Three Years

Years Old

    Late in the evening of Aug 31 2006, she said it was time to go.   A few hours later on September 1st 2006 he screamed, "Here I am!"

With a tiny body, good lungs and a shock of blonde hair he entered our family and changed our world.

Granted he weighed as much as his two newest cousins combined, but look how tiny he was.

A smiling baby he was.  Always ready with a grin.

His Aunts just doted on him.  (Okay everybody did)

He was the most darling little lamb, for our Ward Christmas activity.  Until we got there and they asked us if he could be the Baby Jesus in the Manger.  He was darn cute at that, getting gasps from the audience when he reached up out of the manger.  Most the crowd hadn't thought they'd use a real baby.

For the other aspects of Christmas he also portrayed St. Nick, though he was the one sitting on laps rather than the other way around.

From day one he had that top-not of hair, long enough for a hair clip at age 3 months.  And no, Daddy didn't let it stay there for long.

Always a cute expression for the Camera.

Usually it's some sort of Grin.

Looking sharp in his first Easter suit and tie.

Mugging for the Camera yet again.  Note the Cereal box behind him.  I think he's trying out to be the Gerber Baby.

He loves the water.

Did I mention he mugs for the camera.

He'll pause in his reading to mug for the camera.

Look Mr. Camera, I had BLUEBERRIES!!!.

Daddies little geekling

Pondering what type of grin to flash at the camera.  Oops too late.

Pondering all the joys of being wet!

Mommy said leave the wrapper on the sucker so he won't get sticky and goopy.  Daddy said, sure and he can have this cookie as well.  Doh!

p.s. He never did realize there was something better tasting underneath that wrapper.

First Camping Trip to Bear Lake.

Bear Lake tastes Nummy!!!!

Celebrating Birthday number 1 a few days Early, and making an announcement with his t-shirt.

Approaching the traditional Birthday Cake, 1st edition.

Hey this cake is pretty good!

It was so good I spread it around on the blanket as well as all over my face, hands, hair, and clothes.

I'm this excited to go to Yellowstone on my second camping trip ever.

Happy family in Yellowstone.

The closest we've ever got him to dressing up for halloween, the tears started approximately 30 seconds after this picture was taken.

MAJOR EVENT!

My First steps.  It was at Uncle Sam and Aunt Lisa's wedding reception.

Yet another cute smile.

His first steps in the snow.

The full extent of his attempts to feel and possibly crawl in the snow.  The hands hit the white stuff.  And that was all she wrote.  

MAJOR EVENT!

Meeting Baby Brother on 4 April 2008.

I was going to do his entire life in one post all tonight.  But I just realized most of the pictures for his second year of life are on Da's computer.  I'll get on her computer in the morning, and finish this salute to the Birthday Boy.  I'll let this one stand for a bit longer, and sometime this evening part two will post.

Happy Birthday Ben

Simon's golf ball

Once he gets teeth, he won't have enough room in his mouth to do this:

Ben goes croozin'

Ben has a trike. Ben has a sandbox. Ben has cute two-year-old toys. Then the neighbor boys show up with this little number:


That was the four-year-old telling the three-year-old to hang on.




And it had a radio! A real radio so they could listen to blaring music as they cruise around, and even go off-roading in the rocks. I thought I had another 14 years before I had to deal with stuff like this.

Greenpark Ward 24th of July Celebration

Early this morning (the 25th of July) the members of the Lehi Greenpark Ward gathered for a 24th of July Parade and celebration.

The Parade

They asked the service members inthe ward to wear their uniforms, and everyone else to decorate their bikes or wagons or what-ever to walk in the parade through the subdivision.

Simon and Ben and Daddy getting ready for the Parade.  Every 16 month old should have a grenade to play with while riding in a parade.  :o)

Everybody Lining up:  They had the three soldiers, one retired Vet, and one rather jet lagged from the trip home Missionary go first.  Followed by the Scouts with the flag, then everybody else, and finally the Bishop with his rather skittish horse and wagon.  One soldier, his newly returned Missonary son (came home the day before) and the Vet all rode in a Jeep.  The other soldier and I walked behind, I kind of needed to walk so I could pull Simon in the wagon, and Melinda could walk with Ben.  We decorated Simon's wagon with service flags and yellow ribbons in honor of the fourth soldier in our ward.   He was just recently mobilized for Afghanistan.  We also have an Airforce Reservist who had drill today, and he wasn't forgotten either.

The Parade is off:  Melinda and Ben were soon at the back of the parade.  This in spite of Ben being so excited that he ran almost the entire distance, up the block and down the other side to the park.  Not far for an adult, but quite a run for such a little guy.

The Bishop was taking periodic detours to keep his horse under control.  Here he is turning down into our cul-de-sac as the parade passed by it.  Click on the picture and look at how good our wild-flower flower garden is doing.

At The Park

The 11 year old Scouts had lashed this together a day or two before, and the Scouts raised the flag just before the parade.

At the park:  We had a short patriotic and spiritual program in honor of the 24th (and a bit of the fourth as well).  Everybody posed with a very large flag while a photographer in the ward took our picture.  Hopefully he'll make it available digitally so we can post it.  Then we had a pancake breakfast and then there were several pioneer era games to be played.  In this picture brother Jensen, the 2nd counselor in our Bishopric, is winning his potato-sack race.

The kids really enjoyed the Stick-pulling, and the Tug-o-war.

Well most of them that is.

Meanwhile what were our two boys doing?  Totally ignoring the games and playing on the playground equipment.  Here Simon is crawling back and forth on the bridge, going between mommy's legs.

And Ben was having a yelling contest with a couple kids on top of the tunnel tube.  It was just yelling, not crying or fussing, they were having fun with the echo'y sound.

Cute Boy

Bang!

Then the Bishop brought out his Black Powder rifle and entertained the kids.  I wished I'd thought to bring mine, he was getting heavily swarmed at times, and could have used another gun to reduce the crowd.  Although in this picture the kids weren't mobbing him anymore.

Bishop Raff let the kids help him load the rifle for each shot.  (Powder and wadding only no bullets.)

Then each time he'd let another one of the kids acutally pull the trigger, they thought it was soooo cool.

And what was Simon doing during the shooting?  Mostly ignoring it to toodle around in the sand.  He'd jump a little and look over at each bang but otherwise was not bothered at all.  Too busy having fun.

Fourth of July

We spent the Fourth of July at the Kaysville city parade/water fight. The parade is kind of dull, but the water fight is awesome and worth the trip.

Susan made ribbons for everyone to wear, in honor of Jill, who loved big hair bows. Kecia has her bow in her hair. Simon is wearing his bow as a bow tie.




Ben and Emma had great seats to see the parade.



Simon was ecstatic to find a barrel of water, and didn't even glance at the parade after this discovery.




We didn't get any pictures of the actual water fight on our camera, as we were busy having the water fight!

Then we went back to Grandpa's house for a barbecue. Grandpa set up a wading pool, and then Glenn pulled out Emma's baby wading pool.




Simon was asleep about two minutes after we got in the car. G'nite baby!

Creative stuff

I had a burst of creative energy, and found a pattern for a small mural at the store. So now the guest bathroom has a couple bears playing basketball in it. I traced the pattern onto the wall, and then painted it. It was really easy, and I love how it turned out! The official website for this company has a lot of murals. You should check it out: Elephants on the Wall.



Painting the bears was so fun, I googled more about how to paint murals. One webpage suggested using a picture from online, and tracing it onto the wall. So I went looking. This is the clipart image I found online. It was easy enough that I could paint it. I can't freehand anything, or do shading or anything complicated. Pretty much, I was looking for an image that looked like a paint-by-number.




Here's the blank wall behind Ben.



Dirk used his projector to blow up the image and put it on the wall. Makae and I traced it, and then started painting. It was like a coloring book page.



This is when it's almost finished.



And here's the final product!

Aunt Jill

Yesterday July 1st, the world got a little darker. Not because of some evil done, but because a great light passed from our family. 

Thanks to My sister-in-law for this picture from her blog post

My Aunt Jill, born with Down Syndrome spent her wonderful life giving love to all she met. You didn't say high to her without recieving a big bear hug as part of the deal. Her entire life past birth was an act of proving the Doctors wrong, for 55 wonderful years she proved those doctors wrong.  And we, and all who met her, were greatly blessed because of it.  

She loved Barbie dolls, puzzles, word-searches, big hair bows and rootbeer. She hated all frogs with an undying passion, except of course Kermit.  And she despised my fathers favorite nickname for her "Jack".  But she was always ready with a big hug from her small body and a smile a mile wide. 

This is the only picture I seem to have of Jill, sitting between her mother and her sister (My mom, with her grandchildren on her lap).  

I last saw her just before easter, amazingly she was actually remembering a few of us.  Which Alzheimers had made a  rare occasion.  I seriously regret that we hadn't found the time to make the drive up to visit her in the rest home we'd had to put her into so she could get the care she needed.  How often we regret, after the fact, not making time for the really important things. But then again I think, no I know I was trying to avoid seeing her in that condition, so it really wasn't time that was the issue. 

When we got the call that she was most likely not going to last we made plans to get up to Layton as soon as I could get off work.  But shortly after that, the call came that she was gone.  She died peacefully in the arms of Kristanne my sister-in-law, my brother Shawn and my Grandfather were there as well.

She is gone, and we are saddened, yet we rejoice, absolutely we rejoice for her, she is reunited with her mother and her oldest sister, and she is glorious and perfect.  Her handicaps are gone, but her love never really will be.

We'll miss you Jill Nielson.

I'll miss you Aunt Jill!

Dirk