Family Reunion 2010

Family reunion was a blast. all who went said that this was by far the best one so far. Location makes a huge difference. here are some pictures. I hope you enjoy them. I can put more on if you guys want. these were 9 i thought were fun. Enjoy

Here is Gary reading! sorry but it's classic, i had to take this picture!

Silly liza
Tim Sleeping with his gun at the ready!
All the kids enjoying the Popcorn and a movie on the second night.
sitting next to each other eating grapes while moms make sack lunches. fun stuff!

here are the some us hanging around "the kitchen" as mom called it. just eating some cereal.

here is our space team ready for launch.
this is Emma showing me her model pose.
I thought this was a fun picture of Lucy holding Matthew. i don't see that very often. oh, and I just noticed Samuel crying in my lap in the back round. lol

In need of sleep

Day before yesterday this is what Jacob came home to find.

Then he found this last night

So I got back at him and took this this morning. I think we're all in need of some sleep around here.

I love seeing the boys play together. It's wonderful. Playing with trains is Simeon's new obsession. It's the first thing he does when he wakes up now. I'll realize it's too quiet when it's just me and the little boys in the house, and I'll find him playing quietly by himself in the playroom just like this. We'll have to put the train table back up when we move. Joseph was never interested in it before, but he enjoys playing with Simeon. Just a side note, yes, Joseph is naked. he still thinks you don't need to get dressed after a bath.

Yesterday, Today, and Pioneer Day

This boy is so cute! I love him to pieces. He is already 3 months old. Can you believe that? Oh, by the way Mary I just realized that you almost managed to have continuous pregnancies going in the family since December 2008. We missed it by 2 months. CRAZY! I still can't believe you're pregnant. I mean come on...I just had John. Real logical isn't it?! It must be because I didn't see you pregnant with Caroline and have only seen her once.

So, Jacob I are not winning the best parent award today. Although I did manage to make it through the day without any major yelling incident. Anyway. We went to the pool today for an hour and a half. The big kids don't need sunscreen unless we are outside for extended periods of time. They don't burn unless we are out for hours, so I didn't think to bring sunscreen, and I left John's hat on the counter. Poor John, when he woke up from his nap and I was feeding him he just cried and cried. I couldn't figure out why until I took his blanket off. The poor boy was burnt! After he woke up from his next nap he looked like a lobster. I feel so bad that he is so burnt. At least it's only from his shoulders up. Even his head is scorched. At least he's happy! He has really white fat roll creases now.

Since Jacob is working nights now and needs to sleep in until after our trash is picked up I have to take the trash to the curb now. (poor me...I know) I took it out after the kids were in bed last night and did my best to pull it with the least amount of my skin touching it as possible since I couldn't see what I was touching. I'm terrified of all the poisonous spiders here. There are lots and lots of brown widows. The trash truck came late, so I took a few more things out to put in before they emptied our can out. This fabulous beauty jumped out at me from under the lip where I lifted the lid. Gave me a scare! This is a brown widow. Ewww. It was HUGE for a brown widow too. Once again....ewwww!

Bekah snatched up the last of the cookies as they were putting everything away. There was just enough for everyone but me.

Here's Simi chowing down on some cookies at our Pioneer day celebration. We had a pie and ice cream social. Someone made homemade blueberry ice cream. Yum. Of course on Bekah's last sip of her bowl (it was terribly hot, so the ice cream melted FAST) it dripped down her new dress. Oh well. All the kids were red faced and dripping sweat. You know it's bad when the kids are soaked from sweat.

Don't you just love Lizzie's silly face. It's a good one. Haha..I guess she just doesn't get how to make silly faces for the camera yet. I made these dresses from vintage sheets. Lizzie and Bekah have on pillowcase dresses, and Sariah's is from the fitted sheet. $5 for all the sheets, and I haven't even made a dent in the fabric yet. The girls want me to make a skirt for me to match theirs. I think that will be my next project for me once a few other things are done


How I love this girl! Even when she manages to drive me crazy on a daily basis.

Pioneer Day Parade

Here on the Kenai Peninsula we celebrate Progress Days on Pioneer Day. Not sure what progress day is about except maybe progress in the last frontier. Anyway, it's nice because we get a parade and a little festival thingy. This year our stake primary entered in to participate in the parade as pioneers. A great way to celebrate Pioneers, show others.

Here is Tustin in the second wagon. This was taken by a friend in the ward. I actually wasn't there, I was very sick. The other great thing about the church, I felt comfortable enough to ask a leader, Sis. Peterson, to take my kiddos home. I dropped them off at the beginning of the parade and went home to enjoy being sick with just the 2 little ones.
Here's Trayton, he was in the first handcart. Very cool, they had these handcarts made for the youth pioneer trek. My visiting teacher, Sis. Eberline, is in the blue skirt & bonnet. I'm glad my boys were able to participate & enjoy being in their first parade, even though I wasn't there.
I also asked a dear friend, the Thomas' to take the boys to church for me on Sunday, as I was still in no shape to leave the house. I'm very grateful my children were able to attend church, even though I couldn't. I won't explain all the gory details of my sickness, but I was having terrible belly cramps for 2 days straight & not able to keep anything down. No fun. I'm really glad that's over, almost.

Naomi's Halibut Debut

Isn't she perty? More pictures below. I just had to add this one.

The boys played outside today in the poring rain. It rained a loooong time, and it was hard. That doesn't usually happen here, it's usually short & sweet. So when they came in, I couldn't resist shaping the boy's hair like mohawks. Can't really stand seeing a kid with a mohawk, but when it's my own, it seems okay for some reason. ?

Here's white haired Tustin (he thinks his hair is white).

Tracker's messy face.

Trayton's happy face.

Here's Travis' big halibut of the season so far. Not his biggest on record, but good. So Naomi needed to take her halibut debut pictures, just like her brothers when they were infants. There's only a few pictures that are repeated in our family, and they all have to do with Dad. Infant with big halibut, infant sleeping with Dad, and helping Dad drive the boat. I'm sure we have more, but those are within reach of my memory right now.

Just a few minutes before Travis pulled up with his fish, Grampa Walt was out filleting his. I saw this big sucker on the rack, and thought he beat Travis' halibut in size. No, Travis beat him by 5 lbs.

Thrift store finds

I love finding great things at the thrift stores. They are great for books, games and sometimes toys. Today we scored with a game I'd never seen before for a whopping $1.50. Arch Rivalry. Rebekah loves it. She is always asking to play board games with us. This is one that doesn't last too long, and the kids get to do hands on things, which is good since they are so little.

Oh no! It's going to fall...whew..it's still up. Yep, that was our conversation as I was taking this picture. Such a thrilling game. (no really, the kids get a kick out of it, and I get a kick out of their excitement and anticipation of the fall)

Joseph thought it was pretty fabulous, but he's still a bit heavy handed for games like this. And he has yet to figure out how to just roll the dice on the table. Do you see them flying across the table here?

I love my Simi boy.

Aww...aren't they so cute? So that was the noise I was hearing for ten minutes before I thought I should go check out what it was. The kiddos playing in the sink.

No wait, is that a PLUG and TOILET PAPER in the sink?!

And RIPPLES of water on the FLOOR? Yes, I love my son. How much? Enough to take pictures of this mess, not yell, put a towel down so the water couldn't make it out the door and walk away with the kids to have a spoonful of homemade yogurt before bed. (Thank you 50's fully tiled all the way up the wall bathroom!) All in an effort to save my sanity.

Just HOW MUCH do I love him?!?! Enough that when I once again heard water overflowing onto the floor a few minutes later, (I caught on faster this time to what I was hearing...smart me) I took the time to photograph it. After all, what is another five gallons of water on the floor when there is already a lake in the bathroom and now down the hallway?

Then I got to change a massively dirty diaper on that sweet little Simi who now has a massive diaper rash from being so wet and dirty, (he gets rashes really easily), borrow a friends shop vac, because I wasn't going to even try moping up that mess, spend 20 minutes sucking up all that water (but hey, the floor is clean!), chase a huge roach in my bathroom (it got away, and now I can fantasize about it crawling on me while I'm in bed...bleh),and get all the little people to bed. Now I get to eat the blueberry yogurt I made all alone since Jacob is gone and the little people never got a chance to taste it since sweet little Simi was sure that his train needed a waterfall to play in. I love food alone after the kids bedtime. Ahhh...it's the little things in life.

Naomi is Sooo Cute!

I bought the cutest hair band from Walmart the other day. I was thinking my little girl needed a few more accesories! Did I mention, I love having a girl? She is sooo cute. :) Tustin is holding her up for her picture.

Then here's all the boys with their favorite sister (... so far?). I told them to open their eyes big, and that's what Tracker did. Trayton can't seem to take a picture without making his eyes huge. It's his "look" I guess. Why are my boys always naked in these pictures?????
The Trayton "strain" kids. You can see the differences, though. Tracker is olive skinned, lucky boy.

I watched my friend's two little boys the other day. I had six kids in my house. CRAZY! Well, it wasn't that bad, really. But it was only for 4 hours. Abraham(5) & Hyrum(3) Henderson, my boy's best buds.

Just signed a new lease for our rental unit. Yay! That's done. That won't be holding us back from visiting everyone- besides Jacob & Tiff. I'm trying to convince myself I shouldn't be stressed about doing hard things, or a lot of things. It's really a good thing to be busy and accomplishing a lot. I'm gonna try not to tell myself I'm tired, or I need a break (exept taking naps in the middle of the day). Every moment counts in this life. We can either go forward or backward, no in between. I always pick up that book "Finding Peace Happiness & Joy" when I get discouraged. Thanks Mary.

Us again

It's the Little Holts again. Yep, I think I post about ten times more than any of you guys. I think I have a picture obsession. Maybe that's why. Oh well. At least you can always be well informed on what we are up to! By the way, happy late birthday Gary!

Lizzie getting ready for gymnastics. I just love her cute chubby little body!

A friend gave us their son's old bed, and we had no where to store it until we move, so we took down the crib and let Simi sleep there. He's on a big boy bed. He's not really that big yet is he? Man time just goes way too fast.

How cute can you get? Simi managed to fall off the bed around 5 this morning and got in bed with us. Jacob is doing night flights now, so he has to sleep in. Having Jacob sleep in is WEIRD. He managed to make it until 8 this morning. 3 1/2 extra hours of sleep, hooray!

Hot summer nights

Here we are on our way!

Pillows, blankets, and nightfall...

chairs, food, AND

...a movie!
Talk about nostalgia! We would go to the drive-in when I was a kid, and we loved it. I remember watching Lion King when it opened at the drive in and it was pouring down rain so hard we couldn't see even with the wipers going full blast. I watched the midnight opening of Star Wars when it first came out there. Ahhhh...I love it. Very few bugs, the cost is low, you get to watch a movie in your pajamas outside, and the kids are all asleep when we get home. Sooo nice!

Clam Digging

We had a long day of clamming. Is this cute, or what??? We were de-shelling the clams at this point. Tracker tripped and started wimpering, so Travis told him to get up. We turned back to our processing and about 5 min later, he was still there! Poor kid.

Yesturday, after Travis got done fishing the 10 ft high seas (something close to that), we went clamming down at the beach. The wind was incredibly crazy. Tracker was walking like he was drunk as we he cleaned off the clams.

Anyway Clamming is where you go to the beach when the tide is out and wander the sand looking for little "dimples". This means there is a clam underneath that dimple, and you proceed to dig it up. Sometimes you don't find one, so it makes it exciting. Tustin had an obsolute blast. However, Trayton & Tracker were not happy about the 100 mile wind. I didn't wear a hair up, either, so that wasn't fun for me.
Ha, I thought Tracker was asleep, too. When a woman walked by talking, he pushed himself up to look at me. Almost asleep counts, right?
You can see Travis in the background with Naomi in the wrap while he cleans the clams. She slept really good.

Here's Tustin & his catch. Yum. Trayton was determined to take home 4 clams to keep in a fish tank "with lots of water & sand and stuff to look at besides us all day!" He had a whole family picked out. Then Tustin handed us one, and we began cutting into it. Trayton was really hurt, and hid under the cutting table, almost crying. Sensitive boy. We tried to explain to him he was already a goner, and he would taste really good. He eventually got over it.

That night when we were eating our clam chowder, I about gagged remembering me cutting into the guts of the clams, and seeing them squish all over the place. Plus, I'm not too fond of the texture. But it tasted delicious, really!!

Today was the last day of swim lessons. The boys both jumped off the diving board twice!! Last year, neither of them jumped off. Here's for progress!! This is Tustin jumping in the pool to Miss Sara.

Trayton fooling you. He looks like he's about to jump in, but it really took him about 3 min to decide as he stood there.

You think he's about to turn around and walk back, but no. Tustin just jumped right in. Not a sign of fright.