Day #45 Our Sunflower Hut update...

Over the weekend some of our sunflowers started to bloom. They are such happy and pretty flowers. It has been fun to watch them fill into the circle we planted them it. I don't think they will ever fill in enough to really form a wall, like we intended when we first planted the sunflower hut; but they look neat, nonetheless. Here are some "before" shots from several weeks ago, followed by the current ones from today:

Before shot, several weeks ago

Just starting to grow

Same spot, today...huge growth!

standing in the middle of the "hut"

pretty flowers, cute boy...and his penguin!

There you have it! I will post more pictures in a few weeks when all the flowers bloom. I think this will have to be a new garden tradition! :)

From building a truck, to building up the Kingdom

We all love Saturdays around our house. They are either jam-packed with yard work and projects, or incredibly relaxed with sleeping in and enjoying non-scheduled family time. This particular Saturday happened to be a rather jam-packed one. It started off with the little ones sleeping in and the rest of the family picking the weeds that have quickly over-taken our garden. Once it started to heat up, we headed inside to cool off with a breakfast smoothie before heading over to the Kid's Workshop at Home Depot. In case you missed the last post on it, the Home Depot sponsors free workshops for kids the first Saturday of every month.

This month the kit was to build a Penske rental truck. It was already super warm by the time we got there, so everybody was a bit toasty while they assembled their trucks. Despite being warm, they had a lot of fun. I love watching them all work together to figure out the directions and adore watching them sit by their Dad and use tools. Here they are, hard at work:

To cool off afterwards, we hit Macey's; home of the world's largest (and cheapest) "small" ice cream cones...love that place!

With the trucks made and the last ice cream licked, it was time to head home. We ate some lunch and relaxed for a bit. Then, we took little E to the Mt. Timpanogos Temple. He has been asking us for months to take him to perform baptisms for the dead; we just haven't made it yet. The Provo Temple was closed for cleaning, but we are blessed to live in close proximity to several Temples. In our Church, we believe in performing saving ordinances for the dead, and we do these works in our Temples. If you would like to know more about my religion or our beliefs and practices, feel free to ask me in a comment, or visit this link here.

Our plan was to have Daddy Erik baptize and confirm little E and then have E wait for us while we went upstairs to do a Sealing session. Because of the closures, the Timpanogos Temple was very busy. There was an hour wait in the Baptistry. So, instead, we left E downstairs to wait his turn while we went upstairs and did a Sealing session. It worked out perfectly and it was a beautiful day to be in the Temple. I love having the opportunity to serve in the Temple, and build up the Kingdom of God; being there with our oldest son made it all the more special. I am excited to take him again, he was so happy to be participating and serving within the sacred walls of the Temple. It was the perfect Saturday! :)

Day # 39 The rather late "Spring Clean"

Typically on a Thursday, we try to do something thoughtful for someone else. Earlier in the week though, we all sat down together and wrote out Thank you notes to my brother for the fridge, and my sister for delivering it. We also wrote notes to my parents for our trip to St. George earlier this year. (I am hoping thank you notes are a "better late than never" type thing) I really need to improve on how quickly I get those sent out. We did them earlier in the week though, so we could hand deliver them when we were up for the family BBQ. That meant our regular Thursday schedule was free for a little tweaking.

I woke up not feeling very well and didn't have much energy to do what needed to be done for the day. So, I plopped myself in the living room and asked the kids to bring me all of our craft drawers, my scrapbooking drawers, my fabric bin, and our 2 large file bins. I spent the better part of the day consolidating supplies, throwing out things, and organizing every bin, tote, and drawer. It felt great to actually accomplish something on a day when I would have preferred to just stay in bed. 2 trash bags later, and all that was left to take care of was a giant stack of papers to shred. I was dreading having to sit and shred all of it in our little shredder that can handle 2 pages at a time...then it occurred to me that this was just the kind of project little fellas would love to help out with! I put them right to work and before I knew it, the papers were shredded! I may be a little late to the Spring cleaning party, but at least now when I want to be crafty, I know where all my stuff is! :) The kiddos looked pretty cute shredding paper, they lined up and each took turns putting the next paper in...yay for team work!

Who knew shredding paper could lead to almost 2 hours of fun??? ;)

Day #37 From reading about adventures, to living them

On my little desk calendar I made with cute photos of my family, there is a quote on the July page. It says: "Boys live adventures men only dream of" Ah, so true! I love sitting back and watching as my boys seek out and live their little adventures. Whether they are galavanting about in capes under the assumed identities of super heroes, or lining up every matchbox car and farm animal figure they own to create an elaborate set up among strategically placed buildings made of wooden blocks. Watching them is one of my favorite parts of being a mom. Their imaginations and the wonder and excitement they hold for the simplest things, just delights me.

Instead of being the traditional Time to Read Tuesday, we were able to head up to the beautiful mountains to spend the evening with their darling cousins. There are always plenty of adventures to be had running around in Grandpa's fields. Today's journey started by cooling of with a few cruises down the slip 'n slide.

the superman slide

strike a pose

a few of the cousins...

all smiles!

Once everyone dried off and got some yummy bbq in their cute bellies, they migrated towards the field where the horses were. Within no time, their awesome Aunt Meg had Yankee saddled and ready to ride. We spent a good couple of hours trading out riders and leading around the horse while everyone who wanted to, took a ride. Between the mild evening weather, the beautiful sunset, and the mountains encircling us, it was a spectacular scene. Watching the smiling kiddos enjoy their adventure on horseback was just icing on the cake! One day I hope to have our own field and horses and I look forward to decking the fellas out in cowboy hats and boots; but crocks and faded t's will suffice for now. Here's a few shots of the fellas mingling with the equines!

Once it got dark, we broke out the glow sticks and all the kiddos enjoyed running around in the semi-dark yard. The adults gathered in the house to relax and chat. It was a wonderful day to spend with family and combine our gratitude for this great nation and the freedoms we enjoy; our thoughts and prayers were also with our armed forces who keep this nation free, and the hundred of fire fighters working to protect the land and homes currently being threatened by fires throughout the state.

Before we left, I was able to sneak the little guys inside to snap a few shots of them with their sweet little cousin; I love how toddlers look holding babies. I got some pretty precious pictures. We are so blessed!

Day #36 Making 4th of July decorations

With the Fourth of July just around the corner, I thought it would be fun to make some kid crafts to celebrate our beautiful country. I found a fun blog via Pinterest that we got the ideas for today's projects from. You can click here to find them.
We started with the little boys painting some fireworks. The idea is to made a pipe cleaner in the shape of a fire work and then dip it once in paint and then stamp it onto your paper. Von-Bon caught right on to the concept. PQ though, didn't quite get it. He did have a great time painting, either way. Here is what I mean:

dipping the pipe cleaner

stamping his fireworks

finished product for VonBon

PQ interpretation of a fireworks display! ;)

After the painting portion of our day had concluded, we moved on to the patriotic paper lanterns. They were pretty simple to cut out and assemble, but placing the stars turned out to be some serious work; the boys were very particular about how each star looked...it was pretty cute. They even got super creative and layered some too. The punch I used cut an inner solid star, with an outer outline of a star. They meticulously mixed and matched colors. If only they showed this much attention to detail while cleaning the bathroom! ;) PQ climbed up on my lap to help me cut.

Mommy's little helper

gluing on stars

our finished lantern banner...too cute!

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Day #33 Irrigation day!

One of the kids favorite parts of living here in the summer, is our irrigation water rights. I like the idea of watering the lawn and garden every 10 days without raising our water bill. The boys love that they can splash and play in the yard for our 90 minute turn. One of their favorite things is to jump off of the front porch into the water that puddles on the front lawn. I enjoy sitting in the shade and watching them be all sorts of silly while they play. Here are some shots from our fun afternoon:

Love that I caught his natural smile!

splashing around!

jumping off the porch

he's too quick to catch his face!

handsome boy!

Day #31 No cooking here...it's too hot!

Usually on a Wednesday, we like to cook something new. It has gotten far too hot to be baking in the middle of the day though. So, today we decided to whip up some pudding pops and freeze them. Then we ate them later to cool off...much later, I should mention. The recipe we followed said that the larger sized pops took several hours to freeze. Since our popsicle molds are pretty small, I figured two hours would suffice, I was mistaken. After dinner was finished, they were finally ready to eat. The kids enjoyed them, but I was not a huge fan. The recipe we used was just pudding mix, cool whip, and some milk. I like my frozen treats nice and creamy and these had ice crystals through them and were "crunchy" with ice particles. They were fun, but I am calling that recipe a one-time shot. It won't be making into my recipe box. :) Next time we will probably just freeze up some lemonade or something. Cute pictures either way! Here are the fellas, preparing their pudding pops: