Independence Day

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!

Beware: Phone photos!

Independence -Sunday

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!

Independence- Saturday

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.

Happy Hearts

I say it every year, We don't celebrate Valentine's day.
And, every year it's a lie!
Jon and I say our birthdays and our anniversary are
good enough, why do we need a Halmark holiday?
But then we say, well the kids can be our Valentines,
they like to celebrate and they have fun parties at school.
So I'll get them some chocolates and a little stuffed animal
or something, and Jon will get a dozen roses to split.

It works out perfect ( not sure how 12 is going to divide in
to 5 next year, yikes) And he ALWAYS ends up getting
me some flowers too. Did I say that I love that guy, yet?
Well I do. He also bought me a movie, and unbeknownst
to him I bought him a Star Wars Omnibus...don't ask!
So I guess we do celebrate, I should stop saying we don't.

Every year Jon has to work on Valentines night and so I
usually do fondue with the kids, but he had to work a million
hours around Valentines and actually got the night off.
So he got to join us for fondue this time. It was fun.
The kids aren't big on fondue for dinner, so we grilled some
steaks and had their favorite asparagus. A new addition this
year was our virgin strawberry daiquiris (basically just strawberries,

lime juice, Sprite, and ice) with the glasses rim dipped in red sugar,
they liked that too. Then we got as much junk food as possible to
dip in to chocolate.

It was a blast.

Tree Design 101

Musical interlude