I just remembered that we have some more family pictures!  Yes, I know it seems like we take pictures a lot, but we really don't.  The ones we took this summer didn't turn out as well as we would have liked (mostly because Sophie was sick, had a rash, very unhappy and yelled at us the whole time), and also because our awesome photographer had a mishap with the memory card (in that the memory card broke and she could only get about 5 pictures off it).  So she offered to take them again for us in the fall.  And we did!  So here are some pictures:

Got on my blog this morning and realized that I have 10 days of thanks to write about... so I quit!  Not that I can't think of 10 things to write about, but I just don't have the time!  I have a lot to be thankful for, but right now I have a house that looks like a tornado went right through it.  So I must forsake my blog and clean my house.  But I am sure thankful that we have enough things to make this house messy!  Too many things actually.  Maybe I'll just take a garbage bag to it all.  Wonder if the girls would notice?  Probably not.  And I'm rambling.  Avoiding housework.  Ok, here I go.

Obviously I am bad at writing something every day.  On that note:

Day 4:
I am grateful for friends.  Whether they are friends that I've had for 18 years or friends that I haven't yet met, I am so grateful to be lucky enough to have friends! 

Day 5:
The sun.  Soon it's going to be darker for longer than it is light, and that makes me sad.  I love the sun.  I love lying on the ground soaking up the sun.  I love that the sun makes all my many plants, trees, and flowers grow. 

Day 6:
Church.  Whether you follow an organized religion or not, it's always nice to have something to believe in.  I love attending church and having my spirit and soul replenished. 

Day 7:
Work.  I am grateful to be able to work and help support my family.  I am even more grateful that Evens has a full-time job that allows me to stay home with the girls!

Day 8:
Sleep.  Last night I went to bed around 9:00!  I am grateful that I can sometimes get a full night of sleep! 

I wanted to use this wonderful month of gratitude to express my gratitude.  So often I get caught up in the day-to-day humdrum that is my life and I rarely take a moment to stop and smell the lavender (I really don't think roses smell that pretty... but lavender?  Oooh, yum!)  Anyway, I'm hoping that by taking a moment every day this month to ponder about something for which I am very grateful, my heart will open up and I will be able to share that gratitude and love with my family.  So, here are days 1, 2, & 3.

Day 1:
I am very grateful for the house we have to live in.  I am especially thankful on days like this, (technically speaking it's the 3rd, but if I had written this on the 1st it would have been very cold and rainy) when I can bundle up under loads of blankets and snuggle with my girls and watch the rain from a warm, safe distance.

Day 2:
Yesterday I spent most of the day fighting a migraine, and so that has lead me to be thankful for modern medicine.  Without my migraine pills I would be lost.

Day 3:
I am so, so grateful for the beauty of the world.  It is a very splendid 60 degrees outside today and I am enjoying watching the beautiful leaves fall to the ground.  I have thrown open my windows to enjoy the cool breeze.  I can see the snow-covered mountains from my windows and they are beautiful.  I love fall, and I am grateful that I get to enjoy all the beauty that fall has to offer.

I was sitting at the computer last night... or this morning... around midnight, when Kara walks out of her room, heads for the couch, puts her lovey down on the couch, picks up the remote, walks back into her room and crawls into bed.  I love my sleepwalking child!

Kara has started preschool and LOVES it!  She is doing so well and learning so much.  I am very impressed with her teacher and the many different things she has been teaching the kids.  Kara is learning sign language, how to write her name, letters, numbers, the Pledge of Allegiance, and Spanish-- among other things.  So the other day after school she is sitting at the table eating lunch and she says to me, "mom, what does de nada mean?"  and I tell her "you're welcome".  She then asks me, "what does glass ass mean?"  um.  what?  "what does what mean?" I ask.  "Glass ass".  Then it clicks.  "oh, you mean gracias."  I had a good giggle in my head over that one.

We've also been helping her out with the Pledge.  She can usually start it and then I'll say a couple words and help her figure the rest out.  So this is how it went the other day when we were over at my aunt and uncle's house:

Kara: I pledge allegiance
Me:  to the...
K: unicorn! 
M: (trying not to giggle) nope, how about flag?
K: oh.  flag.  Of the United Steaks of America.  And to the Republic under ground
Me: under God
K: oops!  under God, individual
Me: indivisible
Kara: indivisible, with liverty and justice for all.


And to top it all off, Kara said our family prayer the other night.  It went something like this:
"Heavenly Father, thank you for my mom and dad, and nana and papa, and grandma and grandpa.  Thank you for I can go to school.  Thank you for Ms. Bonnie.  Thanks for I can learn" (and she sings this song, to the tune of Frere Jacques): "buenos dias, buenos dias, como esta, como esta, muy bien glass ass, muy bien glass ass, y usted, y usted.  Amen."

Awesome!!!!  I love this girl!!!!

Sophie loves to tell her loved ones "I missed you!" as often as she can.  If I walk into the kitchen for 2 seconds she will say "mommy, I missed you!" as soon as I walk back in the room.  It's pretty great, actually.  Super for my self-esteem.  The other day Kara came walking down the hall and Sophie said, "sis! I missed you!" and gave her a big hug.  Kara promptly replied, "Sophie, I'm not dead.  I was just pooping." 

We got together with our favorite photographer to take our annual July family pictures.  Sophie woke up the morning of with a temperature, and she woke up from her nap with a huge rash on her cheek.  We took the pictures anyway, and this is what we got! 

July went by incredibly fast.  Seriously.  Not sure I even took a breath.  After a very busy 4th of July weekend, I celebrated my 29th birthday, and then we went straight to Idaho to have the Martin family reunion.  This picture is not from the reunion, but since Tanner and Caroline couldn't make it for that I am showing the whole family when we were together for Grandpa and Grandma Backus's memorial service. 

Yay Martin family!

After the reunion a bunch of my cousins and aunts got together to clean my grandma and grandpa's house since there would soon be over 70 of us converging there to help her celebrate her 80th birthday.  Wanna know something funny about my grandma?  Hee hee!  I am giggling already about it.  So we cleaned her house 2 weeks before the big party, right?  And my cousins had the GENIUS idea to hide all of her knick-knacks and special things that had the strong possibility of getting broken by the plethera of young children that would be overtaking her house.  So while dusting said precious items they took the liberty of hiding them.  And there were lots of things to hide, and lots of creative places in which they were hid.  Turns out that Grandma couldn't handle having all her things hidden, so a few days later she found every single one of those knick-knacks and put them back!  Good times. 

24th of July weekend was fun too.  I can't remember it, but I'm pretty sure it was spent doing something fun. 

My mom and dad flew in a few days before the party; Tyler and Ozma flew in the next day, and Zak and Shelby flew in the day after that.  We spent a few days cooking and eating and getting everything ready for the party, and then Saturday was the big day.  It was so much fun getting together with the whole family and celebrating such a wonderful milestone with my grandma!  I think every cousin was there but 1, and his wife had just had a baby so he was understandably excused.  We spent 2 days eating, playing, talking, singing, watching videos, and just plain having fun!  Zak and Shelby had to leave on Sunday, and so while my mom and her sisters took Grandma to Park City for some girl time, my dad, me, Tyler, Ozma, Kara and Sophie did some sight-seeing.  Evens was deathly sick, so he stayed home to sleep.  We ended up going to Park City and then drove through Provo Canyon.  We had to stop at Bridal Veil Falls to let the girls play in the water, but then someone got the bright idea that we should all hike to the top of the Falls.  (stupid me)  Ozma and I were wearing cowboy boots (again, stupid me) and we each took turns carrying the girls.  It was a lot of hard work, but definitely worth it once we got to the top and felt that wonderful cold mist coming off the waterfall.

Tyler

 We hiked back down and let the girls play in the water.

Sophie wanted me to hold her so that she could put her feet in,

and then pull them back out when they got too cold!

 At one point we lost Kara, but found her walking across the pond to this huge rock.  Sure glad the water didn't get any deeper, because my dad and I were not close enough to catch her!

Showing off her big muscles that helped her climb that huge rock all by herself!

Just chatting with some random friend on the rock

When we told Sophie we were leaving she ran back to the bridge screaming and crying.  She did not want to go!

 That was a very fun day!  We ate dinner at In 'n Out (yum!) and then went home and crashed.  Tyler and Ozma left the next day, but we managed to squeeze in a trip to Salt Lake City to visit the Gateway and ride the elevator to the top of the Joseph Smith building (I think???) to take pictures.  If Tyler ever sends those to me I will post them because I think some of them turned out really cool. 

My dad also took us girls up to Bear Lake.  While in Logan canyon we also stopped so Kara could do some rock climbing.  Man that girl can climb!  I took pictures and video on my camcorder so if I can get those onto my computer I will post those. 

As you can see, July (and the first part of August) was incredibly busy, but so much fun!  I am looking forward to relaxing (somewhat) this month.  Kara starts preschool at the end of August and can't stop talking to everyone about it!  And Evens's birthday is this week.  And our anniversary.  So maybe August won't be as relaxing as I hoped...

I am pretty sure that so far this summer the girls and I have spent more time away from home than we have at home!  We have been busy, busy, busy!  Evens is having a really stressful summer at work and so he is spending almost 7 days a week and 13-16 hours a day at work.  So the girls and I went back down to Texas for 10 days to play with my family.  We then flew home and went straight to Idaho for Evens's grandparents memorial service.  The majority of his mother's family came in for the service and it was wonderful to meet new people and spend time with that side of the family.  We had a lot of fun eating, talking, and playing!

Then we spent July 4th with my cousin Andy and his family.  We had a blast shooting fireworks, and Evens enjoyed a day of doing absolutely nothing!  The girls and I drove over to Logan to have the annual 4th of July breakfast with my mom's family, and then we left to go spend the rest of the day with Evens, who had to work (of course!) and got off work at 2 pm. 

July 6 was my birthday.  Evens took me out to dinner and we had a nice, quiet evening while my friend babysat the girls.  And guess what!!!  After years of begging Evens to give in and buy our family a Wii, he set up a "Wii Account" for my birthday and so pretty soon I can FINALLY get a WII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I think he was sold on it when we played the Wii at Andy and Peggy's and they had some pretty fun games that all of us could enjoy.  Even Evens got into it, which he never does because he doesn't like playing those things... whatever they are called... the Wii, Playstation, XBox, you know... those things in general. 

July 8-10 was the Martin Family Reunion.  We had a lot of fun just sitting around and doing nothing.  I think it was too hot for any of us to want to do anything that exerted much energy.  We had a campfire at night and made s'mores and roasted hot dogs. 

I am still trying to get caught up on laundry, housework, and everything else that seems to pile up when you are gone! 

We are trying to get the house FINISHED for when my family comes up from Texas for my Grandma's Big 80th Birthday Bash!!!!  We have been trying to paint Kara's room, and it seems like something comes up every night to prevent us from getting anything done.  I have vowed that Evens and I are not going to bed tonight until that room gets painted!  Poor Kara has been sleeping on the couch since Sophie is in the portacrib in Kara's room.  It's pretty much a huge moving mess around this house and I will be very happy once we get everything back to normal!!!


Still on our list of things to do before the 27th?
-Paint Kara's room.  Move her bed and all her stuff into that room.
-Move Sophie's stuff into Kara's old room.
-Finish painting the hallway.
-Paint the kitchen/dining room.
-Get family pictures taken, printed, and put in the frames.
-Finish the landscaping in the front yard.
I'm not holding my breath that this will all be done in less than 10 days...

Kara has been in tumbling classes for about 6 months and had her recital in June.  She had a blast learning some basic gymnastic moves, but she really wants to do the hip-hop class that they offer.  So I guess she'll be learning some sweet dance moves soon!

That's Kara jumping over the blocks

Kara is the one doing the backwards somersault

I think she had more fun playing with the bar than actually performing!