Celebrating Family

It wasn't until I was older and started realizing how important to me my family is. I want to know where I came from. I think it's exciting to learn and hear stories about our ancestors.
I really want my kids to know their family and know what they are a part of.
Especially because we will one day all be together again as a family.

I said this in a post before. But I love family reunions.
And when I think of family reunions I think of something similar to this scene in this picture. Having fun with family.

This year at my Great Grandma's side's reunion we did something so neat a special. My Aunt made a skit about my great grandma's parents and all her siblings. She talked about stories of the different (most already passed on) family members and she had people come up and wear a name tag to pretend to be that person. It was so awesome. I learned a lot.

It kind of honored those different people by having us all stand up for them. Like I said it was awesome.

Great Grandpa helping Manning as he tried to fill a cup.
I love my Grandpa.

My uncle built a home made candy cannon. I was so awesome. I think they had more fun lighting it off than the kids did chasing the candy.

And of course at every family reunion we have so much yummy food.

Fun in the Sun

Manning feeding the ducks.

They loved playing on the rocks.

Feeding ducks is fun.

But even more fun when the ducks are hungry. These ducks didn't seem so interested.
But we still tried.

We had a blast in the water. 7 boys and water. Boy were they in heaven.

Mattix loved sitting in the streams.

Mattix and his friend even used teamwork to fill their water bottles.
We love our friends.

They may be boys but they still took some time to stop and smell the flowers.
The big boys helped the little boys.

Even baby Dani got her feet wet.
We love liberty park. 5 hours at the park and we didn't want to leave. I think we need a second trip this summer.

Family Reunion Time

The boys loved hanging out with the other kids. There was plenty of water to play in, balloons, to fill and throw and running around.

When I was a kid my grandpa used to make home made root beer. He saved the old glass soda bottles and he filled them with the root beer. It was such a treat for us. He has always had little bottles for the kids and this year my boys thought it was the coolest thing.

My grandpa and his sister.

I love how much my dad looks like my grandpa. Spitting image.

I'm not sure if you've ever noticed the town of Meadow as you are driving south. It's 5 min. south of Filmore. The sign comes quick and if you blink you've past it.

Growing up Grandpa Labrum has always lived in Meadow. We loved it there. So many memories. The cool thing about a small town is everything is close enough to walk to. We could walk to the park, gas station, and to our aunt Carol's house. There was a ditch that ran through the town. In the summer we'd walk around the ditch and get wet playing in the water.

So this year the Labrum family reunion was in Meadow. My boys have never really experienced Meadow. It was neat to go play in the same park I always played in. (given it's been updated and most of the toys are new) We visited with family, ate good food and just had fun. After we went and hung out at Grandma and Grandpa's house. It's amazing how time changes things. I haven't really been there for a few years. Maybe longer. It's fun to go and have all those memories flood back. Is it weird that I love family reunions. I like reconnecting and building bonds with family. I love knowing who my family is. Cousins, second and third cousins, Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents. And all the other family memebers I left out. My family is good at throwing family reunions every summer is full of them. I try to get to as many as I can.

24 hours of fun

My pictures didn't upload in the order I picked them. So there's not a real timeline. Like the perfectionist inside me would like there to be.
When we went down to Manti for Miss Brenda Ann's baby blessing we hung out, explored and had fun with our cousins. Than drove to Salina for the night and came back to Manti Sunday morning bright and early for the blessing.

Matt bought the boys a telescope and we've been wanting to try it out for a while. We took it down because being out in the middle of no where you are bound to see stars. Right?

Well.....

The telescope wasn't working right and we were so tired that we were able to see the stars better with our eyes.

I love the Manti temple. It's so enchanting.

The boys were very helpful carrying their luggage to the car for daddy. Manning was determined to drag our big suitcase to the van. It was so cute.

On the way back to Manti Sunday morning we ran into this guy. How awesome! Some one built him. We had to stop and take pictures. He's just parked up by the theater on the side of the road.

My litttle stud posing.

So cute. Wouldn't it be neat to have family pictures done in a town like Gunnison?

Mason taking his suitcase out to the van.

I just couldn't get over how adorable Brenda was in her blessing dress. So pretty.

"Hanging" out with cousins.

I love that already knew Nadia's family. I just love them all.

Jimmy and Nadia's neighbor's puppy. My boys fell in love with this dog.

Brenda's blessing cake Amanda made. It turned out so cute.
It was a good weekend we had fun. I love short get a ways that force us to spend time together as a family. I really enjoy that time.

So Awesome

Our new cousin Baby Brenda was being blessed this last weekend down in Manti, so we got the opportunity to go down and spend the night. It so happened to be the same weekend as the Manti Pageant. Unfortunately we decided the boys wouldn't be able to stay up that late and have a pleasant experience so we skipped the pageant this year. But we did take a walk down Main street down to the temple to check things out. I love the Manti Temple it is so princess castle like. Absolutely beautiful.

I have a bunch more pictures from this weekend but these two are my favorites.
We've been reading in the Book of Mormon and we just read about Moroni. Mason and Mattix were so excited when I told them who this statue was. He was even holding the gold plates. I love that my boys know these things. I hope they keep that love for the scriptures as they get older.

He's Moving Up

I am a little behind on my posts. Time for another catch up.

May 20th Mason had his Kindergarten Orientation. We were so excited to go. We got there and they had us all meet in the lunchroom. Mason's excitement started to turn to nervousness. As we sat there he cuddled closer and closer. Matt realized he was so scared and gave him a little pep talk. It worked. Mason was awesome. They seperated the kids into groups and they got to try out a mini kindergarten day. 1 hour full of art class, music, the library, the playground and meeting new friends. He loved it. We lucked out and won the lottery as they say, Mason got into Motechello Academy. sp? It's a charter school out in West Valley. We are very excited to see how well he does in school. He is a very smart boy and is beyond ready for school. But I do have to admit as I watched Mason's group walk away all lined up as you see in the picture above. I did tear up and as I type this I do feel like crying. My baby boy is almost officially in school. Seems like it wasn't long ago he was so tiny and didn't ever want to leave my side. Now he loves doing and trying new things. I love it though. I love his strong desire to learn new things. He's amazing.
The week after Mason had his preschool graduation. I love Mrs. Sandy's preschool. Mason has learned so much from her. He even learned part of the Gettysburg Address this year.

He's made so many friends and I am so grateful for all Mrs. Sandy has done to help Mason be so ready for Kindergarten. Can't wait for Mattix to go next year.

I can't help it.

For the record I am typing this post because, to be quite honest I need to vent.
This is to me a major shake up in my life and in order for me to grow I need to get my feelings out.
I am not posting this on facebook. Just my blog. And if people happen to read it that's ok. I am human I have feelings.
Saturday was a good day. Started out great. I had set in my mind that I was going to have a fun day. And what's the best way to have a fun day than to have a "family fun day." We first got some work out of the way. Matt took a load to the dump and we helped him load the trailer to take it another day. After we got that taken care of we took the the boys and went with Nana and Papa to my nephew's state rugby game. That was not the end of family fun day. Afterwards we surprised the boys and took them to Hollywood Connection. It was so fun. The boys surprisingly were very good at and way into the mini golfing. Matt played right along with them. It was so fun to watch him teach them how to hold the club and hit the ball right. (One of Matt's favorite pass times is golf.) We had a blast riding the rides and just having fun together. On our way home Matt had the idea to stop and get the boys pizza and dessert. We took it home, ate and had fun talking about our fun day. The boys needed to take a bath for church the next day. So Matt made them a deal. He'd quickly run to get a Redbox movie if they'd be bathed and in PJ's before he got home. He'd put out the couch bed and we'd watch Gnomeo and Juliet. Mason really wanted to go with Matt. I took him into the bathroom while Matt slipped out the door.
5 min. Later the phone rang. Mind you I still haven't gotten Mason into the bath. Matt's mom comes and tells me I need to go to Matt. He's been in an accident. I started to get my shoes on thinking I'll be right back. She say's maybe you should have Dad go with you. I am so very happy he did. I wasn't prepared for what I saw when we drove up. I saw Matt's car and for a split second didn't realize that it was his. It hit me and I jumped out of the car before Woody could even undo his seat belt. Thankfully his car looked worse than him. He couldn't remember what had happened. He kept asking me the same questions over and over. Things were very fuzzy to him. He hit his head so hard he had a concussion.
We took him to the ER. But before we did we stopped at home Matt kissed the boys and his Dad gave him a blessing. We are so thankful for the prayers that immediately went out in our behalf. Within an hour of me running out the door. I had heard from so many family members that were worried.
He was blessed after all the x rays and cat scans. To have no broken bones. But he did do damage. We need to take him to an orthapedic to find out what's causing the swelling and pain in his collar bone. And his shoulder is separated. He messed up his knee. Busted up his nose. And is in a lot of pain. This is very hard for me to sit back and watch. I hate seeing him in pain. He is hurting. He tries to say it's not that bad but he's not ok. I am MAD! Why did this have to happen? We were having such a good day. It hurts to see him not being able to do the things he loves. He is one of the best dads I know. He loves to play, wrestle, lift and just be fun with his boys. Let alone give them a hug. So yes I am Angry! I watched today as he came in the door after school. The boys ran to him and they all wanted to hug him, we love when daddy comes home and to climb on his leg and sit on his foot. He couldn't do any of it. He had to turn them away and not do those things that he loves to come home to everyday to. It hurts him. I know it hurts him more than physically. I know that time will heal him. But it sucks right now. One persons split second mistake hits my husbands car and causes this accident. I know it was an accident. I feel bad for being so mad. But right now I am hurting. I hate thinking about what could of happened. I have been having nightmares and I don't want to imagine my life how it could of been. All this has made me treasure our time we have together. I just wish this painful part would go away. Go away so we can go camping and he can play softball on Tuesday nights like he loves to do. Heck he only got to play 2 times this season. Just go away. It sucks having to be scared to drive even just the shortest distance because we've seen what could of happened.
Please don't get me wrong. I know that we have been deeply blessed. I've been told and saw myself that he was "lucky" Heavenly Father saw that it was not his time. The amount of damage to the amount of injury doesn't add up. I do thank Heavenly father that he spared my husband and the father of my boys every time I look at him or think about him. I just need to be mad for a little bit.