Summer has been an absolute treat!!! We really haven't stopped having fun. Late nights, sleeping in and constant fun has kept us happy for the most part.
Lincoln asked for a violin for Christmas and was told if he practiced the piano every day he could earn a violin for his birthday. Well, a couple of days after his birthday his wish finally came true. He has been consistent at practicing lesson one from the provided book every day of the summer. I may need to hire a teacher so we can move past lesson 1.
My grandma Poll was diagnosed with Cancer in May. It was quite advanced and finally took her life the last day of June, just 5 days before she turned 91. She was quite an amazing woman! She loved babies, and all kids. My kids will have memories of her sitting on the floor with them playing games, blocks and cards. I will have memories of her delicious homemade Sunday treats and "grandma's rolls". She taught me how to bottle my peaches and gave me my sugar cookie recipe that I use each year at Halloween. Mostly she taught me to be kind to everyone and always showed people how to live the gospel by the way she lived. She never thought about herself, but always wanted to be helping anyone in the room. I love you grandma! What a legacy you left!
This is my "smiley guy"
My mom gave Lincoln these bubble ball suits for his birthday. They were so fun to watch, and the kids loved them. The biggest injuries were from falling off of the trampoline, but, they were saved by the bubble. It's too bad they only lasted a few weeks until they inevitably popped.
Lincoln's 1st grade class. He had a great teacher Mrs. Sorenson who Lincoln sincerely admired.
We celebrated the last day of school by going to the dentist. For some reason, by kids love this place. They were so excited to go! I liked it less as I got informed that I needed a root canal.
This kid doesn't stop growing!He loves to stand, so the saucer only seems like the perfect toy for this smiley guy
The last day of this floor. We got the sharpies out and never looked back!
Of all my boys, Dean knows how to make the biggest mess, the very fastest.
It's a good thing that he always cleans up his mess. I will call this a significant improvement!
While Dean took a week off of work to make and clean up messes in our kitchen, we headed to Centerville to live in my mom's home that was also under construction until she moved in. The empty basement was more than enough to keep us happy, occupied and sheltered. The boys did a lot of wrestling in all of this open space on brand new carpet!
We spent some time in Syracuse with cousins there!
Carson is really good with my babies. He loves Ezra!
I definitely dragged my feet before feeding this kid solid food. It took him over a month to get it down-but I take most of the blame as I was in no hurry to start this next phase of baby.
We walked to the Centerville Library from my mom's house and the boys were anxious to go see Grandpa's tree!
In an effort to teach my boys the importance of service, I volunteered our time for 2 hours each week watching neighbor kids whose mom's are expecting. It's been a good experience for Lincoln and I. He has learned about helping others and I really could not have been in charge of sometimes 14 kids at a time without his help.
We had fun on the drumbus one afternoon at the Centerville Library.
Jodi invited us to go on a perfect kid hike in Bountiful.
Then we headed up to Idaho for the Poll family reunion. We stayed in a house on a large property. There was a freezing cold swimming pool, that the kids enjoyed. The most momentous part of this pool is that Oliver finally dared to jump in and get his head wet!!! This has completely changed our summer for the better!
We took one day and headed to Bear Lake. It was still June, and the air and water were cold, but it didn't stop us from having a great time! I locked my keys and our lunches in the car, but I have a brother, cousin and Jodi's boyfriend who found it an adventure to get the keys out!
Chase and Lindsey's babies were fun to have in Idaho next to Ezra. Dean stayed back to work on the kitchen, and I was grateful to so many cousins and aunts and uncles who helped with my boys. This is Julie and Steven taking a turn with the babies.
Picnic on the porch.
Yard games with cousins!
This place had dozens of these caterpillars. They were a huge hit for all kids ages 3-8! We had a hard time saying goodbye...Lucky me, I found half of one in the dryer at the end of a load-YUCK!
We were big participants in the library's summer reading program. Thomas "won" some stickers for his hard work. We didn't make it 5 feet away from the awards table before he had assigned his stickers an important spot on his body.
Smiley Guy!
More fun with these neighbor kids! We used all sorts of construction material to entertain these kiddos.
We finally made it to the International Peace Gardens in Glendale. For Oliver's birthday, we had a picnic nearby and he thought we missed out on a playground. I promised him we would go back, and we finally did. There wasn't a playground, but these kids made their own fun!
We also had fun at Liberty Park this summer. "The Canyons" is a favorite spot to play hide and seek and there's plenty of shade for me to watch and feed Ezra.
The tale of the water bottles. Without a kitchen, and being on the go so much, I decided we each needed a water bottle. We went into Big 5 and I just about dropped a small fortune to get everyone what they wanted. Lincoln saved us by having a meltdown and an "entitled kid moment" which helped me quickly change my mind about paying so much for some plastic. We instead did some research online and found a less expensive alternative at Sam's Club, and would you know it, we were all happy with the choice, and we still all have our water bottles.
Oliver loves his "baby Ezzy"
It's weird this kid is big enough to enjoy the park now!
Here is the tornado of Ikea boxes that took over a month to send away in our recycle bins. The kids did so many activities with these! They kept us entertained for weeks!
We had the Graham's come over for Judy's birthday and enjoy our unfinished kitchen with us. Now it's Lucy's turn to enjoy this smiley guy.
We went to a splash pad in South Jordan with Ezra's hospital buddy. We got a little lost, so we arrived late and didn't have much time to spend with William, but we had plenty of time to get wet.
My good friend Trish invited me and the boys to her family reunion at Pine View Dam. They boys didn't stop having fun! They played all day and loved making their own dams in the sand. I overheard them on several occasions asking for the dam shovel or the dam bucket.
It was fun to be with Trish's parents who I haven't seen in almost 20 years. They were so generous and accommodating to my little family.
Lincoln played in a summer soccer league at Fairmont Park. Each day we would walk past the skate park to get to his game and he was always dying to give it a try with his scooter. This is a pretty hoppin park on any given evening with lots of skaters and plenty of foul language. We finally made it early one morning where we could enjoy the concrete to ourselves. It was fun to watch Lincoln get more and more daring as the morning went on. Oliver and Thomas had fun running around and chasing Lincoln.
After the skate park, I took the boys to Denny's for $2 pancakes. They were thrilled to go and we enjoyed our chocolate chip pancakes. Towards the end of our meal, our waitress informed me that a nice man in the restaurant had paid for our bill. I was overwhelmed with gratitude. I had just received new that my grandma had passed away. I most likely would have lost control of my emotions if my boys wouldn't have been right there to witness me crying...Too many questions to answer-so I held back the tears, but will always be grateful to that man. I hope my boys remember that and we all look for opportunities to pay it forward.
We spent another weekend in Weber/Davis County. We went climbing with Holly at the Front in Ogden, then we went to Classic Waterslides. The two older boys had a good time as long as they could stay warm. Then we spent the night at Troy and Marissa's house and woke up for a big pot luck breakfast and parade by their house. The boys collected far more candy than one person should ever eat-ever.
Then Troy took us to his office/warehouse where there was plenty of fun things to do and see. Even giant swings, electric bikes, lunch, bean bag chairs, pool, ping pong, frisbee and so much more.
Just in case we weren't already worn out enough, we went to the aerospace museum by Hill Air Force Base. The boys loved it! We saw a whole lot of fast jets, and they had to kick us out because they were closing. We could have spent another hour there!
And this is one of Ezra's favorite positions...yum, yum, yum!
Whew, June was so fun!
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