Summer Fun

Lemonade Stand -

The kids had a Lemonade stand the day our neighborhood had its community yard sale.  There was a lot of traffic, so the kids raked in about $30.  Way to go!  We also baked some very yummy M&M cookies to sell.  They were a huge hit.

Lily was ready at about 8:00 a.m.  They sat at the stand almost all day to help their customers.

The Reservoir -

There are a couple of reservoirs fairly close to our house, since I'm a days drive to Laguna Beach, I guess I'll take what I can get.

The kids love the water and the sand - so do I :)

 Harrison, Lily, Paul, and Mia

 Chillin'

Two new things Lucy finds entertaining:
1. Carrying a purse wherever she goes
2. Playing the piano.

We are having such a fun summer and we've managed to stay really busy.  We have lots more planned!

It's A Dad's Life

This video is really funny.

Zipline

Tag and I took the kids up to the mountains to make a zipline with some friends.  All the kids were very brave, and once you see how high this zipline was you will think they were brave too.  The weather was perfect.  It was a great way to start off the summer.

Lily



Harrison



Click on the collage to get a better view.

We took all the ingredients to make smores, but discovered that we couldn't have a fire where we were.  It turns out that cold smores are pretty good too!

Lucy loved being outside, but was not a fan of the uneven ground that kept her from running around.

Tag was making Lucy laugh so hard by making faces at her, and she tried making a few back.

I love her attempt at a kissy face.

Liz and I are definitely not as fearless as the kids, but we still had fun.

Liz

Me

Thanks, Jared and Liz.  We had such a fantastic time.

Heavens To Betsy! I've been domesticated!

What is this world coming to?  Check out what I bought for $10 dollars at a moving sale just up the street (not from the drug house).  It is quite possible that this machine is older than dirt.  However, it seems to work.  Not only does it seem to work, but according to the manual has a lot of fun features.  It can smock.  I don't think I will ever smock anything, but it's good to know that if I want to I can.  I can also embroider things.  Pretty nifty if you ask me.

Stay tuned to see if I'm able to dust off the cob webs and get this thing a-goin'.

Keeping updated on all the little details :)

I finally finished my first blog book - it took forever.  I'm so happy with the way it turned out.   I've already started working on the next one, and I keep wishing I had written more.  Not necessarily about anything in particular, just more about our daily lives and the little details that will be easy to forget years from now.  I thought I would write a few of the things going on in our lives for the sake of keeping my family history up to date.

Lily

• She graduated from Preschool last week.  I can't believe she will be 6 at the end of the summer and heading into Kindergarten.  Teacher Lori was so much fun, we will miss her.
• She started taking piano lessons.  It is so fun watching her practice everyday.  I love seeing her get excited about it.  She just learned to play her very first song.  We also are very interested in getting her violin lessons - I guess we'll see how this goes.
• She loves riding her bike up and down the street with some of the kids in our neighborhood.
• Lily loves to quiz me on my numbers 1-100.  Since she's such a pro at numbers, I guess she feels like I could probably use a little help - she's probably right.
• I love seeing how her writing has gone from squiggly lines to actual words.  She loves writing me notes.  It's so fun watching her sound out a word to figure out how to spell it.  For example, she wrote this on a paper the other day "Pegl", what she was trying to write was "Pickle".  Isn't that cute!
• I love that she still sleeps with her stuffed kitty.
• I think the boy across the street has a little crush on Lily, but she hasn't even noticed him and prefers to play with his little sister - so cute.
• We bought a trampoline for the backyard and Lily has been working on front flips.  She really enjoys being outside jumping around.  I love that she'll try anything.
• She loves being in the kitchen with me.  I wouldn't be surprised if she grew up to be a chef.
• She loves to swim in the pool.  She could spend all day there.

Harrison

• POTTY TRAINED!  That's right.  He is potty trained and lovin' it.  We started about a month ago and the first few days were a little rocky.  Then, I learned that I needed to change my game plan.  I went to Walmart and bought him a potty in the shape of a frog, put it in the backyard, gave Harrison a box of popsicles to keep him entertained, and the rest is history.  Before you start sending me hate mail, I assure you I've had my fair share of accidents and cleanups, but for the most part he was ready to be done with diapers.  He loves wearing underwear and he feels like such a big boy now.
• Harrison can often be heard roaming the house belting, "Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Pirate's Life for Me."  
• He still loves to dress up as Peter Pan or Superman.  I'm constantly being told, "MOM, watch me fly!"  He then proceeds to run as fast as he can with his little arms stretched out in front of himself in true Superman/ Peter Pan fashion, around the house.  Definitely on the top of my list of things that make me smile.
• Anything Lily does, he wants to do too.  He will cry if Lily doesn't want to play with him.  He loves being around her.
• Every morning he wants oatmeal for breakfast.  This has been going on for quite sometime.  
• He also loves being in the water.  Whether it's the pool or the bath, he loves to get wet.
• I love that he still sleeps with his favorite puppy every night.
• Harrison has been learning to ride a tricycle.  He tries hard to keep up with Lily.  He'll eventually get there.
• The same week Harrison turned two he memorized all his colors and shapes, now because Lily is always talking about letters and numbers he's trying to be like her.  Numbers and letters are a little harder, but he loves counting and reciting his alphabet - even if he doesn't quite understand what it all means yet.  It's so nice when there is an older sibling to help teach the younger ones.
• He won't go to bed at night without singing some of his favorite songs: Small World, Yo Ho, Twinkle Twinkle, Popcorn, I Love To See The Temple, I Am A Child Of God, Itsy Bitsy Spider, the list goes on.  He doesn't just want me or Tag to sing them, but he wants to sing all the lyrics as well.

Lucy

• Almost weaned!  It should be official in the next day or two.  She has done surprisingly well with it.
• She has one (very crooked) tooth and several more on the way.   Not. Fun. At. All.  I feel bad for the poor girl.  
• She walks everywhere now.  She's also become a big fan of the stairs, which is giving me gray hair.
• She has decided that she absolutely hates getting her diaper changed.  She will try her hardest to get away from me.
• She LOVES the pool.  I took her swimming on Saturday and she was very content in her little floatation device for almost an hour.
• She went from being a super fast eater to a super slow eater.  It used to take her a few minutes to eat, but now she will sit in the highchair for 30 minutes and eat whatever is put on the tray.  No complaints here - I love a good eater.
• She still puts things in her mouth, but it's not as bad as it used to be. Huge sigh of relief.  I had to watch her like a hawk.  
• We just started working on sign language.  She signed 'more' yesterday.
• She weighed in at a whopping 16 pounds on her first birthday.  I guess I just have small kids.
• Her Aunt Season got her started on blowing kisses, I've been trying to keep it up.  She's getting there.

Pictures

The first few are of Lily's performance as Old Mother Hubbard for her final school play.

This was her reaction when she spotted Tag.

The kids at the pool.  We are so excited for summer.

 (Lucy has her pacifier in her mouth because she kept trying to drink the water)

Last, but certainly not least, a picture of froggy potty.