Pioneer Day...Hurray!

As long as I can remember my family has spent the morning of July 24th at the Ogden Pioneer Day Parade and Kody and I have continued that tradition with our girls. Grandpa Mark goes down the night before to save about a third city block for family and friends to have the perfect(shaded) view of the parade.
We woke the girls up early and headed up to Ogden.
The girls loved sitting with their cousins and watching the horses, beauty queens, and floats pass by while consuming doughnuts, Popsicles, and candy!



Kylie’s favorite thing was when Uncle Jeremy dressed as the fireman clown “Bunkers” drove by and threw Frisbees to all the kids. He also threw out bracelets which she didn’t get but luckily our favorite clown brought one to us after.It's nice to have connections!


Tessa loved watching the horses poop while consuming chocolate licorice. She kept pointing at the horses and saying “horses bum.”

After we went to the Hansen Reunion at the Golden Spike Park in Riverdale. It was fun to let the kids go play and catch up with family.

P.S. I did not include any pictures of the floats because after years of attendance I and my parents have hundred of pictures of floats. So if you would like to see some simply name your year and I will send them to you!

Bear Lake Baby

To top of our week of fun we decided to take a trip up to Bear Lake. I hadn’t see the cabin in person since we bought the lot and I thought it was about time. We made the two hour trip up and the cabin is awesome. It is so big and I can tell we are going to make some great memories. The kids loved playing around in the unfinished cabin. We ate lunch in the basement and then headed to the Lake. It was overcast and threatening rain but the kids had a great time playing in the water and sand. The lake’s best feature is that the beach doesn’t drop off sharply instead kids can walk out for a ways and still be able to touch.
Jon and Brittany stayed the night before with their boys in a tent in the basement and Grandma, Grandpa, Laura and her girls came up on Saturday (the 25th) like our family.






After the swimming the kids took turns getting little rides with Kody and Jon on the 4 wheelers.

Garden City was really crowded with people but we didn’t seem to mind and had a great time!
Can’t wait until the cabin is built and we can spend more time up there!

My PRIVATE Story

When I started my blog there were many features I didn’t know about one of which was making your blog “private.” When I first learned of this security feature I thought “Why would anyone want to make their life musings private? Shouldn’t I share my life anecdotes, words of wisdoms, and/or ranting and ravings with whoever wants to read them?” And isn't going private merely a clever way to find out how many people actually read your blog? Then it happened….

After a holiday weekend filled with fun I sat down at the computer to go through my regular routine of clicking through my bookmarked sights. I caught up on the local and national news at ksl.com and msnbc.com. I got caught up on everyones status at facebook.com. Then I clicked onto my blog to see who had updated. Upon arriving at my blog I noticed someone had commented on my last posting which was activities from Handcart Days.

Now I don’t know about everyone else but I LOVE comments. I think most people do. It’s like getting a letter in the mail and don’t we all need a little validation that in fact our children are “so cute” and our weekend was “really fun,” etc., etc.

Well I click into the comments to see who had responded and to mentally give them friendship points in my head (bet you didn’t know I did that). Much to my pleasure kraftykash had commented “Looks like you had a blast!”

My reaction: “Oh how nice…What the?...Who is kraftykash?” There is a picture of krafty kash and as I study the 30-something who is sitting on a bench with her two toned hair (black on top blonde underneath) holding an ice cream I realize I HAVE NO IDEA WHO THIS IS!


From clicking on her little profile link I learn she is a 34 year old Scorpio from Lincoln Nebraska. She loves her “morning coffee, being a mom, listening to good music, crafting, knitting, and hanging out.” She lists her job status as “Domestic Goddes.” On her page it asks What would you wear for camouflage if you were hiding in a gingerbread house? To which she replies
I would definitely wear a suit made of frosting. I would try very hard not to eat it!
So after learning all this a few thoughts came to mind:
1) I do not know this woman!
2) After ascertaining that I did not in fact know kraftykash I wondered how she came upon my blog. I myself am a closet “blogstalker” who will look at blogs linked from other blogs but most of the time I do know the person associated with the blog.
3) For a short moment I considered that possibly my blog had become a very popular site looked up by thousands of readers like themeanestmom.blogpsot or nieniedialogues.blogspot…this thought of course was fleeting.
4)Why, even if kraftykash had viewed my blog, would she feel the need to comment?
5)How come kraftykash was the first to comment on my posting?! (you all should be ashamed of yourself)
6)Why does she call herself kraftykash? Does she sell her homemade crafts and knitting goods? Or in this case does "krafty" mean skilled in deception? Or Is her given name simply Kashana Kraft?
7)What should I do next?

So in the end I decided to do the passive aggressive thing and NOT ask kraftykash to stop viewing and commenting on my blog and instead just go private.
So tonight there is a woman in Lincoln Nebraska who is sitting on a bench crying into her ice cream cone because her FAVORITE site has gone private!

Side note: In your defense kraftyfash was probably home with her cats logging onto my blog while knitting and listening to good music after a hard day of domestic goddessing while you all were out doing more productive and/or fun things but still I will have to subtract one friendship point from all of your accounts (all except Kari who was the second person to leave a comment).

Side note: Friendship points are kept track of in my brain in separate accounts sorted by the date I met you. They are FDIC insured and if you are wondering about the conversion rate 1 friendship point is equal to 1 Schrute buck. The points never expire but are non-redeemable!

Going Private

I guess I wish we lived in a world where we didn't have to lock our doors, watch our children outdoors or make our blogs private....but we don't. So if I sufficiently have you hooked on our blog and you want to read more leave a post with your name and email address!

Handcart Days!

In honor of Pioneer Days I girded up my loins and summoned every ounce of pioneer spirit I had and took my 3 girls to Handcart Days at Bountiful Park.
My husband often asks why I take my children to these kind of festivities and my answer to him is three fold: 1) because I am trying to be a good mom 2)I don’t want to stay cooped up all day in the house while children ask me “what can I do?” and 3)We are going to make some memories if it kills us.
We bought our tickets and immediately headed to the fish pond. Unlike our ancestors before us we felt the tug on the line in a mere seconds and our catch didn’t have to be knocked out on a rock or gutted!

Next in pioneer fashion we headed over to the pony ride. It was so cute to see both my girls riding around.


After that it was the swings. Remember the good ol’ days when swings weren’t powered by motors and didn’t cost 2 tickets each?!


Wagon Wheels…Ferris Wheels…same difference, right?


Ah here we are in a traditional covered wagon. Lucky for them the ride lasted about 2 minutes because the oxen (aka mom) got pooped out.

Then it was on to some snow cones. Bet those pioneer children wished they had these after a long day of walking.


Next was the big slide…………er…..I got nothing….no slides or sharks around in 1847.



Now I know many of these activities don’t sound very “authentic” but alas Kylie summoned up some ancestral spirit as she worked a two-man saw to cut a piece of wood to brand with the traditional Handcart Days logo.

So you see we memorialized the first settlers of Utah in our own “special” way and we remember their faith and courage crossing the plains and have to wonder how they made it without Ferris Wheels and Snow Cones?!

My Name Made Me Do It

So today I read an article on msnbc.com entitled "Unusual baby names make boys bad." In the article it stated, "In Social Science Quarterly, Shippensburg University professor David Kalist says giving newborn males oddball, girly or strange first names may just help land them in jail."

In alphabetical order, the Top 10 “bad boy” names, according to Kalist, are Alec, Ernest, Garland, Ivan, Kareem, Luke, Malcolm, Preston, Tyrell and Walter.

(You all are mentally checking to see if you know anyone with these names aren't you?)

The article went on to say, "They based their report on a study of some 15,000 names given to baby boys between 1987 and 1991. They found that the more unlikely the name, the more likely a boy is to commit a delinquent act."

In writing about the Social Science Quarterly report, Time magazine pointed to a 1993 study that showed boys who have strange spellings of common first names are less likely to be upstanding and successful; a 2001 study showing that boys are judged for their moral character and masculinity by their first names; and a University of Michigan study that stated, “having an unusual first name leads to unfavorable reactions in others, which then leads to unfavorable evaluations of the self.”

I find articles like this interesting, but don't give them much credence...basically I'm glad I have girls...and wondering if there is a study about girl names?

What's New

We are having so much fun with our new baby...she is such a cutie. I have even caught her smiling a time or two...She still sleeps a ton so we still don't have too many of her with her pretty blue eyes open.





I have been attempting to get some pictures of Tessa but when I pull out the camera she does this



or this


or this



Finally, you know you are spending too much time in the house when your daughter starts dressing like a Vegas Call Girl!