Primary Activity Day

Evie had her first primary activity day on the 19th.  It took her a little bit to get into all the water fun, but when she did, she was so silly!  The activity was held at a ward member's house (HUGE lawn!) and there were several water games to play.  I had fun as a photographer - it can be SO fun to take pictures of a water balloon fight!

It was such a fun day!  When I called 'time to go!',  Evie was swinging on the swings with another girl and the other girl said, "Evie, wait!"  then ran to her and gave her a huge hug and said "I love you!  I'll miss you!" and Evie said it back.  She has since begged to have 'Kyla' over - and it's taken me a couple of weeks, but I finally figured out who her mom is so we can invite them for a playdate.

Water Park!

I knew there was a fun water park less than a mile from our new house, but yesterday was the day we finally went to check it out!  All three kids loved it, even if it was a little chilly (in the 70s!).  We happily met there with our closest ward member and Evie's newest friend, K and her mom.  The girls all three loved jumping into the water and splashing together, as well as going down the slide repeatedly.  Carson was content to walk as deep as he could (in the zero-depth pool) and to splash in the fountain.  All in all, a very fun day out, and a place that we will for sure visit again soon!

Happy 29th Birthday, Aaron!

The week of Aaron's birthday, we took a family outting with our friends the Mortons.  We let the kids play in the sand, had some pizza, and then hit the water!  First the girls went out with the dads.  Regardless of Lizzie's passive face, she was happy to go out and, from Aaron's story, enjoyed even going out on the tube behind the boat!  Then we moms and Jake took the little guys and Sadie out for the second run.  Carson and I took a turn on the tube, but he was far happier to drive the boat with his buddy Jack!  After we were sun,sand, and boated out, we enjoyed some cupcakes.  In my happy foresight, I had thought to bring jammies, so at the van, I towelled the kids, removing water and sand, then got them ready for bed.  Hooray for that, because they were all out within five minutes!

On Aaron's actual birthday we went over to his parents' house for swimming, barbequing and cake.  Aaron got the added bonus of walking the bottom of the nearby pond with his dad to take out masses of water weeds.  Tired and sunburned, he still enjoyed his cake and icecream, even if we couldn't find the number '9' in Gramma's stash of candles.

Tired Much?

One day, I was tidying up in the kitchen and I turned around, nearly missing this.

Did you see what I saw there?  I'll give a closer look.

Oh, my tired boy just cracked me up!

Happy 4th of July!

Our celebrations started on Sunday with patriotic dress for Church.  I was so proud of my little bow tie for Carson, improvised with ribbon and a hair clip!  Unfortunately (and rather predictably) something went wrong between we're ready for church and let's walk out the door.  Lizzie grabbed the spray sunscreen and sprayed Carson full in the face.  Two rinses later, he was still looking like this picture.  Poor boy!!

 

ON the 4th, we met up with several family members at Gramma and Grampa's house.  Festivities included plenty of pool time, a parade of bikes, scooters and a wagon (which I was in, so failed to get pictures of) and roasting s'mores around the firepit.

 And, of course, fireworks.  We lined up all the chairs a fair distance from danger and the kids watched Gramma and Uncle Matt wave sparklers in neat shapes and saw several fun driveway-safe 'works.  Then we all moved to the porch to watch the more exciting (and legally questionable) show!

Five Grandkids

Yesterday we went to Grampa's for a swim playdate with all the B grandkids.  Aunt Katie obligingly took over camera duties.  I loved how she said that she felt more like a professional photographer just holding my camera.  Made me love my camera again.

Evie has been practicing putting her face under water and showed this off a few times.  With my help, she even happily fully dunked.  (She couldn't do it herself because of the floaties.)  Carson enjoyed the floaties, too, but doesn't quite have the balance to let him just float around like the girls do.  Lizzie had an incident where she fell off her floating raft - with out personal floaties.  It was a scary moment for us all, but she is happily recovered.

After swimming and lunch, we all relaxed for a while.

In our own ways.

I loved taking a few shots of E, and all her silly expressions.

We made a few dozen attempts at a photo with all five grandkids, with amusing and frustrating results.

This, I think, was the best we got, thanks to Uncle Brian's help as photographer.  (Carson just refused to sit nicely.)

Love this picture of sisters and their babies!

We got to half-skype with our family currenly in Utah.  Half-skype because their video was non-functioning.  Utah for Aaron's brother David's wedding to Linnea.  (Welcome to the family!!)  At least OUR video was working, so all those on the other end got to see all the grandkids together, and we could hear one another, so there was plenty of chatter.  They told us memories from the sealing, and we told them how much we wished we could be there.

Naturally, after such a fun-filled day, 5 minutes into the 20 minute drive home, this is what we had.  The best part was that they chose a snack for the drive home - this is typical of doting grammas and aunts - were frozen blueberries.

Which gave us these lovely results.  :)

Roofing with a Friend

More of the roof is done!  This west side is almost complete and SO pretty!

This opening, from the wall of the house to the white gate, will have another gate across it, to at least discourage daring roof-climbing incidents.

Still more to do, but it's looking pretty awesome!

Evie, Girls Together, Hair Flowers

I mentioned on Facebook that Evie's latest past-time is to de-wing flies, making them 'ants'.  I just thought I ought to document that. :)

The girls were excited today.  Especially when I pulled out the camera.  They're such hams! :)

I had a request for the zipper flower, so I took a picture of it, along with the other flower that I finished yesterday.  The top one is a pretty time-consuming one where you cut several circles of a synthetic fabric and lightly singe the edges, then layer them for a rosey effect.  The bottom is the famed zipper flower.  I found the tutorial on youtube - actually there were several, but I liked this one best.