more of June

Bucket List Week 3 was Seven Peaks.  I had my hands full with three kids at an extremely busy water park so I didn't even bother packing my camera.  But we had a lot of fun.  Molly loves all water.  Stockton and Brynn like it but are a little less enthusiastic.  They both loved the kiddie pool, didn't love the medium-sized pool (Molly calls it the toad pool-the water is quite a bit colder so that's why they didn't dig it), and warmed up to the wave pool.  We also tried the lazy river, which is usually a crowd-pleaser, but it was a little hard for me to hang on to two clinging kids.  We only made it around once.  We stayed for about 4 hours total and decided that we definitely need to do Seven Peaks with dad.  Two extra sets of hands would be a lot of help! 

Last fall I got called to be the Relief Society President in our ward.  Talk about a shocker!!  Anyway, in a ward that is constantly changing (move ins and outs) visiting teaching is always needing tweaked and rearranged.  I've been making changes every month but my VT Coordinator (who is awesome as are my counselors and secretary) and I decided to only make changes every quarter.  This made for a very relaxed April and May (besides visiting a boatload of new sisters!) but once June rolled around it was on my mind once again.  I made many basic rough drafts like this:

It was a relief to finally get it done and now I can rest easy (haha!) for another three months.  Here's my nice and neat white board with all the assignments.  The trick is hiding it from the kids so they don't mess it up.  Brynn seems to always find it no matter how tricky I think I am.

And here's my little plug for visiting teaching: just get out and do it!  You make lots of new friends!  You get lots of blessings!  (I had to add that.)    

Molly loves to play soccer with Justin...and I think Justin likes it almost as much.  If there is time after dinner and before bed you can find the two of them outside kicking the ball around.  Justin has been "coaching" her and we have definitely seen improvement!  Things like going to the ball, not hesitating to kick it hard toward the goal, dribbling, etc.  I find it kind of funny that Justin is the one taking the lead in teaching her these skills since I was the soccer player in high school and he didn't really get interested in it until his mission. 

Here is Brynn in her bed (ahem...mattress on the floor).  The transition has gone fairly smooth...I think partly because I am more relaxed about things.  Naps don't happen everyday but I'm okay with that.  They still happen often enough.  She is even doing better at night.  She wants me to go away but leave the door open.  Sometimes she gets out and I go back and lay with her but other times she goes right to sleep.  It probably depends on whether or not she's taken a nap that day.  It's hard for me to believe that she is getting old enough to skip naps.  Where has my baby gone??

We love our neighborhood so much but if there is a downside it is that people are constantly moving in and out.  Our very best friends moved to North Carolina last summer and one of Molly's cute little friends (Emma) moved to Texas just a few weeks ago.  Of course we are excited for them and their new adventures but it's always a little sad to see them go.

Molly, Emma Thomas, Jade Boynton

We have a pretty simple chore system this summer.  The kids each have chores they have to do each day before they can go out and play with friends or watch a movie.  Then they each have weekly chores (vacuuming, dusting, putting laundry away, etc).  They get a payday at the end of the week where they earn money for their weekly chores (a small amount...$6/month for Molly and $4/month for Stockton) and at the end of a 5-week cycle of weekly chores they get to choose a fun activity with either mom or dad (we just finished a cycle-Molly chose to stay up late and watch Harry Potter with Justin and I and Stocky chose a date with Justin and a new toy).  It's worked pretty well.  Molly is really diligent in doing her chores...I don't usually have to remind her at all.  Stockton doesn't do his chores until he's ready to go out and play and he can't because he hasn't done chores.  But I can always get him to vacuum (vacuuming downstairs is one of his chores).

He also likes to do dishes (which isn't one of his chores but I let him do it anyway).

notice the backsplash Justin put in...looks good, huh?

Bucket List Week 4: Molly chose to have a Read-a-Thon with her friends.  (I was really excited about this one!)  We made invitations and handed them all out.  Everyone she invited was able to come.  She invited Jade Boynton (who always brings along cute little sis Bailey), Elise Jones, Rebecca Greer, and Kaylen Burton.  Molly and Stockton lined up all the books on the couch like a little library.  We had all the girls bring a comfy blanket and pillow and a few of their favorite books.  I wondered how much reading would actually get done but they did great!  It was pretty cute seeing all of them so engrossed in their books!

They read for about 20 minutes straight before they started to talk and giggle amongst themselves.  We took a break to start a craft and put some cookies in the oven.  Then they read some more.  About 15 minutes this time.  Then we put the finishing touches on our 4th of July craft and had dessert.

For the craft we colored rice red and blue and then layered red, white, and blue rice in a canning jar.  We stuck a flag in the top and ended up with a pretty cute craft they could all take home.

Elise, Molly, Stockton, Rebecca, Jade, Kaylen, Bailey

 For dessert we baked chocolate chip cookie dough in mini muffin tins then put a little scoop of ice cream in each one.  Yum yum!

I don't know about all the girls, but I know we sure had a good time.  This might become a summer tradition.