Elephant's Journal

Yesterday we went up to Bountiful to attend my cousin's baby blessing. It was so nice to be with our extended family again. It can be overwhwelming sometimes because our family is so big, but I just love being around people I love so much and sharing our lives with them.

When we were driving home (it takes about an hour) the girls were making music requests but Cory and I insisted on leaving the i-pod on random. Ella Fitzgerald was playing. The girls asked us to change the music, but I said, "I like Ella Fitzgerald." Abbey responded with "I don't want to listen to Elephant's Journal." We all got a good laugh, but I'm beginning to question her hearing!

Max is here!

Max William Chambers

was born on 9/2/09.

He weighed 7 lbs. 8oz. and was 20 inches long.

There were no major complications. Mom is recovering and Max is doing well. Max was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck twice, which made Max's heart rate a little low at birth. Once he was born and untangled from the umbilical cord everything was fine. His APGAR scores were 8 and 9. He is a well tempered baby and his sisters can't get enough of him. They ask to hold him all the time. Here are some pictures of Max and the family.

Hootz and Holly's Wedding

Thanks to our friends the Hintz's, we were able to attend Saturday's Owlz baseball game. We all went together and the kids had a great time trying to

catch fly balls,

playing on the playground and

just having fun together .

I had suspected that the highlight of the game (for the kids at least) would be the fireworks display afterward. As it turned out, it was the

marriage of Hootz and Holly

(the mascots)

that proved to be most exciting.

Jane was a bit disappointed that Holly didn't have on a wedding dress--only a veil and her regular dress. After the "ceremony" the owls rode off on a golf cart. Jane was sure they were

riding off to their castle.

After they drove off, the fireworks started. Two songs were played, one of which was "A Whole New World" from Aladdin. As it played, Jane said, "Now they can dance." When the fireworks ended, and we were heading home, she started crying because we didn't ever get to see them dance. She was slightly appeased, however, when they handed out

wedding cupcakes

(only for the kids)

as we left the stadium.

It was a fun, though very late night.

A few Summer Highlights

Since I've been such a lousy blogger this summer, I thought I'd give you a few highlights.

Olivia learned to ride a two-wheeler, and Jane can really cruise on this lovely Dora bike.

(Thanks Dave and Nancy!)

Note Jane's attire. She often asks me

"Can I put on a dress-up so I can be a beautiful girl and dance?"

When I went out to get the newspaper one morning (it was just before the 4th of July) I heard what sounded like a marching band. I told the kids and we prepared to go for a little walk to find the music. When they came upstairs, the band rounded the corner onto our street. It was fun having our own personal parade. (Later that day I noticed another family's kids parading around the block with their instruments. It was obviously a fun event for the kids!)

For the 4th of July

we had our annual family barbecue and water fight prior to watching fireworks.

As usual, we all went swimming first. Ella loves the pool. She especially loved standing on my HUGE belly.

(I can't believe I still had 2 months to go at that point!!)

This little pool was originally set up for the babies,

but was quickly taken over by the bigger girls. They had a blast!
Jane and Eva had a great time eating watermelon while swimming.

After swimming and eating dinner,

the kids got to decorate their own cookies (and some of their faces).



Next, we had the water fight.
It started with water balloons. Grandpa was a favorite target.



I had scolded Cory for being the only guy who wasn't participating in the water fight, and he called me out for not participating either. By the time I had at least partially changed, they had pretty much run out of water balloons. I then got involved by attempting to dump the cooler on someone (John?), then the hoses were let loose. We noticed Gustavo was still very dry, and the fight began. I think I got him pretty well after lots of chasing him around the yard, but I was completely soaked.




Eva had already changed out of her swimsuit, but she wanted to participate in the water fight too. Once, Gustavo and I finished with the hoses, Eva took her turn soaking Grandpa.

Moving on to July 22nd

For Anne's birthday I made the cake of her choice. . . twice!

The first cake never quite made it to the frosted stage. Jane kept asking for lunch and I kept delaying, so when I finally came upstairs, I found that she had helped herself to nearly half of the bottom layer of the cake!

This delayed our party plans just a bit as I had to make another cake. (Thankfully, we were able to only run about 30 minutes behind our original schedule.)

Then when we returned from swimming I hurriedly made the frosting (somewhat unsuccessfully at that) and left for dinner. When we returned from dinner and invited everyone for cake, I moved the cake to the bar, and unfortunately. . .

Jane found it again and helped herself!

Dad gave Jane a spank.

Mom gave her a talking to

("We don't eat birthday cake until after we've sung to the birthday girl!")

and she put herself to bed.

Of course, the next day when she got her piece of cake, she didn't even eat it!

On July 25th, My mom and sisters threw me a baby shower.
Mom made this Where the Wild Things Are cake. After all our baby will be named Max.

(Maybe he can tame our wild things! . . . Then again, maybe the Wild Rumpus will really start!)

Thanks Mom, Sisters and all the family that attended.

Max will not be forced to wear pink or ruffles and lace!

For the Birds

A few weeks ago, we finally got some hanging baskets for the front of our house. Since they are on either side of the kitchen window, I enjoy looking at them while I wash the dishes. Last year it seemed that a lot of humming birds visited our flowers, so I didn't think much of it when I first noticed a pair of house finches regularly coming to our geraniums. They male would sit on the wire, while the female would "explore" the inner parts of the plant.

In this picture, it's the female on the lookout.

The girls told me the female was building a nest, but until I saw her with nesting material in her beak, I didn't really believe. Of course this peaked my curiosity, so I took down the basket and sure enough, there was a lovely little nest. We wonder if their are eggs in the nest, but I don't want to disturb it if there are thus no picture of the nest). Here is a more close up picture.

Not only do we have birds living in our hanging baskets, but there is a family of woodpeckers living in my mom and dad's corkscrew willow tree. The girls were very excited at this discovery and suggested that we take pictures of it. We have heard lots of little chirping noises coming from the tree. Here is a picture of a woodpecker in the tree, and another of the woodpecker working on the power lines in the backyard.

And just for grins, here's an attempt at a video to capture the noise we keep hearing of the woodpecker at work.

Lehman Caves

We decided that a big family vacation wasn't in the cards for us this year.

We're hoping to do a few small family outings instead.

Our first outing was to

Lehman Caves

I had never been to a cave before, and this one didn't disappoint.

Jane was a bit nervous when we first entered the Passageway to the actual cave entrance.

As you can see from this picture, it was very dark. Jane screamed and cried a bit because it was scary. The Ranger made it very clear that if she wasn't going to be okay, he could radio for an escort out. Fortunately for us, once we entered the actual cave and they turned on the lights, Jane was fine. Sadly though, Chelsea didn't get to finish the hike because Maddie was a bit tired (and the Ranger must not have known that stopping for long periods of time to explain in cramped spaces isn't very conducive to an 18 month old's attention span.)

Here's what we saw when the lights were turned on.

I was amazed at all the "cave decorations." Supposedly the best ones are found on the longer hike, but small children are not permitted. I was still pleased by what we saw.

Anne, Abbey, and Olivia seemed very interested and asked the Ranger lots of questions. They also commented freely. Our favorite was when the Ranger was asked how the shields (the flatter areas that seem to drip from the cave's walls, pictured below) were formed. His answer was. "We really don't know." Abbey then responded with something like "Well, that's how Heavenly Father made them."

After we finished the hike, we had a picnic nearby. Unfortunately, the weather didn't want to cooperate, so we had our picnic in the rain. It did stop for a few minutes while we made our sandwiches, and it was still tasty and fun.

After we finished our picnic, we headed to Ely, NV to our hotel with a swimming pool. We had a great time. It was really fun. It was practically a family reunion because most of Cory's family (Mom, Dad, Kevin, Amy, Craig, Chelsea, Maddie, and Kristen) were all with us.

For the first while we had the pool all to ourselves, so our girls were loving it. They got to ride on the "Craig Express" (Thankfully the pool never got too deep so all of them hanging on couldn't really drown him.) Uncle Kevin was Olivia's personal whale, and he swam around the pool giving her rides. Jane just loved swimming with whoever would hold her and help her. The girls mostly loved getting tossed by their uncles, however, on a few occasions I did hear accusations of attempted drownings. Needless to say our girls are naturally melodramatic.

Since Cory and I were both swimming too, I didn't capture any pictures, however, Grandma did, and maybe I'll be able to get a hold of them and add them to the post a little later.

We had a great time.

Olivia's pre-school graduation

Olivia graduated from pre-school yesterday.

She was very excited and wanted me to let everyone know.

Here's a picture of Olivia with her teacher.

And here is Olivia with a few of her classmates.

Their theme was "Reach for the Stars"