First Fireworks for Claire!

I think... at least it's been a while. Now, we always are at my parents' cabin over the 4th, where fireworks are prohibited... except we do see them at the end of the Oakley Rodeo, but we haven't gone in the past 2 years. So, yes, I think these are Claire's first!

Jordan woke Claire up at 11pm to see her first fireworks. Like the hair??

She thoroughly enjoyed the fireworks in the sky that we could see from our street... yes, her eyes are closed :)



But she wasn't sure about the fireworks Daddy started lighting, as you can see, haha!



"Annie Rachel" (meaning "Auntie") and I were headed to Walmart in a few so she joined us! Her husband had already hit the sack...his loss!



Claire being cute, as usual :) FUNNY: So, she was scared of the fireworks Jordan set off (which were totally cheap small ones,but some made those screaming noises) but it was funny bc during each firework display, she would whimper the whole time and cling to us. But THEN, after it was done, she would automatically say "YAY!" and clap!! Silly monkey.



OK, back to bed. She is tired, can you tell?? :)

4th of July at the Cabin!

Last week, Jordan and I spent time with my family at our annual reunion at my parent's cabin in Oakley. It was so fun to see everyone because a lot of my family, I only see once or twice a year! Thank you, Mom and Dad, for such a great time!!

The Fam.

Oops, left the umbrella in there! Yes, we took family pics on the only rainy day up there! (ps. notice how everyone's looking at the camera and smiling, except Gavin (front row, dead center) who is drilling for gold...ha!! So funny!!)

The cabin from behind--how...serene it looks! (but not inside our mad house!)

Our Little family :)
There was a better picture than this where Claire wasn't all squished...but sadly, her massive, size-of-her-head, 4th of July bow was covering Jordan's face....oh well! It was worth it!! SO CUTE!

Some fun pictures and memories:

*Hanging with Ann-Marie and Ian. I don't get to see Annie and Nathan and their kids but once a year, so it's always good when they come!!

*Seeing how much fun the kids were having doing their crafts! The girls made 4th of July watches with Auntie Michelle

*Watching Baby Mama - that movie NEVER gets old.... in fact, "It's still funny!!" (that's a line from the movie...)

*Grabbing and kissing little Gavin against his will

*Listening to little Nieve talk. She is soooooo cute!! And has the cutest little...what is it, a lisp? Anyway, LOVE this pic. She is a babe.

*Watching Claire grab at Joe's whiskers, and seeing him love on Claire!

*Playing Mexican Train Dominoes with the family (I have no clue as to what Fill and Michelle are doing in that picture, but it doesn't look pretty..... - ok Michelle you look pretty, but Fill? Scary face is more like it!)

*Joe beating us all by thousands of points in the dice game

*Playing Boggle with my only worthy opponent, Michelle :) You are the only one that challenges me!!

*Riding on the ATVs with my hunk of burnin' love ;)

*"Talent Night" with me having to play Pachelbel's Cannon (TERRIBLY, since I didn't practice enough) and hearing Kaylin sing the "I Need a Nap" song.

*Seeing everyone just eat Claire up!! It was awesome :) Isn't it great when other people love your child too???

*Going to the bath-water-warm Kamas indoor swimming pool. So fun!

*Horribly singing and dancing to "All That She Wants" by Ace of Base, for Karaoke night, and having Bec as my backup dancer! As you can see in the video above, we're AWESOME.... esp. because preggie Bec was tight casted for the part seeing as she is in reality wanting "another baby" :)

*Getting to hear Phil's "I Will Survive" karaoke number again--Huh-LA-RIOUS.

*Hearing Andrew's "Sweet Caroline" karaoke number....LOVE the cheesy winks and "da da da...." bit

*Nathan's amazing "Nessen Dorma" Ha! Very nice...

*Making snow cones every day and Kaylin not wanting to put ANY high-fructose corn syrup...I mean, "snow cone syrup" on hers...she just wanted plain ice! So funny...

*Making homemade ice cream every day!!

*Joe putting WAY too much gel in little Zach-Zach's hair!

*Being woken up by Claire at the crack of dawn (ok, 5:30-6:00 am...but that's early when you went to bed at 1!) and hangin' out with the other early-riser-by-his-own-accord, Corbin!

*Having the extended Gollaher family up for the 4th for a BBQ and Trina's baby shower! (Here's Claire with great-grandma Fern!)

4th of July in Oakley!!

I have been a slacker, but now I'm finally posting this!! So, 4th of july week was AWESOME because I went to my wonderful family reunion!! It was SOOOO fun, I was so sad for it to end!! All of the grandkids (my nieces and nephews) are SOOOOOOOOO adorable, and so fun to be with!!

I guess I'll just post highlights so you don't have to read through all of it!!

*doing puzzles with Max, Sydney, and Kaylin

*Playing Boggle with Heather, Jay, Michelle, and Fofa--and hearing Heather repeatedly tell us that she is "not good" at Boggle...she needs to remind us of this, since she is good at every other game!!

*Sydney corrupting sweet, innocent little Kaylin! Here, Sydney put on my sunglasses and did this weird thing with her tongue...of course, Kaylin imitated her! But Sydney also said, when I commented "what a pretty house," "no, what a stinkin' house" and then Kaylin joined in...oops. We also watched "Giselle" in the car--it's not called "Enchanted" to those girls...no, it's called "Giselle."

*Getting beautifully drawn or colored pictures from Becca, Sydney, and Nieve. This one below is one they specially did for MOI, and wouldn't let me see it until it was done!

*Riding on the ATVs!! So fun!!

*Sydney, Max, and Ian playing with the hose in the back of Grandpa's truck. It was so sad...when they finally turned off the water, Ian was soooooooo upset!

*Swimming at the incredible Kamas indoor pool!! The best pool I've ever been to! Very fun to have Max on my back going around the wave pool. Also fun to see little daredevil Sydney go off the high dive!! Wow! Corbin was also another daredevil. Very fun to watch Fofa go down the slide a zillion times with the grandkids...she's a trooper :) I went down a couple of times, and unfortunately (I usually am a KID about going down slides!!) I totally started feeling nauseated, so I had to stop :(

*Swimming at Wheelwright's pool--fun, but not as warm :) Losing to Nathan in "PIG" but TOTALLY beating the ol' baldy grandpa, hehhehe

*Playing "House of Fire" and being PATHETIC as usual!! (although I wasn't pathetic enough to get the "boobie prize!") Max even played and he was so cute--and kept getting faster and faster at rolling those dice! The first two rounds I was ONE AWAY from calling out House of Fire and my house burned down!! It's so dissappointing!! Corbin was awesome too--so fast!

*Playing a hilarious game of Guesstures with the adults!! It was so hilarious. The highlight was when Fofa was trying to get us to guess "behind" and kept making these "booty" motions to say behind "her" and Nathan shouts out, "moneymaker!" haha

*Feeding the "horsies" with the little kids and seeing them in their cowboy hats. Nieve was especially cute in her little cowboy hat!! Sydney's highlight was feeding the horses--although she forgot the horse food: "Smarties" and did apologize to them about that, and only having carrots to feed them!

*Playing kickball, where it was "boys against girls" but we basically let all of the grandkids get on base no matter how pathetic their kicks were :) haha...

*Playing "I'm Thinking of a Prophet" for Family Night. The kids were super smart!! Samuel, Kiera, Becca, Corbin, Sydney, and Max were all able to reach "Joseph Smith" and then "Jesus" with the clues ol fogie grandpa gave.

*Sydney LOVED playing with "Nievie..." You'd think she'd want to play with Becca because they're closer in age, but I think the fact that Sydney and Becca are both kinda bossy :) it naturally happened that way--I think Sydney loved bossing Nieve around, and probably Nieve is used to it, since she gets bossed by Becca, haha

*Beating Corbin at pool...and let me tell you, this was a feat!! He's amazing at pool! So good--he's going to be REALLY good someday! Michelle and I also creamed Heather and Jay--sorry. :)

*Going to "Smith & Moorhouse" reservoir, and trying to get all the kids to do their favorite animal sounds... can't wait to see that on the DVD!! It was also fun having Grandpa threaten to throw Sydney in!

*Making fun of Michellie's glamor shot. haha... she hated it but was a good sport! Filly put some funny comments on there, and then I think Heather added to them... Bec, you look GREAT :)

*Fofa and the grandkids...she is just the best grandma ever!!

*Watching, or rather HEARING the kids, Gavin, Sydney, and Kaylin slide down the stairs on thin blue nylon pads.

*Going to the rodeo. Sydney and I like the barrel racing the best--Corbin liked the steer wrestling (of course :) The fireworks had all the kids captivated! *Playing the M&M game with the kids--I remember how worked up I'd get when I was little, with people stealing my M&Ms!! *Kaylin giving Sydney a dollar--she was very excited. Phil was like "Kaylin, you can't be giving your money away!" but then Sydney bought some candy for both of them, so it was okay :)
*Kaylin's constant "deer in headlights" pose for the camera...so cute... *Our sadness when we arrived at the Kamas pool for the 2nd time, and there was a "Fecal Situation" or whatever they called it--a "Fecal" something...which basically meant..."a little boy pooped in the pool" according to Sydney. It wasn't a girl, it was a BOY. Haha...

*Kaylin singing her own made-up song, "Chicken Chicken Comin' Home" and the Arial song...so cute!

*Those cute little baby girls, Chloe and Lauren!

*Family Pictures, of course!! Here is the whole fam (minus our great "GI Joe")

Ok I think that's enough, this may be the longest, most picture-filled post ever, but I don't care :) You didn't have to read it all, you know... hhaha