Party Party Party!

Saturday was a day for parties.  We started out with the Summer Reading Program Pool Party for all the kids who finished the game.  They each had to read at least 800 minutes or pages to come to the party, and I'm happy to say that over 60 kids came!  It was lots of fun, but extremely exhausting.  The pool let us use their water guns, so it was basically a water fight that lasted 1.5 hours.  And let me tell you:  the kids who are the shyest and cutest are the most relentless when handed a water gun.

The second party was a birthday party for the boy around the corner.  Annie was invited (her first birthday party!), but Jennie tagged along because the she's friends with the boy's older sister.

They had (another) water fight and got their faces painted!

Overall, Annie seemed very happy with her first birthday party experience.

I went over to the library to do the end-of-summer drawing between parties, and while I was there it started raining.  And raining.  And raining.  It kept raining all day, and we ended up with a whole lot of water.

The kids thought it was great, and went right out to play.

Ben was helping Jaden pull weeds when it started to rain, and they kept pulling until they were done.

Which means that they were all soaking wet when it was time to go to the Library Staff Pizza Party.

Everyone got lots of pizza to eat, all the staff got to meet each other's families, and Robyn got to play with a baby!  This is Amber's baby (and Eva's grandbaby) and she is the smiliest baby I've ever seen.  That, and she never holds still.  So all her pictures are smiley, but they're also blurry.

To say I was exhausted at the end of the day would be a huge understatement.  In fact, I woke up the next day feeling sick and stayed that way for a couple of days.  I guess all that partying had a price.  But it was sure fun!

Vroom!

For Preschool Storytime this week, the theme was Wheels.  We read Duck on a Bike, The Seals on the Bus, and The Big Road Race.  We sang The Wheels on the Bus, and we raced cars!  These race tracks were fence posts in another life, then barley grass trays, but I think that race tracks are what they were truly destined to become.  The kids had tons of fun and didn't want to stop. 

It makes me smile inside when moms have to drag their kids kicking and screaming away from the library.  That means I'm doing a good job, right?

Annie and the Dentist

When we went to the dentist for checkups last week, he told us that the only child with cavities was Annie.  :(

So this week I had to take her back in to have them fixed.  She did awesome!  Our dentist is great, and she just laid back and watched the movie, and never had any problems.

The problems started after she was home again.  I had told her that her lip would be numb and she should be careful not to bite it, but when you're four it's hard to remember.  I've also noticed that the mouth tends to do things on its own, independent of your brain.
A couple of hours later I noticed that one side of her lip was all swollen and red.  I asked her if I could look at it, and found that she had done some major chewing on her numb lip.  Chris described it as "gory."  So I waited a couple of days before I took a picture.  The outside of her lip was red and swollen, and the inside turned that greenish color that all mouth wounds adopt. She claims that it doesn't hurt at all, but today when big chunks of skin started coming off, she was bothered. 
It's been a pretty ugly affair, but it hasn't really seemed to bother Annie.  She's one tough girl.

Pioneer Day

Happy Pioneer Day!  Didn't we just have this holiday?  Oh, wait.  That was the 4th of July, which we celebrate in almost exactly the same way.  Right.

So first on today's To Do list is the parade in Monroe.  Far from being a repeat of the parade on the 4th, this parade was a lot better.  There more interesting floats (more floats and more floats that were interesting), it seemed to move a little faster, and they threw more candy!  That, of course, is what was important to my kids.

Cannon especially was rushing to gather as much candy as he could, and I guess it paid off because he had the most candy of anyone.  And then, of course, there are those floats that don't throw candy, but shoot water instead.  I tend to cower and hide my camera when those floats go by, but my kids rush to the front and spread their arms wide so as to be a better target.

But the best part of the parade was when the RHS band went past.  Ben was playing his trumpet, and received lots of cheers.  First from Jerrele and family on the other side of the street, and then from us.  How do you play a trumpet while grinning?  Ben must have figured it out, because he played and grinned for a whole block.

We have always struggled with what to do in between the parade and the fireworks on these holidays.  Many years we have just sat around and read books or watched movies, but I've been trying to be a little more creative this year and get us out to do something during the day.

Stacia and Julie were in town, so after sorting all the candy, we decided that we should all go to the Salina Park for a picnic.  My kids love the Salina Park, mostly for its dangerous playground equipment. 

They all ran for the Merry-Go-Round as soon as the car stopped, and didn't get off until they were all properly sick.  

The next stop was the swings.  Now, these are not regular swings.  These are super cool, fly through the air swings.  They tell me that you can go higher if there's someone heavier in the other swing, so Stacia, Julie, and Ben were very popular swinging partners.  All you have to do is talk someone into getting you started, and then you fly around and around. 

I think we did actually have some lunch somewhere in there, along with dancing lessons from Ben.


Then it was home for a nap, off to my parents' for a barbecue, and then back to Monroe for fireworks.  Everyone was exhausted by the time we were done, so that makes the day a win, right?

Palisades

Time again for Friday fun!  This week after I went to the temple, we went to Palisades.  We rented a canoe, and even though it rained a little while we were there, we still had lots of fun.

Ben was our super-rower.  The rest of us took turns with the other paddles, but Ben was always in the back doing the real work as we took laps around the lake.

I was pretty proud of myself that I helped row us clear to the other side, and Ben said we were keeping up a pretty good pace.  See?  I'm not too old and feeble yet.   I have to admit that my arms did feel a little rubbery by the time we got to the other side, so I decided to be nice and let Cannon have a turn rowing back. ;)

About half way across the lake on our way back, I started to hear a wailing noise.  As we got closer, I realized that wailing noise was coming from Lydia.  I was pretty sure her life wasn't in danger, but she did sound pretty seriously hurt.

As the shore got closer, I could pick her out, and realized that she
had quite a crowd around her.  Emily was there next to her, offering comfort, but there were lots of concerned citizens gathered around.

Sure that I was going to need to rush her to the hospital, I jumped out of the canoe as soon as I could to see just how severe her injuries were.

Turns out that she had stepped on a fish hook, which had stuck in one of her toes.  Now, before you start getting all worried, you should know that only the very tip of the hook went into her toe.  It didn't go in as far as the barb.  Emily pulled the hook out, and it left a tiny little hole in the bottom of Lydia's toe.  This was the reason for the loud wailing that could be heard half way across the lake.

We eventually got her calmed down and distracted, but the day was pretty much done for us.  The only person still interested in staying was Cannon.  He had found this old log floating in the lake, and made friends with the other boys playing on it.  He could have stayed all day, I think, but we pulled him, got everyone changed into dry clothes, and headed for home.

Everyone said they had fun, including Lydia, so I guess it was a win. 

Food Fotos

Remember that post where I said Annie wanted to take a picture of her Cheerios? I'm still not sure why her Cheerios were cool enough to merit a picture, but the theme has continued.




When we went on our picnic to Maple Grove, she insisted that I needed to take a picture of one of her Cheetos.  And, I have to admit, it was a cool looking Cheeto.






The other day she had me take a picture of this creation.  I think that's chicken on a piece of bread.







The Family Home Evening treat on Monday was Creamies, and Annie was dying for me to take a picture of her Creamie.  So I did, but a couple of minutes later she wanted me to take another picture. (Because now it looks different!)  In all, I think I took about 10 pictures of her Creamie.  I did try to sneak her into the pictures a couple of times, even though she didn't want to be in the picture.

I won't make you look at all ten, but you get the idea.  Why is it so cool to take pictures of food?  She can't really tell me right now, so I'm preserving this for the future so that maybe when she's older she can explain why she wanted to save the image of her food to look back on later. 

 

Short Sunday

Whew! Yesterday's post was waaaayy too long! So today we'll keep it short and sweet.

On Sunday I had a visitor in Relief Society comment that she remembered me having more kids? But they must be getting old enough now that some of them are moving away, huh?
What?!?!  NO!!!!
I looked like I only had four kids on Sunday because Robyn, Ben and Emily all went to Kellon's farewell instead of to our Sacrament Meeting.  Kellon has been such a great friend to all three of them, and we wish him the best in Virginia.

 I was kind of sad that I couldn't attend Kellon's farewell myself, but I had two lessons to teach that day, and I didn't want to be rushing in late to Sunday School.  So I just charged the kids with telling him we love him and having fun at his luncheon.  I think they did it quite well.

Sunday at our house was pretty normal.  The kids walked home from church, which gave Annie lots of opportunities to collect "treasures," and bring them home to show me.
She found "a reeeeally long bungee cord, and this leaf, and this leaf, and this leaf, and this one, and this one, and this one, and this one..."

Friday Adventures

This summer we've designated Friday as "Adventure Day."  It's usually the day I go to the temple, and I bring the kids with me to Manti to hang out at Grandma Jordan's until I'm done.  After I get back from the temple, we go on some sort of adventure, such as swimming or playing at a park.
This week Jef and I went to the temple on Thursday night, so I didn't feel like I needed to go again on Friday morning.  That left us open to other options for our Friday Adventure, and we decided to head to Maple Grove for a picnic. 

Miraculously, we actually got all seven kids to come with us!
Of course, the picnicking part didn't last long before the younger kids headed for the creek.  There were people in the spot that's next to the rope swing, but that didn't bother my kids.  They just walked right in and made themselves at home.

Cannon was a real sweetie about helping his sisters on the swing, and they all had a fantastic time.  The big kids, of course, just sat at the picnic table talking, reading, and sleeping.  What is it about getting big that makes us so boring?

The younger kids could have played all day, but Ben was supposed to be at his swim meet at 4:30, so we had to cut the fun short and head out.  The only thing was that I had forgotten to check the fuel before we left Richfield, and I wasn't sure that we had enough to make it back.  I wasn't sure which was closer, Scipio or Richfield, but I finally decided that Scipio might be a tiny bit closer.  Looking back, I'm not sure that that's true, but we headed for Scipio, anyway, to get more fuel before heading home.  And, of course, if you're going to stop at a place with a Dairy Queen, you have to get ice cream!
The kids also couldn't leave without visiting the petting zoo, but they were taking forever to come back, so I went to check on them.  Turns out, they couldn't figure out how to get out of the goat/sheep pen because whenever they opened the gate, all the goats and sheep would follow them out!

We finally got the kids out of the pen, and all the goats and sheep back in, but by then we were going to be way late for Ben's swim meet.  It was his last one of the summer, and he did an awesome job.

 He beat Jaden at the butterfly but I guess he had false started, so they disqualified him and gave Jaden the first place medal.  :(
But he got lots of other first place medals, so he was ok, and he and Jaden are still good friends.

It was a little more adventurous than our Friday usually are, but in the end it was just a lot of fun.