldn't get enough of it!  I will be finding spinach in his diaper for days I think.  9-3-13

AMERICAN NINJA WARRIOR
We've all been very obsessed with American Ninja Warrior this year!  The boys all practice their own Parkour skills whenever they get a chance.  It's been a really fun season to get into!  When Grandpa and Dawn were here, we showed it to them, and they even got into it a little too!  It was a lot of fun.  We're anxious for stage 3 now :).  Nerds.  Hopefully we'll have our own little Ninja Warrior someday :)  Jk.  9-4-13

STATE FAIR
Kelly entered another drawing into the State Fair Fine Arts Exhibit, second year in a row.  So we couldn't miss the fair!  We were able to catch the opening day with the cheaper ticket prices, and went on Thursday.  It was a lot of fun!  I thought we did a good mix of everything!  I got lots of pictures too, I was proud of that.  Some on my phone, some on the camera.  I'll be happy to get those on here eventually...  We all went and took a look at Kelly's picture displayed, then scouted out Annie Cole's as well.  She does such a good job!!  She's a good idol for Kelly :).  Annie got 2nd place, Kelly's hoping to get a ribbon next year :).  She does such a great job, I'm so proud of her and her desire to show off her talents.  That's what they're all about.  We went through the creative arts building as well.  The kids LOVED looking at all the things people have created!  Kelly couldn't believe that you can MAKE a porcelin doll!  Looks like we need to research that!  She wants to try it sometime.  The kids all got to go on 2 rides each.  We had to put a limit on it this year.  We've spent way too much in the past.  The kids didn't love the limits, I could tell, but they were very grateful for what they did do.  There was very little complaining about anything the whole trip, it was nice.  Especially from Jack!  He sat there as quiet as a mouse in the stroller, just taking it all in!  I was amazed at how well he did.  He's definitely a people watcher like the rest of us.  Stick us in a room with a bunch of people, and we're good to go :).  We hurried and visited the animals, it was a lot of fun watching Erika and Jack experience them for the "first time"-- just felt like the first--- and then quickly (it was WAY past bedtime on a school night!) explored the Wizard exhibit.  That was a lot of fun.  All the math puzzles and sciencey things.  There was a cool arm hang thing that would time how long you could hang from it.  The kids got a kick out of that.  They just LOVE competition!  It's awesome.  We wore ourselves out that night!  It was a lot of fun though!  Can't wait til next year :).  9-5-13

CHEVRON
Nate and I have started a new thing.  Every Friday (I say "every" :) it's been twice now :)), Nate and I ride Noah to school and then we all go on a little bike ride.  It's only about 2 hours, so it's doable, and we're not dying, but it's been SO MUCH FUN!!  This week we drove NOrth on the bike trail.  We weren't familiar with the route at all, so it was a little bit of a surprise to find tree lined trail with lots of shade, few people.  It was so pleasant!  Completely flat :).  I was getting tired and thirsty, but we kind of just like to drive until our time is half up.  So we kept on.  We hadn't brought enough water with us, and I was really parched after not too long.  I suggested to Nate that we take one of the main roads and go find a store with water, and he htought about it, but turned the idea down and said that he wanted to keep going north a little and just turn around and go back the way we came.  At first I wanted to argue with him, fight for my idea, but something stopped me.  I kept my thoughts to myself.  I was still thirsty, but I had the thought that, "I want to let him lead us.  He is the patriarch of our family, and he is entitled to the inspiration to lead our family." Kind of overdoing it, but you really, these were my thoughts.  It wasn't a big deal, just required some thinking.  SO anyway, we kept on for only a few more minutes and then as we popped out onto one of the main roads, right there in front of us was a glorious sight!  A CHEVRON!!!  Not even yards from the trail :).  So very little, to no effort to detour and get a nice cold beverage!  or in my case water :).  Gotta have my water :).  It was so awesome!!!  And immediately the thought came to my mind, "Yep, there's your blessing for being supportive of your husband!"  I was so happy about it, I told Nate all that had transpired in my mind over the previous 15 minutes-ish.  He probably thinks I'm nuts, but hopefully he knows that I felt blessed and that I support him :).  I loved it. 
Jack and Erika seem to like our rides just as much as we do.  They just chill in the trailer behind me.  Hardly a peep the entire time.  They nap and play with each other and Erika does talk to us a lot, but it's just such a nice refreshing change of scene for our family.  I love the new bike thing.  9-6-13

FATHER DAUGHTER CAMPOUT/MOM AND SON BIKERIDE-MOVIE-MOVIE NIGHT-PARK :)
Friday was the Father-Daughter Campout.  Nate and the girls were very excited for that.  They packed up right after school and were on the road by 3:00!  They had a great time from what I have heard and were the stars of the show, with all their "gear" that nobody else had remembered :).  So that was cool.  The girls had a lot of fun exploring with their friends and staying up late... sounded like a good time was had by all.  I love that our ward does that.
So the boys and I had a bit of fun ourselves!  We had planned a bike ride to the Movie theater as our first item of business.  It was an interesting bike ride.  Filled with crying, tired legs, a flat tire, ditching a bike at the school, adding a rider to the trailer and a disappointed Mom, but we were able to muffle through the first part and once we were at 7-11 getting our free Slurpees, things started to look up!  We sat on the lawn and slurped, then parked our bikes at the Library.  We went to see Turbo.  They all seemed to love it!  Luke's giggle was my favorite part.  Then we tried to get a "World's Best Corndog", but they were done making them by the time we got there.  So that was a bit of a let down, but we survived.  Instead we drove home, threw an old carseat in the car (we thought we didn't have any other form of transportation until I remembered that old carseat!  Go me) and we were able to go to Little Caesar's for some CRAZY BREAD and pizza of course.  It was a fun evening!  We topped it off with a movie night during which all but 2 of us fell asleep.  In the morning, we went on down to the park to play baseball and found it occupied with Soccer teams, so we just played on the playground (after chatting with our old friend Stephanie Jones of course, love her!).  The boys had a lot of fun.  We don't always go over to the playground when we go down there, since the girls don't love it, but since they weren't there.... The boys had fun showing off their stunts on the rocks.  I got pictures and videos :).  We came home and played a little baseball and then cards.  It was a very fun filled weekend :).  I loved it!!  I love having special time together where we don't think about the laundry or the dishes, and we can just relax and enjoy each others' company.  Good times.  9-7-13