Tea Party Day Camp

This year for activity days I decided to go to This is The Place Heritage Park for a tea party instead of doing the traditional cub scout day camp. We had a blast and it was so nice not to have to get up at the crack of dawn to get ready and drive some where for an 8am flag ceremony. We left at 10 and got there just in time for our tea party which was quite delightful and then enjoyed exploring the park with the girls. It was quite a good day. The girls kept saying how great it was and Lila kept giving me hugs (I think the girls are finally realizing how much it takes to get something planned and executed especially with the little boys in tow).

The drive home was torture. That part is always bad when you have a bunch of hot and tired girls, but this time there were a couple of accidents and the 40 minute drive took us 75 minutes. When we finally got home we went to our dear friend, "Grandma Sue's pool" and went for a swim. It was a nice relaxing way to cool off from a long day. And fortunately, I had pre-made dinner the day before so I could just let them swim their little hearts out--that's what summer is all about right? I even had to get in because Marcus wanted to jump off the diving board. Good times for all!

Swinging

Last Friday night Andrew figured out how to pump his legs to swing on his own and he's been swinging ever since-if I wonder what he's up to, I look out to find him swinging.

The weather has been lovely the last couple of days allowing us to spend more time outside. We even went for a family bike/jog last night. The kids all did great on their bikes, Marcus and I had a little rough start. He fell out of the stroller when I hit a big lip in the curb, I was distracted watching Lila and Andrew and he spilled right out. Seriously, I always buckle him up, but some how I missed it last night and I was not feeling too great any way--just weird, I'm really glad it wasn't worse--he was not hurt badly just a few scrapes on one of his arms. We were out for an hour. Marcus, Andrew and I got 3 miles in. Steve and the girls lapped us but still had a great time. We hope to do this again minus the spill.

Father

Fathers are so special 
with a very special love. 
They watch us and protect us. 
They guide us and direct us.
Back to our home above.

We had a great weekend and were able to spend some time with my parents who came down to help with my niece Siena's surgery and to buy a fishing boat. They parked the boat on our RV pad so Friday morning Steve told Andrew we had bought a boat and to go check it out. Andrew said, "I know you're joking Dad." Then he saw it.

Steve quickly explained it was Grandpa's new fishing boat and we were just storing it for a few days. A little while later Andrew came in because he said he had found the queen hornet's nest on the trampoline. Steve went to check it out and sure enough there was a pretty large nest on the basketball hoop thing. He didn't want to spray it because it was on the kids play structure so he knocked it down and then went out there with our little dustbuster vacuum and was trying to suck up the hornets--it was quite hilarious to see him dodging and weaving while on the trampoline (I am very glad he didn't get stung and that he "protected" us from the hornets and the spray).

That afternoon we had our second summer movie club and watched Sherlock Gnomes. The kids thought it was great.

Then we hung out on the patio visiting with Mimi and Panca, it was a lovely night. The weather was great and I let the kids stay up way too late, but it's summer! After my parents left we called Carole to wish her a Happy 75th Birthday. We had a lovely chat with her and we discussed our niece Lexie coming to attend BYU and how excited we are to have her close and she said she wanted to come up for Sunday dinners so then we began brainstorming ways to get her here and Steve suggested the frontrunner because the stop here is like a mile a way from our house and then I got online and found out starting this August BYU will be giving all students a UTA pass so she could ride for free which made us all excited that we could get to see her a bit this upcoming school year.


Saturday we decided to go use our free bowling coupons we got from the school. We got a little later start than we wanted because we waited for Mimi and Panca to come get the boat and help them get hooked up. We still managed to beat the crowds at Boondocks and everyone had a great time. Marcus even bowled this time and loved it--the worst part was getting him to wait his turn, he kept saying my turn, my turn after everyone.

We used the girls report cards to get a few dollars for the arcades. Everyone enjoyed playing this game together.

When we got home Steve helped Ellie with her Engineering homework. Can I say it makes me so happy when they talk about school stuff. He is a good teacher, he patiently explains things and the reasoning behind stuff and how important it is to show your work and note the proper units. Seriously, I'm surrounded by a bunch of geniuses!


Then we decided to watch the 4th Harry Potter movie with the girls. It seems to be our tradition to watch 1 a year around Ellie's birthday and it seemed fitting to do it downstairs on our big screen. It was a nice relaxing afternoon with Dad. Then we had pizza and butterbeer for dinner and let the kids run around in the sprinklers before bath time.


Sunday morning I made ham and cheddar waffles (one of Steve's favorite breakfasts). Then the kids help me give him his presents. I'm sure he loves always getting clothes for Father's Day, but it's the only time I can really get him to upgrade his wardrobe. ;)

The kids all made him cards. Lila's said, "I want to tie you up with love" with a picture of a tie. Andrew several weeks ago found what he made for Steve during preschool as he was packing his adventure bag for our Idaho trip and gave it to him early. If you notice his adventure bag has all of the important things like: Pez, water bottle, one shirt, CDs etc.

After presents we all got ready for church. I had to speak and Steve was responsible for the Deacon's lesson so we had some last minute stuff to finish up. Boy was I glad when the talk was done. I knew I was the concluding speaker with 4 youth speakers so I didn't quite know how long to prepare my talk so I went through that morning and timed it several different ways to give me 5 minute variables. Steve suggested that as time starts ticking off I should wad up the papers I don't need and throw them out into the congregation. I told him he's been hanging out with the 12 year-old Deacons too long. And as it turns out I needed everything each of the youth speakers only took about 5 minutes. I'm sure everyone was tired of hearing my voice at the end of 20 minutes, but I was just glad to have it DONE!!

 

Here's a quote from President Russell M Nelson I used in my talk, "We must take our questions directly to our Heavenly Father in prayer. Ask Him, in the name of Jesus Christ, to guide us. You can learn right now, no matter your age--how to receive personal revelation. And nothing will make a bigger difference in your life than that." 


When we came home we were all kind of exhausted so I didn't make a special dinner, but we had some delicious leftovers and then I did manage to make a yummy chocolate cake for dessert. We also managed to squeeze in a great Family Home Evening lesson about the holding to the iron rod by following the promptings of the Holy Ghost and Steve setup a rope and a little activity to simulate holding to the rod that the kids all enjoyed so I say what a great day! I'm so grateful for Steve for my Dad and for Russ and for the wonderful influence they have on our family. Happy Father's Day!

I Scream

You Scream

We All Scream for

ICE CREAM

We bought this soft serve ice cream maker after our trip to Sub Zero. We thought it would be fun to have an ice cream maker and then I found this soft serve one and thought kids love ice cream cones. Our first attempt failed but I think it was because we didn't have the bowl in the freezer long enough. Tonight success!

Summer Movie Club

When I received the email from our local theater about the summer movie club, I thought we could do summer movie club at our home with our new theater and each of the kids could invite friends. I also thought doing summer movie club at our home would provide Ellie with opportunities to interact with friends since she would be spending most of her days doing WSU Prep. We had our first session today. 

I also had the idea that summer movie club invites would be done on the phone--a good way for the girls to practice phone skills. So I spent some time with each of them this morning talking about phone skills and then we wrote out a little script they could use to invite their friends then we started making phone calls. They did good, but it was still a bit painful as you know it takes coordinating from Moms (man so much easier for me to just send a text to the Mom), but I'm helping them develop life skills. ;) 

We made two large cookies including a "cocoa" cookie since we were watching Coco. The girls snacked and visited for a bit then we started the show.

Half of the group hadn't seen the movie. It was fun! We will definitely be doing this again. I've planned a girls night with some ladies in our neighborhood who I've been assigned to minister to and thought it would be fun to get to know them better. And Steve and I may sneak down there after the kids are in bed tonight and watch a Marvel show--I'm playing catch-up. It's so nice and cool down there right now that I may just sleep down there in the theater room--haha. Here's to summer movies!

Enlightenment

Today, as I was working off the things on my to do list and trying to juggle yet another night of multiple events. Ellie's group piano lessons, Steve's scouts, Lila's Dance Showcase--that was 3 hours last year and she dances once and ironically she was practically the same number on the program as last year towards the end--then I had a thought, take Lila get her settled and then come home. I asked Steve if the idea was genius or evil. The extra time would allow me to finish organizing the 72 hour kits and allow Steve to go to scouts and I could take Ellie to the recital after her group lesson was finished to see Lila dance. So that's what I decided to do. I'm not gone lie I had a little Mom guilt as I walked back out to the parking lot after getting Lila checked in, but can I tell you that I enjoyed all of the performances tonight way more than I did last year and I was glad to get the kits put together and back in the cars. I really felt like that idea was inspiration from a loving Heavenly Father who knew I was maxed out and saw a way to help me. 

"Learning to gain instruction from the Spirit, to know what the Lord would have you do, is so important. In President Russell M. Nelson’s Sunday morning conference talk he almost begged us to learn how to receive revelation. He said, 'In coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost.' Gaining spiritual instruction is going to be critical to our future. " (Doing Better Doesn't Mean Doing More by Sharon Eubank and Reyna Aburto of the Relief Society General Presidency, May 23, 2018)

I'm so grateful for His guiding influence in my life and want to strive to be better ready to receive inspiration and follow it.

So now to the fun part. Cute cute Lila dancing!

That's her being held up doing the splits on the right. :)

We bought this flower to give to her. It was a great night. Lila loved the whole show and said her favorite was the first performance to "This Is Me". Then we had to admit that we came in late and missed that one, but that we bought a DVD of the performances so we could watch it later. She then asked when we arrived and we told her the song and then her and Ellie excitedly talked about the performances they liked and girls they knew in the dances. She loves to dance and we decided to let her try out for a comp team tomorrow morning so we'll see how that all plays out. Dance on!

First Sceince Wednesday

Yesterday Andrew asked me if we could make slime. I told him today was not the day that we had too much going on. That was not the answer he wanted. It was a crazy day and he was tired and I felt bad for not getting to spend some one-on-one time with him. 

This morning I woke-up with a migraine so I helped Ellie out the door to carpool. Steve thankfully made breakfast so I could go back to bed. I rolled out about 9am feeling a little better. Ate a little and then told Andrew we could make slime. He was so excited. I let them each do a bowl and make it their own color which was even more exciting. And of course we talked about how ooey gooey the mixture was before we added the binding agent - the saline/salt solution helped the mixture stick together or bind and that was our science lesson for the day. They've played with it for hours now and we're all happy!

One More Week of Craziness

Not only does everyone have the post vacation blues today, but we have a lot to do. I ran the first carpool for Ellie's WSU Prep group this morning and was glad I got to see them off on their first day. Then I made quick stop at the car wash to clean my car--it needed washed after our trip and I have been wanting to spray off my mats for a long time. During this I noticed some bugs in the under foot compartment and realized it has been a long time since we cleaned out the 72 hour kits and yep they had bugs so that was an unplanned project for the day, cleaning that out and restocking it. I had to get our produce and there was a payment discrepancy I was trying to figure out and before I knew it it was 11 and I hadn't eaten breakfast yet. So I ate breakfast while the kids ate lunch. 

Then we walked Lila to her first tutoring session with Sister Sharpe. I was a little worried about her Language Art scores on her report card, they weren't bad, but I just wanted to give her a little extra help since she is learning a second language, Chinese. Marisa sent a cute report and they are having a good time learning together. I just got her SAGE test reports back and she tested really high in Language Arts which I'm glad we're not playing catch-up but hopefully giving her a head start for 4th grade. 

Then I folded laundry and finally finished unpacking then sent Lila off to group piano lessons and then we had a quick dinner. I got Lila ready for her dance dress rehearsal then I took Ellie to her softball tournament. They were playing the number 1 team in the league and they managed to pull an upset and make it to the championship game. Steve came home and ran Lila to dress rehearsal

she's the second one from the right in the second row

and then they met us at the softball field to watch part of the second game. The kids came dressed to play in the splash pad, but Andrew finally remembered to bring buckets and shovels so he could play in the sand pit so that's where they played. I was proud of him for remembering to bring them.

Ellie had a good night. She was swinging at pitches that were hittable and making contact and getting on base each time. She made some good plays in right field and pitched a couple of good innings. They lost the championship game by 1point. The park and recreation lady in the booth came down and said, "where is that little pitcher on the red team. young lady you're doing great. you keep practicing and you can make a great pitcher." That made her happy. She was also invited to the all star team again.

It's after 10pm, I'm exhausted. I didn't even have time to shower today (is that TMI). That is just how it goes as a Mama some times. Tomorrow is the dance recital and then I think next week we'll settle in to our new summer routine. WHEW!

Camping - Check

Our summer plans have included some camping trips, but I'm still a little nervous about camping with the boys so we decided to take everyone to Mimi and Panca's in Idaho and do a trial campout in their backyard. The kids were super excited. It was quite windy when we arrived so Steve pitched tent in the corner and then the wind went away, but it still worked out. They didn't get to sleep until 10pm because of how light it was outside, but Steve said everyone slept well including Marcus.

Grandpa helped the kids start fishing off the dock in the morning. I guess within a minute of Andrew's pole being cast he had a fish and then it broke his line and that was all his 4 year-old attention span could handle so when Uncle Jakey and Anson arrived he walked up and down the bank with Anson throwing rocks in the river. Jake is an excellent fishermen who has done guided fishing trips so he was giving the girls pointers and animatedly giving commentary like, "oh, he's a fighter, keep reeling." The kids ate it up and we had a great morning.

Over the whole weekend Ellie got the most fish, but Lila got the most in weight. She reeled in the one above that was a pretty golden carp about 4lbs and then a 10lb carp on Monday before we left.

After lunch we helped Grandpa replace some boards on his deck.

Then we got in the boat to cool off. Each of the girls got up on the ski trainer.

Sunday morning we went and visited my grandparents, the kids great-grandparents.

That evening we had fun playing softball together. The little boys including Anson had fun with the batting tee we brought. Andrew even put on my batting gloves. Marcus held the ball backwards, but thought it was the greatest. All the boys had so much fun we decided to buy one as an early birthday present for Anson. :) And we brought back Jake's small t-ball bat so they could use it and for the memories.

Grandpa reffed from his cushy chair and protected Marcus during the batting practice. We were making Ellie run after every hit--trying to get her to run past first base.

Monday was more of the same, fishing, boating oh and we flew kites for a little bit.

We finally convinced Andrew to try the ski trainer. I tried bribing him with a milkshake, that didn't work, but what finally did it was I told him I would make him a water skiing pass like his snow ski pass and he thought that was awesome. He's already asked if I've made it so I guess I'd better get on that. At first we went really slow because that's what he wanted. Then he did no hands (show-off and scared Mommy). Then he kept giving us the thumbs up single to go faster. We taught all the kids the ok sign, go faster, slower, and to say hit it when they're ready. It was fun.

I don't think anyone really wanted to leave but we pulled out of the drive at 5:45pm and made a quick run into town for gas and food then hit the road and of course we got milkshakes. Here's Marcus enjoying some.

Man sitting out on the dock with the kids fishing and running around. I thought this is the life. And now that the boys travel better I hope we can go up there often this summer and enjoy it more! We love the big yard to play in, the river, fishing, and playing games with Mimi & Panca. Ellie and Mimi would sneak in a hand of cards as often as they could and we taught them how to "Cover Their Assets". ;) This is living the summer dream and my kind of camping!