Cousins.

My friend Mandy is starting a photography business.  Lucky for me, I was able to get her to take some pictures of my kids and my sisters kids.  Asking someone to take pictures of 7 young kids is similar to asking them to be tortured, but she was really excited and did an amazing job.  She does outdoor shots, which I love!  And, she has some really cute props to make the pictures unique.  Right now, she is building her portfolio, which means that she is looking for people that will let her practice on them.  I recommend her to anyone.  Kids love her and as you can see, the pictures are amazing.  Email her at mandycheney@hotmail.com and use the coupon code BRANDI IS SO COOL to receive a free sitting and a disk with all of your pictures.  And don't say I never did anything for ya!

Now, about these cute kids, I think they are just the cutest things ever.  We gave these pictures to my Mom for Mothers Day (we gave them to her early because we were so excited!).  It was a slight chore getting them all to cooperate (as you can see by my child abuse picture) but they did really well. 

Would you be scared?

The worker.

"Mom you have to see me today.  I look like a worker, mostly one that makes cars because that is a really hard job.  Cars are heavy to lift.  Are you going to take a picture of me like this for the blog?  You can!"

OUCH!

This last weekend we were out looking for a new trailer.  We are finally getting one from Steve's work, and finding the right one was a harder process than I had originally thought.  After hours of looking, and the kids were getting pretty sick of watching us look inside trailer after trailer, so they made up their own game.  They each took one of our cell phones and then they would go and hide, call the other one, and then look for each other while talking on the phone.  It was pretty entertaining for them, and we just let them do it because they left us alone, and no one seemed to care.

Next thing we know Coren falls on the steps of a trailer while walking up them(because he has dialing and looking at the phone while trying to walk up steps) and slams his face on the corner of the metal stair.

Steve went running and grabbed him and ran to the bathroom.  I guess his mouth was gushing blood, and Steve was pretty sure that he would need stitches.  After some cleaning the blood stopped and he was fine, just sore.  It was so sad because he kept biting the big bump in his lip.  That kids gets hurt more than anyone I know!  

Risk-Takers

Makenna made her first meal for the family.  She was intent on doing it on her own.  I wanted her to make something fun and out of the ordinary, so that she felt like she had done something extra special, and to help her find the joy in cooking.  I personally have never made the family a taco ring, but have always wanted to.  I spent some time searching out the recipe and realized that it was simple.  We went to the store and got the ingredients,  along with some avacados to make her favorite thing ever: Guacamole!

Despite several interuptions including a phone call from a boy (where she giggled and said strange things that made her sound super cool) she was able to make it pretty much on her own.  She was so excited when it came out of the oven looking perfect and she was able to fill the center with her yummy guacamole, and throw on some olives and tomatoes making it looking like a fancy dish.

She is growing up.

Last week she came home from school beaming.  She explained that each student in the school was asked to write what it meant to them to be a Risk-Taker, their trait of the month.  The teachers from each grade met and selected just one students thoughts and let that child read their paper over the intercom.  Her paper was selected from the 100 in her grade.  She was really proud and a little nervous.  She read:

Risk- Takers by Makenna Godfrey

To me Risk-Taker used to mean to jump off a cliff, but then I came to Providence Hall and learned it's more than just jumping off cliffs and to eat worms.  I learned that Risk-Takers means I try new things like reading a new book that looks like it might be boring.  Risk-Taker also means more than just trying new things.  It means to have courage to believe in yourself. 

Carson turns 6

On April 1st our cute little Carson turned 6.  It is so weird that he is getting so old, and so big.  He was treated like a King at school and all of the kids sang to him.  He loved it.  When he came home he was able to go to his friends birthday party and then come home and eat his favorite meal, Ramen Noodles.  He is so funny, I told him he could have anything he wanted to eat, and he choose 10 cent noodles.  

After dinner we had planned to go out for ice-cream, but Dad decided that every child needs cake on their birthday and made him some cup cakes.  It was scary to think of him cooking something but it turned out just fine.  Maybe he can be in charge of cakes from now on!

After the cake and noodles we went and got shakes and french fries and the kids played on the playground.  I think we all ate so much that night that we were sick.


Carson is such a sweet little boy who always wants to make everyone happy.  We are so lucky to have him in our family. 

Vacation

Every morning the kids come and ask me if they have school.  Coren is out of school this week because his teacher is out of town.  As usual he came and asked if he had school today.

"Mom, do I have school today?"

"Nope, you are on vacation," I said sadly.

His eyes LIT UP!!!  "I'm on vacation!!  Where am I going?"

It was a sad let down when I explained that he wasn't headed for DisneyLand, but seriously he is so dang cute!

THIS IS NOT GOOD.

The trip was great, but there were a few things that happened that were not so good.  In fact one thing that was so bad that I almost cried.

As we headed back towards camp to pack up the wind started to blow like crazy, and when I say crazy I mean 60 mph crazy.  I looked over at the area of our campsite and it was a big dust cloud.  I just imagined what was going on, and it didn't look good.

About that same time Coren started telling me how bad his arm hurt, and I looked back and saw his bruised and scraped arm from when he fell.  It looked sore.  
Carson had already fallen asleep and Kenna looked exhausted.
Then we pulled into camp.  Our tent was blowing so hard that it was nearly flat.  Sand was blowing all around like crazy.  My mind flashed back to when I told Steve I wanted to pack up before the hike, and he said no.  I looked at Steve and he said that he would get out and pack up.  I decided to be nice and help.  As I looked into the tent, I was not at all prepared for what I was about to see.  Sand was everywhere.
The wind was blowing so hard that I had to hold the tent up while Steve tried to roll up sleeping backs and pack up.  Finally, after getting blinded by sand, having my ears and hair full of sand, and watching a tent pole snap, I told Steve that this was not going to work.  I started to throw stuff into the car, and then he followed.  With the help of our friends we got it all taken care of (Kenna even got out and helped) and got in the car to leave.  The car was full of sand.  It was a depressing sight.

When we got home we opened the trunk and saw our big mess.  Then Steve took everything out and cleaned up while I worked on the car.  He even fixed the tent.  Needless to say, we got it taken care of for the most part and had quite the adventure.  

Crack.

Before we set out for home on the last day we went on our final hike on a trail called crack.  Maybe they call it crack because it is a crack in the mountain, maybe they call it crack because of all of the cracked broken fallen rocks, or maybe they call it crack because you have to be on crack to get little kids to complete it.  It is not the easiest trail, but once again, we made it.

The kids loved this trail because there were tons of tricky parts to it.  They loved the parts where they got to crawl through tight little caves made by fallen rocks.





They loved to climb up big rocks, and be dropped down through a cougar nest (luckily the cougar was not home).
There were parts that you have to climb in crazy ways.  Some of us loved that more than others.






But when it was all said and done, the kids forgot there blisters, Mom and Dad recovered from carrying the boys the last mile, and everyone agreed that it was our favorite trail yet.

The slot canyons

Saturday morning we set out on our first big hike of the trip.  We went to this amazing slot canyon.  I had no idea that there were canyons like this.  It was so pretty.  The kids loved climbing on all of the rocks and ledges and were all so excited.  Coren of course thought that he was Spiderman, and we had to keep him on  a tight leash.  Makenna wanted to climb as high as possible into every little crevasse that she could find.  Carson shocked us by taking the lead and being the powerhouse of the hike.  On the way down he took off with Brandon in the front of us all and beat everyone down.  Brandon said that they ran most of the way, and he never even stopped for a break.  He loved it.  The hike was around 4 miles, and the kids all made it!  I was really proud of them.