Jimmy * Esther * Zeke * Lilly

Last Sunday, Jimmy wanted to make french toast for lunch. He prepared everything, then suddenly I remembered we were out of bread. We did have hot dog buns though…

Jimmy said they were pretty good, but I passed on them this time.

Jimmy had the 24th and 25th off of work, so we had a 4 day weekend!

Thursday morning we went swimming, it was a little chilly at first. I love how in the above picture, Jimmy and Zeke have the same reaction to the water.

After Zeke’s nap we went up to Jimmy’s grandparents’ cabin in Oakley for a family reunion with our whole family on Jimmy’s side. (We missed Dan, but we’re happy he’s serving in Detroit.) We all piled into a little 2 bedroom, A-frame cabin. It reminded me of a line in the song “Grandma’s Feather Bed”-”…we didn’t get much sleep, but we had a lot of fun…”

Zeke’s first time walking a dog

Zeke sat down and folded his arms during our walk, it was really cute. We think it’s because we have a little baby book about Joseph Smith and how he knelt and prayed in the woods. Zeke has been wanting to read that book a lot lately.

Jimmy and me

All of the cousins from back left to front right- Taylor, Jacob, Cameron, Mallory, Rachael holding Matthew, Brandon holding Zeke, Carter, Kristin holding Dallin.

Dallin and Zeke swinging

The whole family, minus Elder Z.

Zeke’s silly face, snuggling Rambo

Zeke found a walking stick :)

Brothers with their boys.

Zeke started singing to Jimmy while he was falling asleep, it was so sweet.

Saturday evening we went to Uncle Brandon’s (Samantha’s younger brother) missionary call celebration BBQ. He’s going to Riverside, CA!  Zeke enjoyed the Cheetos, and pasta. The food was so yummy! Jimmy kept saying, “Wow, that was good!” On the way home, he told me 3 times to get the mango salsa recipe too.

Zeke wanted to share his car sucker with Sam

Zeke konked out within minutes after the BBQ, it was a great weekend!

Earlier this year, I was talking with Jimmy about wanting to print out our blog. I tried to find a service that would do it, with no luck. I was so excited when a few friends posted about blurd for blog books. I imported my blog, but was disappointed that you couldn’t change the layout to appear just the way it did on your blog. For example, the pictures would be on a separate page than the text, and I wanted my captions to be by the pictures still. Last month I was on another friend’s blog, and saw a link for lulu.com, I decided to use lulu to print my blog, and I am really pleased with the product. It was only around $50 for over 250 color pages with a hard bound cover.Before finding lulu, Jimmy had considered printing our blog at kinko’s, and surprising me for my birthday, but that would have been over 3 times as much, with no binding!

Jimmy wrote a script to import our blog so that it even has everyone’s comments too.

The cover is just from one of their templates. Next time, I will look into customizing the cover with pictures.

I think this is a great way to keep a family journal, and so affordable for printing a ton of pictures!

Yesterday was our 1-year anniversary of when we closed on our home. We got the keys at 7pm, and were so excited to move in that instead of waiting for the morning, we moved in at 11pm. We couldn’t wait to be here! I remember it felt like a mansion for a while, and it was so weird at first to be on different levels, (me downstairs doing something and Jimmy upstairs), it was so different than our apartment.

We have loved our first year! So much has happened, it’s been wonderful!

Then….

These are the first pictures of Zeke in our new house, I can hardly believe how much he’s grown!

Now….

Zeke put his banana in his hair during breakfast, he’s always trying to make us laugh, and he does a great job!

After we played outside yesterday, Zeke helped himself to some cereal. I liked his reaction as he stepped in them.

Our niece Makayla got baptized on the fourth in a little town called Kanosh, and we spent the rest of the day at my sister’s. Zeke was in heaven playing with all the animals!

Zeke loved the horses this time!

This was his favorite horse to ride.

He tried so hard, but never caught a chicken

The baby bunnies were so cute!

Zeke crawled into the bunny cage all by himself, and shut the door.

These Belgians are awesome! It was fun to go on a wagon ride with them.

I am a wimp, and right when I got on my horse, it seemed mad. Jimmy was taking a picture of me, and got this lovely shot.

Embarrassed after I realized how silly I must have looked when I was scared. Jimmy was laughing pretty good, so I knew it must have been bad.

“Scary!!” Zeke loved the big horses too, but he sure didn’t want to ride them.

Just the right size :-)