Family Time

About a month ago we had a "Special Family Vacation Day" We thought the kids needed a vacation, but Mark dosen't have any free vacation days left at work, and we didn't really want to do a road trip with the three little ones. So we did a one day trip to St. Louis. They were so excited and asked every day if we were going.
First we went to the Museum of Transportation. They have a LOT of trains.
And they are HUGE!

They had so many different types of trains, it really was fun. Danton, Lydia, and Daddy even got to take a ride on a rail car. I missed it, and they didn't have the camera, but Mark said the driver let Danton sit in the front and he had a HUGE smile on his face. I did wave as they rode past


The cabooseThey also had LOTS of cool old cars
The picture doesn't do this one justice, it was massive.We got them each a train whistle souvenir before we left.

Then we went to the temple grounds. Our kids had never been and we wanted them to feel the sacredness of the temple as they walked around. As soon as we crested the hill and it came into view Lydia was SO excited.

We walked around for only about 10 mins. We were dressed in casual clothes, and it was stinking HOT. Arissa slept the whole time.
Lydia had to touch the temple.
The kids wanted to go touch the trees.



Then we went to lunch at a restaurant, (Hardees) And then off to the Science Center
The hop scotch made sounds when you jumped on it
Danton was a little scared of the T Rex. It moves and makes noise and he kept telling it to stop.
Then we ran into Uncle Scott and Aunt Laura...that was crazy and super fun.
in the picture from right to left Mark, Danton, Laura, Jessica, Hayley, And Lydia.

We were so tired, that we were all done by 2 or 2:30. The kids totally fell asleep on the way home.

The kids got free bowling passes from the library reading program this summer, so we took them for FHE a couple weeks later.
Arissa was a little fussy and didn't like being handed off constantly, so Daddy got pretty good at bowling with a baby.
The kids LOVED it till about the 5th frame, but they lasted till the 7th frame...then they noticed the arcade driving games behind them. So daddy and I finished out the game for them.
It's hard to see his ball cause it's yellow-ish green and just looks like the reflection of the light on the lane, but it's down on the right side of the lane. It was going REALLY slow. ...that may be why they didn't last all 10 frames...


Lydia doing her victory dance. She did one nearly every time she knocked ANYTHING down.

And these are just some pictured of Danton helping Daddy wash the truck....Lydia helped too, only she had the hose and was not only washing the truck, but she was washing Danton too. Soooo...she had to go inside.

look alike

People always ask me who Arissa looks like, well see for you self. This is Lydia:


And this is Arissa:

She is getting so big. :) We took a trip t St Louis last Saturday. I'll post about that later. I can only be on the computer so long right now. We are doing some hard core potty training with Danton :) It demands MUCH attention. But he is doing REALLY well.

My Girls

Lydia, being ALL girl, LOVES weddings, and anything that goes with weddings. She has been asking me about my wedding dress lately and I told her I'd show it to her some time. to her that meant "I'll go show you RIGHT NOW"
Every day for about a week or so she has asked me if she could see it. So I finally pulled it out for her (while Danton was taking a nap) It was a skirt and shirt, so I let her put on the shirt. As simple as it was she felt like a princess cause she was ACTUALLY WEARING A WEDDING DRESS!!!!

Then I told her to "POSE"

Arissa has been starting to smile a lot lately. So we finally pulled out the camera to catch her smile...and her chubby cheeks.

over due update

Well wouldn't you know it, it's harder to get on and blog with 3 kids then it is with 2. I guess I've got some catching up to do.
This is Arissa about a week old
This is our baby tree. When we were planing our garden this year I found a nut that a squirel burried in one of our big garden buckets. It had started to sprout so Mark planted it in the yard. A couple weeks later we found this:
Then after all the rain the next time we looked at it it was about 8 in tall with a few big leaves. I also found another tree about the same size right next to the house s I moved that one out to the yard also. But some time last week one of the neighbor kids pulls one right out of the ground and the other got trampled. We were sad. Next time we will leave them in our big buckets till they are big enough to survive.

We had my family reunion May19-21. All our plans got rained out, and lots of people were sick the whole time. But we still had LOTS of fun together. (but we REALLY missed Marshall) Nancyann took all the kids on a bear hunt. They had teddy grahams in a bag for each kid, and hid them around the tree house.
We also like to do an Unbirthday party for all the kids at each reunion. They each got a present, girls got dress up stuff and the boys got dart guns.
And everybody got a cupcake and got to blow out a candle.

Mom made a family tree with everyone's hand prints and since we were doing hand prints all the sisters did their own hand print craft. Everyones was different, this is what I did. Lydia's is red, Arissa's is purple and Danton's is blue.
We went to the park for Family Pictures, we got a sibling picture everyone but Marshall. Sheri took the picture, and got us all laughing pretty hard. "Say Adams" "ADAMS!!!" *click* "...Everybody say Compton!" then a few of us at the same time said "....Why?!" And everybody started cracking up, and we got this:
Me and Grandma Willis
And our Updated family pictures!! (I'm not really in love with any of the family pictures we got, but arissa is so little I'll want to update them in a few months anyway)


The last activity at the reunion was opening the time capsule. That was SO fun. we buried it March 2000, we were suppose to open it next year, but it worked out better this year. We all traced our selves on butcher paper and wrote thing about our self. Everything was in this PVC pipe. Nancyann was the MC for the time capsule.

:::MEMORIAL DAY:::

We went out to great Grandpa Adams. Grandpa took us to see the chickens. Danton was helping him feed them.

Then he showed us the baby chicks. Lydia got to hold one. Danton tried to hold one but he just squished it while Grandpa held it. Poor chick.




And of course you can't go to Grandpas with out riding on his tractors.
Daddy was fishing on the lake (of course) so after we were done with the chicks I took the kids down for a fishing trip with Dad. This was Danton's first time fishing.

And Lydia caught her FIRST fish!!! (on her PINK rod) They were on the water for about an hour
This is Arissa I think about 3 weeks old.

This is right around 1 month old. she is 6 weeks now. They both adore their sister. They want to hold her ALL the time.

She was making her talk


I said DON'T poke her eye!
And of course I found a project to do. I made a bed side crib with pvc pipe, works so much better then the porta-crib.



We didn't get very good pictures for her Blessing, we were in a hurry cause all Marks family was coming over for lunch...but at least we got some pictures.