Swimming Lessons

Once T-ball finished up I signed the girls up for swim lessons. They are getting to be such great swimmers!
Here is Ally swimming back to the wall. Her first session she was a starfish, and we are now doing a second session and she passed up to the guppy level.
Natalie is not the biggest fan of the water, but she was pretty good most of the days. She was in the eel class, and when I asked her if she wanted to take lessons again this time she said no, so she now plays at the park with Lilly while the big girls are taking.
Hailey is a minnow and was very proud of the fact that she is in a class at 5 feet now. Her class really works on becoming stronger swimmers and she is doing really well.
Lilly spent the first two weeks of lessons hanging out with me in the car. Now most of the time her and Natalie play at the park.
At the end of each session they get to jump off the diving board. This is always a very exciting day for the kids.
Well, except for Natalie, she isn't very brave so she got dropped into the water very slowly.

Summer Road Trip #3

On our first two road trips, I didn't take too many pictures, I think I made up for it on this one! I narrowed this down and probably only have 1/8th of the pictures I actually took, and there are still A LOT!
On June 29th after Allan got off work, we loaded up in the van and drove to Arizona. We drove all night and got to Allan's brother's house about 5:00 am. It was a long drive, but it was kind of nice that the kids were asleep most of the way!
We had SO much fun, and it was a very relaxing vacation. The kids played with their cousins, Jackson and Natalie (above) Brandon (below)
These boys were so great to play with my little girls and keep them entertained! Riley (below)
And this is EMILY! Emily was born about 2 weeks after Hailey, and my girls LOVE her!
Basically we spent the whole time doing this...








and a little of this...

and a little more of this....





We left on the 4th of July so here are some of my kids in their 4th attire.
If only I had 4 kids that would be a great picture of them, but the 5th child was doing this.
While we drove home, we stopped at a Mc Donalds for lunch and made another attempt at some pictures of the kids, these ones turned out much better!
BOY DO I HAVE CUTE KIDS!!!
I enjoyed this trip so much. It was wonderful to visit with Jonathan and Kari and to let our kids play. Kari told me that if we came we could expect a lot of sleeping and swimming and visiting, and that's just what we got. I got to relax and read and swim and play more than I can remember doing in years. It was FABULOUS!!!

WE DID IT!

Tonight we finished reading The Book of Mormon as a family for the first time. It has taken us a long time to say the least, but we did it! Sometimes (really most of the time) I felt like my kids weren't getting much out of what we were reading, but each night they would take turns reading or repeating and we got through it. As you can see, our scriptures barely made it to the end! I hope that this is the first of many times we will finish this book as a family and that my children will remember that most of the time we read our scriptures, sang songs and said prayers together when they were young. I hope that through our actions they will know that Allan and I have a testimony of the gospel and The Book of Mormon.

T-Ball Wrap-Up

T-ball is what we did every Monday and Wednesday in June.

Somehow? We managed to lose Natalie's shirt before the very first game and so she never got to wear her team shirt, but she had fun anyway.

Ally improved a lot on her speed and stamina. (not really witnessed in this picture, but I think her coach will agree with me)Hailey had this one AMAZING game, it was the second to last game. She got 7 outs! The first one she was playing right field and got someone out on their way to second. The next 2 innings she was playing short stop and she got 1 or 2 people out on 3rd and the rest at home. The picture is one of the outs at home! I was so proud of her, and pretty much shocked at how good she did!This is how Brayden and Lilly spend the t-ball days. The same game that Hailey got all the outs, Lilly fell asleep on her chair, she is such a silly little girl!T-ball season is one of my favorite times of the year. Even though it can be hectic with so many kids, I love hanging out at the park and watching the kids play. I can't wait for next year!!!

Summer Road Trip #2

We met up with some friends from dental school (Thomas' and Goldthorpes) for a weekend at our family cabin in Island Park. It was SO much fun. We got up there Thursday afternoon and then went to dinner in Ashton at Big Juds, this local burger joint. Then the next day we went through Yellowstone to Old Faithful and that night the girls all went to see Beauty and The Beast at The Playmill Theater. Saturday we went to Cliff Lake and went canoeing. Sunday we went to church and packed up and went home. I packed clothes and such for all seven of us, and our portion of the food (we all brought a way too much food) and drove up the 5 kids by myself and Allan met us at Big Juds after work. Anyway, the reason I am telling you this is because the one thing I forgot was the diaper bag (basically my purse) so I didn't have a camera on our fabulous vacation. (I did have plenty of diapers and wipes for my two little ones at least!) My wonderful friends did take some pictures for me so when I get them I will post them, I did steal that one picture from Tricia's blog!

Oh, I almost forgot, after our trip I found this little "story" Hailey had made on a piece of paper folded like a book. I tried to keep the capitalization/punctuation true to her writing, but The Beauty and The Beast was underlined and I had to italisize it:

My Sleepover Day! (cover with a picture of a bunk bed)

One day I had a sleepover I slept there 3 nights the people were: Me (Hailey), Hailie, Dorothy, Wendi, Ally, Natalie (sisters) The 1st night we Played and Just slept the 2nd Night was a lot the same but we also went to see the beauty and the beast The 3rd Night We played went swimming went outside and played work shop!

all the days we Slept and Played and went Somewhere

p.s. I had to bribe her with a piece of candy and tell her I would share any comments with her to let me share her story!

Backyard Fun!

This is not what we did today...if you live here you know why (ridiculous wind!) but basically everyday this is what the kids want to do. LOVE SUMMER!

Summer Road Trip #1

I am really trying to catch up on our summer events because we have been doing some really fun things!

The first week in June Allan was away doing some CE so I decided to take the kids down to Utah for a few days.
We went to visit my parents and grandparents...this picture is us with my grandparents actually from a couple of months ago, but you get the idea. (notice it was back to chubby pregnant face days)
It was really pretty cold and yucky weather but I promised my kids I would take them swimming. We only got to swim about a half hour before this big thunder storm came through!
Here is Brayden his first time sporting BYU attire, I had to document that since it's a pretty big deal in our family!
After I loaded up the car to go home I told the girls to go and get in the car and I was saying good by to my grandparents and when I came out this was how I found Lilly.

It's Great to be 8!

Be prepared for about 100 pictures! I cannot believe how big Hailey is getting. She is such a huge help with her sisters and brother and around the house doing chores. She is an awesome student and is really starting to turn into a beautiful young lady inside and out!Hailey turned 8 on May 29th

Here are the girls excited to open presents

Hailey is such a good reader, she got lots of books for her birthday. She also got a Scentsy warmer for her bedroom and some new PJs and Rollerblades.

Hailey decided she wanted to have a skating party for her birthday this year, here are a bunch of pictures of the fun!

My family tradition is that when you turn 8 you can get your ears pierced so we continued that tradition with our kids.

Before

Dave's kids were in town and I was watching them all week so I took 7 kids to the mall!

During

After

She picked out these multi colored flowers so they would match everything.

Then we went and played at the play area in the mall.

Hailey also got baptized by her dad!

Here she is waiting for her turn.

Allan and Ally stuck around after for ONE picture and then ran to Ally's last soccer game.

Here is everyone in the family who came (except Allan and Ally)

Hailey got new scriptures and a tote for her baptism.