Since we had over hauled the bed rooms, we ended up doing a lot of the house, and piling everything in the garage. So it has been a crazy mess for a while, we haven't even been able to get the van in. Ugh!! I hate that! So we spent the day Cleaning out the garage and utilizing our attic space above it! Which is amazing!! Not sure why we didn't use this space before!
So the garage is amazing and more spacious than it has ever been. We still have too much stuff to use it as a 2 car garage though, but oh well.
Then the kids went next door to help with our neighbor's eagle scout project. He constructed wooden cages for a wild bird rescue center. So they are huge cages for eagles and hawks and other big birds of prey. My kids went over to help paint them.
Then we all went over to roast dinner on the fire pit. Yum!
Don't ya love Evey's AMERICAN spirit?!!!!!! We all had a good laugh when she came out in that shirt!
After we had our fill of hot dogs, brats, watermelon, and smores. We all headed over to another neighbors house for a fantastic firework show. These neighbors go all out every year and go to Wyoming for the "BIG" fireworks. Then the whole neighborhood goes over and we have a huge block party, and they try not to kill themselves and everyone else as they set off these beasts! There were a few close calls, one of the huge boxes toppled over and would have shot the fireworks straight into everyone, but it had shot it's last one just before it fell,and me and a few others were hit with some falling mortar, but everyone was fine and had a blast. Unfortunately it started raining and so the night ended a little early. But it was so much good clean fun! Thanks again, Chelsea and Josh for the great party!
The plan had been to give the kids their Saturday showers at Grammy's house Saturday night. But since we had to keep applying bug spray, it was silly to shower and then go to bed smelling of Off! So they didn't shower....Ewww! And since we got home so late anyway and had to carry most everybody in, showers were put off until morning. Sunday morning, when everything is rushed anyway.
I used to love 9 o'clock church (we rotate every year 9, 11, 1) and Jon appreciates it in the fall so he can watch football, but as our family grows, and all these stinkin' girlies!! :) it makes it hard to get out the door on time, even though the chapel is a 5 minute walk...less driving time!!! There have been numerous times I have done hair in sacrament! This Sunday was one of those days. We got everyone showered and out the door, but were late enough to not find a seat, luckily I jumped on the front row once the deacons were done passing the sacrament, and proceeded to do hair.
Both Evey and Paris wanted elaborate braids, so by the time I was done it was time for the closing song. I love July when we sing patriotic songs and the closing hymn was the Star Spangled Banner. I couldn't even get through the first line before I was bawling like a baby!! I love when the piano and organ tag-team and the sound is full and the congregation is standing, and our beautiful conductor sings an unwritten harmony. I love our national anthem, and especially when we get to sing all of the verses.
We spent the rest of the day relaxing as we usually do, until I go to choir practice and then the whole gang shows up for our weekly dinner together.
Apparently it is a challenge to play croquet with a naked monkey on your head!!
Winter loves Tristan and often grabs his finger and drags him to play with her.
Oh yeah and she loves to be as naked as possible, which I let slide while at home!
We ate yummy Ka-bobs and then started a wicked game of Killer bunnies, but had to pause for fire crackers. Our awesome neighbors texted right as we were heading out that they wanted us to join them as they set off some too (I think it's a tradition now, we've done it for at least 3 years now), so we just combined our stuff and had a blast! Our laws on fireworks were loosened this year and so it was legal to get ones that shot up to 100 feet in the air. So Kurt picked up some of those, missed getting pics of them though.
Winter's first sparkler!! She still requires quite a bit of help.
Not sure what they were looking at , but it must have been interesting!
We started our 4th of July celebrations on Saturday the 2nd, with an early morning balloon fest. We had everyone out the door and at the field by 6:30 am! This is a HUGE accomplishment, I am so not a morning person (especially super prego) and neither are 3 out of 4 of the kids! But, we all did it so that daddy could see the Darth Vader Balloon (wink, wink). This was Vader's first year here, and our first year getting up on time. I'm glad we went this day too, because I heard the balloons were cancelled on the 4th because of icky weather.
Vader brought out a bunch of geeks in costume. I guess if you have it, you only get a few chances a year to wear it, so why not, right?! I'm just glad Jon doesn't feel the need to wear the costume he has!!
After we baked in the sun as it crested the mountains, we went for Krispy Cremes. We thought we'd take the kids inside this time since they had never been in to see the doughnuts being made. They thought it was pretty cool.
Then we went home and did chores really fast and then headed back out to take Evey to volunteer at the freedom fest street fair with Grammy. These next photos are taken with my phone and so are pretty crappy. :)
Paris LOVES snakes!! She was one of the first kids up there to pet that big boy!
Evey and Lex aren't as enthusiastic, but still think snakes cool, and Winter, didn't care too much for it. But Evey got her to touch it once.
The girls got their hair done by Paul Mitchell students. We knew this was going to be there, so I was let off hair duty for the morning, as you can see in all the previous pictures!!! This is one of the things that contributed to getting to the balloons on time! Hair for 3 girlies takes a while sometimes!
And Lex got a sticker. He really wanted me to take a picture of it!
Winter has a firecracker on her face, that you can't really see. She made (okay Grammy made it) her visor at the booth Evey and Grammy worked at.
We spent the rest of the day shopping and running errands. Then went to Grammys house to watch and listen to the Stadium of Fire. We have yet to buy tickets to the show, but when mom lives about a block and a half away from the stadium and we can see the big screen from her front yard, it makes it hard to want to fork out that much money! Maybe we're just cheap! :)
We barely missed the fly over, the kids were heading out the door, so Evey and Paris saw it, but Lex FREAKED out from the sound and came running back in the house yelling for us to close the door . Poor guy. He has a hard time with thunder too, but he's been working on that and getting much better, but the jets were a new kind of loud!!
So we sat out and listened to the show, and David Archuleta and some country guy....I know blasphemy on me for not knowing who he was....Country music generally not listened to in our house. Okay, it was Brad Paisley. Anyway....
I took lots of firework pictures, but decided to only post a few, because once you see a few you've seen the all, am I right? However there were some pretty awesome ones this year that I don't think we'd ever seen before! And they were timed to the music, which we could tell but not hear due to the sound delay. It was still fun and awesome!!
See all the fire on the bottom....that's the stadium! It is literally On Fire!! It would be awesome to see from the inside! This is apparently the biggest stadium firework show in the US!
Then we waited at least an hour for the traffic to die down before we ventured home.
We had to decorate eggs on Thursday after soccer games,
it was the only time for us to do it all together.
Evey had even agreed to babysit for a neighbor,
but I had to cancel for her, so we could make pretty eggs.
Sorry Tara!!!
Jon made 4 1/2 dozen eggs!!
Winter just wanted to put the eggs in the dye.
Lovin' the team work!
She ended up liking coloring paper when
I wouldn't let her stick any more eggs in the dye
Friday I actually got my bootie in gear and
made the girls dresses. While I was sewing
the kids decided to do a science experiment,
which ended in them making ice cream in
plastic baggies. They had a ton of fun dancing
to shake the ice cream.
Saturday We had soccer games in the morning then
Jon and I ran some errands together. It's so nice
having a built in babysitter. Although I feel her pain,
I was one too!!
There was a neighborhood egg hunt planned and
we were supposed to drop of a dozen eggs for
each of our kids to hunt. So I got the eggs over there.
But when the time for the hunt and pot luck rolled
around it was raining. We were running a little late
and when we got there the kids were almost done
hunting. They were hurrying because it was raining.
I don't blame them!!! But when they saw us they
each threw out enough eggs for my kids to hunt and
some parents hid some to make it fun. Such sweet
kids and neighbors we have! No one stayed for the
pot luck, it was no fun in the rain! Oh well, I think
the kids had fun anyway!
Sunday we had to be at church extra early 8:15 (actually 8:30, but I had to give a little leeway!!) so I could practice with the choir and the kids were singing prelude, so that meant waking up super early to hunt baskets. The Easter Bunny left everyone a personalized hunt as always.
Everyone finding their first clue.
Winter was not happy to be up so early...
Until she realized what she was supposed to do.
She had a deflated balloon, and had to search the house
for the inflated matching one,
pop it and inside was another deflated balloon of another color,
The last balloon held a clue to where her basket was.
Lex Had a map of the house with a bunch
of numbers on it, And a math equation.
He had to solve the equation and
find the corresponding number on the map
for the next problem.
The last number had his basket.
Paris was given a rhyme and the missing word was where the next clue was.
What the heck!! Evey's clue was a long strip of paper
with a little drawing of an object and a bunch of letters.
She had a hard time figuring out what she was supposed to do.
She finally realized she needed to find whatever the object was.
Then it took her a bit longer to figure out she had
to wrap the paper around the object for the next clue.
Her clues weren't totally obvious either. Well to me at least, she seemed to find them pretty quick!
For example, WAKE was the clue to an alarm clock, so she found her next clue there.
Each basket had a little letter so once
everyone's letter was found,
they had to make a word with the 6 letters to reveal a final surprise.
As per Easter Bunny tradition, he brought some fun outdoor games and toys.
Since it was a huge rush to get to church early,
we didn't have time for pictures,
and then after no one wanted to cooperate, As ALWAYS!!!
But they were kind enough to pose for a few
and I discovered that my new camera does not have a self timer,
for a family shot,sad, but I guess I'll live :)
The Easter bunny usually leaves an egg hunt for the kids,
but he knew we needed to get to church,
so he left a monstrous bowl full of eggs
and a note that we were to have a hunt outside after church.
Which turned out well, we waited until our guests got
here and included them in the fun.
One of the outdoor toys was a helicopter shooter thing ??
I don't know, anyway, its little propeller things shot
really high and we had to send Evey on the roof to get it.
We try really hard to make sure the kids know what
Easter is really about, and what is most important.
And they all know, they really do, but it bothers me
especially this Easter because we woke up to do the
basket hunt early so we could get to church early.
I heard a couple of friends say this year, that the bunny
visits their houses on Saturday morning, so that all of
Sunday can be focused on Jesus and the Atonement.
I really , really love this idea and think I will have the
kids sit down with me and write a letter to the Bunny
next year telling him we would like to do our basket
hunt on Saturday too. I think he won't mind too much :)
I am so bad at expressing my feelings and bearing my
testimony anyway, but am even worse on a medium like this,
online! I have written a few paragraphs only to erase them.
But I want you all to know how truly grateful I am for our
Savior and His Atonement.
I am so moved by music. I am the ward choir director and
picked two songs that held so much meaning for me and I
can't tell you how grateful I am for everyone who sang on
Sunday! The choir was so big and beautiful and so full of
the spirit! I even heard comments that we sounded like the
Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Such a complement!
Here is a link to one of the songs we sang,
however it is not the choir arrangement we sang,
but the words are what I want to share. Gethsemane
And I couldn't find a link to just the music of this song so here's a video.
Also not a choir arrangement.
And while I'm at sharing videos here is an Easter message.
