June Randoms

Here's some other stuff that's been going on this past month....

Swimming!  Surprise, surprise!  We have many fun neighbors who let us use their pools, so we happily do!

More visits to the water park.  My kids are really goofy and like to wear their goggles at the water park sometimes...

One magical day, Claire somehow got an orange wristband... even though she's several inches too short... but for that one special water park visit, she got to ride the kiddie slides!  And she LOVED it!!  I just had the most fun watching her go on the slides over and over again.  She's a brave and fun little girl.  :)  You can tell I was excited by the excessive number of videos...

 
Claire making a rather unfortunate exit off the slide... one reason why she probably should be a little taller before being able to legitimately play on them - haha...  but I just continue to record video instead of helping her out :) (and sorry for the vertical video!) 

Claire made this excited face with hands in the air, that she does at the very end of this video, almost every time after going down the slide....
 
And she willfully got dumped by the bucket of water with her big sisters!  What a funny lady...

The kids have been taking tennis lessons from one of the cute Laurels in our ward, Ciara... the girls have LOVED it!  And only Ciara could make tennis fun in this heat...

The only picture I got on Father's Day was of our dessert... :)

We had a really great date night with our favorite friends!  Carrie and Lynndsey are seriously the BEST.  They both make me so happy :)  We went to Pei Wei for dinner...

And then to see Superman at the Studio Movie Grill, where we enjoyed delicious desserts during our movie...

Circus!

This was a special treat for the kids to get to go to the circus!  It was exciting for them to go downtown and go out to eat and then see a show just for them.  

One of our new favorite places to eat out as a family is Habit burger.  Whenever I take a picture, Claire tilts her head... even if she's in the middle of eating or drinking...

Circus time!

We were in the nosebleeds... so we got to go up several levels!

We were there a little early, but by the time the show started, all the seats around us were filled.  I was prepared and snuck in treats and glow sticks for everyone...

My favorite was seeing the elephants.  It's pretty amazing to see them doing tricks...

Cannonball lady!

It was a fun family night!

Midsummer's Eve

Time to float a cake and recite our favorite poems!  Grandma Dangerfield is the most fun with holiday celebrations - she started this tradition of floating a cake as a summer solstice activity when her own kids were little.  It's strange but fun!  I actually found a great little blog article written about the adorable Tasha Tudor book that was the inspiration for the cake floating- see here :)  I also stumbled across a post from one of my favorite mommy blogs - they float cakes too!  Try it - you'll like it :)

Becca was excited to read aloud some pages from her favorite book - Green Eggs and Ham.  Also, note the used otter pop wrapper as her bookmark - welcome to summer :)

I was getting some goofy faces from the kids...

It's really a shame that no one in our family has a pool... :(

Scout "reading" us her poem - and a cute Ford head  :)  That boy is the cutest...

Carol reciting the Jabberwocky... VERY enthusiastically...

Let us eat cake!

There's PLENTY of room in the pool, wouldn't you say?

Hiding from the Sun

I was looking through pictures from the month of June - and found many indoor activities to keep ourselves out of the hot sun and busy - since we can't comfortably picnic or hike, we need to get creative.  

I haven't done many crafts lately... the kids were begging to do some sort of craft... so I searched Pinterest, and tweaked it to work with the supplies we had - sun mobiles...

Making cupcakes...

Kid produced tea parties...

Star Wars Movie Night!  We watched one of the Star Wars movies and had sugar cookies (shaped like the Millennium Falcon and Tie Fighters) with Yoda Soda floats (lime sherbet and homemade lime soda)...

A good old fashioned blanket fort... it stayed up for several days - and the kids actually slept in it overnight a couple of times...

More journal writing (this fizzled out of our routine unfortunately shortly after this... but some writing in the summer is better than no writing!  I'll take what I can get)...

The girls really like helping in the kitchen - occasionally I allow them more independence in making meals - they made us grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner one night... mostly on their own.  :)  Claire is in the backyground, kept happy with a pile of grated cheese and a sippy cup - haha

And more summer movie days (with messy summer hair)...

Visits to the Science Center

The kids always spend a while playing with the flat blocks...

I love this sweet face...

Wheelchair races...

Running to the car!  These guys never run out of energy :)

We have season passes, so we went again later that week - this time with daddy when he got done with work.  It's only about 5 minutes away from the hospital...  Everything is more fun with daddy!

Introducing Aaron and Stefani Szymanski!

The wedding festivities started on Thursday evening - we had a lovely family dinner in the President's Room of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.  The setting was beautiful.  Here is Emma posing with past Presidents of the Church :)

My mom and her mom, Grandma Smith

My Uncle Brad and Aunt Stacy (Brad is my mom's brother)

The Happy Couple!

Stefani's mom and dad...

My awesome mother-in-law helping me wrangle my kids at the dinner table :)

Becca with Aunt Jan, Aunt Julie, and Grandma Szymanski

Stefani's many sisters!

Sarah with Uncle Dave and Aunt Debera (Debera is my mom's sister)

Aaron is marrying into a family full of women!  Good luck!

On Saturday afternoon we gathered at the Draper, Utah temple for the big event :)  My sweet sister Sarah watched after my 4 crazies during the sealing.  Props to her!!  She even had to change a poopy diaper and help a certain Jake find a bathroom for a potty emergency.  After the sealing we waited outside for the bride and groom to appear...

Yay!  Here they come!  Mr and Mrs Szymanski!

Lots of hugging...

Emma was SO excited to get to hold Stefani's dress while she walked.  Stef was like a real life princess in the eyes of my girls... they were in awe of her all day...

Aaron was the bow tie expert... he helped out several guys get theirs tied appropriately :)

That evening Stefani's family hosted a beautiful reception at Sundance in Provo Canyon.  We got there early so the photographer could take some pictures...

The kids all got their own flowers... they were sooo happy!

Dads and Grandpas dancing with the kids :)

Stefani was really fun dancing with the kids...

 

Old family friends that my parents met when I was a wee babe back in Pennsylvania...

These little dudes were kept entertained stomping ants...

Congratulations Aaron and Stefani!  We love you!!