Morrell Family Reunion

This past week my sisters Mary and Megan were in Utah with their families. We ventured out and did some fun things together while they were here. Between the three of us we have ten children 3- 6 year olds, 2- 4 year olds, 4- 2 year olds, and one three month old!

Some of the fun things we did together was go on a tour of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple, see the Walt Whitman "I Spy" exhibit at the BYU museum of art, and let the cousins play together while we went shopping! We miss you guys and wished we all lived closer!

Granny and Grandpa Morrell in front of the BYU art museum with nine of their eleven grandchildren!

Ethan eating pizza with Spencer and his twin cousins Chloe and Coleman.

Eliza eating pizza with her cousins Molly and Sadie.

Ethan, Spencer, and Emma relaxing after a day at the lake!

Rafting the Payette River

Over the weekend we went with Micah's family and extended family to Idaho for a fun river rafting trip. We left Eliza at home with Grandma and Grandpa Morrell and brought Ethan and Emma with us. We ran two stretches of the River. Emma went on the first stretch and Ethan came with us on both trips. It was a beautiful area with fun rapids and sandy beaches.

Here we are in the raft waiting to float one of the scenic sections of the river.



Ethan and his cousin Taylor had a blast on the trip. They loved riding at the front of the raft and steering us into the rapids!



Here's Emma riding in a little raft!



Ethan and Emma playng at the beach!



Ethan loved spending time at the beach catching little fish.



Emma having fun roasting marshmellows by the campfire.

July Fourth in The Unitahs

Every summer we try and plan a trip to the Unitah Mountains. This is a special place for Micah and I because it is where we went on our first date and where we got engaged.

This summer Micah's parents invited us to go on a picnic lunch with them on the Fourth of July.
Here we are enjoying our yummy picnic food at Provo River Falls!




The kids had a lot of fun wading in the water. Here is Emma leading Grandma in!

And Eliza leading grandma in!

Here we are in front of the falls.

A cute picture of Grandma and Grandpa Monson!

Ethan and Emma found snow up in the mountains!

We decided to go on a hike around Mirror Lake. Here are Emma, Eliza, and Ethan walking hand in hand along the trail.



Eliza found a rock to take a rest on.

Eliza, Ethan, and Emma posing in front of Mirror Lake after their hike!

Happy Birthday Emma!

Today we celebrated Emma's fourth birthday! We had a family party for her with lots of yummy food and cupcakes! One of her favorite presents was the little princess chair she is sitting on!

Her cousins Spencer and Molly from Denver were able to come to her party this year. They had a lot of fun playing together and opening presents!

Because Emma's birthday is so close to July 4th, we were able to put on a little firework show for our family and neighbors. It was such a hit I think we will have to make this a yearly tradition!

Emma's Finger

Today at church, Emma got her pinky finger shut in her Sunbeam classroom door. Micah and I immediately took her to our doctor's office and they looked at her finger and told us to go to Primary Children's Medical Center. After taking X-rays they were able to see that no bones were broken so they put four stitches in her finger. We had a child life specialist in the room with us that played with Emma and helped her make a doll to demonstrate how they would put stitches in her finger. Through the whole experience Emma remained really calm and handled everything really well. We were amazed that she didn't even cry!
This is the last place we thought we would end up on Father's Day, but we were still able to spend time with both of our Father's and have a good day!

Graduations!

Over the past week Ethan graduated from kindergarten and Emma graduated from her 3 year old preschool class! We had a fun time attending their festivities and will probably be singing "Going to the Zoo" for the next month!

Here is Emma with her teacher Mrs. Suzanne. Emma is excited to have her again next year as her 4 year old preschool teacher!



During the graduation ceremony Eliza decided to join in with the singing and dancing!

Next we had Ethan's graduation from Kindergarten. He really enjoyed having Miss Shaw as his teacher!

The graduation program was so exciting for Emma, she fell asleep in Grandma Monson's arms!

Grandma and Grandpa Morrell were also there for Ethan's big day!

Denver

This past weekend Eliza and I drove to Denver with my sister Desi and my dad to go to my nephew Marcus's baby blessing. Our favorite part of the eight hour drive there was stopping for ice cream at the Little America Hotel at 9:00 in the morning.

Here is Eliza enjoying her ice cream!

Eliza and I were in baby heaven holding Marcus. He is such a good baby! I didn't hear him cry once!

Here is my mom and I having fun with baby Marcus. Five of my six siblings were in Denver this weekend and my mom did a good job of pampering us while we were there!

Poising with my two Denver nephews, Marcus and Spencer. Spencer is my sister Mary's cute little boy who is Emma's age.

Grandpa and Granny Morrell with Marcus and my brother Will and his wife Alisha on Marcus's blessing day.

Eliza and I flew home with Aunt Desi. We were lucky the plane wasn't full so Eliza got to sit in her carseat on the airplane. Eliza and I had a fun time on our trip, but our happy to be back home with the rest of our family!

It's Always Fun When Grandpa Comes!

The children love it when Grandpa Reed comes over. He is really patience with them and they have a lot of fun together.

For Ethan's birthday he got a Book of Mormon reader with pictures. Here is Grandpa and Ethan "reeding" together!

Now that my dad is retired he has more free time. He brought us up a couple loads of mulch for our garden. Little Emma who loves to wear skirts and dresses most of the time, is helping Grandpa shovel dirt out of the truck!



Eliza loves both her grandpas and loves saying their name. She is a big mamas girl, but if Grandpa Reed is around she prefers to be held by him. He takes her to see the neighbors dogs and she loves to bark and say doggie!

Beautiful Bathroom

With the help of Micah's Uncle Lynn, we finally finished our bathroom in our basement. Hooray!!!

Here are a few pictures of how beautiful it turned out.

Birthday Boy

This past week we celebrated Ethan's sixth birthday. He got to celebrate his birthday twice this year! On his actually birthday he got to celebrate it at school and Grandpa and Granny Morrell came up from Provo that night and took him to the restaurant of his choice (Artic Circle)! On Saturday he had a birthday party where we let him invite whoever he wanted. Ethan chose a basketball theme and invited neighborhood friends, friends from school, his baby sitter, two nine year old girl friends, aunts, uncles, and even his grandma and grandpa. He hand wrote most of the invitations!

Here is Ethan at his party opening presents. We were amazed at how well behaved the kids were!

Ethan even had three little princesses make an appearance at the party for cupcakes!



Later that night Micah took Ethan and his cousin Taylor to the Jazz game against the Hornets. Here they are ready to go all decked out in their Jazz jerseys!

Uncle Russell and Aunt Nat were also at the game that night. They let Ethan and Micah sit in their third row seats during the second half of the game. Thanks guys!

Here is the view from the third row of two of Ethan's favorite players: D Will, and Millsap.

We l0ve you Ethan! Happy Sixth Birthday!

Catching Up!

This past week my dad retired after working 29 years as a Statistician for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. On Monday his work through him a nice farewell party. My sister Megan and her family were here from San Diego, my sister Ann and my brother and his wife Alisha came here from Denver. My mom's sisters Mary and Carolynn also came.

Megan has two sets of twins. Coleman and Chloe are the same age as Ethan and Sadie and Dallas are the six months older than Eliza. The kids had a lot of fun playing together.

Here are Grandpa Reed and Granny Pam with seven of their grandchildren!

Ethan balancing Eliza and Coleman overlooking the Utah State Capitol.

Lora, Emma, and Eliza taking one last look at Grandpa Reed's office.

After my dad's Retirement party we went and ate lunch at the Lion House.

Here is Eliza eating a snack before dinner.

We had to divide into three tables. Chloe joined the Monson's at their table.


Granny Pam, Grandpa Reed, Alisha, Will, and the rest of Megan's family sat at this table.

My sister Ann along with Aunt Mary and Larry choose to avoid the chaos and sit at their own table.

Coleman and Ethan had so much fun together that Coleman came up later in the week to spend more time with Ethan. Making a snowman was one of the many fun things they did together. After spending the day with Ethan Coleman is asking for a basketball and basketball hoop for his birthday!

This past week I had a visit from my old roommates from Bowling Green State, Shirley and Melissa. Melissa and her family drove all the way to Utah from Ohio to surprise her family for Christmas. I am grateful I was able to spend an afternoon with her. We made pizza and had fun visiting while our children played together. This is the only picture I have of the kids eating pizza together. Between the two of us we have a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 year old and one on the way... and no I am not the one who is pregnant!