Trip to Marriage Mecca

...or so it feels like since we went to our 2nd wedding there this year, and the first of this summer.

Anyway, so much has happened since I last posted!  We visited Spencer's family out in Utah and had a fun-filled time full of hikes, a wienie roast, catfish line fishing, tissue paper pom-pom making, one amazing trip to Tucanos, and (most importantly) Heather's wedding!  Most unfortunately, my camera wasn't working (I really think it might have actually bit the dust this time around), however, most fortunately, my brother-in-law Eric took a bunch of pictures and then was doubly-awesome and sent me them all s so I could show them to you! yay! yay! for brother-in-laws who save the day!  Without further ado...

Note: if these pictures seem a little Ezra-heavy, it's because that's who Eric spent most of this time with.  They were pretty much inseparable and Ezra definitely worships the ground his Uncle Eric walks on.  It's fun to see Eric bring out Ezra's more rough-and-tumble side and it was super-handy to have a built-in-monitor when Ezra insisted on exploring the wild off the beaten path while the rest of us stuck to the trail (which happened ridiculously often).

Bridal Veil Falls

Spencer and Oak

Thank heavens Oak finally warmed up to his carrier this trip.  Last summer he whimpered every time Spencer started climbing and bending, but this time he loved every minute of it.

If, for those of you who are familiar with the area, this shot looks a little backward to you, it's because Ezra was on the opposite side of the falls from which people typically visit.  He took it upon himself to hike straight up the face of the falls (instead of the switch-backs leading up to it), and then explored the eastern side of things (maybe? I can never seem to remember my directions).  Luckily Eric was, as always, willing to tag along and keep him out of harms way.

The two E.E. Lifferths

Oh, how I love these two crazy gents

Animal Visits

After Bridal Veil, we hit up a local farm store to give the kids a chance to see the chicks, ducklings, and rabbits there.

Which was just a preview for when we visited Leslie's FFA club's show animals the next day.

Aunt Leslie's pride and joy pig

Eric in Scarlett's choke-hold on the walk there

These are officially from later that week when we visited Leslie at the animal show, but I'm grouping them here anyway.  deal with it.

Uncle Kyle and Scarlett

aaaand this is how Georgia felt about the animals.

Poor girl's blessed with my overly-sensitive sense of smell.

Catfish Line Fishing

Ezra is so Lifferth-looking it kills me!

Poor Ezzie Boy was being so brave.  The kid gets grossed out having to clear plates from the table...I can only imagine the personal agony he went through to hold the fish long enough to take a picture.  Uncle Eric's power knows no limits.

Local Hot Spots

Even with all the hiking, fishing, wedding festivities and preparations, we still managed to spend a day at the Church History Museum, taking a candy factory tour (at Sweet Candy Company-I highly recommend it!), and hitting up IKEA...or at least Kim and I did, while the boys and kiddos headed over to a outdoorsy store that I can't remember the name of.  Here's a few pictures as proof:

The Church History Museum has the coolest interactive kids exhibit right now.  A definite favorite was the latino dance area.  They had two life-sized screens set up to teach the kids traditional moves.  Georgie, in particular, couldn't be drug away with wild horses.

A super-blurry picture of Eric and Oak workin' the moves.  I couldn't resist posting regardless.

The outdoors store that Eric and Spencer took the kids to had gobs of photo spots.  They fully enjoyed them...until the kids started to fight over who got to hold a random piece of wood, reminded everyone in the store why birth control is a good thing, and started throwing around $250 golf clubs.  At that point in time, the guys called it a day and picked Kim and me up from IKEA.

Oak is less-inspired by the mountain lion.  Poor boy was exhausted by this point in the day.

Also uninspired by the bear.  obviously.

Just about the only picture we have of Georgia.  She was quite uncooperative to say the least.  Also, if you're wondering what the blue bubble is on her head, we all had hair covers for the candy tour and she insisted on wearing hers for the rest of the day.

Scarlett was oddly fond of the taxidermied skunks.

Tucanos

To say that the Rehearsal Dinner at Tucanos was a highlight of the trip is the understatement of the century.  We had been looking forward to it for.ev.er.  Spencer even contemplated starving himself for days in advance so as to better be able to enjoy it's Brazilian, meat-heavy fare.

The cute soon-to-be wed couple, Heather and Matt

Scarlett and Eric ready for their protein feast

...or at least Eric was.  Scarlett just likes posing for photo ops

Georgia did her Lifferth-genes proud and fully gorged herself.  That girl loooooves her meat.

All the kids were particularly fond of the little tongs you use when getting the meat off the serving platters.

Kim and Georgie

If it looks like Georgia's mouth is full of food here...it's because it is.

I was going to post the wedding pictures here, but since this post is already GINORMOUS, I think I'll take a rain check and make up a separate post in a couple of days.

Anyway, thanks for sticking it out.  Hope your head didn't explode from the picture overload.  As a surprise bonus for those that made it to the end, here are two youtube videos that Eric made up for the kids (the man takes his GoPro everywhere with him).  Ezra's, in particular, makes me smile.  He really does know no limits when it comes to the great outdoors.  As a random onlooker said to me while he scaled a shale-covered mountainside in bare feet...the boy has balls.

Enjoy!

Ezra The Explorer

The Quest to the Sun God

snips & snails & puppy dogs tails

It looks like after decades (or so it seemed to Ezra) of an estrogen-fueled household, testosterone wins the war at last!  We'll be adding another BOY to our family this September, bringing our grand total up to 2 girls and 3 boys!

We took all 4 kids with us to the ultrasound so they see the baby for the first time and find out the gender with us.  Ezra was super-excited it was a boy, the girls were pretty bummed, and Oak was just trying to figure out what the heck that lady was rubbing all over Mom's belly.  The girls, fortunately, are coming to terms with it.

When Ezra found out it'll be our last baby, he started doing quite the little happy dance.  I was kind of taken aback, until he explained that he was so excited because that meant that boys would out-number the girls for.ev.er.  The girls were less-excited, obviously ;)

As for me, I'm saying baby and pregnancy goodbyes all over the place.  Because I know that I'm going to miss the pregnancy and baby stage, I'm trying to mentally prepare for it as much as possible.  I tell myself all the time, "this is the last time you'll do ________." (fill in blank with morning sickness, hitting 12 weeks, wearing that maternity sweater, getting a peek at the gender, etc.).  It's a little sad, but I'm glad I'm having the chance to say good-bye.  That was the one hard thing about finding out it was a boy.  I'm not really sad about the boy, exactly, especially since I think it'll be great for Oak to have a brother so close in age, but there's a part of me that gets a little down at the thought that I'll never have another girl.  No more giant bows to put on teeny-tiny heads, ruffle-bum bloomers, and tiny patent-leather Sunday shoes.  I'll never get the chance to talk Spencer into naming a girl Tallulah (my absolute favorite!) or Cecilia.  With previous pregnancies, even if the gender isn't the one I was hoping for, there was always a next time.  This time, there's no next time, which is something I'm trying to wrap my head around.

Anyway, overall, we're all very excited to for this next Little Man and can't wait to meet him!  Now we just have to get through our uber-busy Spring and Summer first!

Easter, part II

Man, the blogosphere Gods are against me!  I get all ready to post Easter pictures about a week ago and our desktop won't start up.  (It's been struggling for a while, but we can usually get it going by sneaking through the back door.  Spencer thinks the entire hard drive just needs to be wiped clean and rebooted...I think he's in denial of having to buy a new computer.  We'll see whose right.)  The laptop is kind of a pain in the butt to post pictures with, so I put it off.  But then I get all gung-ho this morning about updating the blog when I realize how long it's been since my last post (eek! nearly 2 weeks!) and I can't find the cords that connect the camera with the laptop for picture uploading.  I was ready to give up on the whole thing when I remember that I had already saved most of my Easter pictures on Facebook and could get them off of there (woo-hoo!)...sooo...here we are!  Enjoy!

first off: Egg Dying!  I know, I know, I'm a crazy-pants to insist on a full-fledge, 4 dozen, actual dye, egg-coloring session with 4 young kids (sidenote: when can I stop including Ezra in the young kids definition?), but I'm actually kind of hard-core about egg dying, even with all the mess and massive amounts of leftover eggs.  I just love me a good tradition.  I've found that 4 dozen is just about the right amount for everyone to leave the table satisfied.  We might have to bump it up another half-dozen next year when Oak will be old enough to do more than 3 eggs and get bored.

Confession: I still have like half-dozen hard boiled eggs in the fridge waiting to get eaten, 2 1/2 weeks post-Easter.  Normally I take care of them much sooner, but my tastes have been finicky with pregnancy.  I'll have to make up some egg salad for sandwiches or something 'cause I don't think I'll trust them after another week.

If my kids look homeless, it's because it was Saturday morning *cough*or afternoon*cough*.  They look fairly vagrant-ish most Saturdays.

We also did resurrection rolls, per-tradition, but Spencer was in charge of the camera for that activity...and...well...I love my husband but he has a tendency to take really odd pictures from really odd angles.  I might've included a few on here just as proof (of the activity...not my husband's photography skills ;)  and for kicks and giggles, but they didn't make the Facebook cut so I can't get to them right now.  Sorry, Honey!

Finally...the Easter Egg Hunt!  I'd love for my kids to stay in their lovely Easter clothes for the hunt too, but as they're so darn eager to get out of Sunday clothes (refer to previous story about having to drag Ezra back INTO his clothing post-church, pre-pictures), we all just have to live with more vagabond-looking offspring for event photos.   Oh well, c'est la vie.

Poor Oakie was so, so, so unhappy.  We had to wake him up from his nap for the egg hunt (it was 5:30pm! The kids were having a conniption having to wait so long) and he was NOT a happy camper!  His mood drastically improved after the kids showed him his candy.

Ok, friends, I think that's it for our Easter catch-up!  phew!

In other news, we have our first ultrasound on Friday and hopefully we'll get a peek at the gender.  So darn excited!!  I really have absolutely no idea if it's a girl or a boy.  Promise I'm not just being mean and withholding symptom information.  Each of my pregnancies have varied on different things, and it seems to have little gender correlation.  Anyway, I'll let you what our little tie-breaker baby is asap!

Easter, part I

I'm gonna cut to the chase and just post a bunch of pictures.  We all know that's what you're here for anyway ;)

note: if it seems I love taking pictures of some of my children more than others, just remember that some were more willing to cooperate than others (ie: not running away at the first camera break)

All the mowglis, looking slightly less mowgli-ish than usual

Ezra was completely disgruntled at having to take pictures in this shot.  Against direct orders, he had ran into the house, completely changed out of his church clothes, and had washed the gel from his hair...only to be forced back into it all again for pictures.  I should feel bad, but I don't.  He was heavily warned ahead of time that there wouldn't be any getting out of them.

I reminded him of the forthcoming Easter candy that would be withheld upon lack of participation.

He decided to participate.

The Girls

Oh, look! Feminized versions of my husband!

I can't even believe how old they're getting!

I case you need a reminder of Bad Scarlett Poses of Easters Past

I love, love, love this shot of Scarlett.

Every girl needs a close-up

What can I say?

Georgia loves having her picture taken

How sunny is this girl?

so bright I need shades.

This picture is true Georgia-ness

yay! yay! for sisters!

The Boys

Love this picture of this good-lookin' boy

(with a wonky tie because he had to re-put it on after taking it off :P)

He's saying "dude" here, per his father's request.

ya know, in case you were wondering.

This boy knows how to work the camera.

What handsome little men I have!

this is his naughty face.

I'm all-too-familiar with it.

Ezra believes that open eyes for pictures are optional.

no, he seriously does.  you can ask him.

the funny thing is no one can tell the difference.

Oak was oh-so-proud of the big stick he found.

such a little big man he's becoming

Well, I was going to post pictures of egg dying and egg hunting too, but those are gonna have to wait.  It's after 10:00pm and I have a hot bath, a new book, and a bag of lemon drops a-callin' my name.

However, if you can't possibly wait another minute to see more pictures of my children, I'm including the links to previous years' Easter pictures just for kicks and giggles.

You're welcome, Stephanie ;)

2012

2011

2010- I & II

2009

2008

The End