Five Cakes Bake

Cooper had several reasons to smile this summer. He got his braces off, he played baseball, he went on some trips, and he got the big bedroom now that Boston is in Spain. He also only has to share a car with Macy when she does her student driving. 

We had a nice stay at the Cabinshare. Here we are at Provo Falls. 

My kids always look forward to the Cul de Sac of Fire with the neighbors every 4th of July. Rosie was lighting it up and dancing to the music. 

Luke and the mayor are buddies. Mayor Mendenhall promised him he could ring the City Hall Bell, for which only the mayor has the key (to the bell tower). It was sometime this summer but let's post the video here with the 4th of July stuff, as well as the painting of Sawtooth my Mom did for my sister. Purple mountains majesty and all. 

Leslie and Cole have been having a lot of fun with their group of newly-marrieds. This was a murder mystery night I got to babysit for.

Cooper was able to have a post placed for a double implant that he needs to get done before he leaves on his mission. Rosie was happy to be his twin.

Speaking of leaving on missions, I really was excited to get Cooper and Luke out to Oregon to visit my sister's boys before everyone is all grown up and on missions and dispersed every which way. Cooper and Cash are both seniors. Darcy's property borders an incredibly beautiful stretch of the Siletz, so the boys had a lot of swimming hole shenanigans. 

I also attempted the jumprope paddleboard challenge a few times but choose not to post my vids.

I loved riding in the car with these boys and hearing my sister's playlist on her speakers. My favorite part, though, was when Cash, in his deep Jimmy Stewart voice, demanded in all seriousness, "I want to hear "Good Golly Miss Molly." Still makes me laugh. 

As does this picture. Kyler, Cooper, Dylan, Cash, Luke. SOO good to get these boys together. It was also pretty relaxing for me to just have the bunkhouse to myself and hang out on the sun porch, reading and writing and listening to the waterfall and the chickens. The boys were very good. Macy was so kind as to stay home with Rosie and be the boss of the house so Mark could work.

This was a very tall and steep sand mountain (don't know the name) that we hiked up. I was proud of myself for making it to the top because 

a. it was steep and 

b. it was walking in deep sand. 

Also c. I am older and feebler than my superwoman sister.

I think she's saying, well you can't stop now, you're more than halfway!

This is the famous Octopus tree. Pretty cool. They aren't sure how it got this way. 

Cake number one. (One of our favorite Dr. Seuss books is a flip-the-flap board book that says "Five Cakes Bake" when you open the oven door. I read it recently to Ellie Ro and she LOOOVed it.)

In the foreground of Kyler's cake picture is a big fat recipe of Darcy's chocolate mousse, which I finally got around to making at our house. Thanks for the recipe Darc, it was divine.

Cooper had a rotten day before the parade. Back home, the golf coach decided not to take on additional seniors and Coop was pretty crushed, especially since his scores were great and he thought it was a sure thing. (Plus we couldn't make it to the "tiebreaker" bonus tryout day, already on a plane.) So, it was extra randomly beautiful and fun to me that my sad boy got to throw candy in the PowWow parade. What a hoot! Look at those smiles. There was even a troop of girls in the parade carrying a sign that said, "Cooper's Pony Club," haha. 

Perry and Darcy were great hosts. 

Luke got quite the haul of prizes, candy, and even popsicles. 

I only told Darcy to take my picture halfway up sand mountain so I could catch my breath. I think she knew. Still, it was a cool spot for a picture.

Luke loves Dune and Maus. Rosie does not, which was another benefit of leaving her home.

And then school started for these high schoolers, this middle schooler, and my remaining elementary kiddo. 

Rosie gets sick of the kids patting her face and telling her how cute she is. 

Luke was pretty excited to start on the trombone. 

We had a post-school-starting campout at Yuba Lake. It was prettier and more accomodating than expected but still, we consistently don't know how to actually sleep in a tent. We were short one mattress pad and one sleeping bag, so the kids had to kind of just squish together, and I worried all night that someone was freezing and slipping out of their bedding every time anybody moved. Or breathed. Maybe I could sleep (a little) if I was in a tent all by myself away from everyone else. 

I don't know what they are laughing about on my phone, but these two get along pretty well.

I get along pretty well with this little muffin. 

Mark gets along pretty well with these brothas from other mothas. It was their 30th class reunion.

Mark and I had fun checking out the empanadas at a latino bakery in Provo, since Boston is in Spain. They were huge and yummy. We'll probably add them to the lineup in our Favorite Things dinner Christmas Eve, in honor of Boston. I told Mark I feel pretty spoiled that he can order me food in French, Cole can order me food in Portuguese, and Boston will be able to order me food in Spanish. Plus I have four kids to go, so the odds are pretty high that I will expand my international cuisine access.

Us at the Lee Family reunion in Tooele. Mark's uncles Kelly and Russ are on the far left. Uncle Derl and Aunt Reenie left middle. Grandma Harris in the center.

Luke has been saving up his dollary-doos to be able to go to Lagoon with Mark and try out the big rides. They had a blast, and Luke didn't even get a migraine. Which is saying something. He still gets them about once a month, so we spent a lot of time this fall working on chiropracty and physical therapy to see if that would help. Remains to be seen. He missed his debut trombone concert. (Which probably would have caused a migraine, even if he didn't already have one.)

Boston made it to Spain. He is loving the mish very much. 

We had bushels and bushels of honeycrisps from our overgrown tree. We juiced some, froze some, ate a lot, and I made Luke peddle some from a produce wagon. This picture of me with the pie is special because my nephew's infant son passed away in September, and Leslie put together a memorial book of services done in honor of little Isaac. I baked this pie from scratch (the apples are a nod to his September birthday) and gave it to new neighbors. Some of my kids and Mark volunteered at the food bank for their dedicated service. 

I love these pictures of Boston and his beans in Ciudad Real and have it as my screensaver currently. It was raining hard outside (The Rain in SPAIN!) and his comp took a video. Very cinematic. Love the nametag.  

Usually the elders don't get to perform the baptisms because it's better for members of the ward to be involved in their special day, but this particular family was moving shortly, anyway, so they asked the elders to participate. 

Rosie wanted me to take a picture of this heart shaped strawberry. 

We had so many cucumbers that Rosie decided she needed to do a spa day. The mint on top of the cucumber is a nice touch, Rosie, but the best part is the hammock.

Cooper finished up at Crumbl, sadly, once open gyms for basketball started interfering with work too much. We will miss the closing shift leftovers very much--I will especially miss having him come wake me up at 11pm to come and try something that he especially thought I would like--but it's probably good he quit before we all got diabetes. There are some cakes here as well, but I didn't include them in my cake count for this entry.

Also love this picture of Boston. It's at some kind of city festival. This was the picture that clued us in to the fact that he is in a tieless mission. He only has to wear ties for church and meetings. Mark is super jealous, but Boston is muy relieved.

Excerpts from Boston's emails are included in the ward newsletter every month. This one is funny because he and his comp baked a wedding cake. The wedding cake can be Cake #2, since I didn't get to bake Boss a birthday cake. He just wanted Peanut Butter for his birthday. It's really difficult to get anything through customs so we aren't supposed to try, but luckily there is a Senior Couple in Madrid with a Madrid Costco card who will buy PB in behalf of the missionaries.

Boston made me this meme for my birthday card. Aww! It's of the Madrid temple.

I made myself a German chocolate cake (Cake #3), which was also one of my Dad's favorite cake. He would have turned the big 70 on our shared birthday week. As you can see, I left a portion of it bare for the crazies in our house who don't like coconut, or nuts, or carmel.

For my birthday I also took Macy and Rosie to the Springville Quilt Show. Rosie LOOOVED it.

Cooper went to homecoming with the homecoming queen. I had to post this picture and that information on a facebook group I've been following for cleft kid mamas, mostly to offer support. It's been really fun to help calm their fears and show them the light at the end of the long medical tunnel. This picture got sooo much feedback and thank yous from the moms who wanted to reassure their kids in the middle of restructuring, or from moms who just got the news that things were about to be complicated with their new baby and were scared to death. Here are some of the comments. I'm including them so that Cooper can see some of the good influence he wields: 

I absolutely love seeing older cleft kids on this group. My son is only two & I can't help but think about what the future holds for him. Thank you for sharing. He's a handsome fella! 

Thanks for the future perspective! I agree that God is so good. My son had his lip and nose surgery last week, and he is already healing wildly well! Thanking God daily.

He is so handsome! yes God is so good! Love this!

Ahhh I love seeing the grown up kids. My baby is almost 10 months old, so we're at the beginning of this journey. It's so encouraging, thanks for sharing. 

Looks great! What a handsome lad. Thank you for your encouragement. May the Lord bless you, your son and family!

My 11 year old boy always asks about "big kids" and these are the stories I love to share.

I saw an Instagram post that my son has "maximum rizz", I had to ask what that meant?! He has charisma and a confidence that everyone loves. That's our kids. That's who they are. 

I couldn't agree more. 

This handsome lad here had a big birthday as well. He had a great time watching Napoleon Dynamite with his buddies. Cake #4. I guess this one was a chocolate cream pie, but I'm counting it.

And finally our birthday princess. She was just giddy about her presents. This was a new Rosie themed shower curtain for "her" bathroom now that Luke lives in the basement. 

She kept saying, "I can't believe it!" And was so grateful for her gifts. Such a sweetie. 

Cake number 5. Nutella Gooey Butter Cake. Ask me for the recipe sometime. 

One of Luke's birthday gifts was to go to Wild Robot with Mom. Fun night and he managed to spill quite a bit of popcorn.

I love Fall in Utah so much. The mountains were calling so we had a beautiful family night up Payson Canyon.

Macy and her best friend Danika had a Sorelle Voce concert.

I got to accompany Rosie on her field trip to Cornbelly's Pumpkin Patch. I also helped take some photos of her "instructions" homework where they write a little report demonstrating how to do a task. She chose, making popcorn. She and Luke are major popcorn freaks.

More fall color on a glorious walk. 

I had a great time watching Luke's flag football season, and I was happy to snag Boston's old work hoodie for my emergency jacket in my van. 

Luke's team really struggled. Until the last two weeks or so of the season. Tada! They ended up taking second place, which was just hilarious. I think everyone learned a lot. 

Mark did some math and figured out that he has coached 31 teams thus far. This includes baseball (including a year at Lehi High assisting), basketball, and flag football. He also figured that his stats of winning seasons is all but two. This year he coached Cooper and Luke in baseball and Luke in flag.

This is us on date night when we realized that there was a free Ferris Wheel ride waiting for us after dinner. 

Ellie Ro has graduated to the high chair and big kid food. 

For Fall Break we hit some fun venues in SLC and Park City. The big kids went to the Jordan River Temple and I took Rosie to the nearby Gale Center, a children's museum that I used to take her siblings to. She loved it. 

We also had a great time at Clark Planetarium and riding the bus downtown to Temple Square.

Here we are at the Conference Center. 

The weather was wet and cold and it was perfect for Zupas. I think Cooper is giving a thumbs down to the fact that Luke wanted two kids meals because he loves it so much. 

Mark's friend Lance volunteers at the zoo. He and his son gave us a nice insider tour. I especially loved seeing Cooper's wingspan--I have a picture somewhere of him trying out the gorilla size with his cousins years ago when they weren't all so lanky.

Cooper really is having a fun season. He also got to take a weekend trip to Bear Lake with his bud Kali'i.

And he got to go to a football game with his parents and sit on what ended up being the Billionaire Row way up in the nosebleeds. Mitt was there with a grundle of grandkids, all melting in the hot sun just like us. Cooper had to climb over him to go get me a frozen lemonade. "Excuse me, Senator,"

It was a very happy summer with my loveys.