A Summer Cool Down

The week after school got out, the Griggs came for a visit. They are one of our most favorite families ever, and we always have fun with them when they come. One of the fun things we did this time they came to visit was go have a picnic up on Mt. Charleston. Not only is it like 25 degrees cooler up there, but it's nice to let the kids get out and run around and play. They loved it!

Landon decided he wanted to climb as many trees as he could find. With a little help from Daddy he was climbing like a little monkey.

I just love that little boy!

The older kids all ran off and played while Landon and Daddy tried to play a little Frisbee. Landon loved watching the Frisbee fly around, but wasn't a huge fan of it getting too close to him!

 5 of the 7 kids. They were very put out that I made them stop playing to get a picture. They had so much fun!

 Melis is one of my fav people in the world. I love it when she comes to visit with her family. We used to be neighbors in Utah, and I so miss her living down the street from me. It's such a blessing to have a great friend like her!

Moe was such a good sport and played baseball with the kids.....

 .... and football. They were all amazed at how fast he could throw the ball. 

The kids also loved exploring. Landon found as many sticks as he could. I'm not sure what it is with little boys and stick's, but he had quite a collection and was not happy with me that I wouldn't let him keep all of them.

We love a good time with our little family and great friends.... it's what makes life awesome!

Brayden's Egyptian Funeral

The last week of school Brayden's class had an Egyptian Funeral. They had been studying Ancient Egypt and their teacher had them make all their stuff for the funeral. Brayden really enjoyed this unit and loved learning all about the pyramids and ancient Kings. He had a lot of fun marching in the funeral precession. 

He makes a cute Egyptian! 

 The Funeral Precession went to several different classrooms. The kids were all quiet and carrying different tombs, offerings, food for the afterlife, and my favorite part was the girls at the end pretending to cry! It was hilarious and awesome! Once they got back to their classroom, they got to lay their things inside this giant tomb that they also go to help decorate.

Landon and I had fun watching Brayden and seeing what he's learned about Egypt. I love it when my kids get to do fun things that help them learn!

Only A Mother Could Love

This year for Mother's Day, Conner made me this at school. It is one of those things that a Mom just loves. It made my day and made me laugh! 

Some things I love about this, besides that my sweet Conner made it for me....

-"Cooking Time- 24 Years" Good to know that's how long it takes to make a good mom. Lucky for me, that's how old I was when Conner was born!

-If you look close, you can see he first marked the recipe as "easy" but then after some reconsideration decided the degree of difficulty of being a good mom is just "average". That's good to know, I was thinking this mom thing was pretty hard, but I guess it's not! :)

-His cute handwriting. 

-His adorable "cheesy" smile in the picture!

Conner has always been my sweet little boy. I love him to pieces and his handmade gift made my day.

Brayden's Pinewood Derby

A few months ago, Brayden has his 2nd Pinewood Derby for Cub Scouts. Since last years car and race wasn't so hot for him (since I had to help him make his car and I know NOTHING about how to make pinewood derby cars!) he had high hopes for his car this year. Thankfully Patrick was able to help him with is car this year and you can for sure tell the difference. This year it was much better!

Lubricating the wheels before the race.... apparently that is an important step that I didn't know about last year!

His car did AWESOME! He ended up winning 2nd place in his division. He was so happy! His good friend Simon won third. The difference of their times was only .001 seconds! It really doesn't get much closer then that. He was so excited to get a trophy!

Since he was in the top 3 of his division, he got to come back later in the day for the Finals. He did really well in that race too! He came in 4th overall in the entire Stake. He was pretty happy with that. He had so much fun making his car with his dad and it was awesome for BOTH Brayden and Patrick that his car did so well. They are already planning the car for next year!

Soaked!

The other day I had found some water guns in the dollar bins at Target. Landon really wanted them, so I gave in and let him get them. 

He was very excited when his brothers got home from school and wanted to go outside to play with them. So I helped them all fill up their water guns and sent them out in the backyard to play with them. Less then a minute later they were back in to fill up their guns again! We filled them up and they went back outside again. Less then ANOTHER minute later they were back in for another refill. 

Seeing that this was going to be a recurring thing and it would drive me insane, I got the genius idea of giving them a bucket of water and told them to just keep dunking their guns in that to fill them up. I came back inside content with my genius idea and got to doing some chores in the kitchen. (which by the way looks out to my whole backyard.)

After a few minutes of listening to their joyous laughter outside, I look out to check on them and see them completely soaked.... each one of them! Apparently I was too trusting to think that 3 little boys would just use the bucket full of water to fill up those little water guns. They quickly moved onto bigger and better things and started using the bucket to pour on each other.  It was kind of a hot day, so it probably felt good.

I just laughed and let them keep on drenching one another with the bucket while I finished up my cleaning. Then I got them all towels and told them to lay on the patio to dry off for a few minutes.

They thought they'd be cool and try to get a tan as well. 

Thanks to a hot sun and dry desert heat, they were mostly dry in no time and came in to change and get to home work. 

They had tons of fun!

I foresee many more water fights in their future over the hot hot summer!

The Price is Right LIVE!

A few weeks ago, my friend got some free tickets from a radio station to go to The Price is Right LIVE show down at Bally's. It isn't the show on TV, but it is based off of it, and has all the same games and they call contestants up from the audience to come and play. 

We got the classic price tag name tags, pretty awesome!!

  

It's kinda hard to tell in the picture, but that is a pic of Jerry Springer. He was the host of the show the week we went. They have different celebs as the host every few weeks. We were a little bummed we missed Joey Fatone as the celeb host just the week before! He would have been MUCH better to see then Jerry Springer. Although Jerry was kind of entertaining, he was also kind of lame.

Our overall review of the show was it was just ok. Although we had fun hanging out and chatting and being kid free for a few hours, we were glad the tickets were free. It would've really been annoying to pay $60 per ticket.... I mean, if I'm going to spend $60 on a show around here, it would not be this one. But free tickets are always fun, and it's always an adventure taking a journey down to the Strip, I still get lost every time I drive down there. We took quite the detour to get home, but it was a fun afternoon with my a great friend!

Getting a Backyard!

It has only taken almost 4 years, but we finally got a backyard!! With the incredible help of friends and members of our ward, our yard went from this.....

To this in a matter of a few hours!

It was pretty amazing to watch this all go down! In less then an hour and a half more then 25 people from our ward showed up with their shovels and wheelbarrows to haul 17 tons of rock from the street in front of our house to the backyard. They came despite the drizzling rain. Some even brought their out of town relatives to help out. It is truly humbling to see so many people give up their Saturday morning to come and serve you. 

 Brayden and Conner did a great job helping to shovel rock too!

Landon even helped for a while until one of my good friends came to pick him up. Apparently he thinks that shoveling and sweeping are one in the same!

Trenches were dug for the irrigation system for trees and shrubs that will eventually go in...

I was totally shocked at how fast that rock was moved. 

Once the rock and trenches were done, it was time to do the patio. That meant hauling 4 tons of sand from our driveway to the backyard. Again, this was done amazingly fast, about only 10 minutes.

They leveled and prepped the patio area and started laying hundreds of pavers. 

 After about 6 hours it was done, and everyone was exhausted. 

We were so grateful for all the help everyone gave in planning and putting in our yard. The boys have loved it!

No matter if it is just sitting out there and enjoying the nice weather while playing with their Pokemon cards...

....or riding their scooters around the "track", they have loved it. 

The yard was made even better the following weekend when my sister and her family came to visit and my brother-in-law was kind enough to put our swing set together. The boys and their cousin immediately tried it out. It's a huge hit!

We were lucky though, because we didn't think the swing set was so long, and it barely fit in the area...we have just a few inches to spare in each side. The boys have loved it! I don't think a day has gone by that they haven't gone outside to play on it and/or ride their scooters and eat popsicles. Even if it's hot, they wait till about 6 pm when it's shaded by the surrounding houses and it's perfect to go out and play after dinner for a while.

I think I'm gonna love having a backyard again! They boys have so much fun, and Landon runs off lots of energy out there. We have enjoyed several evenings out there together as a family and we can't wait to finish it off. We are hoping within the next year we will be able to put in the trees and shrubs and hopefully a patio cover. It's still a work in progress, but we are so happy to have the hardest part done. 

Once again we are overwhelmed by the love of our ward and just beyond grateful for the service given to us, not just for the yard, but over the past year and a half. While Patrick can do many things again and is slowly getting back to normal, it is things like putting in a yard that are still not possible for him yet. The kindness and love of those we have around us is very appreciated and we just hope that we are able to serve them back one day with the same love and compassion that they have given to us.