Little Miss Lucy!

Little Lucy turned 9 months old on Sunday

Oh, How I LOVE this litte girl.

It's totally cliche to say, I know, but she is growing up way to fast

and I wish I could put her in a bubble to stop her from growing up any more.

What can I say, 9 months is my one of my favorite stages, FOR SURE!!!!

Here are a few tidbits about our Little Lucy Lou!
Lucy is such a happy baby. 

She will smile at anyone at anytime as long as she is with her momma. 

She is a BIG momma's girl and I absolutely LOVE it.  There's no denying it!

Lucy loves watching her sisters, and trys her hardest to keep up with them.

She has the cutest little giggle that just melts my heart.

She has 2 and half teeth, with many more on their way.

Lucy will eat just about anything (my other girls were pretty picky, I guess)

Everyone says she looks just like her dad and that's okay with me.  I mean I didn't marry the guy just for his truck!

She is crawling and standing everywhere and it's only a matter of time before the real trouble starts.

I could go on and on about this little girl. . . but I won't. 

 Just know that I LOVE this girl and we LOVE having her in our family!

Pioneer Day

Happy 24th of July Everyone!

Here (for whatever reason) we celebrate the 24th on the following Saturday.  The town of St Anthony goes all out and we took advantage.  One of the many fun things planned for the Pioneer Day celebration is a parade.  Besides the great floats to see they throw LOTS of candy.  The girls LOVED it!

Mark and Abby waiting for the Parade to start! 

 The horses were definitely a family fav!

Not only did they throw out TONS of candy, some floats even threw otterpops!

You can definitely tell this is an lds religious holiday.  Most of the floats were submitted by local wards and lots of them displayed the temple, pioneers, and/or missionaries. 

The local missionaries were even the ones passing out the free chocolate milk! 

Oh, Only in Utah and Idaho!  LOVE IT!!!!

 We then spent the rest of the day out at my Grandparents house eating, floating the river, and eating some more!

Even though this day has turned into a somewhat lighthearted and fun holiday.  It's always great to be reminded of the Pioneers and what they accomplished.  I am always so deeply touched and truly amazed when I think about the strength and great faith those early saints (including some relatives of mine) had.

A quick visit from the Indiana Bates Family

We've had company this last week.

Mike (Mark's brother) and Rebecca (our sister-in-law) and their daughter Madison came to visit us.  We were so excited to have Mike around to help us on some projects for the house (Sorry Mike, no rest for you on this vacation!).  We may have slightly over-estimated the number of projects those two (and by "those two" I mean Mark and Mike. . . not Mike and Becca!) should have completed this week (seriously. . . we're talking a sprinkling system, a couple of new ceiling fans, new electric wall heaters, . . . just to name a few), but it was great to have Mike around to at least start them. 

While the boys worked, the kids played, and us ladies chit-chatted away.  It was lovely.

Between projects we did sneek away for some "real" fun to go bowling.  One of the girls favorite things to do.

Lucy and Madison (Lucy is just 2 weeks older)

After bowling we hit the arcade's Merry-go-round!  We loved it because all 3 girls could ride together!

We are so grateful that we could host Mike, Becca and Madison.  Seeing family is the BEST!!!

Who's next on the docket????

No tell 'em Lake and the Bar J Wranglers

My brother and sister-in-law have been living with my parents for the summer. They will be leaving in a couple of weeks, so my family decided to fill the last few weekends with some super fun stuff.   Cody (my brother) wanted to show Anne (my sister-in-law) a few things we always did as kids, such as fishing at No tell 'em lake and the Bar J Ranch.   Super fun!

No tell 'em Lake

So this "No tell 'em" Lake is a family favorite of ours.  (Obviously that's not the real name of it, but if I told you the real name I would have to kill you.)  We love to go there because very few people know about it.

We went four-wheeling

 Morgan... this one's for you!  See I do drive!

 Abby went fishing.  This was her first catch ever!!!

 Grandpa and Hannah coming to see.

 The girls picked wildflowers and made Grandpa BEAUTIFUL!!!

Some even took naps!

 It was an absolute gorgeous day!

Bar J Wranglers

The next day we headed on over to Jackson (some even went hiking) and visited the Bar J Ranch, where we got some finger lickin' good food.  The Wranglers also performed one of the best shows ever (and I have seen my fair share of shows).  We all had a great time.

 Waithing for our food

 Definitely worth the wait. . . . see what I mean, mouth-waterin', finger-lickin' GOOOOOD!!!

 The "Wranglers"

 The girls were totally sacked out before we even got over the Jackson Pass.  Sure sign of a good day!

Riding Bikes

My girls absolutely LOVE riding bikes.  They could ride them ALL. DAY. LONG!!! 

And most days . . . we do!

Unfortunately we had a little accident with Hannah's bike (it wasn't my fault. . . really!) and we now only have one bike with training wheels to share.   Abby has been a good sport to share her bike with Hannah and has been trying her luck on learning to ride this bike with no training wheels.  She's doing pretty good!

Yes, this is the typical get-up for Hannah.  She LOVES to play dress up almost as much as she loves to ride her bike!

OH! How much we LOVE summer here!

Land of the Free! Home of the Brave!

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY, EVERYONE!!!

I have decided that the 4th is one of my most favorite holidays.  There's nothing much better than a warm summer day, BBQ'ing with family and friends, four-wheeling, and ending with some spectacular fireworks. 

Plus I can't resist the color combination of Red, White, and Blue.

Happy Birthday America!!!

By request from just about everyone (ok EVERYONE!!!) in my family, we decided to spend the 4th at our Cabin.  We obviously love it up there and look for any chance to get up there.  It was great.  We took a picnic lunch (hot dogs for dinner), the four-wheelers, day old bread (for the fish), and a WHOLE bunch of yummy goodies to eat.  Couldn't have asked for a better day.

This time we also decided to feed the fish at Big Springs!  When we got there, however, we discovered that the fish were few and far between, and what's left was about a BAZILLION seagulls.  I'm not sure what happened to the fish (do seagulls eat fish?), but pretty sure only the birds benefited from our little trip.

STUPID BIRDS!!! (seriously there was poop EVERYWHERE!)

After we (us and the birds) ate our little hearts out and got the girls (and cabin) cleaned up, we headed to the Island Park Resevoir where we watched the fireworks show they put on there.  My SIL's family has a cabin right on the shore and we got front row seats on their dock.  It was AMAZING!!!  It may just become a new tradition!

So while we were waiting for the show to start I wanted to take a picture of the girls and Mark.  I couldn't see anything until after the flash, and well, needless to say, they thought they were pretty funny.

 In this picture you can see the fireworks reflecting off the water.  It was beautiful!

 Surprisingly, Miss Lucy, slept through the WHOLE show!

GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!