7.1.13

Once again, Jeff's grandparents were very generous in letting us use their time share in Pinetop, AZ. Pinetop is about 3 1/2 hours north east of Gilbert. We couldn't have gone at a better time. This past weekend was record highs in Phoenix. It was 119 in Phoenix on Saturday. In Pinetop the high's were in the low 90's. The weather was awesome. It was overcast, breezy, and waaay cooler than Gilbert. Pinetop is nothing like Gilbert. It has huge tall trees, thousands of them. No cacti in sight! We went swimming and fishing. If were weren't fishing we were swimming. Saturday morning we tried our luck fishing at Woodland Lake we had power bait and worms. There was only one spot to fish from. We fished from a floating dock with about 25 other people. No luck here. Then we thought we try Show Low lake. We found a secluded spot to fish from, but again, no luck. Sydney was getting rather frustrated that we weren't getting nibbles or anything. We did, however, teach them about the experience in John chapter 21 when the disciples fished all night and caught nothing. Then Christ appeared and told them to cast their nets on the other side and they caught more fish than they were able to pull into the boat. Our time was not wasted and the next day we tried a third lake. I told Sydney to put her good luck fishing clothes on as this was our last chance at fishing before we had to drive home. We drove to Hawley Lake. When we got in the car it smelled like onions in someone's pit. We concluded it was the worms we accidentally left in the car over night that had died. We got to Hawley Lake and casted from shore again. We had a small herd of cattle staring us down and encroaching on us....better than bears I guess, but I was still uneasy about it. We had no luck and spirits were down. Jeff made the executive decision to rent a dinky little motor boat for an hour. The kids perked up about going on the lake. Our first cast and we caught something! Levi reeled it in and caught his first fish. The girls each caught their own fish too. It was so exciting for the kids and Jeff and I to anticipate reeling in a fish and seeing the joy in our kids faces. Macie was sleeping so she didn't participate in all the commotion of catching 3 fish. The power bait worked the best. The only problem was the fish were swallowing the hook. We didn't plan on it, but we ended up killing all the fish. After we made it back to the dock, we filleted the fish at the Hawley Lake store, drove home, and cooked and ate the trout we caught. We had a great time. Fishing was relaxing in the cool weather and beautiful surroundings. We met up with some friends for dessert Saturday night. On our drive home we DIDN'T even stop. All the kids crashed for a good amount of time. I'd love to go back in the winter and go skiing at Sunrise Resort that is 30 minutes away.

 Pool time and Macie's first official time in a pool (all the way in). She already loves the water.

 Woodland Lake

 Hawley Lake

 Levi wears this BYU hat every single day.

 Macie's first time on a boat. 

 Jordyn loved petting the dead fish, holding it, and making faces with it.

 Gutting the fish. The girls were all about anything to do with the fish. Levi could care less. He was annoyed with the smell and flies that surrounded us.

Back at home and eating the fish we caught. It tasted yummy. Thank you fishies.

6.27.13

In case you can't tell we had a mustache theme for Jeff's birthday. I figured since he can't grow a moustache, I'd make him one :)  I made a moustache cake and bought these mustaches for us to wear. Even Macie wore a moustache. The kids loved it! They helped me bake the cake too.

 In the morning we made Jeff breakfast in bed and the kids had picked out presents for him. Levi got him a new soccer ball, Jordyn picked out ASU b-ball shorts, and Sydney picked out car air fresheners and they drew him pictures.

The night before when he was at scouts we wrote him notes and decorated the inside of his car with these notes and streamers. We all love Jeff and were so blessed to have him as our dad, friend, care taker, provider, and lover.

6.27.13

This summer I have some plans for learning. We had a United States week-long theme a few weeks ago. We learned some patriotic songs, had a huge floor puzzle of all the states to put together and a smaller one. Levi still does both of these puzzles multiple times everyday--he loves puzzles. We started collecting quarters of each state, we used a fun travel game, looking for license plates of each state, and used an educational app that the kids play every day too. Let's just say a few weeks ago, my kids didn't know any states and now Sydney knows all the states and where they are located. We're just getting into capitals now. It's funny too, Sydney had a great idea. Instead of playing the game "colors" in the pool, we play "states." It makes me laugh to hear Levi mention random states here and there throughout the day.

 The last few weeks we learned about rocks: sedimentary, igneous, and magma. We read several books about rocks, made rock candy, observed rocks and made a chart about the shape, color, size, and drew a picture of it, and did this fun activity. We, yes me included, excavated rocks. There were 11 rocks for the kids to chip away at this block of clay. It took several days because it required some patience to get all the rocks.

All the kids working together and getting along. Another reason it was a good activity.

Safety First! 

 Next up--VOLCANOS and a weather unit.

June 2013

The day after Macie's blessing we drove to Utah with my parents. Jeff stayed behind because he had to fly to Texas for work and then to Catalina for a week with Scout Camp. This was Macie's first road trip. She did amazing on the 9 1/2 hour drive. Unfortunately Levi and Jordyn did not. They both threw up 3 times each and I can't tell you how many times we heard, "how much longer." I had stuff for them to do, but pinterest doesn't have ideas on how you eliminate that question from kids :)

In Cedar City we went to a circus, celebrated my parents anniversary by making them dinner, serving it to them and providing entertainment (the kids got very passionate about their assignments--it was cute), went to the reservoir, park, aquatic center, rode horses, their 4 wheelers, played "AGGRAVATION", made rock candy, Sydney learned how to play Sudoku. played with cousins, and went to our first rodeo.

When we got to Cedar City my sister was there with her 5 kids and her newest baby, Finn. Finn is 6 weeks younger than Macie and is the cutest thing ever. The cousins had fun together. It's always fun to see them together since it doesn't happen all that often. I made a last minute decision to drive to my sister's house in Highland once they left to show my kids BYU and temple square. You guessed it...another road trip, another puking in the car. My mom and I drove by my the apt I use to live in and we walked around campus for a bit. Sydney was very interested in my apt and the college. The next day we went to temple square with my sister's kids. We toured the conference center, walked around temple square and visited the church history museum, which has a neat, kids-friendly second story full of entertaining things.

 At the rodeo. We loved it and Sydney participated in the "cash cow" too.

 At temple square in the Church history museum

 On top of the Conference center with everyone.

 Jordyn is a great big sis! She wants to take care of Macie the most out of all the kids.

 For some reason the kids accepted the umbrellas that were offered to them at the Conf. Ctr. Random thing, but Parker had brought a turkey baster in his pocket (for some reason) and was playing with it in the water features on top of the bldg. It made me laugh.

 Girl Cousins

 Postpartum big mommies and cute little babes

 I love this picture of Sydney and my dad riding horses in a field.

 One afternoon was spent at the reservoir playing in the water and sand.

 At the circus in Cedar City

Another great picture I had to add.

Making the game in Grandpa's workshop.

Memorial Day

On Memorial Day we drove to Payson and went on a hike to Tonto's Natural Bridge. We went with the Theurer's. They have kids about the same ages as ours. It was fun to hear the conversations that was said between each other. For example, Jeff heard Jordyn say to her friend, "Just think about when we're back in our cold car watching a movie and eating a snack."

 We made it through the bridge. I was carrying Macie in the Baby Bjorn it was a trek to get to where we are in this picture. There was about 1/2 mile of climbing over boulders, streams, and slippery rock. Once we were under the bridge it was dripping water on us. I even slipped once. The rocks were SO slippery. I'm glad we made it. It was like a class IV hike for little Macie. Her first hike and she was a champ. The kids were awesome too! I owe that to their friends. We've noticed there is less complaining when they have friends to hike with.

 Levi was an amazing hiker. He was keeping up with Sydney and Soren (he was in her first grade class). Jeff could barely keep up with him.

 Macie and I after going through the bridge. At one point there was a park ranger to lend a hand because there was one part that was steep, slippery, and no place to hold on to. I pretty much sat down on the rock, with Macie, and slid down.

 The trail to get to the bridge was hard to follow because there was no trail it was just climbing over boulders.

 The kids found a cave to sit and catch their breath. Who am I kidding, kids don't need to rest; they have more energy than their parents combined.

 A shoe tree we found outside of parson.

 A view of the natural bridge that they believe was created by lava flowing through it.