June '17- Week 4 (Part 2)- Anna's BD!, Final Swim Lessons, Dan's BD, Bee's Baseball

Monday morning I ran 3 miles, then we opened presents for our new 4 year old--Anna!!  

She got some gel pens of her very own! 

 ...a stuffed Twilight Sparkle, and hand-me down Sofia from McKenna and a Lego creation from Ben.

We had to hurry and leave for summer camps the same time the Smiths left to drive back home.  When we got home, we found they had left us some lovely chalk notes on the driveway.  

McKenna went to piano and Anna had a playdate with Lizzy.  I did laundry and then Camille and Jordan came over to play with McKenna and Ben, respectively.  We fed them lunch and then had a little more of a quiet afternoon, then swim lessons.  

 At dinner time we went to celebrate Anna's birthday!  She requested Chicken nuggets for dinner and we saw this clever sign at Wendy's for our 4 year old.  She requested plain vanilla ice cream and cookies as her treat.  

For her activity we kinda pointed her in the direction of Kangaroo Zoo and she was pretty ok with it! 

 Bethany loved this guy at Kangaroo Zoo.  

Singing to the BD girl!

Tuesday we had summer camps in the morning and Laurie was nice enough to watch the kids while I went to my yearly thyroid ultrasound.  We had swim lessons and everyone was kind of mellow in the evening and missing our Smith cousins.  :( I did some major cleaning and listened to my book club book while Dan was at church appointments that night.  

Wednesday I ran two miles and had my best pace yet-- 8:40 on the 1st mile!  After summer camps we went to Keva Juice and Great Harvest for lunch then picked up groceries.  We had swim lessons again and an evening of cleaning and listening to my book.  

  Thursday was our last day of summer camps which meant the kids got popsicles!  McKenna made a dream catcher in her last day of crafts.  

Anna explaining to me how high one of the slides at the park is.  

I had a girls camp meeting with Erica till 1 then I fed the kids lunch.  Thursday was also our last day of  Swim lessons!! The kids all progressed and should be ready for the next level by next summer.  For those two weeks of lessons, it was always so hard to have to wake Bethany up from her nap to take the big kids.  Poor thing was pretty sleepy.  The kids also got free snow cones on the last day!  

Swim Lesson videos

Ben explaining his latest Lego creation- an infinity cube!  Pretty awesome!

That evening after dinner, Dan set up some of his BD presents, new hammocks!!  

Friday was Dan's 35th BD!!  My visiting teaching came over in the morning.  Then one of my BYU roommates (Katie and Kevin Spencer) stopped by for a very quick visit.  I got to meet her sweet new baby Della and Ben even got to snuggle her.  

 

We got a babysitter for lunch and Dan and I got to go on a date in the middle of the day!  We went and got cheese steaks from Veto's on Main Street in Bountiful...sooo good!!  This was a super fun date because we just found out that morning that we are expecting baby #5!!  That's right!  We're pregnant... but of course we won't go public with the news until end of July.  That afternoon we ALL took naps because we knew we were having a late night at the Bee's Baseball game that night!  

We had dinner before with Dan's Dad's work and even got lucky enough to be there on a night with fireworks after the game! 

Happy happy birthday to the love of my life!  You are my best friend and extremely better half!  

June '17- Week 4 (Part 1)- Grandson Sleepover, This is the Place, Dairy Farm

Thursday while I took my kids to camps, Emily took her kids to JC Penny for their annual birthday pictures.  The kids rode bikes when we all got home and unfortunately Ben and Dylan had a pretty good wreck.  Both got scraped up and were pretty sad.  Ben was coasting down our hill too fast and Dylan couldn't get out of the way fast enough.  

We had Mac and Cheese for lunch and had the kids take naps in the afternoon.  Dan had a nice lunch date with his mom and some of his bros.  Unfortunately during nap time, Anna decided to go #2 but only called for me quietly and I didn't hear her.  I was resting in my room too which resulted in her falling asleep on the toilet.  :(  Poor thing!  And Bethany is a hoot!  I told her to make a funny face and the bottom picture is what I got.  And she did eventually warm up to Mollie! 

 Thursday afternoon Ben left for the grandson sleepover! He loves his cousins and grandma and had a blast!  (Missing Oliver in this picture.)

 It was Disney/Mickey themed this year! 

 That evening Mickelle and Emily went down to Provo for Emily to get a hair cut from Mickelle's curly stylist.  Dan worked late, and mom and dad had a fancy work dinner, which left me with all the kids.  They played, we had dinner, and then I put them to bed normal time but most had a hard time falling asleep due to afternoon naps earlier. 

Once all the grown ups returned, grandma was prepping more crafts for the kids and I tried to learn how to sew a button hole using my sewing machine but failed miserably.  

Friday morning Emily and I were able to do an endowment session at the Bountiful temple!  That night Justin surprised his kids by flying in for the weekend!

Back up... after breakfast we packed lunches and headed to This Is The Place Heritage Park.  This was a real authentic "Utah" thing to go and experience with Smiths!  When we first got there, there was dancing in the street and some of us joined in! 

The first house we stopped at had pioneer chores and games.  

 Then we went to the horse chorale and petting zoo.  Bethany was too chicken to ride one.  

 We stopped by the blacksmith shop, and then the school house where it was recess and they were playing games outside.  We ate our picnic lunches then headed over to the barber shop where all the kids got a "shave."  We visited the leather shop and the kids got to pound a little piece of leather.  

 We also saw the bank, pottery shop, shoe shop, printing press, medicine shop, and the candy store (of course).  I thankfully got Bethany to take a little snooze in the stroller.   

 The kids rode the train and panned for gold in a little stream as well.  They made Indian arrowhead necklaces and another craft right at the end of our visit.  

 PHEW!  It was a long day there but oh so fun!   I definitely want to take my kids here once a year but only on a day when the high temperature is in the low 80s. ;)

We had taco salad that night for dinner and my mom made another craft with the kids.  The Smiths stayed up a little later that night waiting for Justin to arrive so they finished watching Lego Batman.

Saturday I ran 5 miles (and only walked .5).  We at breakfast in the car and left by 8:15 to drive down to Elberta to tour the church's dairy farm.  We drove on the west side of Utah Lake and it was beautiful!  We first saw the HUGE piles of feed for the cows.  It was a funky fermented corn smell, but very interesting to see how important it is to control the cow's diet to maximize their milk production.  Then we saw their computer tracking system where they track the cows' temperature, heart rate and menstrual cycles.

Then we went into the actual milking parlor.  It was quite a process to see them clean off the udders, hook them up, and one cow could produce up to 8 gallons of milk in less than 5 minutes sometimes!! They sanitize each of the milking machines each time and also clean the udders when they leave as well.  They milk hundreds of cows three times a day!!  We also got to see the coral where the baby cows are kept.  We saw one birthed just that morning!  We also saw the fields and compost piles where they grow the cows' food.  

Such a fascinating process to learn about!  I think the kids enjoyed it overall, though it was quite hot and of course stinky.  Anna had the hardest time, but perked up once we let her stay in the car for a bit.  

We stopped for lunch at Arby's and then planned to head up to hike at Cascade Springs but it was closed due to a wild fire.  Instead we drove to Heber and got ice cream at the Dairy Keen.  Then we lucked out and ran into a car show (where Ben got to wear the Transformers Bumble Bee helmet)!!

We got back to Bountiful around 5:20 and got pizzas and went and played at Deer Hollow Park with the awesome zip line.  

Sunday the Smiths visited some friends and we attended regular church.  There were some wonderful talks about Quest!  We had a spaghetti dinner that night and after the kids were in bed we played Bananagrams.  

June '17- Week 3- Summer Camps, Smiths Here, Belly Dancing, Chalk Art, McK's Recital, Father's Day, Swim Lessons, NFBD, Gma Crafts

Thursday the kids had Summer Camps (M- Crafts, B- Basketball, A and Bth- Mom and Me).  Then we went to Costco and the kids practiced biking when we got home.  Love Anna in her fancy jewelry! 

After lunch I took the kids up to the Gunnerson's to swim.  The Gunnerson's were out of town and there was so much water on top of the cover from a rip in the cover, that it wouldn't open all the way.  The water pump wasn't in proper working order either... so that was an ordeal.  ;)  But the kids still had fun using the small amount of the pool that was open.  

This was another hard day were I felt grumpy most of the day and the kids were yelling at each other a lot.  I apologized to the kids for being a bad example of yelling all the time and that we all need to work on communicating better and more nicely.  

Bethany had a late-ish nap and stayed up late with me.  You can tell she had some extra energy to burn. :) 

Friday we went to the Wood Cross City Literacy Program.  There was a professional storyteller and the kids made book worm bookmarks.  When we got home the kids did more biking and Anna got a little scraped knee.  Bethany was so sweet to comfort her.  

McKenna played at the Alexander's that afternoon and Dan came home from Quest!!  We spent most of the afternoon sorting and organizing toys to get ready for company to come into town.    

My sister DROVE here from Alabama with her four kids to spend a little over a week with us!!

They got here around dinner time and we had quesadillas while Dan took McKenna to her dance recital dress rehearsal.  After they got back we had to take everyone to Hokulia!! It was so fun to see Bethany warm up very quickly to my sister Emily, but not so quickly to their dog Mollie.   

Saturday I ran 4.25 miles but didn't feel so good about it as I walked more than I wanted to.  We had a nice Father's day breakfast with all the Websters and we found out Dan's dad bought a boat!  Then we left to drive down to Provo to see Mickelle's Belly Dancing recital!  She did so awesome and the weather was pretty nice!  

We played at the Provo City Liberty Park after the recital and saw a Studio C cast member, Jeremy.  

After that we headed straight to the Gateway for a late lunch and to see the Utah Foster Care Chalk Art Festival.  Here are some of the favorites!  

We got home by 4pm and kind of chilled after a busy day so far.  

We ate nuggets and taquitos for dinner and got McKenna ready for her recital.  She did so AWESOME but unfortunately the auditorium was SO HOT!!  The schools turns off the AC during the summer and they don't turn it on even if they know there's an event there.  LAME!  

Check out her performance here.  

Bows!

Grandpa took some of the kids for a walk and then left early after McKenna's number.  

Here are pictures of those of us after the show who managed to stick out the heat!  So fun she could dance with our ward friends Camille and Brittana too. 

Dan and I went on a grocery shopping date after the kids were in bed that night.  

Sunday was Father's Day! We gave Dan his presents first thing in the morning and were so thankful he didn't have meetings!   

I love making a calendar for him every year for his office.  It's fun to look back over the past year.  

Dan got to wear his fancy new suit to church! 

The kids watched the new "Beauty and the Beast" before church.  The primary kids sang during church but Anna was too shy to get up.  In YW I aslo started practicing our "Ask of God" song for girls camp.  This was also a great day for Bethany because she waved bye and blew me a kiss as she went to nursery!

Right after church we headed to visit my Condie grandparents.  We had Papa Murphy's pizza for dinner

Cute Dylan teaching Bethany how to make car noises.

Another Happy Father's Day gift for Dan is Ben let him pull a loose tooth out! Tooth #3.  

Monday I went for a 3 mile run with Kylee.  The girls played outside a little bit with the fairy garden.  

After the kids had summer camps and McKenna had piano, we went to Mickelle's office for lunch and a tour! 

We were home by 2 and Bethany took a nap.  Grandma gave each of the kids a silly putty.  

I found out that I accidentally had the wrong time for the kids swim lessons so we missed the first day.  That evening we went to the Nelson Family BD party for June Birthdays.  

Tuesday after morning summer camps, Emily picked up McK and B and took them and her own kids to the $1 Summer movie, "Trolls."  That afternoon after lunch, Emily had a rock chip in her windshield fixed.  Then Grandma Kelly made bracelets with the girls and the boys colored Patrick (from Sponge Bob) masks.  

I took the kids for their first day of swim lessons.  

That evening we went to Grandpa Mike's work BBQ where it dumped rain for a good 10 mins.  Thankfully it helped cool things off a bit.  I had book club that night and we discussed "What Alice Forgot."  We talked about what our past self would be pleased or disappointed with our current selves.  

After the big kids were in bed I got this adorable video of Bethany being such a good helper! 

Wednesday I went for a mile run and Kaitlyn came with me and Kylee.  She did pretty well considering she isn't used to this altitude at all.  Dan mowed the lawn and the kids went to summer camps.  We came home and gave the kids a snack and then took them swimming at the Gunnerson's.  

(Fun toy to play on after swim lessons, Kari teaching everyone the game of Mafia, cute cousins and matching hair, and swimming at the Gunnerson's.)  

That night we had Hawaiian Haystacks and our good friend Bonnie (and her two kids) came over for dinner and playing.  

Grandma Kelly did another craft with the kids which was "exploding" paints.  She puts alka seltzer and paint and water in old film canisters and then they explode on the paper.  We also started watching Lego Batman outside but decided to turn it off around 11 and put the kids to bed.  

The equivalent of little kids fireworks.