Kolby at 7 months

On July 25th Kolby turned 7 months old. He's just growing up too fast. Here are some pictures and some facts about our little guy!!

Kolby sits up very steady now, he loves to play with toys and loves to be with his siblings!! Kolby just got his first 2 teeth and so the drooling has slowed down a little;) Kolby's a happy baby who loves to be cuddled and played with. Kolby loves to eat food, baby cereal, cheerios, little Gerber finger foods. He loves picking up the cheerios all by him self. He's getting better at getting most of it in his mouth now! :) He pretty much loves any jar of baby food except banana's( he shutters every time I try;)) he even loves peas, which none of the other kids did, I guess they got that from their dad. We love you son and are so glad that you're a part of our family!!

I love this picture. Isn't he adorable!!

Kolby you are such a delight to have in our family!! Just looking at you makes me smile!

What a big boy!!

Our Big Trip Part Five-Childrens Museum and Winter Quarters and Finally HOME!

When we were driving in Indiana, we stopped at a gas station to fill up, go potty and eat dinner. There was this grass field right next to it, so we had a picnic, ran around and had a great time. It was a much needed break!! If you can tell LeGrand wasn't about to sit down, he'd been sitting more than enough!;) OK, while everyone was running around, I was putting our picnic together and an ice cream truck pulled up. He called me over to him..at first I was a little tentative, he looked pretty tough but I went over and he said," Looks like your not from around here...I saw your licenses plate." Then he held out 3 Popsicles and said, "Now you can't go done and said that nobody in Indiana wasn't nice to ya!" What a nice man. While we were traveling we were often reminded that there are lots and lots of really nice, good people out there. I just hope we can be as thoughtful and helpful to others as they were to us!

The kids Loved their Popsicles!On our way home(thanks to Ammon and Kirsten) We went to the Children's Museum in Indianapolis. It was amazing!! It's the biggest Children's Museum in the world. We had a blast!! It was a perfect way to break up the drive home!!! Thanks again Ammon and Kirsten!!

Cute Brothers!!!
Of Course Sophie found the kitchen. This picture is just so Sophie! I love it!

They were standing in front of one of the real Bat mobiles that they used while filming the batman movies. It was pretty awesome!
There is this glass sculpture which was 150 feet tall, this was the view underneath it!!! It was the perfect place to sit and relax!!
Winter Quarters

Winter Quarters was an incredible place!!!! It was so inspiring and peaceful!! I'm grateful that the church has restored and keep up all these sites!!!

In the Visitor Center there were dress ups. The kids had so much fun!! Isn't this the cutest picture??? What cute kiddos!!

Kolby was such a trooper. What a sweet boy!!
I love this monument!!! There was such a sacred feeling here!! We had a great time!!
On our way home, we hit a huge thunder and lighting rain storm. We decided we would just keep driving till we couldn't go any more and stop at a hotel...it was about 3:30 am and we were exhausted! We stopped and found out that every hotel was full. I guess their were some conventions going on in Iowa, we couldn't believe it, every where was booked. So that night we found a rest stop and slept in the car. (If you were wondering why we all looked so unkempt at Winter Quarters, that's why!) So after we left Winter Quarters we ran into another rain storm, LeGrand talked about driving through the night again, it was sort of tempting because we could make it home, but not tempting enough. We stayed at a hotel in Wyoming and it was heaven. I think this picture of LeGrand speaks for it's self!!!
Little America-Wyoming
We stopped for lunch an ice cream cone and to run around a little bit.
When we drove up to our house we all cheered!! What a beautiful site!!! It feels so good to be home, to sleep in our own beds and to not live out of a suitcase anymore!!! Welcome Home!!!

Our Big Trip Part Four- EFY-Granville Ohio and our 9th Anniversary!!!

This year LeGrand and I were able to be Session Directors for EFY in Granville Ohio!!! We had a blast!!! It worked out perfectly, Granville is only about 45 minutes from Columbus, so Kirsten and Whitney (bless their hearts) watched Brayden, Adelyn and Sophie all week for us!! Thanks soooooo much guys!! To have 7 kids 7 and under for a week was huge!!! I can't thank you enough for making this possible for us!!! Here we are with most of our Counselors, BC's and Coordinators!! We had an amazing group of Young Single Adults to work with!!! They worked so hard and made it such a memorable week for all the youth that were at our session!!! Thanks guys!!

This isn't my favorite picture, but it was one of the only ones that I have of all 3 of us(LeGrand, Kolby and I) at EFY! Being able to participate in Especially for Youth is such an amazing experience. I've loved EFY ever since I went when I was 16 with Kim Schroeder!! I couldn't get enough of EFY, so I went 2 more years with my beautiful cousin Megan! To be able to go every summer now, with my wonderful husband for a week is one of the major highlights our summers now!! I love being all together as a family, but it's neat to be able to just be with LeGrand. Ok this year was a little different, since Kolby was there, but it was still amazing!!

Kolby was such a trooper!! This was him at one of the dances. He was actually zonked and was right up by the DJ. It was loud, but we were outside and after he got his groove on ;) he crashed and slept through the rest of the dance. It was very nice and I was impressed!!
I love listening to LeGrand teach/speak, but I don't get to do it as often as I would like to. Maybe that's one of the reasons that I love going to EFY with him!! He's amazing!!
Ok, Kolby was probably the most popular guy here this week. The counselors, the participants, every one wanted to hold him....see...
Drew and Kolby...
Art and Kolby...
Ammon and Kolby...
Wow, Kolby's loving all the attention...the only problem was after EFY he thought he needed to be held all the time too...I love holding him, but come on not 24 hours a day!! Here they are trying to act all tough....or cheesy, you pick!!;)
We had so much fun with everyone!! We love you guys!!!
Ok, I would say that the biggest highlight of our week was that we celebrated our 9th Wedding Anniversary on Thursday at EFY!!! It was soooooo memorable... Ok, the story...on Wed. I went back to Columbus to be with our kids and help Whitney and Kirsten...we had a blast, that's when we went to Ballentrae Water Fountains...after we got the kids to bed we had a girls night...I will always remember it. Kirsten, Whitney and I stayed up late writing love notes for LeGrand...I know that sounds funny, and it actually was to see Whitney writing things like "LeGrand you are my Super Man..with a little picture..." anyways, I needed help and we wrote almost 150 "love", "funny", "romantic", "grateful","memory" notes to LeGrand. When I got back to EFY I passed them out to the participants, and had them deliver them to LeGrand through out the day!! It was sooo cute... I wanted to do something for him, but choices were limited being where we were.... He loved it!! When we got back to our hotel, his pockets were over flowing!!! It was fun!!
I wish I had pictures of this...(Megan if you are reading this, please email me the ones that you took for the slide show!! Thanks) LeGrand had worked it all out to have me called up on the stage, in front of everyone, and one person from each company, 16 in all came up holding big poster boards with #1-#16 written on them. Then they did a count down of the top 16 things that LeGrand love about me... I wish I had my camera, and I wish I remembered everything that he wrote, but it was sweet, cute, embarrassing, but most of all really cute!! After we got done with that, LeGrand came up on stage and dipped me and I got a big, fat kiss!! Everyone loved it...especially me;) Thank Honey!!!! I love you!!
Through out the day, so many people came up to say Happy Anniversary, gave us things they had made(see the big #9 with all their names on it) or to give me paper napkin roses that they had made...it was cute, everyone was so thoughtful...I don't think that we will ever be told, "Happy Anniversary" by so many people ever again. (I guess unless we are at EFY celebrating it again.)

Ok, so we got a call from Mikale, telling us that we needed to be back for dinner at 5. When we got to the Cafeteria we saw hundreds and hundreds of paper napkin roses thrown all over the floor, leading up the stairs...we followed the roses, and it was lined with the participants and counselors. When we got up to the top, one of the young men, took Kolby from us, and another one escorted me to our table. It was adorable. Everyone wanted us to have a romantic Anniversary Dinner. The trail of paper flowers lead to a table in the middle of the cafeteria that was set with a table cloth, candles and a bouquet of more paper roses. Drew and Art were our waiters and tried to make our cafeteria dinner look really fancy. It was adorable!! Everyone even tried to watch Kolby so we even had a babysitter. Ok, there's still more, when we got done with our unforgettable, romantic Anniversary dinner, we walked outside, about to head up to the Fireside and they had decorated our limo golf cart. There was a sign on the back that said, "Just Married" and in little print on the bottom it said "9 Years ago", there were streamers and EFY lanyards hanging all over it, with cups held up by the lanyards dragging behind.....it was fun. Thanks everyone for celebrating with us. You guys went all out and it was adorable!! LeGrand, I love you!!! I'm more in love with you now than I was when we got married 9 years ago...and I really loved you then!!! I'm grateful that we get to be together forever!!! You are amazing!!! I love you Honey!!!
9 years down and Eternity to go!!!