The King of Hamburgers and His Fine Table Manners

Do you think the Queen of England would accept an invitation to dine with us?

Where Do I Begin?

I was just visiting my sister-in-law's blog, and under my name it said 2 MONTHS! Has it really been that long? I had to come check the date to confirm it. What in the world have I been doing? Apparently not blogging. I don't even know where to begin! There have been wonderful trips to Discovery Gateway, fun outings with cousins on both sides, almost daily swimming, camping, hiking, a trip to Bear Lake, plus a lot of random daily antics. We had 622 pictures just from mid-June through July. (Granted, at least 150+ of those are pictures of silly faces, lego creations, and other random shots from Ike and Joe.) I think I'll start with our camping trip because it was a TOTAL BLAST!

Swen has been working in California since June, just coming home on the weekends. Any time we've been able to spend together has been priceless. For my 30th b-day present

(yes, I'm officially over the hill!), I wanted to go camping. Swen was able to come home on Friday instead of Saturday so we could make it happen. We camped at Jordan Pines campground in Big Cottonwood Canyon. We were more than a little wary to camp anywhere other than our beloved A.F. canyon, but we're glad we took the leap! It was gorgeous!

Swen would want me to post a picture of his goatee first. It was his California experiment, and it was lovely while it lasted. He finally decided to shave it off for posterity's sake (Extended Howard Family Picture)

Joe proved that he was stronger than his mama on our hike to Donut Falls. He (hardly) complained about the residual pain for the next few days. :)

Alyssa kept striking poses and asking me to take pictures of her. She was more interested in being beautiful than in hiking at first.

Sales Pitch: The Donut Falls hike was so beautiful and family friendly. I strongly recommend it to everyone in Utah!

Cold Little Piggies

Adventures at the campsite:

Dancing on the table. There was a huge gathering of wonderfully happy Latin Americans in the campground next to us. We were able to benefit from snappy music until 11:30 pm. We were also able to enjoy it as a friendly neighborhood wake-up call, first thing in the morning.

Sleeping on the table. (Seriously, this guy could sleep anywhere!)

Joseph does not have (serious) issues, in spite of efforts to look strange in most pictures.

Okay, that's it for tonight. And since Link is here begging for me to read Winnie the Pooh to him, I'll say TTFN, Ta-Ta-For-Now!

Princesses

Princesses love to pose

Princesses are dramatic

Sometimes princesses are silly

Princesses love tea parties

Princesses have to have handsome princes;
but sometimes they dress the princes up as princesses.

Even princesses have to pee

Sometimes princesses need a little help with fashion choices

Even princesses get dirty feet

Princesses are sweet

My Scouts

Hello! We're still alive! I got so into school that I got out of the habit of blogging. Now I'm back (at least for a few weeks until my boys get out of school). We'll see how possible blogging is while refereeing 4 kids 24/7 during the summer.

I wanted to share my proud mommy-moment for the day. Joe earned his Wolf and Ike earned his Webelo at pack meeting earlier this evening. They were super excited, as was I, and they looked great.


P.S. From Swen's tree-like angle, it looks as though I might be bending over in the picture of my boys and me. I'm not. Ike is over 5 feet tall--and he's only 10 YEARS OLD! WHOA! Joe is trailing very closely behind. I'm destined to be Little Miss Shorty Mama. Oh well. Rather that than have 5'4" boys!

When Kids Control the Camera

I don't have the patience to wait for all of the pictures to upload, nor am I so naive that I think that any sort of normal person would take the time to look at over 100 silly pictures. My boys have taken a sudden interest in the camera, and the results have been numerous and strange. As their mother, I had to tell them to erase a few of my favorites (with a tinge of regret because they made me laugh--but don't tell my boys that). I'm referring the images taken from a certain 8-year-old's perspective while in the act of...how shall we say? Emptying the radiator. Seeing a man about a horse. Dropping off the extras at the pool. Anyhow, the shot of the pants and orange boxers around the ankles was no less funny than the picture of the results of the action, within the pot, from a bird's-eye-view. These others aren't quite as entertaining, but they convey the general idea. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did. (guffaw)

In going through the pictures, I actually did discover that perhaps there is a bit of budding artistic talent. A mother's bias? You decide: