Family Pictures

Here are some of the family pictures that my sisters took for us on Sat. Each family wore a different shade of blue and I think the blue looks really good in the outdoor settings. I think they did a great job and all the little kids did great too. It makes picture taking a lot harder when you have so many little kids, it's amazing all eyes are open and looking at the camera.

Daddy and his girls...

We had to get a pic of how Justin carries the girls up to bed at night. I wonder how big they will have to get before he can't do it anymore (or how old he will have to be.)
The girls were wiped out by the time we got to this last pose. Charlee was given a sucker to keep her from crying, but Justee had had it. I just thought it would be fun to include these pics anyway. The girls did really good considering we had been taking pics and watching other individual families take pics for 2 hours.

Farewell to Elder Hyde

This weekend we went to Lovell for Mark's Mission Farewell. He is going to be a great missionary and we are sad and excited to see him go. He actually goes into the MTC on Wed., but we saw him for the last time for 2 years this morning before we left town. He was packing all of his stuff up with help from the professional packer Vicki herself. (You should have seen how much stuff she fit into her van!) Mark spoke in church and did a great job. Gerry, Jake, Justin, Rob, and Mark sang a song and it sounded really good as well.

On Sat. we took advantage of having everyone together and took family pictures. It will be the last time we are all together for a while, with Justin leaving for a year and Mark gone for two. It is so hard with such a big group, but I think there were some good ones. Here is Mark with all of his nieces and nephews.After the pics we went to the park and had a picnic in Mark's honor. We threw around Rob's favorite thing ever...the aerobie. It is like a frisbee, but 100 times better. We always have a lot of fun with it. We started a competition (there always has to be a competition of some kind with our family) to see who dropped it the most. Dad, Vicki, and I were on one side and Rob, Justin, and Jake were on the other (Mark had to leave to go play in the volleyball tourney.) Jake took off after one aerobie and failed to spot the tree in his path...he hit the tree going full speed and got whipped back...boy was it funny (only after we saw that he was ok of course.) We all had a good laugh, even Jake, and Jake got some scrapes and bruises from his encounter. Poor guy, but even he wishes that we would have gotten it on camera.

Go, go Gadget arm!Justee really enjoyed some watermelon and chocolate cake.

One of the highlights of going to Grandma and Grandpa Hyde's for the girls, is getting to drive down their road. Here are some pics of Charlee showing off her driving skills:

My parents are getting new carpet in the upstairs of their house while they are gone taking Mark to the MTC. While we waited for my parents, Uncle Kendall and Aunt Beverly to get back from a drive, we decided to decorate the old carpet. The kids traced their feet and hands and we even traced Charlee and Azurdey's bodies. The kids had a lot of fun and the carpet looks better than ever. ;) (Now we all hope they don't try this on any other carpet.)We stayed in at Justin's parents house on Sat. and Sun. night, so the girls got to spend a little time with their cousin Sienna. I took some pics because I don't think I have any of the girls with her.

Blueberry Pie for Breakfast

I came downstairs after a shower this morning to find this on my floor...

This is the main spot, but there were many spots throughout my carpet with blueberry pie smashed into it. I asked Syndee what happened and she told me that Justee stole her pie. "Why did you have a pie?," I asked. "Daddy told me I could have one." Syd replied.

So I text Justin and ask why he let Sydnee have pie for breakfast. His response, "It wasn't breakfast, she already had a bowl of cereal. It was dessert." Hmmm, dessert at 9am?

First I take on the task of cleaning up the culprit. Does this sweet, innocent face (which happens to be covered from head to toe in blueberry) look like she could have made such a mess?

All that mess making must have tired Justee, and Cash, out. I'm just happy that I got every last speck of blueberry out of my carpet.

Happy Birthday Big Daddy and Thoughts on Justee

Today is my Dad's birthday as well as Ashlee and Gerry's anniversary. (Is it 14 or 15 years Ash?) I hope you all have a great day! Vicki has some great pics of my Dad as a kid and of Ash and Ger at their reception. They really are worth a look, just click here.



I wanted to write some things down about Justee because she is changing so fast. She is learning more words everyday. She loves to copy her sisters and does a pretty good job of mimicking them. Words Justee says on a regular basis: kitty, cat, doggy, Doedoe (Dozer), Ninny (Sydnee), mama, daddy, shoes, what (if you say Justee, she says "What?"), good girl, hi, bye, mine, cheese (for pics and for the food), baba (sippy cup), baby, ishy (fish), go, cookie, cracker, ouwie (she cries ouwie ouwie), uh-oh, no, popsicle (it doesn't sound like it's spelled but I can't spell what she says, it's like ockisle) and makes the kissing sound mmmuh. Justee loves to sing and sings along with a lot of the Dora songs that we hear over and over. Her favorite is Co-key (I know that's not how you spell it, but I don't know the right way.) The one about the frog. She gets so happy and just sings out Co-key, Co-key. She will repeat almost anything if she is in the mood, but these are words that she knows and uses over and over. I'm sure I'm forgetting some.

Justee has been on a "throw away" kick. She loves to put things in the garbage, but usually it is something that shouldn't be thrown away. If I can't find something that I know was just sitting there...I check the garbage.
If she is hungry, she will go get into the pantry and bring me something to open for her or fix her.
When I am doing the girls hair, she runs over and sits in front of me. Too bad she doesn't want to stay long.
In the car there is one sure way to get her to stop crying...I reach back and hold her foot. Sydnee liked to hold my hair or hold my hand. Charlee liked her foot held too. I just remembered about Char when Justee started liking it, one day just a couple months ago Justee was screaming and wouldn't stop. I reached back and grabbed her foot and instantly she was quiet. The only bad thing about this is that it is hard to reach back for very long (especially if I am driving.)
Justee loves all animals. She gets very excited when she spots a cat, dog or squirrel. I'm glad that we have such patient pets because Justee works them over.
Dozer has been inside for the past couple of days because there is a big hole in our fence. The fireworks freaked him out and he bulldozed right through the wood. (Justin fixed it last night, so now he can't get out.) Justee just likes to sit by him or on him. Justee was taking a bath and the cat was trying to see what was going on. Justee reached out and grabbed him to give him a better view. I thought for sure Justee was going to get scratched up...I've never seen a cat pulled into water and not frantically try to get out. Cash just sat there, never extracted a claw. He was eager to get out when I pried him away from Justee, but he never scratched her.
At bedtime, Justee and Cash were sitting on my lap and Justee was just holding his paw. I thought it was so cute.
Then Justee decided that his paw wasn't enough and pulled him a little closer...because they were on my lap, the pictures are from a strange view.

After I got up, the two of them continued to cuddle: I don't like to see animals tortured by little kids, so as soon as I can tell Cash has had enough, I make Justee leave him alone. Most of the attention Justee gives him, he really enjoys.

Putnam Family Reunion

We headed down to Logan on the 3rd to meet Ash and Ger and go to a Poison concert. Poor Gerry got food poisoning from dinner and wasn't feeling well at all at the concert, but he still tried his hardest to have a good time...He handled it like a champ. Poison put on a good show and we had a blast. On the 4th we headed up to Star Valley for my mom's family reunion. After the birthday celebrations we had dinner and waited for the sun to go down so we could get the fireworks started. After the fireworks there was karaoke at the park, but we just bathed our girls and went to bed. Saturday was full of festivities. The kids had water slides to play on and they went on a treasure hunt. Later they got to decorate cookies and make slime. Meanwhile, Justin, Mark and I were getting in as many games of horse shoes as we could. Gerry and Ash and Vicki joined in the fun and played too. After lunch we had a game of family fear factor. Everyone was divided into teams; ours was Justin and I and the girls, my mom and Mark, Natasha, Debra and her two granddaughters. There were fun events like bobbing for onions, picking up marbles with your toes out of a tub of ice water, opening what looked like a poopie diaper (chocolate pudding) and getting a piece of gum out of it and blowing a bubble, answering questions about your parents/grandparents, digging in a bucket of worms to find a key and then unlocking a chain around my grandparents, and then a relay race where you had to go down a slip-n-slide full of oatmeal and find the flags to spell out Putnam. It was fun and I think the kids had a great time doing the different events. There was a bunch of items to be raffled and beautiful quilt (it had things from all of my mom's siblings on it) that my aunt Keri made that was being silent auctioned off. I bought $20 of raffle tickets and my girls won a bunch of stuff. They were very happy every time their names were called. Justin made sure my mom won the silent auction. That night we watched The Little Rascals on a projector outside at the park. Sydnee and Charlee fell asleep so we went to bed halfway through the movie. It was a fun reunion and Keri and John put a lot of work into it and we appreciate all that they did.











Justee is enjoying some bubbles while Charlee looks at all her loot she collected on the treasure hunt. The kids are all running to the next spot.

I love this picture because Sydnee is gagging on the bite of onion she just took and you can see in Natasha's face that she is feeling Sydnee's pain.

Natasha got one!
Here come the great pictures Mark took of our relay race.

Justin and Mark hanging out at the horse shoe pits.
Eww, slime.

Sydnee is 6!

We had a very busy weekend with a Poison concert, Sydnee and Azurdey's birthday, the 4th, and a family reunion. I'm just gonna focus on the birthdays for this post.

Both Sydnee and Azurdey have their birthday on July 4th. They had a little party together in Star Valley at my aunt Debra's house (my mom's sister.) We had cake and opened presents and the kids got to put on fun glow-in-the-dark tattoos. Sydnee has been so excited to get to have her birthday with Grandma and Grandpa Putnam. Sydnee got a scooter and a helmet, a keyboard, a princess barbie and her horse, a bubblegum machine, a piggy and a charm for her bracelet, a Love Dollar of course, and a swimming mermaid.

Gerry's brother's family came, and my aunt Debra and uncle Ron (not in pic), Vicki and her kids, Burtons, Mark, my mom, and my grandparents:

It is tradition to do a fun cut-out cake for birthdays. Half of the fun is picking out what cake to do. Sydnee was looking at different ideas of cakes with me and she decided that she wanted a cake that looked like a present. It was a different style than I have done before especially because it was done with fondant. Since we were going out of town, I didn't have a lot of time to do too complicated of a cake, and I had to do it on her birthday. (note to self: Never do a cake on the day of a birthday...way too stressful!) The big fluffy bow I wanted didn't work, so we improvised. It definitely shows that I am a first-timer and it pales in comparison to my sister's cake (she is amazing,) but I definitely learned some things and I think I will be ready the next time.

Blowing out the candles:The Birthday Girl with Great Grandma and Grandpa Putnam: Charlee enjoying some cake:

Of course that night we set off some fireworks. There were some really good ones since lots of family brought some for the family reunion. Justee loved them and she oohed and ahhed and clapped. Here is Sydnee with a sparkler: