Sunday July 1- Millville Canyon was still on fire. I snuck out of the house after all the kids were asleep! I wanted to see if I could see the fire burning on the mountain. There are way too many tall trees lining 200 East. So, I walked down the hill toward Main Street. I was able to catch a glimpse of the mountainside halfway down 200 East but other than that I couldn't see much. (These pictures are some that a friend of mine took. She had a better view from her place in Nibley.)
This was the best photo I could get from our place.
Tuesday July 3- I took all my kids & Sadie down to my parent's house to get in the pool. They had so much fun! My dad had put a picnic bench up as a make shift diving board. Nash did cannon ball after cannon ball into the pool. He has inherited his dad's fearlessness for sure! Around 8:30 or so I took the kids up to my girlfriend's house so we could watch the Logan fireworks. She has a straight shot view from her back yard. The only one of my kids that watched much of the fireworks was Brookelyn! The rest of the kids were off playing & couldn't care less that there were a bunch of fireworks going! What's funny is that they see these kids like every single day! You'd think they'd be all excited about the fireworks!
She likes to drink her pool water! Good thing we use house water to fill up the pool!
Nash using the make shift diving board grandpa made for the dog.
Sam helped Brooke go up & down the slide.
Wednesday July 4- My mom called me first thing this morning to tell me about the Cricut Cake Mini they had on sale at JoAnn's (Have I mentioned how detrimental it is to my budget that my mother works there?). She said she was wondering if it was something I wanted because it was on sale for 1/2 off (these things are usually $120). I told her I'd run in to look at it because it sounded like something I'd like. I left my house at 11 am. For those from here, you know that the ridiculous Hyrum parade starts at 11:55 am. Yes, my goal was to be back home before the parade. HA! I made it to JoAnn's to look at the Cricut. I decided that I did in fact want this amazing machine. My mom told me she'd buy it for me as an early birthday present (seriously?! Yep, best mom ever!) I was headed back to Hyrum & thought I'd make it until I hit the dip. Traffic was backed up from the light at McDonald's to the top of the dip! I detoured by the baseball field by the rodeo grounds. That road wasn't any better. If I had been thinking, I would have gone home through Wellsville! I ended up going down past my mom's house & around Hyrum Dam to get back to my place! We got home just before noon & pulled out the stroller. We just walked down 200 East to the corner of Main Street & watched the parade from there. This parade is ridiculous & every year I swear I'm going to boycot it (people put their crap out to save places a WEEK in advance!) and every year I end up taking the kids. Guess I'm a sucker for that cheesy smile on my kids' face. After an hour of parade there was a lull. My kids were saying that the parade was over (anyone that has been knows that a ONE hour 4th of July parade in Hyrum is unheard of, we all know it's a solid TWO hours!). I was like, "Yep. It's over! Let's go home!" So we started walking back up the hill to our house before they caught sight of the remainder of the parade! Since I remembered to sunscreen everyone & we only stayed for an hour, no one even got sunburned! We were home long enough to feed all the kids lunch & then we busted out the double stroller and walked down to the city square to see what booths they had this year. I'd say 95% of what they had were food booths. I'm glad I didn't waste my time with a booth there this year. My parents called & told me they were going to bbq at about 7 and we were invited to come down. I took the kids down at about 6 & they all jumped in the pool (again). The make shift diving board was still up & I wondered if it would be an accident waiting to happen this time. At one point I saw Nash piggy back Caleb up the diving board & jump into the pool with him on his back. Then, I saw him stand at the end, pick up Caleb in front of him & jump off. I started wondering how much more good luck we could have. Caleb walked up the diving board & went right to the end. He did a few tiny jumps to psyc himself up to jump in all by himself. On about the 3rd jump, one foot went off the diving board & down he went. Lucky for him he had his life jacket on to cushion his fall. Plus, my dad said he caught his arm of the edge of the pool so I think that slowed him down as well. To put it simply, the kid fell about five feet onto concrete & smacked his head (because where else would my kid get hurt?). He had a good goose egg on the right side of his head & was quite sad. There wasn't any blood (which I was thankful for because it totally freaks him out every time). My mom sat & snuggled him for a minute & then they decided he could lay down & rest on grandma's bed. He was out cold in less than five minutes. We were worried about a concussion so we kept going in to wake him up about every 20 minutes. About the time it got dark he woke up so he could come watch fireworks. My dad had my brother in law light off some ariel fireworks in the backyard. My sister's brother in law & his family came down too. Their 2 kids got in the pool with the rest of the kids (yep, they were pruny when they got out). At one point, their little boy who is five jumped into the pool with one of the infant floaties on & it flipped so he was stuck under water. My brother in law, Chad, jumped in after him to save him (full pockets, lit cigarette & all). Thankfully Chad was quick enough that Carson was ok! Gave us all quite a scare though! After that Hyrum City started lighting off their fireworks display . We could kind of see them from the back patio but there were quite a few trees in the way too. We didn't get home until after 11 pm!
One of the "fabulous" items Sam bought at the square.
Check out this girl's farmer tan!
She loves this little pool because she can get in & out all by herself like a big girl.
Sunny thought it was great that Nash would stick his face in the water & blow bubbles for her.
Thursday July 5- Since my kids were up until after 11 the night before, I didn't even try to wake them up for summer school today. Yes, they were thrilled when they woke up to find out that mom let them miss summer school twice in one week! Guess I'm not quite the meanest mom ever! My mom gave me my Cricut Cake machine the night before so I spent a good deal of the day playing with it. I want to use it to cut out the 100 daisies I need for the wedding cake/cupcakes I'm doing. I've made lots of progress & I'm happier with how they are turning out. I've only got 12 of the 100 daisies I need so I'll have to work on it a little bit every day. Today I also kept my niece, Olivia (three days older than Brookelyn) and my nephew, Kash (2 years younger than Nash). They came over at about 11 am & stayed until just before 5 pm. I was surprised at how well all the kids got along. I was a bit worried that Kash & Nash would be mean to Caleb but I only had to get after Nash once or twice (I did talk to him about it the night before too). I was also worried that Brookelyn would be a turkey to Olivia because she doesn't generally have to share her own toys. All in all I was pleasantly surprised at how easily the day went! And, we finally got some rain today! It was a bummer that it happened on the day we had friends over so they couldn't play outside, but it was nice to get a relief from the hot & dry weather we have been having.
(I need to put centers on the daisies still)
Friday July 6- Today I spent the day baking. I was put on cake detail for my grandma's 75th birthday party on Saturday. I decided to make this cute cake that has Happy Birthday on it in a cute font. I wanted to do the letters out of the candy melts. Everything would have gone fine except that I had to do the letters for Happy Birthday like six times because I could only get one or two letters to come out without breaking! I did make a trip to Logan in the morning to take Sam to get her allergy shot. While we were in Logan I stopped at Hobby Lobby to see if they carried the Cricut Cake machine. I wanted to price the cutting mats. No luck. I did however find a candy mold that had ribbons on it. I decided that since I was going to be doing the candy melts for the birthday cake, I could do the candy melts in the mold at the same time. (Why do I do these things to myself?) We also made a quick stop at Staples to pick up some school supplies on the lists the kids brought home (Staples & Shopko do their school supply sales in July). And, I ran into Michaels because when I was there the day before I found some more flip flops that were even smaller sizes than what I had already bought & tied tule to. Now I have six more pairs of flip flops to tie tule to! I got home around three & started baking the birthday cake & making the candy melt ribbons. I don't think I stopped working on it before 10 pm. It's amazing to me that I always get these "great" ideas & then they take ten times longer than I thought they would (because I'm totally a perfectionist) & I end up neglecting my poor children. At least I'm aware of the problem, right? And on the bright side: school supplies are bought, the cake was finished & I had 20 candy melt ribbons done & all packaged up (fundraiser for Relay).
Saturday July 7- I decided I had better clean my filthy house before I embarked on yet another project. So, what did I do? I multi tasked! I would clean while my candy melt ribbons were setting up in the fridge. Then, when the ribbons were ready, I'd stop cleaning, dump the ribbons & get more in the mold! I now have my house cleaned & 3 dozen candy melt ribbon sucker things! I have 6 each of 6 colors. Now, I just need to pick up some orange candy melts from Kitchen Kneads on Monday & do 6 of those! Why the candy melt ribbons? I decided they'd be a fun fundraiser at Relay. How am I going to keep them from melting you ask? Well, my plan goes like this: they are packaged in saran wrap now, I will freeze some water bottles & placed my packaged ribbons in gallon size zip lock bags. Then, I will put the gallon size zip lock bags into a colapsable cooler with the frozen water bottles. I won't take them out until it cools off some & I'll put them out in the shade. Let's hope this plan works because how mad am I going to be at myself when I end up with 3 dozen + melted candy ribbons? Yeah, mad. At 5:30 or so we headed over to my Aunt Nikki's house to celebrate my grandma's 75th birthday. Her birthday was actually June 22nd, but my cousin got married that day so we had a belated birthday party. It was lots of fun to see everyone. My cousin Ashlee who usually lives 13+ hours away is here with her kids so we got to see them too. My sister did a cute thing for my grandma's gift. She bought one of those fat notebooks & numbered the first 75 pages. Then on the cover she wrote 75 reasons why we love you. She asked each of us to come up with several ideas of why we love grandma. It was lots of fun to fill in & to read what everyone else had written. I think grandma really liked it. My aunt also had a plastic table cloth & sharpies for all of us to write messages to grandma on. My aunt said she thought grandma could use the tablecloth when she did picnics, etc. at her place. Cute ideas! We also had all five of the great grandbabies that were born last year line up & do another photo.
Yes, there are 75 candles on that cake! (And a few pieces of cake around the cake!)
Oldest to youngest (left to right): Sunny (March), Brookelyn (May), Parker (June), Bryson (September), Rhett (November)
Yep, my kid was the only one crying!
What cute girls!
Aunt Nikki brought out a bunch of bubbles. The little kids loved watching the bubbles blow around. It was funny to watch their faces as they tried to grab the bubbles.
The kids loved crawling in & out of this too. All the great grandkids got one of these a few Christmas's ago. My kids beat the heck out of ours - it had much love & much, much use!
And I will leave with a picture of Brookelyn's new favorite chair:
Yes, this is the cabinet under my kitchen sink. She LOVES it! When she isn't sitting right here, she can likely be found in one of the two nearby drawers that house all my kitchen towels - yanking every single one out as fast as she can!
