Lehi City Children's Parade

Every year the city of Lehi has their "Lehi City Round-up" and included in the festivities for the week are 2 parades.  The first is the children's parade on that Friday night and the big parade Saturday morning.  We usually attend the Saturday parade, but this year we had workers coming to insulate our attic, so we decided to go to the children's parade on Friday night instead.  It was kind of a last minute decision, so it was crazy getting chairs up to reserve our space, getting home to eat really fast, and then getting back in time, but we did it!  

Here's the gang all ready to go.

Tate was so excited, although I think he had no idea what to be excited for.  All he knew is that someone mentioned candy and he was happy!

Hailey was so cute sitting there and waiting.

Zach was happy too - he decided to camp out on the curb to be in prime candy grabbing position.

Last year Tate had barely started walking and wasn't too much into the parade, but this year he was all excited about running out and grabbing candy that people threw to him.  He was so cute!  Every time he would come back and be so excited about a single piece of candy, it was darling!  I did get pictures of the other two, but they were so fast, all the ones I got were so blurry!  We have fast candy snatchers!

This was one of Tate's favorite entries in the parade - more than likely due to the live horses.

This was Zach's favorite - it was an entry from a local ward and features cowboys in a big bathtub.  He thought it was hilarious that it looked like they were all bathing!

Hailey's favorite of course was the entry after entry of cheerleaders.  I swear I have NEVER seen so many groups of cheerleaders in all my life, but Hailey was in heaven.

The best part of the evening though, was when one of the cheerleading advisors came off the float to give her a special cheerleading necklace.  She was so happy!  And although I'm sure they gave away plenty of them, we didn't see her do any others in our area, so Hailey was thrilled at how special that was!  She wore the necklace for a week straight because she loved it so much!

We really enjoyed the Children's Parade this year and due to the heat that is usually unbearable during the Main Saturday parade, we may just go to the Children's Parade every year from now on!

Summer Day Trips - Hogle Zoo

Another fun day trip and one we look forward to every year is to go to the zoo.  The kids absolutely love seeing all the animals, especially Tate.  We had been getting so excited the whole month of June anticipating this trip and even though it was really hot, it was well worth it!

One of our first stops were the giraffes - one of Tate's favorite animals.  He even wore his giraffe shirt so show his support!  It was funny taking this picture because it took a few tries getting everyone to look at me, this final one was the best and even the giraffe cooperated by turning and looking at the camera too!

Next we headed to the Asian Highlands exhibit and there we saw the main attraction - the tigers!  After arriving, we saw one jump into the cool water just one the other side of the glass and play with the ball in there.  This was so fun to watch and we all loved it - in the past we've have a hard time seeing them as they are usually laying out under shade somewhere.

Next we headed to the new Rocky Shores exhibit that has all of the bears, otters, sea lions, etc.  We even got all of the kids to pause for a quick picture.  (Ashton, Hailey, Libby, Zach, Branson, and Tate).

I think this was Zach's favorite part of the zoo - we have been passing a billboard every time we've gone through Salt Lake that has been advertising this new exhibit and we've all been dying to see it.

Here are my two oldest - so cute and so happy to pose for a quick picture.  They were having a great time!

We got lucky enough to see a polar bear swimming around at the new exhibit and he even would swim up right next to the glass - such a treat for all the kids!

Tate loved watching the sea lions - the would swim past the glass and he would squeal and yell "fishy!"  It was so darling!

Hailey and Branson loved being down there too and while we all rested in the shade, the little ones would go back and forth between us and the glass to see the sea lions.

On of our favorite parts of the zoo is the bird show.  Even though it's the same every year, we never get tired of seeing all the birds fly around and doing fun things.  Tate loved it this year and kept yelling for the "birdies" to come back again!

We were really lucky quite a few times this year with the tigers, polar bears, and the elephants.  We happened by to see the elephants just in time to see them getting a little shower/bath.  There are actually 3 generations of elephants at our zoo and we love to see how different they all are.  Our favorite is baby Zuri though, she's so cute and just loved all the water.  She even walked right up to the hose to get a good spray in the the mouth!

Zuri's mom decided to get a little closer too and we got to see her playing in the water too.

Next we headed to the big apes building to see the gorillas.  We always have to get a picture in front of the building where the kids check how big they can spread their arms in comparison to a gorilla - still not quite as big!

The kids always love the big wooden elephant that sprays water.  This has been a part of the zoo as long as I can remember - even when I was little and we visitied, we always loved to stand in front of the elephant to get a quick spray of water to cool us down!

A quick picture of my three kids in front of the wooden elephant.

Next we headed to the other monkey building, but we had to pause for pictures in front of the metal gorilla - I had to keep Tate turned around and in front just a bit because I was sure it would scare him.  I was right, it did, but not until after we got the picture thank goodness!

Here's Zach trying to show the gorilla his muscles!

Hailey showed off hers as well.

On our way out, we stopped quickly at the snake house.  I would have been fine to skip this part (I HATE SNAKES!), but the kids wanted to go in, so in we went.  They were so cute walking around and holding hands.  The loved looking at all the animals in the inner atrium.  

I was even able to get a quick picture of the front on them too!  Although I guess getting them all to look at me wasn't so easy!

Ironically, we had a great time looking at all the animals in that area - even the snakes.

After we finished there, we headed up the long hill to the back entrance where we parked and hoped in the car tired and sweaty!  It was a hot, crazy day, but we all had a wonderful time and can't wait to go back again!

Summer Day Trips - Disney Days

We love summer.  Not only is school out and the days are warmer (ok, much hotter!), but one of our favorite things about the summer is the fact that we get together with the cousins, aunts, and Nana and Papa to do a day trip somewhere once a week.  We had a slow start the first few weeks to due to conflicts, so we just got together at Nana and Papas those weeks to play - although the kids had just as much fun doing that.  

Finally, on the 19th of June, we headed out for our first day "trip."  We had heard that in downtown Salt Lake, Radio Disney was hosting a "Disney Days" celebration.  It sounded like fun and since almost all of the kids love anything disney, we decided to head down and check it out.  We decided to ride Frontrunner (the commuter train) and Trax (the light rail system) to get to the Gallivan Center.  The kids love riding the trains and had a blast riding them all.

Here's Zach with an "I Love You" sign - yeah, he's loving the ride.

Here are Hailey and Branson - those two are inseparable!

Tate absolutely loved the trains and had such a great time riding them - in fact, even 3 weeks later he's still talking about riding the trains.

Disney Days wasn't as exciting as we though it would be, but the kids had a blast.  There were a dozen booths where they got a bunch of free stuff.  The milk booth was by far my favorite - they gave the kids mustache stickers, cow signs, and some string cheese.  They even got to take their picture with the cow there.

The Humana booth gave out sunglasses, hand sanitizer, chapstick, and stress balls.  Tate is really into the color green, so he was thrilled with his green squishy ball.

There were a few other random booths where they got a book, backpack, and candy.  But by far the favorite was the face painting booth.  The kids were so excited to get their faces painted.  Zach got a skull ...

and Hailey got a butterfly.

After leaving the Gallivan Center, we headed over to the Gateway (a shopping plaza) for lunch.  Here we all are waiting for the Trax train to pick us up.

Once we finished with lunch, we rode Trax back to the train station to catch the Frontrunner train back to Bountiful.  Tate was loving sitting with Nana and Papa on this cement wall - he really thought he was a big boy!

And here are some pictures of us riding Frontrunner home.  The train has doubledecker cars, so the kids love to sit on the top level to see everything as we are going.  Here's Ashton, Michelle, Kylie, and Libby.

Tate sat with Nana most of the way home - he kept saying cheese, then I see it, then oh, so cute.  Funny boy!

Zach hung out with Papa.

And of course our two unseparable buddies were together.  

We decided to take a few fun pictures while we were waiting for the train to leave.

We sure had a fun day - trains, prizes, and lunch - it doesn't get any better than that!

Crazy Days

Here are just some random pictures of things going on at our house during the summer.  These first ones are a family night where we had ice cream for dessert.  The three kids all love ice cream, so we decided to break out the ice cream cones and have some ice cream.  Tate is now sitting at the counter because he wants to be just like the big kids.  So far so good on falling, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time.

Here's our beautiful little princess - of course wearing her princess shirt!  We find that her hair ends up all crazy by the end of the day, no matter how we do it or how much we try to keep it nice.  

Here's our little Bubba - he's just learned how to "lick" the ice cream and it takes him about 30 minutes just to get the ice cream down to the cone - but isn't he cute?!?

And here's our big boy.  I still cannot believe he's 9 already!  He's always good for a laugh and is always telling us jokes and crazy stories - he's definitely very creative!

We had some good laughs and ice cream that night - such a fun end to our family night!

And I had to include a quick picture of Hailey and Tate.  They are always wanting to go upstairs and play and one day they came down like this.  Apparently Tate wanted to dress up just like his sister and since all she had was princess stuff, a princess he became!  They now dress up together all the time and it's not uncommon to see our little boy running around in a dress up outfit.  But he was so cute, I couldn't help but snap this picture and include it.

These are the more lazy days of our summer - ice cream, dress-ups, and other fun things.  We have plenty of crazy days and days that we've spent out doing things, I'll be posting about these coming up soon!

Swimming Lessons - Part 1

Funny how sometimes a slip-up can actually lead to something unexpected and fun isn't it?  It doesn't happen often to me, but when it does I have to laugh at the progression and how things turn out in the end.  This whole post has to start out with an explanation about a slip-up on my part.  Turns out with everything that was going on at the beginning of the year, I had meant to, but totally forgot to sign Zach up for spring outdoor soccer.  Although that doesn't sound really bad, I have to tell you that he has been looking forward to outdoor soccer for quite a while.  Last year we signed him up for indoor soccer and although he had a good time, he decided that outdoor was his favorite and after a 2 year break, he was all excited to do it again.  So excited in fact, that he had his sister convinced that she wanted to do soccer too.  So in order to keep from having 2 in soccer at the same time and trying to coordinate games, practices, etc., we agreed that Zach would do spring outdoor soccer while Hailey was finishing up dance and Hailey would do fall outdoor soccer, with Zach doing flag football right after.  It was a wonderful plan and I'm sure it all would have worked out wonderfully, except for one thing.  There wasn't anything in the plan to account for a busy mom forgetting to sign up Zach for spring outdoor soccer.  Well, that one thing that would mess up the entire plan happened and I forgot.  At first the kids were a little upset, but we explained the mistake and promised that we would sign them both up for fall outdoor soccer as soon as sign-ups started (yes, I guess we're going to go through the pain of 2 doing it at the same time, even though that's what we were trying to avoid in the first place).  They were happy and started reminding me daily not to forget - of course we were still 2 months away from fall sign-ups at this point, but I suppose I deserved that.  

Although things were worked out, I still felt bad after the whole forgetting thing, so I started searching around trying to find something else for them to do.  Baseball wasn't really an option due to the tremendous increase in fees from moving from the recreation center run league to Little League, so that wasn't going to work.  Luckily, I stumbled upon swimming lessons.  Once I mentioned it to the kids and saw their excitement, all past mistakes on my part were utterly and completely forgiven and I knew I had found the activity that would make up for my forgetfulness.  I got up early the morning of registration and got them into the last 2 available spots for Level 1 swimming at the time that worked best for us.  The kids were thrilled when I let them know it was all set and the only thing left for them to do was be excited the remaining 4 weeks until lessons started (let me tell you, it was a long 4 weeks!).  

The week after school got out, the lessons started and they had a blast!  There were only 6 kids in their class and it was nice for them to have such one-on-one attention.  Since this was their first time in actual "swimming lessons" I wasn't sure exactly how this would go.  But they both surprised me by completely loving it and looking forward to it every single day.  Since it was just a Level 1 class, they spent more time just getting the kids used to being in the water and doing some simple things.  I was amazed as I watched my kids who moved from kids who would yell and scream any time any water got in their faces, to actually choosing to put their heads in the water as long as they could.  In fact, by the end of class they were doing it without even plugging their noses - something I don't think I can even do!

The also practised gliding on their backs and stomachs, bobbing in the water, and even using their arms in the traditional swimming motion.

Zach was by far the most fun to watch - he would always be dunking his head in the water whenever he could.  He absolutely loved it!  Once I noticed that he stayed under for a full 7 seconds - pretty impressive if you ask me!

Tate and I enjoyed going and watching the kids as well.  Tate was such a good boy and stayed in his stroller or sat in a chair next to me while the kids were swimming.  I was worried that he would try to get in the water himself, but other than saying it a few times, he didn't really try to get near the water, which was nice.

The kids had a blast and before we knew it, the two weeks were over.  I promised them I would sign them up again (for Level 2 this time since they both passed Level 1), but after a crazy couple of weeks back and forth I was thinking maybe we would wait until next year.  Of course I forgot enough about how hard it was because I just signed them up for a Level 2 class starting two weeks from tomorrow - what was I thinking?  Of course they are so excited and can't wait to go swimming every day for two weeks again!  Hopefully we'll be a little more organized this time and things will run a little more smoothly.  If not, then it's only 2 weeks and the amount of fun the kids will have will be well worth it!