The best toys ever

Maddie is my researcher. She studies things out on the internet, decides it looks fun and she wants it, saves, and gets it. She did this process with her motor scooter that is so fun and relatively safe because it doesn't go very fast. Max and Seth now have one also. Lately, she bought some zen magnets or neocubes. I think these are the best toys ever. They might not be great with young kids, but the ages my kids are now, they are perfect. Tanner soon had to have some so he went on e-bay and got some even cheaper than Maddie. I feel like they're an "educational" toy because there is a lot of thinking and creating involved.




By the way, this is the first time I've ever used a "hyperlink" and I think I like it. I'll have to see if it works.

Growl

Max got his "Bear" the other evening during Pack meeting. He is now officially in Webelos. He's pretty happy about it as you can tell.

First day x 2

I named my title that because Maddie got to go to school a day before her brothers because they let the 7th graders have the whole school to themselves for the first day. Then the next day Maddie stayed home while Tanner, Max, and Seth had their first day. I love that they help the 7th graders like that, the school is huge compared to their old elementary school.

Here's Maddie on the way out the door. She couldn't go to sleep until 2:30 the night (morning?) before because of anxiety. I was the same way at her age. Last night she was up until 11:00pm so it's getting better. She really likes 2 of her teachers and loves A Day more than B Day.

Here are the boys on their way out. Tanner is in 9th at the Jr. High so he wasn't worried at all. He's king of the school this year. Max and Seth met their teachers the night before and were excited to go, for the first week anyway.

Here we are at the bus stop. What I didn't know at this time and neither did the kids around them, was we had already missed the bus. The bus came at 7:12 instead of 7:40 because there are now fewer busses in order to save money. I just wished the school would've informed us of bus time changes. I brought the suburban around and pretended to be the bus for the day (just for our bus stop). Little bit of a rocky start but they got to school on time. This morning we woke up pretty early and made the bus. Some neighbors want to do a carpool but I kind of like my kids riding the bus while I'm in my robe and barefeet.

March in Parade

Max and Seth get to march in a parade every year for Karate. This year Max said he'd rather watch the parade and get candy but I wanted him to be in it with Seth so I said I'd buy him a candy bar after the parade. That worked. You can't see everyone, but Grandma Sherry, Grandma Barb, Grandpa Buddy, Lincoln, Maddie, Tanner, and Jon were all there to support the parade.

Tanner and Jon decided to protect their heads with these very practical umbrella hats. Jon said they're only $2.50 each and you can't pass on that deal...You can actually.

Fianlly, the karate kids marched through, the very last in the parade

Seth ran over to get a quick drink. It was hot parade weather.

Oh What do you do in the summertime

One morning when the kids were looking for something to do they decided to draw faces on all the eggs. It was a little disturbing for me to break these eggs when it was time to use them. They were staring at me!

5K

Tanner has been getting up at 6:45 to run with the cross country team every morning, well, almost every morning. We have a neighbor that is an amazing runner in High school so he talked Tanner and some of his friend into working out every morning. So, a big group of boys entered the 5K for our City Days. Here's Daniel, Tanner, and their Young Men's leader right before the race. There was actually a lot of people there from our neighborhood. Pretty fun.

The race started at 7am on a Saturday, ugh. I asked the kids if they all wanted to get up early to support Tanner, they went back and forth but finally decided to all come. They had a pancake breakfast that we ate while Tanner ran the race. Jon looks like he's thinking "Nobody better touch my eggs!" He said he was just still waking up.


Jon is giving Tanner a big hug after he finished. He came in around 100 out of 400 people and his time was around 26 minutes. He still doesn't think he's quite good enough to go out for the cross country team next year but he's getting a lot of great exercise.

Cabin

We decided to go to the cabin while Jon's sister and mom were here. They have great outlet malls in Park City which isn't very far from the cabin so we thought we could do some school shopping. We did find a lot of great bargains and Maddie and Callie were in heaven.

Our favorite thing to do at the cabin is sit around and play board games and card games. Can we do this at home? Yes. Do we? Not very often.

My nephew Mack doing the zip line, wheeeeee.

Each person is doing their favorite thing-Maryily-sewing, Becca-talking :) Gram-crocheting, and Jon on his phone.

The first day it was really stormy so we couldn't do smores that night. Luckily the next evening it was perfect Smore weather.

Max has a gift, his mallows are always golden brown.

Tanner laughing at his own joke.

Quentin blowing out his mallow and melting a starburst at the same time. Good times.

Devon and Mary sittin in a tree

Last month my youngest brother, Devon got married to Mary who we LOVE. I didn't take any pictures for some reason but luckily my sister sent me hers. I think when I'm on my home turf I don't think to bring my camera.

We tried to do a pyramid with all the cousins. It was not a success, but fun trying. This was at Mt. Timpanogoes Temple right after the wedding.

We had a yummy luncheon afterward at Thanksgiving Point. Lyssa let Joshua and James take pictures with her camera and they got some good ones. Here are James, Max, and Thomas.

That night we had a reception in Spanish Fork in Mary's backyard, it was beautiful. Donovan and Paige got to come visit from AZ. It was good to see them and they loved having a break from their hot weather.

One of their presents was a rooster. The kids liked watching that box, I think Mary had to give it to her sister who lives on a farm.

We didn't actually get to see Devon and Mary very much because that's how weddings go. Here is a picture of them passing by. They then went on their honeymoon to the bahamas, went on our family vacation with us to CA, then went on a trip with her family camping with their mules. Now they're home and working again. Congratulations!

Washington adventure

Jon's sister Sara lives in Washington. We have never been up there for a visit in the 5 years they have lived there. We decided since Olivia was getting baptized and it was summer time we should go for it. Too bad it is soooo far and we decided to do it in one day! We got stuck in a traffic jam for almost two hours because they were "blasting." It was kind of fun for the kids because we got to get out of the cars and go to the bathroom in the nearby forest and share treats with other cars.

BY the time we got there at 1:20 am we had been in the car for over 17 hours, whoo hoo. Plus, about 30 minutes before we got there Max threw up. The roads were really windy and he was asleep so he just woke up and blaaaah. It probably didn't help that we had been eating lots of treats in the car all day. We pulled off at a closed bbq restaurant that happened to have a hose with a nozzle in the front so we used it. We were all so tired by that point and the smell was NOT good. What an adventure. The next morning when we got to see how pretty Washington is and be with the Pinson family, it was all worth it.

The next day we drove into Seattle. THis is Maddie covering her nose as we go by the sea food. We went to the Public Market Center where we got to see men throwing huge frozen fish around.

Sara also showed us "Seattle's best kept secret." It is a wall of A.B.C. gum. Pretty gross but fascinating at the same time.

After that we drove to the Space Needle. It's huge. We didn't actually go in it because they charge a lot and we had a big group. Jon's sister Becca and her 3 kids, Grandma Marilyn, Sara with her 5 kids, and our family with our 4 kids. THey have a huge fountain at the Space Needle that was SO much fun. The kids played in it for a long time. I'm so glad we made the kids all line up for a picture. I usually don't want to take the trouble to get everyone's attention then have them get organized and pose for a picture, but it's necessary sometimes. The next day we got to go to Olivia's baptism. It was really nice and she was beautiful. We're so glad we went, it was a lot of fun and so good to see the Pinsons!!

Pogo Stick King

Seth's cousin Olivia has a pogo stick, so when we were in Washington he spent a lot of time playing with it. When we got home we ordered one for him and he spent all of his allowance, he's pretty much obsessed with it. It came in the mail today and that's all he's been doing. His record is 427!! He's getting some good exercise and should sleep well tonight.

Max's birthday

Instead of birthday cake I made Grandma's famous rolo pretzel candies for the party. My mom already made a cake on his real birthday and we were going to drive to Seattle the next morning so I asked Max if it was okay if I made treats instead of a cake. Of coarse Max was fine with it. He's the type of boy that doesn't care about the details he just wants lots of friends around him.


Instead of a goodie bag filled with little treats and toys I like to buy one big thing. This year we did squirt guns that actually didn't work very well, but the boys were excited initially.

Here's Max's great friends. Lots of 9 and 10 year old boys, yay!

Max really wanted to swim at night in Grandma's pool so we had a "late night" swim party. It went from 7-10 pm, party animals! The hard part was we got up at 6 the next morning for our long trip to Seattle to visit family.

This is Max's actual birthday. The day we traveled home from CA was Max's birthday so he got to be in the car all day. He did get to sit where ever he wanted in the back of the car, whoo hoo. Also, since my parents got home before us Mom and Gram got him a couple of presents and made a cake so we drove directly to their house. He got to open presents on his actual birthday, shew.

Sorry, Max we've had such a busy travel summer around your birthday but I think it was still a great birthday! I don't know how much I'm making sense because we got home from Washington at 1 in the morning last night (this morning?) but I really wanted to blog, it's been too long. I'll blog about Washington next, it was a great trip!