On the Apricot Tree

My two favorite kinds of jam are apricot and raspberry. So when we bought our house, I was ecstatic that it had raspberry bushes in the garden AND an apricot tree!

Unfortunately Utah has crazy weather in the spring and the apricot blossoms usually freeze and we don't get any fruit. We have lived here 5 years and have never had a good crop of apricots.... until this year!

Today I went out to pick the apricots from our tree before the rain and wind of the coming storm blew them off. I had to get the ladder and become a contortionist to get to all the fruit, but it was worth getting scratched up and sweaty to get these beauties!

Yum! Guess who will be canning some jam in the next couple of days?!

Sunday in Star Valley

After our busy day on Saturday, we mostly just sat around Sunday morning. Even Amelia was sitting! Check it out...

She is really enjoying the Bumbo seat that Grandma Devereaux brought for her. I like it because she can sit up in it by herself and she likes to be able to look around and see what's going on.

The bumbo seat is also nice because I can sit Amelia up in it and get cute headshots of her. Here she is dressed up for church.

You may have noticed that this is the same outfit from a previous post, but now you can see the flower clip that I made for her which is a little bit smaller.

She is such a cutie! Check out these great smiles. I had to take some pictures of her by Grandma's aqua wall in the living room. It makes for a very blue picture!

Can you tell I was a little photo happy? I can't help it, my baby is just so cute!

Joe was laughing at me because of the cute little Sunday socks I bought for Amelia. Don't you think they are just adorable?

Here is a picture of me with my baby girl. Grandpa Heiner took this picture for me, and I just love it. Here are the Devereaux girls.

There was one thing that the boys wanted to do on Saturday that we didn't get too, which was a ride in Grandpa's Razr. So even though he had meetings on Sunday, he let Joe take the boys out for a ride.

Do you think they look excited or what?!

Joe even took me for a ride in the Razr and let me drive. It is a fun little machine.

We had so much fun at Grandma and Grandpa Heiner's that we decided to stay another night. So we stayed at their house Monday and mostly just hung around and enjoyed doing nothing. Then we drove home on Tuesday. I think we may end up visiting a little more often since we all had so much fun!

Horses and Sparklers

Now on to part 3 of my Saturday post!

You would think that airplane rides and car shows would be enough for one day... no way! That evening we went to Etna to visit my sister Deanna on her ranch. She and her husband Marc were kind enough to let us ride one of their horses, named Ruby.

Joe was the first one to get on Ruby and take her around the pasture.

Then he took Ephraim for a ride. Can you tell how excited Ephraim is?

When Daddy asked Ephraim if he was done or wanted to go around one more time, of course he said, "one more time!"

Jacob had a great time on his ride with Daddy too. They managed to trot just a little bit, to which Jacob said, "too fast Daddy!".

Jacob loved riding on Ruby though. She was a really nice horse.

Next we put all the boys on the horse for a picture. Poor Ruby!

She was a really good sport to let us all keep getting off and on and stopping for pictures.

Ruby was probably relieved when we put just the boys on her back. They each got a turn to be led around by themselves, and then we put the two of them on together.

Aren't they a pair of cuties! As Ephraim gets older I can see the family resemblance between my two boys getting stronger.

After riding horses we went back to Grandma and Grandpa's house and after the sun set we went out and played with sparklers. Jacob absolutely loved it!

Ephraim didn't want to do quite as many sparklers as Jacob, but I think he was just tired out from a day of fun.

We still have quite a few sparklers left, so we will have to do them again another time.

So the boys stayed up late and probably didn't get to bed until almost 10 p.m.! What a fun day they had though! Airplanes, Cars, Horses and Sparklers... what more could a little boy want?

Crazy Days in Afton

After their airplane ride, we decided to go check out the antique car show they were having on Main Street. I thought this picture was cool because you can see all the cars and the elkhorn arch in the background.

We saw lots of really cool cars. I will be the first to admit that I don't know much about cars. I can't tell you what kind of cars most of these are, but the boys and I had a great time looking at the cars because we compared them to the ones they are familiar with from Disney's Cars 2. We just saw it in the theater, so it was fresh on their minds. Here is a car that has "white wall tires" just like Lightening McQueen did in the first Cars movie.

Then we found one with a flame job, just like Ramone. Cool, huh?

They also had some old Model T's just like Lizzy and Stanley. If you look closely at this picture you can see Ephraim's feet on the running board. Apparently he can't read the "Look but don't Touch!" signs on every car.

And here is even more evidence that Ephraim didn't get the memo. Here is his reflection as he checked out this cobra.

I had fun checking out all the chromed up cars and motorcycles. Here was a really cool Indian motorcycle that I really liked.

We had a good time looking at this old Chevy too. Joe says one day maybe we can restore the old Chevrolet and Cadillac that Grandpa Devereaux has at his house. Wouldn't that be fun?

This was my favorite picture of the car show. I originally took the picture to get a shot of the dice on the valve stem, but after I took the shot the shiny hub cap (and my reflection in it) really caught my eye.

Another thing that caught my eye was the woman who was carving a bear into a tree stump using a chainsaw and a little Dremmel tool. The boys and I had a great time watching her work. How cool is this?

Talk about build-a-bear! They are even more beautiful finished, so I went into the gallery to see if I could get one. When I checked the price on one and found that it was $280, I decided that a picture would have to do!

Airplane Ride

It has been a while since we visited Grandma and Grandpa Heiner in Wyoming, so we decided to go to their house over the 24th of July weekend. Since Pioneer Day is a holiday in Utah, Joe had Monday the 25th off. So he took Friday off to make it a long weekend and we drove to Star Valley. On our way there we made a brief stop at a Sabey family reunion in Ogden and visited with Great Grandpa Sabey and Grandma Devereaux. They drove up for the reunion, so we had to stop and see them.

We had so much fun the next day that I have split the day into three posts! First you get to hear about the airplane ride.

Jacob and Ephraim were so excited to get to go on an airplane ride with Grandpa Heiner. We decided not to take Amelia up in the plane (even though she went twice in vitro!) because we didn't think she would like it. That doesn't mean we didn't have her pose for pictures in the plane!

Here she is next to all the gauges. Daddy put her carseat blanket on the window because it was very bright and sunny. We also had Amelia sit with Grandpa for a minute so we could get a photo. This is my favorite one.What a cutie pie! (and Grandpa isn't half bad either! hehe)

I decided to stay with Amelia and let the boys go with Daddy. Ephraim was very excited, so we let him sit in the front with Daddy first.

Jacob got the backseat all to himself. I love the way my little boys look with their headsets on!

The boys waved goodbye to Mommy, Amelia and Grandma. See Jacob's little head in the backseat?

Then they were off!

While the boys went on their ride, the girls went shopping! We went to Crazy Days in Afton and checked out some of the vendors. We ended up buying some cute hairclips and necklaces, which was tons of fun. Before we knew it the boys were done, so we headed back to the airport to pick them up and go on to the next activity.

Amelia the Flower Child

I have been having so much fun lately dressing up Amelia and putting pretties in her hair.I have also been making some hair clips that have turned out rather well. It is so much fun to have a little girl. Here is one of the flower clips that I made.

Cute, huh? Not as cute as the girl wearing it though! What a happy girl!

Amelia is getting better at holding her head up now too, which makes taking her picture a bit easier. Look at how cute she is!

I wasn't sure that I liked the big flower look, but it actually isn't too bad. I didn't actually make this flower, it was a gift. This white flower is a little too big, so I made one that is a little bit smaller (which you will probably see in photos in the future). I love the blue headband that matches her dress!

Here is my sweet girl with a yellow flower in her hair. I made this one too.

I love that Amelia is a rosy baby, so she looks good in yellow. With my blonde hair I don't really look good in yellow, but Amelia looks fantastic!

I love all these pictures! What a cutie.

Amelia in the Tub

I took this really fun video of Amelia playing in her little tub this morning. She is such a cutie!

Last Day of Swim Lessons: the Slide!!!

Today was the last day of swimming lessons and the boys were excited because they knew it meant they got to go down the slide! So they were very motivated to get ready so we would make it to the pool on time.

We were actually early, so here are Ephraim and Clara playing with duckies on the side of the pool.

Ephraim's class was in the first group to go down the slide. He was SO excited and absolutely loved it!

He got to go down a few times and would have gone again if there had been more time!

Jacob was in the next group to go down the slide. He was really hoping that he would be tall enough to go down by himself.

Unfortunately he was just a little bit too short! So he had to go down the slide with his teacher.

Poor Jacob only got to go down the slide once, which he was a little disappointed about. He was also sad because he broke his goggles today. But regardless, you can tell that he still had a great day at the pool!