Swimming Days!

We swam at least once a week if not more.  Our city is great becasue we get into 4 different rec centers for free (well... cost of our HOA fee).  All the rec centers have both indoor and outdoor pools that are each different and unique.  It really makes our summers wonderful.  Wednesday was our pool day and most of the time it was me taking 10 neighbor kids with me.  We usually went after Dane's morning nap and he would hang out at the pool for 2 hours, sometimes he would get in, but usually not and then take his afternoon nap in his stroller.  Sometimes other mom's would come with us and a few times other moms took my kids and Dane and I would stay home where he got a proper nap (at home he naps for 2 - 4 hours, in the stroller he takes a 30 min nap - but it didn't matter, either way he was happy).

See Dane playing with the cups in front.

This was the year of swimming Brock.  Ever since Brock was about 7 he has hated swimming.  It was always a battle to even get him to come to the pool and 95% of the time he never got in.  It was always sad.  But this year he decided he liked it!  It was amazing.

Dane napping

Noah took a shot one day (that is me in the floppy hat)

The kids loved playing with Dane at the pool.  He is basically the most popular kid on the street right now.  Every time any kid (mine or a neighbor kid) they would spend 15 or so minutes playing with Dane.  I don't have any pictures of him in the water because I was sure either the phone would drop in the water or Dane would drown - I chose Dane :) 

Our cool action shot

Summer time

What a summer we have had!  It truly was a wonderful summer.  To be honest I was terrified for summer.  I was worried the kids would be trapped inside and resent Dane or Dane would never get to nap or eat on a schedule and be terrible and I would resent the kids for making me "ruin" Dane, or that I just couldn't do it all.  Amazingly NONE of those things happened.  Dane could care less if he was on a schedule and was happy everywhere we took him.  The kids were happy to play at home and in the neighborhood most days so Dane could take a good 4 hour nap.  And I chose carefully and sought inspiration form the spirit about what to keep doing and what to let go (one thing we let go of was school work:) 

When I look back on this summer I will remember nothing but joy.  Dane made everything better.  The kids were awesome helpers.  The next few post are going to be categorized into activities.  Rather than post about every hike or every time we went swimming there will be a "hiking" post and a "swimming" post.  Almost every week we did three things - swam, hiked, and went to a park.  

Below are random summer pictures:

Dane loves to play in the sandbox.

This isn't a great picture but we went to Goodwill and bought a bunch of things for the kids to take apart.  It was fun but we learned that most really cool things to take apart are actually really dangerous - so it wasn't as cool as we thought it  would be.

This was the summer of play dough.  Since I wasn't doing preschool we changed our basement into a "big kid" zone.  Turns out the girls and all their friends just wanted to play with my preschool stuff.  They spent HOURS in the basement coming up with the most amazing play dough creations.

I didn't even make it out into my garden until JUNE!!  Usually I start around March/Aprilish.  I probably only spent about 5 hours total on it all summer.  It still turned out ok.  I didn't add anything new and my hydrangeas never bloomed - which is devastating... they are my favorites!  But everything is better when my fairy garden is out.

But My peony FINALLY got to bloom and not get destroyed by a spring hailstorm.

Dane spent a lot of time in the car.  I just LOVE looking in my rear view mirror and seeing this:

He is my first baby to have a mirror in the back and it is so much fun.

Dane started the summer with learning to sit and ended the summer with learning to crawl.  He had a very productive summer.

The more children you have the easier it is sometimes.  Dane never wants for attention. love, or stimulation.  If I am busy making dinner or cleaning something there is always a sibling ready to play with him.  Even if he is just playing on the floor, every time a sibling runs in or out of the house - even just for a second - they stop and smile at and play with Dane for a few minutes - they just can't help themselves.

We also baked - a lot!  About once a week I let who ever wanted to bake something.  This was hard for me to say yes and it often took a lot of supervision and clean up but I knew it was important.  By the end of the summer they were all pretty competent bakers and didn't need as much supervision.  

Oh the American Girl dolls...

The girls in the neighborhood spend hours and hours playing American Girl dolls.  Fun side story.  They all have their own real AG doll.  My girls have the target brand My Generation dolls.  They have never complained or acted like they felt "less then".  But I knew they wished they had one.  One day I was at a garage sale and saw 3 perfect American Girl dolls for 15 dollars each!!!  I was so so excited to bring them home and give them to my girls.  They so deserved them becasue they never even asked for them.  They had a lemonade stand the next week to help pat for them.

Said lemonade stand:

More playing in the sand. 

Lots and lots of library trips

We had a Young Women, Ella, come over for some baking lessons we won at our church's silent service auction. 

Brock went on SEVERAL boy scout camping trips.  Including scout camp and hiking a 14er.

I was in charge of the ward summer bbq.  The theme was based on the book "Saints".  I even got hand carts for people to pull.  I think we make a pretty good team and are happy to pull this load with him.

We played a lot of board games.  One day while playing Clue Noah obviously had to dress the part.

Here is an example of one of our weeks.

Boys at the skate park.

We had a few neighborhood outdoor movies.

Great summer, eh? And that is just the odd ball stuff that doesn't fit in all the other posts that are coming!

Utah: BYU Campus

While they were at the temple the other kids and I went to BYU campus.  We of course started at our old stomping grounds - The Brick Oven, and walked to path to the duck pond and up onto campus.  One one hand it was really great - but on the other it was terrible.  I picked the wrong course up to campus and we ended up carrying Dane and his stroller up tons and tons of stairs in the million degree heat with no shade.  Half way through campus we realized it was too hot and we were too tired to make it all the way to the creamery and back  to the car - so we turned around mid trip - headed back to the car and drove to the creamery.  We had fun while on the path though!

Utah: Baptisms

After Dairy Queen Randy and Debby took Brock to the Payson temple to do some baptisms.  Debby has been working really really hard on her Greek ancestory line for a while.  In fact they are going to Greece in a couple of weeks to find some names.  Brock took her grandpa's name to get baptized for him.  It was really special.  In fact the man doing the baptisms was Greek and was able to pronounce the names correctly.  I am glad he got to go and that Debby helped provide that opportunity.