I met Marcie at Uptown Jungle one day. And a JUNGLE it was! I didn't see the boys the whole time we were there. Following this kid around was a full time job!
When we were done, a drink and cookie from The Soda Shop sounded nice. We got a "Big Daddy" for our own big daddy and surprised him at work!
The 4th of July!
Travis went golfing with my dad, Austin and Craig that morning, while the rest of us went to the ward party! I woke the all the kids up to make it to the *4k* race at 6:30am! 4k for the 4th of July... get it? ;) I'm so glad we did because it was so fun! Collin ran off with his friend, Howie, and Weston ran ahead with them until about half way. Then I part dragged, coaxed and pushed him the rest of the way! Olive spent her time hopping in and out of the stroller and Tanner was a champ and didn't make a peep. They had an official start/finish canopy with a huge, digital clock and water station half way through. Bishop had a microphone rigged up and blasted music at the start. Everyone stood at the finish line to cheer the rest of us slow pokes as we came through. It was really well done! The weather wasn't bad at all until it was breakfast time... then I had a permanent drip of sweat going down my back. We had a flag ceremony first, put on by the Boy Scouts and then took refuge inside for the food. As usual, they went all out with red, white and blue pancakes, buttermilk/caramel syrup, so many sausage links we didn't even make a dent in them and bowls and bowls of fruit. There were tables of streamers and flags for the kids to decorate their bikes and scooters with. And a firetruck came for the kids to sit in and lead the parade around the parking lot a couple of times! Finally, Bro. Huso fired up his snow cone machine and we ended with sticky, drippy snow cones and happy faces all around! We had so much fun! I felt so grateful for all the people that sacrificed their time to make it happen. We live in a great ward!
Poor baby started out in his jammies... leaked through them... and went nakey the rest of the time. He was such a good sport in that heat!
I think Collin and Weston were inspired by the bike decorating because I found them in their room later with a box of beads and pipe cleaners from the craft cupboard, going.to.town.
We went to my mom's house later that afternoon to swim. Travis and the older 3 hopped over to the Evans for a couple of hours to eat dinner and see the other cousins while Tanner napped at my mom's. With the Goodmans and David and Abbey out of town it was a more chill day. Marcie and I got lots of visiting in. :) At 8pm we drove to a park Austin knew about around University and Mesa Dr. to see the fireworks. It was perfect! We got there before it was crowded and I swear it was 20 degrees cooler on that grass. We passed the time lighting sparklers and letting the kids run wild. Aunt Marcie gathered the little chickens around and taught them to play "telephone". The firework show was on fleek this year. Even Tanner was mesmerized!
I'm the meanie mom that makes my kids read and do chores everyday before they can watch TV. They loved to play "top hits of 2017" on Alexa while they read. I don't know how you can focus on reading while listening to music but I picked my battles. So this was their perch. On top of the deep freezer, next to Alexa. And Olive just liked to be near. ;)
We celebrated our 12 year anniversary super low key at Steak n Stone for dinner, then went to see the latest Jurrasic Park movie. Romantical, right? Yeah, I think I'm calling it quits on those movies. I don't need the added, fake stress in my life.
But no matter what we are doing, I really, really love being with him.
The next day was Sunday, so we watched our wedding video as a family after church. How can I not be in love with my life? Looking over to see this scene... (hmmm, just realizing we didn't even watch it, all cuddled up to each other, haha) my heart melted. It seemed like Tanner was even interested for a minute. Happy 12th birthday, family! It all started in Southern Estates Ward! Widdle 12 year olds. I posted some oldie pictures of us on Instagram.
Olive got invited to join some friends on free Chick-fil-a day! I have ZERO desire to dress up like a cow just to stand in a long line to save $20. Buzz kill, I know. Lucky for us, we have friends with more spirit than me! And shoot, she sure looks adorable.
Olive has 7 girls her age in our ward. Four of them did this cute, dance camp together over the summer for a week. They got to dress up like princesses every day, dance, do crafts and meet a princess! Highlight of her life.
I was released as the Primary secretary and put in as a Lauren adviser. A new YW president was called which is what spurred the change. I'm happy to serve with the YW and excited to be teaching again... I've missed it... but I'm a tad resentful about being moved from a place where I was really needed, to a place where leaders are coming out of the woodwork. I am one of THREE Laurel advisers (including the President, that makes FOUR Laurel leaders) and we have 7 Laurels. It's so strange. This ward throws everything they have at the YM/YW program and Primary seems to get the shaft. At any rate, this was the first mutual activity we had and it was crazy how much work went into it. We did an "Escape the Room" night called "Escape the Great and Spacious Building". The girls seemed to have a good time!
Back at KTR with my walking boy! He loved it and probably stayed as busy as the older kids!
This bleep to bleeping heat warranted a Soda Rush drive thru afterward! Weston wanted a frozen butterbeer and since I figured I wouldn't be getting one at Harry Potter World anytime soon, we made it a double. Oh doggie, it is SWEET! Tanner finished it off for me.
Olive and Posey are in ballet together this year! Their male teacher is a strictler. I like to refer to him as Mr. Stick-up-his-bum. They have to have black leotards (NO skirts. Yes, I got in trouble the first day for not knowing the dress code and letting her wear this.), pink tights, pink ballet shoes and hair in buns. No wispys!! I'm glad they have each other to lighten up the mood in there!
Jimmy is running for the second time for State Senate and I have to chuckle as I drive past his many, many signs. It's like I've gotten lots of quality time with him these past few months!
I wanted to document this because I don't know that I have before. My Grandma Ann (Grandma Pomegranate, to my kids) sends birthday cards and money to all the grandkids and great grandkids every year. It's never late (actually, it's usually early) and she's done it for as long as I can remember. That adds up!! It's totally not necessary but I'm so impressed that she does it. Thank you, Grandma!!
Shelley had to go on their stake High Adventure camp this year, so I helped out by having Lindi and Della for a couple of days. It was supposed to be Wednesday night through Friday afternoon, but I ended up getting crazy sick Thursday night so my mom picked them up Friday at 10am to help me out. (LIFESAVER. I was seriously at death's door.)
But until that happened, these girls had a grand ol' time! Olive still had school in the mornings, so I was very proud of myself for still getting up to exercise at 5am and getting everyone dressed, hair done, breakfast and out the door on time!
Matchy hair!!
Olive had some tears as she's still getting over her fear of the "big kids" at the flag ceremony each morning.
On Thursday I did a stupid thing. I thought it would be nice to not destroy my kitchen for lunch, so I took them all to the junior high for free lunch.
Yep. It was awful. Tanner was not content in his stroller. Della was a runner and wanted to drink the apple juice all by herself. You can imagine how that turned out. The kids weren't thrilled with the lunch choices and kept complaining and asking if they had to finish "fill in the blank". They are remodeling the cafeteria so we were sequestered in a hallway, sharing a table with another family, while I desperately tried to act like we weren't either a daycare or some form of Catholics that don't believe in birth control.
Thankfully, a little later, my mom came and picked up Collin and Weston to hang with Lane and Rusty at her house. They made a killer fort, went swimming at the Bowdens, helped Grandpa take Daisy for a run, played games and stayed up late watching a movie. Talk about a fun day!
Back at the ranch, these girls BEGGED me to take them to the park. Nope. Uh uh. It's too dang hot! I finally obliged them with some time out on the driveway. We were dripping sweat in minutes. Della outlasted them all though! She is busy busy busy! Totally a sweet girl, just at that age where you can't let them leave your sight. After one full day of her in our house I was beyond pooped. I thought my house was baby proofed, but it was definitely not Della proofed, haha! If she could reach it, it got pulled down, yanked out, thrown on the floor, eaten, broken etc etc. And she was completely not interested in the toy room! She wanted to be all the other places, climbing and seeing what she could get into. She was also testing boundaries with hitting Tanner on the head, so he learned really quick to cry if she came near him. Which meant I was either holding him which made her cry to be held, or holding her which sent Tanner into fits. I give them 6 more months then I'm sure they'll be best of friends!!
Awwww, so sweet! Cousin friends for life!
This video makes me so happy!! Posey's little booty shaking is priceless. Then Olive trying to teach her "the dab". I die!
No rest going on when this guy is around!
Oh, but that gomer smile is the best!!
I couldn't resist!
I was feeling pretty proud of this hair style! She was a patient one for this!
David spoke in church so we all went to hear it. Unfortunately, I only got the last 2 minutes. He was the concluding speaker but ended his talk with 15 min. left in the meeting. I guess the other two speakers were really fast and David hasn't quite mastered the art of droning on when you need to fill time, haha.
This will seem a little out of order since I haven't done the Back-to-school post yet, but my poor girl struggled the first few weeks of school! Everyone meets in the courtyard to do the pledge of allegiance, sing a patriotic song, recite a quote and hear announcements and she was TERRIFIED of being surrounded by so many big kids and people. I always walked her in and waited with the other parents in the back, but she was still scared. I could tell she was trying so hard to be brave but just couldn't. She would sob and steal glances back at me and it was like a dagger to my heart!! I hated seeing her so genuinely upset. The good news is, we are a month into school and she is A-Ok with it now! She used to tremble and ask me if we were on time and if she would have to do the "United States of America". Then she decided she wasn't scared of it anymore and even liked it. NOW, we've reached the big leagues and she let me drop her off instead of parking and walking her in!! I'm so proud of her!
I know a cute little guy who loves to share a morning smoothie!
Obviously, I'm obsessed with my child and couldn't pick just one bath video! He's so darn adorable! Ahhhhh!!! I just want to eat him up!! I gave him a toy car to play with and he intuitively started driving it around making car noises. Seriously! I was dying!
I put this one in because he says, "mom" at the end and I love it! It's actually more of "mum". But this is what he says allll day long. Never Dad. Or Dada. It's always a blunt, "Mum." Or when he's distressed he repeats it in a slur, "Mumumumumum". Oh, I LOVE HIM!
I finished another conference edition (October 2017) and took some pictures of my favorite of the favorites quotes on my mirror. I'm always so sad to take them down!
His latest activity is to drag things behind him. Anything. In particular he likes my running shoes... holding the laces and dragging the shoe behind him. But a laundry basket works too! It's a dauntless task to clean up after him. All day he is picking something up and taking it to another room and leaving it there. Currently there is a bottle of lotion under the hall cabinet, another bottle of lotion behind my sewing box, random toys in my bathroom, Olive's dirty clothes in the living room, everyone's shoes EVERYWHERE, a spatula in the kids bathroom and on and on. He also loves to try on other people's shoes so he's constantly bringing them to me and grunting "uh! uh! uh!" So I stop and put them on. He walks two steps and they fall off and he's back to me, grunting again.
Cleaning out the toy room I found the beginnings of a birthday card for me. ;)
The kids saw a lot of commercials watching regular TV in Flagstaff and had been begging for these "Wubble" water balloons that you can refill and supposedly don't pop. I don't like ordering things on TV, but I saw them at Target for a reasonable amount and figured I'd surprise them. Well, they were ecstatic. Even Dad got in on the fun.
But wouldn't you know it... they figured out a way to pop them. Cuz they're my kids. And nothing is sacred. You say it's an "un-pop-able" balloon? They'll find a way. *eye roll*
A few days later, Weston had his friend, Benson, over to play and they played outside in this tiny pool for FOUR HOURS. I kid you not. They went through three sets of regular water balloons and played with the wubbles anddddd maybe had the hose on the entire time (I know, I know, but it was worth it). I honestly think they would have stayed out there longer if his mom wasn't ready to pick him up.
Olive hates getting her hair done and REALLY hates getting pictures taken afterward. But her one request is that I take a picture of her doing a ballet pose at the end. Every. time.
This was one of those times that I saw a picture and thought it would be SO CUTE. But she really just looked like Medusa. Or as Uncle Ned teased... we must have lots of dental floss left over.
I think her face says it all.
