Just wanted to wish Kevin...

A HaPpY BiRtHdAy!

Today is Kevin's birthday but knowing that we would have just missed it, I decided to pretend his birthday was the Sunday before we left.  We decorated Jill's house with a few balloons and streamers for the day(our family tradition) and later had yummy homemade pizza made by my sister Jill and friend Amber.  It was YuMmY! 

I made a chocolate cake on my new cute cake stand I had found in Lucketts.(A cute town with lots of Antique shops.)  

I LOVE Sadie's expression here.  She was so excited all day for Kevin's "birthday"! ;)

We MISS you Kev!!  Wishing we could be with you on your special day!

We Love You!

Reporting from Washington D.C!

We are half way through our vacation and having the time of our lives!

The day we flew in, we were able to reunite with Kevin!  It was SO GREAT to see him after 4 LONG weeks!

Ours days are filled with sightseeing, swimming and relaxing!  

But sadly, oh so very sadly, BOTH of my cameras, yes I said BOTH (SLR and point and shoot) have broken since I've been out here!!  I'm sick about it!  One fell out of my purse while I was picking up Sadie at the Lincoln Memorial and the other one, my nice one, fell out of my stroller as I pulled out my purse at the National History Museum for the security check.  Luckily it's just the lens.  But it's my favorite lens!! Ugh!  Why have nice things?  They just cost more to replace!  But thankfully, my sister is allowing me to use her camera for the rest of the trip!  How could I go a day without capturing every moment of these fun times?

I'm dreading the thought of even coming home!  But I'll report of our fun trip then!  

Happy last days of summer!!

A Lemonade Stand

Cole and Sadie have been into earning money this summer and have just BEGGED me to have a lemonade stand!  A simple task that I couldn't allow to be too simple.  My brain went a little crazy.  After all of our recent busy changes,  I was MAJORLY craft deprived!  And the two colors that popped into my mind were tangerine and yellow. My inspiration had begun.

We took our sweet time preparing our lemonade stand.  Coloring posters, sewing a banner, and paint/build the stand. 

 And FINALLY just two days before our big departure to D.C...

we made cookies...

invited some friends...

and had our LeMoNaDe StAnD!!!

My favorite customer of all...

cute and adorable Mia, who couldn't get enough of those cookies!

I can't decide who enjoyed the stand more...me or the kids...I think I'm going to have to say me!   

We had a great turn out and the kids made $10.00!!  Thanks everyone who stopped by!  We even had a local city worker stop her GIANT construction TRUCK to have some cookies and lemonade!  I love it!  We'll definitely have to do this again!

* to build the stand, I found wooden crates at the craft store and found the rest of the wood in my garage.  Can you believe with my man out of town that I build this?  Not that hard.  I just nailed the top board onto the creates.  Easy.  I had lots of Acrylic paint on hand already and painted stripes on the wooden dowels using tape.  I'll have to do a tutorial on painting stripes.  The table cloth is just fabric, which I don't know the name of right  now.   

Kevin's brother Chad has been in China for that last few years and recently returned home with his cute wife Ling.  It was so nice to finally meet her!  

My MIL went to meet them for a visit before they came back and brought us home these cute dresses for the girls and a golden dragon shirt for Cole.  

Which they all just love sooooo much!!!  Thanks for the gifts!

Summer Days In Provo

My sister Jill came in town for 10 days in July and we tagged along with her and stayed at Grandpa and Nana's too.   

We spent quality time with Grandpa:

Who took the kids to the "doughnut factory" aka Krispy Kreme followed by a milkshake from Arctic Circle....

Fulfilled Cole's dream of a tree house by taking him to Lowe's and building him one pretty much on demand.

Thanks Grandpa!!  The kids couldn't be happier!

Quality time with Aunt Jill:

Eating chocolate, getting fun surprises and Cole got to hike Timpanogos Cave with Jill, Stacey Austin and Luke...

And we played a mean game of family baseball.  The kids and Jill against the grown ups. 

And quality time with Nana:

Gardening

We swam a lot too at their oh so generous neighbors house.  It was so nice to keep busy staying at my parents house for those days.  Thanks guys for letting us hang around! What great times!

Silver Lake

Now that Kevin is gone :( we have been trying to keep ourselves busy.  Which hasn't been too hard.  My friend Marie invited us to hike around Silver Lake in Big Cottonwood Canyon.  It was so pretty and the kids had so much fun!  I can't believe I have never done that before!  It was beautiful!

MaryJane couldn't have been happier!  She LOVES to be outside.  Freedom!

Afterward, the kids had a blast with the best entertainment in town....

A BOX

I had ordered a new desk for my house and it came in a great big box.  They spent hours drawing on it with markers making it their club.

MaryJane got in it too.  Life is just so fun when you have siblings to teach you the ropes.

I'm thirty-one...

My Birthday was just a few days before Kevin left so we had a little birthday/farewell get together up in Mill Creek Canyon.  My favorite way to beat the summer heat!  

MaryJane, Luke, Cole, Sadie, Kate, Austin and Zach

Cousins!

 

Fourth of July

This holiday was sort of bittersweet for me.  We had a wonderful time with family. But this is when it just hit me hard that my husband was leaving really soon and for a really long time.

My Aunt Nancy had done so many cute touches to everything (as usual).  Each table had Paper towels, knifes, scizzors and a yummy Rotisserie chicken.  The sides were served at the buffet table.  Everything tasted so good.  

I brought some sugar cookies and I couldn't believe this cute Jello dessert someone had made.  Isn't it so festive?  

Some cousins lined up in their cute holiday attire!  I had been soooo busy that Sadie just wore her dress from last year and MaryJane did too.  Even though she was just 6 months then, it still kind of fit!  Just a little on the short side.  Hey, I was just glad to stretch two years out of them!

Poor MaryJane was not a happy camper this day.  She was feeling a little under the weather.  No fair!  Shouldn't all illnesses be banned on holidays?

Mike and Chantel's family were in town so they tagged along with us.  It was great to have them here!

Sadie and Jaida.

Cole and his new found nacho buddy Jace.

My top three favorite pictures of the evening!

Clay and his camera shy little sister Tatum, Oakley's cute little shoes(especially the left one) and Cute little Molly who is MaryJane's same age.  

Fish Lake 2009

I'm trying to get the ball rolling here.  We went to Fish Lake back in June (yes a month ago) but hey, better to post late than never right?

We always love to stop at our favorite burger and fry place in Salina, The Hot Spot.  

We had a lot of big rocks near our campground and it didn't take long for Sadie to perch herself on top of one to sing Ariel's "ahh ahh ahh".  She sang it at the top of her lungs towards the beautiful lake. 

Cole's first ride on the ATV.  He was a natural!  We let him ride around in a little meadow first so he could get a feel of it.  And after a good warm up, Kevin, Cole, Luke and Grandpa went for a ride. 

While they were riding, Cole was on a trail that started to slant a little.  So to his natural instinct he turned to correct the balance.  Unfortunately there was a lake at the end of his turn and he drove right into the lake about 15 feet!!! On the ATV!! LOL!  Oh do I wish I was there to capture it on camera!  The little ATV was so light that it floated in the water!  So Kevin had to roll up his pants and go in after him.  Cole was all calm and just yelled"Dad, I'm stuck" after it happened!  So funny!  We now call that place Cole's Pond!  What a fun way to remember his first ride! :)

My SIL Stacey made all these cute shirts for the kids!  Love them!  Thanks Stacey!

Our post church family photo.  There is nothing like church at the Fish Lake Lodge!! 

After church we all went down to The Capital Reef for a fun relaxing afternoon with all the cousins.  This is the group that all played a fun game of baseball.

Then we like to walk down to the dirty devil to get cooled down and catch little minnow fish.

Our trip isn't' compete until we get a nice boat ride on the lake!  Not much luck catching any fish on the Barbie fishing pole.

But Cole's little Tigger pole scored us a fish.  My brother Brent finally broke our family's 3 year dry spell and caught us a nice Rainbow Trout!   We must scare away all those fish with all the noise the kids bring along!  Luckily our cousins who are pro fishers caught plenty of fish for a yummy fish fry!  Thanks you guys!!

MaryJane was super busy and a really hard age to have at Fish Lake.  But we still made some fun memories!  It was so nice to spend some quality time with Kevin before he left.  Fish Lake always makes for some good times!