Summer, Week 4 -What? It's going by so fast!!!

Still sooooo busy. Last week we:
-Continued to have swimming lessons everyday, everyday, everyday.
-Took the kids to eat free breakfast & lunch almost everyday at the school. This remained total insanity and chaos with the whole swimming lessons thing!
-Took the kids to see Igor at the Scera summer movies. Nick declared this movie very scary and was not impressed at all.
-Went to the library for story time & Skylar's story & craft class. She made some boats.
-Took Alexis to her 9 month checkup. She continues to be such a tiny little squirt and is now only in the 1% for both height and weight. She is 14.6 pounds and 25 inches. But, hey, she's doubled her birth weight finally!! Other than being teeny, she's doing great and hitting all the milestones-sitting up, army crawling, waving, etc. She's growing up too fast! Sad!-Finished up swimming lessons with a fun day of play. My kids did absolutely fantastic this year! At the beginning of the session, Skylar was still having a hard time with putting her face under the water and now she's swimming underwater like a fish! Nick's teacher said that he's the best floater that she's ever seen for his level and Kade's teacher said he is an excellent bubble blower! Way to go kiddos!!
-Since the kids wanted to show off their new swimming skills and their cool new goggles, we headed to my mom & dad's pool along with my brother, Eric's, kids up from St. George (Eric & Jen are back in Maine-lucky!). We all had a great time trying to get in as much swimming before the rain hit. Alexis was having such a blast and kept giggling and kicking her feet. The only one that didn't seem to have such a great time was poor Seth, who just broke his arm and had to literally hang out by the side of the pool! What a great sport!




















-My niece, Cassidy, came home with us for our annual sleepover. The girls have so much fun doing this. We had a girl's night full of fun. On the way home we stopped and did some shopping and some dinner at IKEA. At home we had a Michael Jackson remembrance dance party and had a great time! Unfortunately, Ben had the camera, so I missed out on filming the awesome dancing! But believe me, those girls could boogie!
-Meanwhile, the boys headed out to the West Desert with Ben for the Father's and Sons campout for our ward. Being the EQ president, Ben was pretty much in charge of it this year and has been stressing for the last month or so in pulling it all together. From all reports, I hear he did a great job! The only real issue they had was a bit of afternoon rain on Friday. But they had a lot of fun and of course, some good ol male bonding time!

We love our Daddies!!

We had a great Father's Day, mostly because we have some pretty great fathers to celebrate!!
My kids are so lucky that they have the best dad! He is so good to them and so much fun!! They were pretty stoked that we got him the Rock Band cymbals for Father's Day so that they can rock out even more with him! Thanks for being such an awesome husband and amazing father to our kids Ben!! We love you!!We went up to my parent's to celebrate Father's Day as a family. It was great to have my brother, Eric's, kids up from St. George with us. He has one Skylar's age and Nick's age so it's super fun for them to have buddies to play with. We had such a nice time with my family and it was great to see my Dad. He is also such an amazing father and I'm so lucky that I have him for a Dad. My kids couldn't have a better grandpa that shows them so much love and affection with plenty of nuzzies! We love you Dad (Grandpa Bruce)!!

Camping...finally!!

So Ben is no longer in Scouts for the first time in years and this is the year that I'm taking full advantage of that with camping trips a plenty. But so far, it just hasn't jelled and so I was super excited when it just so happened that a friend of Ben's had a reserved campground that he couldn't use and we actually had a free Friday night and Saturday morning that we could use it. Of course, I jumped all over that!
We headed up AF canyon and went to the campground at Little Mill. We've never been there before and it was a beautiful, nice campground, although the camping spots were much too close for my taste. They were literally lined up in a row and I love those that are tucked away randomly with lots of privacy, especially since campgrounds tend to bring a few of those that think camping is all about the beer. Anyway, we were right by the river, which was amazing, and it was really pretty and we had a good time.
We got going a little late, as usual, and had the full intention of roasting hot dogs over the fire but decided to pick up a pizza instead. Pizza and camping just didn't seem politically correct to me, but I guess our kids were fed so it was all good. After we set up camp, we went for a walk up the trails a bit, made a fire, and then roasted marshmallows and had s'mores.

Alexis is the best camping baby! She just totally went with the flow and when it came time to go to sleep I just put her in her portacrib in the tent, walked out, and she just went to sleep. Kade used to be so difficult when he was a baby when we camped. He would cry and cry unless we were all in bed and even then, he'd pop up every few minutes throughout the night to see if we were still there. Alexis totally slept through the night and put him to shame! Ha ha.
We all slept relatively well for camping and woke up to some light rain hitting the tent about 8 am. I honestly think that's the latest we've ever slept in while camping. We started getting breakfast ready and the light rain turned into pounding rain. We ended up eating breakfast in and around the car. Since it didn't look like the rain was going to let up any time soon we decided to pack up before it got too bad. It's a good thing we did because it eventually turned into a downpour! Regardless of the rain, we had a blast and can't wait to go again soon!!

Summer, Week 3

Last week was busy and we:
-Begun the insanity of swimming lessons. Don't get me wrong, I love swimming lessons. I just don't love that they are every day for only a half hour. That's a lot of running back in forth in a two week span! I would love if they were twice a week for 4 weeks or something. But they are not, so every year I tote my kids to their lessons and feel frazzled the entire two weeks. Anyway, all three of the big kids are in it this year, are doing great, and loving it!!




















-Took the kids to eat free breakfast & lunch almost everyday at the school. Swimming lessons just happen to start right in the middle of lunch but the kids really wanted to eat lunch at the school so we would rush over there right at starting time, eat really fast, and then rush to swimming lessons. The kids totally believed it was worth it. I guess my lunches leave something to be desired or maybe it's all the friends they get to see there. I hope it's the friends.
-On the day we did skip lunch at the school the kids made Dumbo's Deluxe Peanut Butter (and jam, jelly, honey, apples, bananas, chocolate chips, and raisins) Sandwiches. They declared this the best lunch ever!!












-Went to see the Tale of Desperaux at the Scera Summer Movies. I think it was good but Miss Lex and I were much too sleepy to know for sure.
-I heard that they had free strawberries 'n cream at the Pleasant Grove Strawberry Days concert so I figured we should check it out. I never knew what a big deal it all was. We met the Watsons there and had some good times with some yummy strawberries, good music (Do you like good music? Yeah! Yeah!), and some PG royalty.

-Went to the library for story time & Skylar's story & craft class. She made a puppet. Nick admitted that he liked the first craft class but he was never going back. That's my Nicky for you.
-Hit the park for playgroup after a rainy morning. It ended up being us and two other kids. We got a little wet. Later on the kids even got to have swimming lessons in the rain. They thought that was awesome...and cold!
-Went camping, which deserves its own post. Stay tuned.
-On our way home from camping we hit the Sundance Children's Festival in a downpour. I'm the only one that got out of the car to check it out and all of the booths were packing up. They gave me some free gigantor cookies at least. It looked like it could've been fun without the rain. Maybe next year!!

Lex Eats Meat

So today Alexis turned 9 months so we decided to commemorate the event with a new food option- meat. At this point, I think she would prefer to stay vegetarian.



Bonus-she also said her first word today: YUCK!!

Summer, Week 2

Last week we:
-Took the kids to eat free breakfast & lunch everyday at the school. Free food is awesome and my kitchen is staying so clean!
-Saw Nim's Island at the Scera Summer Movies
-Went to the library for story time & Skylar & Nick's story & craft class. They made drums.
-Had another girls' (plus one boy) night out to finish up the Parade of Homes
-Hit the park for playgroup
-Went to a kid's class with the Hoens at BYU's Museum of People and Cultures and learned about the Polynesian Islands. They learned about artifacts, played games, and made tapas! The kids loved it!















-Picked up Grandma Cammi at the airport and got to watch the airplanes taking off and landing
-Dropped the kids off at Grandma & Grandpa Jensen's so Ben & I could go to the SL Temple with the Tongs
-Watched an incredibly amazing rainstorm where our street looked just like a raging ocean
-Had a BBQ at our friend Van's, for his birthday and to watch the Summerfest, aka Candy parade. The weather cooperated great for both the BBQ and the parade, but poured immediately afterwards. It was perfect weather for a parade though!








-Dragged the husbands and all the kiddos to see the amazing Hatfield home that was our favorite at the Parade of Homes this year.
















-Watched the Summerfest fireworks thanks to the rain stopping for a bit. Alexis's first fireworks show. She drooled uncontrollably.








-Spent the rest of the weekend cuddling poor little Alexis who had a fever and just acted like she felt awful. I guess this week was too intense for her.