Keeping Busy

We've been keeping ourselves busy this summer - Every morning, I've started the kids off with a short list of things that they have to do before we can do the fun stuff.  And they have to get it done before James goes berserk and needs to go down for a nap.  :) This has helped give us some routine and helped keep the house in some sort of order (which would never happen with 5 kids home all day)  Fun stuff has included running around in the sprinklers and having friends over and would have included going to the library, but they didn't manage to get done in time that day.....

Monday-Thursday this week, the girls got to go to an afternoon girls camp put on by my cousin Lucy and 2 of her Girl Scout friends.  They played with them, did crafts with them and gave them snacks from 1-4.  The girls LOVED it - they had a ball with their cousin and the other girls there - they loved going and looked forward to it every day!

Eileen's friend Taylee came over and spent the night - the girls had a blast and Taylee was sweet and easy - hopefully they can do this again some time!

Anna's birthday was on Thursday - Grandpa and Newell and Becky and family came over to help us celebrate.  Anna wanted a Hello Kitty birthday cake - so she got one, and if I say so myself - it came out pretty darn cute!!  She loved it - which was the most important part.  :)

James rather liked it too.  He downed his cake and ice cream in like 30 seconds....  :)

Friday, we took a trip to the Butterfly Pavillion - when Eileen realized where I had brought her - she gave me a HUGE hug and when i finally got her to let go, she jumped up and down for the next 10 minuted.  The kids all had a great time - James did well and the kids had a blast holding Rosie the Tarantula and looking at all the bugs and especially looking at the butterflies - it really was amazing - there were TONS of them everywhere!  We even got to watch some coming out of their chrisalids and got to watch them release some new butterflies into the rainforest environment.

This is Evie holding Rosie - LOL - she enjoyed it, but was rather surprised by the tickly feeling.  :)  

Aaron was the only one who managed to get a butterfly to land on him (he actually got 2, but I think one might have been coaxed on despite my insistence that they NOT try to get one to climb on them....

On Wednesday night, Eileen had Activity Day Girls - i dropped her off and grabbed Anna's cake pan, then went home and helped Dan cut down some dead trees in our yard and load them into a friends truck to take with her.  We had fun working and chatting together, then I picked up both our girls from  Activity Day's.  On Saturday, Dan decided that instead of digging out the stumps, he was going to get a couple 2 x 4's and level the stumps off and make a balance beam for the kids to play on.  The kids have been having fun playing on it ever since.  Eileen was very excited about her ability to balance on one foot up there - Aaron and Evie wanted to hold hands while they walked across.

Home Again... kinda!

Well early Monday morning, we packed up and headed home.  Our first two days were mostly spent packing, doing laundry, running errands and settling back into life.  After that, I started trying to implement my summer plan!  

Here are the kids in the car, ready to head home!  

The kids are putting together "Summer Fun Passports"  It's basically a notebook that is going to have a page for all the things we do this summer - and the page will have a photo and a ticket (if there is one)  and their favorite part of it - so we had fun starting it this week and doing some of our pages from our time in Texas.

Friday, I picked up a friend from my Freshman year at BYU - from the airport.  Then we met up with a bunch more of our Dorm floor friends and headed up to the cabin for a weekend getaway.  We spent a great couple of days hiking, playing games, walking around Breckenridge, and of course lots of chatting - reminiscing, catching up and uplifting.  It was wonderful to be with a set of women who are all trying their best to be good moms, good wives, and good disciples of Christ.  We shared stories, experiences and lessons learned.  It was wonderful!  These ladies are wonderful and I'm so glad we could do this, and soooo looking forward to next time!  I came back spiritually and emotionally refreshed (now if only I hadn't had allergy issues all weekend....)

As much fun as we had, I am glad to be home with my wonderful family!  My sweet boys!  I just love how James is looking up to his big brother here.

We got to watch the incredible Leadership conference tonight - it was just AMAZING!  such a powerful spirit, such incredible messages and such a neat experience!  

Last Week in Texas

We've kept busy this week!  I guess we figured that if we kept busy, we wouldn't miss Daddy quite so much....  only worked a little....  We've spent some of almost every day out in the pool.  Grandpa has been giving them swim lessons again and they are all doing really well!  James didn't much care for the pool at first - but he got used to it pretty quickly and had fun (when he was awake)

We also got together with our friends a couple times - they came down to swim and play once and we went up there to play and crochet once.  We had a great time both times!

Grandpa took us to a base ball game - we went to go see the Frisco Rough Riders.  The kids spent most of the time whining and asking to go get a drink of water - but I enjoyed it!

Friday we went out on the boat - the girls got to waterskii again - both did amazingly well and then they all had fun on the tube.  Grandpa went with Aaron and both wanted to go so slow that I couldn't keep the front of the tube out of the water - and once I turned around to check on them and Aaron had a death grip on the front handles (which were under water) and was getting dunked!  But he wouldn't let go!!

Friday night, I met Lori and Megan for dinner at Chuy's - we had a great time eating and chatting - it's funny how even a year apart and we fall right back into normal.  :)  These ladies are two of the reasons I most miss Texas!

We went to the Zoo on Saturday - it was sweltering!  We found as many chances to get misted or wet as we could and spent our whole time running around to different shows and things they had going on.  We did a lot of walking and a lot of playing and had a great time - but came home exhausted!!

We went to the bird show again and Anna got to be one of the volunteers which she loved!

I went to pick up Dan from the airport today - i got there and he let me know what gate he was at and I got there and found a HUGE gaping hole in front of his gate (and the 3 or 4 gate on either side)  so I had to spend a bit of time trying to figure out where to pick him up at.  :)  But he's worth the trouble!

We had a little birthday/father's day celebration this evening for Anna and Dan and Grandpa.  Cake and all!  Evie kept walking around asking Daddy if it was his birthday today.  And once she saw the cake she was asking every 2 minutes when she could have cake!

I sure am blessed to have such wonderful men in my life!

Texas!

We have had a busy week!!  And lots of pictures to show for it!  Monday, we took off for Texas - it was a nice relaxing trip - James did pretty well and the other kids were content to watch movies and color.  We arrived a bit after midnight - no worse for wear!  

The day after we arrived, my Grandma Penny arrived.  My mom - feeling the need to keep my kids entertained, planned lots of fun.  Wednesday was the beginning - My dad spent some time in the morning in the pool with the kids helping the girls learn to water ski.  Then that afternoon, we went out on the boat.  Eileen and Anna both got to try it out and were able to get up - Eileen was able to stay up for quite awhile.  After (since mommy was exhausted from swimming around after them and helping them) we pulled the tube out and let them each have turns in the tube.  They all had a blast - Eileen and Anna especially LOVED the fast bumpy tube rides.  However, when asked their favorite part of the whole day - their unanimous response was "when daddy fell off the tube!!!"   Dan had taken a turn on the tube and Grandpa had driven him around and got a bit crazy on accident and threw Dan off - skipping him across the water....  

Thursday, we all went to the zoo - in the morning, the weather was wonderful - a bit overcast and cool which made it a really nice day to be there - not too hot!  The kids had fun - Eileen especially loved the bird show and wanted to take pictures of all the birds.  Evie's favorite part was feeding the birds - she wanted to hold one so bad, but got scared when ever we managed to get one on her :)  James just loved looking and pointing at everything.  Anna, of course loved everything.  After lunch, it started pouring!!  We took the kids on the carousel and then headed home!  

Thursday evening - the Tilton's came over to play and swim.  It's always good to see them - It's also fun to watch Eileen and Sonora's friendship pick up right where it left off and before the Tilton's went home to have both girls begging to see each other again before we went home to Colorado. 

Friday morning, we had a girls morning getting pedicures - we all had fun - and Evie even left her nail polish on mostly!    

The kids have spent some of every day in the pool - and Saturday they spent almost the whole afternoon in the pool - from noon to 6 pm - they were in and out of the pool - Eileen and Anna are getting very comfortable in the water - and both are looking really good with their swimming lessons from Grandpa.

Sunday we went to Sandi's ward for Kai's baby blessing - she is such a sweet baby - generally quiet and happy - and totally sweet and beautiful!  The kids love her too!  After, we went to Jon's parents house and had fun with Jon's family.  The kids all had a lot of fun playing together - and playing outside and running amok.  It was a fun afternoon - then we came home and fed the kids and put them to bed.  Dan left for Seattle this morning and we are now looking forward to another week in Texas.

Anna and Taz really are getting along well - they seem to have similar energy levels and Anna has been a really good big friend/babysitter.  She wrote him the cutest note to Taz telling him how much she liked him and how she would miss him.  She has been really good at playing with him and helping take care of him - which has been really good for him too since his life has been a bit crazy lately.  Out of all my kids - Anna is the only one who's name he can remember - all the kids are "na-na"  

Summer Fun

We have started our summer off with a nice easy-ish week - we spent most of the week trying to use up our food and enjoying the sun. The kids mostly played outside and helped me run errands to get everything ready. Wednesday was choir practice as usual and Thursday was piano lessons as usual. 

Wednesday, we went to the library to return some books and go to story time - Eileen also got a great list from the librarian of books to read.  They got to use these little shaker eggs during story time and James LOVED them - and didn't want to return them....

Friday, we had some of the guys over from Dan's work to play Settlers of Catan - It was a lot of fun - they all have a similar sense of humor to Dan and I and so we all had a blast quoting movies at each other.

Saturday was my Colorado Mormon Chorale Concert. It was a lot of fun - fun music, great audience and a really neat thing to be a part of!

Sunday was our normal busy church day - then Dwayne came over in the evening to hang out since Nicole is visiting her family.

Other than that, our week was mostly spent getting everything ready for our trip - doing laundry, packing, getting the kids entertainment sorted out. We spent a day getting the house cleaned up, and the kids had the chance to do some extra chores to earn money to go spend at the dollar store - then we all went and I got some coloring books and stuff for the car and they had fun picking out stuff with their chore money. Daddy and Evie especially worked hard. Dan lay down to take a little nap on Saturday afternoon - when i came in to get ready for Choir - I found them both curled up in our bed - Dan didn't even realize Evie was there until he woke up.