Fun Fridays

We tried to do Fun Fridays this summer.  Every summer seems to get a little harder.  Here are pictures of some of the Fun Fridays we did where I actually took pictures!

 Kimber and I took our kids to the Aerospace Museum.  I think one of her kids is missing in this picture, but here's the crew:  Emma, Jonah (behind the sign), Sarah, Sam, William, Jacob and Nathan.  I seem to remember that it was a pretty quick Fun Friday morning.  We ran in, looked at stuff and left so Kimber and I could cross it off our list.  Hmmm . . . fun, right?

 Astronaut Jonah!

 Jacob and Samuel blasting off into outer space!

 It wasn't pretty getting Nathan out of here.  He loved playing pilot!  But he had a poopy diaper and was stinking the place up!

 Another Friday I took my kids to the County Fair.  They love the pony rides and I hate the line for the pony rides.  I really tried to talk them out of the ponies.  They're not THAT cool after all.  It didn't work.  Oh well.  It was worth a try.  Here's Sarah happily riding her pony.

 Nathan DID look pretty cute on his pony!

 Jonah loved the GREEN tractors!

 Another day we went to our city's new splash pad.  It was SO crowded, but pretty fun!  Jacob enjoyed tossing around his new water football with his friend.

 Sarah loved it all!

 Nathan didn't love it too much but squirting other people is always fun.

At least Jonah had fun and didn't even seem to mind getting squirted a little.

While Grandma Was Here

In August Grandma came for a long visit to bring my sister Kristen out to college.  It was SO fun to have her here!  The timing worked out perfectly for us to take her to the new Brigham City temple open house.  The temple was absolutely beautiful.  It was fun to have Grandma with us!

 I don't know what's up with Blogger!  I've tried everything!  Does anyone have any suggestions?  This is so annoying!  I don't know if you can tell, but Sarah, me, Brandon and Jacob are standing there in front of the beautiful temple!

Here I am with my mom, Sarah and Jacob.  We left the 2 little boys home so that we could enjoy the Spirit of the temple without the wrestling match.:)

 Then we HAD to make a quick trip to see Kristen's new dorm room!  Here are all the kids sitting up on her super high bed.  We LOVE having Aunt Kristen closer by!

This is supposed to show how high her bed is.  When I was in the dorms we used cinder blocks to make our beds high.  Now they have stilts which are much kinder to your toes when you run into them.  Isn't her bedding cute?  You get nice stuff when you're the youngest child!

 Grandma also treated us to an afternoon at the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point!  Amy and little Caleb came too, but I guess I didn't get any pictures of them.  Jacob and Nathan had a blast experimenting with sand and erosion.  Where was Daddy?  This is right up his alley!

 Sarah is building a sand dam.

 Nathan and Jonah in front of some dinosaur bones.

There were giant dinosaur puzzles to put together in this pretend digging site.  The older kids also got to make fossils.  After the museum we got ice cream cones and played in the water sculptures   Thanks for a fun afternoon, Grandma!

Jacob's 9th Birthday

Jacob also got a friend party this year as it was an odd number year for him also!  For his 9th birthday Jacob wanted a football party!  He was so excited.

 

 I don't know what the problem is with Blogger lately but it keeps flipping all my vertical pictures.  Oh well, here's Jacob with his football cake ready for the party to begin!

 

As the boys arrived they each got to make their own team pennant with varsity stickers, sports stickers, markers and puffy paint.  I had my doubts about doing a craft with 9 year old boys, and my husband REALLY had doubts about it.  But I'm happy to report that the boys LOVED the craft!  They spent much longer than I had anticipated, and some I even had to tear away so we could move on to other games!  I should have taken a picture of the boys with their pennants - they all turned out pretty cute . . . I mean cool.

 For our 1st game we played Locker Room Mix Up.  The boys each got a bag of miss-matched clothes to put on as quickly as they could.  Here they are all dressed up!  They were good sports and thought it was hilarious!

 

 You gotta love summer birthdays!  Its so fun being outside!  I then sent them to Training Camp where they had to do push-ups, sit-ups, chin-ups, high knee's, run, and some other exercises I can't remember anymore.  They also did passing drills and threw footballs through hula hoops I hung from the deck.  I loved that nobody (well, except for one) got really upset about the games.  They were all competitive but cheered each other on and just enjoyed playing.

 

 Jacob had insisted from the very beginning that he wanted to have a barbecue for his party.  Dad got a new grill this summer and Jacob loved having barbecues!  Boy, could those boys eat!  Even the veggies I threw out last minute from our garden they inhaled!  We had planned on letting the boys play a football game at the end of the party, but with all the time they spent on the craft and eating they barely had time to play!  Oh well!

 

 Jacob got some fun gifts and lots of footballs.  I never got a picture with ALL the boys that came to the party.  One had to leave early for his own football game, one came an hour late, and another didn't like being in many of the pictures.  But in all we had 7 boys, including Jacob.

 

 For party favors each boy got a soft football.  They were a big hit.  The party was a blast, definitely our best boy party so far.  We've had a hard time with the boy parties.  They're just so active, busy and loud.  The girls just sit quietly and wait to be told what to do.  The boys are a lot more work.  But with 3 boys I guess we better get learning, and this party was definitely more successful!

 

Grandma and Grandpa were in town close to Jacob's birthday so they got to give him gifts in person this year!  Jacob got Aunt Kristen's old (pink) iPod and a BYU tie from his grandparents.  He didn't care one bit that the iPod was pink.  He loves having his own gadget!  Mom and Dad chipped in to get some nice headphones and the cables he needed to download music and a charger (not very exciting, but necessary and kinda expensive).  We also gave him a flag football set.

 

We are so grateful to have Jacob in our family!  He is definitely full of life!  Everything is more exciting and fun with Jacob around.  He's a great older brother, loves to help in the yard as long as he's working alongside someone so he can visit, athletic, musical (although he resists this as much as possible), and a good example.  It's so fun to see him growing up, the thoughts he has about life and people and the goals he sets for himself.  We're so proud of you, Jacob, and the boy your are growing up to be!

Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

2 little monkeys jumping on the bed
1 fell off and broke his arm!

Yup!  Even as I was lecturing the boys about how Sarah fell off the bed while jumping when she was 3 and cut her head open on the corner of the nightstand, ending up with a staple in her head, they continued jumping until Nathan fell off crying and holding his arm.  Do any other mothers feel like their constant warnings to their children fall on deaf ears?  I hope we learn some lessons before they get their driver's licenses.

Nathan's arm didn't swell so I hoped he had just bruised it.  We waited 2 days figuring if it was indeed broken then he'd be fussy and wouldn't sleep well.  But our tough little guy never complained except for twice when I forgot to be careful while dressing him and putting him in his car seat.  I was still worried though because he wasn't using it, so I thought I better get it checked out.  The doctor was doubtful and I know I looked like a paranoid mother.  But he said, "I guess you're here so I'm assuming you want an x-ray."  The x-ray technician was doubtful because Nathan let her manipulate his arm for different poses.  And then the x-ray came back and sure enough he has a good buckle fracture.  I wanted to yell, "HA!"  Don't doubt a mother's intuition!  Except for a couple of grouchy days because he was annoyed with his cast, Nathan has been a trooper and seems to have a high pain tolerance.  His biggest inconvenience with the whole thing has been switching from sucking his left thumb to his right.

I took Nathan with me to Walmart last weekend.  We just so happened to get a cart with a broken strap.  As I was checking out Nathan would NOT stay seated and climbed all over the cart.  The lady behind me in line glared at me sending subliminal messages like, "Gee, with an irresponsible mother like you no wonder he has a broken arm at such a young age."  Instead she just said, "That's the tiniest little cast I've ever seen."  Oh, well.  Let her judge all she wants.  Having a child like Jonah is helping me get over what other people think.  I know the real situation.

So everyone feel free to use our injury to teach your kids a lesson:  no little monkeys should be jumping on the bed!  They can fall off and break their head, or arm, or a variety of other appendages!:)

Bear World

Brandon and I thought we better do some kind of family trip for the summer.  So we packed up the kids and headed up to Bear World on the recommendation of some friends.  It was a fun weekend together!

We stopped at Idaho Falls for dinner and to see the temple.  Here are our boys in front of the falls!

 We had a fun night at the hotel swimming and watching a movie.  Then we got up the next morning and headed to Bear World!  Here's Brandon with the kids in front of the park.

 There are my four little bear cubs!

 There was an awesome petting zoo.  The chickens reminded us of Nanny and Papa!

 Brandon and Jacob got a real kick out of petting some deer.  There was also a moose (to see, not to pet), turkeys, ducks, fawns, sheep, and goats.  And LOTS of animal droppings!  Watch where you step!

 Hope we never meet one of these!

As we drove through the park the bears were just off the side of the road.  We were told not to stop driving so the bears didn't climb on the cars.  Scary!

It was SO fun to watch the baby bears play!

They even had rides!  They had to shut this ride down because Jonah was freaking out so badly!  Oh well!  We tried!

 We paid a little extra and got to go on this truck to feed the big bears!  It was so fun.

The truck drove around and stopped.  The bears recognized the truck and came running, standing up on their hind legs to be fed.  We fed them stale donuts and sweets.  It was really fun!

The park also has a rare white elk.  Cool, huh? 

 On the way home we stopped at an awesome park to play.  We stopped at a grocery store, bought a box of popsicles and ate the whole thing!  It was so hot!

Jonah had fun playing!

Looks at THOSE guns!  How lucky am I?  It was such a fun, easy trip.  We'd recommend it to anyone!

Happy 7th Birthday, Sarah

Our little princess turned 7 this year!  At our house odd birthdays mean friend parties!  She chose to have a Candy Land party!  It was so fun!

 Here's Sarah with her cake.  Do you like her dress?  She made sure she dressed appropriately for the theme of the party!  I love the girly fuss over the details!

 Here's a closer look at her cake.  I'm not the most amazing cake maker, but I try my best.  This is a no-fail cake that's always cute.

 For decorations we just got colored products.  So easy!

 We had to have a few colored game spaces leading from the front door to party central.

 This is what the kids got in their goodie bags.  It was great that Walmart had a bunch of "Sweet Shop" items for cheap.  We used a bunch for game prizes too.

 We had a game for each Candy Land character.  It was so fun.

 Here's Sarah with her friends and gifts!

Grandma gave Sarah some darling play dresses and her #7 doll statue.  Her brothers gave her a cute hat.  And Mom and Dad gave her an art kit.  We love our Sarah!  She has a rare gift of love and acceptance that blesses the life of everyone around her.  I have no doubt that she was sent to our family to be a special instrument in Jonah's life.  And I have no doubt that Jonah is so high functioning because of Sarah's influence in his life.  Sarah loves to sing, dance, cook, play with friends and serve.  We're SO happy to have her in our family!

Pioneer Day

I love Pioneer Day.  It's my birthday!  Brandon gets work off, we get to spend the day together only doing fun things, and I don't have to cook any meals!  What's not to love?

Here's some of our crew at the parade!  It was a LONG parade this year, but we had lunch at Roosters to look forward to and we were happy to be together!  

 Here's Nathan - just because he's cute!  He loved the music, but didn't love not being able to run into the street.

And here's my birthday gift!  A Ninja!  Hi-ya!  It's the best chopper EVER!  So easy to clean, affordable, comes in fun colors, and the job is done in seconds!  We did all the regular Pioneer Day stuff too:  Fort Buenaventura, a family barbecue, and fireworks.  Brandon even make sure I had a small box of chocolates to eat while I read a good book.  Life doesn't get any better than that!