Luke

I was making cookies yesterday and needed to go get something on the other side of the kitchen so Luke did this. It mixed it all completely without flipping anything outside of the bowl. He is amazing in the kitchen and so cute!

YEAH, it finally happened!

We FINALLY closed on our house last Friday. What a mess!! But now it's officially ours and we can't wait to start working on stuff.

Redneck Party

It all started with a torn piece of paper in a left-over pop can inviting us to a "Redneck Party" and this is what happened.
The couples:

Sam and I (fish nets are my favorite, especially on Sam! The sad thing was that when I came out of my room dressed like this tonight Kathryn told me I looked "so pretty". Either my kids have no fashion sense or either do I!)

Erika and Shawn (wow, what more can I say!)

Bryce and Heidi (hunter orange goes with everything, doesn't it?)

Rusty and Jaime (you can't see it but he is wearing a Leonardo Di Caprio t-shirt from his younger days and it is sweet!)

Lori and Doug (flat tires and boots)

Emily and Darren (mullets and mumus are never out of style in this world)

Heather and Zak (yes that is fake :).

We ate redneck appetizers and played redneck games. I made this chicken (I even had to buy a beer can and I felt so guilty) and it tasted awesome.

Arm wrestling (I won 2nd place) for the women and...

the men.

Hotdog eating contest. Bryce below was the winner (sick!!!).

Burping contest--the winner, Doug.

It was so much fun. We had a blast.

Kathryn's First Day of Kindergarten

I can't believe it's here!! Kathryn started school today (Seth and Sarah start in 2 weeks, remember my dumb mom moment back in April? hence Kathryn starting today and the kids being at two different schools). She was very excited to be in Mrs. Roy's morning class. Last night I helped her pick out her outfit and get it all ready.

She then got to pick our dessert for Sunday evening. She picked homemade ice cream (her dad was very proud).

We then did our traditional father's blessing, in which Sam gave her a beautiful blessing.

It was then off to school in the morning. She got to pick breakfast (crepes with cream cheese filling, blackberries and whip cream--gosh she must not remember that I am not a morning person) and was so excited to go. This is her waiting outside her school very patiently for the bell to ring.

Sitting in the story pit waiting for class to start. I can't believe that I have 3 in school. WOW! They grow up so fast. They are so excited to go to school but it just means less time at home with mom and so much growing up. It's hard to let them go and be big people. Anyway...

He's walking...

I realized I hadn't done an update on Luke. He has had his cast off for 3 1/2 weeks now and is barely starting to walk with slight limp. For the first two weeks after his cast all he would do was crawl and cry, mostly because we were trying to get him to get to things on his own and get back to being a sort of big kid. Then he figured out that he could walk, but he would walk with a very pronounced limp and then still crawl by afternoon like it was hurting still. Last week we took him in for a physical therapy evaluation because his walking was still so weird and they told us he would need therapy atleast twice a week for a month. BUT, like two days later he started running and walking quite normally. He has a slight limp but so much improved from a few days ago. He also has started crying less and his speech has taken a jump also, so lately he is a much happier boy!

Caldwell Here We Come!

All these pictures are courtesy of my sister Jessica (somebody has a problem with forgetting their camera!) We took off the July 31st and headed to my parents for a getaway and work trip. Sam did have to start work till the following Thursday so we were able to stay for 5 days and we had a great time. Friday we left the kids with my 4 sisters and spent some alone time together. We browsed through Ross, Sam's favorite store, watched the new Harry Potter and ate dinner at Red Robin, one of our favorite restuarants that is not in TF. Afterwards, we spent the night in a Bed and Breakfast and had a fabulous time (except the power went out and we were not able to shower the next morning, let alone use the jacuzzi tub, rats!!). We had so much fun together and thanks to my sisters for watching the kids. Saturday evening we hung out with friends and Sunday all the brothers and sisters and their kids hung out a tmy parents. My parents spent several days helping my step-grandma move into an assisted-living center in Utah and then cleaning out her house. My mom found many treasures from her mom and dad (like her mother's wedding dress and pictures she had never seen), but she also brought back some "wonderful" clothes. My sisters and I decided we should have a fashion show...



"Does this make my butt look big?" Isn't polyester wonderful?

Natalie modeling exercise wear.

Me modeling sunday wear.

Emily modeling evening wear. We had a blast and couldn't stop laughing through most of it. There were shoulder pads in almost every shirt not to mention the puffy paints on the sweatshirts!

We also celebrated Natalie's 15th birthday. Jenny and decided we should do a sewing project also so we made the birthday banners that you see above. Mine is much more bright. They were so easy and lots of fun to make.

Natalie eating her yummy dinner. We had ribs, smoked all day in a "Trager", corn on the cob and garden potatoes!

One of our big projects was freezing corn. We started picking and shucking at 7 am and finished at about 3pm. We were so tired. We shucked a pickup load, thank heavens for lots of help. Sam, my dad and my brothers didn't have to work so we were able to do a lot. We each had a station and away we went. My mom cutting the corn off the cob.

Me filling bags, one of my many jobs.

The grandkids loved to help. My dad brought up a huge water trough and that's what we dump the corn into after we had cooked it. The grandkids stood by it almost the whole time playing in the water.

These are the "de-fuzzers" (you the people who make sure all the hair of the corn before we cook it).
I was also able to pick my parents and my sister-in-law's beans. We did that on Tuesday and was able to can 23 more quarts so now we are up to 39 quarts of beans and 8 jars of pizza sauce for this season.
My sisters took the grandkids on a walk and here are some pictures from their adventure.

This is called a "Stanger" and picks up 1 ton bales and stacks them in a haystack. The kids just think it is a fun slide. Moms you better not watch!

Luke taking a ride in the stroller.

They took them to Grandpa's shop where they could run around and play in the tractors. Kathryn, Sarah and Katy looking silly.

Isn't this a beautiful picture of Kathryn. My sister took it of her. I love it!

All the grandkids sitting on the lift.

Being silly for the camera.

Trying to find bugs in the garden. Do you see them holding their jars? Brings back many memories of finding bugs and letting them live (really die) in jars and absolutely loving it.

Katy and Bentley trying to escape!

We had a fabulous time with family and now it's back to life :)

New Job

Exciting News! Sam is starting a new job on Monday. He is going back to the Public Defender and is very happy about it. He has decided that private practice is not what he wants to do right now and he enjoys the freedom government jobs have (not to mention less hours for more money), and he has some good friends who still work at the public defender and he really enjoyed working with them so he is looking forward to going back.
The best part is that he hasn't had to work from last Thursday to this Monday. I have loved having him at home with us and we have gotten so much done. I forget what it is like to him around during the day and we are so looking forward to him being able to come home 1-1 1/2 hours earlier everyday, with no Saturdays either. Yeah!

Beus Family Reunion

All (so like 59 people) of Sam's family was able to come to Utah last weekend so we had an impromptu family reunion. It was so fun to see his brother and sister's families from Chicago and another sister's family from Texas. We were able to go up Thursday afternoon and stay until Sunday night. We stayed up way too late every night, played lots of games, made a whole bunch of jewelry (thanks Erin), talked and just hung out. It was awesome. On Saturday we all went to a park for a picnic and to play games. Here is Sarah and Kathryn making boats with Maddie and Abbie. They had a great time floating them down the stream.

Seth spent every spare moment with his cousins Collin and Parker. I don't know which one this is because they are identical twins and I still can't tell them apart.

Sam and family members played soccer and the funniest thing was that they used car seats for the goal posts. Maybe that's because there are 34 grandkids, with 2 more on the way (congrats Renee and Sariah).

One of the cousins favorite games to play is wrestling, with everyone ganging up on Calvert, Ben or Shawn. Here are some picutres from the annual wrestling game.

Luke was even trying to get in on the action.





Aunt Laura watching the action, atleast until Luke took this picture of her :)

Kathryn and Luke playing together.

Luke loves to play with sunglasses. Isn't he so handsome!

On Sunday night we had a family photo shoot. On my heck, how long does it take to pose 59 people, with more than half being children? A very long time that's for sure. By the time we were ready to take pictures atleast two of the grandkids cried the entire time. Oh well, hope photoshop can do something about that. We haven't seen the big pictures yet but here are some we took while we were waiting for everyone.



Don't we make cute kids? I guess I am a little biased though.