Slurpees!

Who doesn't love a slurpee on a hot summer day?

Nothing like a little bit of cool going down your throat to make you happy!

Gotta love slurpees!

A Practical Joke

Anyone who knows my husband knows that he has this sense of humor that comes out at the strangest times.  It gets worse when he gets together with my brother - especially Taylor - I don't know what it is about the two of them together, but I swear the maturity level of each drops in each other's presense!

About a year or two ago, Jeremiah had this random idea of parallel parking in my grandma's driveway (yes the short way).  This little idea has taken off and now my husband and brother are trying to one-up each other each time they visit the other's house.  Well, a couple of weeks ago, Taylor and Amanda came down for a BBQ.  We had taken the kids to an afternoon movie and got back after they did.  Taylor of course parellel parked, blocking the driveway as his one-up.  So what does Jeremiah do?  Why, he blocks him in of course.

His Nissan was already in the driveway, so it was simple to just back it up right up to Taylor's Toyota.

There was absolutely no room to get in the drivers side - front or back doors.

And since we had the Pilot, Jeremiah decided to pull that up on the other side - so there was no way to get on the passenger side either.  Taylor thought it was hilarious and begged me to take pictures and post them.  I'm sure they'll laugh about this for years to come.

Luckily, Amanda thought it was just a funny, a good sense of humor is good to have if you are dating my brother!  Especially since he gets a little crazy when he gets around my husband!  We had a fun dinner and hanging out time and we were even gracious enough to move the cars when it was time for them to go.  We could have made Taylor climb in the back sliding window, but we decided to be kind, although I think a picture of that would have been hilarious!

As a side note, I did get plenty of questions about our "parking arrangements" in church the next day, so the neighbors must have thought we were all crazy!

Lehi Children's Parade

We usually try to make it to at least one parade during the summer.  Lehi has their Round-up the last week of June and this is usually when we get to one.  Luckily for us, they have a children's parade on the Friday Night before the big parade on Saturday and it's so much fun!  They have all the kids floats and throw tons of candy!  We were going to skip the children's parade and make it to the big parade this year, but a weather forecast of over a hundred that Saturday had us changing our plans last minute.  So off to the children's parade we went.  It was still hot and humid, but we took our umbrellas this time and managed to keep most of us in the shade.

We had to get a good spot, so there was a lot of waiting time at the beginning, but once the parade got going, the kids were all smiles.

Even Tate thought the parade was awesome!

Although I had to laugh, I ended up sitting behind the kids and Jeremiah in order to help position one of the umbrellas, so with the people just to the right of us having an umbrella as well, I couldn't see any of the floats until they were almost right in front of us.  But Tate, unaware of this fact, would always point and say "Look Mom!" as soon as he could see it - which was a bit earlier that I could.  He did it with every single parade entry.

Over and ...

.. Over.  It just made us laugh.

I had each of the kids pick out a favorite float and then I like to take a picture and post it as "their favorite."  It gives them something to do while they are watching and in between gathering candy.  So, without further, adieu, here are the favorites for this years parade:

Zach loved the shark float - what a surprise, he's been into this stuff lately, a sure sign he's getting older.

Hailey's favorite were the groups after groups of cheerleaders.  Another big surprise, she seems to be obsessed with cheerleading lately.  Luckily for her, it seems they have cheer squads for every grade from 7th on up, so we saw a bunch of them - she was in heaven!

Tate had a couple of favorites, but I think his most favorite was this one with the wizard of oz theme, but more because it had a ton of green than anything else.  Did I mention his favorite color is green???

Yes, we had a blast at the parade, despite the heat.  The kids all came home with tons of candy and smiles on their faces - not bad at all.

Swimming Lessons - Summer 2013

There are so many things to love about summer.  One of the top things on the list at our house is swimming lessons.  Going to the pool every day for two weeks to have fun and learn how to swim?  What could be better than that?  Hailey and Zach would argue that it about tops the list.

I've been amazed at how fast both of them have caught on and have progressed from one level to the next.  This year Zach was in level 3 and Hailey repeated level 2.  She was so close to passing last time, but the instructor thought she could use one more time through just to make sure she had all of the requirements down.  

Zach's group was so far away and obstructed from view most of the time, so we didn't see much of him, but Hailey's group was really close - front and center, so we were able to watch her.  Here she is with her group - a boy teacher, but almost a full class of girls!  Can't beat that!

About the only time we saw Zach was when the whistle blew to signal the end of the lesson and he would swim from the far side of the the pool to where Tate and I were watching. 

He would usually practice his new swimming moves on the way over, so he was always full of smiles!

Hailey would come the same way and although her distance was a lot shorter, it seemed it took her almost as long to make it to us.

I swear these kids are little fish!  They LOVED swimming.

I had them pause before getting out for a picture and it almost looks like they are doing some sort of synchronized swimming routine!

And of course getting dried off and heading home.  Tate wanted to be in a picture too since he was there for every lesson.  He spent most of his time pointing out his sister and watching Disney Junior movies on my phone - ah the marvels of modern technology!

It was another successful round of lessons, Zach moved up to level 4 for next time and Hailey breezed through level 2 and is ready for level 3 next go-round.  I'm so happy to know they are learning how to swim properly, it makes me feel better knowing that should they ever find themselves in some deep water, that they could keep themselves afloat and make it to safety.  Fun times and life saving skills - it's a win-win!

Who needs a shave???

After a morning and early afternoon at the zoo, it was time to head back to Nana and Papa's swim party.  Nana had been gearing the kids up for party for months and they couldn't wait to get back to her house to get started.

Tate enjoyed the kiddie pool filled with piece of pool noddles - he loved that they all floated!

The older kids had fun in a bigger sized pool, although that's getting smaller and smaller with all of them in it!

That first trip to sit down is a bit cold and Tate popped up so fast it made me laugh.  Somehow I happened to catch it in a picture.

Once everyone was changed and ready to go, Nana broke out the shaving cream for a shaving cream fight.  The kids sprayed themselves, each other, and quite a bit of the lawn, but they had a blast!

It's hard to see how covered Hailey is since her white swim shirt is hiding most of the shaving cream, but she was pretty well covered.

So was Zach, but you can't miss the smiles on their faces!

Hailey wanted me to take a picture of the back of her hair once she got pounded and boy was it yucky!  She thought it was awesome!

Nana and Papa definitely had a hit with the shaving cream fight - the kids are already begging for another one next year!  The poor backyard grass got it's fair share of shaving cream and will need at least that long to rest!

Heading to the Zoo!

Nothing excites the kids like our annual trip to the zoo.  We went with all of our cousins (except Cooper) this year, so while we were waiting for everyone, we took a family picture.  You'll notice Zach has his eyes closed in this one, but since Tate was visibly screaming in all of the others, this was the best we got.  Not a good start to our zoo experience!

Luckily, once we got inside everyone seems to settle down and we had a very fun time.  Our first stop was to see the monkeys, then we headed to the elephants.  Tate had been waiting and waiting to see them, but when it was time to actually get up to the fence, he couldn't bring himself to get any closer than 2 or 3 feet.  We tried to tell him that they were behind another fence a good 6-8 feet away from the first fence, but he wasn't buying it.

And since I couldn't actually get him to turn around (he needed to keep an eye on them for some reason), Jeremiah ended up having to hold him to get a picture.  But even then he was constantly looking behind him to make sure that elephant wasn't going to somehow reach him.

Hailey and Branson were more than happy to pose for a picture!

Libby was really funny, she kept giving me these mad faces every time I tried to take her picture.

I did luck out and get this one when she wasn't paying attention.

These 5 were buddies and hung out together basically the whole time at the zoo.  They were like the 5 musketeers!

Here's a picture of my 3 kids, again Tate wouldn't get too close to the fence, just in case.

We love the new Rocky Shores exhibit, it's so fun to see the seals ...

... And the polar bears.  The kids love watching the polar bear swim around and pop up right next to the window.

 It was pretty neat to watch.

And then we were able to see a grizzly bear cooling off in the water.

After our visit to Rocky Shores, we decided to break for lunch.  We found a shaded spot and dug into our lunches.  At some point Jeremiah turned around his hat and Tate as the ultimately "daddy's shadow" decided to follow his lead.

He loves being just like his Dad.

One of my favorite animals to see is always the giraffes. We were lucky enough to have them all outside when we saw them.  A large one and 3 smaller ones.

They really are amazing creatures!

Again, Tate wanted to admire them from afar.

Hailey wasn't shy and wanted a picture of her with the giraffes.

Zach indulged me as well.

 No too much later, it was time to ride the carousel.  Tate was definitely having an off day because he opted for the stationary peacock bench.

Zach has been learning about our country at Scouts and loved the Bald Eagle as our national bird, so it made complete sense when I saw which animal he chose.

Hailey was fine with anything she told me, it was more whom she was riding next to rather than on.  So she ended up on a cheetah happily situated between Jocelyn and Mylee.

And of course the kids love to get a picture next to the metal gorilla, so I had to include that as well.  Tate flipped out when we walked up to it, so there was no way we were getting him in that one.  Oh well, it was par for the course with him that day.

We definitely had a wonderful time at the zoo and even Tate is asking when we get to go back again.  Maybe the next trip he will be a little more relaxed.  But regardless, it was a fun day.