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.