1st Half of July 2017

7/2: I went to bed to find this:

7/3: Jared is cruel. My birthday isn't until Wednesday, the 5th. :P

Found this from Makenna. [Translation: I love you Mommy. You are the best mom I ever wished for.] 😍😍😍

Independence Day!: We thought about going to a parade with family but decided to sleep in today and just have a fun, relaxing day at home together. When we fin...ally got up, I dyed the girls' hair red using Kool-Aid; they were so excited, especially Avery. We then set up the pools for them (they asked for the tiny black one, in addition to the bigger one--it gets warmer faster and they were using it to warm up, since the water in the big pool was pretty chilly). We tried to get them to wait until later in the afternoon for the water to warm up a bit but they just couldn't wait! It is now 5:15 and they are still swimming since going in at 12:30!

6:20: I made cupcakes while the girls were swimming and let them decorate them. I showed them a picture as an example and they went to town. They turned out cute.

 The photo that I showed the girls, and Avery's cupcakes. :D :D :D

11:10: We BBQ'd burgers for dinner, with tortilla chips and homemade salsa (that I canned last summer) plus the cupcakes we made, then we watched the Macy's 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular on TV for a bit and I dipped the girls' hair in Kool-Aid again, since some of it came out when they swam for 4 hours. We then went out front and did a few small fireworks/sparklers, then drove a few miles closer to Thanksgiving Point to watch the fireworks. We actually saw a bunch of people set up in front of an elementary school and decided to stop there and set up chairs. As we were walking to find a spot, we saw a family from our neighborhood and set up by them, so the girls got to play with one of their friends. They enjoyed playing with her more than watching the fireworks and we made plans to have her come over tomorrow. :D It was a great spot to watch fireworks. We could see fireworks going off all around us, in all the neighborhoods surrounding the school and throughout the valley to the east of us (AF, Alpine, Highland)--lots of big ones going off everywhere! It might be a new 4th of July tradition.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

She was using a back scratcher as a baton and was spinning it and dancing around during the Macy's 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular:

7/5, My Birthday--Mid-morning, I brought the girls to do a craft at the library, then we went to Walmart to pick up a few things and ate lunch at Burger King, after which we went to a park for 20 min. to bide some time before Avery's gymnastics class. After gymnastics, we picked up one of their friends, Penny, and they swam for a bit, then watched Maleficent (my neck was killing me and I had a bad headache, so Jared kept an eye on them while I rested in bed for a bit), then I Kool-Aid dyed Penny's hair. We then went to Texas Roadhouse for my birthday dinner; the girls really wanted to go there so I could get on the saddle, ha ha. I opened presents when we got home. Good day for the most part. :)

Wearing some shirts I added vinyl to last week--Avery was upset because I made some fruit drink and it didn't taste like Kool-Aid [really because she was kept up late too many nights in a row by fireworks and swam for several hours the day before and didn't get to bed until after 11, then had a busy day today.]

They wanted to get on the saddle after I did:

Gifts from Jared and the twins:

Gifts my parents sent:

7/6--More friends over for swimming today. :)

7/7--I had a fun Fri. night with Kiki and the twins had fun at a friend's birthday pool party, which was from 9-11pm! Kiki took me to dinner at Slapfish (yummy!), then she took me shopping at Ross and bought stuff for me! So awesome and sweet, since I hardly ever buy anything for myself. She's the best!! I wish I would have thought to take pics of us during our sister date!

I got home right after Jared left to take the girls to the pool party, ha ha! He actually had fun swimming with them and going down the slides and he even dove off the high diving board. :P I had to keep Makenna from falling asleep on the couch the next evening and she was crying about every little thing but they sure had fun at the party, so it was worth it.

7/8--Our betta fish died. Avery came in and told me first thing this morning and she started crying.  😥 They want another one but I guess we suck at caring for bettas.

7/9--My childhood best friend, Meredith, who is temporarily living in OR from FL, passed through Utah and she and her husband came over and had dinner and Kiki joined us. We had so much fun and laughed so much!

7/11--We brought Bailey with us to this week's 6-8yo club at the library. None of them would take a bug to eat-- they actually had bugs there that kids could try, ha ha!

Friend over, 6-8yo club at the library, played for several hours, friend stayed for dinner, then played on the trampoline and picked raspberries before bedtime. Aaaah, summer as a kid.

7/12--A couple of fun days for the twins! Laura and her kids stayed the night with us; that afternoon, we went to the BYU Museum of Paleontology, then got ice cream cones at the BYU Creamery. Then, the kids had fun playing Mario Karts for a long time last night, staying up late, and having a sleepover (although Avery ended up getting off the air mattress at almost 11pm and went and slept in her bed, with the sound machine, bedtime music, and lava lamp on).

 

7/13--Today, they had a blast jumping on the trampoline with 2 cousins and 3 friends ALL DAY. Then, they headed across the street for dinner and a movie with their BFF. :D I'm exhausted, so I really appreciate Coralie inviting them over! They are gonna sleep good tonight!

7/14--Another fun day with cousins! We got to go with Daisy to the Shriner's Summerfest. The kids got tons of treats--popcorn, cookies, cotton candy, snow cones--and did fun stuff like slide down an inflatable slide, which they added water to after the first little while, and got their faces painted and took photos with Elsa and Anna. They also came home with a few stuffed animals and a bag full of fun stuff, like crayons, coloring books, bracelets, yo-yo. Oh, and Makenna scored a soccer goal against Salt Lake Real player Justin Schmidt. ;) Avery got on the climbing wall but got scared and didn't make it up that far. But at least she tried this time.

 Wet slide!

Makenna scoring a goal on Salt Lake Real's Justin Schmidt ;)

Daisy:

That's Cody way up there!

After the Shriner's Summerfest, we came home and chilled for a while, then Laura and Michelle, plus her youngest daughter and baby boy (she left 4 of her boys at home and the 2 oldest girls were at camps at BYU), came over to spend the night. After we put the kids to bed (the girls got to have a sleepover with a 5yo girl cousin 😀), we watched "Hidden Figures", then stayed up until 3am talking! 😲

The next morning (7/15), Laura and Michelle went to Provo to pick up the 2 older girls from BYU, then we spent the rest of the day just hanging out and napping, ha ha; the 3 little girls spent the day outside playing and swimming. We were gonna have a weenie roast that evening but it was still super hot past 6pm, so we did an indoor weenie and s'mores roast. We tried to watch the new "Beauty & the Beast" that night but we were all falling asleep, so we went to bed.

Working on her front flip:

Making a mess with her s'more:

7/16--We all went to church in the morning, then came home and hung out together until they left that evening, and my FIL came over. It was a fun weekend and the twins had a blast playing with their girl cousins!