Five Star!

Gracie has reached a QUINTessential milestone! She is 5 and will be going to Kindergarten in the Fall. Ready or not, here she comes! :D

How old is Gracie?!
(Btw, now that you've seen what I look like early in the morning, I'll have to shoot you!) :D

New shorts made by Mommy... she hasn't taken them off since! :D

Fun school supplies and candy from sisters, brother and Mommy and Daddy... there was also paper to practice letters on, pink pencils and more candy. :)

She was REALLY excited about the pretty hair decorations from Grandma and Grandpa Lee!

Grandma and Grandpa Lee know just what a new Kindergartener needs! A new back pack! And they packed it with fun things to do... stamps and ink and containers to organize everything in. I'm not sure how I'll feel watching the back of this back pack walking away from me, but for now it is super exciting! :D

This is Gracie the purple unicorn, perhaps you've met? :)


Baked by Mommy, iced by Daddy, blown out by Gracie, enjoyed by our nearest relatives...


Gracie, Bella, Daniel, Andrew and Landon.
Apparently, Andrew is super interesting. Your guess is as good as mine! :D


Karina, Emily, Becca and Gracie.

Happy Birthday, Gracie!
This next year is going to be full of so many new, fun things! We love you SO much and if you never forget that, you'll be alright. ;)

Landon's Two

Okay, so he's been two for a month, now... does it really matter? HE didn't yell at me for not blogging about him on his birthday, so I'll have no judgements from you either! ;)

It's July and it's hot and Mama is the size of a small hot air balloon, so we didn't as much GO anywhere as spend time together at home. :) These pictures are from the great 'opening of the presents' event that happens on Mom and Dad's bed on Birthday morning. Rest assured however that every picture of him you see posted here until next year is of him being 2. :D

He got a bunch of matchbox cars... individually wrapped of course... from his sisters and Mommy and Daddy.

Here's the unwrapped version.

This book is from Grandpa and Grandma Lee... his favorite page to date is the one with a big gerber daisy on it. He calls it a "thlower" and will turn the pages back and forth to find it. :)

This is possibly the coolest puzzle ever... also from Grandma and Grandpa Lee. It has different metal locks on each little wooden door. He can now do all but one all by himself and he does them over and over! :)

Happy Birthday, Buddy Boy! We sure love having you in our family!

(In case you forgot or are wondering where the Sagers fit in, I only have to look out my back windows to remember this.) :)

See you in the funny papers!

Tonight at dinner we were, once again, cajoling Emily into eating her food. Gracie seems to thrive on this and enjoys eating hers even if she doesn't like it that much, mostly for the bragging rights. One of our old standbys is to tell them that when they serve missions they will have to eat whatever is placed before them. After one such pontification directed towards Emily, Gracie piped up, "On my mission, you know what I'm going to eat? Cheetos, squid, ham-boogers and purple kool-aid!" I'm not sure where that is, but it sure sounds interesting!

Later on in the conversation, the girls and I were relating to Daddy our discussion from lunch. The topic was Wine vs. Water while taking the Sacrament. Of course, in Jesus' time they used wine as they did when the Church was first restored, or rather "grape juice." During lunch we had called Daddy and asked him, on speaker phone, when they had received revelation to use water instead of wine in order to avoid alchoholic beverages. Wanting to show off my smart, wonderful children and my smart, wonderful explanations I encouraged them to tell Daddy what we had learned about the whole thing. After a brief (and smart and wonderful) explanation mostly by Emily, Gracie said, "But where did they get the water?" To which our smart and wonderful Daddy replied, "They grew it in big fields... of water... some people called them lakes." I almost did a spit-take and was laughing so hard, it probably made the baby inside me feel like a milkshake. I could hardly breathe I was laughing so hard! I mean, it was funny! And besides, the girls just looked at him like, "Hmmm, okay, that makes sense." :D

Top this all off with a very spirited rendition of "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam" complete with choreography of Irish step dancing caliber by Landon and you just experienced a Sagers Family Home Evening! :D

For Kimberly on her Birthday

This entry is dedicated to my sweet little Kimberly who is not so little, but still very sweet! Happy Birthday!!!

I still remember the first time this family called me and asked me to babysit. I knew they had an adorable dark haired toddler, but as it turns out, they had just adopted a baby boy. He was 2 weeks old and they wanted ME to babysit! I was over the moon!! The first few times, they came to my house so my Mom could be there to help me if I needed it. Kimberly was so bright and happy and cute. My Mom was so good at leading me by example, but she let me do everything. The first time I got to watch them at their house was super exciting and super scary! :D I remember heating up the baby's bottle too hot and trying desperately to cool it down and comfort him at the same time. But, I'll save my Bryce stories for another entry. ;)

I loved playing with Kimberly! She had such an imagination! We would play all kinds of games and she would make up the story and tell me the part I was to play. When they added onto their house, she got to pick things out for her room and was SO proud of her "girl color" carpet! They added a family room downstairs and 2 kid bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. We were playing some game we made up on the stairs when Kimberly shrieked and pointed from the top of the stairs where she was standing down to the bottom of the stairs where she was sure she saw a spider! I didn't see any spiders and thought she was making it up until I went down to investigate and found a spider on the front of the stair almost at the bottom. She must have had spider-radar to see one from that far away on the other side of the stair!! :D We used to play Nintendo games, too. There was a Chip and Dale one in which she was always Chip and always carried Dale (which was me) around upside down on her head! :D LOL It was just as well because I don't think either of us had much of a clue how to actually play, we just had fun laughing together. :)

My badge of honor in their house was that I was dubbed DiNana. I can't tell you how much I loved hearing that Kimberly was excited to have Dinana come over. I loved hearing her call me that and never encouraged her otherwise. :D I remember riding the late bus home from school one day and sitting by Kimberly (who was probably in about first grade) on the bus and when she got off she said, "Bye, Diana!" When I asked her about it later she thought it was SOOOO funny that she had ever called me Dinana. Sad, sad day for me. :D

Another one of my very favorite memories are connected to a beautiful white dress Kimberly used to wear to Church on Sundays. I used to love asking her questions and having her tell me what she remembered about going to the Temple to be Sealed to her new baby brother. Families truly are forever and never have I been taught by example how wonderful and significant joining a family together can be than by this one.

I can't tell you how many times over the years I have wondered what happened to my friends that lived in that cute little house. I have so many, many great memories of watching them and playing with them and even traveling with them to Mesa on an overnight trip. I have never been so grateful for Facebook as when I found them significantly more grown up than last time I knew them! :D Kimberly's girls look SO much like that gorgeous angel girl that I had so much fun with!

I hope you had an awesome birthday, Kimberly! I thought about you all day and had I known how to work the scanner better, this post would have actually made it out ON your birthday! I hope you know how much you are loved by me and how I treasure the memories of you and your wonderful family! Wouldn't it be awesome to be in the same place at the same time someday and get a really real hug? :D Here's a virtual one for now! ;)

I got these pictures probably about a year after I'd been gone. I never got to meet Weston, though I knew he was coming when I left! :) Tell me these kids don't have the absolute cutest grins ever in the whole universe? :D I sure love you guys!!

Oh, and did I mention that we are now preggo at the same time both with boys?! How COOL is that? :D

Rollerskating Babies

Campin'

When you put the terms "camping" "pregnant" "4 kids" "wheelchair" and "rain" together you wouldn't think it would add up to tons of fun! But it did for us. :) We were definitely "Hammon such a good time!" :D Geoff bought us an incredible tent that fits us really well! Click here to see pics. :) He also bought a second air mattress that was double tall and just what the Dr. ordered for a wife 'with child.' It rained very little and we had lots and lots of yummy food and way too much sugar to snack on in between. :D I got home craving more gum drops, cinnamon bears, licorice and s'mores than ever before! :D Our camera batteries died about the time we got to the campground, but Aunt Colleen and Uncle Greg took lots of really great pictures, so go check them out over there! :D I LOVE the picture at the top of this post because Becca is SO happy!! Aunt Glenda was standing close by telling her how pretty she is and she was just grinning! :D Yay! Way to go, Darin! Great pictures!!

I love hanging out with my family and we all just blend so well together. We all loved and helped each other's kids... roasted marshmellows for each other... kept the rain off each other... played card games until the middle of the night together... took pictures of each other. Throw in some Pepperidge Farm goldfish crackers and cookies by the pound, Gossner's squeaky cheese and Aggie ice cream... put it all together and what have you got? A bunch of Super Awesome people Hammon such a good time!! :D

A Set of Swings

My wonderfully strong and innovative husband and his equally creative, generous and strong family built us a swing set! It's made out of 2 1/2 inch metal pipe and it fits 3 swings plus a tire swing. It's somewhere around 10 feet tall after cutting off about 2 feet off of each pole when we realized how humongous it was going to be! :D The tire swing isn't up yet, but with a small bean bag, that will make a perfect place for Becca to be and we may still make an inside out tire swing that would hold her kind of like a banana seat. For now, we jerry-rigged the baby swing into the third spot.

Geoff, his Dad and Josh working on the holes for the swing bolts.

The girls drew with chalk to distract them during the wait.

Daddy sat in the chalk while working on the swing set! :D

The first trial run! It rained most of the morning that we put this all up. Brudder's face says it all! :D

Thank You, Grandma and Grandpa for the awesome swings!!!

Apparently, Mama had the camera set to "blurry," but here they are in all their glory!

I'm still here!

As you may or may not have noticed, I tend to have blog constipation. I wait and only write about the big stuff that happens. :D I guess you could say I have IBS... Irritable Blog Syndrome. But I so love reading other people's blogs about all the little day to day stuff, too. So, here is my offering of Ex-Lax (and my last unattractive metaphor!) and this post isn't about anything! :D

I have felt like I'm floating lately. I'm on a river, so I'm still going in some direction or another, but I don't feel like I am taking an active roll in propelling myself down the river. Pregnancy has really slowed me down, and not that it shouldn't, but my life seems to have only two speeds... really fast and really slow. The last weeks of school were insane! I ran around to 2 different schools to dance festivals and plays and delivering teacher gifts and all the while shuttling the littlest 2 in a 2-40 air conditioned van... 2-55 if I was really in a hurry! ;) And now that everybody's home I don't want to go anywhere, I don't want to do anything, I just want to sit with my feet in the kiddie pool and eat popsicles. :D

I have found, to my great surprise, that my kids can work with proper motivation and I'm not SO behind on housework as I was in previous weeks. They can be really quite charming if they are rewarded sufficiently and hopefully punished less. :D I am of course saying this after the "Bedroom Coup of the Beginning of the Week." Their room was a Disaster area with a very capital D! Clothes everywhere mingling dirty with clean, purses, necklaces, dollies, hair elastics... you name it and it was on the floor in there. And it happened much in the way a tornado does. It had been clean for what I'll call several weeks, but was really closer to a week and a half when all of a sudden the laundry bags exploded everywhere! It might have something to do with them breaking the PVC framework for the laundry sorter and the bags then slouching to the floor. After asking nicely and giving them helpful hints (why don't you pick up everything yellow first?) it wasn't getting any better, so I invaded! I kicked them outside to play and cleaned the room myself, stashing favorite books and toys and even a couple of clothing items in bags with their names on them. Since then they have had to earn back the things the invading army took by doing jobs for the general. :D Geoff and I decided that they'll do it until they get their most favorite stuff back and then they'll lose interest and then to D.I. will go the spoils of war. :D Some day it might even be their own idea to keep it clean! For now, they don't get read to at night unless everything is picked up and hopefully they'll get into a better routine.

I hate seizures! I don't even want to go into it, but I hate them so bad I can taste it in my mouth! :P Blech!!

I wish I had time to write! I've always said that if I made it a priority I could go all the way and love every minute of it. BUT I also know that if I did make it a priority, it would selfishly climb to the very top of the list and push out things like clean dishes and clean clothes and reading to my kids and walking to the park and cooking nutritious meals. And so, it sits comfortably under those things for now waiting for me to give it the time and focus it needs to really become something. Someday before I die, I hope for you to have a copy of a book on your bookshelf that I wrote and that you actually enjoyed reading. :)

So, here's to enjoying a paddleless canoe ride down a lazy river once in a while. Here's to letting things slide a little sometimes as long as I eventually get back in gear and get things done. Here's to kiddie pools and popsicles. And here's to motherhood not being perfect, but being memorable and fun and well worth the journey!