Sit down and Hang on!

I am feeling a bit overwhelmed but I'm tackling this head on. If you want to get caught up on the lives of the Laings tune in and every few days you'll see a little something new! In no particular order, here we go...

June 30th Peyton is a huge animal lover and we are fortunate enough to have the world's nicest cat, seriously. Thanks to my mom for buying us this sweet thing. She claws on all our furniture but really, she's amazing. Peyton drags her around all over the house, pulls her legs, lays on her, carries her around, you name it. Carmen had NEVER, EVER, bitten or scratched her or anyone else. She even comes to Peyton sometimes, she really likes attention.
Grandma Kay bought Jacob a rock polisher for his birthday several months ago and we finally got it running, only 5 days left in this first batch. There are 4 stages and during each one the tumbler runs for 7 days. It's quite an exercise in patience. From now on when we camp or go to the beach we will scout out pretty rocks. The picture below is after the 1st step (July 2nd).
Peyton has a growing Barbie house and amongst many rooms is of course a bathroom. One of my favorite YW, Wendy Freeman (and her family) has made multiple contributions. One of these said contributions is a toilet, a purple toilet. Micah, being the great brother he is will often play with Peyton and her Barbies. Let me assure you, he does play like a boy. He came and got me to show me what Gabrielle was doing to Taylor. Oh my....

July 2nd Yes, I'm a Twilight Saga fan. Not one of the crazies, but I did go a few nights after Eclipse opened with a few of my best friends and my sister. I really liked it, it was my favorite of the three movies so far and I am looking forward to the last 2.

This was also taken July 2nd. I guess I felt like I needed more pictures that day, I don't know. I'm including this because it's a cute pic of the boys and it shows all of their hair "before"

Jacob had quite a mop so he got a few extra shots, the were taken last night, July 17th. Jacob really is a beast when it comes to haircuts and it causes us to allow his hair to get pretty out of control. He claims that his haircuts are very painful, there are 2 places on his head that he always flinches, on each side, so, I am inclined to believe him. I just don't know what the problem is. I cut Tyler's hair as well as Micah's, Jacob's and Benjamin's and none of the other complain about it hurting a bit.



Here is Micah's Before, it's also his After. He is riddled with cowlicks, well 3. His hair looks great short but has to be cut frequently or it sticks up everywhere. He likes it long and it lays nicely when it's long so I have decided not to cut it until just before school starts.

Jacob and Ben's After. Now they look even more alike.

Still alive

This summer has been busy and fun. I was able to be Den Leader again for Scout Camp, Micah was in my group again. After Scout Camp I was also able to go to Girls Camp again, at Camp Keola. In between we have been swimming at Nana's house and going to the water park. We got passes this year which we haven't done since I was pregnant with Peyton, so the boys have been very happy. I will hopefully be posting all of our summer events soon. Our laptop is very old and is having some issues. The usb ports are pretty loose and will no longer recognize when my hard drive is plugged in which is where all of our photos are and all of my digital scrapbooking stuff is. I have lots of pictures building up on my camera and I really miss scrapbooking. Tyler said he will try to set up our wireless network again and I can do everything that way. The only drawback there is that it takes so much longer to do anything. Anyway, Tyler implemented a new program for our household, those of us at home during the day anyhow. We, myself and the boys included, are responsible for cleaning one room a day. It's been great. The boys are learning a lot, our house is getting back in shape and I'm not having to do everything! It's just one room a day and I have help, I can handle that! So far we have done the boys bathroom, their bedroom, the living room, and today the kitchen. I plan and hope to keep it up. I miss blogging, kind of ;) I must not lie, it's nice to have a break, but I do want everything recorded! I hope you are all having a great summer.

Brace Face, Metal Mouth

Before, well, kind of before. At this point he has had an expander on the bottom and one on the top. The expander on the bottom did a nice job of making lots more space up top, spreading his top two front teeth apart.
During, we got a kick out of this thing, I should have gotten a better picture, one of him sitting up, it looked too funny.

Here come the brackets.

After. There will be more pictures as his teeth straighten up.

Perfect Attendance and Personal Responsibility

By some strange fluke neither Micah nor Jacob got sick this year, so we went with it and didn't let them miss a day to go to Father's and Son's early. They were both awarded with perfect attendance and received a cool medal. Jacob also recieved the Personal Responsibility award. I had never heard of it, but it's apparently quite an honor. Tyler and I are both so proud of our boys and how well they have done in school. I know I nag them a lot and sometimes feel very frusterated with them, but when I really think about it, these kids are good and smart and responsible. Thank you boys, keep up the good work! I love you.

This is Jake with his Personal Resposibility award

Perfect Attendance. I'm really very proud of both the kids and myself for this one. It was a combined effort, and honestly, something I never even got close to.

We had more than half an hour between lower and upper grade awards so the little ones (mine, Margaret McCauley's and Alicia McFarland's) had fun running around the cafeteria and enjoying bags of snack mix kindly donated by the cafeteria lady. I have to say, when Peyt wears her hair in piggy buns, I love her even more.

Micah with his Perfect Attendance, the kid to the right is his buddy Colton.

The Family Camping trip that wasn't

Every year the boys look forward to Fathers and Sons and I look forward to girls night with my daughter, mom and sister. This year however, the ball got dropped and Fathers and Sons, which is usually Mother's Day weekend, or very close to it, fell into the same weekend as our Family Camping trip that had been planned and on our calendar for many months. So, the boys went to Fathers and Sons and Peyton and I went to Soda Springs with my family.

Diego sat on Peyton's lap almost the entire way, she loved it.

She is the cutest little camper ever.

Well, Dustin is pretty darn cute too! He loved the fire, his mommy did her best to set up barriers, which he climbed.

Morgan found a very pretty adult king snake with the same coloring as her baby at home. It bit her and musked her but she stunk herself back to camp so we could get some pictures of it.

Peyton slept well, I watched her many times during the night. I was cold, the ground was hard, and I didn't leave enough room too stretch my legs out. What happened to the days when I could sleep anywhere, anytime and in any position?

While Larry, Lindsay and Morgan were fishing, My Mom, Dustin, Peyton and I hung out at camp and my Mom and I had a good conversation about "the old days" and my dad. It wasn't girls weekend by any means but it was good.

Morgan, me and the kids had some fun playtime and nap time in the tent. What was so not comfortable the night before was feeling surprisingly good!

Peyton, my little nature girl, found a really cool frog on the window of our tent.

Diego had some nap time too.

All the specks you see in this picture are ladybugs, billions of them. They were everywhere, EVERYWHERE. It was awesome.

Whats camping without getting dirty?

Food

I had a lot of food pictures building up so I thought I'd combine them in a post. Tyler laughs at me everytime he sees me taking a picture of something I've cooked or baked but oh well. I have only made one pie in my life, a few months ago, and then the other night I made the one below. I had always heard pie crust was hard to make but I just followed the recipe and it turned out perfect. This one is an "invention". I made a dinner pie with roast beef, cheese, green beans, cream of chicken soup and diced tomatoes. Micah hated it.
A few months ago Tyler decided that we needed to have a dessert or treat every Monday night for Family Home Evening. So I decided I would use that request as an excuse to go through and bake different things from my cookbook every week. I love baking and I love making new things. The cookies below are Peanut Butter cookies, I have made them before, but I had to make something we had the ingredients for! I also hope to someday make a recipe book and include pictures, at least for many of them. I want to digitally scrapbook my recipes and print them into a photo book, wouldn't that be cute?

I made this cake for Ben's 5h birthday, nothing amazing by any means, but it's our family's favorite chocolate bundt cake, this time I put frosting on it, usually we just have powdered sugar on it. Micah was worried it wouldn't be as good with the frosting, but I did light frosting and everyone liked it. You can't really see, but Ben picked out a spider and a snake as we were headed out the door, he wanted his cake to be decorated, so cute he is.

This was Ben's birthday dinner. I didn't plan anything out ahead of time, I'm always so unprepared. Ben's favorite food is fish, and of course that's what he'd request when I asked him an hour or so before dinner what he would like me to make for dinner. We had no fish, but we always have tuna, so I improvised and made tuna patties and fried them in Olive Oil. They were quite tasty and Ben was happy.

Lemon bars! Another FHE treat. Tyler's mom used to make these for him often when he was a kid and he loves them. I made them once before (Ty insisted) but it was from a Krusteez box so I don't think it counts at all. These are my first from scratch using lemons from our wonderful neighbors tree that hangs over the fence into our yard.

Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies. Benji and Peyt both helped me, again, I used what we had on hand. I do plan on picking some new things out and getting what we need to make them.

Below, Snicker Doodles, mine and Papa Louie's favorite cookie. Made it dozens of times but we had all the ingredients.

Oh my word, just a little bit fat, ok.

So, Ben is turning 5 tomorrow, June 3rd. I can't believe it. He is starting Kindergarten this fall! He is my sweetheart, my nearly constant companion. This boy does not do "self-entertaining" He loves games still, all kinds of games. Today it was chess, I hate chess, but I love Benjamin. He is always talking and always saying funny stuff.
I have been really trying to lose weight and I've been doing Jillian Michaels 6 days a week (workout video). I switched to doing it at night to help me lose weight. Well tonight I actually did it in my sports bra and shorts because it was so stinking hot. After I finish Ben looks at me and says, "Why do you look a little bit fat?" I guess he saw my look of death, or maybe he heard the gasps escaping from the mouths of his brothers, but he emphasized, "a little bit fat." Oh boy, I was thinking, "Hmm, I don't know why I only look a little bit fat because I'm much more than a little bit fat." Or, "Maybe I look a little bit fat because I carried 4 babies that were big and stretched my skin way out and you were the biggest of my babies weighing in at 10 pounds Ben!" No, really, Ben is a sweetheart and never means to hurt feelings, he's just an honest kid. He speaks the truth. I am a little bit fat, and it is just a little bit, it's ok. I have 4 beautiful children to show for my fat and stretch marks. They're worth every bit of it!
On another note, Last week when Ty was in LA for work he stayed at a nice hotel and brought home some Bath and Body Works Orange and Ginger bath stuff. I thought there were 2 conditioners and one shampoo so I put them all in the shower. Tonight when I was in there and I picked up one to make sure it was the shampoo, and it was the lotion...LOTION?! Yep, that's what it said, and it was half full. I lotioned my hair last night. I thought it felt a little different than most conditioner.

Happy 5th Birthday my sweet Benji!