Utah or Bust!

My parents flew to Texas on July 14th and we headed out on July 16th for Utah. 

We spent our first night in Dumas, TX and left early to arrive in Denver, CO early enough to go to the Museum of Nature and Science. It was really cool and a much needed break from the car. 

 Right after I took this picture I was told I could not take pictures in this exhibit but it was really cool. All about underwater/water mythical creatures. 

 Unicorns!

 Giant fake snake, that Jon along with a few other kids were finally able to pick up completely. 

 

 The little kids discovery area was a huge hit! 

 

I visited with the lady in the background who happened to be LDS and was there with her 7 children: all boys and the last 3 are triplets. She is s supermom! 

We spent the night in Denver and then pushed on to Utah! We made it on Saturday afternoon and had a great evening visiting and playing with family! All of my kids were so happy to see their cousins! 

It is a beautiful drive, which is a good thing because it is certainly long!

Lily turns 4!

She is 4!

 It happened yesterday and yet the last 4 years seem to have flown by in the blink of an eye.

 We had early morning donuts for breakfast because all of the kids had dentist appointments starting at 7:30, thirty minutes away. She loved it!

She was given the pink crown in the picture below by the dentist and that made for an extra special day!

 The presents were a hit, even the clothes. She really wanted Strawberry Shortcake toys, which I went to 3 stores trying to find and finally resorted to Amazon and they should arrive tomorrow. Oh well! She was happy with what she had today! 

 We are going to do her party next week and for that she wants a unicorn cake. She has been talking about that for quite awhile now. For today, she wanted a chocolate cake in the shape of a heart (thank you valentine heart pan) with chocolate frosting and sprinkles. Done and done! 

These last 2 pictures are a great representation of what makes Lily the funnest little person!

She is sweet and sassy! She was the answer to many heartfelt prayers and truly a gift from Heavenly Father. She brings so much joy to our family!She is so excited to go to preschool and I am excited for her and yet my heart is aching for her to stop growing up so fast. I love you Lilykins!

And now for your viewing pleasure, a scary candle blowing video. 

Jon said after, "Mom for next year, ponytail!" 

It could have been so much worse! 

She did not believe us until we turned on the lights and showed her the singed few hairs.

My heart stopped for a few seconds. 

Happy Birthday Lily! (and yes, next time I will ensure your hair is properly tied back).

So much to share

My blogging skills are less than amazing of late. 

But, in my defense I spent 2 1/2 weeks vacationing in Utah seeing friends and family. 

I have so much to share and catch up on. 

I will do it and it will be great! 

Museum Day

June 30th I realized a whole month of summer was over and we had yet to go to the zoo or the museum.  Well, that just would not do so we packed up and headed out. By we packing up I really mean we- I put the kids in charge of making lunches. Joseph's sandwiches were great, Jon packed a plum for each of us but forgot to pack the 2 apples he worked so hard to slice.  And I left my water bottle- thank goodness for drinking fountains. It was a good group effort!

 We were photo bombed by a dino skeleton. 

 Jon kindly helped Lily create her own bird.

 The snap circuits were a hit by all of the kids. 

 This boy is growing up way to fast for me. 

One group shot before we left. 

The kids really wanted to stay longer but after 5 hours I was done and was a bit worried about traffic. 

It was a good thing we left when we did because about 5 miles from home we hit total stand still traffic and I was in the far left lane. It took 30 mintues to travel about 2 miles but I was eventually able to get off and take a frontage road home. 

We are looking forward to going to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in a next week on our way to Utah! I do have great kids!

Cub Camp 2015

Cub Camp this year was a family affair!

Peter helped make swaps and to keep the house running while I was gone from 6:55 am to 4 pm Monday to Thursday the last week of June. 

This was Jon's second year going as a cub scout and he was really grateful he did not have the flu this year and was thus able to enjoy the whole week at camp! 

It was a wild west theme and so there were many fun activities and crafts. 

Monday I was able to be a be a walking den leader with Jon's group and was even able to shoot BB guns with him. It was so much fun! 

The rest of the week I helped out in the Tot Lot - babysitting for kids potty trained and up that can not attend cub camp. We only had a few girls that were over the age of 8 but averaged 16-22 kids each day. I was thankful by the end of the week that I ended up helping all week. I met some great women and gained a new love for the woman from my ward who asked me to help out. 

 Arabella and Lily thought it was the best thing to be able to go to tot lot all week. 

 

Samantha spent Monday at a friend's house and the rest of the time went with me. She is obviously not potty trained but since I was going to be in tot lot they let me take her. That was nice because she does not really like to be left with other people. She overall liked it, hated it and found it completely exhausting. 

 One day a fire truck came up and sprayed the campers during lunch. I just barely went in the spray with Samantha and it felt wonderful!

 Lily also chose to keep a safe distance. But Jon and Arabella were soaked!

You might be wondering where Joseph was in all of this. Well, he was up there with us as a Junior Staff. The first 2 days he helped with a craft station.  The next two days he spent the morning moving 5 gallon buckets of sand and gravel to various trails to fill in potholes that had formed due to the excessive rainfall.  I had the supervising leader tell me how impressed she was with how hard he worked and that he did not complain, he just got it done. One afternoon he helped in tot lot a bit too. 

I am pretty sure you will see a similar post next year - it was good for all of us. 

Arabella's Dance Recital

Arabella had her first dance recital with Ballet Conservatory on June 10th. 

She was beautiful and graceful and I loved watching her shine! 

Above without the crown but still some sass!

Below, with her crown and plenty of sass! 

Her class did a dance to Frozen. I tried to get the video to upload from my phone but it is not cooperating. Oh well! She also loved wearing bright red lipstick - required color by the dance studio (they actually have a specific shade you buy from them).

She loved that Dad gave her flowers and being able to watch the rest of the recital after she danced and changed. 

Samantha loved the sonic shake we stopped for on the way home. 

It was ordered by dad, she was offered a drink of it and it was never returned. Happy Baby!

Yard Things

Over the last few months we have gotten a ton of rain! 

I mean like flooding, roads shut down, lakes at 100 year highs, lakes that were at 19% of normal and now are at 95%.  Crazy rain! I was wondering if I needed to start building an ark.  

It is amazing to see though how once the rain stops for a week or two the ground dries up quite fast. Oh well, it has made for a more mild summer, if not a bit more humid, and I am not complaining about that. 

We also decided to cut down our trees in front of our house. 

It was a sad day but Peter got to buy a new chainsaw and spend a day playing with power tools. 

The trees were so big that they were drawing so much water from around the house they were leading to foundation issues- a common problem in Texas, the foundations not the trees. 

We have since finished cutting down both of the trees and are going to begin working on removing the stumps and then we will plant Crape Myrtle trees. 

And in this picture if you strain your eyes you might be able to see the repaired foundation. Okay, I am just kidding but after writing such a sizeable check and sending the workers on their way, I had to take a photo to document the occasion. They did remove a fair number of our front bushes which I am okay with because now we can plant new ones. It will take some time but I think in a few years it will be beautiful!