Sept 12, 2015

 BYU day.

We try to do this fun day in the fall every year.  Where we take the kids to hang out on BYU campus for the day.  It is part brainwashing so they know who to cheer for, part recounting our courtship as it happened largely on BYU campus, and part super fun free stuff to do.

First up, of course dressed in our blue and white, we headed to the Bean Museum. We toured the exhibits and saw an animal show.  Next up we went to the Art Museum.  We never last too long there.
Our their event was picking out whatever you wanted at the Cougar Eat.  The kids always think this is awesome.  And lastly the women's BYU soccer game.

The campus was extra crowded because of the football game later that night.  The kids brought all kinds of posters, pom pons and cheering fingers for the soccer game.  We got there and got free icee's too.  But then Sam got hit in the heat with a ball from the field really hard, the girls were fighting and I wasn't feeling well.  So we had to leave before half time.

Either way, BYU day is awesome!

Sept 11, 2015

I signed the two older girls up for Wasatch  Cheer Clinic.
These one week camps are so much fun.  They train with the high school cheer leaders for a few hours each day then at the end of the week they perform at half time for the high school football team.    The girls loved it, and talked about all the cheer girls and did the cheer at home so much that even Beth was saying it at the end of the week.

The night of the performance was Sept 11th, so it was a patriotic theme.  Sam lucked out and some good friends were sitting down the row from us and he wanted to sit with them and their boy his friend Jackson. Then some other good friends came and sat behind us and our girls all went and sat with them and their kids leaving Jake and I alone sitting at a high school football game.  Funny.
The girls did a wonderful job at the Dance and Sam was thrilled with the opportunity to sit with  a friend and watch a football game.  He basically plays football everyday in the front yard after school with his friend Rocco, and can throw a better spiral ball than I can.

Sept 8 2015

Marianne has had so many firsts the last couple of weeks.

First she met her preschool teacher Mrs. Duke at Back to School Night.  Well she already knew her because she was Sam's preschool teacher and is also in our ward, but she got to go tour the class and fill out a paper about herself.

Then it was her first day of preschool.  She was so excited.  She asked every day if it was her turn to go to school.  I wish she could just stay home with me every day.  I remember imagining a life when I thought she might be our last child and it was just her and I happily running around town my little buddy. But I guess that is mostly over because now she is in school.  And I'm so sad about it.  Mari makes every minutes a little sweeter, and I'm sad to share her with the world. And I am sad knowing she will only be gone more and more.

She had her first day of dance class.  She is just signed up in a little neighborhood dance class but she makes the most beautiful ballerina in the world.

And Marianne had her first soccer game.  She was very excited about this too and asked every day if it was time for soccer yet.  Lucky her Dad is her coach too.

I hate my kids growing up!  But I love watching her learn and grown new things.

August 2015

Samuel took a picture and entered it into the State School's Reflections contest.  That was last fall.  It kept making the rounds and winning  different level after level.  Every few weeks he would come home with a prize from school.  A five dollar gift card to Wal-mart, a ribbon, a medal and gift card to Kneaders.  Then finally I got an email.  He had won his age category for Photography.  Which meant, they were going to hang his photograph in the Leonardo Museum an Art museum in Salt Lake and we could go and see it all summer long for free if we wanted.  Well we finally made it to go see.  We actually didn't tell Sam before hand in case.  In case there was a problem and the email was incorrect, or the photograph was already down, or something.  They had a ceremony for winners at this museum but we were in California with our in-law mission homecoming so we hadn't made it and so I was just unsure of what to expect.  But happy day everything worked out and we pointed it out to him on the wall and told him he had won.  It was a pretty cool thing!  Of course I take a bit of credit for his photography eye.  But actually he has loved taking pictures for years, and I think a lot of it is just the "how does this machine work" reason.  But either way.  It was awesome to tour the art museum with an award winning photographer!  After we went to the Tracy Aviary.  It was just around the corner and we had never been.  We loved it, I was only sad my camera died.

Aug 21, 2015

The last week of summer I declared it Mom's Summer Fun Finale.  I realize constantly that as I look back on every stage of life my biggest regret is always that I didn't have more fun.  I knew I would be looking back at summer and regret not having more fun, so to pre-remedy such feelings Mom's Summr Fun Finale was declared.  Mom also promised no chores unless there was fighting.

Really this began two weeks before summer's end with Mom Dates and then Dad dates.  I got a sitter for a few afternoon's in a row and took Marianne, Sam and Kate each on their own personal date.  I don't have pictures because I had to leave my phone with our babysitter.  Kate and I spent her and my afternoon together getting pedicures and eating Hawaian Snow Cones.   She was sure I was taking her to get her ears pierced to she was a bid disappointed.  But we did enjoy finding the largest snow cones.  She tried to get along and be kind by offering me her bites of her snow cone and being happy.  Sam and I played everything there is to play at the Rec Center for hours.  Basektball, Soccer, Raquetball.  And then we went and got ice cream.  A bunch of tourists told me how handsome my son was.  Marianne and I went to the store and picked out treats and a painting project.  A bird house.  We took it all to the park.  We painted her bird house and ate our treats.  Then we went together to the pet store.  Marianne had been going to bed every night asking what we should do the next day.  And every day when I turn the question around to her she would say "painting".  And although we painted pictures many times I think this finally cured her desire to paint things.  A few days later on a Saturday I watched all the kids while Jake took each kid on their own date with him.   Beth got to go to the Pet store and the Dollar Store to pick out a treat, Marianne got to go to lunch at Mcdonalds and play at the play land, Sam picked to go play basketball at the rec center again, and Kate went with Dad to buy a new book.

Then it was the last week of summer.

On Monday we met our cousins in Lehi.  We went to the store and picked out a picnic.  Then took it to the splash pad in Highland that we love.  We spent hours with our cousins splashing and picnicking and splashing some more.  Then we all went together and got a slurpee.

Tuesday we went to the store and got all the things we needed for the most epic neighborhood water party every.  We invited most everyone mom could text on her phone, filled 500 water balloons, a cooler with 200 popsicles and then played for hours with all our friends.  There was slip and slide, and water balloon games, and water balloon fights, and the river and water guns and the kid favorite jumping with ice on the trampoline.

Wednesday we went to the Minion's Movie.  We rarely go to the movie, and when we do it is usually jake taking some of the older kids.  But I decided Mom's Summer Fun Finale warranted me by myself with all the kids.  I did take lots of candy for backup.  The kids loved it!  When we got home we made chalk paint and painted the driveway.  It actually didn't work that well, but painting bikes and wagons were more fun to paint.  Then we got a pizza and went down to the lake when Dad got home.  We splashed in the cold lake water and tried to build sandcastles and swam until it was too dark to do anymore.

Thursday I took the kids to pick raspberries in Payson.  This is one of my favorite things to do each year.  The kids and I leisurely picked raspberries and strawberries  in a pleasant summer day.  We picked 6 or more lbs.  And later the next day we turned them to jam.  I love that my kids love farm activities as much as I do.  We also did three or four more brag tags.  Then I set up the tent in the backyard and let the kids play in it as much as they wanted.  They decided to not sleep in it though at around 9pm and all came inside..

Friday Mom was loosing steam.  Doing all the chores all by myself and planning and executing all the fun was wearing me out.  So we spent the day playing in the backyard and playing in the culda sac on bikes with our friends.  The kids got to play video games and watch movies and they thought that was pretty fun.  That night we went to the last brag tag activity.  There were raffle kind of games like eating donuts off strings like you can see in the pictures above.  There was also a ton of prizes given out in the raffle.   Even though we had maybe 250 tickets because of all the brag tags we did all summer, I think only two other families had gotten more.  But all we won were school supplies.  There were money gift cards and bikes, but all we won were binders and pencils.  Oh well.  The kids had decent enough attitudes about it.

Saturday we went as a family to Seven Peaks for the last time.  It was super crowded.  Everyone was trying to get in their last trip to Seven Peaks.  The kids have loved our Seven Peaks Passes this year and swimming.  I think we will continue to do this in the future if we can.

Sunday we went to church, but afterward we planned a fun outing.  We drove out to antelope island.  We had never been there before and thought we might just see a few bison.  But there were museums and pioneer activities.  Of course we had a picnic there too.  And we saw hundreds and hundreds of bison!  We all thought it was a hidden gem we were sad we hadn't thought to go to before.

Monday was the last day before the first day of school. And although it wasn't super fun, we went shopping for lunch items and organized them into lunch making stations.  Got all our school supplies and organized them in our homework cupboard.  Hung up our backpacks,  set out our clothing, and even got to go to back to school night and met our teachers.  I also planned a Back to School Dinner.  It was centered around Gordon B Hinkley's "Be" Talk.  I used all the dishes I have with bees, yellow plates, flowers I found around the yard and street, then honey glazed chicken, honeycomb, honey dew melon, cornbread with honey butter and a honey cake and some yellow soda and some Oreo's  I made to look like Bees.  I had decorated our calendar with all the new things we were starting and all of the Be's listed.

This week was a great week.  I often look back wishing I had been a better Mom, a more fun mom.  But at least for one week I feel like I did my very best.  I really enjoyed this week.  It is really hard for me to put aside the things I feel need to be done- like laundry and dinner and such.  But I did, I picked up every day with spontaneous or planned ideas and we went and had fun!