Here's what we've been up to for the month of June...
Jeff's been growing his hair out for several months! It was starting to get a little out of hand. One night, he wanted to go to a late showing of the new "Captain America: Civil War" movie on a school night. I told him he could go if he'd get a hair cut (I thought he'd say no). He agreed, so I let him go and the next day we got his hair cut.
Before
After
The lady didn't quite do what we wanted, but thankfully hair grows and I was glad I could finally see his ears and neck again.
I saw this comic on Facebook. It fits my boys to a T.
This is what summer is all about!
Every year I volunteer to help with the school field day. It's on the last day of school and all the students rotate through different games outside. This year Sophie and Lily came with me to help (Lily's last day of school was Thursday, June, 2nd. The boys last day was Friday, June 3rd).
Here's Sophie and her friend, Alyse chilling in the shade.
Lily and I helped run the bounce slide/obstacle course along with my friend, Kristi.
Cedric's last day of 1st grade.
Jeff's last day of 4th grade.
We made sure to drink plenty of water and the five of us had a fun time!
That weekend Sophie had her final dance recital. She did so good and was such a cute Minnie Mouse
She is fourth from the right.
She's second from the right.
We love being able to eat dinner outside on our new patio furniture. Shish-ka-bobs, mmmmm!
Cedric and Sophie both took swimming lessons for a few weeks. I was amazed with how much their confidence and skills increased over the short period of time.
Lily's favorite past-time is climbing trees. Can you spot her in this picture?
Mr. C is such a cool kid when it comes to practicing the piano.
Summer's not summer without trips to the dairy pool! This was our first one for the season.
We had fun at our cousin's real-estate barbecue we go to every year.
We had one day where it rained and thundered and hailed the whole day! The kids enjoyed going out in the summer storm.
After a year and a half Tom got his braces off!
Jeff was awarded his Bear award at cub scouts.
He also participated in retiring the flag ceremony.
Father's Day was another big event in June. Suzy went around and took pictures of everyone. I love the candid pictures. I don't have enough of these...
Sophie
Lily, Natalie and Travis
Mike and me
Cedric and Jeff
Caleb, Tom, John, Marcus, Aimee, Tyler and Dad
I made sure to get a picture with my dad too.
A candid shot of the kids giving Tom his Father's Day cards.
One day, when swimming at the dairy pool, Lily rescued a dragon fly and named him Fred. He was huge!
A lot of my June was spent cleaning out my preschool closet. Since our August is going to be so busy, I wanted to try to get as much preschool stuff done early-on as possible. This project is the one I dread the most.
We tried to go on a few field trips this year. One place we went was the Gale History Center. This is a hands-on museum about South Jordan. My neighbor Kristi, Grandma Kay and niece, Charlotte went with us too. I had Grandma Kay and Charlotte with us about once a week.
Kristi and I had to get a picture of us standing in the doorway of the pretend house talking, because this is how we visit most of the time, at each other's doorsteps.
That night, Sophie and Cedric went to a birthday party and Tom was late getting home from work. So Lily, Jeff and I decided to go get dinner. We went to Chick-fil-a. I was trying to not spend a lot of money so I told the kids we could only get one drink and share it. Lily and I wanted lemonade, but Jeff wanted Hi-C. The girl at the register said, "I'll solve the problem for you" and gave us a free drink! Then, when I went to use my card to pay, the machine wasn't working. The girl said it'd been having problems all day and said she'd take care of that too. She gave us our whole meal for free! We love Chick-fil-a and their customer service.
The week following girls camp (see previous post) was a hard week. I was exhausted, Tom wasn't around much and I was feeling upset that our friends were on a trip together without us. To make matters worse, I was asked to go to cub scout camp with some boys from our ward (Jeff had gone to the Webelos camp the weekend before when Lily and I were at girls camp). Tom was going up to Logan for the MS bike ride the and had already made plans with his buddies to go golfing and such on the way up. So one of the the primary leaders called me out of desperation to see if I would go. So I did. Maren came over for part of the day to help with my kids at home, but it was hard to get up early, spend the day with kids I didn't know well and leave my other kids at home.
That night was fun though, I went out with all my sister-in-laws and Tom's mom (and my niece) to dinner to celebrate our soon-to-be sister-in-law, Shara! She was marrying Kurtis the next weekend so we wanted to do something for her. Carlee and I had fun doing some shopping for a wedding gift beforehand. ;)
So Tom was up in Logan for the MS bike ride he does every year. In past years the wives and kids had gone up and cheered the guys in and swam at the local rec center and gone out for dinner. It was a tradition I was looking forward to and was very disappointed when I found out we weren't doing it this year. It had been a very hard week, and this was a hard blow.
However, my prayers were answered. After having a rough morning, I told the kids we were going to play a game to get the house cleaned (it was quite a mess since I'd been gone the day before at scout camp). For every job they did, they'd get their name in a cup. Then when all the jobs were done, we'd draw a name out of the cup and that person would get to pick what we did that day. I couldn't believe how good the kids were! We all worked together, with no fighting or complaining and we were able to get the house cleaned in one hour! I've never seen my kids work so hard and well before! I felt so happy!
When it came time to draw names, I told them they couldn't complain if their name wasn't drawn. Everyone was on board with it, so I drew a name and it was Jeff's! He said he wanted to go swimming, but didn't care where. So we worked together to pick a place. We settled on the Kearns fitness center.
Everyone was excited!
Luckily, they have some indoor pools that were included in the fee, so we went inside. The pool with the lazy river and water slide was fun, but still quite crowded, then we found their other pool. This one had hardly anyone in it and there was a fun obstacle course the older kids could do.
Sophie was so brave in the water.
and even jumped off the side several times by herself. This was her first time figuring out how to float with a life jacket.
Jeff found some older boys playing basketball and they let him join in.
We had so much fun and spent several hours there.
Afterwards, we went home and showered and cleaned up, then headed to dinner. I drew a name earlier out of the cup to see who'd get to pick the restaurant, and Jeff won again. At first he picked Arby's, but with a little coaxing, we settled on Wingers. The kids love the popcorn!
By the time we got home, Tom was back from his bike ride, although he was quite tired and went right to bed. I was glad the day ended up being so fun for the kids and I. We had no problems, everyone got along and we all had a good time. I wish we could have more days like that one!
Another day we went to Jungle Jim's Playland. I'd never been here, but found out it was only $2 on Tuesday, so we went with my friend, Kristi and her kids again. Apparently, the rides are geared for kids ages 4-8 because our older kids had a hard time and found it kind of boring. But Sophie absolutely loved it! Ah well, it was something to do.
Our raspberry bushes have really flourished this year and the kids love going out and picking fresh berries.
Tom's bees have really flourished too! They even started making their own comb on the box.
Speaking of insects, we had a weird infestation of flying ants in our bathtub. Everyday we'd see new ones in there, even after cleaning the old ones out. They looked to be dead or dying. I decided to plug up the drain and put some water in the tub, thinking they were coming from the drain, but they were still appearing?! Then they started showing up in the shower, and smaller ants were trying to drag the big ants out. It was weird and gross. Then one day, they just stopped appearing and we've only seen a couple since.
This summer I've done better than ever reading with my kids. I have them do a little bit of homework, reading, jobs, piano (or sports for Jeff), everyday. Because we have a bit of a routine, the kids are pretty good about doing their stuff. The best was when Jeff (who's usually the least excited to do his stuff), voluntarily started reading on his own one day! We'd been reading the "Wayside School" books and the kids really enjoyed them. I love moments like these.
Now it's July and life continues to be busy.
