Off to school

The following are pictures of Amelia's birthday party.... fishing. She said that instead of a party she wanted to catch a fish. Her grandpa is an expert fisherman and took us all up to camp on panguitch lake. Here he is showing Amelia how to cast.

All the Gubler men possess the coveted ability to make the strangest faces known to man. I hope it passes onto my children. 

Amelia putting the net to good use

Jane being pleasant, reverent and respectful as always.

Thinkin' Dirty

My kids are into mud lately. We have a lot of our yard that is un-landscaped and it provides much more entertainment than if it were finished. Yesterday night we carved little rivers down a hill with a hoe. This morning the girls were right back at it.

I found some surprise pictures when I was doing this post. Amelia must have been having a good time. It's fun to see what was photo worthy to Amelia....

a potty. of course.

 One of her masterpieces

The finer side of my monster.

And finally, Jane, my professional two year old. "professional two year old" was originally said by none other than auntie Sid, master of all things praiseworthy and good. 

Kindergarten? Really?

This little treasure is going to enter into the big world of elementary school next week. Heaven help us. Heaven help the elementary school. I LOVE THIS CHILD. She is so wonderful. So strange. So Huck Finn/Dennis-the-Menace/Scout(to kill a mockingbird). I'm going to miss her every morning. Thank goodness she's only doing half days. Got to break me in slowly to this business.

In which Amelia reveals an interest in violence and pepperoni

Everyone in my house is one billion dollars, I promise. Amelia has been particularly pleasant the past few days. Just imagine, if you will, her pudgy face and half moon eyes creased up with a wide closed mouth grin. She has a face that can make Joe play physically difficult, exerting games for hours. Lately Amelia has been into violence. Not acting violently, well not usually, but wanting to learn about violence. This is a conversation we recently had in our car.
"Mom will you tell me violent stories?"
"I guess. Once upon a time there was a little boy named-"
"Mom, his name is Coch-row"
"Okay, a little boy named Coch-row.... " I go on to explain how he chooses to be violent and feels bad until he repents.
"I don't want him to repent"
"Oh, okay...." I then alter the story to show how his bad habits turn him into a mean guy who is overtaken by cops and put in jail with scary potties. (Desperate for a teaching moment, it appears.)
"I love violent stories. Will you tell me another one?"

For years Amelia has been afraid of pepperoni. She says it's spicy and bad. She often calls them "barbeques". Well, after removing all the pepperoni from her plate, she decides to be brave and try one, all on her own accord. She takes a piece, looks at it thoughtfully, then puts it in her mouth and chews slowly. Next she rapidly starts putting more of the removed pepperoni pieces back onto her pizza and says, "These barbeques are good now!" Here she looks up to heaven and smiles while saying, "Oh thank you, Jesus!"

Hooray for our family! I love our family and we got to get together, well some of us, this week. Some out of towners came to Utah (Marvo and her limitless offspring) so Leah, Mom, and us Gubler girls went up north to meet up and stay at Great Grandma Ellis' house. It was so fun! I forgot my camera (Sorry punjab) but when we got back down to T-town (Toquerville, USA) I snapped some photos of the yang and gubler kids. Luke and Jana's bunch would've been here but we all had the stomach flu and Kate's birthday party was the next day... we figured we should quarantine ourselves and spare the Wilson family a vomiting party.

Here are the sickies enjoying some quality time with their favorite feature of the trip: Aunt Bev!!!

Here's Marv on one of her more lively moments. Wish she'd just relax sometime, she's so hard to keep down!!!!!! 

And some more of the cousins

You'd better believe it, two posts within 1 week. Woot Woot!

Jane eating a HUGE ice cream cone

I couldn't believe how big these things were, we got them up in Springdale

Amelia is very interested in our neighbors pigs. Luckily our neighbors are way nice and let us come and play with their animals anytime we want

Jane trying to ride the pig, she wanted to so badly but it kept running out from under us.

The family room. Way cool fireplace, nice windows, great lighting... we love it in here. 

Coming in from the garage. This is our mud room

The girls bedroom. The door on the left is their closet, the next door is out to the hallway, the third door leads to the jack and jill bathroom

Kid's bathroom, you can see through to the other bedroom that we use as a playroom

Front... Isn't it beautiful? We're so LUCKY. It's real sandstone around the door and window, so cool up close

Joe fixing our sprinklers, he just farted on me and it's so gross!

view from the back porch

back of the house

I'll send pics of the master bed and bath soon. 

Adam: that picture of the front of the house shows an empty semi-circle flower bed. It's a huge space. I was thinking strawberry plants. Your thoughts?