We’re sure many of you are wondering why there are so few posts coming in here as of late. We may refer to it as the ‘Facebook effect’ – since the vast majority of our friends are on Facebook, a lot of the smaller updates go there, and the blog goes without updating. But every once in a while, we will get on here and post photos – because a lot of our extended family doesn’t do the whole Facebook thing, but they will visit the family website to see pictures of the kids. Hence today’s blog post.Instead of just putting up a block of 80 or so pictures without any explanation, please bear with us as we give a little background this time.

First are a number of pictures taken in August at Murray Park. We had promised the kids an activity that evening, bowling. But they wouldn’t take our coupon, so we went to the park instead. It turned out to be a great activity, and we got some good pictures. In particular, one really good picture of a very unhappy baby Glen… it was taken near the end of the visit, and he was tired.

Okay, so we ended up taking a lot of pictures of Glen…but hey, This baby is hecka-cute!

Okay, okay, we took pictures of the other kids as well…hold yer horses…

Alright, the next set of pictures is the biggest, but it was worth it. We took a Sunday afternoon drive up to Silver Lake (a very nostalgic place for Johanna and I) for a relaxing hike. The kids love it because we can skip rocks and feed ducks there. Johanna was excited because we were going to get pictures of Glen that match some family photos we had taken last year before he was born.

Those last two of Aiden were some of the only ones where he wasn’t making a completely rediculous smile at the camera. It’s like pullilng teeth sometimes, trying to get a good smile out of the kid…and Mike is the same way! Enough of that…more photos!

There were some great shots we got while feeding the ducks up there, and also a few where we found this really, REALLY cool fallen tree which was just the right size for the kids to sit in. Incidentally, while organizing these photos in Picasa, we discovered that it really does an amazing job when you ask it to suggest how to crop a photo – some of these things just turned out great! The thumbnails below will be square, but let’s hope the full-sized ones don’t get re-cropped when they are published to the blog!

And now for that fallen tree we found (and a few others.) By this time we had discovered how to turn on the ‘multi-shot’ feature of the camera, and it made it a bit easier to get a good smile out of both Aiden and Glen (the little wiggler).

The rest of the photos from the lake were just some that looked good when we cropped ‘em. They don’t come from any particularly interesting part of the hike, but they are still worth sharing.

Fast forward a few weeks, and we get to our ward’s Primary Carnival. There was a face-painting booth there, but nobody running it when we arrived. The kids were anxious, so Mike decided to jump in. Soon, he had not only painted James like an ‘Army Guy’, but Aiden and his cousin Adriana both wanted to be ‘Lions’, cousin Alex wanted to be a ‘Zombie’, and Mike decided that Glen wanted to be a BYU fan (heck yes he does!!!) From this experience, Mike is officially designated as the official Halloween Face Painter in the family – the kids actually turned out pretty good!

Last, but not least, we do have a couple of ‘everyday life’ pictures that are blog-worthy. At a yard sale we found a tent that is the perfect size for sleepovers (thoroughly tested by the kids), we have a couple of G-rated bath-time pictures, Glen’s first ‘silly hat’ outing, and James’ first day of preschool. If you have stuck around this long, congrats! The end is near! Enjoy!

It’s kinda exciting to feel the baby moving. She’s been telling me for months “He’s flipping somersaults in there!” but to actually experience it for myself, that’s something entirely new to me!

When I last wrote, gas prices were killing our budget. Now the cost to fill the car is going down, but there have been lovely car repairs to keep us feeling desperate.

Another big change that came through – I have been called as the new Ward Mission Leader. I had an inkling this was coming, but didn’t want to say anything in case Murphy was listening. I guess he has ESP, ’cause I was called anyway.

Actually, I am really excited about the calling.

Another huge event was when Johanna and I spent every weekend in September painting the downstairs room which is now OFFICIALLY FINISHED!!! It’s a project that has been over a year in the works, and it is soooooooo good to have it done! It looks great. See for yourself!

Aiden is doing very well in school. When he can focus on his work, he consistently does very well on math, and is getting better at wring. But his mind wanders so frequently, we have to do his homework in 5 minute segments, or else nothing happens.

James is pretty much potty trained. He still has accidents when we don’t invite him to use the potty, so I guess we’re 90% there, he just needs to get the ‘do it myself’ part down.

And finally, just this past weekend Johanna and I officially enlisted the help of a lawyer so that I can adopt Aiden and James. In June/July of this year, their biological father mentioned that if I wanted to formally adopt them, he would not be opposed – it would be better for the kids. We had to wait for a while because some legal requirement states that the kids would have to be living with me for 6 months before we could get started. Now that we have a lawyer, we will start getting things moving forward.

And so, life moves on and is generally pretty good to us. On Monday we will go to the Pumpkin Patch (one of our new favorite traditions) and choose pumpkins to carve. It is sure to be a blast, and will be well documented with more pictures to upload. Now, if I can just remember to keep this blog up to date…

Firstly, Johanna would kill me if I didn’t mention that I was grumpy from the start. That’s mostly my fault, but I think we both contributed to the rocky start. My idea of camping and packing the car is vastly different from hers, and as I rushed about that morning, it became clear to me that this was going to be an experience in compromise. We finally got everything packed in Mom and Dad’s Jeep (BARELY) and set off for the campsite.

Upon arriving, I set up the tent while the kids competed to see who could ask “Whe are we going to the beach?!?’ the loudest. When we finally got to the beach, we discovered that while Aiden loves to scream bloody murder every time he dives into the water – out of sheer excitement, James loves to scream bloody murder every time the water chases him – out of sheer terror. Yes, James suffers from hydrophobia, and here we were at the lake. Great.

Can you see where this is going? My Dad told me years ago that vacations are for the kids, not the parents. He couldn’t have been more right. The kids enjoyed themselves tremendously. I was stretched more than I would like to admit, but in the end I think I finally calmed down enough to have a little bit of a good time out there.

Without making this narrative any more boring, here are some selected highlights:

• The air mattress we borrowed from Mom and Dad comes with a pump that hooks up to the car cigarette lighter. But the pump was missing the electric cable…so I ended up filling it with lung power anyway. Twice.
• The kids LOVED learning how to play “Kick the Can” – and I am glad. It was one of my favorite games as a kid.
• Johanna can toast marshmallows so that the bottom is still white, and the top has mushroomed like an atomic explosion.
• Aiden likes to stand in the middle of the road at night.
• James likes to eat fruit snacks that have been left in a hot car to melt into liquid-sugar. When he does this, everything within reach is covered in a sticky film.
• Johanna is better at keeping a fire going than the only Eagle Scout on the trip. This is embarassing.
• James is really close to being potty trained. So is Aiden. One day he got into the tent to change, and started screaming. I opened the tent only to find him running in circles peeing all over the place because “he couldn’t hold it anymore!” I threw him into a bush outside the tent and screamed “go there!” but the damage was done. Johanna says it’s a good thing urine evaporates.
• If you sleep next to a really stinky outhouse, and already smell like two days worth of camping, a tent that was peed in doesn’t have any noticeable odor.
• Johanna knows how to cook amazingly good meals, even when camping. But she does forget things once in a while – like ketchup and mustard for the hot dogs.

A whole lot more happened, like when Johanna’s brother’s boat broke 5 minutes before they had promised to take the kids out onto the lake. Or when I showed Aiden and his cousins how to clean out a dutch oven using nothing but dirt and water (yes, it really works, too!)

I think it’s safe to say that the next time I have vacation saved up from work, I will take four days for a trip with the kids, and another four to recover from the trip with the kids.

In other news, this Thursday, Johanna and find out whether the bun we are baking is a little boy or a little girl! Needless to say, everyone is pretty excited around here. Not to jinx things, but we are both hoping for a little girl, and the chinese fortune cookies from lunch last week say “You will get your hearts’ desire” – that’s gotta count for something, right?

Missionary Mary has sent us some pictures, which will make their way into the appropriate gallery in a few minutes here. She seems to be doing well, as always, but the email this week was a little scattered. She wrote a huge, detailed one, and it got deleted before she could send it, so the remaining time was spent trying to patch together thoughts. She did ask me about posting video on the site…I will have to write her and ask her to just send them to me. I will need to downsize them before posting them – full resolution video might be too much for my internet connection to serve up right now.

Aiden’s first week of school is going well, for the most part. He has been disciplined once already, moved from the front row to the second row because he can’t stop talking to his neighbor. The teacher put him next to a girl, hoping that might quiet him a little. She doesn’t know that all his best friends in the ward are girls. This could be interesting.

Lastly, Johanna is about to delve into the world of scouting, as this week she starts her new calling as the Cub Scout leader in our ward! I think she is excited, but probably not as much as I am. I loved scouting as a kid, and am looking forward to helping out where I can. I know that Sarah has a wealth of knowledge on how to do the scouting stuff, as she is her wards’ Primary President and all. We’ll have to touch base some time and get some killer-awesome hints on how to keep little boys entertained with rocks and sticks without throwing them at each other.

Anywho, this is getting sorta lengthy, so I will go post the Mary pictures now. TTFN!