Cleaning the Church!

This past Saturday, our family had the opportunity to help out in a Stake wide deep-cleaning of our church building. The Ogden Temple Dedication was the following Sunday, and our Stake President asked the members to go to town polishing up the facilities, as it was to become an extension of that temple for the duration of the dedications three sessions. It was incredibly gratifying to see so many people, all ages and abilities, coming to do their part and contribute. All of us Bayly's got involved, from the smallest of us:

To the biggest...

It was a good time to visit with members while we all worked towards a common goal. And Finn did his fair share of entertaining people.

The following day, I had what I consider to be a very sweet opportunity to bring a less active girl in my YW group to the dedication. She is the only member of her family who comes to church, and a year ago, no one in the ward even knew who she was. Her progress has been truly miraculous, and I was deeply grateful to share this moment with her.

The Pooptacular Property Trip

The annual Labor Day property trip came and went, with a serious excess of excrement to mark it. I'm not kidding, there was a whole lot of poop. All of my kids had some sort of pooptastrophe, but none of them topped Finn, whose bowels went on hyper drive once we hit 9,000 feet.

I was solo on this particular camping trip, as Teag was stuck working convention, and then flying the boss back to California afterwards. As such, I didn't bring up the trailer; we all camped out in the shed instead. We arrived Saturday around lunch time, making impressive if slightly alarming good time up there. 1:35 from start to finish. I know, don't say it; my mom already has.

It wasn't long after I arrived that Kevin and my dad decided to rig up the zip line. The kids absolutely love this, and haven't done it for a few years. They're all a fair bit bigger, and there's several more of them, so we learned that the zip line becomes quite the undertaking now. Even still, they all had fun.

The good news is, that even with all that waiting, the kids were fairly patient, and found ways to amuse themselves.

Just can't get my milk!

Finn, in particular, spent quite a bit of time mooching on the ladies of the family.

That boy knows how to work it! He also spent some quality time with Uncle Kevy in his trailer, doing some mooching of a different kind, this time for handfuls of Boston Baked Beans.

The kids also spent a fun time on Sunday after church, allowing the wind to blow bubbles for them.

There was also paddle ball, in which Finn became incredibly intense, shouting "mack it, Mack it! (smack it)" over and over again.

This trip was particularly momentous, as every single person in the family was there, minus Teag. That means all seventeen grandkids were present and accounted for. That's a preponderance of Rogers progeny. Say that five times fast.

And here's a picture of me, just to prove I was there. Since I was all by my onesies, I was also the one taking all the pictures.

And last but not least, here is one of the older kids, being dorks around the fire.

It was a fun, but exhausting trip, and I really wish Teag could have been there with us. The kids had a great time having ALL their cousins there, and it was really great to be able to spend time with Nate and Elle since we don't see them too often.

Farewell Property, until next year!

First Day of School!

Today was the first day of school for all the girls! It's incredible to think that for an entire school day, the only one we have at home with us is Finn. It's been a bit of an adjustment for all of us, but we're very excited. I think I'm especially excited for my kids teachers that, ahem, were completely, randomly selected with no influence from me whatsoever. Hey, all those volunteers hours have to count toward something right?

We are ready for an awesome, and adventure-filled new year!

Rory Is Five Part Two: The Aquarium

It just so happened that USANA decided to offer a family night to the Living Planet Aquarium on the same night as Rory's birthday. We thought it would be a perfect evening activity to cap off her day, and when we told her, Rory seemed very excited at the prospect. Only Maisie and Danyn have been to the new aquarium, so even Teag and I were excited at seeing the new and improved space. One of the things the kids all seemed to really love was the little bubbles inside some of the tanks where you could stick your head in and get a better look at the occupants.

Rory and Finn both really loved the floor to ceiling windows into the tanks, where you could up close and personal with the fish.

Check out those sharks!

 Look at the freaky lime-green eel on the right hand side in this next picture. It was staring straight up at Finn, and he kept edging further and further away from it.

We saw some of the biggest fish I've ever seen in real life, and this next pic cracks me up, as it looks like it's coming to assess Finn as a meal.

There were a ton of people there from USANA, and our kids did a pretty good job of being patient and waiting for their turn at an exhibit.

 I think one of the things Maisie was the most excited for was the penguins. It was fun to watch them above on the rocks, and then dive below for a swim.

Danyn most enjoyed the rope ladder, though only Rory was brave enough to cross it with her.

After Rory's chosen dinner of pancakes at the Cracker Barrel, it was a great way to spend her birthday evening. Happy Birthday Little Miss! We love you!

Rory's is Five!

 We celebrated Rory's 5th birthday with a bunch of friends, and a fun party. It was supposed to have been a pool party, but the weather didn't cooperate, despite it being August, and so we parents were left scrambling an hour before party time, trying to come up with some games and other activities to entertain a group of 4-5 year olds for two and a half hours. Some of the games we did, I stole from Girls Camp, such as the cotton ball on the nose game.

And the threading spaghetti noodles game.

We also did a clothespin drop, and another game with clothespins, where you attach a few to each kid, and they have to chase each other around and try and collect as many clothespins from other kids as they can while protecting their own.

You may notice that Rory herself is not in a lot of these pictures. That's because she chose to be particularly grumpy for her party, and didn't want to participate with most of the games we played. Very odd for her, especially given how long, and how excitedly she'd talked about this day. We did get her to play giant beach volleyball.

Then it was time for lunch. Here is a great pic of Rory with all her guests.

After lunch came presents, which I think may have been the only reason Rory wanted a party. She got a couple of new Lego Friends sets, some clothes and toys, and some really cool arts and crafts stuff.

She also got this bad boy. Once you get proficient on it, you can actually throw sparks!

Next up was pinata time, which in and of itself was quite entertaining. Suffice it to say that five year olds and blindfolds don't work so well.

Finn tried a few times, but finally gave up and chucked the bat.

But it was Owen who finally brought it down, once we let them take the blindfold off. Check out his look of ultimate triumph on that pinata!

Then Rory got to blow out her candles, with a little help from her brother.

It was a fun, albeit exhausting couple of hours, especially given Rory's general uncooperativity but it ended well. Stay tuned for more birthday fun!