Summer Part One

 Ugh, I've been so bad about blogging all summer. Its been busy and yet not so busy of a summer if that makes sense.  The truth is that I've just been lazy about it.  It seems like no one check blogs anymore or leave comments so it kind of takes the motivation out of blogging for me.

We started out the sumer getting some good use out of our fire pit.  The boys love having a fire and it seems like they are always begging for us to do one.  Every time we start a fire Carson wants us to tell stories.  In fact, the kid is always wanting someone to tell him a story.

Every year our town holds "Pony Express Days" and it culminates with a concert at the amphitheater in our subdivision and a fireworks show.  Our neighbors always put on a great BBQ for the neighborhood and its a great time to hang out with friends and let the kids run wild. 

The boys got to go with me to scouts all summer.  I think they liked it.

Jonas enjoyed dressing up as Obi Wan almost every day.

We had many backyard water days where we played on the trampoline with the sprinkler on, had water fights, and played in the wading pool.  Most of the time as soon as we stepped outside, we had neighbor kids over to play.

Carson loves to go shoot his BB gun.  On this day I had taken him down to the bottom of the subdivision and we shot at his targets.

In June we hosted a BBQ at our house with a bunch of friends.  We loved having everyone over.  We live in such a great neighborhood!

Baseball finished up and Jeff and I were a bit relieved.  I don't know how people do sports all of the time, especially competitive ones.  I don't think we have it in us as a family...we enjoy our free time too much.  The boys enjoyed playing in the city league, but we were all thankful to have our Saturdays back when it was over.

We went swimming quite a few times.

 We made forts and read stories.

 Daddy decided to ride in the back of the van and get cozy with the boys one day on the way home from church.

At the beginning of summer, I started taking Porter into nursery.  Even though he wasn't 18 months until July we had hit the point where we were just wandering the halls so I decided to find out which nursery he was being assigned to (we have 4 nurseries in our ward).  It worked out nice since one of my friends was called to be the leader of Porter's nursery so we got to sit and chat while I was in there with Porter.

We spent time at the Children's Gardens.

We got our Cinemark Summer Movie Club passes. It was a nice way to break up our days. Although taking Porter to the theater was rough to say the least.  Maybe he'll do better next summer...maybe...

We had playdates at the park with friends.

 Jeff spent a lot of hours helping his sister tear out her old patio and pour a new one. Isn't he a great guy?

August in iPhone Pics

Here's another monthly update from us!  Life is super crazy right now and I have a dinosaur of a computer, so blogging has taken a back seat for now.  Anyways,we started out August by showing our support for Chick-Fil-A. We couldn't believe how long the lines were and the cars in the drive through line were backed up more than a block. I wish I would have snapped a picture of it.

I got a new rug for the living room.  I know, not big news, but I sure love it.

There was another fire by our subdivision, this one caused by lightning. No evacuations, just a lot of smoke.

We went to Jeff's mission reunion up in Little Cottonwood Canyon. The boys had fun rolling down hills and we discovered that Jonas has a talent for basketball. 

We spent a lot of time outside playing with friends, riding bikes, and doing yard work. (I like to mow the yard and weed the flower beds because, for me, its relaxing.) We had a few BBQ's with friends and neighbors and spent many nights out chatting with good friends.  I seriously love our neighborhood.  I'm sure I've said that before, but we are truly blessed to have such good people around us and so many kids for our boys to play with.

Aren't big brothers so awesome?

Perfect summer evening in the back yard.

We harvested carrots, green onions, and tomatoes from our garden.  I did a lot of vacuum packing to preserve the onions and carrots.  I also shredded and froze a ton of zucchini.

We even grew a yellow carrot.  Jonas was super excited since yellow is his favorite color.  In fact, when we pulled it up, he exclaimed, "A yellow carrot! Just for me!!"

In mid August we went to a screening of The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure and were able to meet with the producer (who also did Thomas and Friends and Teletubbies) and the writer.  I did a guest review of the movie for Babes and Kids Review.  You can check it out here.

I took the boys in for their six month dental check ups.  We were lucky to find an awesome pediatric dentist a year or so ago and the boys love going to him.  It was Mason's first check-up and he did fabulous! They were able to get x-rays from him, something Jonas still won't let them do.



Waiting for x-rays



 One day I was working on a sewing project when Carson came up to me and asked, "Mom, since you used to teach kids sewing, do you think I could maybe learn to make something?" (He's a lot like me and has a hard time being direct!) It melted my heart and I put my project away and helped him make a little pillow.  He was so proud of it and I was happy we had that time together.  He wants to sew more and I'm thinking we're going to attempt pajama pants next.

The husband went dumpster diving for me to find 2x4's for craft projects.  Love that man.

Carson and Jeff had push-up competitions.  That kid can do a mean push-up!

It was back to school time all too soon.  I'm hoping to do a longer post on this later, but Carson ended up not attending the charter school.  He is very happy back at Thunder Ridge with all his friends.

 The boys love waiting for Carson to get off the bus and often run out to greet him!

July in iPhone Pics

Once again time has flown and I find myself doing a monthly recap in phone photos.  At the first of July we went to Idaho for my Grandma Butler's funeral (post coming soon...).  While we were in Idaho, Mason got sick with some sort of stomach bug, and after we returned to Utah, all of the kiddos were sick with it. We spent a day camped out in the living room feeling yucky.

After the boys were feeling better we took them to the Children's Discovery Gardens at Thanksgiving Point.  They loved it.

Porter learned about how itchy grass can be...

We launched rockets from our back yard with Uncle Shane and Uncle Jason.

Then we headed back to Idaho for two weeks because my dad had a knee replacement surgery.   He's needed it done for about 10 years and finally got to the point where he had to do it. He had a difficult time recovering and ended up having a second surgery after I came home.

 While I was there to help my dad, the kids were there to get spoiled by Grandma and Grandpa Larsen.  Jonas got some new swim goggles for...

 the swimming pool they bought while we were there.  My mom and I talked about getting a little wading pool for the boys to play in while I was gone during the day.  We mentioned it to Grandpa and then he comes home with this kind of a pool.  The kids were in heaven!

Grandma treated us to The Lorax with some tickets she'd won from work. Mason wouldn't share the popcorn :(.

In the middle of our stay, Jeff came up to visit us for the weekend. Carson had found my old BB gun in a closet at my dad's house, and so they went out back for some target practice.

 Before we left Idaho, we celebrated Carson's birthday early with a party at my dad's house.  It was the first time in 23 years I've sat down to a dinner with both of my parents.  It was kind of weird.

After two weeks of being away from home, this is how we all felt.

We got home the day before Carson's birthday.  At the time, Jeff was working nights and brought home breakfast doughnuts and a gallon of chocolate milk for Carson .  We opened presents and then Jeff went to bed.

While Daddy was sleeping, I let Carson build his new Legos all morning.  Then I took them to a 3-D dinosaur movie at Thanksgiving Point. It was my first time taking all four kids to a theater by myself.  It was a little hectic, but totally worth it to see Jonas and Mason (in their 3-D glasses) stand up and try to touch the dinosaurs.

The very next day was my nephew's birthday and we went to a Bee's game in SLC.  Four kids, at a baseball game, without Jeff there to help.  Enough said!