June 2014

June was full of lots of random awesomeness. Ryan's last day of school was at the very end of May, so June was our first month of summer break! I was a little worried about having Ryan home full time, but I have to say I am just LOVING summer break! It was always my favorite time as a kid and I am realizing it will be my favorite time as a mom too. I love having my kids home and making our own schedule. It helps that our neighborhood is full of eager playmates for my boys. There are days that go by where they just check in for lunch and spend the rest of the day running wild in the backyard with friends. It's just how I remember summers being. I try to plan about three activities a week where the boys and I go out in the morning and do something fun just the four of us. So far this is schedule is working out just great! 

One of the kids' favorite games to play in the backyard is dress ups. For about 10 minutes I will have all kinds of kids coming into my house and going to the basement to get their gear. They come up with masks and weapons and costumes. Then they spend hours in the backyard playing battle and ninjas and spies. I saw this idea on Pintrest to make a Ninja mask out of a t-shirt. Ryan felt pretty legit as the blue ninja that afternoon. 

The first week of June was full of preparations for Ryan's birthday party. He couldn't settle on one theme so we decided to plan a Ninjago/Star Wars/ Super Hero party. I just picked one activity to match each theme and it ended up being the easiest party to plan! For the Ninjago portion of the party I decided to try my hand at a homemade Ninjago piñata. Ryan helped with one of the layers (it was a three day process) and he loved it! The younger boys were sleeping and it was fun to have some one on one time with him. He kept saying, "This is so fun!"

Camden spends his days watching his brothers dress up as different super heroes so you can imagine he was very enthusiastic about dressing up as super baby- complete with a shirt as a cape!

How cute is this little swimmer?! And I'm over the shock of seeing my 15 month old with weapons in his hands throughout the day. In fact, it's to the point that I'd be more surprised to see him without a weapon than for him to walk into the room with a ninja sword or cowboy gun!

The finished piñata. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little impressed with myself.

We spent quite a few evenings at our neighborhood park. Camden loves the swings and Brady has gotten into pushing him! Could my job get any easier?! (Don't answer that.)

Camden discovered the Mr. Potato Head glasses. He now comes to me with them a few times a day wanting me to put them on him. I guess he sees his brothers with glasses and just wants to fit in!

I'm trying to teach Camden to be "soft" when he looks at flowers. His natural reaction is to try and pull the flowers off their steams. We were at the Children's Museum splash pad when I decided to teach Camden to just smell the flowers instead of destroy them. He picked it up pretty quick and soon he was crouching down to smell each and every flower he could find.

Camden was having a rough evening (hello teething. I hate you.) so I wrapped him in a blanket and set him up in front of a show. He sat there looking adorable for quite some time.

Just one of the many dress ups Brady and the neighbor boy came up with one afternoon. Spiderman!

Brady and Warren

My sister came to stay with us for a few days while her husband was out of town. While she was here we went to Rita's frozen custard (I'm officially obsessed.) Brady got a cone. We wiped his face clean at least three different times before this photo was taken. He really enjoyed his custard!

We've been exploring the Children's museum every chance we get. Each time we go we find a new thing to play on. There are tons of places to play outside! We spent one Saturday afternoon exploring the outdoor areas and discovered some pretty awesome things!

Camden has been getting his molars in and has had a terrible time with it. He gets so fussy in the evenings when I am trying to make dinner. This has become his evening routine. Waiting on the couch watching Curious George until Zach gets home from work so that I can work on dinner.

We found a new park to play at by our house. It's nothing special but the kids love it because it's something different. The whole time Brady was climbing up this ladder he was whispering to himself, "Please don't fall. Please don't fall. Please don't fall." It was hilarious. And (spoiler alert!) he didn't fall.

Lindsey and I made a t-shirt quilt on her last night here. Why we waited until her last night to work on it I'll never know, but it was fun to put together and it made me realize how much I've missed working on sewing projects and other crafts!

My brother and sister-in-law spent a week visiting Utah from Minnesota. They have two little boys that line up perfectly with Brady and Camden. It was so much fun to watch the cousins play. We were lucky and got to spend a few days playing with Chris and his family. We went to the Dino Museum and out the lunch one day and to the Children's Museum and a picnic lunch another day. We also had a family dinner with Anne and Lindsey and Chris and my grandma who came down from Salt Lake. Zach has yet to perfect his iPhone picture taking skills (i.e. DON'T MOVE THE PHONE WHILE TAKING THE PICTURE!) so this is the best group shot we got that night. A liiiiiiitttle blurry if you ask me. I'm not mad about it or anything.

We had some passes to a family fun center that expired on the first of July so we made good use of it while we could. We went one random Thursday night and practically had the whole place to ourselves. The boys rode this plane ride over and over again. The ride would end and they would circle around to get back in line and they would make it back on the ride every time.

Poor little Camden was stuck just watching them. He doesn't know any differently though, so he didn't complain.

While my brother was here we went to the Children's Museum. Brady has been intrigued with rock climbing recently and he spent a long time at the climbing wall in the museum. We'll have to get my dad to take him real rock climbing the next time he comes to visit (hint. hint.)

Here we are in front of the museum on our way out.

Lindsey and Rick saved our weekend one weekend and came watched the boys so Zach and I could go on a date. It was so fun to get out of the house just the two of us. We went to the Parade of Homes and walked through some really incredible homes. Thanks Lindsey and Rick for watching the kids!

We spent a fun Saturday morning down at the Smith's house in Orem. The kids played to their hearts content with their friends, Tucker and Calvin. They blew up a huge inflatable pool and let the kids swim all morning long. Not very long into our drive home, I looked in the back seat to see this. All that swimming wore little Camden out!

June meant trips to the dentist for the boys. I love our dentist's office. They have TV screens in the ceiling for the kids to watch while they clean their teeth, there are train tracks that run all throughout the office with a little toy train that they love to point out and they get a little goody bag with a toothbrush, tooth paste and floss at the end of their visit. On top of all that, they get a balloon and a prize. Since we go every 6 months, Brady and Ryan remembered their last visit. So when I called them in from the backyard to go, Brady did a happy dance and sang, "Oh yea! We're going to the dentist! Oh yea! I'm going to get a goody bag!" Ryan and Camden reached new levels of sibling adorableness while waiting for Brady to get his teeth cleaned.

Brady was much more confident this trip. The last time he needed me to sit with him while they took his x-rays and I had to hold his hand while they cleaned his teeth. I think Pam was in town when we went last time so I left Camden home with her. This time, however, I brought the stroller so I'd have a place to set Camden in case I needed to go help Brady. When the time came for him to go get his x-rays I asked him if he wanted to sit on my lap or go up alone. He told me he would go alone and he walked straight up to the chair. He knew what to expect because Ryan went first. He did so great! He was so brave! It made me realize he's grown up a lot in the last six months. It makes me so excited to see him thrive in preschool in the fall!

One afternoon Ryan came to me and said he wanted to do a lemonade stand. Luckily, we had just bought some lemonade mix at the store a few days before so I said "sure!" He set up shop in front of his friend Lukas' house. He was so excited as we were getting everything ready. He made the sign and kept saying things like, "I can't believe I am going to sell lemonade!" and "I am going to make so much money!" Unfortunately (in this case), we live on a virtually trafficless street so there were no cars to flag down. Brady and I made a couple trips down there to buy some and we have nice neighbors who bought some too. I was shocked at the end of the day when we counted his coins and he made $7!

We are loving our long summer days! School starts again on August 19th and I am trying to figure out a way to squeeze all the things we want to do into the next month and a half. I have a feeling it's going to go by so fast! Slow down summer!