Sweet!

Needing a fun adventure to go on, we found out about a candy factory that gives free tours and decided to head out one Monday as soon as the kids got home from school (which fortunately is an hour earlier on Mondays).



Once inside we waited for instructions. Once we'd watched a video and gotten our instructions, we donned our gorgeous hair nets and headed in. My job was to keep Declan's hair net on the entire time. That was FUN, but we did manage. He was interested in the factory from time to time and then I'd distract and play games and sometimes pin his arms to make it through the tour.

We got to see all different areas. At different times, we'd get asked questions with the winner getting an extra treat. Tom ended up being good at answering those questions. In one room, we had to guess which jelly bean was being made (Tom correctly answered root beer). Of course, no tour of a candy factory is complete without some samples. It was really interesting, the kids loved it, and we had a lot of fun. Of course afterwards we were lead to the candy store in the factory, where we couldn't resist buying some candy.

I love these little adventures!! Especially one that involves some education and some candy!!

Taylor's First Day of School

Poor Taylor had to wait one whole week before she could start school. The kindergartners have a delayed start time, so she was disappointed when Shelby started school without her. Finally, though it was her turn, and she was ready and excited. Since Shelby is on Track 1, we put Taylor in AM kindergarten. After taking Shelby to school at 8:00, we came home and fed the other kids and got Taylor ready for her day. Finally at 9 we headed out. Here is our BIG kindergartner. Really, where has the time gone? (If you look at her ankle, you'll see the billion bandaids we had to put on her because she got a little scratch. Silly girl.)


When we got to school, Taylor and I headed over to the special kindergarten playground that's fenced in and has doors directly to their classrooms. Taylor was a bit shy. I was hoping she'd warm up a bit since one of the girls from church was in her class, but she decided she was going to be shy.


After playing just a bit, she decided to come sit by me and wait.


Finally, the bell rang, and it was time. You can see how shy she was being. Her teacher is Mrs. Ericson, and I was extremely happy with her. Taylor is a very strong-willed and a very passionate child, and I sometimes worry about her when she's away from me. She's had young teachers at church who just could not handle her, but I really felt Mrs. Ericson was a good fit for Taylor (and so far so good).


When we got back to the car, it was weird to have only 2 kids with us. It felt empty!


A little after 12, we went and picked Taylor up. She had had a great day. She sat by Aspen and Ike and really enjoyed everything. She has been ready to go to school for a long time, and I'm so glad that she is enjoying it. I did get a bit teary-eyed, but am excited for her. Way to go our Big Girl!!

The Fire Pit is Done!!!

With the irrigation in place and the trampoline set up, it was time to finish the fire pit. Tom and Jeremy set to work placing the stones and then filling the cracks with sand. After a lot of hard work, it was finally done!! We decided to break it in that night with a delicious dinner of hot dogs, corn, watermelon, and whatnot followed by some good ole smores.


The girls enjoyed playing in the dirt and jumping on the trampoline as Dad and Jeremy were outside working on the yard.


So here it is. They did a really good job!


Declan also came out to play and had a blast digging in the dirt.


Shelby and Payden were jumping. Unfortunately the trampoline got brokin' in today as well as Payden suddenly threw up all over it. She ended up missing a delicious meal and smores for dessert. Darn stomach bug!


I caught Declan trying to crawl in the dirt. Apparently he only likes playing in the dirt. He does NOT like the feel of it and tried crawling with his legs straight to prevent from touching the dirt.


In the end he decided that one leg bent and one leg straight was the best he could do and still keep moving at a good pace.


After all the hard work, the meal was delicious, and we had an enjoyable evening around the fire.


Gotta love this wonderful Utah weather that makes fires in the summer bearable and allows for enjoyable dinner's outside!! Good work, Tom and Jeremy!!

Shelby's First Day of School

Wow!! Where did the time go? We hadn't expected to have to live with Cynthia and Jeremy so long, but decided to go ahead and enroll the girls in the nearby elementary school. Sooner than we expected, August 20 rolled around, and it was time for school to begin. Of course with school beginning, we had to adjust our schedule, but the first morning we all woke up bright and early to get Shelby ready and off to school.

Tom and Declan chilled on the couch while I helped Shelby get ready.


Payden was over by the boys playing around.


Taylor dressed herself, and we noticed she'd had some difficulty.


Her shirt is a bolero that's attached at the shoulder seams to a white tank top. She had difficulty getting them both on because they were attached and ended up with a cape. I then noticed her shorts were backwards.


Of course, she wouldn't let us change a thing. Finally with the girls bathed, a lunch made, and breakfast eaten . . . it was time to head to school.

Here is our big second grader on her first day at Deerfield Elementary in Miss Lien's second grade class:


When we got to school, I walked with Shelby to show her where to go. Her school has 2 tracks. Half the kids come at 8 and the other half at 9:15. The kids have to wait out back in the playground area until the bell rings. They can line up at their designated spot or play on the playground. There's about 2 teachers that monitor them. I was really worried about the setup, but we've adjusted. That first morning I walked with Shelby to her line and waited with her until her teacher came and got them. She got overwhelmed and started crying. Poor baby!! I took her aside and gave her hugs and tried to calm her down. It just broke my heart, and it took all my strength not to cry, too. Finally the bell rang, her class was called, and she headed in. By 2:15 we were excited to go pick her up. Fortunately, the rest of her day went smoothly. We look forward to her time at Deerfield.

Sleeping Arrangements

We've been very blessed to be living with Cynthia and Jeremy. I decided to get some photos of our sleeping arrangements while we are staying here.

Declan sleeps in a pack 'n play in the corner of our room. Every night we find him in this position with his little bum in the air. Too cute!



The girls sleep in the theater room right next to our room. Shelby LOVES sleeping on the couch and won't have it any other way. Payden sleeps on the floor next to Shelby because she and Taylor have to be separated because they fall asleep at the same time and are really good at playing around. I had always prevented them from falling asleep at the same time because I was worried of them causing problems, but was unable to prevent it when we moved here. They have done beautifully and have settled smoothly into our new arrangements. Of course, the kids couldn't resist jumping on the air mattresses, and Payden's air mattress has since popped. Fortunately, our normal mattresses were easy to get to, and she is now sleeping on one of those.


On the other side of the room is Taylor. Somehow her mattress is still intact, but I keep waiting for it to pop, too.


Being the mama hen that I am, I am glad to have my babies sleeping nearby and these arrangements have really worked out for us.

One Crazy Night

What to do when the parents are out of town and cousins are here to play? How about dress up and have a photo shoot. My nieces and nephews were in quite a mood. I'm not quite sure how it all started, but in the end my nephews Max and Ryan were dressed like girls, Ally was "directing" the photo shoot, and Madison joined in on the fun. I was just laughing and couldn't resist taking some photos.



I took more photos, but promised Ryan I wouldn't put very many up. They were just nuts. Well after the photo shoot, they decided to watch a movie on TV. Apparently there were I, II, and III of the movie one after the other. Tom and I went to bed, but the kids decided to watch all 3 movies. I woke up with Declan at 3:30 and saw a light on upstairs. They were still awake!!! Fortunately the movie soon ended, and they went to bed. Of course the next morning they were dead to the world, and this is what we found when we came up to eat breakfast.


I'm not sure how Madison could sleep like this, but apparently it was comfortable.


Crazy kids!

Swimming

Our niece invited us to come swimming with her and her daughter at their community pool, so we of course said yes. As usual, we had the pool to ourselves. Tom and I got there first with our kids. They love swimming and were so excited to hop in.



I love Taylor's goggles. It's rare that they don't have water in them or aren't foggy, yet she insists on wearing them.


Once the big kids came, Tom hopped in and started flipping them in the air. Here's Ryan:


Ally:


Max:


Declan LOVES balls and spent most of the time playing with the beach ball.


Payden tends to venture in the water a bit, but generally enjoys playing on the steps. At one point she decided she didn't want any floaty device on. I tried to convince her that she'd drown, but she wouldn't listen, so I waited patiently nearby and in less than a minute she walked down the steps into water over her head. I grabbed her pretty quickly, but it scared her. She was extremely upset, but did finally decide to listen to Mom and put on her floaties. Hopefully one of these days she'll learn it's easier to listen to Mom then figure out everything on your own.





When not using her floaties, Payden really loved having Madison haul her around the pool. Fortunately Madison was happy to oblige.


Miss Shelby LOVES holding on to Mom and Dad and latched on to Tom for awhile.


Tom couldn't resist showing off his guns.


Unfortunately, we had to go home way before the kids were ready to get out, but it was fun, and you can't beat swimming on a nice hot summer day.

Utah County Fair

With family still in town, we decided to head down south to the Utah County Fair. We came in separate cars and had to find parking spaces all over the place, so we initially met up in the food court. It was a HOT day and the kids were a bit hungry, so we got some food and drinks and sat at the tables waiting for everyone to arrive. You can see on Declan's face how hot it was . . . oh and don't you just love Tom's hat. It's what you can find at the dollar store to beat the heat. :)


While we ate, we ended up sitting next to a tent where they had different performances. We were fortunate to get to see the belly dancers . . . the modest belly dancers. It was DEFINITELY entertaining, but also a bit embarrassing to watch. I swear one of the ladies was in her forties and swaying and swinging those hips around. She even got down in the crowd to make it more exciting. I honestly had to work really hard to not bust out laughing.

After our wonderful entertainment, we headed into a building to look at the animals. It's just fun looking at all the different animals. Of course we saw the typical horses, cows, sheep, bunnies, chickens, roosters, and so forth. This is the best shot we got of the group. It included: Courtney, Cadence, Barbara, Ally, Max, Andrea, Cynthia, Madison, Ryan, Shelby, Taylor, Payden, Declan, Tom, and me.


We'd bought some discounted ride tickets and headed over to go ride the rides. I try really hard to make my kids try things. They all enjoyed this although Shelby didn't like being pushed outward and definitely was not going to raise her hands no matter how hard we tried to get her to do it.




This was Cadence and Payden's ship, "Ghost Ship":


This was Taylor's and Shelby's ship, "Scallywag":


While we walked to the next ride, Payden decided she'd rather put her sunglasses here:


Of course no fair is complete without a ride on the merry-go-round.


Shelby was off on her own because she had to sit on THE pretty horse.



The next ride was this boat one. The lady told them that if you chose to splash her, then she'd get you back. The way she said it was to entice them to splash her. Of course my girls didn't, but that was right up Cadence's alley. As soon as she started getting near the lady, you could tell she was going to splash her. The lady would splash her right back and they had a blast. It was funny to watch, but definitely so Cadence.


Taylor loved driving and ringing the bell.


After going around a bit, Shelby finally got brave enough to just touch the water. Haha . . . that's our Shelby. Very timid and cautious. She has to think about everything.



The girls definitely had a good time.


With our tickets about used up, we hunted to find one last ride. We found this slide WAY in the back. It was actually hard to see and get to, so I think the guy didn't get a lot of people coming his way. That was good for us because he decided to let us go again and again while only paying for one ride.

The kids had a blast. The three big kids took the three youngest on the first ride.


Shelby followed behind. She looked so lonely.


Since we had free reign, Tom decided to go up next.



Somehow, Shelby ended up coming down alone again.


We couldn't resist one last ride.



They really loved this, and I was glad to see Shelby being so brave. Next to the slide was a big grassy area, where we stood around deciding what to do next. We put Declan in the grass, which he did not appreciate at all. Apparently he does not like the feel of grass.


This turned out to be a good thing because we were able to get him to walk around because he preferred as little contact as possible with the grass. Since he hates trying to walk and especially hates holding someone's hand to walk, this allowed us to get him to practice his walking for quite some time without him screaming in protest or dropping his weight to get down on the floor and crawl.


While the adults talked, the kids sat down to rest.



It really had been a HOT day as you can see . . .





They were tired and ready to be done, so we headed home. I love going to fairs. This was especially nice because there were hardly any people. I keep going to places expecting to see the crowds like we did in San Antonio, but fortunately the entire Wasatch Front is about the same population as the San Antonio area, so we just don't see the huge city crowds. Love it!!