July 4th

Are you seeing this?  All six cousins smiling and looking in the same direction.  I must say that I think this is a first.  I think it is a true sign that they are getting older and growing up.  

Our 4th was spent at the Gilbert soccer field watching fire works. Happy Birthday America.

Girls Camp

Before we celebrated our Luke I spent the week with the girls in my ward up at girls camp.  I haven't been to camp since I was 17. I had a wonderful experience, it was fun, it was spiritual, peaceful, calming, beautiful hot, exhausting and dirty.  This was the first time that I had been away from all my kids for that long.  My time was well spent with these girls and I am so grateful that I was able to have that experience with them.  I was able to see them grow and build stronger relationships with each other. It was a privilege to be a witness and a participant in such a wonderful week.

As for the home front, Kevin took charge and with the help of Aunt Amber made my absence so fun that they didn't miss me one bit.  The week was a win win for everyone.

TWO

See that curly hair kid in the middle, he is our 2 year old and we love him to pieces. He started out his big day with a happy birthday song by the whole family and he got one of his presents, an airplane.

We than moved on to breakfast, donuts of course. He loved blowing out the candle on it and he loved the donut too.

Last minute we decided to go see Brave as family.  Luke was good through the whole thing and as always loves the popcorn and drink, mostly the drink.  When we got home we thought it was a good time to bring out some of his other presents. A kiddie pool for the back yard and some diving fish.  Luke is loving fish right now, he loves to feed our fish and read about fish and watch the screen saver with fish.  I love it because he says the word "fishy" so cute. 

 Happy boy playing in the kiddie pool.

In the evening we had family over for dinner and cake. Hot dogs for dinner because it is one of Luke's favorites and a fish cake made by mom.  It's not the prettiest thing but he was happy to have a fish cake.

 Here is my boy enjoying his cupcake. 

Somethings that we love about Luke are

• his horse and pig noise, 
• they way he says pupcake for cupcake,
• the way he says HEY when you do something he doesn't like
• he will wrestle you if you lay down on the floor
• he can give great kisses
• his curly hair

Somethings Luke can do are

• do a roll over
• jump up with both feet 
• identify a letter

Somethings that Luke likes are

• books
• fish
• anything that flies (planes, superman)
• to swim
• watch movies

We love to have this fun, happy kid in our family he is one special adorable kid.

Summer Week 5

All my bags are packed and I'm ready to go.  Tomorrow morning I leave for girls camp.  4 days and 3 nights without seeing Kevin or the kids.  It will be a little weird but I look forward to the time I get to spend with the girls. They keep me young and the are pretty fun.

We keep pretty busy most days but here are a few pictures that I wanted to include in my weekly review.  We had art class on Monday and we made these cool glue salt paintings. link found here 

This project is more about process than product.  When you drop the water color paint on the salt you see is run down the salt line. Very cool to watch.  After the glue dries not every much of the salt stays on the painting making a mess. So you have been warned but the process so worth it.

I have been enjoying a summer morning workout with Jillan Michaels and so have my kids

We were doing it almost every morning until the kids scrached it and it wouldn't play any more. I even tried the rub toothpaste trick I have seen on pinterest but no luck.  I missed it so much that I went and bought a new copy.  So we will be working out soon. 

At one point this week there was a lazy afternoon so we made cookies.  Luke really liked the dough and the cookies.

Other highlights inclued a summer movie at the IMAX, playing with the cousins,  having friends over to make cupcakes and Lillys butterfly swim meet.  I finished out the week by making this weeks layout and I am posting last weeks since I never got to it. 

We call him Dad

It is late but I wanted to share how much we love the guy that we call Dad in our home.
Lilly made a card for Kevin in school for father's day. She busted it out today so excited to give it to him.  In the card there was a questionnaire about Dad.  How tall he is, what does he weigh and so on. One question was this "What are his hobbies or interests?"  Lilly answered "playing with children" then she felt like she had to explain her answer by saying "you know I mean us." 
What more can I ask for from the father of my children?  They know he loves them and is always there for them. They are what occupies their dad's free time and they do it by playing together.  Yes I'm feeling very grateful that I married Kevin and that he is so good to us.
Happy Father's Day Kevin, I love you!

And I had to inclued this last one becasuse he is just so handsome.