Ode to Little People----not you Jeff ;)

We have now been enjoying summer break for a month. We are now adjusted to the new schedule, I think. To quote me the first week into summer,"Joshua! You have hundreds of dollars of toys in that bedroom of yours and you insist that there is nothing for you to do???!!!" Joshua decided to rummage through the toys in his room (which is no small feat trying to dig out the toys we've had to carefully and strategically shove into every corner of the closets they call bedrooms in our condo). He came out with the Fisher-Price bin. The kids set up the toys and played for hours and hours. Now this was a huge moment for me because I have purposely kept every Little People toy because I firmly believed they would be the best toys my kids ever played with. I guess I believed this because everyone in my generation fondly remembers hours of play with their beloved airplane, bus, ferris wheel, or house. My kids played with theirs the first few days and then forgot all about them. This was painful because I was sure they would be obsessed with them like we all were. No such luck. At least I had two days of glory with more to come, hopefully. I guess I should eventually DI them with the other toys..........ah, who am I kidding? No force on earth could get me to dump them. I will stick to my guns even if only my grandkids find the magic hidden in "Little People".

Here's our kid's best modeling pose-sorry! They were very excited to get these matching animal PJs Jeff and I found on sale on one of our dates.

Genius?

Katherine surprised me the other day when she looked at a letter "H" and said "H". I tested her on some more letters and she knew A,B,E,H,I,J,K,O,P,Q,S and T. I could not believe my ears. We got the camera rolling as fast as we could but didn't catch all of them. Then she launched into her routine which never fails to make her brothers laugh. (If you scroll down to the bottom of the page you can push pause on the music playlist so you can hear the video, or if my taste in music makes you nauseaus!)

Birthday Party

We threw Joshua his friend birthday party last week. He got to invite 8 friends and we had a "Wet and Wild" party. Here are the boys racing in teams of two to melt an ice cube the fastest using only your skin.

The classic Fill up the Cup with a Spoon game.
"Water Limbo"

(Kyle lauged more than he played. His funny bone is one of the most sensitive we've ever seen!)
Of course you can't quit without a good old-fasioned squirt gun war. Jeff ended up being the most desired target. Dad's are so cool huh?!

Memorial Day Camping

We went camping over Memorial Day weekend in Midway. We got to go with two other families and the kids had a blast. We all had a blast until we woke up the last morning with hours and hours of rain. We had to cook and pack up in the rain. You should have seen our condo complex the next day. It looked like a MASH unit had bugged out to our property. There were wet tents, sleeping bags and tarps drying everywhere. We had so much fun that even the mud couldn't dampen our spirits. We're ready to go again as soon as possible.

This picture speaks a thousand words. I only happend to take a picture of Katherine but if there was surveillance video you would would see a constant stream of children and adults tapping this keg of homemade root beer. We had to make a rule of one cup root beer to one cup water ratio (this includes the parent too!)

Joshua and his new friend Derek Bonney enjoying smores.
Heaven on Earth. The Bonneys had their portable DVD player which sure came in handy on the last and rainy morning. When kids haven't seen television in 3 days you could put on "Gone with the Wind" and they'd still look like this for 2 hours.
Do you see Kyle's Junior Ranger badge? Because we camped at Wasatch State Park they had programs each day for the kids. Very nice.

You can't see the dirt on Katherine's face but believe me...It's there!!

Happy 8th Birthday Joshie!!!

Yesterday the 29th was Joshua's 8th birthday. We can't believe it's been 8 years since we were in that little hospital in Cedar City welcoming this amazing new spirit in our home. Joshua was such a perfect baby. I think he officially cried 2 times his first year. The first was of course the first night Grandma Clark left us alone with our 1 week old and the other time was when another baby cried at the store. He always slept through the night and had the funniest facial expressions. What a joy to have in our home. We love you Cactus!!

Gross Katie!

We got to celebrate with Grandma and Grandpa Clark and the Thomas's. Joshua said this was his favorite part of his birthday-spending time with them. What a good kid!

Park City

Jeff's mother-Grandma Shari-came to Park City last week for a fabulous visit. We got to stay in a beautiful timeshare for the week and play with family. We got to visit with his sister Heather who we haven't seen in years who is 7 months pregnant with her first daughter. We didn't get to take any pictures until we drove home through Heber. We had to stop at these fields and take a picture. No-these are not canola fields. These are dandelions. Can you imagine how terrible you would feel if this was your front lawn?!

Birthday pictures

Here are the birthday photos from my 30th Birthday celebration. There is a lot but bear with me. I had to include them all! If you haven't read the last post then scroll down and read about how my husband threw me a surprise party! It was the best. I finally let the boys pop the balloons (I was holding on to the memories as long as I could).

p.s. Thanks to the Doyle's who had their camera and let me take pictures with it.!!

Mom, Katherine and Kyle (I like Kyle's smile the best!)

I've included this photo because everyone keeps bugging me to post a photo of me after I made life time membership at weight watchers. I lost 46 pounds and feel great! I am now a smaller wife than when Jeff married me. That for sure made turning 30 a lot celebratory!
Thanks for the Balloons Mom and Dad-ALL 24,000 OF THEM!! (nice touch with a few black ones!)
Our college friends John and Marcy Doyle (and their 3rd baby Colin)

College friend Chad Ahlmer and his wife Jami. Isn't she lovely? (Actually Jami had to take their baby girl Darci out for a break and John stepped up for the picture.)

Childhood friend Emily Snow and her husband Dan

Childhood friend Sharman Brown and her husband Mike

Our new neighbors, who we can't seem to be apart from, Chad and Tifany Thomas