Bella the prayer helper

The kids have been really excited about saying prayers lately. Tonight James asked me to say the family prayer and Bella was feeling a little left out so I invited her to help me say the pray. This is how it went.
Bella "Dear Heavenly Father"
Me "Dear Heavenly Father"
Bella "Thanks you for this day"
Me "Thank you for this day"
Bella "Please help me to fall off the bike"
Me "Please help Bella not to fall off the bike"
Bella "Please help my rash to go away"
Me "Please help Bella's rash to go away"
Bella " and help I turn into a Mermaid"
Me silence.... Luke and I started laughing out loud....... and at that I closed the prayer.

Summer!

Dog for hire!
Oscar is officially ready to studded out. He is AKC certified and has his hip clearances.

(Not quite sure what I was doing in this picture but I had seen other people do it so I thought it would be a good idea to take a pic like this)

Our Oscar is an incredibly loyal Dog (he reminds me so much of the dog in UP). He has lots of energy but is still very obedient and easy to train, and if I do say so myself he is really beautiful!

We love Oscar!

We have officially declared Wednesday to be park day in the Mortensen home. We started this week. James and I got to play some tennis while the kids chased the balls, the kids got to play while I fed the baby. Then we went for a little walk and checked out the tadpoles in the creek. It was so fun, I love just being together as a family and enjoying the blessing that my children and my husband are to my life.

Royce loves the swing




The local library offers a free story time at the water park in our area. The kids get to hear a couple of stories and then get a 45mins to play at the water park free of charge. The kids really love it and I love not paying an entrance fee.

We bought passes to the state park again this year. Its such a fun place, the kids beg to go there almost daily and luckily its only a 10 minute drive from our house.

Royce's favorite part about going to the beach is when Mommy let him go skinny dipping, he got so excited!



My new to me stroller, I have been wanting a snap n go for a while but couldn't stomach spending the money and low and behold I found one at the local thrift store (sweet!) I love it so much. The stroller is awesome its small and easy to maneuver, has tons of storage and is very stable (it doesn't fall over easily)

Another thing I am loving is the storage in the back of the minivan its is seriously amazing. I love it so much!

Getting organized! I have been having a struggle with laundry lately and so I have been trying to get creative to make it easier on me. First I went through all the kids clothes matched them into outfits. Each child has 10 warm outfit, 10 cold weather outfits, 10 jamas and no more than 10 pairs of shoes and church dresses. Then I put them in the drawers folded together. That was working great but Ms. Bella likes to play dress up with her clothes. Sooooo, I moved everyones clothes and shoes into my closet, I am also hoping that it will make my life easier when I am sorting and putting away laundry. Each child has a basket and at night before they go to bed they get to go and pick out the outfit they are going to wear the next day. So far so good, I might have to tweak things a little here and there I will keep you posted!

Homemade baby food. I got another great idea from James cousin Jessies blog. You make the baby food, freeze it in the ice cube trays and just take out a couple cubes at a time as needed. We tried out food on Royce today, he hasn't slept through the night since Sunday (He usually sleeps from 8pm to 7am) and I wasnt sure if it was because he was hungry or if it was because he was congested. To say the least he took 2 bites and was not interested. We will try again in a few weeks. Hopefully he gets over his little cold soon, poor baby.

Frozen Grapes. Yummy little healthy snack we have been enjoying while they are in season.

Royce's Blessing and beyond

James family came into town for Royce's blessing. It was such a joy to have them here! The kids got to pick squash out of the garden and go for walks down to see the new baby horses

Grandma and Royce reuniting. This kid loves his Grandma!

Bella and Sadie having girl time

We just happen to have a nice hill on the property which is perfect for a slip in slide!

Gathering around the table, I was really glad we went for the 8 seater.

Royce is such a happy kids, you can always count on him for a smile. We sometimes refer to him as the black hole cause he just sucks you in and before you know it you have spent an hour cooing and loving on him. He has a very happy disposition.

Saturday night we had a fire pit barbeque in the back yard.

Aunt Sonya and Heather rolled in Saturday night, we were so happy to have them here for the special occasion.

Royce in his new toy hanging out in the back yard. I bought this at a thrift store to leave outside so when I needed a place to put him I could stick him in it but he loved it so much I brought it inside. He prefers it over his hanging jumper.

Luke aggressively loving on Hunter

Messy faces!

That night after the sun went down the kids went toad hunting and actually caught 2 toads. Then the fire flies came out and it was magical watching the kids run around chasing them. We caught a couple then put the kids to bed. Some of the adults stayed up, played a game and talked.




Royce had his blessing last Sunday. It was such a wonderful blessing! Having our family come to town and celebrate this great occasion with us was so great. I loved his little blessing outfit but James sister Heather made a funny comment. She said he looked like a little Amish woman. Lol! Its a little bit true.

The kids got charisma

Grandpa (James Dad) and our little ham

Our family :)Joe's family

James siblings (Joe, James, Heather, Sonya)

The whole gang minus Grandma and Grandpa

Joe and Lisa asked us to watched there kids while they went on there 10 year anniversary. We were so happy to have the opportunity to spend time with Hunter and Sadie, these are such great kids and we were so glad that our kids had time to bond with their cousins.

We made play dough and it entertained them for at least an hour. Great fun!

The State park beach

He is loving these toes

I think Royce looks so much like James in this picture. They have dimples in the same places and the exact same eyebrow. Oh how I love my boys!

Tuesday at the park
(Royce's first time swinging!)

All tuckered out. So precious, makes my heart ache.

Thurs James had work in Houston so we went too! So much crazy fun. We got to the hotel late bathed the kids and got them in bed. On Thursday we went swimming in the morning, then headed over to the Houston Children's museum, which was overwhelmingly awesome. Definitely recommended. I couldn't even get the kids to look at the camera, they were having so much fun. We made it through maybe 1/5 of the museum in 3 hours. Its an all day thing.

Luke was the only one of the kids who could pull himself up on this thing. He has got some upper body strength

Hunter is such a smart kid, I had to pry him away from this thing, it was such a simple yet super awesome toy. You put the plastic pieces in to make a little track for the balls.

Seriously, They would not look at me. They were totally absorbed

All five fell asleep after the museum, I like to consider it a little miracle, especially since I was stuck in traffic!

The sunset of our adventure with 5 kids. We were on our way back to San Antonio

We spent the Friday in San Antonio
The Guadalupe River State Park. Thats James in the red shorts. So beautiful and so much fun! There were little guppies that kept coming up to us and nibbling on our feet. Freaked me out a bit but James seemed to enjoy the tickling.

The girls loving each other

That's our little Bella swimming in the buff (with cousin Taylor). It is seriously hard to keep clothes on the kid.

Happy Birthday Aunt Sonya! Aunt Lisa made us a delicious meal and a beautiful cake, then we watched a cute movie.

Sadie sporting Bella's glasses. These girls were so funny the first day Sadie was at our house Bella was getting dressed and Sadie asked if she could borrow her clothes. After that all Sadie wanted the wear or use was Bella's stuff. It was so cute/funny, it did cause some conflicts, but they would usually resolve themselves by doing thing like randomly switching outfits. They are two peas in a pod!

On our way home from SA we stopped at the Natural Bridge Caverns and had lunch, we didn't go on the actual tour but hope to someday, maybe on our own, or when the kids a little older.

Our little hatchling

We stopped at Austin to go in and check out the State Capitol. Really neat! The inside was beautiful. While we were there we witnessed a protest march which was interesting, James nor I had ever watched one before.

I cant express how extremely grateful I am to our heavenly father for providing this van for us. It just made traveling so much more peaceful. The kids love it too, it gives them tons more space to get comfortable. We also figured out that you can remove the 8th seat if you want (as in this pic). Luke thought it was pretty funny to put on all the seat belts in the back. He said" If we get in an accident I definitely wont fly out any windows."

Luke Dancing to music on the computer. Made me laugh



We have known for a long time that Luke is a big eater. It was confirmed again, He ate 2-3x the amount his cousin (who is a year older that him). He was loving this ice cream



Could you ever really get enough of your Grandpa



Girls will be Girls!

Royce's first swinging

As of late Royce is a total food stalker. The other day I was drinking a smoothie and holding him on my lap. Somehow he manage to grab the straw and start sucking in the smoothie before noticed. I looked down and he was just sucking away.

It was so much fun being able to celebrate Sonya's birthday with her! Thanks for letting us enjoy it with you! We look forward to many more gatherings now that she is a permanent resident of Texas. Yay!