Pioneer Holiday

Yesterday (July 24th) was Pioneer Day. It's the day the pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley and is a very big holiday in Utah.
Wednesday we were invited to go to the Rodeo with my parents. We took Lily and Jeff and they had fun watching the show and seeing their cousin, uncle and some other relatives who were part of the show as well.
Here's their uncle Mike on a stage coach.

Friday we were eating breakfast and Jefferson got his arm stuck between the bars of the chair back. I could not get it out! I called a couple of neighbors, I tried lubricating his elbow with Vaseline, I was about ready to take a saw to the chair. After about ten minutes of trying to get it out, I finally did. The poor boys arm hurt for a few days. Right after I got his arm free we had a couple neighbors show up to help and a few called back to make sure he was okay. It really meant a lot to me that I had so many people who were concerned and were willing to help in our little crisis.

Saturday (yesterday) was the holiday. Tom and Lily went and hiked Ensign Peak with some of Tom's family (Jeff was sick so he, Cedric and I slept in) and then we all met up at a park for breakfast. Here's Cedric swinging with his cousin, Kate.
Then we enjoyed a relaxing afternoon and that night went swimming at Grandpa and Grandma's pool and had a fun dinner with relatives. Cedric loved the ice cream and even tried to lick it off his own tummy.
That night we went with some of my family to view the fireworks. Because my parents rode with us, I sat in the back of the van between Lily and Jeff. All three kids fell asleep in the car and I had both Lily and Jeff asleep on my shoulder with my hand supporting their heads. The things we do for our kids. My arms were so sore by the time we got home.
It was a fun, long day. Especially for Jeff who had fun despite his cough and Lily who was up from 6:30am until 11pm. The holidays in July have to be my favorite part of summer. Happy Pioneer Day!

Rolls From Scratch

Today I decided to make homemade rolls with the kids.

Now this is a big deal for me considering my idea of "making" rolls is pulling the frozen Rhodes dough out of the freezer a couple of hours before dinner, letting them rise and cooking them. I didn't only want to make rolls, but I wanted to make them somewhat healthy and the recipe I had called for wheat flour. Well I had wheat, and I had flour, but not wheat flour. So I got our hand wheat grinder out of our food storage and let the kids help me grind the wheat into flour. We actually had a lot of fun and it was neat for the kids to see how flour is made.

The rolls turned out tasting really good! I don't think I let them rise long enough because they were still small and dense, but the kids loved them and ate over half a dozen themselves.
It was a perfect addition to the homemade chicken noodle soup we had and I'm proud of myself for trying something new.

Injuries, Rides, Ice Cream, Soccer and Birthday's

The past week was full of fun activities.
On Monday we went to Hollywood Connection for the day. They had a special $20 wristbands for a family of 5! We had fun riding the rides,
playing mini golf (Cedric wasn't feeling good though, so he decided to take a rest),

and rollerskating.
It was a lot of fun, until all the injuries. First, while rollerskating Lily's skates started rubbing and when she sat down to rest I noticed her whole ankle was bloody. Then Lily was trying to lift up the bar on the roller coaster before it was released and pinched her thumb. It too was purple and bloody. Then Lily was helping Cedric climb up the playground steps and instead pushed him into the next step and gave him a bloody eye.
We decided it was time to go by that point, but it was a very fun day anyway.

Thursday we went to Lagoon. We left Cedric home with my sister and just took the older two. Jeff was so excited to ride The Bat roller coaster (it was the only big roller coaster he was tall enough for). Lily loved the wet rides and it helped keep us cool to get totally drenched once in a while. The kids also found the hole Alice fell into when she followed the White Rabbit to Wonderland. As tradition, we always get ice cream in Pioneer Village. Usually, because they give us such big scoops Tom and I will help the kids eat them so they aren't dripping everywhere. But of course both of them had to pick bubble gum ice cream. Not only a nasty flavor, but they have to take time to chew the gum while meanwhile the ice cream melts. I ended up eating a lot of it anyway, and Lily got to the point of just spitting the gum out to eat later. It was nasty.
We ran into a friend from Tom's work who was nice enough to watch our kids while Tom and I went on Wicked. I'd never been on Wicked and was a little nervous. I just don't do well rides as I've gotten older and have had kids. But it was so fun and I'm so glad now I did it!
We had such a fun, long day and it was hard to stop and go home.

On Friday we went to the Real Salt Lake soccer game. The kids didn't care much about the game, but loved the popcorn, cotton candy and fireworks that came with the came.

Saturday we picked up doughnuts at Krispy Kream's for Tom's birthday.
That night we did fireworks at my sisters house.

Sunday was not only the birthday of our nation, but Tom's birthday as well. We had a nice relaxing day, but Tom ended up going to bed early because he was feeling sick (not a fun birthday ending).

Monday Tom had the day off because of the holiday and we spent the day running errands and then went to his parents house that night for a Bar-B-Q.
It was a very very fun, long week!