4th of July weekend

Scott had work off Friday the third, so Friday morning we woke up at 530 am and drove down to Provo for their annual hot air balloon bash that begins at 630am. Scott has taken the kids twice, in years past(once while we were living in Wymount), and it's become a tradition. This was my first time attending...I may go in future years, but it's also nice to sleep in one day of the year. We all had a nice time with the other hundreds of people attending.
Later that evening was our town's parade which begins right around the corner from our house. We went last year as well, and it was really hot. So we came a little more prepared this time with lots of water bottles and a water spray bottle which helped a lot.
When the police and fire engines came down the street with their siren's going, Annabelle kept making this funny, scrunched-up-looking face.
When we got home from the parade, we set up our tent in the backyard and started up the fire pit.
Some neighbors were lighting off fireworks, even though it was the third, and we all enjoyed watching them...until it was time for us to sleep. But hey, that was our choice to camp out the night before the 4th.
We made smores and I made a banana boat. My friend Shauna had us make these at her house as our book club treat, and I loved them. So here, inside my banana covered with foil is caramel, white chocolate chips, marshmallows, almond slivers and coconut; it was SO yummy!
We ended up brining Annabelle inside to sleep in her crib around 1130pm. She was just completely wired with all of us in there. She kept climbing on top of everyone and banging their heads with her head...and it hurts sometimes. A couple of times during the night, before we moved her inside, Elisabeth would call to me and say, "Mom, get her off me. Come get Annabelle," and then she'd groan and moan, because she had been sleeping. Annabelle's window was situated right near our tent, so we opened her window so we could hear her if she woke up. She fell right asleep and slept through the night, as did the rest of us. Unfortunately, because her window was open, she heard the sound of a very large and noisy airplane flying over head at 620am, and woke up. Needless to say, we were all very tired for the fourth of July. Here we are Saturday morning, eating red(strawberry), white(whipping cream), and blue(blueberries) pancakes. I felt like a zombie while I made these, but it's tradition, right? Tradition! (Sing that last 'tradition' like Tevye does on 'Fiddler on the Roof'.)

After breakfast, we went down to the city pool for a swim. Our friends, the Gees were there, just like last year. It was fun to visit and swim together. Here is a picture of Scott eating angel food cake after lunch.Later in the afternoon we went to Town Days. The kids participated in a hay dive where they dug around in the hay for candy, money and toys. They also got to ride the ponies and do a couple other fun activities.



Since we were all so tired, Scott and I made the executive decision to stay at home that night, do our own fireworks early(which consisted of sparklers, pop-it's and a couple of smoke bombs; exciting, I know.) and then get the kids to bed at a reasonable hour, so that we too could get to bed at a reasonable hour. It's now 930pm, and I'm about to head for bed.

Elisabeth throwing her pop-it

Annabelle hanging out while we light our fireworks

I think Charles had to go pee; I didn't notice until now. I'm glad we didnt' have an accident.

Happy 4th of July!

Swimming

Wednesday our neighbor does an open swim at her pool. And so, Wednesday, the kids get to swim twice because they have swimming lessons in the morning as well. Here is Char and me in our swimsuits getting ready to go. We both have cool rash guard short-sleeve swim tops. These are nice because they keep your shoulders from getting sunburned.

On the way to our swimming lesson the other day, a neighbor was out picking cherries and told us to come over any time and pick some. So we brought a grocery bag on the way to our next lesson, and picked some cherries. We love cherries and we love our neighbors!

Happy Birthday Dear Elisabeth...

...Happy Birthday to you! Wow, I can't believe Elisabeth is already 5, and going to start Kindergarten soon!

Elisabeth's birthday went as follows:
730am Elisabeth woke up and ate home-made cinnamon rolls for breakfast(this was a very specific request on her behalf). She also got to open one present this morning. She picked to open the one she choose for Charlie to give her so that she could wear her new headband on her birthday.
930am swim lessons
1130 Doctor's appointment:

• she only had to get one shot(and she didn't even cry. Brave girl!) and she did her first vision screening test...so she's all ready for Kindergarten to start!!! Only about a month and a half away!
• Currently weighs 35.27lbs; 19%
• Is currently 40.94 in tall; 22%

1215pm Carl's Jr. for lunch(the kids get to choose a place to eat out for lunch on their birthdays; as long as it's within the right price range)

130pm big kids watched The Little Mermaid while I finished decorating the cake and setting up for her splash party(I've only been allowing them to watch one show/movie a week lately on either Thursday or Friday, so this was a treat to get to be able to watch an extra movie this week). By the way, I covered Barbie Cinderella in all buttercream.

330-5 Elisabeth invited over all the girls from her CTR 5 class, her aunt Krissy and her friend Sara and her family that live in SLC, for a splash party. They had fun on the slip and slide and sprinkler and we also played, pin-the-sparkly-slipper-on-Cinderella's-foot.


5-8 BBQ and FHE

9pm Kids went to bed, but shortly after Elisabeth had a surprise visitor bring her a rose so she was able to get out of bed to thank him

In honor of Elisabeth, here are a couple of my all time favorite Elisabeth videos. And interestingly enough, they are all of her singing:
This one was taken when she was about 2 and 1/2 years old, she's singing a song from High School Musical:


This was was just before the last one; she's singing Latter-Day Prophets:


This one was just under a year ago, she was a soloist singing I am a Child of God and then the rest of the primary came in for the chorus:

Fire pit

We got a fire pit this week and have put it to good use. We did smores one night, and another night we grilled hamburgers and hot dogs. I know we'll be using it a lot this summer.We were wanting to build one right into the ground, but we read that if it's in the ground, it's supposed to be 25 feet away from everything(house, shed, fence etc), and that would have been right smack in the middle of the yard which I think would've been inconvenient at times...we like to play soccer, run through the sprinkler and do other things in the yard so it wouldn't have worked well for us. If we had a bigger yard, we would have been all for it. But anyways, I did some research and we decided on this one. We like how sturdy it is, and how deep the inside is, and it's nice that it comes with a poker, an ash cover and a large grill(we fit 5 hamburgers, 6 hot dogs, a steak and 2 pork chops on there all at the same time) It also has an outer rim that doesn't get hot which is nice just in case one of the kids accidentally get a little to close and bump into it. And it's not super heavy so we can move it around fairly easily, which will especially be nice in the winter; we can move it inside the shed. And, the price was right(we got it on walmart.com and then used the free site to store shipping).The kids like it, they like cooking marshmallows on it, though they don't really like eating the sticky warm marshmallows....they prefer them fresh out of the bag. Maybe that will be an acquired taste. Elisabeth and Annabelle each ate a smore, but they didn't like the stickiness of it. Annabelle stayed away from the fire for the most part, and she'd occasionally blow on it from a distance. I'm glad she understands that it's hot.

See the way Elisabeth holds her smore. Very delicately, and carefully, trying very hard not to get any of the stickiness on her.

Charles likes to hold the marshmallow forks/skewers, and the poker.

A day in the life of our 17month old

almost 17 month old....in a couple of weeks:


Annabelle has a big appetite. She'll eat just about anything. Here she's just finished eating out the middle of the garlic bread on one piece(after she's eaten a plate of lasagna), and starting on her second piece. She eats more than both of her older siblings.
Annabelle likes to spend a lot of time outside. I'm sure she would spend all day outside, if she had her way. But when she's outside, I have to be outside too, because she is constantly trying to put dirt in her mouth and she's done a couple other surprising and gross things; so I don't trust her. Today I had to run inside to get something, and when I went in the back again, she was holding a live beetle, about the size of a dime. It was just wiggling in between her little fingers, and she was looking at it, very curiously, and pulling at it's legs. Who knows, maybe she'll grow up to be a scientist or something. The grossest thing I found was a worm in her mouth, ugh! It gives me the heebie-jeebies, all over my body just thinking about it. It was dead, but still. Sick!Annabelle is very curious by nature. She likes to do things for herself. Twice now, I've found her sitting very quietly on the floor in her bedroom, scooping out globs of vaseline and smearing it all over her body, clothes and the carpet. Vaseline is not the easiest thing to clean up because it's kind of water resistant. Just like cleaning butter out of measuring cups isn't the easiest thing to clean either.

caught red handed

Annabelle is constantly learning, and watching and catching onto things. Whenever anyone says the word, 'prayer' or 'blessing' or if you sit down at the table and pull out food, she immediately will fold her arms for a prayer.Annabelle wants to do everything her older siblings are doing. When they color, she colors(and eats crayons, which the older ones don't do, thank goodness), when they eat, she eats, when they bathe, she bathes, when they get up on the couch to read, she wants up on the couch to read. But she's not quite big enough to get on the couch by herself. Lucky for her, she has a very helpful older 3-year-old brother who can pick her up and put her on the couch. She doesn't love the process of him picking her up, but she's happy once she's on. We're teaching Charlie now, to pick her up around her waist, and not around her neck. For awhile we had a rule, never to pick her up, but that was extremely hard to enforce, so we're just trying to take a safer approach.Annabelle likes to read; well look at books. We always have board books handy for baby, but we also have normal children's books very handy for everyone, and she prefers those. But this means we always have to keep a good supply of scotch tape on hand, because we're having to repair pages every few days. But all the kids went through this stage. I don't want to take their books away just because they get ripped, that happens, and they learn. And I always want them to love to read and have books available. So that's why we generally buy our books at DI for a quarter a piece.

Father's Day interview

A ten question interview with Elisabeth and Charles, about Daddy:
(I asked each question, and always had Charles answer first so that his response was original and one that wasn't swayed by Elisabeth's answer.)

If I didn't mark which answer was correct/incorrect, it means their responses were both fairly accurate.

1. How old is Daddy?
C-"6"
E-"28"(correct!)
2.What color are Daddy's eyes?
C-"blue"
E-"brown"(correct!)
3.How tall is Daddy?
C-He put his hands just a little above his head and said, "This tall. And you're(referring to me) this tall." He put the hand representing me, just a little lower than the other hand.
E-"Probably, this kind of tall." She raised her hand high above her head.
4. What is Daddy's favorite food?
C-"Pizza"(correct!)
E-"Chocolate chip cookies"(correct!)
5. What does Daddy like to do for fun?
C- "pick peas", and I'll add, from our garden.
E- "He likes to play Candyland, because he likes to win and get the ice cream picture."
6. What is Daddy's favorite drink?
C-"hot chocolate"
E- "orange juice"
7. Who is Daddy's favorite person?
C-"Mommy" (correct!)
E- "Probably Brian"; (eh, wrong! j/k, he is one of Scott's favorite people, but let's hope he prefers me a little more)
8. What does Daddy like to eat for breakfast?
C- "Cheerios"(in general, wrong)
E-"Toast"
9. What is Daddy's favorite sport?
C-"basketball"
E-"baseball"
10. What does Daddy like to do at night after you go to bed?
C- "Go running"; this is actually what Daddy does in the morning, before they wake up.
E-"Cleans, and watches basketball."

Here is a picture of Daddy, Father's Day morning, eating his Father's Day breakfast: egg, cheese and bacon on an english muffin, and a rasberry and cream cheese toaster strudel. Happy Father's Day to all men, but especially to my Scott, Grandpa Garnica and Grandpa Smith! We love you!!!

PB&J

This is Scott. It says it at the bottom of the post, but does anyone really check that?

It is a rare day for me if I do not eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. If I don't eat one at lunch, then I will find some other time of the day to enjoy this most perfect food. I will often eat one right before bed, sometimes with a glass of milk, and I sleep so well on those nights. It is also rare for me to eat the pb&j without thinking about Dad. You see, when I talk of all the important skills I learned from Dad, how can I exclude making, eating, and enjoying the pb&j? I remember watching in amazement as he finished the sandwich in 4 bites (I'm still working on that one). There are three important things to remember about the pb&j: 1. Lots of peanut butter, 2. Lots of jelly, and 3. Take a big bite immediately after the sandwich is built and it gives you time to put everything away while you are chewing. Dad taught me a myriad of important life skills, for which I will always be grateful. The pb&j in this story is an example of enjoying life's little pleasures, which is very important to our well-being. Thanks Dad, and happy Father's Day!

Random pix

Here are a few random pictures that I wanted to include in our family photo journal(aka blog).

All three kids love to read. But Elisabeth can really read some books now, so she'll sometimes read a book to the younger two.
This is our little friend Brigham. He lives across the street and the kids love playing together, so we get together often.
And here are the kids sitting on a bench in front of our neighbors tree.

Oquirrh Mountain temple

Saturday we went to the Oquirrh Mountain temple open house. Just before we got ready to leave, the power went out. The weather was really stormy: a lot of rain, thunder and lightning. When we got to the temple and parked our car, me and the kids got together for a picture. One of the ushers came over and asked if Scott wanted to be in it too, and then he took our picture. Afterwords, he told us that Angel Moroni had been struck by lightning a little while before, which explained his black arm. I tried to get a good picture of it, but this was the best I was able to get. Moroni is, by far, the tallest thing around so it's not too surprising...it was just intersting to see thd dark arm. The kids all did really well while inside the temple. And the temple was beautiful. We've been really lucky this year because there have been three temple open houses(Twin Falls, ID, Draper, UT, and Oquirrh) close enough that we have been able to attend.