June 2013

June 1st was the kids' last soccer games.

Here's Buddy and I on the 3rd. He's gotten creative with spending time with me while I'm working. It's not easy to play Candy Land while constantly helping customers change their flights, but it's worth it! (Also notice the blender cup which I've just enjoyed a spinach/flax seed protein shake from.)

Soccer may be over, but baseball and softball were still in full swing (haha) on the 4th.

The 5th was Christian's kindergarten program. After the experience with Faith's the week before, I showed up nearly an hour early to save seats. Mom and dad were already there! We got the front row and really got to enjoy the songs and Kung fu.

Our little graduate with Ding Lǎoshī (pronunciation: Lou [rhymes with cow] sh [but we tend to say the last part "shur"])

Some more fun games on the 6th:

I love that when Buddy's out in the field he's always in the "ready" position like this :)

They look so cute in their jerseys.

The 7th was the last day of school! I ran into Faithy when I arrived at school to help out with the kindergarten water party.

I was in charge of the water balloon "basketball" game. Not very many got thrown at the hoop!

Here's his English teacher Mrs. Piper after a fun, soggy day.

And my two cuties when they got home.

That night we had salad for dinner and Christian wanted me to get a picture of his smiling creation.

June 8th was Faith's piano recital and she did a beautiful job.

Kathy Buckner has been a great teacher!

Faith's so sad that I'm having her change piano teachers, but she lives over ten minutes away, so Buddy and I have to just sit in the car in her driveway for a half hour every week. Her new teacher, Michelle Neilson, lives right around the corner. I hope Faith enjoys her, as well.

After the recital, we went to Lucky China Buffet with Mom and Dad. Mom gave Faith a treble cleft charm for her bracelet.

June 10th we went to a memorial service for Justin Hood (Tina's step-son). It was a sad occasion. He died very young, at only 35 years old, and had a lot of problems in his life. The kids looked so cute that I took some pictures of them before we entered the church:

After returning home, Buddy decided we needed something silly to cheer us up, so he made these crazy "glasses." He even did a video tutorial on my phone!

We needed to do something fun to celebrate the first day of summer vacation, so we window shopped at the pet stores and I got the kids a strawberry cheesecake shake from Sonic to share.

We even got in a visit to the park.

The 11th began with this beautiful sunrise. In real life it looked as if the mountains were on fire!

Christian, always the funny guy, slipped me this note while I was working, "I tooted two times." Thanks for the stinky working environment, Buddy!

After his game that evening, he and Faith rolled across the grass to our car. Too bad it's not a downhill slope or it would have made some sense :D

On the evening of the 12th we met up with Tony (who came straight from work) at Lagoon.

  Here we are weeding and hoeing our garden on the 13th. It's starting to look pretty good!

That evening was the kids' last games. To celebrate, we ate at Panda Express in between.

  On the 15th we went to breakfast at Golden Corral. Yes, I said breakfast. Please disregard the cotton candy and plates of chocolate covered fruit and candy (that the kids had just dipped from the fountain) and go on believing that I'm a good mother, okay?

That afternoon we were all playing on our phones and Christian got a Facebook account. I played around with some photo editing apps and edited my first pic on my phone:

Don't know what's up with all the church pics lately, but here's another from the 16th. Happy Father's Day, Tony! The kids have new church clothes and shoes, but you can't really see them here.

We did these burger cupcakes and cookie fries a few years ago, and Faith begged to make them again. She did a cute job!

On the 17th Tammy took the kids to the dinosaur museum and farm at Thanksgiving Point. On the 18th I joined them for a visit to the aquarium.

Stingray petting was a highlight, as usual. We even got Tam to touch one!

Tammy took Buddy to his baseball game that evening and I went to a Relief Society picnic. The kids had a sleepover at Braeggers' and I met up and rode with them to the zoo on the 19th.

We came home and checked on our eggs, which weren't eggs anymore!

The 21st was a lazy kind of day (except for me because I had to work). Fuzzy belly!

Skittle-ee Diddle-ee gets chilly and likes to bask in the sun on the deck.

And even Buddy got some rest--on my desk, no less.

On the 25th, Christian decided to put his culinary expertise to work and made breakfast for Faith while I was working. He peeled, chopped and cooked potato hashbrowns, then scrambled up some eggs and served them with salsa on the side. He did all this with no help or instruction of any kind (or permission for using the stove from me, either). I'm still so proud of his mad skillz!

June 29th we decided to go up fishing for the day.

Here is our lollipop tree just past Kamas.

When we pulled into the campground at Butterfly Lake, there was still snow on the ground.

Tony & Faith did lots of fishing, whereas Buddy did a bit of fishing and lots of exploring, and I cast out a few times and did a lot of reading.

On the 27th I had gotten my hair colored and highlighted at the DATC for the big $35, and I brought a sheet with the following pictures for color inspiration:

She did a good job, but it came out much darker than I had hoped:

Tony caught this teeny-tiny guy and had to throw him back, and then caught one regular size fish. He's the only one with any luck this trip.

We got a fire going, much to Christian's delight, and roasted Bahamas Mama hotdogs from Maverick.

We roasted some corn on the cob and had pasta salad with our dinner, then made s'mores for dessert. Thery were a bit chocolaty, it would appear.

May 2013

I thought this was a funny text message exchange that occurred when Tony sent me an "I love you"

On May 3rd, Faith was gone on a play date and Christian busied himself with my makeup, Faith's clothes, and a leftover plastic Easter egg opened into halves. 

A little too much "RuPaul's Drag Race" being watched at our house, perhaps?

One of Tony's work customers gave him a few sets of these plastic toy crossbows.

They're pretty powerful and the kids love them!

On the fourth we went to the kids soccer games,

and after working on the garden all day and finally getting it planted, we went to Ironman 3 with Tammy.

The next week the kids got their baseball and softball jerseys. Tony loves that they both got number seven, the same as Ben Rothlisberger!

Here is faith playing on the seventh,

  and pitching on the ninth! It was her first time, but managed to get in a couple of good throws.

On the 10th, Buddy set up a sort of Rube Goldberg machine out of everyday items on the kitchen table.

The cutest part is that he took lots of pictures and a video explaining what all the parts do.

On the 11th the kids and I went to baby animal days at the Biotanical center in Kaysville.

Skittles liked seeing the babies, too.

I don't think this snake was a baby, though!

It was a fun time :)

For some reason i snapped this pic in church on the 12th.

I love Christian's notes! I was working and Buddy was getting ready to leave for school. A few weeks before, he had thrown a toy sticky eyeball up at the ceiling and it stuck up there and for some reason it was imperative to him to retrieve it. So this note reads:

"Mom, don't forget to get the eyeball down from the ceiling." What a funny note.

More baseball and softball on the 14th. All the practices and two games, per kid, per week sure keeps us busy!

Christian's new obsession--the ball park concession stand. 

He had just finished bawling because he don't have enough money to buy all he wanted. At least he got some nachos!

We loved this beautiful rainbow on the 15th.

Buddy, still loving Ironman, drew this in the car on the 23rd.

Mom and dad got back from their two week cruise to the British isles & France on May 25th, so on the 26th Sarah and I brought dinner to their house, for a change. I made lettuce wraps and Sarah made Chinese chicken salad. Because it was Memorial Day weekend, Faith and I wanted to make some special treats.

The top level has brightly colored red, white & blue sandwich cookies made with cake mix and jello with some miniature reproductions of World War II propaganda posters in them. The lower level is star-shaped sugar cookies with cream cheese frosting, strawberries and blueberries like little fruit pizzas!

On the 27th, Tony had off from work so we started out at Lagoon-a Beach where the kids floated the lazy river on tubes and did a few water slides.

Then we hiked up to Timpanogos cave, starting with a quick visit to the gift shop.

It was a beautiful day with perfect weather. The trail is longer and steeper than I remember!

About 500 feet from the top, Tony freaked out and had a panic attack because there were no more trees on the side of the trail and you could see all the way down the side of the mountain. He couldn't go any farther and stayed behind while the kids and I crested the mountain and toured the cave, but they were super sad their dad missed out.

It was awesome!!

On the 29th we saw the first egg this year in our sattelite dish nest. there were two by the 30th! We figured out that they're Western Kingbirds.

That evening was the fifth grade program. I left buddy with Tam at his baseball game to get there forty minutes early, but still got crappy seats at the back. We could just barely see Faith when she was singing on the steps, but her dance numbers were on the floor in front instead of on the stage (???!!!!) so all we could see was the top of her head bobbing up and down :(

Christian was super sad he couldn't see her and bawled and threw a fit the whole time till we all wanted to kill him. Not a great night.