My dad celebrated his 60th birthday this week. Hooray!

We enjoyed the afternoon in Hobble Creek Canyon at my aunt and uncle's property there.

My sister and I with my Grandmother

My parents

For all these great pictures, the credit goes to my little sister. These are my wonderful sisters-in-law Nina and Stephanie. We're standing on a hill so we all look like the same height. Ha!

My Grandpa with his third son, the birthday boy

A large gathering of Mortensens (also appearing are my aunt Carrie and Dylan, uncle Tad and his family, aunt Suzanne and uncle Dennis)

My dad began his final chemotherapy treatment yesterday. We anxiously await the results of this months long treatment and wish for him a full recovery toward health.

This is my off-track summary and my-computer-is-working-hurry-and-post-something post.

First, we found some monarch caterpillars. Very exciting! The kids named them Thunderbolt and Wiggles. Wiggles was the most friendly and everyone held him.

 Bryce was devastated that we put them in jars. He probably would've slept with his if it was allowed.

When the monarch's instinct tells it to become a butterfly, it'll hang upside down with the aid of a lot of silk and then hang there in this 'J' shape for a day or more (this is all written from observation, not pre-written scientific material).

The green hat is actually the beginning of the cocoon. It happen so quickly. Moving from the 'J' to this.

To this: all covered, but still stripey like the caterpillar. This all took about five minutes.

The cocoon is all finished here (well, there were a few more golden dots of color added as it ripened).

Then we waited.

In the mean time, Bryce began t-ball, Ella started soccer and Dane...got pneumonia.

Bryce is having a great time, but won't watch the ball. Ella is having fun with her best buddy on her team, but won't watch the ball. Dane is making a great recovery after about 10 days of being exhausted, moody and restful. He has only a couple of days left of his anti-biotic.

  We've made lots of yummy salsas. (I couldn't get this pic to turn). This is half-Lemon Boy tomato and half red.

Ella had a VERY happy birthday. She requested cup-cake baking supplies and got them. She's kind of a wiz with that pastry bag. We had a extended family party the Sunday before she turned 7 and then just a celebration with our family with some reserved presents.

 As part of the birthday fun, we traveled into Little Cottonwood canyon to our favorite rock throwing spot.

"We" did the final touch up painting in the kitchen. Just need to get those pendant lights installed and then the remodelling will really be finished. 

More nature inside the house: found this tiny half-dollar sized mushroom growing at the base of one of my house plants. CUTE!

Then this morning! The metamorphisis was complete for Thunderbolt. 

As of this moment, he's hanging on my ficus tree, drying his wings in the warm dining room. I have tiny sugar water supplies throughout the room. 

Bryce was so gentle. We're excited for Ella and Dane to come home so that they can see, too! This has been a precious miracle to experience for our family. It's been great!

Bryce says that "Jesus is the best!" because he helped Daddy find the caterpillars in the first place.

My baby turned five this week.

He was very excited to see we had a stack of presents all prepared for him.

Cameron said it was time for him to have his own big set of Legos to put together by himself,

without help,

especially from his brother.

The morning's most adorable reaction was about getting his first Book of Mormon (no, the kid can't even read yet, but he asked his dad for one and Dad delivered). He squealed about it and is excited to have a case for it.

This was the favorite gift of the day. He sang a ballad all about the "king of the Angry Birds" all the way to school and he just wanted to please just carry it in my backpack.

Mom said no, but it was waiting in the van for the birthday boy to be done with school.

Before his siblings came home, Bryce built his ship with very restrained help from me. He did 90% of the work himself and he was pretty thrilled about it. His favorite things, though, are still the guys that come with the sets.

Since our computer died weeks ago, we've found ways to survive...

Daddy's new I-Pad has helped.

It's obviously a fascinating piece of technology. I guess we've gotten used to it. I tried to "swipe" the screen at a Red Box, trying to rent a movie. This month, my sweet nephew was baptized by my dad and confirmed by my grandpa.

On that same day, my cousin got married and we hung out at the beautiful reception center with our family.

Here's Mandy, my sister and Bryce

Zealand loved going over this little bridge.

You've gotta take photo ops when you can!Cam took last week off of work so that we could work hard in our back yard. We got a lot done on Monday. He built a few square-foot-gardening boxes, took out portions of our lawn and leveled out other areas in the yard.I began to build my retaining wall by first hauling around 2,000 lbs of stone into the back yard.

The more it rained, the more our plans seemed to expand. We started getting bids and ideas for remodeling our kitchen.

This is Dane at a granite-slab showroom. Heavenly Father sure made some incredible rocks! We're pretty sure we've got the company chosen to do the cabinets, but there's much to be done before then. First and foremost is to do nothing until after I host my brother's fiancée's bridal shower.
But after that, Cam and I will play demolition crew and get the job going! We're really excited!

This is Bryce's last week of preschool. It's bitter-sweet. Thankfully, he's completely excited for Kindergarten and is looking forward to having Ella's teacher, too.

I'm going to miss the string of waves he gives me as he runs up to his teacher's home. Today we celebrated B's birthday. She will be my niece as soon as her mother marries my little brother.This is our attempt at a grandkid photo. It didn't go over well at all.

The rest of the month is busy as well. Bryce is enrolled in swimming lessons. So far, so good!

Ah! I'm so glad to be back! I've missed blogging and hope that our computer troubles are at an end.

The best part of the New Year is this boy.
Happy Birthday to my New Year's Baby.

You have been a continual source of joy,

of tenderness,

and sweetness for nine years now.

We love you very much!

Thanks for giving our lives more meaning and more fun.You're an awesome big brother

and one mighty kid.

Looking forward to fun with you today!