toothless dragon eats apricots...

so the snaggle tooth finally came out!!  Liam hit her in the mouth while fighting with her -(they never hit btw, we have a perfect, peaceful home)  and it knocked her tooth out!  instead of getting mad at Liam for hitting, i said -GOOD JOB BUDDY you finally did it!! 

we went up to 'UTAH' for fathers day and so I could work 3 days in a row
at my brother-in-law's dental office
 (3 days killed me! i forgot what its like to work like that!)
  top: all the 'dads' with their new gloves
 bottom: and all the girly's with my sweet daddy
what a beautiful place to be in the summer...my parents yard-love it. and i love my dad.

{grandkids giving their homemade cards}

it worked out that Marty's sista' Raquel was in salt lake for a couple days
 while we were up there.
so we met up with her at the zoo...

beautiful, tall becca: short, stumpy me and raquel:)  ha!

the fan blowing mist....me and my nephew jeremy could not get enough.
although the heat was mild and nice compared to down south.

gorgeous baby-Jemma and momma ingrid.
love precious babies.
ingrid is the woman and does all her labors natural.
usually they are fast but this one lasted alot longer.
she was a brute and incredible. my hero.

the kids got to sleep out in my parents new camper with their cousins
talk about overdrive on their adrenaline.
they about exploded with excitement.

apricot leather: first step to pick the cots...
from our neighbors yard.
 our neighbors are so great to always share their produce secrets of gardening!

next step :  wash and pit the cots
pitting is easy just pull apart, no peeling necessary
then put 8 cups of cots (halved), a near 1/2 cup honey, 1/3 cup lemon juice, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/4 tsp allspice
any combo of spices that sounds good will work.  i didn't have allspice so used cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice.
blend in vita mix blender or in batches in your food chopper till smooth and liquified.
blot cookie sheet with a little water then lay saran wrap over to cover
pour 2 to 2.5 cups on pan and spread evenly, put out on table in hot weather
takes 24 hours to dry and wal-lah! 
roll-up fruit leather using the saran as you roll.
SO YUMMY, and healthy, and CHEAP!

my kids eat it like its candy.

camping, birthday, and that darn heat.

a couple weeks ago, liam had a little pre-school graduation
party-BBQ with all 4 of his little class mates...
such a proud little 4 year old...

we went true desert camping the other week.  lots of heat.
and small little rivers-to catch all sorts of crawdads...

pretty red rock though...

lots of dirt...

ricki made a bet to stick her hand in a bucket crawdads...she didn't do it-pansy.
but here's charlie chugging down tony's pepsi without his knowledge...
now THATS funny

yes they are dissecting -after boiling- the crawdads...then they ate them! 
even ruby tried one!!!  very surprising, and disgusting.

liam LOVED camping, everything about it...
no need for a fire, it was very warm at night of course and the moon was full so we had plenty of light. 
we had did have coals though to cook our dinner and smores on:)

have i mentioned plenty of dirt...?

ricki making pancakes in the morning...looking beautiful in flowers...
charlie wondering why its already 80 degrees before 8 o'clock.

we went hiking and saw lots of lizards, frogs, and yes, more crawdads...

there was relief from the heat in the little pool of water the brave ones jumped into...

charlie needed a little coaxing but then he was a happy camper...literally. 
we sure drank alot on this camping trip...everyone was dehydrated, constantly!  or acted like it anyway!

{charles henry}

marty turned 36 ....yesterday!

we went to a yard sale yesterday and here is what each one came home with...doesn't surprise me on liam or charlies finds...they are each so obssessed with animals and cars respectively...

ruby has a 'snaggle tooth'  i SO want to pull it out, but it kind of gives her character...

picking peaches in our backyard!  so fun.  they were perfect!

treasure hunt for marty's presents...we love hiding them and writing clues...its the best part.  ruby picked out superman  movie for his gift from her...the classic one. 
he always shows them little clips on the computer and she knew he'd love it.

one of his gifts was a skim board that we are going to start using at the river.  i had to buy one at a yard sale in the morning cuz they are completely SOLD OUT at every store in st. george except for the really expensive ones...weird.

his cake was this cherry chocolate trifle i found on pinterest....SOOOO good..
plus that is marty's favorite combination-cherries and chocolate. 
we had this dessert after we went to dinner and a movie with the chambers. 
{madagascar 3} cute, but a little over the top.

happy birthday. dear.  i love your 36 year old heart and face. 

1st grade blues...

Ruby graduated from 1st grade...so sad~  Life moves on, right.  time flies by.

her great teacher Mrs. Comeford. 



my mom was in town with my sister Michelle and her two girls...

eating at Durangos, so good.  better than cafe rio. and you gotta love eating outside and having the kids play in the water.  perfect.

we went on a hike for FHE.  the temple quarry hike- where many, many years ago pioneers built a road up a canyon to cut out rock to build the temple.  i wouldn't say it was the most gorgeous hike but pretty interesting.

{charlie misses his grandmas and all the attention he gets from them}

cousin time is the absolute best... for them! it gets quite loud when they are all running around screaming in my house...but its probably worth it. 
popsicles in the tub, nothing smarter :)

my mom rode ruby to her last day of school on the bike.  such a fun memory for her!  thanks momma, i know it'd been a couple years since your last bike ride so you may have been a bit nervous! :)
  we took ruby out for ice cream after the big, last, day.

thanks sista' Michelle for making the DRIVE down here, esp. when it was so HOT. 
come next time in February, you'll LOVE it.

my mom modeling the apron i made for her mothers day gift. 
LOVE YOU MOM. 
thanks for always wearing an apron so its easy to give you a gift! ha!  your the best.

this is our other family away from family.  our boys could sort of pass as twins in this picture and we didn't even plan it.  lucky us to have them around.