Idaho

The kids were in heaven while visiting family in Idaho. You'll see why from these pictures.Back row: Mason, Braden, Courtney
middle row: Aysha, Allie, Annika, Brinley, Jane, Charlie

Front Row: Allie, Aimee, Dakota, Adam

Cousin parties galore, it was awesome. On this day we went swimming at the Meridian pool and then had dinner at Michelle's. The cousins played with puppies and ran around outside.

Jane, Courtney, Maggie
Jane has two favorite cousins on my side of the family. Courtney is one of them.

My cute nephews Jim and Zach. Both humble and sweet. Oh wait maybe just one of them is humble but both are pretty sweet.

Jane, Allie, Maggie, Charlie, Brinley

Jane on the zip line (only attempted on flat ground)
My brother put up a zip line from the top of his house down to the bottom of his yard.

Maggie screaming her guts out. Only on flat ground.

Charlie had a hay day on the zip line.

Introduced the kids to Dad

Aunt Michelle's dog, Lady, had eight golden retriever puppies before we arrived. Perfect. Enough for everyone to play with.

Spencer, Charlie and Lady

Charlie and Spencer bathed in mud. Then they thought they were invisible of course. I believe the quote out of my sons mouth was..."Aunt Michelle, my mom would never let us do this at my house."

I would like to rebuttal with.... The only mud to be had would be from someones flower bed.

Maggie

Jane, Brinley and Mags

The girls tried it the very next night. I think that they had forgotten that we made the boys hose off in the freezing cold hose. They finished off the hosing with a warm bath.

We also enjoyed visits with my sisters, Nona and Mary and Mom had us over for visits and swimming. Many more cousins than I took pictures of but boy, we had fun.

Part Deux

Charlie trying out a flip at Aunt Debi'sCharlie, Grandpa Ivan, Jane

We were able to spend Father's Day with Grandpa. He wasn't feeling well and had me worried that he might not live much longer. I'm happy to say he is feeling a bit better. We love spending time with Grandma and Grandpa Crosland.

Maggie and Aunt Michelle at the Strawberry Days Rodeo

Cousin Brynlee and Jane

These girls were a joy to watch at the rodeo. They did NOT like calf roping and would let out great cheers when the cowboys missed.

Aunt Fancy Nancy, Aunt Tamara and Cousin Lindsey.

We had a fun BBQ at Aunt Tamara's the night before. Lindsey has a boyfriend that kept all of us entertained (even after he had left.) Funny dude.

Next Stop....Beautiful Boise.

Summer Trip Part 1

Made it to Denver. We didn't have enough time and Fancy Nancy's house. Only two days before moving on to the next stop. Colby and Brady caught wild baby bunnies for us to play with. I regret to say that after all of the man handling, most of them have gone to see their maker.Brady
Charlie, Brady, Maggie and Jane



Charlie

They LOVED playing with these bunnies.



Our next stop was Utah.

We stayed with my sister Debi and her family

Jakelle, Jane, Mallory
Mallory had the great idea that we should go ice skating. I wasn't totally convinced that this would be a great idea with three little ones. Turns out that I was wrong and she was right. All three kids loved it and by then end they were getting pretty darn good.


They had these neat little walker contraptions so the kids could skate themselves

Jakelle, Mallory and McKenzie

all of my great helpers

Kimber and Maggie

Jakelle, McKenzie, Mallory

Jane, Charlie and Maggie

Beginning of Summer

Let's start at the very beginning. A very good place to start. Summer is on it's way out and I'm just beginning to post about it. Here we go. This picture of Mags just has to be included because it's classic

Charlie got his cast off the last week of school. Three days before we began our cross country voyage. It was super stinky.

Just in time to entertain himself in the car for hours

The night before we went on our big trip we found this guy in the street. We brought him home and played with him for a couple of hours before letting him go.

Typical day in the car. I was surprised once again that the drive really isn't that bad. We have a system and it works. Each day goes a little something like this.... start early, begin with quiet, then have singing time, then coloring or school work, next is present time (little wrapped gifts from the dollar store) eventually we stop for lunch and a break then finally they get tv and electronic time. Each day is about 10 hours of travel.

On our first stop Jane fell out of bed in the night and punctured her lip. Mike thought she needed stitches, I figured she'd be fine.

After three days of travel we reached my sisters house in Denver

Family Funnies

I've been saving up. I try to record them as they come along.. here's what I've collected over the last few months.

Charlie: "I can't wait to tell everyone at school about my stitches"

Mom: " yeah, you can tell them how brave you were and that you didn't even cry."

Charlie: "I'm not going to say that. Whenever you tell me what to say, I never say it. You're not in my brain. Besides, you don't ever make sense."

Maggie

"Mom, go over to that guy, I want to talk to him."

(so like an idiot, i walk over to the nice man working at sears)

"My daughter just wanted to talk to you" I say.

He looked at Maggie with a smile and she replied.

"You're hair is crazy and nasty."

He looked at me. I looked at her in pure embarrassment and anger and she lifted up her arms and said "what? is that not nice to say?"

I love my children's bottoms. They are cute and squishy and I like to squeeze them. The other day Maggie was getting on my last nerve and she knew it. After she started to boss me around, I gave her the look. She saw my face, turned around, stuck out her little rear end and said, "you can squeeze my bottom if you want to mom."

Charlie and Jane

I was bending down in my pajamas and I could feel that they were sagging. Jane said "uh mom, your pants are too small". Charlie quickly jumped in and said "Jane that isn't' nice, mom is still growing".

While at Cabella's Jane was laughing and pointing at the gopher that they had posed with it's head in a hole and bottom in the air.
Charlie turned to her and said "Jane stop laughing. You are not being nice to nature."

Jane was singing another great made up song. Here is an excerpt

" Jesus loves me. Jesus widiculous loves me"

So clearly neglecting the third child is alive and well. I totally thought that Maggie knew her ABC's. She is three and I've heard her sing them a million times. But just the other day we were face to face singing the ABC's here's what I heard..."A B C D E F G H I J K an I need to go P, Q R S T U V W X Y and Z" Of course I had her repeat it and we will be working a little harder on our ABC's.

Dance Recital

Jane danced her little heart out the other night at her recital. Her class performed to the LeeAnne Rhymes song "Blue"

Jane and Charlie

Paisley, Carys, Jane, Dayton, Paige, Aleah

Jane, Carys Dayton

Aleah, Paisley, Jane, Carys, Dayton

Carys, Jane & Maggie

After the performance Charlie and Dad each gave her some roses. She felt very special and hasn't stopped talking about the event. She's been wearing her little costume ever since. I don't know if I will sign her up for soccer again. The season just ended and she didn't get the joy out of it as she does with dancing. She's in a happy place with dancing.

No Pool Party

Memorial weekend we usually hit the beach. Charlie's cast squashed that idea real quick. We had to come up with something to deal with the high temps and humidity. So we hand neighbors, sprinklers, kiddie pool and a good old homemade slip n slide.We wrapped Charlie's arm up pretty good
Charlie & Cooper


Mags & William

Carys, Patrick & Jane

Cyndi, Kimber, Kim & LeighAnne

not even close to beach fun but we had a good time together

Preschool Graduation

Jane is the frightened looking one in the pink ruffle dress.

Her best friend Carys (like Paris) is over one in the pink jacket and white dress.


Jack and Jane performing the Nursery Rhyme Jack and Jill.
She adores Jack and the often have play dates together.


Jane and her teacher Elizabeth

Preschool Graduating Class of 2011

Jane and Brigid

one of her student teachers

Elizabeth (other student teacher)

Jane was sad to say goodbye.

The preschool was wonderful and they put on a nice program that had the big and little students in tears.

They will all miss each other.

A Real Boy

You know the Pinocchio story. Well with stitches last month and a broken arm two weeks ago... Charlie is now a real boy.He tripped his coach at soccer practice and his coach fell on him.

He broke both bones in his arm. The brake was clean and should heal nicely.

As I was helping him get dressed this morning he said,
"I really like this broken arm thing."
It's true, he loves the attention and help that he is getting at home and school.

That's All Folks

Maybe it's a sign.

My fathers initials are MJC.

My husbands initials are MJC

Maggie, Jane and Charlie are my own MJC.

All of our children have come with the help of Doctors and Nurses. After figuring out what we needed, they all came on the first or second try. I guess that gave me a false sense of security. We've tried for months to have another child. Each month taking a step further then before. More time consuming, more money, mores procedures, more pills, more shots, more pounds, more ultra sounds, more shuffling of my children and schedule and a lot more driving. It's been exhausting. Nothing worked.

I wanted a couple more.

I'm sad about it.

So the bright side is that I have three kids that we love. We are going to look forward to a lot of great memory making.