Visitors From California

My most favorite cousin ever came to visit me a couple weeks ago from California with her 3 kids and my grandma! I was so excited when they told me they were coming, we could hardly wait! I hadn't seen them for almost 3 years, it had been WAY too long! Both Laurie and I have 3 kids, but we both had only met each other's oldest child. I can't believe our middle children were almost 3 and 2 and we hadn't met them yet! It was such a fun trip, although we didn't get out too much. I guess we just weren't brave enough to take 6 kids ages 6 down to 3 months. And although it was crazy most of the time, we loved every minute of it! I'm so glad they came to visit because my cousin and her family just moved to Florida so who knows when the next visit will be! :(

 I love this picture of Sam & Lillee, they both started staring at each other and laughing! They are just over 2 1/2 months apart. Sam was 6 months here and Lillee was 3 1/2 months.

 She did not want this tutu on, but I think this crying picture is just SO cute!

My A/C went out in my house while they were here, and the temps were in the 90s-100s. I called on it right away, and the guy was awesome and changed some appointments around, but he still wasn't able to come out until later that afternoon. Then he had to find the part needed to fix it. He made a bunch of phone calls that night and was able to track one down. He changed more appointments around so that he'd be able to come out first thing in the morning to get it fixed, which he did. But at that point, it was SO hot in the house (I think it got up to the high 80s, I normally keep my house around 70-72 degrees), it would take forever to cool back off. Needless to say, we spent 2 days and 2 nights in a very hot house! The kids ran around in just their underwear or diapers and we spent most the time down in the basement where it was MUCH cooler!

 I'm pretty sure we all slept like this for 2 nights. It was just SO hot!!! Miserable!!!

We spent a day at Grandma Dudley's pool. The kids had a blast, they didn't want to leave! The weather was good and the water was perfect! Even Sammy loved, loved, loved the pool! After the pool we went to eat at out favorite, inexpensive, kid friendly restaurant, Pizza Pie Cafe. So yummy, as usual! :)

One of the days, we had the kids all matching in their red, white, & blue. They looked so cute so we definitely wanted to take some pictures of them all together. BUT here's the joke: What do you get when you try to take a picture of 6 kids ages 6, 4, almost 3, almost 2, 6 months, and 3 months?! Some very funny looking pictures! It was a bit of a joke, to say the least! Oh well, they look cute anyway! 

Chloe does NOT like having her picture taken most of the time... unless it is HER idea. Well, she especially does NOT like having her picture taken if she is not holding Sam. Chloe absolutely loves her baby brother! You can see in these pictures how she went from mad and crying, to all smiles as soon as I let her 'hold' Sam.

Maddie & Harlee got along so well, despite the 2 year age difference. They were hilarious together! At one point they were in arguing with each other over an imaginary leprechaun. It was real girl drama, they were both in tears about it at one point. They came tattling to us saying things like "she took more gold than me", "but she took some gold out of my pot". All we could do is laugh! Seriously?! Who fights over imaginary leprechauns, rainbows, and pots of gold? Some good entertainment for us that night!

Such a fun week!!!

Monday, July 5th

It was so fun having the 4th of July on a Sunday this year because that means here in Utah it is either celebrated on Saturday or Monday.  It's turns into a full LONG weekend of celebrating this amazing country we live in, not to mention the extra family time we have because Mike didn't work on Monday, July 5th!! This is a big deal for me because Mike NEVER takes time off work, EVER! So we got a free day!

It was such a fun day for us! We started out the morning with Maddie's swim lessons (they didn't cancel those). After that we took the kids out for a walk to Bridal Falls. It was such a nice day, and they loved taking a walk on the trail. But they loved playing in the water fall even more! They were excited to walk to the snow cone stand after that and get their own snow cones.

After our walk, Mike drove us up to Squaw Peak.  It's so pretty looking out over the valley. 

 We were pretty hungry by then so we decided to go get some yummy Mexican food! The girls loved the churros for dessert! :)

Saturday, July 3rd

We celebrated Independence Day all weekend long this year, and had so much fun each day! The girls especially loved dressing up in their red, white, and blue attire each day. Some days, they only made it half a day before their clothes were dirty so we had to do laundry a couple times during that weekend because they refused to wear anything else, they 'had' to wear their 4th of July clothes, Maddie would say!

Friday night we had a neighborhood BBQ. Complete with a kids bike parade, water games, bounce house, dunk tank, popcorn & ice cream machines, and fireworks. Maddie loved the dunk tank best. She threw the ball at the target and knocked a few people in, but she also got to try the dunk tank herself! She LOVED when someone hit the target and she got dropped in the water! I thought I had pictures, but I guess we must have just got it on video on the flip camera. :(

These pictures are from Saturday night. We met Heidi & Jarom at Thanksgiving Point for their "awesome" activities & fireworks. Ha Ha! Kind of a joke! There were supposed to be a bunch of vendors and activities for the kids. I think only 1 or 2 vendors EVENTUALLY showed up. The girls did go on a little train ride with Heidi. Mike & Jarom ended up leaving to pick up pizza because there was only 1 food vendor there. The weather wasn't very good, it was SO windy! Even with all our blankets, we were freezing, but the kids had fun running around anyway. Just before fireworks, we decided to take off and watch them up at Maddie's old preschool up on the hill. We are glad we did! The fireworks were pretty good, except they only lasted maybe 10 minutes. But as soon as they were over, we got on the road and drove away. Heidi & Jarom had stayed back at the park for the fireworks and I think it took them over an hour to get out! We were already home and had all the kids in bed asleep before they even made it onto the freeway!

Chloe's Big Girl Bed

On our drive home from our Seattle trip last month, we stayed overnight at a hotel halfway through our drive. Our hotel room had a king bed and a pull-out bed.  We thought we'd let the girls try to sleep together in the pull-out bed since we didn't pack a pack-n-play for Chloe or Sam. I really didn't think Chloe would do well, considering Chloe had a hard time going to sleep when anyone else was in the room with her AND she had already hit the point of 'terrible twos' and just didn't/doesn't listen! 

 I'm sure being completely worn out from playing hard on our trip, driving all day, then swimming hard at the hotel that night, but she crashed! She was fast asleep within 10-15 minutes. So after we got home I decided to try again, since it went so well.  I still was pretty skeptical about the idea, but I still had the toddler bed in her room from when Maddie used to sleep in there. And much to our surprise... she went right to sleep again! After about a week, I had to (and still have to) go in and check on her after she's fallen asleep. We find her in all sorts of positions. Sometimes on the bed, sometimes on the floor. Sometimes right in front of the door so we have to 'push' her with the door just to get it open and get in her room. Sometimes she's covered in books, other times she is sleeping on books... that can't be comfortable! She has to sleep with multiple baby dolls too!

Swim Lessons

 Maddie started doing swim lessons soon after her 3rd birthday. She hasn't been doing them constantly, but we try to sign her up as often as we can. She LOVES it! She has gotten pretty good too. She has actually passed all the preschool classes but can't move up to the next class until she's 5 or 6, depending on which place we take her to for lessons. Her teachers are all surprised at how well she can swim for barely being 4. She can swim a few strokes on her own and has no fear. She's the first to jump in the water and loves jumping off the diving board! We are so proud of Maddie and happy to see her put all her energy into something good! :)

I obviously need to snap some pictures of her actually swimming. I get so distracted now having 2 kids to watch during lessons, rather then just one. Hopefully I'll remember to bring my camera to lessons AND remember to take some pictures!

Kids, Kids, & More Kids

 Here are a bunch of pictures taken of the kids over the past few weeks... trying to get caught up for my own 'journal'!