Gotta be doing something Right!

When your ten-month old baby folds her arms when you tell your kids to fold their arms for the prayer, you have to being doing something right! Or else she is saving up to balance out her sweetness with total monsterness when she turns two. Call me crazy but I think we will roll the dice and keep her.

Hellewellians Campout Reunion

Ryan's dad comes from a family of ten. Most of those ten kids had several children with his dad having the least at three. You may think you can imagine how big this reunion would be, but until you see the pictures you wouldn't know for sure. This is just a handful that were up for the dinner at Payson Lakes campout. Lucky for us it was only 30 minutes out of town and 90 minutes from home. This was a nice feature when we had to run Rylyn down Saturday night for 5 stitches above her left eyebrow. And then had to pack up at 7 am the next morning before she started running around and got it dirty. Don't pitty us though because her daddy is extatic; He feels very proud when his children take after him it was his favorite part of the campout. My favorite part was making tie dye shirts!

What would you do for a ....

Funny thing about kids and Sacrament is that 99.99% of the time while it is good to take a spiritual experience from the speakers, you actually are just trying your best to keep your kids looking somewhat "reverent." This actually translates to just quiet enough for those in the benches around you to ignore you, just clean enough that their church clothes remain as "church clothes", and just entertained enough to keep them within the general area of the bench or chairs your sitting on. So most of Sacrament consists of coloring, small quiet toys, and of course snacks.

We generally try to keep the snacks until last resort as they make the biggest mess and once your out of snacks your really in trouble. This particular Sunday, snacks came out early as daddy was herding the three older monsters, whilst mommy addressed baby issues, and while I was trying to get the boys to sit down, my cute little Coyfish was trying desperately to get some of my attention. Thank goodness for camera phones, cuz no one would believe me that she sat quiet for several minutes waiting for me to notice, so quiet and still I was actually listening to the talk, and suddenly wondered if she had snuck off while I wasn't looking, and when I looked down this is what I got.

Durango Project

M Y D U R A N G O R O C K S . ! . ! . ! . ! . ! . ! . ! . !

Katie ussually does all the blogging, but I wanted to get some pictures of my Durango project and super messing MAN GARAGE in so .... The garage is the only place where I get to wear the pants all the time for all decisions. It was a deal we made when building the house, I got to pick my favorite floor plan and to make all decisions concerning the garage and she had final say everywhere else. And a year later guess which room never seems to get cleaned up .... Yep the garage. I wonder why that is?

Here Kitty, Kitty!

We went Cat fishing on the Jordan river last week after sunset. Everyone caught one, and though they were tiny they were good fighters. I was afraid my pole was breaking as it bent in half. Kamryn was asleep long before Mason caught the first fish. Mason says "Hey Mom, Dad I think I've got something." We tell him it hasn't been long enough and that he will know when he gets one. He reels in his line and...sure enough a tiny catfish. Rylyn was not pleased with the ewww guggy and ewww poopy as she called the fish. Ashton was so thrilled with his when he caught one, but he was very upset when we threw it back. "My Fish!" He wanted to hold it and take it home, but they sting with their fins so, NO. And I don't know how he would react to eating it. I guess we will figure that out when we catch fish large enough to eat. Dave Collard used to fish down the Jordan when he was little with hot dogs, he got Channel Cat. (whatever that is?) We will try that next and hopefully I will be better able to tell you what Channel Cat are. MEOW They make the creepiest growling noise when they are mad about being caught.

Lake Powell Memorial Day Weekend!

We went to Lake Powell for the first time on Memorial Day Weekend. It was awesome! The first time in over 15 years we have had all 8 kids together on a family vacation. We are a big group so it's hard to coordinate, plus we never knew who will be feuding at any given time. It's nice that we have out grown that a little. It was a great trip and everyone had fun no hurt feelings or silly stuff going on. Except for Pam pinching me in our 3 girls picture and leaving a bruise for weeks, but I won't mention that. ; ) You'll notice in the 5 boys picture they are standing in the Park family stance when in a large group. "Protect your boys." They call it a game? We still don't know if the younger two boys can still have children.

"Hey where are my Sunglasses?" "Hey no gotcha in family pictures!"

Ryan got burnt crispy standing on the edge of the water pushing out all the cousins in the tube and pulling them in. It was worth it though...you should see his guns! Mason stayed on the tubes all day. Ashton was back and forth from that and digging in the dirt. Rylyn was a mud mucker the whole time, she loves digging into anything dirty. And Kamryn...She was held so much she came back spoiled. At one point she threw a fit because Pam, who had been holding her the most, held another baby.

The last night we made a bon fire on the beach. All the Park kids still there (Bill, Pam, Kate, Dave, Mat) stayed up until after 1 am talking. That was my favorite part.

Where Have I been?!?

I look at my blog and ask myself, "Where have I been and what have I been doing?" Well Sunday was a good example of what keeps me too busy to blog... Driving home from church Ashton and Rylyn in the back seat start screaming simultaneously. Thinking they must have hit each other and that would explain the "My nose, my nose" coming in between blood curling screams, we finish the drive home. At home we find out that both of them stuck plastic beads up their noses! Ashton was able to blow his nose hard enough to get a yellow bead out. I had to take Rylyn to the Urgent care to get hers out though. An hour, four exhausted people to hold her, and 10 burst eardrums later it was out!Another thing that has kept me busy is all the science experiments Rylyn has been running. Interesting fact baby powder does not bleach carpet, baby lotion doesn't either, neither does baby shampoo by itself, but if you put baby shampoo and top of old cleaned up residue of baby powder and baby lotion it does! Also an interesting little know fact...dog covered in baby powder still just smells like wet dog when you wash it...turn your back to find this out and the other dog and you're two year old will be covered in baby shampoo ready for their baths. You are probably thinking right now why doesn't she just lock up the products, a reasonable thought if you don't know my 2 year old Houdini, child locks on bottle tops, cabinets, doors are, well... child's play. Plus who would bring the world such amazing discoveries?

Enough of the excuses. I will do better!