Summer Fun

Oh yes my friends... plans are made.

This last monday night, the last monday before summer, is ALWAYS exciting. WHY? That's when the kids and us make the SUMMER TO-DO LIST!

This year I've had ALL KINDS of crazy ideas in my head for weeks that I was so excited to do this summer. Here are a few of my faves:

-Sound of Music Night Lily has been really in to the soundtrack lately. And who even knows what "Schnitzel with noodles" is... so we decided to have a night where we watch the movie and make "schnitzel with noodle" and "crisp apple streudel" YUM!

(words from the song "These are a few of my Favorite Things")
-Sunrise hike with breakfast at top (oh yes, waking the kids up at 4:30... HOW FUN!)
-Make a model CASTLE. We are NOT buying a kit. We are going to make little furniture from stuff around house, a moat, drawbridge.... HOW COOL!! (Like the size of a little doll house)
-Ride the Lightrail to phoenix to go out to eat as a family
-Make homemade icecream (Emma's request)

-Write and illustrate a BOOK! This is the one we are MOST excited about. We are writing the story, creating all the miniature scenes, and making a REAL book like on shutterfly.

I do not sign my kids up for a ton of stuff in the summer... because we love doing tons of crazy stuff all together!

I LOVE no schedules. I LOVE summer.

(but don't worry, my kids do tons of daily chores to earn the fun stuff)

Canyon Lake

JET SKIING AT CANYON LAKE!

This is my AWESOME dad above and below.... always with a grandchild! He planned the day,
rented the jet skiis and brought his kayaks.

Here he is with the 4 year olds in the kayak... I LOVE my dad!!


The cute little Sophie above made the day a little HARD! She was fussy to go ALL day with no nap...
napping was not a problem for El Jefe though:

Good time. I love Arizona. The Canyon Lake was so pretty!

Rockstars

TALENT SHOW TIME!

Dallin has been taking guitar for a while now. For the primary talent show this year (a few weeks ago) Dallin played the guitar and Emma sang the song "Who Knew" by Pink.

They did a good job... however... for as spunky as Emma is in person... she sure doesn't ham it up on the stage! Before the show at home I sang with Dallin to try and show Emma how to ham it up a little more and really put emotion in to the song... but what happend was I scared her in to thinking she would look as retarded as me if she tried that.... so in an effort to look cooler then what her mom demonstrated to her at home.... she just stands there. ha ha

(the music you hear is all Dallin and Emma,

no background music this time)

Girls Trip

What is this you see in the background??

The Gila Valley Temple

Ashlin and Vanessa came home from school tuesday BEGGING me to take them to the Gila Valley Temple open house the next day, wednesday. I figure if that's what my kids are begging for, how could I resist? We rearranged our schedule and I took just my 2 biggest girls Emma and Ashlin, and ofcourse, Vanessa...

Oh yah baby, that's right: NO BABY, NO PRESCHOOLER, NO BOYS.
Twas SUCH a break to go on a roadtrip with just us girls. LOVED IT!! The temple was beautiful, and peaceful, and I ofcourse cried being inside it with my girls. So Special.

Another bonus of the trip was checking out downtown Safford... yee-haw.

But the one SPECIAL SURPRISE that I had NO idea was even there... was this Gila Valley courthouse with 3 war memorials out front.

I knew my grandpa served in ww2,

and grew up in the Pima area,

and sure enough...

his name was on the memorial.

What a neat thing for my girls and I to see.

(Had to crop myself out of the above picture, twas painful on the eye)

I love all of my children, but wow, it is SO EASY to just hang out with the older ones!!!

ps- This temple was just recently built. Before a temple is dedicated as a House of the Lord, anyone in the public is invited to come and take a tour inside. After dedication, you can only go inside a temple as an adult with a temple recommend.

knock knock

KNOCK KNOCK

Whose there?

ORANGE

Orange who?

ha HA ha HA
Emma had this Arizona State project on Arizona resources. She had to make a display and dress up in a related costume. I came up with the "orange" costume. Her whole school came through the "State Fair" to see the 4th grade projects. Emma told everyone the knock knock joke we made up when they came to her display. ha ha, we were cracking up about her joke and costume!!

Do YOU know the resources of Arizona, known as the 5 C's???
Citrus, Cattle, Copper, Cotton, Climate

Don't think I am a good mom here either. Oh no. Emma had all quarter to work on her project. We did NOTHING. It was due monday. Sunday night, mothers day, Bruce comes up to my room (where I was chillaxing) holding this packet of requirements wondering why we/she hadn't done anything. OUCH. TOTALLY FORGOT!! But it was Mother's Day, I didn't want to spend it like that. So I de-stressed him and told him I would take care of it, my way.

My Way = Emma missing school monday

Instead of rushing through the project and doing a quick job, I decided to let Emma miss school monday, and have a mom day. We did our own Arizona Resource tour, and I drove her all over town visiting places that fit under the 5 C's.... a dairy, a cotton field, a citrus farm, golf course and fancy pool (climate brings tourism) and the Arizona Museum of Natural History. We had a picnic in the orange groves and got a cookie at Sweet Cakes...

and took pictures of her at all the places for her poster.

(however, she was grounded from playing with friends for the rest of the week because she didn't remember either, her homework is her responsibility)

AND, notice the Egyptian pyramid project I did with Logan last week... (not even pictures of the moon project with Dallin and science project with Ashlin)

Logan is in FIRST grade. This project wasn't even homework. But he saw Dallin had done one earlier, and since they were also learning about Egypt, he begged me to do one with him. So I did. He told his teacher he was going to bring in a pyramid, and not a 1st grade drawing of one, but like a SIXTH grade project. It was SO cute how excited he was. It was fun, and we mostly did it because we had all the stuff left from when we made Dallins.

I am SO done with the end of school year and all the projects that means. But I have to admit, it is actually really rewarding to create something, and spend that time one on one with the kiddos. Because you know enough time is spent getting busted around here, I have to counter balance that with some jolly times too. :)

Moving to Mars

Quote from Family Home Evening tonight:

After the kids listened to a story about President Hinckley moving his family from Colorado to SLC, Utah because the church called him to....

Logan, age 7, asked us- "Would you guys move anywhere if the church asked you to?"

Me- "Dad and I would do anything God asked us to do"

Logan- "Would you even move to Mars?"

Me- at this point a couple kids asked me a question at the same time, so I answered both and said " It would be hard, but we would do our best"

Logan- shocked, and kinda snickering, whispers- "they're..... gonna..... die...." (speaking of us doing our best to move to Mars)

ha ha

Family Time

Monday night for Family Home Evening

we went to the Riperian Preserve.

I had WANTED to do a hike that night, to take advantage of the last nights of beautiful weather... but it took too long making pizza (homemade baby), so we settled for a walk around the preserve.

The boys brought a bathtub toy net, a net bag, and 2 little containers to catch stuff with.

-We got in the car and the kids argued most the way there (This means me trying to referee the ridiculous accusations, and Bruce sitting there thinking "WHY does Cherryl get involved, just ignore it already!")

- 1 of the 2 containers was broken (thrown on the ground when someone was mad they weren't catching anything)

- Some brand new expensive tennis shoes were drudged through the muddy creek (grrrrr)

-We did not have a lesson when we got home, because we were just SO ready to put the kids in bed.

... but thats life huh, at least the weather was perfect.

(Ashlin took above and below picture)

Ashlin took this one:

aaaand Ashlin took this one:

*Ashlin just informed me I was plagiarizing if I did't say which pictures she took, so there.