One summer day...

One summer day we went to a place called Hudson Gardens.  It is only about 15 minutes from our house and is free.  I knew about it since we moved here but never went.  Which is now angering me because it was amazing and I feel like i wasted 3 years of awesomeness.  It was wonderful.  A truly perfect summer day.

There were frogs to catch.

And waterfalls to climb

Noah and Derek

Noah's piano teacher moved to go get his PHD.  We are so sad.  Noah loved him and he handled Noah well.

Summer time activities

Here are some random pictures from summer.

One day I took some of our neighborhood friends to a really cool splash pad way across town - only to find that is was closed for maintenance - so we drove back and went to our usual splash pad - but about 15 minutes after getting there a cloud rolled in it started pouring.  I guess we didn't need a splash pad - the things we do for our kids.

We have 2 different lakes within about 20 minutes from our house.  We tried to go about once a week.  Our last trip though was epic.  The morning was nice and hot - and then about 11:30 - again - a cloud rolled in and things got crazy.  I mean crazy.  We had one big gust of wind that blew over our umbrella and all of our towels and life jackets away and as we (and everyone else) was chasing our stuff the rain and hail hit - hard.  The wind kept coming.  It was seriously like a hurricane - you couldn't stand up straight in it.  The wind was so bad it was blowing water from the lake and sand from the beach - it was so painful.  I think afterwards we saw that wind gusts got up to 75 mph.  It was really scary.  Brock and his friend Lincoln (that we brought with us)  took it upon themselves to help everyone at the beach and started helping everyone them carry their stuff to the pavilion we were all hiding under and then started chasing after things that had blown away.  It was pretty adorable.  With every big gust of wind and crash of thunder all the kids and babies would just scream.  We were there with my friend and her 5 kids including a 18  month old and a 4 month old  - our whole situation was so pathetic - Veronica and I couldn't help but just laugh the whole time.

We also went hiking or biking about once a week with a bunch of families in our ward.  We were quite a sight and actually got in trouble almost every place we went.  Apparently it makes every other adult in the world nervous to have 20 kids under 10 years old and only 4 adults.  We had several forest rangers called on us.  We always left feeling a little frustrated but also strengthened that we got to defend the family.

And of course Legos.

There was also a lot of running through the sprinklers (Maddie) playing Mine Craft (Brock, Noah and Megan), riding bikes to 7-11 for slurpees, several sleep overs, and one day I even took my kids to watch The Angry Bird Movie in the dollar theater.  And on the last day of summer the boys got to go with their friend to play unlimited laser tag.  not too shabby of a summer.

Pizza making

I have always made home made pizza for the family.  Over the last few months  the kids have really gotten into "helping" me and wanting to make the pizza by themselves.  So Jason and I thought it would be a good idea if we got everyone their own pizza pan and they started making their own pizzas.  It is a lot of fun and they really like it.

Scripture Reading

It is funny how a pretty organizational tool can inspire you to make great habits.  We have never done daily family scripture READING - we have always read to the children from the kids picture scripture books or told them stories in our won words.  But I had wanted to start for some time but felt overwhelmed about how to do it and where to do it.  My good friend became a 31 bag consultant and I helped throw her her first "party" and I got this little caddie as a gift.  I noticed it would fit several Book of Mormons - 7 in fact.  Now we can easily bring our scriptures into what ever room we are in and cut down on the overwhelming "everyone go get your scriptures... now put your scriptures away" part.  The best part is - it has actually worked.  We started in January and we have read almost  every night since (I would say 5 out of 7).  We are well into Mosiah.  It has been wonderful.  But let me tell you how truly wonderful it has been - the blessing have been incalculable.

 Brock has struggled with reading and writing since first grade (strangely enough he was ahead all of Kindergarten), in the past 6 months he has been diagnosed with Dysgraphia.  But back in January we didn't know that - we just knew he was behind.  And by behind I mean he was in third grade and probably barley on a first grade reading level - most kids were reading 80 - 100 words per minute and he was reading about 20 - with 60% accuracy.  We were reading everyday (we had been for years) but it wasn't helping much.  Like I said we started reading scriptures every night at the beginning of January and by the end of February he was almost at grade level.  Now, almost 6 months later, he is reading 80 words per minute with 85% accuracy.  NOTHING changed except for our daily family scripture reading.  There are several educational reasons why this happened - research has always shown that homes where children read the bible daily have very high literacy rates - the bible has difficult words, it presents complex ideas that are then explained to the child, it pushes them to read words they wouldn't normally read in their regular reading, the little print actually even helps, etc.  But despite all the academic reasons - we all know why - blessings come from scripture reading.  This wasn't even on my radar when we started this, becasue, like I said, we were having family scripture study daily, we were just now pivoting to READING them - but heavenly father knew what we needed - and blessed us greatly.  

And then there is Madison.  In January she had just started to read - she was blending 3 and 4 letter phonetic words with a few sight words.  By March she was a 100% proficient reader.  She has surpassed Brock, Noah, and Megan in her reading abilities.  I have no idea where she is really at becasue basically she can read anything.  If there is a really long, hard verse or we need to get reading done quickly, we give it to Maddie.  Again, the ONLY thing we did was read scriptures.  That was awesome. 

Flaming Gorge

My maternal grandparents have been going to Flaming Gorge Reservoir for 2 weeks every summer for 50 years (minus 2 years they were on their mission).  I grew up, also, going every summer - not for 2 weeks - but from anywhere from 3 to 7 days.  It has been a wonderful family tradition that instilled in me a love of nature, camping, boating, skiing, river rafting, and family time.  I remember, even as a child, feeling close to God out here and close to my family.  I have only been 4 times in the last 12 years - but such was the stage of life in my 20's.  But on this anniversary year of 50 years (and knowing it is most likely the last) I really wanted to make the extra effort to go and share with my children one of my great childhood memories - and also something that shaped me into who I am today.  My secret hope is that we still go every summer and it becomes something that shapes my children.

My dear husband could come up with a list of about a thousand things he would rather do than go camping and boating for a week.  But he went.  And he went happily.  We had the most amazing week.  The weather was perfect and we got to do everything we wanted.

Jason took this picture of me and insisted I put it on (I think becasue I am showing a little leg :)  But I do quite like it becasue this is my memory of Flaming Gorge, sitting on the bow of the boat looking ahead as we boat up the canyon.

I absolutely love to water ski.  I don't do a lot of things that are just "fun" - but this is one of them. It is just for me and it makes me so happy and I have so much fun doing it.   I am trying to get good at slalom  - Jason didn't take a picture of that - my first run I just got up on two because that is easy.  But thanks to Bill Thomas and 7 am skiing lessons I really learned to cut a lot better and can't wait to get back out on the water.  I wish I got to ski more than once a year.

My kids really learned to love to tube this year.  The last few years they have liked to just take slow easy rides.  But by the end of our trip they loved going in and out of the wake, going over huge bumps, and the boys desperately wanted to get flipped off - but we were never able to make that happen.

You can't see it, but Megan had this big toothless grin that just killed Jason and I.  It was adorable.

I don't have a picture of just Noah tubing by himself becasue he held out the longest.  He was scared and didn't want to tube the whole first day - and then when he finally tried I didn't have my camera.  But he did do it - and loved it.

But he was a happy boater!

Our beach set up - my dad on work calls and Jason trying to stay out of the sun.  I am grateful to the hard working men who make this trip possible - not only for all the hard work they do while we are up there but for all the hard work they do AT work and earning enough money so we can take these great vacations and then USING those vacation days to go do MORE work while camping.

Megan could have spent all day everyday playing in the sand on the beach.  Seriously.

Madison could have spent all day everyday wandering and exploring.

And, sadly, I didn't get a picture of the boys doing their thing.  But they could have spent all day everyday fishing.  That was all they wanted to do.  Especially Brock.  But unfortunately he never caught anything - although Grandpa tried SO HARD to get him to catch something.  Lessons of a fisherman - sometimes you don't catch anything.

We loved sitting around the campfire each night with our cousins and second cousins roasting marshmallows and woofums.

Grandma had a great smore buffet with all kinds of choices and options!

Me and my sweetheart.

One day we dropped all the boys off on some rocks and cliffs and let them play.  This was our view from the boat.

On the last day we pulled out this mega tube.  The kids LOVED it - and loved going on it altogether.

My mom even went on the tube with her grandchildren.  What a cool grandma!

My mom's grandkids

The girls

The boys

My cute cute grandma and grandpa.  50 years of camping.

Chores

I read the most amazing book this spring about kids and chores.  I picked it up at Deseret Book on a whim one day - but now i know it was the spirit.  It  totally motivated me and gave me the tools to help teach my children to do chores.

I decided to spend the majority of my time and attention this summer on teaching my children how to do chores - and it worked out great.  Some things that really worked out.

I put these note cards all over the house (in the room they were applicable too) that had DETAILED instructions about how to complete that chore.

Then they had theses pockets outside their doors.  Every night I would put in Popsicle sticks saying what needed to be done.  When they were done they put it in the done pocket.  They couldn't have screen time until everything was in the done pocket.  This worked wonderfully!!  I just had to be committed to refill them every night.  Most mornings when I woke up several of the kids were already going through their sticks accomplishing things.  There is no greater reward for a mom than to wake up and have her kids hard at work!

An example of some chores.  each child got sticks according to their developmental skill.  If there was a chore they were learning to do they sometimes got it three or four days in a row (like sweep kitchen or  vacuum living room).  We were working so hard on learning how to do something things were getting clean just for the sake of learning how to vacuum even when it didn't need vacuuming it.  Our house was SO CLEAN this summer.  I went the whole summer with out unloading the dishwasher or vacuuming or sweeping ever - the kids did it all!  It was still a lot of hard work and a lot of emotional energy was spent in teaching how to clean a toilet for  the 1,000 time - but I know that it is worth it.

Also each child got put in charge of a meal.  And they were IN CHARGE of that meal.  It helped cut down on whining - they are more reluctant to complain about a meal that Noah picked and made than one I picked and made - and they saw how sad it made them when people didn't like THEIR meal - so now they give me more grace.

Brock and cooking

Brock loves to cook.  He said the other day, "I don't like to read - but I do like to read cook books".  I have been making a point of teaching him how to cook "real" meals all by himself this summer.  And when I say all by himself - I mean hi woke up early and I came downstairs and this french toast was made.  He will often say things like "I want to grow my talent of cooking today".  It has been great. So far he can make 100% by himself:
French toast
Mac and cheese (from the box)
top roman
egg salad sandwiches
penne pasta bake
Rice Crispy treats

I have found I have to make something with him about 5 times (in general levels of scaffolding) before he can make it by himself.