4th Of July

Day trip down to Twin to see the cousins and Fireworks. I came in to find the cousins playing "good food, bad food." I wish I wouldn't have asked what they were doing... because it was gross. Two would be blindfolded and someone else would grab something from the kitchen that tastes good or bad, and feed it to the blindfolded ones to see if they could guess what it was. Kids got spoonfuls of bbq sauce, mayo, and who knows what else. I prevented one of them from getting a spoonful of garlic seasoning, took my picture. and got out of there... yuck. 

Most of the time was spent outside playing on the tires, swings, sand, and tramp. Much more to my liking -- and their tastebuds'. 

 Pepper (my sister's dog) used to love climbing all over Lucas when he was little and defenseless. Now Luke loves Pepper and likes to go after her and pull her hair. It couldn't have been that bad, because Pepper kept coming back.

    

Jake Loves Raspberries. Every time my mom comes to visit, she always brings a tub of raspberries with Jake in mind. He was so excited when Cooper showed him where the raspberry plants were.

We had planned to go to CSI for fireworks, but most of the families decided to just do our own fireworks in the fire pit at the house -- so we had some dinner, fireworks, and no hassle with parking. Another nice evening with the fam :).

July 4, 2015

Swimming

We did two sessions of swimming lessons this year at the Meridian City Pool. Jake got pretty comfortable in the water, except for his face. He refused to do bobs with the first session instructor, but the second session instructor just started dunking him twice each lesson. I Loved It. 

 On Friday's they do Pirate/Princess Safety days. They have to walk the plank (diving board) in a life jacket. Jake didn't want to jump, so they bribed him with a ride on the inflatable boat. He jumped right in. Smart boy.

 Emma did great -- I was so surprised at how well she has progressed since last year. She's turning into quite the little fish. She was pretty nervous her first time off the diving board, but then did it over and over again. She loves to be in the water!

With all the swimming lessons, and all the time we spent at our neighborhood pool, the kids have continued to get better. Emma can swim across the pool on her own, and Jake will do bobs on his own (with encouragement or a bribe) and swim for a bit on his own with a kickboard. Quite the improvement since the beginning of summer. 

Emma won a free pass to Roaring Springs from school for reading, so we went the end of June. I gave Jake the choice of staying with Lucas at the babysitters, or he could come but under the condition that he would ride one big slide with me. He came and was barely tall enough to go on one. We found the most family friendly one -- a tube that all 4 of us could go on at the same time. We kept telling him that it was the slowest one of the big ones, and he was fine all the way to the top -- until he saw it in the water and decided he didn't want to do that anymore. Too late. I picked him up, set him in with me, and we were off! At the bottom, he declared, "That was too fast!" We all loved it.. Jake may have been a bit terrified. I think once he was on the big one though, he enjoyed all the little kiddie ones a lot more -- which he went on all by himself. Emma loved every part of it! She wasn't tall enough to go on the others she wanted to, but maybe next year if we can get her to grow one more inch! She repeatedly went down the little ones on her tube though. We all had a blast in the wave pool and playing around in the kiddie pool -- will definitely go again when we're able.

And Lucas gets plenty of water time too. He loves the little splash pad and our neighborhood pool!

June-July 2015

Making the transition to two feet...

We pulled out the walker toy to try and encourage this little one to start walking. He loves it! He goes as far as he can in one direction, and then impatiently waits for us to flip him around to go the other way. He keeps going until his legs start giving out, at which time, we have to flip the toy upside down so he'll quit. One step closer to walking!

June 16, 2015

First half of June...

Emma's teacher asked that Emma stay home for the "Field day" morning because there was a high risk in her lip getting bumped...tug-o-war and such... So we took a little trip to Krispy Kreme to make up for it :).

Emma and her best friend Briana on the school family picnic day (and last day of school). 

And as for the second picture -- that's what happens when they re-discover the "accessories" in the dress up box. 

   

Woke up one morning to see our front yard being torn apart. They hired someone to do some landscaping, but never told us they were coming. Nice. Then after they left, I discovered they had put fabric and rocks over some sprinkler heads, that I ended up digging/cutting around them so that they could come up. Not impressed...

And here's the beginning of Lucas's dancing skills. He's gotten much more bouncy since then, but here's his start...

June 1-13, 2015

And then there were three.

Something about that wipey container attracts my kids like crazy. All three of them attacked it whenever possible. Lucky for me, it's an easy clean up.

Lucas

Jacob

Emma

May 2015

A Couple Crashes

Emma made it to a whoppin' seven years old before needing stitches! She was at a friend's house playing a game on the trampoline, tripped over his leg, and crashed into a tramp pole. (That's what she thinks happened anyway. I can't think of how a pole would do this though. I'm guessing she maybe fell on the pole and slid down it on her lip, making her upper lip rip... everywhere...) It cut just a little on front, sliced on the inner lip vertically, and then ripped along her gum line/inner lip horizontally. It also went pretty deep in towards her nose. It was gross. And there's your dose of gore for the day. 

It of course happened on a Friday at about 6pm. We totally lucked out with Dr.'s though. The urgent care Dr said it was too bad for him to do, and that it would require a dentist (which normally, we'd be sent to an ER for an on-call dentist $$). He didn't charge us for his visit, and was able to get a hold of a dentist friend who was willing to open his office for us to come in and get her put back together -- and he even came over to the dentist after his shift to check on her. I was amazed -- some truly great people in this world. I couldn't thank all them enough for taking such great care of us.

Emma got laughing gas, two shots, five stitches, and by about 9pm we were finally home. Her poor lip was about triple in size. Ouch. She was super brave the whole time, and I'm sure it was pretty painful. 

Onto a less painful crash... So if you can remember, Brad got this plane for a birthday while we were in Utah. He was able to fly it once before a kid I babysat broke it. For (early) Fathers's day this year, we got Brad a pretty fast and fun remote control car, and the guys at the RC shop said to bring in his plane and they would fix it -- which they did! So we took it out for another flight. Brad flew it for a while, did some barrel rolls and loopty-loops before bringing to down to land, when... he hit a tree... So a total of two flights for this bird. Luckily, it only got a few scratches, and needs a new propeller. Completely reparable, and will fly again. Brad's convinced he's cursed with airplanes/helicopters -- which is why were making a switch to cars...

Emma's attempt at smiling (1 day after injury) with a branch the airplane knocked down. 

May 29-30, 2015

Goofballs

 Lucas LOVES the dishwasher. If he hears me open it, he immediately stops what he's doing and speed crawls until he's got handfuls of silverware and plates (plastic) crashing to the floor. Right before I start it, I'll grab all the things he's thrown to the ground, throw them all in, and shut it. Instant tears. Breaks his poor little heart every time.

   

Brad was shaving, and the next thing I knew, Jake was running downstairs with "his" shaver. This little boy loves doing things with Dad.

Lucas's first ride in a shopping car. 

And my sweet little baby turning into a trouble maker.

Settler's Park splash pad!

May 18-25, 2015