Our "Brave" Weekend

 

Saturday, June 23rd, was an adventurous day for our family. We began early in the morning by heading up to Sandy for a free screening of the new Disney movie, "Brave". Radio Disney was hosting the event and invited a bunch of clients or hopeful clients to attend. At the entrance the kids got to have their faces painted like warriors - that was a special treat. The movie was fantastic and very entertaining. The kids sat through it pretty well, and even Cody cooperated most of the time.

We had a couple hours to kill before we needed to be at our bike race in Park City. So, we grabbed some lunch and headed to Temple Square to keep the kids entertained. We walked around the temple grounds a bit, and then played in the children's section of the Church History Museum.

(Of course, everywhere we went throughout the day people asked where we got our faces painted so their kids could have it too.)

Then we braved our way up Parleys Canyon toward Park City. We were hoping to arrive at the Round Valley race site in plenty of time to get the kids registered and ready for the kids race. We got there in time, but we had to rush to the starting line. This was Paige and Ashby's first real race with number plates. Brian rode along side to make sure they were okay. Apart from a little whining on the uphills and not wanting to do a second lap, the kids had a good experience.

The venue also provided little strider bikes for toddler to ride. They are bicycles without any pedals that you just sit and push along with your feet. Brian had been wanting to get one for Levi (but they're a bit pricey), so this was Levi's first time sitting on one. I thought he'd take off right away because he is so stink'n fast on his wiggle car, but he really didn't get it. Levi entered in the toddler race and made quite a show bringing in the very rear of the pack.

Below is a little video of our day at the race.

Brian was also excited to participate in this race. It was a new course for him which added some extra nerves, but he did great (as always). He biked a good race and ended up 2nd in his age category.

The racers were very happy about the results of their day. Look at all the medals!
And even though we were at a bike race from 3pm - 8pm and away from home for 11 hours, we all survived and found out we are very brave!

Cody is 9 month old

This is Cody.

He is 9 months old.
He loves to stand on your lap and bounce.
He loves baby food - any flavor. Except that texture baby food makes him gag and subsequently throw up.
He is our chunkiest baby = 20.1 lbs. But that only puts him in the 50th percentile (man, there must be some really fat babies out there!).
He loves watching his older siblings make him laugh.
He loves drinking apple juice.
He laughs when you play peek-a-boo.
He loves to shift his weight back and forth when standing.




Cody hates to be on his tummy. He just does Superman and screams.




At his 9 mo check up the doctor asked:

Does he crawl?  No
Does he pull himself up to stand?  No
Does he army crawl? No
Does he clap? No
Does he wave? No
Doe he say the ma-ma, da-da sounds?  No
Does he use a sippy cup?  No
Does he roll over? No

But, this is our cute little, content baby boy.

(Although, he has started to get frustrated lately if he can't reach something, but he soon gives up.)

I think he'll start to figure out the getting around thing as soon as he gets some motivation.

Stay tuned...

I had a birthday

...shout hooray!

We celebrated my birthday the night before by taking the whole family to their first time to Seven Peaks Waterpark. I thought it was a very enjoyable evening. Even though we have season passes this year, I haven't worked up the courage to take four kids on my own. How do I take 4 kids that don't know how to swim to a water park? Especially when the big ones want to go on water slides, but the little ones aren't allowed? Sounds awful to me. But this time worked out great with Brian by my side. Even Cody loved his first time in the water.

The birthday loot. I got spoiled with some cool running headphones, a SD card, pajamas and other treats and goodies.

Some of our grand activity ideas got spoiled when I decided I couldn't stand the pain in my big toe any longer and finally went to get it checked out. It has been sensitive for a few months but only if someone touched it - walking was fine. But then the stroller fell out of the car onto my toe and a can fell off the counter on to it and I couldn't ignore it any longer. So I spent the afternoon at the doctor's office and the pharmacy. I found out I have an infection at the base of my toe nail so I got an antibiotic and am soaking it in Epsom salts a couple times a day.

Then I got to sit down, relax, soak my foot and watch a Shirley Temple movie while my family made me dinner.

It got to be pretty windy so we flew a kite in the front yard and avoided the walk to the park.

It took me a long time to decide what kind of birthday cake I would like. I didn't want a bunch of left overs just waiting for me to eat and I didn't feel like anything super sweet. Then it came to me - English Trifle! Mmmm...my mouth watered for it all week long and then I finally got it. Looooove!

And now, I guess I'm 31.

Granddad's words

I saw this idea on Pinterest a few weeks ago and knew just what to do with it.

I'd been working on transcribing a recording of my father-in-law's testimony and I thought this would be a neat idea to use for it. The website is called, You are your words, and Will Blumer was his testimony.

Rumor is, I wrote a song

...well, kind of.

I arranged a medley for the primary children to sing for Father's Day. It's a combination of "Dearest Names" and "Daddy's Homecoming".

It was so fun to imagine how to piece the songs together and figure out what would sound good. Then I cut and pasted the songs and fooled around with it a bit. But the best part was that my neighbor (a song writer by profession) let me come over and use his equipment to print it out and make it look all professional.

Then...I published my song! http://freeldssheetmusic.org/Tara_Blumer

And yesterday the darling kids came up in church and sang to their Daddy's. Everyone smiles and sang great, and I heard a good chuckle from the audience behind me as I conducted.

Such a cool and fun experience!

EFY visit

Last week we had my nieces, Brooke and Megan, visit us from Texas. They had come to Provo to participate in EFY, but we got to spend some time with them before and after. One Sunday afternoon we took a walk down the river trail. It was a lovely Spring day. It was really fun to get to host for a couple of days. It made me look forward to having nieces and nephews come to BYU for college and I could be the "cool aunt" that makes them Sunday dinner or lets them borrow my car. :)

The cotton-like seeds from the Dogwood trees were everywhere. It looked like it was snowing and the branches were covered in them. We even saw a hill that you could make a "snow angel" in.

We saw a few families of ducklings in various stages of development.

Common Denominator

If someone is crying, screaming, or being tortured at our house, there is usually a common denominator....Ashby.