Saturday, June 23, 2012

For Posterity's Sake

I told Nathan one morning that I needed to comb his hair. He didn't want to so he said he would wear a hat. He couldn't find his baseball cap, so he came out to the car in the middle of June wearing this.


We must have a record of this: every day, multiple times a day this is something we see at our house. She just can't help herself.


Caelan and Ben slept on the trampoline one night. Nathan attempted it but came inside about 30 minutes later because he was too scared (Megan was too nervous to even try it). He and Megan wanted to sleep together. I thought they had gone up to Megan's room so I went to check on them before I went to bed, but they weren't there. I glanced into the boys room and this is what I saw:

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Week in the Heat

Sean took the Varsity Scouts to Moab for the first week in June. It was a great trip of white water rafting, mountain biking, hiking, off roading, cliff jumping, swimming, volleyball with the Girls Camp (which was right next to their campsite), high ropes course, etc. While he was gone I decided to take the kids to Grandpa and Grandma Dicks house in Arizona. We squeezed into our little Honda (which saved us probably $150 in gas) - it really wasn't too crowded at all. Aunt Jenny and her kids were there too, so all the kids had a great time playing with cousins. We did a LOT of swimming (twice every single day we were there - probably at least 15 hours of swimming). I decided not to put the kids in swim lessons this year, so I was hoping our trip to Grandma's house would help them all get a little more comfortable in the water. Caelan and Ben are great little swimmers - all over the pool. Megan remembered how to swim under water and also learned how to tread water and doggy paddle. Nathan was pretty hesitant the whole time. He played on the step but would cling on to me for dear life anytime I took him off the step. Finally on the last afternoon we were there I grabbed him while he had his floaties on and took him out in the water. It only took him a minute to realize he could float on his own with the arm wings on. Then there was no stopping him - he was all over the pool and eventually started jumping off the edge and even went down the slide and LOVED it.




We also took a fun day trip to an indoor amusement park. It was great - small enough to be able to stand up and look around and be able to see all the kids, but big enough to have several different rides that were fun for the age of the kiddos.





Monday, June 11, 2012

I Hope You Dance


Caelan and Megan were both in dance this semester (from January through May). Caelan was in a hip-hop/jazz class and Megan was in a ballet/jazz/tap combo. They loved it. Their Spring recital was last weekend. The theme was "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes" and they all danced and had costumes that were associated with a fairy tale. Megan danced to the Princess and the Frog (which was perfect for her because they held a little stuffed frog during the dance...and anyone that knows Megan knows how much she LOVES stuffed toys). Caelan's performance was "A Wold in Sheep's Clothing." She was the youngest in her class, I think, but she did great. She can really get into it. It was super cute, and I was quite pleased at how conservative the dances and costumes were. I mean there were some sleeveless things and shorter dance shorts, but most of the things were fitting for young girls. Caelan definitely wants to do it again next year.

Memorial Day in Colorado

This year because Sean has limited time off and he already has to take a week off for Scout camp plus at least another week for our family reunions in the summer we hoped that maybe we could do the Memorial Day trip with Sean's family a little closer to us this year. We LOVE Duck Creek, which is where we usually go, but it's a good 9 hour drive for us which means we would have to take more time off. Anyway after looking at several options Sean's parents found a cabin about 20 miles outside Durango Colorado. None of us had really spent much time there before so this was kind of a fun change. We went to a Gold Mine one day (it's a closed mine, but they have tours - they take you inside the mine in an actual mine train car and then tell you all sorts of stuff inside. When you're done you come out and can pan for gold). It was quite interesting and the kids enjoyed themselves. We found a little hike on the way back to the cabin. Sean carried Nathan part of the way up - I had Austin in the baby carrier on my back. On the way back, Megan was tired and sick of walking so Sean let her ride on his shoulders. Nathan also wanted a ride, so I had Nathan on my shoulders and Austin on my back (I felt like I was a couple inches shorter when we got to the bottom of the trail). Sean and Grandpa and Kelly took Ben and Caelan and Logan fishing. Caelan caught her very own fish - pulled it out of the water and everything. It was a pretty good size too. A couple of ladies helped show these guys the ropes...HE HE HE. Sean had a fish on his line, but he was helping someone at the time and by the time he ran over to it it swam off. The ladies gave them two other fish to take. We cooked them up and ate them that afternoon - delicious!! Even the non-trout-lovers thought it was tasty. We brought a canoe with us, but the wind picked up pretty much the day we got there. Kelly tried to go out on it but quickly came back not wanting to capsize on the lake. On Sunday we were in charge of the family devotional. We talked about Lehi's dream - and then we made a little rope course through the trees where each family walked along blind folded. Megan came down with some kind of flu/cold the last day we were there - she was pretty miserable (hot and tired and weak). She slept for a good part of the day, but two days later she was back to her regular self. We love our Memorial Day vacations.





















Friday, June 8, 2012

Just Some Silliness

Sometimes we just have to be a little silly around here.





And sometimes that wears us out....HE HE HE

Friday, June 1, 2012

Megan's Preschool Graduation




Another year of preschool done. This time she actually graduated. She has loved her teachers. In fact, Mr. Chris (who was her teacher all of last year and more than half of this year) moved on and she got a new teacher. One day, just a few days after she told me he wasn't going to be there anymore, I noticed she was crying out of the blue one morning before preschool. I asked her what was wrong and she said she was sad because Mr. Chris wasn't going to be there anymore. This year she has been quite the little singer and dancer during all of the performances they have done. In one of them she had a solo. The class sang "Mary, Mary quite contrary." She was Mary, so she answered their song with her own solo part: "with silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row." It was adorable!! On to Kindergarten for her. Nathan is so excited at the thought of going to "Megan's school" in the Fall.