Summer Break in full swing

Jessie’s been trying out some new face paintings.  She found the tiger one on Pintrest…her new best friend.

Ken went with the Teachers and Priests for their week-long to Zion’s to go repelling.  He got to do some pretty fun hikes, including Angel’s Landing.  We missed him, but it was fun to see his instagram feed and here about his adventures.

The evening he got back we had a little neighborhood ice cream party.  This year I found a new recipe for coconut syrup, and special thanks to my mom who had left us with some coconut flavoring she had gotten the last time she visited, we had all the stuff to make it on hand.  And man was it DELICIOUS!  I think we’ve made it four times already this summer.  It was fabulous on waffles and ice cream!

Here is a picture I took to remind myself not to scream.  Isaac apparently got too much malt-o-meal served to him for breakfast because it turn into a play toy and was a huge mess all over him, the table, chair and the floor.  Luckily I caught him before he decided to hop down and run all over the house.  (and yes, he’s wearing Emma’s hat.  He thinks that it’s so funny…..and well, it is.)

Abbie got a Jenga game from the prize box for completing 15 summer checklists.  (She was one away from getting this and Jessie has a sign up for “loan advances” on summer work charts….one for you now/you owe Jessie two.  Abbie felt bad for Jessie not getting very many charts done and took out a loan to help Jessie get something out of the prize box too.  Does it get much sweeter than that?)

Mark loves to read books to the boys and is always happy to hold Emma and talk to her when I need an extra pair of hands.

Another tiger….this one with yellow eyes.

Neil loves to snuggle up by Emma and hold her finger or give her a toy.  So cute.

Look at this happy baby.  Emma is almost always smiling.  She’s not much of a talker….but she can squeal pretty loud when she wants to….like in the middle of the prayer during Relief Society.  We are so blessed to have her in our family.

This summer we’ve tried to have “happy Wednesday’s”  where we make a treat and each of the kids get to pick a friend to take them too.  So far we’ve done it once in a row… and the other time we ate all the treats before we could take them around.  We’ll try again this week.

Summer mornings are pretty relaxed around our house and we end up having jammies on for quite a while, and I’m enjoying every second of not having to hurry people off to school.

We got a call Thursday that Grandma Jennie wouldn’t be with us much longer.  Ken took Mark and Jessie down with him for a last visit.  She wasn’t really conscious, but it was nice to see her.  She passed away peacefully Sunday morning…and we are a bit sad, but so happy for her to be free from a body that was in a lot of pain and reunited with Grandpa who passed away 23 years ago.

My mom flew out for another visit and we met her at a family reunion for her family at Cheery Hill.  Rachel and Becca rode up with us.  We had a delicious pot luck lunch first.

Then headed over to the water park.  Riding on the intertubes was a big hit.  Isaac was Grandma’s buddy…that was really sweet.  After the big kids had gone several times Grandma and Ken took the little boys.  Neil had a blast  and poor Isaac just wasn’t really big enough.  He made it down ok but was done with the water slides.  Ken took Emma for a bit and I got to go on the slides with Mark and Abbie.  It was SO fun…. I love rides.  Grandma and Spencer headed over to the lazy river and hung out there.  Neil went several times on the tubes….but on the last time his tube flipped him off at the end and that was scary….Mark was lightening fast to scoop him up and was impressed with how quick I was in the water to grab him.  After that scare I felt very lucky that nothing else had gone wrong that day with small children and lots of water.

Enjoying grape juice and shaved ice on a hot Sunday afternoon.

We took Grandma and Becca up the Curiosity museum.  The big kids took off so I didn’t get pictures of them, but after I fed Emma the little kids, Grandma and I did some exploring outside.  The boys loved the cave and the animal footprints in the sidewalks.  And we had some fun finding our way through the garden mazes.

For Activity Days we hiked to Escalante Cross.  For the most part is was an easy shaded hike.  The very end however was extremely steep, but we made it.  Abbie was fun to be with and I was glad I had left Emma at home with Grandma and the kids (even though she wasn’t a happy baby for them).

Our library books were due and Neil was so sad, so we took a picture of him with his favorite page from the Toad and Frog book we had checked out.

And silly Isaac was wearing Emma’s hat, again.

Happy Birthday Neil… and then some

We celebrated Neil’s fourth birthday in style.  It started with a surprise delivery of a balloon octopus from Rachel and Becca.  Check this thing out!

Apparently this didn’t fit well in Rachel’s car (no surprise!)  They were afraid it would pop if they tried to force it in the back seat, so their next idea was to drive with it hanging out the window and just hang on to it.  Bad idea.  Fortunately, a little gentle prodding was all it took to get it inside the car for the journey.  Once it got to our house, it lasted for ten days or more and was a huge hit.  What a lot of fun!

We had the family over for FHE in the back yard.  We love singing If You Chance to Meet a Frown, turning the kids upside down at appropriate times.

Rachel did a lesson on the priesthood.  Mom and Mark shared stories about when they had been blessed by the power of the priesthood.  Mark told about getting sick the night before his baptism, and worrying that he would not be able to be baptized if he was home throwing up.  He received a priesthood blessing and by morning was feeling just fine.  (Mom, what story did you tell?  We can’t remember!  Post it in the comments…)

Neil was so excited to open the cards, and commented on the special features of each.  “Yes, a frog card!”  Grandpa suggested that this is the only kid in the world who likes opening the cards as much as he does the presents.  He was especially fond of Great-Grandpa Fry’s card with lots of things grouped in fours.

When the cards had all been opened, it was on to presents.  If you recall the blog post about Jessie’s birthday, Neil was overzealous to help unwrap her presents.  She offered to help Neil with his, but he assured her he was perfectly capable of taking care of it himself.  But he made sure to show her each present he successfully unwrapped!

Presents were followed by games.

Including sending Dad over the fence to retrieve a home run ball.

Then we had fancy s’mores with a variety of options, including apples, crackers, caramel, candy bars, and marshmallows.  The coals didn’t cooperate very well, but it was a delicious creation nonetheless.

While Mark and Ken were at our Stake’s Aaronic Priesthood Encampment, the rest of us went to the Museum of Natural Curiosity at Thanksgiving Point.  We love that place.

Julie and Neil wrote “PJ the Great” on the Theater Marquee; Abbie did something with something and thought it was really something; and Isaac had fun as a Vet.

Then we went outside to ride the zip line and play with the machines.  Always a highlight!

All done for today!  We’ll be back again soon.  And check out this floor!

On our way to the museum, Jessie passed the time by decorating her shoes and Abbie’s shoes.  Zentangle anyone?

At Girls Camp, Jessie discovered how to create a chicken costume using nothing more than a simple hoodie.  First you put your feet in the arms, then put your head through the head hole and then slide your arms down with your feet through the sleeves.

The kids had a ton of fun playing around, and Ken agreed to join in the fun… that was interesting!  Turns out, a 10-year old fits in an adult-sized sweatshirt much differently than a grownup.  Let’s just say this chicken lacked the ability to stand.  Or move.  Or do much of anything other than lie there squawking for help.  He won’t be repeating this exercise!

Mark really wanted to play in the Jazz band next year, but there is no French horn in a jazz band.  (Maybe the French don’t like jazz?)  Mark decided to learn to play the trombone.  Neil and Isaac LOVE to help him practice.  They have improvised with lots of household items as their own trombones too, including PVC pipe and a piece from our Marbleworks set.  And they always have to run outside with him when he drains the spit.  Yuck. 

We were wondering why it was taking Mark so long to take the recycle bin out…

We took a walk as a family to deliver invitations to a summer ice cream party.  I think the invitations turned out so cute!

This year during the summer we are doing a Great Brain project.  The kids are supposed to pick a topic and learn all about it and then share it with others.  Mark wanted to learn Photoshop, and this is his first scrapbook page he did entirely on his own.  Nice work!

Jessie started her horseback riding lessons, making Friday’s doubly nice.

June is here.

Ken helped me stay up late making these fun banners to fill Jessie’s doorway.  He was way more creative than me that night, and it was so fun to decorate together.

Rachel offered to make Jessie’s cake and she got the Monster Book from Harry Potter.  She had to name everything on the cake after she blew out the candles.

The boys were more than happy to help with the candles….as usual.

And sweet Neil would hardly even let Jessie open her presents…which she sweetly tolerated for the first couple and then had to insist on doing it herself for the last few.  New markers and a hand stitched bag from Abbie.  Mark gave her Nerds.   Her own hymn book from Randy, a new photography book and Dragon Slippers from us and Grandma gave her the biggest surprise of all……four horse-back riding lessons.  Happy birthday beautiful Jessie!

The kids love holding little Ella.  And Neil just can’t give her too many kisses.

We tried taking a couple more pictures of Ella and Emma, but every time Ella touched Emma she would open her mouth to eat and Emma was totally confused about what was going on and wouldn’t smile at all.  So silly.

Isaac wouldn’t stay in bed that night and was entertaining us being a unicorn…He finally fell asleep on the couch about 12:30.  The next night when I got up to check on the kids in the middle of the night I couldn’t find Isaac in his bed or in any of the other kids’ beds and I was starting to freak out a bit and ran down to the main level and found him asleep on the couch again.  I guess he thought falling asleep there once made it his new bed.  Side note: he has adopted this Snoopy dog Aunt Denise brought for Emma as his own and sleeps with it every night.Neil got some popcorn from Primary when they sang happy birthday to him and he was so sweet to happily share it.

We celebrated Grandma’s birthday for FHE.  (Mark and Jessie were both gone at camp this week.  I was glad it worked out for them to be gone at the same time and not missing each other.)  Randy wanted a picture of Grandma on her new step stool and the family jumped in too.

Ken got up early before work and planted our tomato plants.  We are a little slow getting the garden in this year.

We have been making a great number of smoothies this summer.  Half a carton of strawberries, a couple handfuls of frozen fruit (which includes peaches, mangos, strawberries and pineapple), a 1/4 can of orange juice concentrate, some plain yogurt, some syrup from our bottled pears and enough milk to make it drinkable.  YUMMY!!Neil and Isaac have been dying to go to the splash pad and play.  In fact Neil has been asking to go since about the middle of February.  Some friends joined us and we had a fun time.  Isaac would not lift his head up even though he wasn’t even getting wet running under the water sprays– it was just super funny to me.

And this is our new desktop for the computer.  I just love this picture of Emma in the stroller and had a great time applying a bunch of filters to it in Photoshop.

As part of our “Summer Checklists”  I stuck on a box for “Random Act of Kindness.”  Abbie folded this basket of laundry for us one day to check hers off…..what a SWEETIE!!  Love this girl.On Thursday night Ken and the bishop headed up to Girls Camp and Ken’s dad and I went to have dinner with Mark during his 50 miler.  Here’s Jessie after she took out her cornrows that Sister Albertson and I put in for her.We had a great dinner with Mark.  He was quite exhausted from his 50 miles of hiking…but as always a happy camper.  As luck would have it there were some slight miss calculations in the mileage and they ended up hiking 22 miles this day!!!  So that finished up the 50 miles.  Well, one of the boys and one of the leaders had to go home for the day of Tuesday because they were hurting too much, but then both came back for the rest of the week. So when all the other boys ending up going home with their parents this night, Mark choose to stay to finish hiking home with this scout so there would be two boys with the leaders.  65 miles total.  I’m so proud of this boy!! and he is so lucky to have such amazing leaders.Neil was so excited to be four so to celebrate his birthday he woke up to four balloons decorating his bed.  Happy Fourth Birthday Neil!

Sweet Emma in a little outfit from Aunt Heather.  So CUTE!

Neil and Isaac came out to help Ken in the garden. They had fun trying to drink water from the sprinkler. Not easy, but fun on a hot day!

Found this cute little pioneer dress in a bag of clothes.  So glad we aren’t really pioneers.  (I don’t think I could have done the cloth diaper thing with no washing machine!)

Neil made this fruit loop necklace in Sunbeams and he was SO EXCITED about it…can you tell?!