Gracie had her first swim in Grandma & Grandpa Milne's pool. She did great, and was styling a ginormous swim diaper (one leftover from Carson) and cute teeny weeny swimsuit.
Gotta love the white thighs.
And another first: canning jam. We picked 3 buckets of apricots from Nate's parents yard and spent Saturday morning making and canning jam and syrup. I'm trying to forget the amount of sugar we used (an entire 25 lb. bag!) and just enjoy the delicious outcome.
Last weekend began a CRAZY week, and I mean crazy.... in a fun way of course. First my parents, my 3 nephews, my sister, her husband, and their 6 kids all came to stay at our house for the weekend. Yes, our 2200 sq. foot house held a total of 6 adults and 9 kids.
Sunday we blessed Gracie. The blessing itself was wonderful, Nate did a great job. He had to talk loud though because Gracie screamed through the entire blessing. And I later found out she was almost dropped during it, thanks to Blake for keeping her from slipping!
She had a super-cute bonnet on during the actual blessing, but I think that's what was making her so mad, hence the bonnet-free pictures.
Right after the blessing lunch we went to Bear Lake with my parents, Ramie's family, Tiff & Blake, Rob & Pam, and Nate's parents & younger siblings. We had so much fun, I LOVE Bear Lake!
My wonderful parents, I miss them already.
The next morning we did the challenge course. Sadie was so brave and did the zip line all by herself. You have to climb up a pole, walk across a log, and then go down the zip line. I decided if Sadie can do it, I can too. Oh, Nate did it too, but that's nothing for him :)
Today in sacrament meeting I got brave and decided to bear my testimony. So, I get up there and am all emotional and about mid-way through I look over to where Nate & the kids are sitting (in the very front row of one of one of the side sections) and a bunch of people are laughing, including Nate. I completely lost my train of thought so I quickly ended my testimony and sat down. When I asked Nate what happened he was laughing so hard he could not tell me. The nice lady behind us leaned toward me and told me Carson had gotten a tampon out of my bag, taken the wrapper off, and was swinging it by the string in circles while facing the entire congregation. Needless to say, I was completely humiliated. Leave it to Carson to entertain himself, and many others, with a tampon.
We had a blast in Orlando, Florida with my family. We went to Cocoa Beach and it was HOT! We even had to get Gracie in the ocean to keep her cool.
The house we rented had a pool in the back yard and we were probably in it 5 hours a day, at least.
We went to Gatorland and saw some Gators. This was the best picture we could get because I didn't last long on the Gator, it was stinkin hot on my bum.
4 of the days we went to Universal Studios / Island of Adventure. The rides were fun, we took full advantage of the baby swap (one perk of having a baby) and the kids had a blast.
Oh, and can you tell who dressed Sadie & Carson that morning? Hmm....With the recent economy I've been thinking about what I would do if I had to get a job. Not that I am getting a job or anything. I just started thinking about what kind of job I could get with my current skills and experience. I have a few ideas:
I spend a lot of my time protecting this princess from 2 of her biggest fans. I could totally be a bodygaurd for some cool rockstar or celebrity. 
Recently, I have helped this client get chubby. I know this skill isn't usually appreciated (helping people gain weight), but I thought I could maybe start a clinic for people with eating disorders or something.
I have mastered the technique of a tight burrito wrap. This could come in handy at a Mexican restaurant, maybe I could work at Cafe Rio. Yum. But I don't know Spanish, darn.
I spend much of my time and energy cleaning up after these monkeys. I could be a zoo-keeper. Yeah..... no maybe not.
Sadie had her year-end dance performance. She did great, and was thrilled to get a trophy and flower from Ms. Victoria at the end.
Gracie started smiling, which is so fun.
On Memorial Day we drove up to Heber to see Thomas the Train. We are too cheap to pay the $20 a person to go on the train, so we do all of the free stuff and take a picture in front of Thomas. The kids have a blast!
Sadie graduated from preschool with honors (just kidding.) Ms. Debbie puts on a super cute graduation ceremony where they perform a bunch of songs and then get their diplomas. My how time flies.
Remember this picture? It was taken in November of last year.
Here's the after picture, taken 6 months later. (Plus Merideth's Jack on the end, he was already born in the first picture). It was so fun putting all the babies together, Gracie is going to love having 6 cute boys to choose from! 
And here's a picture of before we went to the zoo with Marcella and her kids.
And here's the after.
