Emily and her Camera......

Jake was tired of getting his pictures taken after about 3...

Anna came up with her own poses

(Another "Anna pose")

Anna just couldn't resist trying on
Emily's baptism dress

Jake on BYU vs. Utah day at Summer Fun with his friend.
He still can't decide if he likes BYU or Utah..... GO UTES!!!
and byu

Jake's loved Utah Jersey and BYU helmet

Disney Day at Summer Fun!

Oh What do you do in the Summer Time?

Anna and Bella at Temple Square. Bella comes once a year to play. We love it when she visits

We are a family of Girls!!! I love our girl cousin days out during the summer. Poor Jake usually gets dragged with us.

Emily practicing her new found love of photography

This is basically the extent of the boy cousins! They have to stick together. But just wait more boys are coming! (NO this is not an announcement from me! You're looking at our contribution to the boy pool!)

This is my favorite pic of all. When I was a senior in high school Max was around 10 or 11. We went to California for Denis and Melissa's open house following their wedding. I was so embarrased because my mom let Max go all over DisneyLand and California in the ugliest pair of orange shorts and a Utah jersey. Well, many years later here is Jake running around Rexburg in orange shorts and a Utah jersey. I had to laugh because every time I looked at him it brought back my memories of Max in California.

Won't YOU Be MY Neighbor?

Do you remember Mr. Rogers? It was one of my favorite shows growing up. I especially loved his song "won't you please, please won't you be my neighbor!" Well, I am thinking my neighbor is reconsidering this after her son came over and he and Jake found a huge mud puddle in the new burm that we are putting in.

RUTH

Ruth Eating her Disney sucker

I don't want Ruth to be forgotten in all of these blogging moments, but she is just so good! She loves cooking and is thinking of putting together a cooking club for girls between the ages of 7-11 this summer. We will see if that really happens or not. Ruth's talents lie with speech. The other night we were helping Emily write poems for her english class Ruth came up with the best lines. Em had to turn it in so I will have to put the masterpiece on later. Here is one of her favorites:

SODA

I was drinking a large soda pop,

When it fizzled and crumpled up.

I told my big brother,

Then he told my mother,

Now everyone knows what's up!

Emily and Ruth on memorial day. The Ruth no one knows!

Ruth hugging Pres. Mckay's tree

My favorite the two girls as best friends

Doctor Visits

My love has always been the medical field. I watched surgery after surgery with Sarah and it never bothered me. What others deem as gross and disgusting I would say was intriguing. However, I learned this week that at least 2 of my children follow after their dad and not their mom with their passion for the medical world. Wednesday I took Jake in to have some blood work done. He heard me making the appointment and began crying "I not going to the doctor!" Well, he cried the whole way there; the MA takes us to the room and he starts gasping for air. He was having a full blown panic attack! The doctor comes in and gives him a sucker easing the tension a bit. Because of his fear of the office we decide it best to have the blood drawn in the procedure room so that he won't associate it with the doctor's office. He cries but everything turns out ok.

Thursday, I take Emily in for some blood work. The MA come in to draw the blood and Emily goes into a panic attack. She sees the little needle and starts breathing fast. Half way through the blood draw I look at her and say "are you going to pass out!" The answer was YES! she begins falling over when the MA pulls the needle out and helps me hold her up. Seriously! She only prolonged her blood drawing experience because she had to have blood drawn from the other arm. Not that she did much better the second time. As the needle was going in she pulled her arm back scaring the MA. Finally, with her head between her legs the rest of the blood was successfully drawn. Afterwords she asks was I as bad as Jake? NO, ten times Worse! DRAMA!!!

I guess the Bott children better stick to business related fields in the future!

Adventures with Anna (and her sidekick Jake)

The adventures with Anna continue everyday. Don't think that because I haven't posted any new adventures lately that there haven't been any. She is full of vivacious curiosity that teaches me patience every day. She loves Dear Genevieve from HGTV. This week I found colorful stripes on my lamp shade. She felt that it needed a little more color (if you have ideas of how to remove crayon and marker from a lamp shade send them my way). She often re-designs the living room and then asks " Is that so cute mom!"

Anna playing Dear Genevieve

 

I left my iron sitting on the dryer this week. When I began pressing Alan's white shirt I kept smelling a lemony cleaner smell. It took me a whole shirt to figure out that the smell was Murphy's Oil Soap. Anna had filled my iron with it. My lesson learned was to put the iron away! I am still wondering how she thought of it.

We had some new bookcases installed on Monday. Tuesday I thought I would start filling them. I was multi tasking adding books and talking on the phone with a basketball mom when I smelled baby powder. Anna and Jake had taken the baby poweder and sprinkled it over the end table, covered it with dish towels , squirted a whole medium bottle of hand sanitizer on top of the towels, sprinkled some more baby powder and placed the lamp back. When I realized the mess they looked at me and asked if their creation was beautiful.

Picture of Anna taken by Emily

Jake is getting potty trained, which is definitely taking longer than the girls did. He has a pair of Dash from Incredibles underwear. When he puts them on he runs as quick as he can around the house saying "I'm Dash"



Jake and Alan at Jakes birthday celebration



Our family went to the Carl Boch exhibit in Provo, UT. The paintings were absolutely exquisite. However we took Anna and Jake with us. We rented the ipads and quickly into the exhibit handed them to Anna and Jake to keep them occupied and quiet. By the end of the tour Anna had the ipad back ground changed and had figured out how to get to the games that were on it. Sorry to the person behind us who had to figure out what she had done!



Anna wondering what is on the other side of this


Anna and Jake loved St. Patricks day. We all wore green and ate our traditional Corned beef meal with green potatoes and vegetables.On March 18th Anna got up and asked " Do we all get to wear blue today?"

Anna struggles with the word "NO!!!" One evening I was making a smoothie for dinner. The blender was out, but not plugged in. I had frozen raspeberries ready to be pureed when I decided to add some blueberries. I looked Anna in the eyes and said don't touch the blender. In the time it took  for me to turn and open the freezer the blender was plugged in and turned on spewing red raspberries all over the kitchen. They were on the carpet, ceiling, walls, windows, floors and every other imaginable spot.

Truly, she just wonders how things work. And once a thought enters her mind she is bound and determined to try what she has thought up. The blessing in it all is that her middle name is JOY! How can you say Anna Joy and be mad at the same time.

Anna blowing a kiss