Brave Little Boy

Our day started out bright and early this morning with an adventure. Brayden and Hailey run in excited to tell me that there is a mouse in our window well. Actually it was a vole, a little critter anyway. So Brayden is determined to catch it and has already climbed down in the window well completely unafraid of the little rodant running up his leg. He got a bright idea to catch it in his bug collecting kit and crawled down there again. It took a while of chasing it back and forth across the window well, but eventually usured it in.

He so did not get his critter bravery from his father. Let me just recall a few memories of Sterling (he is not going to love this, but it needs to be shared). When we had a little mouse in our place in Idaho he armed himself with a broom and practically threw Hailey at it when it ran at him. We had three different occasions to freak out over mice in our apartment in Bluffdale and each includes mom coming to the rescue because Sterling stood on the couch far from the action. I know I am just being mean now, but his fear of the things is just a little funny. Critters are scary because they just run so fast, but Sterlings fear also includes spiders and moths, and well, really any sort of insect. The other day I found him hiding behind the door with a shoe over his head. He kept opening the door and trying to go for the spider but he swore it kept turning and getting up on it's hind legs ready to jump on him so he kept running back in the house. I was dying laughing. It was one of those big 'ol black jumping ones if that makes it any better. I took the shoe from him and squashed it for him and reminded him that he was bigger then the spider. He said I got lucky. I love Sterling and his enormous fear of critters and bugs.

Parade Time!

We recently had our Pony Express Day's Parade. Hailey was able to be in it for her little dance studio she goes to. She was very excited to ride in the parade and throw candy. Brayden was very excited to watch the parade and eat candy.



Lindsey liked all the horses but was so not excited about all the sirens from the fire trucks. We were not surrounded by a lot of kids so Brayden really capitalized on the candy. They almost always threw out a handful every time to just Brayden. He was busy between each entry gathering his goods. He had quite a pile going on. He handed me a couple and said these are for Hailey. At least he was thinking about his sister to some degree.



I am not sure when bag pipers became the big thing, but there were several groups from surrounding schools. I really began to wonder how they recruit entries for our little parade. For being just a small little town I expect a 45 min parade with several ward floats consisting of hundreds of primary children, but we saw no ward entries but about anything and everything else. The Schwann man and his truck honked as he drove by, the phone company waved and said prices may be going up, we had every royalty from surrounding high school some from too far away to really want to be in our parade. Hailey was entry number 15 so was near the front. We watched the parade for over an hour and thought the end must be coming up soon. They had passed out a paper earlier that I began to look at after the fifth bag pipe group went by and found a list of all the entries. I was surprised to find that it was double columned, single spaced, and double sided. There was like 180 entries and we were only on 45. What in the world! We decided to take off because Hailey would be sitting down at the end for a couple of hours at this rate. So unfortunately I can not share with you what the other 140 entries consisted of and can hardly even imagine what they must have been, but every business with in 100 miles of Eagle Mountain must have been in it. Good times in Eagle Mountain.

Happy Father's Day!

A little background on Father's Day I thought was interesting.

Mrs. John B. Dodd, of Washington, first proposed the idea of a "father's day" in 1909. Mrs. Dodd wanted a special day to honor her father, William Smart. William Smart, a Civil War veteran, was widowed when his wife (Mrs. Dodd's mother) died in childbirth with their sixth child. Mr. Smart was left to raise the newborn and his other five children by himself on a rural farm in eastern Washington state. It was after Mrs. Dodd became an adult that she realized the strength and selflessness her father had shown in raising his children as a single parent.

The first Father's Day was observed on June 19, 1910 in Spokane Washington.

At about the same time in various towns and cities across American other people were beginning to celebrate a "father's day.".

In 1924 President Calvin Coolidge supported the idea of a national Father's Day. Finally in 1966 President Lyndon Johnson signed a presidential proclamation declaring the 3rd Sunday of June as Father's Day.

Father's Day has become a day to not only honor your father, but all men who act as a father figure. Stepfathers, uncles, grandfathers, and adult male friends are all honored on Father's Day.

We are so grateful for this wonderful father that we have. Thank you Sterling for all you do for our family. You are always so aware of our needs and are always doing everything in your power to make sure we are happy. You work hard to support our family and never complain. Thank you for being a great example to us too, you are always thinking of others and doing your best to serve your Father in Heaven. We love you!

My cute Hailey

It was Hailey's last day of school. I can't believe she will be a second grader already. When does it slow down? She was just dang cute so we had to get out the camera and snap a few pictures. Love your guts Hailey!







I even got her to show her cute little toothless, well not really toothless anymore, but new big teeth grin!

Lessons from Brayden

If you remember from a previous post Brayden asked Sterling if he needed lessons on chewing with his mouth closed, well the other day we were eating and Brayden asked Sterling if he wanted him to just tape his mouth closed. Apparently Sterling has a chewing problem that I never noticed or Brayden is a bit obsessed with any noise while eating.

A day at the park

Brayden's last field trip was at Discovery Park in Pleasant Grove. We had a super time, maybe too good of a time Brayden asks everyday if we can go back. We plan on going there often this summer, it was pretty close, and it was free. The kids had so much fun climbing all over everything. Hailey was in school so missed out on the trip, so Brayden is extra anxious to get back there and show it all to Hailey.

Brayden ready for kindergarten

Brayden graduated from preschool and is all ready for Kindergarten. Their graduation ceremony was really cute. They did lots of cute songs and shared the things they have learned over the year. Brayden is now an expert on the days of the week, the months of the year, what each letter says, going on a bear hunt, and learning that teasing Mr. Alligator is not a good idea. I had some great video but it didn't upload from our camera, sorry. We are so proud of him, he is a very animated funny boy. We love him. Congratulations Brayden!