P. S.

I totally forgot to post about this, but we are ECSTATIC that Bugsy has finally finished potty training!!!!!  It was a long road, but we are finally there.  He isn't potty trained at night yet, but we are pretty excited about him being potty trained during the day.  He has no inhibitions though!  He strips from the waste down and when he is done he comes running out excitedly.  He'll even come outside that way if we are not around.  He is such a funny guy!  We just love him and are so glad he finally decided to become a big boy!   The end!

Birthday Post... a little late!

Emma just had her first day of school 3 days ago so I decided I'd better do her birthday post before I do her first day of school post so that it will be in chronological order.

Emma wanted a "whale" party with the big blow up water toy.  I sent out whale invitations and we did it at my parents house again because the slide doesn't fit at our house.  (Thanks Mither and Pappy!)  I stayed up in to the middle of the night making a whale cake for Emma.  This is not an usual occurrence the night before my children's parties.  The uncommon thing was when the sno cone machine landed directly on top of it when I turned too sharply while driving to my parents house.  You can see from the before picture above, it was not a pretty sight.  I did the best I could to fix it while the guests were arriving and it all worked out okay.

We only get the big water toy out once a year on Emma's birthday so we always invite all of Emma's cousins so that everyone will get a chance to play on it.  With most of her cousins and four friends from school, we had a pretty good sized group.  I think everyone had a pretty good time and I know that Emma had a GREAT time!  We love our sweet little girl.  I can't believe she is 6 already!  Time sure does fly!  :)

Denver Dance Classic

Daniel and I were going to Denver for a dance competition.  We brought the kids and the girls along.  We were totally unprepared for this competition so it was a little nerve racking.  We messed up our routines several times, but it was good to get out there on the floor.  And, the kids had a lot of fun.  We didn't get any pics of us dancing, but here are other pics of the weekend.

Daniel took Emma out on the floor and danced with her during the break in the competition.  She was DARLING!  Unfortunately, it looks from the first picture like she got my double jointed elbows.  See how her arm bends funny from the elbow up.  Poor little dear!   Anyway, she LOVED dancing with daddy.  You can't see her cute little smile, but she had it the entire time!

We went to the aquarium they have there and their favorite thing was the tiger... at an aquarium... go figure!

Jan and Jen took them to the Zoo one day when we were practicing.  They loved it.  Bugsy loves crocodiles and from what I understand he got to spend an entire 20 minutes looking at it.  What a cute little guy!

 They always love train rides...

and the carousel! 

The car ride wasn't too bad.  We stopped a little more frequently, but the kids really did pretty well.  The pictures below are from a rest stop just as you come in to Utah.  There was a little trail up to an overlook that we went up to.  It was a nice little spot to stretch our legs.

This is the place!

We had a great time, but I sure love home!

Summerfest 2011

We like to go to the Summerfest in Orem but have not gone the past two years.  We went this year and it was a lot of fun.  The parade is in the evening and the weather was perfect this year.  The kids had such a good time at the parade.  Even Bella did pretty well.  Then Daniel took Bella home and the kids and I stayed for the fireworks.  I actually got to cuddle with Emma and it was so fun!  The fireworks are good every year, but this year they were FANTASTIC!  It was a great show and we had a lot of fun!

Bugsy didn't like the loud sirens of the police cars.

I love Bella's eyes in this picture, I think they are so pretty.

The kids had a lot of fun with their cousins.  Funny that Joe-Joe is actually a year older than Matthew and yet Matthew is the same size.  :)

I loved seeing the kids with their hands over their hearts for the flag.

Bugsy didn't want to put his hand over his heart, but he did it reluctantly.

While waiting for the fireworks, Jan and Jen gave the kids glow sticks to play with and the kids loved them.

We had a lot of fun!

Family Camp

BYU hosts a family camp at Aspen Grove each Summer.  We decided to try it this year and went June 1-4.  It was pretty fun.  They have 2 times each day when the kids go with their age groups and do fun things and then several options for the adults to choose from.  It was nice to have time for Daniel and I to do some fun things together and then to have time as a whole family.  Daniel and I did several of the activities, but I must say I think my favorite was the ping pong.  I don't actually remember if I've ever played ping pong, but it was so fun.  We were both laughing so hard we could hardly play.  I don't remember the last time we laughed that hard together.  It was so great.  Here are some pics of the other things we did:

These are air rifles.  I was actually the best shot for our week.   I really had fun shooting.  We also did some archery.  I got a nasty bruise from the string hitting my arm on that and realized afterwards that my double jointed elbow made my arm stick out in the way of the string.  Wish I'd known that before hand as it would likely have been less painful.  :)

 This was in the dining hall.  The food was unfortunately not that good, but oh well!

It was freezing up there because of the super cold Spring.  However, Emma wanted to swim so bad that Daniel went in with her one day.  She loved it, despite the fact that her lips were turning blue.  Good thing daddy went with her, because there was not way I was getting into that water.

Bella did pretty well.  She didn't really want to go with the babysitters by then end, but she did pretty well, despite the fact that she had very few naps.

 These next few were from the pioneer night or something like that.  They had a bunch of activities that you could participate in as a family.  It was my favorite family thing that we did.  Emma and Matthew loved the train.

We discovered that it is not a good idea to give the kids big foam things and tell them they could hit each other.  They were both more than happy to hit the other person, but each time they got hit themselves, the world came to an end with a bunch of screaming at the other person and crying.

Poor little Bella was so cold.  We went back to our cabin shortly after this.

These kids sure love their daddy.

This was Bugsy's favorite part of the whole weekend.  We bought him a "grabber" from the gift shop and he went around trying to grab everything he could see.

This was the ropes course that I did not make it up.  The first part had a long log hanging straight down with notches in it.  I couldn't make it past one of the notches that was really far apart.  Bummer dude!  Maybe next time I'll be in better shape.

All-in-all we had a good time!

Easter...

Yes, it is almost July.  Better late than never!  :)

We went to my parents house for the annual Easter Egg Hunt again this year.  Bugsy actually understood it this year and got himself some candy.  He wasn't super speedy, but he was happy with what he got and had a good time.  Emma had a good time too.  Bella just didn't get what was going on, but was more than happy to play with and gnaw on a wrapped piece of candy.  We all had a good time.

We are actually missing 4 or 5 kids from this pic, but it has most of them.

This was pretty funny.  Bella doesn't usually let anyone else hold her, especially men!  However, she was so enthralled with Mike's goatee that she stayed with him for a while.  She just couldn't figure out what it was.  She was so cute!

Easter...... Instruments?

No, I suppose there is really nothing very Easter-ish about drums or maracas.  We made them anyway and the kids loved it!  Here's how they turned out:

And here are the proud creators:

Annika and Mieka were here too, but it was a little crazy with Bella crying, so I didn't get a picture till after they had gone home.  We all had fun though!