July

I took the kids to the wild animal show to earn a brag badge.

They got to pet the animals after-a tortoise and skunk, along with a few others.

We visited the library also since it was right next door.  It was read-with-a-dog day and so the kids had fun doing that.  Even Stockton got down there next to that dog and sat there the whole time.  Justin couldn't believe it when I showed him the picture.

They also wanted to make red, white, and blue cupcakes.  Molly is all into baking on her own these days.  I still feel like I want to watch and make sure she's doing everything right.

She needed a little help with this one because we divided the batter into three and stirred red in one and blue in one so that the cupcakes could really be red, white, and blue.

By the time we were frosting and decorating, they were off playing somewhere and weren't too interested in decorating any beyond their own.

So I finished the decorating.  Yum yum!.

Piggy backs to bed.

Molly's friend from Spanish Fork, Maggie, was moving so her mom texted me to see if we could get the girls together one last time.  I had told the kids that I would take them back to the splash pad once during the summer and so this seemed like a good time to do it.  We picked up Maggie and met a couple of other friends there.

Stockton and Clay Reed

Brynn and Owen Reed

Peyton Phillips, Brynn, Maggie Stephenson, Molly, Stockton, Corbyn Phillips

Maggie and Molly

We packed a picnic and the shade umbrella and Ivy and I hung out in the shade-which protected us from the sun, but not from the heat.  It was one of those really hot days.

The kids had so much fun playing with friends and being in the water.

 

I had a great time catching up with two of my friends, Shauna and Ashley.  This is Shauna's baby, Logan, who is two months younger than Ivy.

Logan Phillips and Ivy

Here is a picture showing Stockton's sweet side...he is helping Brynn with her homework.  The letter Q.

(All my kids have homework during the summer.  Usually just a workbook and reading, but Brynn just did a different letter each day.)

Brynn loved the Walker's kitty.

My sister, Erin, had kept just a couple of things from her babies and she handed them down to me for Ivy.  A Bumbo...we've never had one and I wasn't going to buy one with our last, so this has been fun for Ivy and just a change of scenery for her.  The first day we had it, Justin put a small lazy susan spinner under the Bumbo and we spun Ivy around the dinner table while we ate. 

She also gave us this high chair that just hooks onto our counter.  We didn't have a high chair and this is something that I was going to buy-but now I don't have to!

Brynn likes the Bumbo and the high chair as well.

July 12th- Ivy getting her first taste of baby food.  Rice cereal and she loved it!  She has also loved everything she's tried since.

We went outside to do one of the kids favorite activities...a game of family soccer.  Seriously, they beg to do this all the time.

This was one of those moments this summer that we will never forget...Brynn was wearing a princess dress-up so I told her to go change for soccer.  The rest of us were outside getting the field all set up and out comes Brynn in her monster costume from two Halloweens ago.  She was so proud of herself and excitedly claimed that she was ready to play soccer.  And then she did.  In 90 degree weather.  We all laugh about it anytime it's brought up.

Ivy was our cheerleading in the stroller for a bit and then she wanted to be held so Justin was doing double duty...holding baby and defending his goal.

Ivy practicing sitting up.

We did swimming lessons through Wasatch County.  They were only one week long, instead of the two that SF always did, but the kids had fun and I was happy with it.  I felt like they really learned strokes and were challenged.

Brynn is our little fish-everytime I looked at her, her face was underwater.  She passed her level.

Stockton did a great job and is becoming less scared and more brave in the water.  He passed as well.

Molly didn't pass her level, but I don't think anyone in her class did.  She was pretty disappointed but the teacher said that most kids do that level twice because you have to be able to do everything absolutely independently.  Molly is almost there, but not quite.

Brynn's ready for the pool.  She loved her first year of swimming lessons!

Ivy's ready to learn how to drive.

Justin had sinus surgery this month.  He's been having so many sinus infections over the last few years and this last time he went in (in June) the doctor scanned his sinuses and said they were all messed up and would benefit from surgery.  Since we had already met our deductible (thank you, Ivy), we decided to just go ahead and get it done.

It was a fairly complicated procedure-they did like nine different things in his sinuses-but we were in and out in just a few hours.  (Gene and April had the kids, minus Ivy, they were life-savers that day!)

Justin couldn't bend over or blow his nose for two days.  He was feeling pretty good the day after but day three, four, five, and six were not fun.  He got extremely congested before he got better.   He took a week off of work and was feeling okay when he went back.  After a couple of weeks he was feeling much better and at his last appointment just a couple of days ago, his sinuses were declared "just perfect" by the ENT doc.

Molly was pretty proud of this marble run she designed all on her own.  We left it out for a few days.

Ivy turned 6 months.  Crazy.

Bathing cutie.  Ivy loves the tub and loves to kick her feet and splash.

One afternoon the kids unloaded the blanket closet, stacked them all on top of each other, and had made up some sort of game with them (I'm sure it was all Molly's idea).  They asked if they could just leave them out and sleep on them and I said sure!  They thought it was great and it was actually really comfy with all those blankets underneath them.

Stockton wanted to earn the martial arts brag badge so I took the kids to a free karate class one morning.  There were a lot of kids so Brynn decided to sit and watch with me but Molly and Stockton had a good time.  Karate's not really something I would ever put my kids in so it was fun for them to try it once.

Molly got to go stay a night at Grandma April's house and have a "girl's day" with Lizzy and Tiana.  Grandma took them to lunch and then to see Cinderella at the movie theaters.  Rachelle brought her home the next day and that gave the kids another chance to play with each other.

Lizzy and Molly

Brynn, Sam, Andrew

*One funny thing worth mentioning about the Brown's visit: Brynn and Andrew (age 9) really became good buddies.  Neither of them really had anyone their age or gender so they tended to stick together.  It was cute to watch.  A couple of weeks ago, Brynn wanted to talk to Andrew so we called him up and the two of them had a good conversation that lasted five minutes or so.

One morning we found this little bird out on our deck.  I thought maybe the cat had got to it and it was dead, but it wasn't, just injured or something.  Molly held it and so did Brynn and we were working on some sort of shelter for it so the cat didn't get it when it flew away.  Guess it was just stunned.  It was exciting to see, though, and made Molly start thinking about what it would be like to have a pet bird.

Water balloons!

Cute baby who rolled under the piano!

Molly's other friend, Rebecca, who now lives in Texas was also visiting.  We couldn't make it to the get-together they had in SF so I took the kids to visit them in Evanston, where they were staying with family.  These two have been pen pals since Rebecca moved over a year ago and they were so excited to see each other.  They had no problem picking up where they left off!

Molly and Rebecca Greer

Brynn came up with this outfit on her own...she said she was Yoda.

Stockton wanted in on the fun too.  I don't know who he was supposed to be.

Here is Molly's sketch of the Salt Lake Temple.  Not too shabby.

Molly really wanted to go geocaching.  I read up about it and found a cache close to our house and we went one afternoon to see if we could have any success.  We searched around and couldn't find anything.  I loaded the kids up and promised them snow cones and then hopped out of the car for one last look around and I found the cache.  The kids were so excited!  We didn't really know what we were doing and we should have taken a few dollar store trinkets but we didn't so I let them each pick one prize (bracelets for the girls, a water gun for Stockton), we signed the log, and off we went.  It was so fun and exciting, definitely something I think we'll try again!

And we still went for snow cones after.

My kitchen helper.  He's smiling because I told him I'd keep mushrooms out of his dinner.

Justin and I gave Molly permission to read Harry Potter 4 this summer.  We had originally told her she had to wait until she was 9 but we figured she'd have more free time in the summer and she's almost 9 anyway.  It took her a few weeks to get through it but she loved it, just like we knew she would.  We won't let her watch the movie, though, so she has to be happy with just the book for now and the first three movies.

Have I mentioned that I love this baby.  She is so easy-going and smiles at anyone.

The kids had been asking to go fishing-it took us a while to finally find a day that worked but we finally did and drove to Mirror Lake in the Uintah Mountains for an afternoon.

It is so beautiful up there.

We bought a kid-sized fishing pole for the kids so they could take turns casting and reeling.

We packed a whole bunch of snacks.

We took a walk around the lake.

Ivy fell asleep in the backpack.

Molly and Brynn picked wildflowers.  Molly's bouquet was really beautiful.

I enjoyed being with my favorite people (including Justin, he was just the photographer this time).

 We stopped at this waterfall on the way home.  It was the top of the Provo River-I didn't realize how far the river went.

Having all the kids home during the summer means I get to take all four kids to the store.  Brynn and Ivy are easy to take-throw in the older two and it gets much harder!

Jeff and Ali brought their boys up one Friday night so they could play on the zipline, have a campfire, and sleep outside in tents.  My kids were so excited!  Stockton and Grant are crazy silly together.

When it's the whole gang of cousins, Molly's usually playing with the girls and Gavin plays with Ben.  But when they only have each other to play with, they get along great!  They have a lot in common.

We had gyros, chips, watermelon, layered jello, and, since it was July 31st (Harry Potter's birthday),  we had butterbeer too.  Bottoms up!

We had a campfire and had marshmallows and s'mores.

The kids played until way past dark and then they settled into their respective tents.  The dads slept outside with the bigger kids and Ali and I slept inside with the babies-that is my kind of camping!

 

*Ivy update, 9/13

-Is a mover, although not a crawler, yet.  She gets up on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth and then pushes herself forward.  Her arms haven't yet caught on so she usually face plants.  She can, however, roll and scoot and make it wherever she needs to be.

-She always wants to be on the move.  She doesn't stay just sitting for very long.

-Is so squirmy!  This has made church difficult because you can't hold her without her wiggling all over you.  She hasn't taken a nap at church for a few weeks.

-Ivy has enjoyed all the foods we've been introducing her to.  She hasn't turned anything away yet.  I also gave her a bottle a couple of weeks ago for the first time and she's had a few since and she took really well to that as well.  I'm not done nursing at all but it's been nice a few times a week as an option when we're not at home or at night when I'm feeling like she might need a little bit more.

-She has started to babble more and more.

-Was 16 lbs 3 oz at her 7 month well-check.

-Has started to fight me rocking her to sleep.  I still try and she still falls asleep in my arms a lot of the time, but she often doesn't and after a while I lay her down awake and she has to cry herself to sleep.

-Also doesn't sleep quite as well at night as she used to (I swear all of my kids have done the same thing at this age).  I usually end up nursing her because that's the easiest way to get her back to sleep.