mom, I love you

My sweet Widdow.  Brennen was very quietly working on a little note.  He came up to me all shy and said "Mom I have a surprise for you."  It was this note which he read.  "Mom I love you."  Melt my heart, this little man I love him dearly.  It was such a sweet gesture because I was so frustrated with my children today, I was just ready for the day to be over and start fresh.

I told him I loved it so much he wrote another one that says, "Mom, Peter loves you too."  These are the moments I cherish.  Oh to be a mother.  The greatest job in the world.

WAR

It was raining so we had our windows and doors open. It started to thunder quite loudly so Peter jumped up a slammed the door shut. I looked at him and asked, "Peter what is that?"
To which he answered "WAR"

nice mama

Eating lunch at Cafe Rio Peter says to me. "Thanks for being such a nice mama to me. I know I can always count on you." Then he gives me a big hug then steals my drink.  Such a silly boy.
  His new thing is winking.  Whenever he says something just between us he gives me a little wink.

Just another day at Grandma's

Hyrum and Lucy

My kids have the coolest Grandma.  For Lizzy's birthday she whipped out the cotton candy, and snow cone machines.  This was just a Sunday but Lizzy I am sure felt very special!

Lizzy

Georgia, Peter, Jenni, Landon, Brennen, Wyatt

Jenni, and birthday girl Liz.

Brennen, Hyrum, Lizzy, Jenni, Sam

Manila Creek Park

It has been Hot.  I actually like the hot but we still needed to find a watering hole to cool off.  This particular day we chose the Manila Creek Park.  Its a little reservoir where you can swim and fish.  The water is quite brisk but on a day in triple digits, the cold is welcome.  After just arriving a truck pulls up to restock the fish.  This was really a treat for the kids. (I am including myself as a kid)  They hooked up this pipe to the tank off the truck, pulled the switch and tons of fish came spurting out.  The kids all squealed with excitement and the fish jumped and squirmed around their ankles.  Some caught the fish with their bare hands and others shied away.  I have never experienced this before and was equally delighted as the children were.  

William brought a couple of friends to the pond and they spent the majority of their time in the boat paddling back and forth exploring the little reservoir.  Now that my kids can all swim I am having a little more freedom. I took the opportunity to swim back and forth a couple time stretching and exercising in the refreshing water.  Nothing drastic mind you just enjoyable.  I love little morsels of summer like this.

I am trying to upload a video of fish restocking.  If I can get it to work its fun to watch.

Draper Day's parade

William resting until it starts. We got him up too early

We hadn't been to a parade this year and we were feeling like the season was not complete with out going to a parade.  We missed the Sandy City one because of Stadium of Fire. We missed the Lehi ones because it was just so HOT.  My darling hubby just can't handle the heat.  I had to pick my battles, if I wanted him to do and activity later that day I knew I couldn't make him sit in the heat that morning so we didn't.   This brought up the option of going to the Draper days parade.  I grew up in Draper, and all these memories came flooding back as we walked down the familiar street looking for a place to watch the parade.  Good memories.  My dad LOVED the parade.  when we were younger he always encouraged us to participate in it.  I don't think I actually watched the Draper parade until I was 16, I was always in it.  He would make sure to set the trailer up to save our spot and invite all our good friends to come join us.  He loved to yell CANDY, CANDY, CANDY!! while sitting in his signature lawn chair, cheering for some random political person in hopes of getting more candy out of them.  It was always entertaining.  We would be enjoying ourselves so much we never noticed the heat.

Peter staying behind the line

the coolest ambulance I've ever seen

The Parade was good.  A little too long though, we didn't even finish the parade before we had so much candy we started throwing it back as we headed off to our car.  I had a rule that the kids were not allowed to cross the white line.  I have seen many close calls of children running into the street to get candy almost to be run over.  This ruins it for everyone so I figure if I can make sure my kids are staying back at least I'm doing my part in letting the parades keep their candy tradition.  Peter kept true to my rule.  He put his feet right up to the line but never crossed it.  It was actually comical to watch.  He would see candy in the street just out of his reach, try to get it without moving his feet.  It was like someone had glued his shoes to the asphalt.  

a miniature fire truck.  It was so cute

For me to say a parade is a success it must have 3 major things.

 1. a band.  It can be a marching band or bagpipe band preferably both!

my boys loved this Lego float

2. real floats. Not just cars with people in them

3. give aways.  Candy, coupons, T-shirts.  I'll take whatever they've got but please give me something.

This parade was definitely a success.

My vote for the coolest float.  the boat rocked back and forth

The prettiest float

Stadium of Fire

For the 4th of July Scott, Ellie, and I got to go to Stadium of Fire.  I hadn't been to Stadium of Fire in YEARS.  I remember the last year I went the pre-show was terribly boring and my dad started making paper airplanes and throwing them into the crowds.. Once it got started it spread like wild fire.  The security got into it and started threatening to throw out any patrons caught with airplanes.  The time before that I was actually in the stadium of fire.  I was one of the dancers and boy was it a lot of work but we got a good spot for the show.  

This year it was Circ Di Solei, Carly Rae Jepson, and Kelly Clarkson.  The acrobat were a little hard to see but I was amazed at how high they threw each other and this star move they did.  They had 5 people standing on 1 hand each clasping their remaining hand and a 6th person was doing a 1 handed handstand on their clasped hands.  IMPRESSIVE!!  

Carly Rae was a okay.  You could definitely tell she is fairly new to show biz and her song content was meant for a younger crowd but she did alright.

Kelly Clarkson however was stupendous!! I really love her music. Funny side story.  When Kelly Clarkson was first starting out, Scott and I were in the car listening to one of her songs.  When the song ended Scott said, "I hate to say it but I think I am becoming a Kelly Clarkson fan."  WHAT I HEARD WAS, " I think I'm going to kill the Clarkson family."  I said to him, "WHAT? Who are the Clarkson's and why do you want to kill them?"  He told me to clean out my ears, but now its a running joke with us.

 She seemed so down to earth and inspired by music.  I was impressed with her singing the whole night she has definitely got a set of pipes on her.  I think what keeps her grounded is the fact that she openly has God in her life.  She talked about it often and how blessed she was.  I appreciate that.  That someone famous is not afraid to openly acknowledge God in their life.  In today's world people are so afraid of offending others, or on the flip side get so defensive if God is mentioned, it was a breath of fresh air that one in that position positively admits it and it grateful for Him.     

 The fireworks were awesome!!  The fact that they have a real choir singing patriotic hymns makes it that much more incredible.  We had a blast.  I did feel a little bad that I left my boys to play with my brother Scott and his family but only a little bad.

Colonial Fest

sometimes I wish we could bring this back

The great thing about summer is festivals, festivals, festivals. They are everywhere and we try to take advantage of as many as possible.

The Colonial Fest was something we chose to do not knowing what to expect.  When we first pulled up it looked really small but looks were deceiving.  We went around from both or shall I say tent to tent.  Everything was as real and authentic as it could be considering.  My children were surprisingly well behaved and interested all the things we came across.  I think their favorite station was the doctor. (surprise, surprise)  He had all his medical supplies laid out on a table and patiently described what each one was for.  I myself was intrigued.  I felt sorry for the poor demonstrator who was probably sick of us.  

One fact I didn't know was that tea was pressed into heavy brick form, not the leaves like we know today.  They had leaves but just for the very wealthy.  That is why it was such a problem when they threw the tea in Boston Harbor it sank like a brick.  They say on some days you can still smell the tea.

I was proud that my children were attentive and respectful at most all the stations.  Their next favorite was the armor.  It almost knocked Peter Pie down because it was so heavy but he thought he was so cool.  William begged to keep it, although it was out of our price range. (Not that I would have gotten it.)

We tried some super delicious molasses cookies. My mom, Scott and I love molasses cookies!!

We watched this one lady painstakingly make lace.  I don't know how she had the patience to do it.  I asked her and she said it was really fun.  I had to take her word for it.  I personally was impressed by how long it took to make thread to make cloth.  

Our last stop was the games.  The kids had fun trying it all out.  Brennen was really good at the hoop game, and William tried to outsmart my mom on a dice game, tried being the operative word.  

We had a good time learning as much as we could about this time period.  We are suckers for sneaking in learning opportunities for my kids. . . and maybe some of it is for me as well.

my sweetie giving me a rose. Awww

Brennen trying his hand at grinding seasonings at the cooks tent

medical tools

brick of tea

dress up.  isn't he the cutest little patriot? 

reporting for duty