Black Family Reunion

We traveled to Utah this summer to go to a wedding and a reunion, all Black. I got a few hundred pictures, thought I would share some of them.

 

They set up a slip-n-slide. So much fun:

This is Elle, my niece

 And Brett, Evan's brother.

My nephew, Tyler.

Boyd and Bryce, both Evan's brothers (Did I mention Evan only has 11 brothers and 4 sisters?)

My nephew, Austin. I think at this point they had added to much soap.

Gavin totally being silly

I got to do one of the activities. My sister gave me the idea of animal creations from marshmallows and toothpicks with m&m's as decoration. We used royal icing as "critter glue". It was a hit.

Random picture of Gavin in the tub with his cousin, Colton. Same age, give or take a few days. Imagine that with 16 kids on one family.

Taneal with her marshmallow creation.

Danielle with her creation

Camie and a few of her cousins spent quite a long time making this intricate mermaid. So fun to be able to spend time with the cousins.

Taneal helping Gavin pet the horses. Gavin did NOT want to touch those horses.

Spencer with his creation.

Nathan having a ball on the trampoline that I refuse to get in my backyard.

Check out all those cars. So many Suburbans!

Silly Nathan

These are the parents to all those 16 children. Grandma and grandpa Black.

Camie with Miya and Eden, her cousins.

We rented a 12,000 square foot house for the reunion. With something like 12 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms, 2 kitchens and 3 HUGE family rooms, there still wasn't a place to be able to eat together. We set up tables in the garage and served and ate meals out there together. It worked out pretty well, minus the flys and fly paper.

Katie and I were in charge of breakfast. We made homemade cinnamon rolls and scrambled eggs. Plus a lot of fruit to make it healthy. We made 8 pans of cinnamon rolls. Only 4 of those pans were eaten for breakfast. But when nobody was looking, the remaining 4 disappeared slowly the next few hours.

It was a very enjoyable reunion. I liked that we were in a house all together. But I also like that we could escape to our room with peace and quiet. And when we were ready to hit the crowds again, all we had to do was step out of our room. Great set-up for a family of 76.

Danielle's Baptism Pictures

These are some of the pictures of Danielle taken by my very talented friend, April. Wow. I am in love.

 These pictures capture the fun loving little girl that I have the opportunity to be around every single day.

I wish I had the vocabulary to accurately describe Danielle. She is fun. She is smart. She is very easy going. She likes dresses and all things pretty. Especially loves glitter and lip gloss. Wants to love mascara, but I think she needs to wait until she is older.

She loves nail polish. She is carefree. She doesn't worry too much, most of the time. She is very easy to please. She is mostly quiet, unless in the car and then she makes all kinds of loud noises.

 Did I mention she is smart? And maybe a little unorganized. But she doesn't care. Everything will be okay. She got an "N" on her report card because she kept forgetting to do her homework. She is easily distracted. I imagine her brain is going 100 miles an hour because she is always looking at everything even if she isn't saying anything.

 She loves that she is beautiful.

She loves to give hugs and to be held. She likes to sit close and cuddle. She doesn't require undivided attention, just wants to feel your presence.

 I love this smile. She gives it so easily. She is very upbeat and happy.

 She is one of the youngest in her class at school. She is one of the smartest in her class at school. At least that is what she told me. And I absolutely believe her.

 Danielle is very hard to take shopping. Not because she is so hard to please, quite the opposite. She likes everything. And she wanders. That is the hardest part. She looks at everything and forgets to pay attention. I haven't lost her yet. I have to keep a super close watch on her or she will get lost.

Danielle wants everything, yet values little. Easy come, easy go seems to be her motto. Out of sight, out of mind. She can get toys for Christmas or birthday and they never get played with. Give her make-up and she will wear it until it is gone. Clothes? Loves them. Same with shoes. She loves to play, but with people and the things they are playing with. On her own she just isnt interested in things like toys.

 She lost her first tooth in 2nd grade, and it had to be pulled by the dentist. The top teeth came out on their own, as you can see it happened in the summer after 2nd grade.

She had so much fun getting these pictures made. She posed. She smiled. She had a great time and gave lots of suggestions on what would make a great picture. And she was right.

Danielle wants to do hair and nails when she grows up. I think that would be a great idea to help support her through college. She loves all things beautiful.

Danielle will be getting baptized on September 1. She is very excited. She understands the importance of baptism. And that makes me so happy. I am so happy that she will be given the wonderful gift of the Holy Ghost. It is something that will help her her whole life. She will have the ability to make great choices and be a happier person because of this gift.

Danielle is such a wonderful girl. I am so blessed to be around her and feel her wonderful influence. She is a wonderful part of my family and I am so glad I get to be part of her life.

Happy 8th Birthday Danielle

We celebrated Danielle's birthday a week early because we knew we would be on the road for her actual birthday. We invited family over for supper and had birthday cake after. The cool part was we had a lot of family to invite over. And I forgot to get pictures of all the family! My brother and his family just moved here, they love about 1 mile from me. How cool is that? And then Evan's brother and family even live in the same neighborhood with us. Bonnie and Jarom were able to come. Troy and Becky had already started their vacation. Even without them, we still had a houseful. And it was so awesome! I love living so close to so much family.

So this is quite the boring cake on the outside. I was trying to put sprinkles on it and Jarom came up with the idea of using a plate aimed at the cake and putting the sprinkles on the plate so they slide down and splatter the cake. So smart! And way less mess then the way I was trying. I wonder if they taught him cool tricks like that in dental school.

Here is my beautiful Danielle. I can't believe she is now 8. I did recently have her pictures made. Can't wait to get the results back and share them.

Danielle's Birthday on the road

We celebrated Danielle's birthday the week before we left on our trip. However, we didn't give her her birthday presents until on the trip. We got her this really cute outfit and some new shoes. She was very excited because Danielle loves all things pretty. I also signed her up for a ballet class, which she is so in love with. She has the perfect body for ballet.

Dynit

I don't know if this is normal, this is a new one for me.

Have any of your children ever had imaginary friends?

Ones that have been their friend for at least 6 months?

Ones that do bad things on occasion?

Nathan has a friend named Dynit. You know, Dynit as in Dynamite?

Dynit has been part of Nathan's world for quite some time. He talks about him on a daily basis. Dynit is always involved in adventures, good and bad. Dynit even has a family. A brother named Darn-it. Sometimes a dad.

Seriously? Where does Nathan come up with these things?

I can't even remember what Dynit did today, but it was something with his brother, Darn-it. And they went somewhere and made all these weird noises and had all these really cool moves.

Dynit used to do really bad things. Everything Nathan ever imagined doing that was bad he would tell us that Dynit had really done it. I finally told Nathan that he needed to get a new friend because Dynit was such a bad example and was not a good person to be around.

That seemed to work. Now Dynit is just a really cool adventurous friend. But a friend that sometimes I think Nathan believes really exists.

I guess he kind of does exist because the name Dynit has become a regular in our home. It doesn't even seem strange to talk about Dynit because he is brought up so frequently.

Just wondering if this was normal. I guess it doesn't matter because it is normal for Nathan.

Dynit. Where'd he come up with that name?