Our new pride and joy!

We had our ultrasound today! Terry was out of town so my mom and sister went with me as well as all the kids. They were good for the first 15 min. After that, not so much. :) Unfortunately for me, it determined that the baby is not as far along as I thought, but looks very healthy for it's size. That also meant that we were too early for full development of certain body parts, so the sex is still undtermined. It also means taht my due date will be pushed back but I don't have a new date yet. Here is a full body shot. Don't mistake the cord for a little pee pee :) The fun thing about this yawn was that we saw it happen, along with a good stretch! :)
This is a shot of the full leg. She measured it for us and the total length of the leg was 2 inches. When we got home, Cypress remembered that she told us this and got out a ruler and showed us all how tiny that really is. The total weight is 5 oz. - just a tad more than a cube of butter.

When you consider all that, it's pretty amazing how developed it is. We saw all major organs in function and heard the heart beat. This is one experience that never gets old!

Family visit

Great Grandma and Grandpa Hill come down to Tracy to visit, so we went there too. Aunt Jeni had purchased some wild colors of instant hair dye. It started out with her doing it to the kids but they were having so much fun that they had to all take a turn giving her some. Luckily for us all, it washes out in one to two washes.

Check out the blue, purple, red, pink, orange, and black. Even Papa Jim had some blue and purple in the little hair he has left.

Grandpa, Aunt Cathy (who got to be their driver) and I were glad to be the observers.

Cypress had a heart to heart with Great Grandma.

Goals are good!

For Achievement days, Cypress planned out a menu for a family dinner and then she had to cook it. She was amazing. The only help that I gave her were a few verbal tips. She did everything on her own and it tasted good!

She made chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, cut up apples and oranges, and made brownies with chocolate chips as the special ingredient! Way to go Cypress!

6 flags!

This year at Cypress and Tayla's school, if you read so many books that gave you a certain number of AR points, you earned a ticket to 6 Flags Discovery Kingdom. Tayla earned one ticket and Cypress earned 3! With each kid having a free ticket, we couldn't pass up the chance to go. Here they are ready to start their day!

Tayla is a huge fan of the swings! Kasen was very excited to get to go with dad.

Got to have the love cups!

We couldn't pass up the chance for a photo with Taz!

Cypress and Terry left us and went on some of the larger roller coasters. We found a playground to climb around in and a few rides for younger kids while we waited for them.

The fabulous Shouka the whale. The kids were very sad that we weren't in the wet zone but it was in the sun and pretty full up and I just couldn't handle that.

Later we checked out the amazing tiger show. This is not an albino, but a white tiger.

Checking out the Lions.

We went to the elephant show next. The show was good but being able to pet the elephant was way cooler!

Then came the demonstrations. Above you see Terry near the end of the tug o war line, the boys are there but too short to be seen. Below you see the girls closer to the front, starting to get drug by the elephant, she was of course way stronger than all of these people.

Last, they each got to feed the elephant a cookie by dropping it in the trunk. We were all pretty excited!

The boys and I are checking out the crocodiles in the water as Terry and the girls went on the Boomerang, roller coaster.

We had a great day of fun, learning, and excitement! Thanks girls for all your hard work reading, we couldn't have gone with out you.

Tahoe fun with the Laurels!

As a kind of super activity, the Young women's President, Tami, and I took 6 Laurels to Tahoe to go Parasailing. Unfortunately because I'm pregnant, they wouldn't let me do it :( I was so bummed. It looks so fun. Terry and I are already planning a trip to go do it in the future.

Hanging out in the boat, waiting for their turns.

The brave first girls - Mallory and Krista, just getting started.

Tami and Katie and Madaline were up next. THis was just after the driver touched their feet to the water.

Amelia and Brittin were last and the most scared. They all ended up 800 feet up in the air, soaring over the lake for 10 min. I can't wait to go back and have my turn!

4th of July!

Our friends the Leishmans invited us to go to their dad's houseboat for the holiday. We went out Sunday night after all church stuff and just as the sun was setting on the lake, it was beautiful.

The kids enjoying a little snack on the top deck.

This is how the kids were sleeping when we checked on them before we went to bed. They had their own little room. There are 5 kids here. The second night when they were way more tired, they stayed in their own spots a little better. :)

This is the room that Terry and I got to sleep in. It wasn't real big but nice to have our own space and a real bed!

Everyone was anxious to go down the slide into the water, but none more than Cypress. She was of course the first one to go down at only 9am, but the others quickly followed.

Tayla

Even the adults were able to enjoy it, once we got the water going on it.

We went for a boat ride to pick up more friends.

Then for a few more rides with the tube. Unfortunately this caused a lot of sunburnt bum cheeks! We reapplied sun block 3 times but that still wasn't enough for the hot, hot sun!

They also had a fun paddle boat that we took turns in taking the kids for rides around the houseboat. (me and Justin)

(Terry and Lisa)

The boat rides got kind of long for very tired kids. Tayla was a great pillow and babysitter. Later Gracie was sleeping on her too and Tyden was a sleep on me.

Justin is a little crazier than the rest of us. Cypress and Riley thought it was very cool though, because they got to move around some too with him on there.

Kasen's first and only attempt at the slide. Terry threw him up to keep him close to the surface because he was afraid of dragging him under with him because he had no life jacket on. Kasen didn't enjoy going under and wouldn't go down again.

Trina thought ahead. When it was just to hot to be outside anymore, she busted out a bingo game and lots of fun prizes. It was really great.

Mommas just hanging out.

All the kids waiting for the fireworks to start. We had a pretty great view from the houseboat.

Thanks so much for a fabulous time!! Everyone was safe and happily worn out!

Travis Trit

Our friends had tickets to see Travis Trit in Chico and then had a family emergency out of town, so we lucked out and got to go. Terry, being the big fan of country that he is, really had a great time :) He's very supportive of me :) We did have a good time though and he even knew a song or two.

This is exactly how far away from the stage we were, they were great seats!! The 12th row!

They let us walk right up to the front and take pictures, so I of course took advantage of that and got an up close picture of him. I was literally about 2 1/2 feet from him.

Cake time!

Mom and I took on another cake. I did all the baking and frosting but could never have done all the fondant with our her! And chocolate fondant at that - the colors were brown, orange and ivory. The kids couldn't lay off the fondant it tasted so good. Mom did some scroll work on layers 2 and 4.

The final touches are very hands on.

We did good, but the flowers and ribbon just finish it off! We were very happy with the way it turned out.