July Whirlwind

The beginning of July was full of fun activities for us.  Actually, I was a little overwhelmed with everything we had going on, and even though things didn't exactly go smoothly, we still had plenty of fun.

The week of the 4th, my brother and his wife were on vacation, so our family took turns watching their kids.  They had a stomach bug the week earlier that was ridiculously persistent, and even though none of them had shown symptoms for days, somehow it still spread.  My mom and sister-in-law caught it early in the week while they were watching the kids, but since they were feeling fine by Wednesday the 3rd, we still joined everyone in Centerville for the festivities.  Our little family drove to Centerville on the evening of the 3rd so we could watch the fireworks that night and be up in time for the morning activities.

Waiting for the fireworks to start...

We all watched Grandma fiddling in the park with her violin students during the annual breakfast, then watched the parade.

Ready for the parade with cousin Lexi!

After lunch, Robert, Renae, Trevor, and I took Cassie, Benson, and Lexi to the park for the little carnival.  The kids got their faces painted, jumped in the bounce houses, had shaved ice, and played on the playground at the park.

No surprise, they all took a good nap that afternoon (including Cassie!).  We drove back home after dinner, and Lexi came home with us to stay for the rest of the week.  Our neighbors provided an awesome fireworks show for the kids, and we all pitched in a little money to help out.  The kids loved it!  I wish I could describe the giggling and excitement.  Sometimes I feel like fireworks are a waste of money, but the reaction of all the kids made it totally worth it!

We walked down the street a little way to get a better view of the Thanksgiving Point fireworks, but I think the amateur fireworks show had spoiled the kids- they were restless and bored during the "real deal!"  After all the excitement and the late night, the kids slept very well...until about 5 am when Cassie woke up sick. (Curse that stomach bug!) So our 5th of July was filled with watching movies, mommy cleaning up messes, and being religious with hand washing and hand sanitizer.  Luckily, the symptoms only lasted 24 hours, so I knew I wouldn't be dealing with throw-up for too long, as long as Benson didn't get it.  Which is why I was so liberal with the hand sanitizer.  It worked!  Benson and I stayed healthy.

On Saturday the 6th, Vaughn and Christie picked up Lexi, and we headed to Logan to celebrate Rialey and Kim blessing their first baby, Kaleb.  I brought Lysol wipes and hand sanitizer with me, and I probably annoyed half the family by wiping things down and occasionally handing out little squirts to everyone, but I am proud to say that we didn't pass it on to anyone!  Unfortunately, Trevor caught it and ended up in the hotel room Saturday night while the rest of us played at the park.  He felt much better Sunday morning and was able to participate in the blessing.  Of course I gave him a squirt of sanitizer right before the blessing. :) In the afternoon, after eating good food and spending time with family, Trevor headed back home so he could work on Monday, but the kids and I headed to Oakley.  We spent Monday jumping on the tramp, playing with puppies and kittens, feeding goats, and in my case, trying to be helpful to Grandma since she would be watching the kids for the rest of the week (spoiler alert: adults-only trip to Lake Powell with friends while Grandma and Grandpa watched the kids!).

I left Tuesday morning, and it was definitely harder for me to drive away than it was for the kids to see me go! (Which is probably obvious from the pictures- their house is grandkid heaven!) Luckily, I brought along a little Jane Austen on CD to distract me from saying goodbye and to get me through the drive.  I did tons of laundry and packing Tuesday afternoon, and we headed out early Wednesday morning (July 10th) with our friends for Lake Powell.  Watch for an epic post about that coming soon!

More Summer Fun

A certain very coordinated five-year-old learned to ride her bike without training wheels!

I took the kids to see Monsters University.  They both loved it, although Benson's attention span really only lasted for about 40 minutes, after which he proceeded to play musical chairs/laps.  I found Monsters, Inc. on DVD at a garage sale this summer (score!) and it is now Benson's favorite movie- I think his attention span for that one stretches to 50 minutes!

A local orchestra was putting on an outdoor concert one evening and there was no minimum age requirement, so we jumped on it (okay, I jumped on it and Trevor willingly followed) even though it was a little drizzly.  They were very seriously considering cancelling and sending everyone home since it's really not okay for string instruments to get wet, but instead they had a bunch of audience members come on the stage with their umbrellas and the show went on!  Our whole family loved it!  The music was all kid-friendly/crowd-pleaser stuff and the rain situation made it more casual and fun since they had to roll with the punches instead of following a strict program.

We had been meaning to take the kids on Frontrunner for a while, so my dad joined us and we went on a little trip to SLC when my mom was out of town with a friend one weekend. 

Waiting for the train 

The Disney store!

The Disney store was doing an activity for kids, so Cassie and Benson got official Monsters University ID cards and learned how to be "scarers!"

Temple Square

Benson adores his grandpa!

The kids were pretty nervous about the fountain at the Gateway at first...

 but they got the hang of it and were soaked in 10 minutes!  I brought a change of clothes for each of them knowing that might happen.

Saying goodbye to grandpa

We went with our awesome friends the Warnocks to the zoo at the beginning of July when it was ridiculously hot.  Both of us moms are pregnant (same due date!), so naturally we only lasted a few hours before heading home in the air-conditioned swagger wagon.

The carousel!

Can you see the peacock?

Benson, Zuri, and Katie at the elephant show

I love these cute kids!  They all get along so well together.

Ah, summer...

Now that I'm thinking about our summer to blog about it, I'm realizing that we had an awesome summer.  We crammed a ton of fun things into a few months!  Of course, I didn't get pictures of the "regular" stuff that we did all the time, like going to the neighborhood pool or hanging out with all the neighbors in the evenings.  Don't worry, I have those fond memories stored in my mind to sustain me through the long winter months. ;) I was going to try to fit the entire month of June into one post, but remember how I said we did a lot of fun things this summer?  So here is June, part 1.

On a Saturday, Trevor and I randomly decided we wanted to visit BYU campus.  We all drove down in our minivan (Oh, did I forget to mention that we bought a minivan?!? Yes, my heart died a little the day we sold our beloved little dying Prizm and bought a mommy-mobile.)  in the afternoon and walked around campus to see the changes.  In true university fashion, there are huge construction projects every year, so already a lot of things have changed since we left in 2010.  (Honestly though, the change I noticed the most was how much the trees have grown!  Especially the ones that were planted when I was there.)  We took pictures of our old stomping grounds:

Ah, the HFAC...the building I lived in for 4 years of my life...

 The view from the top of the Joseph F. Smith Building.  There is nothing like the mountains in Provo!

A common sight...a couple holding hands on campus

Trevor only posed in front of the engineering building, he didn't want to go inside.  Bad memories? ;)

 A very washed-out picture of me in front of our first apartment (third floor, with the flags hanging on the balcony). That giant tree is part of the reason I loved that apartment so much.  Living in a brand new subdivision makes me miss big, old, shady trees I guess.

We ate dinner at Brick Oven that night (a Provo classic!) and got home way too late for the kids' bedtime...but it was worth it.

Somehow I got invited to be in an awesome book club in my neighborhood, and in June we had the author Sarah M. Eden come to our book club (!) to discuss one of her books.  It was so cool to hear her perspective as the author and to pick her brain about the writing process.  And how amazing is it that she actually came to our dinky little book club?  She was awesome.  She is in the bottom left of the picture.

Our dear friends from our Wymount days, the Crocketts, visited us on their family vacation, and it happened to be Melanie's birthday!  (They lived in the first-floor apartment in the picture above.) We took the kids swimming, ate dinner, had cake and ice cream, and reminisced about when we only had one kid each.  Let's just say that getting together is a little crazier with 5 kids running around.  She was pregnant with her 4th and of course I have number 3 in my belly.  She is now the busy mother of 4 handsome little boys!  Yes, she is a rock star.

Melanie and me and a little frosting thief

The whole gang!

More June coming soon!

The Birthday Girls

I finally turned the age I will be for the rest of my life!  I had a nice, relaxing 29th birthday and celebrated with cake and ice cream in the front yard with all the neighbors.  (Just hanging out with all the neighbors in the evenings is the best thing about summer!) One of my amazing neighbors made this awesome cake for Cassie and me.

We celebrated with a family dinner at my parents' house the next night.  Right now, I think Cassie likes that our birthdays are so close (June 1st and June 5th), but we'll see if she ever gets a little more diva in her. ;)

Opening Presents

This is payback for my little brother stealing my phone when I wasn't looking and taking ridiculous pictures.  I have to keep my eye on my phone when Bubba is around, or I end up with shirtless Taylor Lautner as my wallpaper and fart sounds apps...

Just hangin' out on the back steps and eating some after-party yogurt.  Cassie's favorite birthday gift was the goggles from Uncle Vaughn.  Obviously.

I threw Cassie her first real birthday party this year!  I felt kind of guilty that she had never had a friend birthday party before (and especially guilty that I was gone for most of her birthday last year because I was attending my uncle's funeral), so when Cassie's list of friends that she wanted to invite numbered in the twenties, I decided to suck it up and make it happen!  We played water games in the back yard with about 26 kids, and luckily I had several moms who stayed to help out!

Playing duck, duck, goose while we wait for all the party quests to arrive

Water relay race

Singing to the new 5-year-old

I love this one of Cassie!  She was so excited about the cupcakes with My Little Pony toppers!

Opening gifts- she got spoiled.  I guess you can expect a lot of presents when you invite that many friends....

The pinata was a big hit! (heh, heh)

The preparation for the party was quite a bit of work (I stayed up until midnight frosting cupcakes), but I have to say that the aftermath was way worse.  It got windy right as everyone was leaving the party, so I had to quickly get everything inside- presents, wrapping paper, gift bags, tissue paper, pinata pieces, decorations (I didn't even get a picture of them!  But they were cute, I promise.), towels, garbage can, paper plates, napkins, folding table, cupcake stands...you get the idea.  I just dumped everything inside and we drove to pick up Trevor from work (he had to work late that night) and went to a restaurant for Cassie's birthday dinner.  By the time we dropped Trevor back at work and I got home with the kids, it took all my energy just to put them to bed.  (Let's be honest.  At that point in my pregnancy [about 4 months along], I was totally exhausted every night after putting the kids to bed!)  So...absolutely no cleaning got done that night, or the next day, or the next day.  Seriously, that party had me wiped out for a full 48 hours afterwards!  I am proud to say that I did finally clean everything up.  And since my guilt is now gone, next year's birthday will be much lower key. :)

Flat Stanley

In April, Cassie got a big envelope in the mail from her cousin Lucy, who lives in Pennsylvania.  Flat Stanley was inside! (instead of explaining, how about I give you the link to the Wikipedia article?)  We were excited to take him with us on all our adventures and take pictures with him.  I really am grateful that Lucy sent him to us, because it really motivated us to do fun things and take pictures along the way!

He came with us to the Tulip Festival at the Thanksgiving Point Gardens.  (Grandma K gave us a pass to Thanksgiving Point for Christmas and we love it.)

He came furniture shopping with us at Ikea...we finally bought bar stools!  It has changed our life. ;)

Can you find him on the table?  I did a pre-school co-op with other moms in the neighborhood last year.  It was really a good experience since we were able to trade off every 5 weeks- it gave us plenty of time to come up with fun ideas, and I don't think any of us got burnt out.  Okay, maybe I got a little burnt out at the end since I was in my first trimester with baby #3.

Driving cars at the mall...sshhhh!  Don't tell my kids that you can put quarters into these things to make them actually move!  They get so excited when we go to the mall- they love playing on the cars, no quarters necessary.

Riding ponies at the Thanksgiving Point Farm.  I love this picture of Mr. B!

That cow is eyeing me suspiciously...

Unfortunately, since Stanley is made of cardstock, he got ripped accidentally and had to have surgery...

which involved a piece of packing tape.

At the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point...are you noticing a pattern here?

Don't worry, Stanley saved them by giving the shark a paper cut.