Summer 2009

School started a few weeks ago, as you all are aware, and so I thought I would do a slide show recapping all of the fun things that we did over the summer. I hope you enjoy.

P.S. My favorite picture is of Addison stealing Nana's pepsi. :)

What's going on in here?

The other day I came into the kitchen and saw Addison taking a big swig of milk from the milk jug. Apparently he was thirsty and decided to get into the fridge and get a drink of milk, and this is how I caught him. I thought he looked so cute that I decided to take a picture of him and post it on here. I wonder who he learned this from?

Summer Projects

I can't believe it has already been a month since I have posted anything on here. The last month of summer has just flown by, so now that I have a minute I am going to fill everyone in on what's been going on in the last month. First off, we had Eric and Liz's baby blessing at the first of August and the family: Mike, Nana, Natalie, Amber, and of course, baby Jeriah, came down and hung out at our house for a week. It was tons of fun. Amber posted a ton of pictures on her facebook page of all the activities that happened. (Amber, I still need to get those 4th of July pictures of Addison feeding the chickens the watermelon rhines from you and Dad.) While Mike and Mom were down here Mike changed the hose facet on the front of house. It use to be underneath our living room window where the sidewalk was and it was really annoying to have the hoses running across the sidewalk. So while Mike was here he filled up our old facet and installed a new one on the other side of the house. It looks really nice now. Mike also took out an old weed tree that had grow up around our gas pipe and that looks great too. I tried taking out before but was too scared that I would break the pipe. Thanks Mike for all the help and work you did while at our house. We appreciate it. Mom also helped us get our weedy garden under control and helped get more weed trees out from behind the shed. Also, while the family was down Mich sold his motorcycle and we bought some bricks to edge the pine trees that we have been wanting to do for a few years now but have just never had the money. We actually ended up doing a lot of projects while Mom and Mike were down. And just this week we got our redwood pole installed with our hanging flower basket on it. We put a solar light on top of it and it looks really nice. Thanks again Mom and Mike for all the help you did while you were down.

Another thing that has been going on in my life is that I decided to learn how to crochet. I had tried learning growing up but could never quite figure it out, so when Aunt Mary came and dropped off all of her sewing books that she didn't want anymore I decided to learn how to crochet. Mom found me some books on how to help me learn and a book on making rag rugs, which I had been wanting to make. I decided to start out with something simple, so I picked a hot pad pattern and have been working on it a little each night. I had to check out a few books at the library to help me but I am definitely starting to figure it out. All right, I think I've said enough so it's time to go. Everyone enjoy the rest of their summer vacation.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

On Saturday we went to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at the movie theater. We got our tickets for free from First Colony Mortgage so it was really great that we didn't have to spend money to go see it. Our movie was at 9:00 on Saturday morning. Which was actually really nice because Addison ended up sleeping through most of the movie. I am scared to take Jacklyn and Addison to movies because they are a little crazy, but the morning showing was great. I think Jacklyn may have taken a little snooze through the movie too. Since we got our movie tickets for free we decided to spend some money and get some popcorn (which is Jacklyn's favorite snack) and a drink. Then we sat down and watched the show. Jayden really liked the show a lot. He said it was really good, and I would have to agree. It was definitely a good movie. So I would recommend watching Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to anyone who hasn't seen it yet. With that said, everyone have a great weekend.

Movies in the Park

Every summer in Springville they have a program called Movies in the Park. What they do is every Monday night in the summer Springville puts on a movie on a huge projector screen and anyone can go and sit down on the grass and watch the movie. It's basically like a drive-in movie just without the car and radio. This weeks movie was Horton Hears a Who. It was a pretty good movie. I believe it was written by Dr. Seuss. Micah really liked it because it had a viewpoint similar to Carl Sagan. He said he wanted to buy it. We all went to the Dollar Store before the movie and bought glow sticks because the kids like to wear them during the movie. When we got there we laid out our blanket on the grass and snuggled up so the mosquitoes wouldn't bite us and watched the show. Jayden does really good sitting through movies now, but Jacklyn and Addison don't quite have the attention span yet. They had a booth set up and were popping popcorn. I didn't bring any money otherwise I would have bought some, so we will have to bring some to next week's movie. We have been going to this for the last few years. It is tons of fun and the kids love it. It is definitely a great family night activity.

We had a fun thing happen to us today. Micah was outside to water the lawn and he saw a baby bird on the ground that had fallen from his nest. Micah showed me and the kiddies and we all went over to inspect him. I got to pet him a few times before he started hopping away and trying to fly. Micah kept trying to pick him up to put him back in his nest, but he kept trying to bite Micah every time he did. The mother bird kept flying around chirping at us. It was fun to see the baby bird. Addison was especially excited to see the bird down at his level. Fun times. Just a side note, thanks Dad and Tyna for the family pictures you sent us in the mail. We got them today and they look really nice. Bye for now.

June's Activities

Ok, it has been a really long time since I've posted anything on here. And amazingly it hasn't been because nothing exciting has been going on, but rather the opposite. We have been so busy with summer activities I haven't really had time to post anything. And then Amber got Micah and I into Farm Town on facebook. Then Natalie got everybody into Restaurant City...and it's all gone down hill from there. Now to catch everyone up on what's been going on in June. First, we had our yearly dinner at First Colony Mortgage. They have a big barbecue every year for the customers at the park with food and prizes. They have a big blow up slide and a maze for the kids. There is also a park, so the kids can play on the playground too if they'd like. And the thing the kids enjoy the most is the little train that gives them rides around the park. The kids absolutely love going to this every year, and unfortunately it was raining, which is what it seemed to do all throughout the month of June. Another activity we did in June was Micah's friend told us about a really cool park in Orem, so we went up there to check it out. They have a huge swing with 3 swings on it that spins around like a merry-go-round. It would have been really fun but someone had broken the wooden bar off that you use to push the swings around to make them go fast. We were bummed. So then we trucked over to the pond that they also had at the park and there were some ducks. There were also ducks in the bushes laying and watching their eggs. The kids kept chasing the ducks around, so Micah told Jayden to chase the ducks over by him, so he could catch one. I wish we had brought a camera because it was really funny to see Micah and Jayden chasing ducks. Micah ended up catching one and he brought it over for all the kids to pet and see. It was really fun...and then it rained after we left. I swear the whole month of June involved rain. Our last major activity in June was when we went camping with Micah's parents this last weekend. It was fun...and it rained at that activity too. We were sleeping in a tent and it started downpooring really bad, so Micah got out and put a tarp over us just in case the tent wasn't waterproof. We luckily had no leaks. Then in the morning we went hiking up to some falls. I forgot the name of them. The kids actually did pretty good hiking, but they did poop out towards the end. I heard the hike was 3 miles round trip, but from others I heard it was 4 miles. That's a lot of walking for little kids. When we got home we forgot we had our Neighborhood/Ward Party. We ended up going to the last 30 minutes of it because we were too tired from the hiking to go to the whole thing, and the only reason we went to the last 30 minutes was because Jayden wanted to hit the pinata. So those are the major activites we had in June. I was going to post them all separately on the days that they happened, but I never got around to it.

Now for the 4th of July we are planning on going up to Amber's house. I still need to call and tell everyone. I'm terrible at that, I know. We were planning on watching the Rupert parade with everyone and possibly going the see the new Ice Age movie. We'll have to see. I think I've posted enough. Bye for now.

Summer School

Summer school has officially started this week for Jayden. I thought it would be like last year's summer school where I would drop him off at the school for a few hours, and it would be in a classroom setting with other kids. This time, I drop him off at the school, and he does one-on-one reading with his teacher, and 25 minutes later I pick him up. So I pretty much drop him off, come home, brush my teeth, and then go back and pick him up. Oh well. I know for sure Jacklyn's school is for two hours. Jacklyn misses her school bus and I think she's pretty excited to see her friends at school again. I don't think she is going to like the time she goes to school though- 9:00am. She is not a morning person. I usually have to drag her out of bed in the morning.

As for me, I have decided that everybody is getting potty trained this summer. I am going to get Jacklyn potty trained first, followed by Addison, and then it will be no more diapers for me. Yea! I have tried potty training Jacklyn, but she is being very resistant. Jayden wasn't this bad. So I have been buying some potty training books on Amazon to help me out. So wish me luck with all of that.

On last thing, Mary McAllister started a blog, Monkeys Galore, and I added her to My Blog List on the right hand side, so be sure to check out her stuff. With that said, everybody have a great week.