Swimming with the Stewart's

Thursday morning my kiddo's and I went to St. George to visit the Stewarts. We became friends with the Stewarts in Prescott Valley when our girls were just babies almost 6 years ago. The Stewarts moved to St. George about 5 days before the kids and I moved. It was great seeing old friends in a new place.

Renting a town house they have a huge pool that they shared with us.

Water fights
Brayden has no fear of the water. He just keeps walking in until it covers his mouth. Then he just stands there breathing through his nose and holding his breath. It was great having Missy there to help me watch my all to brave little boy so I could capture our time together with the camera.

Emily quickly claimed Brayden's float when he was tired of it and was able to follow the big kids around the pool.

Maddie loved swimming in the deep end with floaties on. We had a membership at the Y and so we went swimming in PV almost 2x a week. However no floaties are allowed at the Y making the kids stay in the kiddie pool where they could alway touch. It was great knowing my kids could touch everywhere but it did make it hard for them to try to swim on there own. Maddie was really enjoying herself being able to swim where she couldn't touch bottom.

Hunter, Connor, Jacqie, Tyler

Thank you Stewarts for the great time at the pool.

Till next time...

24th of July

I love being in Utah on July 24th otherwise known as Pioneer Day.

On Pioneer Day in Hurricane the morning always begins with a parade that is put on by each wards primary of the town. The whole city is invited to come and participate even though the LDS church members are in charge.

Following the parade we head to the park for some fun and games sponsored by the YW/YM.We have relays beginning with babies and moving up to adults. This is my niece Elena who participated in the crawling baby girls.
Walking toddler boys was then next.
Go! Brayden Go!

Emily soon followed. Madelyn and Hunter participated too but theres was captured by video instead. They all did a good job and got a piece of candy for participating.

They had this AWSOME blow up water slide that Hunter just loved. They had stairs on the other side to climb up to the top or ropes the kids could pull themselves up to. They then got to slide down amongst running water. That is Hunter at the very top getting ready for his turn.

Madelyn's favorite game was throwing darts at the balloons.

Bean bag toss.

Ring the water bottles.

Another bean bag toss.

I loved this idea using #10 cans.

This was Emily's favorite game that she played over and over.

Every 15 minutes this candy canon would shoot off. It was crazy to see how high the candy could fly before littering the ground.

The highlight of the morning was the dunking booth. Hunter was thrilled that he was able to dunk 2 different people. He has a good arm.

After he dunked others he chose to stand in line to be dunked.

While sitting on the "hot" seat Hunter was able to squirt the kid throwing the ball as a distraction. It works! However eventually the enevitable does happen!

He loved it.

The best part of this day was that I had given each of my children $1 to spend however they would want. They all came home with there $1 as everything was FREE. They could have bought Otter Pops for $.25 however many of the game prizes were Otter Pops! So there was no need.

Oh how I love spending time at the park watching my kids be able to participate and play many many games for free.

Oh what do we do...

The kids and I have settled in the best we can with what belongings we were able to bring with us. We are anxiously awaiting our moving truck to get here with everything else. So for now we are keeping ourselves busy playing around Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Picking apricots.

Some family friends came over with their horses so Grandpa saddled up his horses to join in the fun. In the end there were 6 horses with 2 riders on each giving us a total of 12 bodies on 6 horses. The horses got there work out and the kids had fun!
What a sight it was to see.

My Brayden. Lets just say he's discovered not only the dog food but also the cat food too.

Need I say more?

We're having fun.

The Middle Of No Where...

The drive from Prescott Valley to Hurricane Utah is pretty blah. There's not much to see. The trip usually takes about 6 hours. The 1st 1 1/2 hours is to Flagstaff where your in the mountains, it's a little cooler or so it seems and there's lots of green to see. That 1st little part is by far the best of the trip. The remaining trip seems to take forever as there is really nothing there. Several years ago during these long drives when the kids would ask, "Where are we?" We would reply, "In the middle of no where."

On our trip here Maddie looked out the window and seeing this asked, "Mom where are we?" Before I could reply Hunter piped up saying,"We're in the middle of no where!"

A couple of hours later Emily asked, "Mom where are we?" Again before I could reply Maddie replied, "We're still in the middle of no where!"

The "middle of no where" seems to last forever.

Nearing the end of our long drive I decided to pull over near Lee's Canyon to let the kids get out and stretch their legs. We pass by these HUMONGOUS boulders each trip and have never gotten out to enjoy them.

A little cave to explore.

It was so hot!

Lots of red dirt.

Despite the horrindous heat with basicly no shade the kids had fun stretching their legs.

We're Not Here Anymore!

The much awaited moving day has finally come and gone. The kids and I have moved. I knew this past wed would come much too fast. Don't get me wrong, I was excited to move. I am excited to finally live closer to family. To live close to our dear friends that Kory and I introduced to each other and got married just 6 months after us. To have grass. To be home again.

However I miss Prescott Valley already. I miss the weather. It was over 110 here today. It's hot. I miss my house. I miss my kitchen. (I started unpacking today.) I was sweating as I was moving boxes around the house. It's hot. I miss my garden. I miss my chickens/ducks. But what I miss the most is my best friend and her family. April and I have been friends since they first moved into our ward 5+ years ago. At that time it was just Kevin and April with baby Josh on his way. We invited them over for dinner, we hit it off and our friendship quickly blossomed. We have been unseperable since.

I miss my best friend.

I was going through the grocery adds this morning. How could I not think of April and tears came to my eyes.

I started putting the kids bedroom together and pulled out a baskett I bought from Hobby Lobby. Again I thought of April.

I was putting all my free toothpaste on its shelf in the bathroom and thought of April.

I passed by a box labeled "cake decorating" I thought of April. I am so sad that I will be missing Logan's 1st birthday. That probably sounds a little silly to most of you. I know Logan isn't my child but I think of him as one of my own. This is a mile stone that I have planned to be apart of since Logan was born. I think of all of April's kids as my own. I love her children. Today my children were ignored a bit as I was trying to unpack. They of course got a little bored and so I went to pick up the phone to call my best friend to see if her kids wanted to play.

Oops!

Some friendships come and go but I know the friendship between the Heaton's and the Schultz will remain. I know it will change a bit and it will be different with distance between us but we will ALWAYS be friends. April will always be one of my most treasured friends. I snapped this pict. just a few days before we left of these 2 beautiful little girls playing.

Emily and Jenna are best friends.

I know it's only been TWO days but I miss you guys already!

Celebrating our Nation's Birthday!

Saturday we had a 4 ward bbq celebration on the church lawn. The kids got to wear their "party clothes" for the big event.

I wanted to get a nice, good, cute picture of the 4 of them together. All I can say is I tried!!! We are going to be having our family pictures taken soon and some individual picts of the kids. After seeing what I captured I'm nervous all ready. These kids are driving me absolutely CRAZY when I try to take their picts.

Brayden was having a hard time sitting in place so I gave him a prop to help out. Unfortunatley most of my picts now have him looking at where he rolled the ball or it's in his mouth. Brayden is the only one that doens't look like a dork.
The girls INSISTED on having to sit next to Brayden which I think throws the pict. off. It makes it look like Maddie was an after thought.

Hunter can't seem not to fill his cheeks with air when I say *smile*. Emily couldn't NOT fold her arms for the picts. And Maddie well it looks like she's a deer caught in front of a car's headlights. When she does smile it's so FORCED.

Maddie is sufferning from seasonal allergies again this year. Her little eyes are just so swollen and puffy.

My little Sparkler's...

My Boy's...

After trying to take just 1 good picture of everyone which ended up being a bazillion of not so good ones I gave up and we headed to the church.

We enjoyed lots of good foodand desserts.

The kids played lots of water games. Look at Hunter's cheeks. I didn't have to say, "say cheese or smile". I swear this kid is constantly blowing his cheeks out.

Emily was quite aprehensive with the crowd of kids. Her big sister took her by the hand and told her she'd stay with her. They were holding hands and had just let go when my camera clicked. I love capturing moments of my children showing each other kindness and love.

Brayden is feeling very comfortable on his feet and usually walks every where now. Brayden loves being outdoors and was very content to walk around and explore.

To continue with the celebrations we were invited to a friends house after church for a pot luck. We once again enjoyed lots of good food and great company (can never go wrong with bbq ribs).

I just loved the way she decorated the table.

Being this was a pot luck we brought a layered red white and blue jello salad along with a very patriotic dessert.

I enjoy making cakes every chance I get.

Be warned Grandma C and Aunt Hanna. Your birthday's are next Aug 4 and Sept 1. (Uncle Travis your birthday is in there to but my kids are telling me you don't like cake and would rather have a plate of brownies. Your not fun! Did you know this?)I've accumulated several Wilton cake books that are full of ideas. The kids quite often pull them out and talk about who's birthday should get what cake. So far your grandkids/nieces and nephew feel like you would LOVE a 3 tier beautiful red and white lattice wedding cake (Madelyn), Dora the mermaid (Emily) and a Circus cake (Hunter). Lucky for you I keep telling them to keep looking and that when we get to your house YOU get to make the final decision.

After our pot luck dinner we ended the evening with Sparkler's and watching the fireworks from our driveway

Madelyn tried to write her name. While Hunter loved making shapes.

Emily was to scared to hold one and Brayden fell asleep on the couch.

Happy Brithday America!

16 days to go....

We are moving in just 16 days. As I've mentioned before this move is going to be bitter/sweet. When we started telling people we were moving we asked around if anyone would like a few of our prized possessions that we will not be taking with us.

The first being our chicken coop. We've had chickens/ducks for over a year now. My baby is OBSESSED with our only pets. When Brayden gets outside he would crawl now walk to the coop and start knocking/grunting and then cry at the door until someone opened the door. He would stand at the entrance all day if I let him. Most afternoons we would let these little guys out to roam. Brayden would just sit/stand in the middle and watch these little guys run all around the yard. Brayden loves these creatures. He tries to grab at them and hold them. Not once was he ever scratched or pecked at. Our realtor advised us to move the coop before we had our 1st walk through from an interested buyer. So this past saturday this is what we did. Bro. Cornwall brought his flat bed and his catipole mechanism to help out. 3 men, 7 kids and 2 moms taking pictures later this is what we had.
The kids were fascinated with the whole process. The 2 moms had their doubts if this was going to work or not but it did.

The roof stayed on, the walls didn' break, windows stayed intact. I guess they did know what they were doing.

The chicken coop was moved just across the street but becuase the coop was in the backyard the truck had to leave our place via the empty lot behind us and drive around the block.

What a site this was to see....

They did it. Once the coop was set up again it was time to move the chickens/ducks. That's the picture I'm so so so sorry I didn't take. It was fun.

4 days later Brayden is still tyring to figure out where his special little friends went. The other kids say they miss them too. Emily named one of the ducks "my sparkly duck" the rest of us called her

*Sparkles*. Hunter and Maddie will not be missing the collecting of the eggs, shoveling the coop, emptying the chicken bucket at least once a day, cleaning the waterer (you know all the WORK part.) They will be missing the money they got paid to do it. I recently found a little home market store that would buy our eggs and then resale them. We would get $2.50 for chicken eggs and $3 a dozen for duck eggs. I can usually take about 5-6 dozen eggs a month and still have plenty for us to eat. As long as Hunter and Maddie helped with the chore part we'd give them some of the proceeds.

Raising chickens/ducks have been a great experience. We will most definetly be doing this again one day.