Lake Powell

We are beyond grateful that Christopher's brother invites everyone to come and stay on his houseboat every year.  It is a truly expensive vacation for him, and there is no way we could do it otherwise!  This year was a bit adventurous- it rained nearly the whole time I was there (I had to leave early to get the kids home to meet their teachers), and the boat ran over a rock one day and had an expensive repair to get it up and running for the rest of the week.  But my kids didn't care!  They had a blast anyway.

Jasmine loved digging in the dirt.  Tyler loved that too, and was very proud of his "castle" (which was one bucket of sand turned upside down) until Jasmine stomped on it.  He then found other things to do the rest of the week.

Mostly landing in the water.

Over and over again.

Seriously, it was cute to watch him be "all boy" that week.  He had a couple of other cousins who liked bouncing around on the tube next to the houseboat, and jumping off the houseboat, and that's basically how he spent his week!

This one spent the entire week right there.  On the ladder.  She didn't want to have her legs dangling, and she wanted to be part of the action while Tyler was playing back there, but she would complain loudly every time he would try to climb past her onto the houseboat so he could jump or slide again.  It was her kingdom, and hers alone.  Nothing I did could convince her otherwise.  I don't know why both of my girls have done this at this stage, but it drives me crazy.

And I didn't see much of Kaitlyn, which is really impressive when everyone is trapped on a houseboat!  She declared these girls (and another little one) her "new sisters" and they would find little hideaways all over the boat to play games and color pictures.

Christopher and I went to see a waterfall during a rainstorm . . .

spent some time wake boarding or surfing (I only wake boarded once, but I like watching everyone else go) . . .

And even got some tubing in.  Thankfully, he didn't stick with that vest long.  Tyler stuck with the technique you see here- firm grip, as flat as he could go.

Overall, it was a great week.  As always.  I always get horribly nervous beforehand about the kids and how dangerous the water can be, but they really are very used to it all by now.

Oh, I had to throw this picture in here!  Jasmine loves to sing about the monkeys jumping on the bed, complete with actions.  "Two little monkeys . . ."  Except right now, it is mostly a chant to her "Two monkey jump - a - bed.  Bonk on head.  Talk - a - mom.  No more monkey jump - a - bed."

Summer fizzling out

I haven't blogged in a while.  But sometimes, life is busy with mundane things, and not with blog worthy things.  That pretty much sums up my summer from the Fourth of July until the middle of August.  I kept trying to do summer school, but I have to admit is mostly didn't happen.  I knew it would go like that for me!  I was hoping to be better this time around, but it just fizzled out.  It seems that whenever I try to improve something in my life or achieve a goal, I am good as long as I do it every single day with no excuses.  But as soon as one day doesn't happen, it is all over.

And in the case of summer school, I had to have a one week break so I could get things ready to host our party at the cabin for the 4th.  After that, getting back in the habit was excruciating.  Which is why I don't homeschool.  I need deadlines in life, or else I just don't have the self-motivation to truly get things done.

All in all, though, I have to console myself that summer home school was not a total failure.  Kaitlyn learned to sew.  We got more reading and math done than I otherwise would have.  We went to the Aquarium twice, the pool and skating place once a week or so, and had a great summer.  In fact, the kids made great progress on swimming- especially Tyler!  He figured out a doggie paddle, and while we are still working on getting him to close him mouth underwater (his underbite means that he rarely closes his lips together anytime), the doggie paddle meant that he can get around pretty well.  And he loves going off the diving board now!

Notice how when he jumps, he looks like a cat.  All of his limbs spring out, ready to land!

Kaitlyn helped me make her mermaid skirt.  The cheap fabric didn't hold its color in the pool all summer, but she didn't care.  She doesn't want to anywhere swimming without it, and it makes her day when little friends come and admire it.

It is basically just a long, skinny skirt that has elastic at the bottom so she can scrunch it up when she wants to.  I thought it might be tough for her to swim in, but she actually did just fine.

Jasmine like "simming" a lot, too.  Thank heavens our pool has a large "zero entry" area for her to play in- she doesn't like being held in a spot too deep for her to touch the bottom.

For our Anniversary this year, Christopher and I stayed at a local bed and breakfast some friends of ours own.  We also took advantage of our kid-free time by hiking up to the "G" on the mountain.  The best part was that it was a holiday weekend, so we had a great view of everyone's fireworks from up there!

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!