We've been busy...

I feel like this summer is going by too fast already. We've had a great 4 weeks of no school already and we've only got about 7 more weeks to go.

We've gone swimming,

 We've made sock bubbles

 Look how long Madelyn was able to get her bubble strand.

 We've gone shooting in our very own front yard with cousins.

This is cousin Seth taking a turn. Seth is 2 weeks older than Hunter and a whole head taller too!

 We've played with regular bubbles and then tried blowing them with our hands. Madelyn won hands down in this department.

 We've baked and have tried making new things.  For whatever reason I've always struggled with Monkey Bread or otherwise known as Pull-apart bread. I can't seem to get my pan to cook evenly so the tops are always burnt and the bottoms are still doughy. We tried baking them in a cupcake pan  this time and they turned our PERFECTLY!

Kylie loves it when we bake. The beaters are her favorite part.

 Now that's is warming up outside we've spent a lot of time on our bikes.

We've roasted marshmallows outside.

 More shooting with cousins.

 Skipping rocks and fishing at the resevoir.

 I'll admit the kids have also had plenty of "veg" time. Whether it's in front of the computer, watching a movie or playing the Wii.

 We've also got our "show" animals that the kids are taking care of this summer.

 We got our goats just 2 weeks ago. There are a total of 8 in the pen right now but only 2 of them are ours. While we've all got family reunions out of town these next few weeks we've decided to keep the goats all together until the reunions are over with. This will make it a bit easier on everyone while we each have our turn of being gone and having some one else feed these funny little animals.

 We also have pigs. We've had our pigs for a few weeks now but the kids enjoy "checking" on them numerous times a day. All of our kids have their own pig for the fair this year. Hunter and Madelyn are in 4-H and can show 2 animals which is why we also have goats. Emily and Brayden our in the Pee-Wee 4-H program and can only show 1 animal. We are hoping these animals will grow and make weight. We want our kids to be able to earn money with these show animals that they can later use for missions and college. Hopefully show animals can give them a jump start in the "savings" department.

 Miss Emily and Brayden with their pigs.

 Madelyn and her pig.

 Here's a picture of all 4 of them. I missed a picture of Hunter and his black pig.

 Here's a baby calf that is being kept near our pigs. He lost his mama and is being bottle fed. The kids enjoy feeding him a handful of alfalfa everytime we walk by him.

Our summer's going strong. We've been busy but have had fun along the way. We've got 3 upcoming reunions in the next 4 weeks that we are all looking forward too. I love reunion's. I love sitting around and visiting with my cousins that not too long ago it was us running around causing mischief. It's great to see my kids develop friendships and making memories with our extended families. Family reunion's here we come!

Look Who's One!

My baby is one!

I don't like it. I don't like the fact that she continues to grow each day and is slowly getting out of the baby phase. I miss her cuddling underneath my neck. I miss that newborn smell. I miss her grabing onto my finger and not letting go. I miss her being able to fall asleep anywhere and being able to transfer her to her bed without her waking up. I miss those times that she'd fall asleep on my chest and I could just sit and enjoy those rare moments. I miss her soft giggles that have recently turned into full belly laughs. I do love those belly laughs though! I miss many things that she only did as a little baby. I'll admit that there are definetly things that I don't miss like getting spit up on, the daily night time fussines, blow out diapers and constant drool, you know things like that!

Depsite what I want... this sweet baby girl of mine is growing up and learning new things.

My baby has learned a new game!

It's called

peek-a

 -boo

 and she chose to show how she plays while the family was singing Happy Birthday to her! So lucky me I've got her fun little action's caught on camera. Woo Hoo!

(Don't mind the messy hair. This is something else that is new to her, pulling out her "pretties")

This birthday she had plenty of help opening her gifts. It was a big deal that each older sibling had their very own gift to give to Kylie. It's a good thing I saved a bag full of toys that each of them got to pick from to give to her. They then each got to help her open their gifts to her.

 Here's Kylie and her very own baby doll.

 She was so excited about her car! This has been the best $30 I have ever spent!

 Kylie loves to be outside. Most sunday's we walk to church and this little car of her's has sure come in handy. Now that the weather has finally decided to warm up we've used this car numerous times for family walks, a morning walk with mom or a quick ride over to our garden spot. She loves her time in this car. If she's unhappy you know all you got to do is take her for a walk in her car. So far the kids love pushing her around in it too making it a win-win situation for all of us.

Miss Kylie's birthday fell on a busy day for daddy. We didn't have her open her gifts until after dinner. Then Daddy had a meeting at the church. We were going to eat our cupcakes and icecream when he got home but Kylie got tired before he arrived. She just may be scarred for life. The kids think it's just terrible that I did't wake her up for her to eat her cupcake we had made. She is getting a birthday cake. In fact it's in the freezer. I want to do a fun little photo shoot with her and her 1st birthday owl cake. Since my camera does terrible in low lighting I want to take her pictures outside. And that there in lies the problem. It's still a little cool in the mornings but come afternoon the wind can seriously blow you away. The wind has been terrible this year. Our garbage can is blown over numerous times a week, our bikes can't stay up on their kick stands, our trailor was actually blown off it's block, rolled over the wood behind it's back wheels and rolled into our quad and white picket fence. We have had huge tree's blown over in recent weeks. So my outdoor photo shoot has been put on hold. I'm hoping that after our upcoming family reunions are over the wind will die down some and I'll have time to decorate that cake I've been so anxiously waiting to make and get some fun pictures of my baby eating her 1st birthday cake!

Last Day of School

The last day of school for our kiddo's was almost a month ago. It's crazy how fast our summer seems to be going by this year.

Here's one of the many pictures of our 3rd grader on her 1st day of school.

Here she is again with her teacher on her last day of school. She had a great year. We love Mrs. Esplin. What's kind of funny is that while Kory was in higschool  one of his classes was being an aide for an elementrary school teacher. Mrs Esplin just happens to be the teacher he was an aide for 15+ years ago. Kind of crazy to think my husband and now two of my children have been in this teachers class! 

Here we come 4th grade!!!

This is Hunter on the first day of his 4th grade school year.

 Here he is on the last day with Mrs. Judd.

Mrs. Judd is a great teacher and loves science. Hunter's favorite part of her class was the homework. During the school year he had to "collect" different things and his collecting was the homework. He had to collect 10 different types of leaves, 20+ insects, 10 types of rock, etc. With each collection they had to categorize the items, identify them, look at them under a microscope and such. It really was fun. It's hard to believe that he's going to be in 5th grade this coming year!

I like to celebrate with my kids on the last day of school. Sometimes I think I'm looking more forward to our summer break than my kids our. I LOVE our summer's. I LOVE having my kids home. I LOVE no homework, spelling words and reports. I LOVE not having to get up at 6am each day to get my kids on the bus at 7. I LOVE the break in our regular routine. In years past we've had water party's with friends on the last day of school to celebrate. One year we went to the movies as a family another year we went to out to eat. I try to do something we don't normally do for our celebration. This year it was a mutual decision to do a water party. We bought lots and lots of water balloons, I rounded up some large water squirters and I've got a slip n' slide I was going to set up.  I guess Mother Nature had different plans for us. The last week of school ended up being windy and a bit too chilly for our planned water games. In the end we had a pizza party.

 Miss Emily

 Mr. Brayden

We invited a few cousins over and everyone was able to make their own pizza's. For being last minute, it was fun and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. After their pizza's the boys had a turn playing Skylander's on the Wii while the girls played "hair" on each other and painted each other's toes and fingernails. A little while later the girls took their turn on the Wii playing Just Dance while the boys played Lego's. If was a fun afternoon for my kids to celebrate the last day of school.