{White Water}

A few of us moms took the kids on a morning hike out at White Water Preserve.  

We hiked down by the river with Drew leading the way!

 The water was cool and refreshing!

Mya is my little sweet heart!  I love that she is fearless and always trying to keep up with her older brothers, but that she has a loving and gentle side to her too!

 She still loves to "mother" baby Wyatt!!!  She constantly has her arms around his neck giving him hugs as he tries desperately to escape her death grip!

We had a blast playing in the water with the Max Liquidator water shooters the kids received from their aunties.

 Every man for them self!

 I love that all the boys are having a "water war" and Owen is just laying out on the rock relaxing in the sun!

 Mya went around terrorizing everyone without a gun!  She liked to do the squirting, but didn't like it when she got beamed by water.

 Drew loves all creatures great and small!  He made sure to protect his new little friend from all the kids.

We fed the fish some bread scraps.

It was a fun and exhausting day!  We went home and read books and napped.  I love long summer days spent with friends!

{Let the Summer Fun Begin}

Our summer has been jammed pack full of fun!  I feel like we are non stop on the go, which is making the weeks go by way too fast.  We received a package in the mail from our Colorado Aunties, Uncle Gabi, and new cousin baby Penelope that sent the kids screaming with excitement!  We seriously have the best Aunties in the world!

The paper read, "Happy Summer!"

The goody box contained Colorado shirts for each kid...

boxes of skittles, coloring pages, Super Hero pencil boxes, and Max Liquidators for all!

Mya was most excited about the Hello Kitty stickers and nail polish!

The aunties sure do spoil my kiddo's!   I am so grateful for the generosity and love they shower on my children!

We have already spent hours at the pool with neighbors.  

 They boys can't get enough of playing keep away from Madison the dog!

 Elliot, Makayla, and Mya chilling in the hot tub.

Drew is requesting a golden retriever now!

Owen taking the plunge!

 This is how I am getting my workouts in these days!

We have the best culd-e-sac to let the kids play in.  We moms chill under a shade tree and watch the kids come up with all kinds of fun things to do.  

Drew has quickly become the tether ball king!

 The kids race for bragging rights to see who is the fastest.

 The 3 year olds are always left in the dust!

 Dodgeball has been introduced...  

We take nightly walks with the dogs to the park and play until the sun goes down.

 I also "forced" the boys to join in on some of the great programs the library offers, so that we are able to spend a little bit of time indoors and out of the sun!  Here they created lego stories and their own versions of a Chia Pet.

This is just a peak at what we've been up to so far this summer!  So far, so good!  We will continue to  "Let the Good Times Roll!"

{Baby Whisperer}

Drew and Ian's favorite 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Griffin, asked us to watch her sweet baby Caleb for a few hours.   I was ecstatic to have a newborn in the the house again!  Babies are my favorite!!!

It was interesting to see how gentle and loving my kids were with him.  Drew especially took a liking to the little guy, so much that we nicknamed him the "Baby Whisperer" for the day!

 Drew fed him his bottle until he said, "Mom I can't feel my arm!"

 After he had some good awake time and some massive toots, which left the whole room roaring with laughter, Drew patted him to sleep.

Drew was worn out by the end too!  He was pretty excited when I told him he earned some babysitting money and is eager to watch baby Caleb again!!!  Caleb is absolutely scrumptious!!!

{Another School Year Comes to a Close}

Today was the last day of school!  It was bittersweet for me and the kids.  We will all miss the wonderful teachers they had this year and spending so much time with school friends, but we are anxious for the new adventures coming our way soon!  I am ready for no homework or packing lunches and the kids are ready to swim and to be playing outside until dark.

Our morning started with our usual last day of school tradition.  Kenny rides bikes with the boys to and from school.  Owen did not want to ride the whole way, so I met up with Kenny and the older boys half way to the school with Owen.

 Owen was leery about riding in a bike lane, but Kenny is good at pushing our kids out of their comfort zone.  He rode right beside him the whole way to the school, encouraging him, and promising him a soda...bribery works wonders with this kid!

 Owen made it safely to the school and loved that his friends saw him riding his bike to school.  We were proud of Owen for being so brave!

He got there just in time for his Kindergarten graduation ceremony.

His school and church buddies Ryder and Carson

The Kindergartners sang patriotic songs including, "God Bless America."  I got a little emotional watching Owen holding the flag and leading his classmates in singing.  I am so grateful that he had a great first year of school.  Its hard for me to believe that he will be at school all day next year with his older brothers.  My kids really are growing up way to quickly!

Drew's class also put on a little performance.  They studied a lot about the California Gold Rush and sang songs about being gold miners.  It was really quite cute as they performed in little individual groups.  Drew was the loudest singer in his group and belted out the words to his song.  It made me happy to see him up there!

Drew walked in the house after the long bike ride home sweaty with his back pack filled so full with rewards that he couldn't even zip it!  

 He had been earning coupons all year for good behavior and for meeting different goals.  He could have traded them in for homework free nights, which I would have loved, or save them for the end of the year "class room store." He chose to save them and cash them all in at the end.  He was pretty stoked about the things he purchased.  With the Game Stop gift card, he put it toward purchasing his favorite Super Mario Brothers wii game.  He has already almost beat the whole game!

Drew's other reward from his teacher was to go to an end of the school swim party at his teacher's house.  He had a blast!!!

The last couple of weeks of school wore me out!  I was glad to see the last papers turned in, the ceremonies completed, and the books returned!  Now its time to kick back and enjoy our summer!

{Pop}

My boys get out of school in 3 days, so I knew I needed to take advantage of this time and get a lot of work accomplished before they were home with me all day.  I worked really hard today!  (hear the sarcasm?)

It started with working out at the park with my friends, where I spent more time talking than burning a sweat, but at least I can say I attempted to work out!  After leaving the park my friends and I decided we should all make home made wheat bread, so the party moved to my house.

Wheat was ground into flour & 14 loaves of bread were made!

After eating warm bread and cleaning up the bread mess, I made home made fudge!  I texted my neighbors and told them to meet me in the culd-e-sac in one minute.  Julia knew it must be serious and jumped out of the shower to come...she was glad she did!    We sat with spoons and devoured a plate of fudge and talked for 2 hours.  I love my wonderful neighbors!!! 

 Then Yarnida brought out home made cherry pie!   We polished that off too and continued to sit under Yarnida's tree, laughing, and joking about how much we ate today and how hard we were all going to have to workout on Wednesday to make up for it.

So my hard day consisted of me eating until I felt like I was going to POP, but it was totally worth it!   My friends are amazing and I am grateful for these lazy days of eating, relaxing, and laughing!  My life is good!!!