Bikes in the Park & Isabel's 1st Photo Shoot

Last week we went to the park with Holly and her kids to ride bikes. It was way fun. So fun in fact that we went again this week :) Isabel and Carter loved racing. Cassidy and Caitlyn were a little more cautious than the younger 2. Funny story about Isabel's hair..... I did pig tails with 5 braids on each side. Isabel loved it. The funny part is she looked at me and said, "Mom!!! My braids are brown!" I asked her what color she thought they were going to be, and she said she didn't know, but she loved that her pig tail braids were brown! Silly girl. Always makes me laugh!
Isabel and Carter racing around the park.

This is where Ben spent most of his time. He went once around the park on his bike, then spent the rest of the time climbing on the playground. (and yes I know this is a picture of Isabel, not Ben!)

Caitlyn ready to ride :)

Cute picture of Carter posing for Isabel to take his picture. I helped her take this one.

Isabel decided that she wanted to take pictures for a minute, so I let her have the camera. The following are her first pictures taken by herself. Her first photo shoot. If I do say so, she did a pretty good job!

I asked her to take pictures of the people that were there, so that is what she did. Here is Ben.

Then there is Cassidy (above) and Caitlyn (below)

Carter didn't want his picture taken :) He had already posed for one!

And of course she needed a picture of herself :) See the close up of the 'brown' braids.....

Then there is her shoe......

and the sky with clouds. See, she had it all covered!

Guess I can get rid of Isabel's kid camera and just let her use mine. Hanging out with kids is the best :) It was a fun way to spend the morning!

Camping at Last!

Last week I asked Isabel if she would rather be in the South Weber day parade or go camping. She looked at me as if I was crazy and said, "camping!" Isabel loves to camp and so does Ben. I wasn't sure if he remembered camping, but he does :) We ended up just going to Mantua because we needed for be back Sunday morning for mom and dad's non-farewell.

Starting at about 5pm Isabel started asking for a campfire. We went on a 4 wheeler ride and started the campfire when we got back around 7-8pm. Here is Brady starting the fire.

Ben decided to blow on the fire like daddy did :) Check out his cheeks!

Isabel had to join the fun too!

Ben was in the play pen all last year, but this year he was big enough to sleep in a tent like Isabel! He only woke up once and decided that he didn't like sleeping in the tent so we made a bed up for him. Isabel is too big for hers, but she still wants to sleep in it :) Just like real camping!

This is the first year that I wasn't pregnant or had a little baby that needed a nap, so we were able to ride the 4 wheeler a lot. The kids loved it. We had to make sure that the key was out of it becuase Ben knows how to start and accelerate :)

Me and the kids would ride on the 4 wheeler and Brady would ride on the side on his dirtbike. It was fun. Isabel loves her daddy. She and Ben would both keep looking around wile we were riding to make sure we could see daddy riding beside us.

Here is Brady helping the kids get ready for yet another ride. (I sat in the middle of the 2 kids) And yes, we all wear helmets! The rides were fun. Ben got to where he could tell me when there would be a bump coming, and he would say weeeee!

Camping is a ton of fun. It was very nice to get away even if it was just for a few days!

Can you believe this kid???

My friend Holly and I took the kids to the Riverdale splash pad last week. The kids had a blast. I posted the pictures in the wrong order, but my computer is slow today, so I am not even going to try and fix it! This was after the kids were done playing. Isabel had them all roll down the hill with her. (At least she said it was her idea!) Looks like fun!

For some reason, Ben and Carter didn't want to get wet at first, so they chased each other up and down that hill....crazy kids :)

Isabel decided that she wanted to do cartwheels in the middle of the water, so here she is, getting ready to do another cartwheel... Got to love tumbling!

Before Ben started chasing Carter up the hill, he found a few new friends hanging in the ropes. He played with them for a long time.

This is when Ben and Carter finally got hot and decided that they needed to cool off. So onto the funny story about Ben. Holly and I were standing on one side of the splash pad and I looked and saw Ben on the other side. He was by the red mushroom looking thing that shoots water out of it. It seems to be his favorite toy there, so if he is ever out of sight, I look for him there first. Well, I look over and there is a 10+ year old 'big' samoan looking kid sitting on top of it. I hear Ben say, 'move'. The other boy stands up and says, 'no you move.' Then Ben gets a mouth full of water and spits it on the kids face. (Lovely I know...) The boy puts his hand on his hip and says, 'hey you dont spit water on me!' Ben being the cute 2 yr old that he is gets another mouth full of water and spits it in the boys face. (I didn't teach him this....) I'm getting a little worried now thinking that my 2yr old is calling on a 10yr old to fight, but I realize that I can't get there before anything would happen so I start to pray that the 10yr old will give up.... Well, the 10yr old puts both hands on his hips and says, 'hey, you don't spit water!' Ben puts a hand on his hips and sakes his finger at the boy and says 'no,no,no,no,no you move!' Luckily for Ben the boy just sat back down on the red mushroom looking thing and ignored Ben. He must have realize that Ben couldn't do a darn thing about him sitting there so he decided to ignore him, thank goodness! Ben gave up and went to play with Carter.... (All of the words that I said I heard are from lip reading... I was on the other side of the park, but a good story even if the words are a little skewed!) I just have to shake my head and realize that I will probably spend lots of time in the principals office when this kid goes to school.... if he makes it there :)

One more cute picture of my angel playing in the water with Caitlyn! Well, maybe not an angel, but definitely not a Ben :)

Oh, update on Ben's finger. He lost the nail and all the puss came out. The culture came back as MRSA (medication resistant staff infection) but I knew that it would. Luckily the dr asked which medicine I would prefer and we put him of sulfa which is one that you can treat MRSA with. To get him to take it I had to bribe him with chocolate chips. At least it worked. He is doing much better now!

Bens Finger and other stories

I was trying to put together a budget yesterday and the following story is one reason why I am having a hard time trying to decide how much should be saved for Ben's medical every month :) To start at the beginning, last Friday I had to work. When I went to go get the kids from grandma Tracies house, they were playing in the backyard. Well, Ben came in crying a few minutes later and told me that he smashed his finger with a rock. He could still bend it and it just had a little purple under the nail so I figured that it was the equivilant of smashing a finger in the car door. That was the end of that, or so I thought. Monday I got home from work and grandma Janene had me look at his finger. This is what I saw. White puss building up under the fingernail. I ended up taking him to the dr at 7:10pm cause that was the next appointment, and cause I thought he might need an antibiotic (plus he wouldn't stop crying saying 'ow' over and over and over). We made it to the dr, had a $45 copay cause it was after 5pm, and had the dr tell me that usually infections get puffier than that so I should watch him for a few days and come back if it got worse. Plus he would have to drain it and that would hurt Ben. Totally worth the $45, NOT!

Needless to say we had an aweful night. This was the first time that Ben has not ever gone to sleep, but would just nap for part of the time. The longest I think he slept was 15min while I held him. I gave him medicine every 3-4hrs and even tried benadryl to see if it would help him sleep. (that was when he made it 15min).

By morning time his finger was huge. It looked like a marble on the tip of a stick, ready to explode at any moment. I called the dr and got an appointment with his pediatrition. He couldn't see him until 3:20pm. So I kept up with the medicine and basically held him while he cried. (sad huh) I was a little worried cause there was a red line going down the middle of his finger (think staff infection) so I watched it to see if it was getting longer...you know, spreading to his heart to cause more problems....and waited til the dr appointment.

I was so tired that I fell asleep on the lazyboy chair in the livingroom. Ben climbed up and didn't want to be on the left side of me, so he rolled over, but kept rolling all the way off the side of the chair right onto the floor. When he came back up he had some letters imprinted on his forehead. (See the picture above and look at his forehead) We now refer to him as 'yo'. Shouldn't be funny, but it is :) When he fell, he landed on the lever to make the recliner pop out. That lever has the inscription of 'lazyboy' on it, so Ben apparently hit the 'oy' on the end and got himself a tattoo :)

We made it to the dr and I explained that we were there less than 24hrs ago for the same thing and my dr was ticked. He emailed the CEO and is working on getting my $45 copay back :) He then told me he was going to drain Bens finger. I got the job of holding him down. Ben liked the dr painting his finger with orange soap (betadine) and then wiping it off, but when the dr said now we are going to get all the owies out, Ben started crying and saying 'oh no, no,no'. The dr says he is a smart kid :) I always knew that though :) He then drained it. With the first puncture of the needle puss splattered out and unfortunately got onto my face ewwww!!! Oh well.. I wiped it off .... He had to puncture it in 3 different places to get all the puss out. Ben just kept crying saying 'ban-aid, ban-aid'. The above picture is of his special bandaid. He loved it cause we called it special. I got in the car to go home and he fell right asleep. Poor little guy. Got him medicine to treat a staff infection just in case that is what it was too. First time I gave him the medicine, he puked all over the floor, then a little bit later he got diarrhea..... after that he was normal the rest of the night, jumping, running and teasing his sister :) See why I am having problems with the budget.... hmmm $45 one night then $25 the next day for the same problem...

Onto a happier story, the kids have discovered that they love the Sunday comics! They especially love to have grandpa Grant read them to them. Isabel gives courtesy laughs cause most of the time the comics aren't really that funny!

We went to the Riverdale splash pad last week and Isabel insisted on wearing her goggles :) You know, so she could see under the sprinklers....

Isabel loves the garden. She goes out and checks it every day! She loves to go out and pick a zucchinis! She will bring them into me and tell me that she wants those for dinner! Nice, easy and healthy! Glad she likes them! Brady says that she gets her love of zucchini from him. HA HA HA... only if a cow eats if first :)

Still waiting on tomatoes and peppers from the garden so I can start making salsa! For now zucchini and broccoli is great! Hooray for gardens!

Tumbling and the Zoo

Although Isabel loves performing on stage for dance, she always comes home from dance class and practices her headstands, cartwheels, sommersaults, etc so I decided that she should try out the tumbling class taught by Kandi on Wednesday morning. Isabel LOVED it. She is the youngest in the class (though not the smallest :)) but she did really well. We got into the car to go home afterwards and she looked at me and said, "mom, tumbling is WAY better than dance!" When I tried to get her to go to dance this week she told me that she does tumbling now, not dance! Funny girl! Here she is doing the splits.

Here is her backbend. This is one of her favorite things to do. Her arms are getting pretty strong, and she is already trying to kick over like they taught her in tumbling.

Ben likes to do whatever Isabel does....so here is his version of a backbend. I'm actually not that surprised that he can do (at least tries) cartwheels, backbends and sommersaults. He is a crazy jumper too.

Tamina called last week and asked if we wanted to go to the zoo for Kale's (her nephew) birthday. We decided that it would be fun so we went. This picture is so cute with Ari holding up Sarah! Don't know who the girl in the turquoise is on the end :)

Here is Ben at the water ball near the enterance/exit. This has become a zoo tradition for us. We usually end up spending at least 20min letting the kids play in it before we leave. Ben and Sarah discovered that they could splash each other so they were both soaked for the ride home!

Soon after we got to the zoo we went to see the new exhibit that has the free flying bats and the bird eating spider (luckily it was in a cage). Right where you park the stroller there was a free roaming chicken with her chicks. This kept Ben entertained as he followed them around for a bit. They were eating crumbs that the kids had dropped.

While Tamina and Tera were finishing eating with the littler kids I took the other kids up to see the giraffes. Adam loved measuring how tall they were. Maybe not the best picture, but hey they are all looking at the camera :)

I discovered that the kids love to ride on the 2 person stroller at the zoo. This time Isabel and Ari sat on the back and Ben sat in the front. Made for a heavy stroller! I love it though, way easier to push it than it is to pull the wagon up those hills with all the kids in it :) Here is Isabel at the water ball before we left. I just think she is so cute, even when she isn't smiling all the way....

We tried to take a picture with all the kids in front of the gorilla statue, but the ones I have were awful. This one of the kids in the boat was the best group picture I got, and most of them are even smiling :) From left to right the kids are: Adam, Kale, Isabel, Ari and Ben.

Luckily we made it to the zoo in the morning so that we could leave before it got too hot. Next time we promised the kids we would go on the merry-go-round so they are looking forward to that. We went home and played in the pool in the backyard to cool off. All in all it was a good day :)

The Lazy Days of Summer

This summer has been awesome so far. The kids love being outside so we spend lots of time doing just that. Since it is so hot, we like to spend time in a pool, at a splash park, or at the Aquatic Center in Roy. We went to the Aquatic Center last week with Krystle, Kandi, Zoey, and Grandma Tracie. Isabel really wanted to go down the big waterslide with Krystle, in fact she talked about it constantly, but then when we got there her nerves got the best of her and she only went down once. Ben was excited for swimming until he saw how big the pool was. Isabel and I took him to the little pool with the frog slide and we couldn't get him or Isabel out of the water the rest of the afternoon!

We also spend tons of time in the pools in our backyard. The kids love to slide into the pool so that is why we set up the little one. The bigger pool is fun cause Isabel can practice her floating and they can play basketball. I like it cause it's not a huge pool so I don't have to worry as much about them drowning. (I know, kids can drown in 1" of water.....) They can touch the bottom and stand up so I don't worry as much! Isabel informed me yesterday that she was not dark, she was 'tan'. :)

This is Ben saying cheese at the bottom of the slide. He likes to just jump and land bum first into the water. He tells you it doesn't hurt, but there is no way that it doesn't!

I am so glad that my kids take care of each other. This has to be one of my favorite pictures of my kids. I had to work on Monday, and seeing that the kids were both asleep and grandma was listening for them, I went to work without waking them up. This is the first time that Ben has woken up and had me not there..... Mom heard Isabel talking downstairs, so she assumed Ben was awake and went down to get them. This is what she saw and heard.
Isabel: Ben, mommy is at work

Ben: Daddy at work too?

Isabel: yes daddy is at work

Ben: Oh no a-bel...wat we gonna do now? (then he laid his head down on Isabel's shoulder and sobbed)

They then walked up the stairs arm in arm with Isabel patting his back. Ben then had to find grandpa and tell him that mom and dad were at work and grandpa said,"well that means that you get to play with grandma and grandpa today." Ben said 'o-tay' and went to ride his trike.

Makes me feel like a bad mom to abandon my children like that! At least I know that he looks to his sister for help. He forgave me, and then made me pay for it later that night. I had to hold him from 12-2am and anytime I tried to move he would grab me and not let go. Guess I might wake him up before I leave for work from now on! :) Got to love kids!

You're having the best birthday ever!!!

According to Adam, Brady had the best birthday ever yesterday! He kept repeating it over and over. Granted, I did make him homemade cinnamon rolls and Isabel and Ben got him presents at Toys R' Us and we had mexican food for dinner, so how could it not be the best birthday ever? :)

Since it was the 4th we had fireworks. Grandma Janene had sparklers for the kids. They all loved them except Ari, which surprised all of us seeing how she is such a daredevil.

Brady also bought poppers, the kind that you throw hard on the ground and they explode. Grandpa Grant was kind enough to show the kids that they could throw the poppers at the ants and watch them explode. Check out Ben's follow-through!

Isabel loved the sparklers!

So did Ben. It was funny cause he and Sarah kept trying to blow them out. They all liked to hear them sizzle when they put the used sparklers in the bucket of water.

Then came the burning of the ants. Must have been like Armageddon for those poor things. First the poppers being thrown at them, then the fire!

When we started to roast marshmallows Adam looked at me and said, "I know, we can drip melted marshmallows on the ants to kill them! That would be awesome!" That idea got veto'd because of the mess :) Even though we wouldn't let him burn ants with marshmallows he kept going up to Brady saying, "you're having the best birthday ever, aren't you". Brady would just answer ,"sure thing!"

Grandma Janene bought party poppers that you would hold and pull the string and streamers would come out. The camera wasn't fast enough to catch the streamers coming out, but I did manage to get a picture of the ones that landed on Brady! Adam was ecstatic, because there were streamers at a birthday party and they exploded! Things just kept getting better :)

The kids then roasted marshmallows and Brady roasted a cinnamon roll that I made for his birthday breakfast! Mmmmm tasty! Then the fireworks started. From the top of the swingset the kids could see them in all directions! They were screaming OOO, AAHHH, WOW! Then Brady got some fireworks out in the front and the kids sat on my lap and on the lawn and watched him and the neighbors light some. Adam was even allowed to throw a few flowers until he landed one under their car :/ Sarah ended up watching from indoors cause it was too loud.
This is how Ben ended up; falling asleep while covering his ears (must have been really loud with tubes in). I guess you could say Brady had the best birthday ever.... at least to a 5 year old :)

Happy birthday Brady! We love you!