Busy summer

Summer school has certainly kept us busy around here.  A good kind of busy, though.  We've used our skating and swimming passes a few times.

We visited a new aquarium.

Tyler wanted to make sure he was taller than the penquin.

Kaitlyn wanted to spend the entire day trying to touch the stingrays.

 And Jasmine wanted to stay in her stroller nearly the entire time (once she woke up from her nap), until she saw these plastic whales you could climb on.

Kaitlyn learned to use my sewing machine!  She has been begging for months, and I finally relented.  We had a lot of discussion about safety before we even put a needle in it, and I'm always right next to her while she works.  But she has been doing great.

So far she made a pet snake, a backpack for her piano books, and then her 4th of July cape.
 

Next she wants to make "a mermaid tail I can swim in!"  We'll see how that goes :).

We've gone on bike rides . . .

Met up with old friends . . .

And my mom, brother and neice all stopped by one night too!  My brother has a cabin up in Idaho that they invited my mom to come to, so they stopped by on their way back home to Vegas before my mom flew home from our airport.  We took them to the PG Rodeo, which was a first for most of them.  It is a cultural experience you gotta try at least once.

One week, Daddy headed off to scout camp for a week.

So we moved summer school to our cabin.  The kids are showing off their Kiwi Crate rainsticks here.

The kids all loved when we lit a fire for hot dogs and marshmallows.

Poor Tyler kept his hot dog far, far away from the fire so it wouldn't get burnt.  Slooooow cooking.  And then, after 20 mintues of work, it fell in the fire.  Mommy had to cook another one, quickly.

And then last week, we canceled school so Mommy could get everything ready for our 4th of July party.  We host Christopher's entire family at our cabin for lunch every year, and it is always so much fun!  We smoked some brisket this year, and there was tons of food and tons of people as always.

This year I may have gone a bit overboard on the craft table.  I made capes for all the kids to decorate!  I had the idea last year, but didn't find any red fabric to go with the blue I had.  So when I snagged a gigantic red sheet at a garage sale for free a couple of weeks ago, it was a go.  They were really easy to mass produce, thankfully.  You can see 20 of them hanging on the line here, while Kaitlyn decorates the one she sewed for herself.

It was all worth it because they were a huge hit.

These girls were honestly the most into it in the whole crowd!  When they told their dad there were capes to decorate, he asked "do you guys want to make one?"  to see if they were too old to think it was cool.  But they responded "is that even a question?" and then made elaborate superhero decorations on theirs and their little sisters'.

I even had enough leftover red fabric to make liners for these baskets I painted!  I figured I could make BYU liners and use them for snacks at a BYU party, too.

Jasmine cracked me up that day.  She loved the bubbles Aunt Sandy brought, and enjoyed a few of them before they accidentally poured all over herself and the dirt.

Then she figured out how dispense root beer, and that got poured all over her.  And THEN she played in the sandpit.

My child looked homeless by the end of the day.

In fact, the only reason her feet are clean is because she loved dunking them in the creek!

As I was looking though our pictures, it struck me how some things never change.  I was talking to Christopher as I took the picture of Tyler in the sandbox, and I asked him "when do you think Tyler will get tired of this?"  He honestly spends hours digging in there, every single time we go.

Daddy said "maybe when he's 30".

We changed out the swing this trip.  The old IKEA swing was getting pretty ratty, and we moved the swing back to where Kaitlyn's rope used to be.  It amazed us when we first bought the place when that tiny little girl would hook her leg through the rope and go swinging off wildly yelling "weee- ha!"  Kaitlyn was thrilled we moved the swing back so she could jump on it anytime she wanted.

I am constantly amazed that we got lucky enough to have such a great place for our kids!

Endings and beginnings

For once, I actually have a huge backlog to put up here.  Usually I can't wait to edit my pictures and write about it all, but there have been a lot of little things that have kept us (and my camera) busy.  Let's see if I can get them in order.

First up, randomness.

I taught the kids how to dropspin.  I love that kids think anything Mommy and Daddy do is awesome.  Well, and waving big sticks is always fun.

I've been doing a lot more photography sessions lately.  That's been a lot of fun!  Kaitlyn was helping me nail down my settings one day before we got started, and despite the crazy hair I love this picture of her with Muffin.  She adores that teddy bear.  A lot.

Tyler had his dance festival at school.  Figuring out what Tyler does at school isn't always easy, since he can't explain things very well.  But he kept telling us that "everything is awesome".  And when he class started dancing to the song "Everything is Awesome", I burst out laughing.  There was my answer!

The song is from a Lego movie, so every kid got to color in their own Lego person to be whoever they wanted.  I think Tyler tried to make his a Ninja-go.

Kaitlyn's grade danced to "Under the Sea".  I loved that in every picture I took, nearly every kid is doing something different.  Kindergartners are not known for their coordination - just the cute waves to the moms in the crowd!

That evening we got to see the new Curiosity Museum with some cousins.  It was a lot of fun!

Jasmine slept through half of it, but fell in love pretty quickly once she was fully awake.  (While half awake, she hates everyone and everything.)

Kaitlyn's competitive spirit reached a new high on this thing.  It talked about how monkeys hang upside down for a long time, and then let you test how long you could hang without touching the bottom.  She lasted 6 and a half minutes, and had a huge line waiting to use it by the time she was done.

And Tyler liked all of it, but once he and Daddy found the room of Legos, they were in heaven.  Actually, I think his favorite was the giant climbing gym we did first.  I had to peel him away after a couple of hours so we could see more of the museum.

The next day, Kaitlyn had her gymnastics show.

She was SO excited about that medal.  She kept asking me if I thought she would earn a medal again this year, and she wasn't even deterred when I explained that everyone gets one.  It was still awesome.

Let's see . . . next was the Fireman's breakfast.

That was a busy day- we split up to go to two separate baptisms, and Daddy took the kids to Cabela's and then shooting guns with cousins afterward.  I'm not a fan of that stuff, so I was rather happy he did that without me.  Instead, I took Jasmine to use our summer passes and go skating, and everyone met us there later.

And all of that brings us to the next Monday, when we all started new things!  Daddy had his first day at a new job.  He got a job up in Murray (a 40 minute drive, sadly) that he is really excited about.  He had to cut back a bit on the other businesses he has been running, but this job was worth it.  And at home, we started summer school.

We only have one week under our belt, but I think this might be my best step yet as a mom.  As I mentioned with our trial run over Spring Break, we didn't want to shell out the money for summer school this year, and I don't like the public school version, so I decided we would give it a go.  We don't stay on schedule each day, but I decided I am totally okay with that.  Every day we have reading time, lesson time, piano practice time, and chores time, and that is way better than we did during the school year.  They made cookies, we went to the pool, and we're going skating again tonight.

I let them draw from a hat of activities and things to create, and the picture above is from our color walk.  They had to look for colors while we wandered the neighborhood, and that was a big hit.

Another day, we used the Kiwi Crates my mom got us and made jumping frogs.  And that was a HUGE hit.

Coloring them and creating the catapult was fun, but launching them was the best part.  They loved seeing if I could get a picture of it flying.

And then Jasmine decided it was time to tackle her brother.

And despite the fact that neither girl is actually dressed for the day or has their hair done, I think this is my favorite picture right now.  Squish time!

I am constantly amazed with what Tyler puts up with from that girl.  She was sitting on him as hard as she could, and he just laughed and laughed.

Tyler makes the best faces sometimes.

Here's hoping we love summer school as much in August as we do now!

School is winding down

May always seems to fill up quickly.  My favorite part is our recent tradition of having my mom in town for Mother's day.  Sometimes I feel a bit silly about it, but I gotta say, my momma is probably my best girl friend.  We chat on the phone a LOT, so having her in town to go shopping and hang out and have my kids get to know her is awesome.  I'm even more happy when my Dad gets to come too, but he had to work.

It was really nice that Christopher was able to work from home for a day and watch the girls so that we could have a fun day in Salt Lake.  We shopped the outlet malls, tried out restaurants we saw on Food Network, and then dashed back home in time for the pinewood derby.

The pinewood derby had been postponed a few times, but they finally found a track for us to rent.  And Christopher kept telling me that he didn't want to make the car too early, because he didn't want the kids to wreck it.  So a couple of days beforehand, the kids helped cut and sand their cars down.

And then they got to spray paint the cars.  The nozzle was a bit too hard for them to push down, but they tried.  Green is for Tyler!

And then, the night of the derby, Daddy went to put the wheels on .  . . and they wouldn't fit.  This was discovered with about a half an hour to go.

See the car Tyler is holding?  Yup, not the car he made.  A car we had lying around the house from an adult pinewood derby date night.  When he was weighing in and people said "oh Tyler!  Is that your car?"  He would just kinda look at them strangely and say a slightly concerned "yes".  I don't think he liked the switcheroo, but he wasn't fully aware of what happened.

So he DID make a car, had fun with Daddy doing that.  And he had fun racing a car.  So what if they weren't the same car?  He was all smiles.

Notice Jasmine in this picture.  She thought seeing the cars whiz by was hilarious.  Everybody was smiling at her reaction, because she busted a gut every single time.

My mom told me that after raising five boys, she honestly had been very sick of pinewood derbies.  She was sick of the attitudes, the competitive boys, the dads that wouldn't let their kids touch the cars and protested rules and so on.  But I gotta say, our pack is awesome.  We didn't see a single bit of that.  Everyone was honestly cheering for each other and laughing at it all.  Even the Dad with the winning car (who makes custom cabinets for a living, so I think we could have called that before we arrived) only had a small little fist pump you had to look closely to see.

And everyone seemed genuinely happy for Tyler - who was the happiest boy I ever saw when he got a third place trophy.

He spent a lot of time admiring it and talking about it.

Daddy said it was the first time he made a winning car, so he was pretty happy too.

We had a few days of just hanging out and working in the yard before Kaitlyn had her "Kindergarten Celebration".

She told us it would last "as long as regular school", but they actually just sang cute songs for 15 minutes.

In fact, I better post one for Grandpa to see.  Here you go.

This was Kaitlyn's teacher, Mrs. McAllister.  When asked to list three things she loved about Kindergarten, she said that "I love my teacher", "Mrs. McAllister is really fun", and "Kindergarten is great".  And I don't blame her.  She was a person who just sounded like the perfect Kindergarten teacher from the instant you met her.  The sweet, calm voice, and the cheerful disposition, with the cutest laugh.  I'm so glad Kaitlyn got the have her!

After school that day, we headed up to the cabin for the weekend.  We got the cabin ready for spring, and Grandma broke out some bubble wands for the kids.  (Jasmine and Tyler dumped them all about ten minutes later, but it was a fun ten minutes.)

And then Jasmine decided to give Grandma rocks.  Jasmine really does like repeating a sequence of events over and over and over again, as Grandma discovered.  I'm pretty sure they were doing this for over a half an hour straight, but as long as Grandma would paitietly tell her where to put the rocks, Jasmine would return to shout that she had more ready.

Oh, and you'll notice in the video that Jasmine started out the week calling her "Am-Pa", but by then just called her Pa.  Yup, that's my mom - Pa.  She has quite a few words, but when she feels like there should be more to fill in a conversation, she just adds nonsense in between.

Once my aunts arrived, we had lunch and took a walk.  I never get tired of the views up there.

While we were walking, my mom spotted what looked like a moving speck of dirt.

And despite my protests, this lizard was quickly adopted by a very adoring little girl.  Now named Liz the Lizard, he (she?) is attempting to live in an old fish tank with all the ants my kids can find to feed it.  Given how much it has been carried and played with by all of our neighbor kids, I feel really sorry for the little critter.  But we've never let our kids have a pet of any kind before, so they are on cloud nine.  Hopefully we can keep it alive . . .

My mom spent the rest of her vacation with her sister in Salt Lake, and then flew out right as Kaitlyn was getting ready for her ballet recital.

We laughed at how serious they all looked.  No matter how many people told them to smile and have fun, most of them looked very straight-faced at their teacher off to the side to remember their steps.

I love how these activities stretch her.  She gets to have fun and work hard to learn new skills.  And her teacher is great- she just opened up a studio in her basement.  Since she had a class that needed one more student, she let Kaitlyn join in return for me making accessories and costume bits  and alterations for all of her classes.  Deal!

Love the girl next her posing!

Of course, the hilarious part was that her class was doing two dances - the tap song first, and then the ballet song.  They brought me the costume change parts, and so one she was done with the tap dance, we switched her over.  But then when they all got up there, her teacher stopped them- because Kaitlyn was still wearing her tap shoes!  She had switched shoes in the hallway before the show and left her ballet shoes out there.  So everyone had to wait while she ran out and found them . . . a bit embarrassing.  Thankfully it was a small (and patient) crowd.

Whew!  A lot of videos for this post!

Now we just have one more week of school, with all the dance festivals and parties that entails, and it will be time for summer school at home!