Eden's First Bath

With her sister's that is. Because of her clogged tear duct she has been bathing with ME. But she wanted in with them.

But Lauren's face made me laugh here.

4th of July

Ah the fourth of July. One of my favorite holiday's. And one of the reasons is FIREWORKS! Yay!

Ally is beyond thrilled to be able to light fireworks.
Of course, this is Lauren. "Did you say fireworks? I HATE fireworks!"
And of course here's Eden, "Fireworks? What are fireworks?"
Lauren was soon in meltdown mode as the rest of us warmed up the lighters.
Elijah took a turn playing with fire.
I helped Ally light up a few.
My dad made Lauren's day. He put her in the car. Here she isn't so sure about the window being down. She is too close. Of course we helped her out by lighting some in front of the car.
Ahhhh, much better. Now the window is open and she can use Ally as a shield. Now any stray firework will hit Ally first.

I have to say, the charm is wearing off of the 4th of July, when you have a daughter who hates this holiday. It's a little sad, every night she sits in her room, staring out at all the scary fireworks. I can't wait until tonight, the last legal night for firework ends.

Zoorassic Park

At the end of June we went with my sister Kerstin and her kids to the zoo. I don't think we had been since June of 2005, so it was fun. I was going to do a comparison of the pictures we took. Elijah was just 2 and it was cute to see the older kid doing the exact same things he did that first time. lol

This picture is the first one that made me think of it.
Eden and Me, Kerstin and Tabor and Tildy entering the zoo.
Lauren and Tildy are sitting on a horsey thing. Not a REAL one, or Lauren would be freaked out. Actually neither of them look thrilled. I think they are having fun...
Elijah and Ally on the sneezing elephant.
Much to Lauren's dismay, it was Zoorassic Park at the Hogle Zoo. Let me tell you, a little girl who is TERRIFIED of animals found life sized Dinosaurs that looked REAL TOO MUCH TO ENDURE!

But she was okay with excavating their bones.

Eden wasn't thrilled to be demoted to "stroller duty". I tell her to "stop eating everything" and maybe eventually you can "get out".
Elijah and I are as big as Gorillas!! And I have a map stuck between my legs. Why do I do things like this???
This is a dinosaur meant to be climbed on. It's not as SCARY as the other ones. But Lauren still wanted nothing to do with it.
Ally the Turtle.

I wish they came from an egg! My body would have thanked me, THAT'S FOR SURE!
IT was a good time. Not too much screaming and the kids almost didn't notice they didn't get a train ride. Almost.

That Man

For two weekends in a row we had a visitor for the weekend. The first one was Matt's friend Lars. He came and spent Saturday with us. He slept the night on out pull-out sofa. (Truthfully, the first person to sleep on it besides Elijah. And we wanted to know about it's comfort level, but everyone seems to have a things against pull-out beds.) The only bad thing is it's in the family room in from of the TV.

Matt and Lars talked into the wee hours of the morning because they hadn't seen each other in five to six years. I think Ally was a baby.

And Lars slept well into the morning on Sunday morning.

We teach our kids to let guests sleep because they are on vacation and I think it's rude to wake them up. And the kids woke up and saw him asleep in front of the TV and went and played upstairs in the Living Room.

By 9:30 am, my normally placid Ally stomped up to me and said, "THAT MAN is still asleep!" She was really upset to not have her TV time and didn't understand why I started to laugh.

The next weekend when we had the same situation with Uncle Eric went better as far as the kids are concerned. He got up much earlier. (But still not as early as them, of course.)

Why don't kids all sleep in all at the same time? I would be a much happier mommy.

Newest Phase

Eden has started the newest annoying phase in her life.

I like to think of it as the "the house will never be clean for the foreseeable future" phase OR "Put the baby in the crib to cage her because I just cleaned that room" phase.

Although, not even the crib is safe.

Here she is doing a panty raid. She is a good baby. She doesn't cry when she wakes up. But that is because she is emptying the older girls underwear drawers.

Recently she discovered the Hair Drawer. This is where the brushes, hairbands and combs are kept.

Plus I happen to think it is a really cool shot. And to be perfectly honest, I'm not the greatest of camera operators. Not to shabby, if I do say so myself.
But I am comforted to know we have no plans on any other children. So this is the last time we plan on going through this phase. Yay.

At least she is adorable while making messes!

Ready for Church

The kids are ready for church.

(I got these dresses for the girls at 7 Circles for just $5 each. I got them big thinking the girls could grow into them. But they both wanted to wear them now!)

Now it's time to be silly!
I hope no one got hurt. I was probably doing my hair when these were taken.

Summerfest

We started the summer off with Orem Summerfest. The kids beg to go on the rides every year and we got a few tickets this year and let the kids rides some rides.

All the kids rode the Merry-go-Round. I got to stand and hold up the poles while the girls rode.
Elijah rode his chicken as fast as he could.
Elijah was kind enough to take his sister on the boat ride. He's always happy to help.
I get the feeling it's a little loud.
I think it's loosing it's charm now.
He's thinking, "How do I get off this thing?"
After the rides and parade we sat in the front room and watched fireworks. I love an unobstructed view from our house.

As always, anyone want to come for Summerfest at our house next year?

Maiden Ride

Apparently I was taking a blog-cation. School got out and my mind stopped functioning. But now it's time to play catch up because, I've started thinking about school getting started again.

I'd like to say that we haven't really done anything this summer. I'd really like to say that, but it's not true. We haven't gone anywhere this year, but we have for sure been busy. One of the things I like to do with the kids is go bike riding with them.

I decided that I needed to get Eden a helmet. She was the only one without one. So found an infant helmet from Target. And off she in I went in bike seat.

So some reason blogger isn't letting me move pictures around so these are out of order. Eden and I are taking our first ride.

Eden loves the bike seat. She is ready to go.

Eden is most in love with her new hat. She likes to put it on whenever she gets a change.

Of course, Lauren was displaced from the bike seat. And I had no where for the girl to go. So I did something I swore I would never do.

I bought a bike trailer. The girls LOVE it. And I like having a place to put things while we bike ride.

We rode around everywhere.

Of course I told Matt we would probably need another coupler if we wanted to do anything besides our flat roads in the neighborhood.

And life was good until Matt fixed the tires on the little tiny bike Elijah had when he was 2.

Now Lauren only wants to ride that. But for only half of the ride.

Then she screams for the rest of the ride.

But THAT is another story.