My Summer Love

I'm in love with Splash Parks. I love them. Best invention EVER!!! I don't have to worry about my kids drowning, they can get as much or as little wet as they so desire all by themselves, and best of all, I don't have to get into a swimming suit! Perfect.

The new Splash Park we went to today in Riverdale was seriously dreamy! Loved it!

And my kids did too.....












We'll be going back real soon!

B.U.G.S.

B.U.G.S. stands for: Building Up Girls Standards.

This was the girls camp theme this year and I had the best time at girls camp! I always loved it when I was in Young Womens, and I loved it just as much this year being a leader. Our girls are such great girls! Really! We had no drama at all. Well, unless you count the day we got infested with ticks, that caused a lot of drama, just a different kind!


I believe this walk is where we picked up all those lovely little ticks! Fun times.


Singin' around the fire...."Big booty, big booty big booty big booty!" And I must say, Mckenzie was the "Big Booty" champ!




The food was outstanding, the girls and leaders were great, the activities, lessons and crafts were so fun, it was just all around great!

Thanksgiving Point

This little Noah's Ark-ish splash pad at Thanksgiving Point was so fun. Avery and Quinn loved playing in the water and I loved seeing and visiting with great friends. It was so good to see Amber and Cookie and their kids, and of course the best Aunt ever, Rosanna. It was like the good ole college days...except with a few extra little pip-squeaks running around! Good times!





Quinney's Top Model pose! :) He's so stinkin' cute!


Unfortunately, on the way home from this lovely event, is when we got crunched from behind on the freeway.

Where's the whole side of my bumper, you ask? Oh, just hangin' out on the side of the freeway is all, no biggy.


It aint no swagger wagon anymore!


Silba is at the shop right now getting her body and a few back innerds re-done. They tell me she'll be good as new in about 2 weeks. I'm hoping that's true, because this rental car business has got to go! I mean the rental car is nice and all, but it's not my spacious, perfect sized, big windowed, smooth riding, absolutely perfect Silba.

Two weeks and counting.....

~ Fun & Adventure Jars ~

Julie emailed me this cute idea to do with my kids for the summer. What a great idea, Avery and Quinn LOVE stuff like this! But really, who wouldn't? I had just as much fun making the jars and thinking up fun summer-ie things to put inside as Avery and Quinn have had picking a slip of paper out each day.

I get just as excited as they do anticipating what the fun activity will be for the day. And we all love Sunday night so we can see what our great adventure will be that week too!

But before we can pick an activity out of the fun jar each day, I've got a strict schedule to enforce. :) A little structure never hurt anybody, right?

.....not to mention the fact that I happen to LOVE making lists and schedules!

Avery too loves a good schedule, just like her Mama! She takes it very serious and is so good at making her bed and straightening her room before she comes downstairs. She even laid out her dance outfit in preparation for her little dance class later that morning. That's my girl!

Aww, this just makes me smile, she is just the cutest!

I love a good watermelon!

Picnic anyone?

My Dad is the most talented person I know when it comes to working/building with wood, have you seen my bedroom furniture? I'm convinced he could build anything, and I mean anything.

So when I asked him to build me this cute little picnic table for my patio, well, I knew it would turn out perfect.

Perfect it is!

Summer must be here!

The last couple of weeks we've been having fun in the summer sun. {If you can call it summer anyway, the weather hasn't exactly been summer-like so far.}

We bought a fun new sprinkler this year and Avery, Quinn and Madelyne were having a blast with it!

Getting warm in the sun.

Now that's how you get a tan!

These three little pip-squeaks were having a ball on the tramp!

She is one blonde beauty!

***************

This time it was warm enough to set up the pool. Funny thing is, the kids hardly spent any time in it. Avery, Quinn and Madelyne were far too busy watering all of our trees, flowers and grass to even think about getting in the pool. :)

Trying to get a group shot with little Hayzen in it is impossible. He's always on the move!

Taking a break from all his hard work of watering everything in sight for a cookie.

This little fella loved splashing in the pool.

Nothing better than a backyard pool day on a hot summer day!

Hayzen is One!

Yesterday we celebrated Hayzen's first birthday with a big barnyard shin dig! What a fun party!

This is the cute invitation for his big celebration.

Avery was so cute and wanted to make decorations with me for the party. So while I made the "Hayzen is one!" birthday banner, she crafted these cute decorations of her own. I LOVE the rooster on top of the barn and the hay in front, so cute!

I am so happy with the cake, I just think it turned out so cute. This was my first two tiered cake with fondant and let me just say, it was harder than I thought it would be! But well worth it in the end, it was adorable if I do say so myself!

I made the cute little animals pictured on the invitation out of fondant, the horse is my favorite.

The cow is pretty darn cute too.

So is the pig.

And I'm so happy with how the little sheep turned out too! I just love them all!

What a cute cake!!!

The grub for our barnyard birthday shin dig.

The cute birthday boy!

It took Hayzen a few presents to get the idea of what to do and how to do it, but he got the hang of it pretty fast.

Where's Hayzen?

There he is!

Where's Hayzen?

There he is!

That game could have went on for hours!

We had a horse pinata for the kids, here's Quinney getting ready to take his best shot.

The other game we played was called the "Hayzen Quiz". I asked six questions about our birthday boy and whoever got the most right won a prize.

The questions were:

1. How much does he weigh? 18 lbs. 3 oz.
2. What's his least favorite vegetable? carrots
3. How many teeth does he have? 6 -4 on top, 2 on bottom
4. What's his favorite game to play? peek-a-boo
5. Where is his birthmark? on his neck under his left ear
6. Name one of Hayzen's three favorite things to crawl to that are forbidden. Ruby's food, heat vents and door stoppers

Mom and Tammy tied with 4 right answers. Great job you two!

Time for the birthday boy to dig in to his first birthday cake. When I first put his cake in front of him all he wanted to do was lift up the plate and play with it, he didn't even care about the cake. Silly fella, don't you know that that's white cake with buttercream frosting?! :)

"Mmmmm, that's yummy."

"But I'm done."

"I like the chocolate cake better."

Hayzen must take after his big brother because Quinney sure was enjoying his chocolate cake!

At the end of the party we handed out the party favors. Mmmm, looks tasty!

I still can't believe it's been a whole year since we had our Hayzen boy, it's gone by so fast. He is my sweet little brown-eyed, button nosed boy and I love him SO much. He is my joy everyday, my little Hayzen baby.

Happy 1st Birthday sweet baby boy!