Oh Ikea

Yesterday my mom, Emily, Brock, Tate, Ainsleigh and I went to Ikea. We had a lot of fun, although I still want to go someday all by myself to just look at whatever I want to for as long as I want to. We looked around, ate lunch (always plan to eat at Ikea when you go it's yummy), then let the kids play in the kids area for a while before finishing up and heading home. I didn't think about taking any pictures until they were almost done in the kids area, so I only got pictures of them with the snakes, and Brock and Ainsleigh trying out beds (in one bed with her new potty) while Emily was changing Tate. It was pretty funny to watch people as they saw lumps in the bed, then realized they were moving and started laughing and saying how cute htey were as they were trying out the beds, Ains even pretended to be asleep a lot of the time. Although the kids may have had more fun at a park or something, I think they still had a good time being together and running around some, and we moms had a great time. I just love truly kid friendly stores. Ainsleigh and Tate wore themselves out so much they crashed out on the way home. What a fun day.

Playgroup Group

On the Hirtles last playgroup day we took a group picture - it turned out pretty cute, but we are missing some, I don't know if there's ever a day where everyone is there. I will also send this out in an e-mail today to the moms addresses I have, if you don't recieve it from me or someone else through a forward and would like it, leave you address in a comment and I will gladly email it to you.

Funny Faces on a DIRTY girl

The day of the pig roast we spent a lot of time at Aleeta's parent's house (where we had it), and Ainsleigh just knows how to find dirt. She also ate watermelon and got all sticky to give the dirt something to stick to. Anyways she was SUPER DIRTY. We heard numerous comments of how no one had ever seen a child that dirty and such. We didn't get home until almost 10 that night, well beyond her 8-8:30 bedtime, so when I asked if she wanted a bath before bed and she said, "no mommy, night nights". I didn't force her to take one, just let her go to bed dirty and washed her sheets the next day (they were full of dirt). So, Sunday morning before church I took these pictures. They crack me up extra hard because of her funny face posing - she often poses by smiling, but she has never made funny faces with it before. By the way, these pictures actually wash out some of the dirt, so figure she was at least 1/3 dirtier than she looks in these :)

Tongan pig roast

The Hirtles, a family in our ward moved to Spokane a week ago, so the weekend before they left we had a going away party. We had been talking about having a pig roast at least since we moved in almost a year and a half ago. Stephanie had always been very excited about having one, so we thought it would be perfect to do for their going away party. It took more time than initially expected, but I think now that we've done it we feel like we could do it again. We thought we would be able to call a butcher and order a pig, no such luck. So, a few weeks before it Aleeta and I went to a livestock auction to buy a pig (can't you just picture this - we were actually laughing at ourselves we thought it was so funny we were there doing it - we had no idea what we were doing). The boys got the pig ready and cooked it Saturday afternoon, then we had a great potluck dinner with lots of families all together to visit. We really had a good time. Brody did a great job of documenting the readying and cooking of the pig, but I don't know if anyone thought to take pictures of the actual party. Here are a few of the pictures, if you'd like to see all (beware some are kinda gruesome), you can go to the following site, note - you can also upload your own photos to this and download any that are there - maybe someone took some of the party!

http://gallery.me.com/chepack#100105

Matheson family reunion

Aunt Erin doing Ainsleigh's hair - it was really cute (see pictures below), but only lasted about 1 1/2 hours - not worth the time it takes to do elaborate things like this in my opinion. But thanks for doing it Erin, it looked adorable while it lasted.

Ains & Papa Pack

Ainsleigh with "new papa", Elder Madsen. He was a missionary working at the camp, assigned to keep up with our area of the camp (it's enormous!!), check up on us and stuff. From the first time he stepped foot in our camp Ainsleigh was stuck to him like glue. At first she thoght it was my dad (he did look a little like him with his glasses and hat). I'm still not sure if she believed when I told her it wasn't Papa Jim, or just humored me thinking I was the crazy one. Either way, she absolutely loved Elder Madsen and I think she would'be stayed there with him instead of leaving with us.

Ainsleigh, Tayson, and Camden

We went to the "ropes course", where we got to do some different activities about team work, trust, etc., including a giant swing. It was a lot of fun, and even Ainsleigh and Camden got to do it, they just didn't get pulled up like Brody in the picture below.

Brody

Ainsleigh, Erin & Peyton watching as others swing

Ainsleigh swinging with Uncle Tyler cheering her on

Ainsleigh playing on a different part of the ropes course - the island teamwork one, but she just loved swinging.

Almost a month ago (yeah, i'm way behind on blogging - i'll explain in a few blogs) we went to Utah for a long weekend to attend Brody's mom's family reunion. We went to Heber Valley Camp, the churches girl's camp. It was great. We hadn't had a family reunion in 7 years. We got to see everyone in one place, and loved have the time to just visit with family. There were lots of activities, the cabins are really nice, and the scenery was gorgeous. Ainsleigh loved playing with all the kids and getting really dirty!

All tired out at after all the activities on the ropes course

Playing with Tayson & Camden at Papa & Nana Pack's house

Papa Pack got out the big bike and took them for a ride - they loved it!