Ellie's Birthday!

July 12th was Ellie's 9th Birthday! We headed to Utah for the weekend to just hang out and get away. On the way down, I called MaryAnn and told her that we were coming. She whipped a party up for us. We went to Jon's to hang out and swim at his pool. He has an awesome backyard and it made for a perfect party. MaryAnn brought the food and I brought the cake. The kids had a blast. But I think that the adults had just as much fun! We all needed to relax!

Before we went to Utah I took some 9 year old pics of Ellie!

I can't believe that she is so old!

I don't brag about my kids that often, and hate to read the blogs that brag, but Ellie really is a good girl. She is fun to have around, I'm not sure where her personality came from, but we love it. Happy Birthday Ellie!!!

We played basketball on the tramps. It was a hoot. Cody is still talking about it...that means that it was really cool! He thinks that he can figure out a way to put tramps like that in our yard. Thanks Jon!

The kids swam into the night - we couldn't get them out of the water!

I never got any good pics of the kids because they never surfaced from the water!

Abby & her husband Sam.

MaryAnn brought good food and picked the perfect location....she sure knows how to have a party!!!

Cute London!

Thanks for the great day MaryAnn. Ellie loved her birthday!

Belated 4th of July

I am a little late on posting the 4th pics. I was trying so hard to figure out how to include the video, but as you can see it is not on here so I have not yet accomplished my video project. I love the fourth of July! It has to be one of my favorite holidays. It is very laid back and we all help bring the food so no one person has much stress. This year Uncle Jim made Dutch Oven Chicken and potatoes. It was fabulous! (I guess uncle Jim had the stress) I loved the left overs as much as the actual meal. Thanks Uncle Jim. This is my annual 4th of July pose on the front steps before going to Albion. We always go up to the big town of Albion for the parade. Ellie and Tate get to ride on the ATC communications float and Emma gets to catch all the stuff. They don't just throw candy in Albion, they throw toys!!!

I love the Boy Scout flag in front of my house for the patriotic holidays!

I like to get my kids to hug for pictures. They look more like they are strangling each other than loving each other. Is that a tree growing in the background....nope, it's a weed!!! Should have pulled that one before the pic.

Emma posing before the parade.
Emma's arms were so full of stuff that she sat down and stopped trying to get more, gotta love Albion.
The whole gang after the parade!
We got the water slide out at Mom and Dad's before we had dinner. It was a good day and ended with great fireworks!

Lazerson's visit to Nebraska

The Miller's are finally settled in Nebraska and The Lazerson's, our friends from Virginia, came to visit us. We met them in Denver at an amusement park called Elitch Garden's. It was a 3 hour drive to Denver. The kids did pretty good with the drive since they had something to look forward to. Please forgive my picture taking since I am not Emily and I rarely get a good shot. I did my best though. Most of them are not blurry.

This is Skylar throwing a ball at someone. Probably her dad.

We went into this room filled with ways to shoot balls at people and there were balls flying everywhere. Christian enjoyed it more than the kids did. You can't see Ryan, but Christian was helping him shoot balls at me.

The train ride was definately Christian's favorite.

This was my best attempt at getting a picture with all 5 kids in it. Camden kept running away (look at the right side of the picture). They don't look very happy that their parents took them to an amusement park. No one could put a smile on their face.

When we got back to Nebraska we decided to show the Lazerson family the town. That didn't take very long so we needed to find something fun to do. Luckily, Scottsbluff and Gering have many wonderful and exciting things to do. Christian and Brent went golfing both days leaving the moms to entertain the children. It is better that way anyway so we only have to listen to 5 whining, complaining, ungrateful children and not 5 whining children and their 2 whining dads.

We spent the first day at the water park.

Camden had fun swimming/crawling around. He kept saying "water pool, water pool".

He loved it!!!!

Ryan enjoyed the fact that he could walk around and touch the bottom by himself.

Skylar loved the tube slide.

She also liked this rope climbing thing.

Ryan on the kiddie slide.

I actually got a picture with all 5 of them. Go me!!!

Here's Ryan with his favorite part of the pool. He got to shoot water at people out of a cannon.

Very cool.

The next day we went to the zoo. It left much to be desired. It was about 101 degrees outside and there were hardly any animals.

My favorite part was the zebras butt.

Look another picture with all 5.

Well, that was my first attempt at blogging with pictures. That took a lot longer than I thought.

The lion says Good Night!!

Marbles & Ice Cream

Tate was dying to play marbles with the marbles from the reunion so we attempted.

The problem is that we don't really know how to play and that my sidewalk has a really nice slope to it which makes the marbles go everywhere but where you want them to.

We made up our own rules. If anyone knows how to play for reals, let us know. We have 340 marbles, we might as well know what to do with them.

Tate is sure that he won. We let him think that because we don't know who won.

So then we decided to make ice cream. It was really fun, except that you need winter gloves on because it gives you frost bite on your fingers to make it.

I didn't think that it was going to work, but it did and it tastes great. After eating it, I then discovered that it only has about 21fat grams and too many calories to mention. We will only make ice cream once a summer!

Here is the recipe though. Because it is really fun that it works. My kids kept saying that it wasn't working and then it all of the sudden gets stiff and editable instead of drinkable.

Speedy Ice Cream

1 cup half and half cream

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 to 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 cups coarsely crushed ice cubes

3/4 cup salt

In a small resealable plastic bag, combine the cream, sugar, and vanilla. Press out air and seal.

In a large plastic resealable bag, combine the ice and salt; add the sealed small bag. Seal the large bag; place in another large resealable plastic bag and seal. Shake and knead for 5-7 min. or until cream mixture is thickened. Serve immediately or freeze.

This was enough to make 4 servings!

It was a fun day, but looking at the pictures, my kids never got their hair done. I guess I don't have it in me to be a fun mom and have cute kids. I would say that we will work on that, but I know that it won't happen!!

Gillette Reunion 2008

June 27th & 28th was the Gillette Family Reunion. It is with all of mom's cousin's and their families. When I first started attending, it was overwhelming and not much fun. Too many people that I didn't know. Now that I have been soo many times it is actually fun to see these people and get to know them. This year the Max Gillette Fam was in charge. We had it at NatSooPah and grandma was even able to be there for some of it. She is the last living of the original generation of this family. I was glad that she was able to be there even if she didn't really know what was going on or who everyone was.... she was able to be outside and just sit and watch the kids have fun.

I am sure that Tate did something to deserve this!!! Glad I don't know what it was!!!

This was on our way to NatSooPah....they were soooooo excited!!!

I bought slingshots and they tried to hit each other with water balls. That is as much of a game as your going to get when you put Julie and I in charge!!! They all had a good time though. I learned that you can have a great family reunion without overdoing.

Grandma was waving "HI". Hey, Uncle Bill has a WATER in his hand!!! WOW!!!

The other game that we had was to try and get marbles out of the pool with your toes. It didn't last very long, cuz Emma & Willow just wanted to sit in it, so Jill got them naked. I walked over and thought, well you can't get any more extreme 2 naked bodies together than that. Willow is 6 weeks younger than Emma!

Here is Mom with all of her cousins and spouses.