Monday, July 27, 2009

Johanna's wedding


Here is the reason we went to Utah. This is Chris's little sister Johanna and her new husband Jared! It was such a fun day.


My Niece Elen and all her charm














Friday, July 24, 2009

mini Hershey Reunion

While I was in Utah I had the chance to meet up with these fellow Hershey alumni. It was so fun to walk back to Caraline's backyard and see everyone. Those were some great times that we had in Hershey. I have many great memories of all three of them but I will never forget Girls Camp with Caroline(staying up later then the girls laughing and talking.) Going to get ice cream after work at the sleep lab with Melanie.(forgetting to tell our husbands so they wouldn't worry oops.) Many nights of playing settlers with Megan and laughing so hard I cried. (you and Nick are so funny!) and being pregnant the same time and sharing pregnancy woes. This is what you get when you to try and take a picture of seven kids 5 and under.



These three had many play dates back in Hershey. They had a great time again this night.





Niece Ellen

Ideally this collage would be under the family work day post I haven't figured out how to post two Picasa collages in one post so I will have to work on that. This collage is only a few of a handful of very cute pictures that I have of her. As far as I could tell she almost always this happy.
Posted by Picasa

Family work day

to get ready for Johanna's wedding we all worked together the Saturday before. We had a great time painting the fence planting flowers and finishing center pieces. Mostly it was just fun doing these things with family. Amy and new little Max

This is the newest member of the Hanks family Max. He is such a sweet baby.

I love this picture because of how he is looking up at his mommy and because it shows how little his head his.




It was a tough job but someone had to watch all those babies while we painted the fence. For Amy three babies is no sweat.
Family work day was more like family fun day. The kids thought painting the fence was awesome!






Posted by Picasa

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Father's Day Weekend

For Father's Day Laura made Chris a book called " The You and Me Book". Here is the story

I like coloring. You like biking.
I like playing dolls. You like playing cars.
I like building puzzles. You like climbing mountains.
I like swimming. You like playing baseball.
My favorite animal is a bear. Your favorite animal is a lion.
I like baked Oatmeal. You like pot pie
I like playing lit brite. You like reading.

Some of those favorites were news to Chris but most of them she got right on. She has always been a daddy's girl and most of the time when she was little she would prefer him over me. Chris got up at nights with her and I think that helped them bond. So I would suggest to all mothers out there to bag breast feeding and have your husbands get up at nights with the baby. It works wonders for their relationship and the good night of sleep worked wonders for me. He really is a great father. We have missed him a lot some months this year which just makes me realize how much we love him and need him. My mom was also a nice gift for us on Father's Day she came out to help me fly back to Utah for my sister-in-laws wedding. Since she was here we thought we would go to the Hilliard community pool since we had one adult per child. The pool is expensive but awesome. It has a lazy river and a really fun kiddy play area as well as a few pools. We made a day of it, got our money's worth, and had a great time.








Posted by Picasa

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

A Rainy Day in June

This is what Laura and Steven got dressed in to go play in the rain. Laura didn't last long but Steven stayed out there jumping in puddles for a long time. We had planned to go to the park with our friends the Jones but the rain changed our plans so we went to Cosi.
At Cosi they have a big play area called Kid Space. It was really cute watching these two babies play together. Savanah has been walking for a long time but Aaron just barely started walking at 16 months. She used her great walking skills to give Aaron a ride. They both thought it was pretty great!




A climbing day in May

The last few days in May we camped out on Friday and then we climbed Saturday morning. We went climbing once last year and let the kids climb then. This year they both did a little better. After a few tries Laura climbed to the top of the climb. It took a lot of help and cheering but she did it and she was excited. Steven had fun climbing as well but still needs a year or two to develop some more coordination. I seem to have lost all climbing ability but I had fun just being there. Chris is still awesome at climbing though he claims he is rusty.
Posted by Picasa

Monday, July 20, 2009

Kelley's Island camping trip

In May Chris had a week off so we decided to go on our first camping trip of the season. We went to Kelly's Island off of Lake Erie. Taking the ferry across was one of the highlights of the trip. It was a beautiful little Island and we had a great time. The last day we got rained on and when we woke up in the morning our tent was in a puddle. At 5:00 in the morning all the kids were awake because of the lighting thunder, rain and wind. It blew over after a few hours but that was a long few hours. After that we packed up our soggy camp site and went home. Over all an awesome trip and a great place to camp even with the wet finale. One of the great things about moving every four years is all the new places we get to explore. Here is your classic cookies for breakfast while dad starts the fire.
Chris brought all our bikes on this trip and taught Laura to ride without training wheels. We also hooked up the bike trailor and rode our bikes around the Island. The bike ride was incredible and one of my favorite parts of our trip.

On the first morning we were there we went on two hikes. This wasn't much of a hike but it was cool. These are glacial grooves that are of course more impressive if you are actually there looking at them.


This picture was taken at the end of our boardwalk trail to get to the beach.
Despite the not so hot weather we still got plenty of beach time in.

I had fun sorting and orgainzing the shells we found with the kids. i think we counted them too but I don't remember how many we had. I know it was at least 200.
One thing I really like about camping here in the wimpy east is the lawn campsites and the fun kids playgrounds. At first I thought it was lame but the more kids I have and the longer I live our here the more I have become a big fan. Despite what I intially thought it is still a great camping experience without all the dirt. Somehow they still manage to get dirty even without it.

Steven's great find on the last soggy rainy morning. It kept him entertained while we were packing up.
Last but not least the Ferry Ride back to the main land. I wish I took pictures on the way over because it was a beautiful sunny day unlike this day which was not.

Table Time

Aaron loves to be on the table! At home that was a problem but while we were camping it seemed like a great alternative to crawling all over the dirty ground. This did cause some problems(like when we actually wanted to eat on the table.) but for the most part Aaron's table time worked well for everyone
Posted by Picasa

Saturday, July 11, 2009

My parents visit in May

so I realized after posting all these pictures of when my parents were here that I really should have titled it Ode to my Parents. They worked so hard and helped us out so much. We were able to do a lot of fun things but not all that we wanted to of course. My parents are the best and I am so so so so grateful for them! We had a lot of fun checking out the Air Force museum that nearby. It is one of the largest in the nation. Needless to say we breezed by everything pretty quick with Three little ones. We lots my Dad a few times because he really got engrossed into all the planes. This plane that the kids could climb in was of course their favorite thing about the whole activity.
while my parents were here Chris and my dad tiled our dinning room and kitchen floor. It was white carpet that was getting more and more stained everyday. Who puts whitel carpet in a dining room? Anyway it is wonderful and not a day goes by that I am not so grateful to them for their long hours and late nights of work.

Steven likes to pretend he is a bear and crawl into all the little caves at the end of one the hikes at Hocking hills.


Nothing like a mom to carry you when you get tired. My mom still does that!

My dad successfully taught Laura and Steven to skip rocks once we got to the waterfall at Hocking Hills. I love how you can almost stand on your head with a kid backpack on and the baby doesn't fall out. My Dad demonstrated this feature quite well while skipping rocks on Laura and Steve's level. What a great multi-tasker!
Since Hocking Hills is the coolest thing we have seen in Ohio we had to take my parents there. They were as impressed as we were.

For a second year in a row my parents helped us plant our garden.

Aaron is daddy's boy. He gets so excited the minute Chris gets home and he often follows him around the house hoping to get a little more of this kind of action.
This picture pretty much sums up my Dad and Aaron's relationship.

Not only does Aaron climb rocks but he eats them too.

Last February the neighbors across the street house burned down. One of the consequences of that was a very neglected law which my kids loved. It was literally a field of dandylions and once they turned into seed they made awesome magic wands. The first day they went over to play with the dandylions they stayed over there for over and hour. My mom captured their fun with the dandylions while she was here in May.

The first weekend of May I ran a half the Columbus city half marathon. I wasn't able to trian a lot because of Chris's schedule but I was happy with my time and It was fun to do a race. It was my first race since before I was pregnant with Aaron so it had been 2 years. It was the biggest race I've ever been in. It was kind of fun and annoying. It was fun because I was always passing someone and it was annoying because I was always bumping elbows with someone. It was incredible to look ahead and see this huge mass of runners. That was kind of inspiring to be in the middle of. My friend Jocyln also ran this race and did awesome.

Contributors