William 8 Months Old

The Hawk is now 8 months old!

He is one seriously busy boy!

He is crawling all over and is so funny how quick he is moving on to new things. He doesn't master things before he moves on. This month he finally started sitting up but before he perfected that he began to crawl and before he perfected that he started pulling himself up and then letting go with one hand. And then Climbing!

He is still a very happy boy!

He also still enjoys all the attention from his siblings. He had fun riding in a little cart at the store!

And he very much loves food.

Happy 8 months William!

Grumpa Miller's 90th Birthday

My Grandpa Miller (affectionately called Grumpa) turned 90 years old yesterday. To celebrate Scott and Rachel had a surprise birthday party for him in California. Mike, Rowley, Sarah, Gavin, Jackson, William, and I all piled in Sarah's van and drove to California. We went to the beach in Santa Cruz.

William was fascinated by the sand and was crawling all over in it and grabbing at it.

Then we took the kids to the boardwalk and Rowley and Jackson rode a few rides.

And most importantly we enjoyed garlic fries....yum.

The next day was the party at a yummy Italian restaurant. We had a whole room to ourselves and Grumpa was completely surprised.

My Grumpa is so good about sending birthday cards to everyone so Becca got everyone together to have a goal to get him 90 birthday cards for his birthday. Between family, friends and people he worked with while volunteering at the hospital for many years he received 128 cards! (not including a big box that arrived before the party that the mailman handed him)

We had fun hanging out and hearing his stories and jokes. I even got to play some card games with him. I haven't done that since I was a kid.

 It was a fun trip and we all loved celebrating with Grumpa!

First day of School and Camping

Sophie and Lydia started school a couple of weeks ago. They started at a whole new school this year so Lydia could have all day kindergarten. Sophie was pretty nervous changing schools but ended up aith a teacher very similar to Mrs. Malm! She loves Miss Thompson and is enjoying the new school.

Lydia is doing great! I was so worried because she can be very shy. But her teacher Mrs. Halvorsen is awesome. She has made a friend which was so funny because she came home saying a little girl was following her everywhere and she didn't like it. She didn't realize she was trying to make a friend. Haha so I told her to play with the girl and be her friend and now they are best friends. 

One of the most exciting things to them at the new school? Microwaves in the cafeteria! They talk about this all the time on how awesome it is haha. Its the simple things in life.

It has been so weird and quite at home with just the boys and I.

We took the kiddos camping after their first week of school. It felt so nice up on Mt Lemmon. We really enjoy camping and the kids love to run around in the woods and find pine cones.

We played games, hiked,and just enjoyed the woods.

Easton kept collecting pine cones and putting them into the fire pit. Then while hiking he was telling Lydia that we needed to burn the pine cones to get the seeds out and eat them. I guess on the man trip Great Grandpa Clayton was telling them stories of how people used to collect a certain type of  pine cone and burn them to release the seeds for food.Chad said he didn't think Easton was listening because he was running around but apparently not! Smart boy.

Clayton Family Reunion

We headed up to Idaho a few weeks ago for the Clayton Family Reunion. Grandma Clayton braved the long car ride with me and the kiddos. The little Hawk did better than expected so it wasn't too bad. On the first day poor William cried for probably an hour straight. He all the sudden stopped and kept saying "dada dada" but then started to scream louder because Dad didn't come and save him. But happy to say he did better after that. I guess he figured he was stuck.

We stopped at an amazing park in Kanab to let the kids run.

The kids wanted to stay there forever.

The adult dinner Friday night was so fun with lots of games to play. The kids had a blast at Aunt Mel and Uncle Scott's house. Easton had a little too much fun playing with his cousins and didn't drink enough water throughout the day that he was sick with dehydration on Saturday. So I stayed at the hotel with him till he got feeling better.

Chad and the girls had fun riding in the cars!

 Chad came and picked us up later in the Blue Eleanor! It was Easton's dream come true seeing that car pull up. He is kind of obsessed with it.

  William also enjoyed the freedom of Model A's

We had a totally fun pinewood derby race which I am a slacker and didn't get any pictures of. Our cars did pretty well too! Way better than our usual last place haha.

Then it was the moment Easton has been dreaming, begging, and patiently waiting for for a year The MAN Trip!

This year  the little men got to go too! Easton had so much fun with his Dad driving in his favorite cars in the world for 5 days!

And ride in the Blue Eleanor of course.

While the men played so did the girls! We all headed to the cemetery and put  flowers on lots  of loved ones graves like Great Grandma and Grandpa Carico.

Then we headed to Aimee's house where there was lots of crafts, laughter, shopping and fun! This is the only picture I took. Apparently we were having way too much fun to take any more haha.

When the men came back Mom and Dad were awesome and watched the kids so we could go to the temple for our 9 year anniversary. We also went  to the cutest little chocolate shop and enjoyed volcano sodas!

We went to a Fourth of July breakfast and the kids got to ride in the back of Winston.

We ended our trip at Shoshone falls and swam in  the snake river. We also jumped off of a 20 foot cliff!