Children's museum

This week, I splurged and payed for a membership at Children's Museum. I was so excited when I saw that it was discounted a full $15 this month because I had been thinking of getting a membership for my girls this year for quite a while. Last year we had a membership at the Treehouse museum in Ogden, and it was a lifesaver during the winter months when we felt so cooped up in our home. My kids got a little tired of it near the end of the year though, so I decided it was time for a change of scenery. Ever since we moved to the Salt Lake area I have wanted to get to know downtown a little better, so this is what our "pre-school" adventure is going to be this year.

Pretty girls don't play ball

Well, our "learn how to use a ball" year is well under way. I think that it is slowly growing on our kids, though at this point they could take it or leave it. Hannah and Johnny love their weekly backyard soccer game though, they are so silly when they play together. Both Johnny and Hannah have been hit by the ball pretty hard at different times during their games and both had a very hard time wanting to go back in to the game afterwards. They have made the hardest decision to keep at it, and I am so proud of them. After all, that is why I put them in soccer this year. I love watching them play. I especially love the chant that Hannah's team yells every game "Mirror, mirror on the wall, pretty girls don't play ball, so LET's GET UGLY!"

Some FYI about watermelons

Maybe all of you seasoned gardeners know this, but I didn't. If you pick a watermelon too early, say two months after planting, it will be white in the middle. Kim, I wish that I would have read your post about watermelons before we picked ours. Hannah was so excited when I told her that I would buy her watermelon for 50 dad dollars (equivalent to $5) if she could grow it from seed and sell it to me. That was an expensive mistake I made when I told her that it looked ready. Luckily she has one more watermelon on the vine which we aren't going to pick until it is good and ready. Johnny's garden has supplied us with all of the zucchini and carrots we need and John, Maddie and I are growing tomatoes in our gardens.

Lucy grew some amazing onions this year, good job Lucy! She didn't realize that she grew them, but her favorite past time is watering the gardens.

My new favorite "Maddie" poem

Today, I took Maddie to her first theater class. I know, what am I thinking, adding more drama to this little drama queen's life? Maybe it will help her to channel all of her drama to something good. Recently she told me that she wished that she could dance with a lot of other girls, so I started thinking hypothetically about a dance class, but decided that dance and pre-school would just be too expensive, and I wasn't willing to fork that much out for a four year old. Then I started thinking about this theater class, and started getting excited. This year they are going to do an Alice In Wonderland play. After the first class I was even more excited, they are going to be practicing diction, dance, singing and working together as a group. I think it may just be what I need to fill in the gaps of what I can't teach her on my own this year.

At the end of the class, the teacher handed each of them a poem to bring home. I can't help but feel sentimental when I think of the words of this poem and my Maddie in the same context.

Listen to the mustn'ts, child.

Listen to the don'ts.

Listen to the shouldn'ts, the

impossibles, the won'ts.

Listen to the never haves,

then listen close to me...

Anything can happen, child!

Anything can be!

--Shel Sylverstein

I think that this bin is mislabeled

It should have been labeled "Little, expensive boys", because Johnny is anything but cheap--we have plenty of hospital receipts to prove that one. We like to get this bin out on Sundays to keep the kids occupied, it is usually filled with all of the little toys that don't seem to go anywhere, and end up everywhere. Of course, it is always the container that is the most fun. John came up with a fun game where he would close it and take Johnny to random places in the house and make him guess where he was. This is what happens when you leave boys to their own devices, don't worry, no accidents happened here.

And when I married him, I didn't even know....

That he would be such a loving, compassionate dad....

That our Family Home Evening activities would consist of taking household items apart....

That he would strictly follow the "Engineer's dress code" (I love this picture of him and our brother-in-law, Mark, at our last family get-together. They didn't even plan it.)...

That he would be amazing in the kitchen...I mean, look at those jars, they are beautiful!!!

Yep, I'm one lucky girl.

Time to say goodbye to popsicles and dragonflies

This summer has been awesome! I am sad to see it go, even though I was excited to see Hannah and Johnny head to school this year.

I am realizing that I am just as busy now as I was before school started. On one beautiful September morning last week, we sent them off and proceeded to eat popsicles for breakfast. I figured, why not, they were left over fruit smoothie from the day before. It was our last hurrah to summer. I am loving this time with Maddie and Lucy.

This year I am trying my hand at teaching Maddie the things that she will need to know for school next year. This is the first year that I haven't sent a four year old child of mine to pre-school. Don't ask me why I didn't, because my explanation will probably sound silly--I don't really have an explanation, just that it felt right. In my humble opinion (*wink*wink) I am an awesome pre-school teacher though. We head down to the basement almost every morning at 10:00 and "play". We spend a little time with the calendar, singing, reading, writing letters and doing a fun activity. The girls both love "pre-school" and today they asked if they could wear their backpacks. It was so cute watching them tromp down the stairs with their big empty backpacks.

Vacation Day 2

On our second day we traveled to the Idaho side of Bear Lake. It was a beautiful day and the beach was amazing. I love how shallow it is, I was able to relax and let the kids play in the sand and water and let them wander a bit. John made an insanely deep sunken island, and it attracted not only our kids but plenty of other little friends too.

Vacation Day 1

Around the middle of August we took our family to Montpelier, Idaho for our fun new yearly tradition. We love Montpelier because their camp grounds are much less crowded than the Bear Lake camp grounds. We spent our first day setting up camp and walking through the Minnetonka Caves. The kids loved this, there were 888 stairs round trip, and Lucy was determined to walk them all herself.

Dutch oven cooking is my new love,

Hannah and Johnny couldn't resist having a pad fight as we set up camp.

Maddie's unicorns were her constant camping companions

One of my favorite moments was breakfast, I loved watching them come out of the tent with their warm footed sleepers and their camp hair.

One of my least favorite moments was waking up to all of our bread and hot dog buns being eaten by some varmint. What can I say, we are a little out of practice when it comes to camping. We learned our lesson. From now on all food goes in the van at night.

Loved this classic "Linus" moment of Lucy with her blanket, sucking her thumb.