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?

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!

June in iPhone Pics

I've been such a horrible blogger lately. Not that anyone much cares, but I do since this is how I do our family history.  June was a crazy busy month for us.  Besides the few posts about the fire and birthdays, here are some more things we did.

We went to the Pony Express Days Parade.  I was so happy Jeff was able to come with me this year.  We were at the end of the parade route and the boys only got a few pieces of candy each.  They were quite disappointed.

Right before my birthday, Jeff's younger brother, Jason, fell 40 feet while rock climbing.  He is very lucky to be alive.  He broke his back and completely shattered one of his legs.  We went to the hospital several times to see him.

In May, our baby swing finally died after six years of service.  So we bought a new one and it died a week later.  Target is awesome and took it back and we replaced it with a exersaucer/jumper.  Porter loves it.

On my birthday, Carson headed home with my mom to Idaho.  He was able to spend a week with his grandparents and got to do a lot of fun things, including going to the Army Surplus Store, rock hunting with Grandpa Birch in Challis, and earning money by doing chores for Grandma.  A week later we headed up to get him and go to my class reunion.  I got to ride in Carson's seat for part of the drive to Idaho to keep Porter entertained.

The boys have loved playing dress up.

Our garage door has given us fits ever since we moved in.  One day it refused to shut and Jeff tore into it.  He had to realign a bunch of things and was very frustrated with the cheap quality of work of our builder.

My handsome Porter right before church one day.  I love this kid!  He cut four teeth in June and started eating a lot of solid foods. He likes bananas and sweet potatoes.

Also, he was finally kicked out of our room and into the nursery.  For now, he has the room to himself and Mason has a trundle bed under the boys' bunkbeds.

We spent a lot of time swimming with friends, swimming with family, and going to the Splash Pad with friends.  There was one week where we were gone everyday somewhere or another getting wet.  This pic is from the Splash Pad with some of my friends.

We also had fun playing in water in our backyard.  The day this picture was taken, all the neighbor kids were hopping from house to house getting wet.  I think there were 12 kids in my yard at one time.  I love our neighbor hood and that my kids have friends they can play with all the time.

Baseball season ended.  While it was nice to get our Saturday mornings back, they boys were so sad that it was over.  You can tell by Jonas' face that he wasn't happy it was his last game. I definitely think we will sign them up again next year.