Early Birthday Surprise

My parents attended a family reunion for my dad's side of the family up in Colorado earlier this month.  They drove to Colorado from Arizona and on their way home they decided to visit my mom's brother in Grand Junction.  From there they decided to go home through Utah stopping for the night in Cedar City because there were many places along the way that my dad wanted to take pictures.  My mom called me up and asked if we could drive down to Cedar City to meet them so we could spend some time together.  Of course I jumped on the chance to see them and visit with them so as soon as we could we jumped in the car and were on our way.

There is a gas station in Beaver that has a giant rocking chair in front where I have always wanted to take a picture of the kids but it was always night time when we passed it.  Since we were traveling in daylight this time I was really excited to get their picture in that chair.  Wouldn't you know it, just as we got out of the car to take pictures it started to rain so we did the best we could before the rain started pouring.

My parents had rented adjoining hotel rooms for us to play in...I mean sleep in.  My parents took the girls shopping for a present from Grandma and Grandpa.  We got back to the hotel and my dad was showing me some of the pictures he had taken on the way home from the reunion when my mom asked me to come to her room.  I opened the door and the kids jumped out and yelled "SURPRISE!".  Turned out when I was walking around the store with my dad, Rebecca and my mom were secretly buying birthday decorations for my surprise birthday party. 

No make-up and travel hair but here is my picture anyway.

It was so much fun!  I was totally surprised and wasn't even thinking about my birthday but I couldn't have asked for a better birthday present. 

This was one rockin' party!

My dad took a picture of the "paparazzi" taking my photos as I opened my presents.

Couldn't resist adding this sweet picture of Megan.

My parents and the kiddos.  Thank you so much Mom and Dad for a really wonderful time together.

I have been blessed with such a wonderful family.  I am so grateful that we are all sealed together for eternity because I couldn't imagine even one day of forever without my wonderful family.

Salem Days Parade

Rebecca has been wanting to go to a parade for so long but every time there is a parade we either have something planned already or we forget until the parade is half over.  Earlier this month I was reading the paper and saw a story about the parade that the city of Salem (just east of Payson where we live) would be doing for their Salem Days celebration.  I jumped on the chance to finally take Rebecca (and everyone else of course) to a parade and made sure that we did not miss this one.  We hadn't been to a small town parade for so long that I think I was more excited than the kids were.  When I was growing up we lived in Roy, Utah for a while and went to the Roy Days parade every year.  Those were the BEST parades.  There was such a feel of small town pride that just made the floats seem larger than life and of course we couldn't wait to catch some candy thrown our way.  Most of the parades after we moved I was performing in as part of a marching band and the few I've been to since then have just not had that same small town feel that makes the parade so much fun (not to mention there was a ban on throwing candy...for the safety of the children.)  Even though I was working that Saturday I just had Gavin's mom bring him early so that he could go to the parade with us.

I loved Megan's outfit.  She looked like her own little parade float.

Here is the gang waiting for the parade (Dakota spent the night at a friends so she missed the festivities.)  You would think that with the parade being so early in the morning it wouldn't be so hot, but it was.  I think it was just a humid morning which of course makes it feel so much hotter.  After waiting in the sun for about half an hour I found us a shady spot that we moved to just before the parade started.  The parade didn't disappoint.  It had marching bands, dancers, and tons of Princesses like the ones I remember.  There weren't as many of the themed parade floats made with all those tiny pieces of shimmery paper and fun characters, (probably due to the economy since floats are expensive and only good for one parade season) but it was still a great parade.  We were surprised though to see that not only did they still allow candy to be thrown out but that almost every entrant in the parade threw it out...and lots of it.  There were also t-shirts, toothbrushes, crayons, play dough, lots of otter pops, and my favorite...bottled ice water among other things also being tossed or given to the crowd.

 It's a good thing we had two strollers with us because we needed one just to carry our stash back to the car.

The picture doesn't really show the amount of goodies the kids brought home because those piles were deep.  It was almost as much candy as you get at Halloween and we didn't even bring home all that we could have.  We ended up giving lots of candy to the ladies sitting next to us on one side and the little family on the other whose kids were just not as fast as all the other kids in the crowd who were more aggressive than I think they needed to be.  We think this parade will be an annual tradition for us just like the one I went to every year as a child.

On a side note.  Our city also has an annual day of celebration named Payson Onion Days.  The reason our own city celebration won't be our tradition is because it is held over the Labor Day weekend and we will be out of town for that weekend most years.

School time again

Sending my kids off for another year at school.  This summer just flew by.

Lizzie and Rebecca

I sent these two off first because their school starts 1 hour before Dakota's. Lizzie is 14 and in 9th grade. Rebecca is 13 and in 8th grade. 

Dakota

Miss Dakota couldn't wait for the first day, although you wouldn't know it since she left so late she nearly missed the bus.  She is 11 and in 6th grade.

I get to start school next week and have fully recovered from my disastrous first term back so I am really looking forward to this term.  The last person to send back to school will be Megan.  She starts pre-school on Sept. 1.  Looking forward to a really good year.

Lefty

When all of our girls were babies CJ and I would watch to see if we could tell if they were going to be right handed or left handed.  All of them used BOTH hands to reach for toys, hold a spoon, use a crayon, etc. so we could never tell which hand was going to be the dominant one.  Before I go any further let me explain.  CJ's mom, (Grandma D) is left handed...a lefty.  She has a hope that maybe one of her grandchildren might be a lefty like her.  They are in the minority you know so she would just love to have a partner in the world of left handedness.  This is the reason we watched and wondered which, if any of the children might be leftys.  Lizzie, Rebecca, and Dakota are all rightys so no luck for Grandma D for many years.  After Megan joined us there was once again hope.  Megan began to use a pen at a young age.  She hadn't even been walking long when she picked up a pen and instinctively knew how to hold it and what to do with it.  I loved taking pictures of her "writing" because I just knew that one day she was going to be a great writer and I wanted her to have pictures of her baby self writing her first story.  Because the others were 2 or more before their dominant hand surfaced we didn't think too much about which hand she used (which by the way was always the left...I went back and looked) and then forgot about it for a while.  Then one day not too long ago I watched as Megan colored in her coloring books (one of her most favorite activities) using only her left hand.  I watched the next few days as she did her usual activities and sure enough she was most definitely still a lefty.  Hooray for Grandma D, she finally has a partner!  I am so happy for both of them.  I only know a few leftys so if any of you have any great advice on how to help her learn to be a lefty in a predominantly righty world I would love to hear it.



Writing practice.



So blue

I'm not blue, but my walls are.  We finally finished the walls we started weeks ago.  I really wanted to paint some walls so we started with the master bedroom walls.  I figured that would be the easiest room to start with since I knew that the walls would be blue and picking the color is usually what holds us up.  Although picking the color was easy, I always forget how hard the prep work is so there was nothing easy about it, but well worth the work.  In the preview picture the color looked purple but it is in fact blue.  I thought one dark wall and three lighter walls would look good, and it does, however both colors are a little darker than the little paint cards made them look but I still love it.  Everyone pitched in and we are all so glad it's done.  The girls are looking forward to the next project which will most likely be their bathroom.  Here are some pictures of our hard work.

One of the first walls finished.

Lizzie became the "electrician".

These two loved being the ones to make the first marks
of paint on all the walls.

CJ was a taping king.

A work in progress.

The finished product.

I just love the way they look together.

Children's Museum

Dakota came home from school last year with a free family pass to the Discovery Gateway Children's Museum.  I couldn't believe the pass was for the whole family.  Dakota waited patiently all summer long for the day we had chosen to go to the museum.  I wish we lived closer because that place is amazing and I would love to take the kids more often.  I wasn't sure what to expect but was thrilled with what they offered.  Dakota had fun going from activity to activity.  I don't think she stayed at one place for more than 5 min.  It was perfect for her.  Lizzie had fun watching the two little ones run around, which is what CJ and I did too.  Rebecca didn't go because she wanted to go boating with the YM/YW.  She had fun boating so it all worked out. 

Here are only a few of the million pictures I took.

I absolutely loved watching Megan in their kid sized town.  They had a house, farm, store, water area, post office, gas station, and more all kid sized and full of detailed items used in the real world.  I just let Megan go and watched as she went shopping at the store, filling her basket with all kinds of food, "bought" it at the checkout, took it to the home, and put it all away in the cupboards and fridge.  Then she cooked and cleaned and made drinks for everyone in the kitchen before going back to the store and doing it all over again.  She was so serious as she went along.  She just loved playing the grown-up and I just loved watching her do it. 

We signed up for one of their hands on science classes and were excited to learn that the science lesson for that day was making ice cream.  The only sad part was that Xander couldn't eat the ice cream and I really wanted to give him some.

Xander's favorite exhibit was the real helicopter on the roof.  He got to sit in the cockpit and "fly" and he couldn't stop smiling.  You'll notice though that he did get a little tired of his picture being taken because by this point every time I asked him to say cheese he gave me a "raspberry" instead.

After the museum we went walking down the Gateway mall which is a huge outdoor mall in the heart of down town Salt Lake City.  It was really fun to see "city life" as there were apartments over the shops, musicians on street corners, and all kinds of people just hanging out.  It was like something out of a movie.  They have a water fountain that has a music show every half hour so we let the kids play in the fountain while we waited for the show.  On a side note, while it was fun to play in the fountain the show was disappointing.

I can't wait until the next time I can take the kids.

This month is such a special one it's birthday time for you, and you, and you, and you.

I can't believe I forgot to post this one.  I started writing it, I just didn't realize that I hadn't finished writing it.  Sorry it's late, but here is our birthday's for July. 

We start our month of celebrations off with our Nation's birthday.  We have started a tradition of having the kids make a birthday cake for our country on the 4th of July.  We don't ever want to forget how blessed we are to live in a free country.

We celebrated Rebecca's birthday next. We have one more teenager in the world now as she turned 13 this year.  She couldn't be more excited to officially be a teenager.  She is really blossoming in to a performer as she loves, loves, loves her choir class at school and has also been asked to join the musical theatre class as well.  

Birthday coupons from Mom and Dad.

Opening presents.

Rebecca admiring her cake.

Her very special strawberry lemon cake.

The next birthday was Lizzie's.  Now a novice at being a teen, she is excited to be 14 because that is one step closer to her driver's licence.  WHAT?!  She is not that close to being legal to drive!  Well, she must be because she keeps reminding me that she can get her permit next year.  You'd think I would be used to having her grow up faster than I like...but I'm not.  It's still hard to watch my baby grow up.

Opening more presents.

Megan eyes the candles.

She loved using her 3-D chalk.  It really worked.

Her chocolate mint birthday brownies.

The last July birthday is our sweet Megan's.  She is a big 4 now and loving it.  Her imagination is growing as big as she is.  I love watching her play because she is very detailed in her pretend play.  She is so kind and loving, and she can be very helpful...if she likes what we are asking her to help with.  I can't get enough of her sweet smile. 

She chose birthday cookies with a "Tangled" cupcake to hold the candles.

Celebrating her birthday at the park.

Happy birthday for Megan.

She loves to smile for pictures now. 
What a sweetie.