Not a birthday post.

So it’s Jethro’s birthday today, and I was getting pictures together to make a little slideshow, and when I was all done the computer froze and I lost all that I had gathered. So now I will have to do that later.

Anyway, I am behind again on posting. So, here is a big long catch-up (again).

1. Orrin is getting WAY TOO BIG. He just popped out a tooth yesterday and I was shocked and appalled because I want him to be my teeny tiny little baby. I can’t believe he’s 7 1/2 months old! I’m doing all I can to keep him little. Such as not feeding him baby food, just nursing him. Okay, actually that’s because every time I’ve tried to give him food (several times I promise!) he makes atrocious faces and spits it out and arches his back like I’m torturing him. But anyway he is soooooo cute and wonderful. I just can’t hug him enough. This age is just so wonderful. I told Brett that this is the age where I wonder how I can ever be without a baby. Then he shakes his head at me.

2. Ethne is very cute. I don’t know why, but I certainly seem to have a lot of pictures of her lately.

3. For the 4th of July we celebrated by buying A&W rootbeer (from the Mormon Home Shop right across from the temple- at $2.50 a can), and a last-minute cookout with some friends from church. I tried getting everyone in red, white, and blue. Orrin was very cute.

The drive to their house is through beautiful countryside so I snapped lots of pictures.

Yeah, we don’t own a whole lot of red clothes, so the red in our red white and blue comes from the hair. :)

Here are some friends, Renate, Beat, and Kathrin. (I don’t even think they planned the red white and blue- they’re just awesome like that.)

Talmage took a little relaxing float in their pool. I think his face is so cute and funny here.

We brought some sparklers.

Then we drove home to a beautiful sunset.

4. School got out almost two weeks ago now. On that Thursday there was a School-End Festival which the kids and I went to and had a good time playing games, getting faces painted, eating hot dogs and “milk shakes” (I have to put it in quotation marks because they were made by a class and there was no ice involved, just milk and fruit or chocolate), and Jethro and Hazel’s class sang in a little concert thing at the end.

5. I remembered something funny from Hazel’s party. When all the kids were leaving and some of them came back to play longer, one of the girls came and I asked her “Kannst du stehen?” Which I thought meant “Can you stay?” because I knew stehen was a verb and it sounded like stay- so anyhow, I asked her and she just looked at me, so I asked her again, and she looked at me like I was crazy. Then Hazel started laughing and said, “Nay, kannst due BLEIBEN!” And I said, “What does stehen mean?” and she said, “Stand.” Ha ha.

6. Our downstairs neighbor is a chef and makes food for different schools, and in the last 4 weeks or so (maybe more?) he has been bringing us leftover food because lots of kids leave early to go on vacation I guess. IT WAS AWESOME. He’d bring some about 3-4 times a week, enough for a couple meals. I have never loved a man so much before. What should I make for dinner tonight? OH YEAH---it’s already in the fridge, I just have to warm it up!!!!! Good food too. Heaven.

7. Brett is now 2nd counselor in the bishopric. This Sunday will be his first week up on the stand, and the bishop and the other counselor will both be gone. Nice welcome. :)

8. Every time I go to church about 40 people tell me that Orrin looks just like Talmage.

9. Talmage is potty trained!!! Kindof. He has had several accidents the last two days, but in general he’s really good. I was really bad at doing anything with him- Brett started putting underwear on him but I never felt like full-out focusing on it and so he just gradually learned over a long time.

10. There’s a family probably moving into our ward from the States and they were talking to me and asking me a ton of questions and it was weird because I started remembering all the feelings I had when we first got here and I didn’t know what was going on. And I thought- wow, I’m pretty comfortable with things now. I guess a year and half will do that.

11. The end.