That Little T;urkey!!!

I went up to see my mom and grandmother a few weeks ago and while Cole and Ambra were at school, Ariah and I packed. After we had packed the girls, we went in to Cole's room where I said, "Ariah! Come help me pack for Colie." Well then the doorbell rang and I had a customer come pick out some framing. This took about 10 minutes. I came back to Ariah "helping" me pack. She had taken all the clothes off the hangars and out of the dresser....





This is where they ended up.

After I had unpacked a shipment of product I had recieved from Suspended In Time, I left all the packing in the box and headed off to make dinner. 15 minutes later, this is where I found Little Miss Mess Maker.

2 HOURS CLEANUP!!! UUUUGHHHGHGHGH

She is famous for getting into my purse. Usually I find her with lipstick and a mouth full of gum. The entire pack of wrappers is wadded up on the floor next to her. Well the last week I have been missing my keys. Could not find them anywhere. After day seven of searching and using my spare or bumming keys off of Adam, Ariah comes in with her little purse and says, "Look mom, YaYa's keys (Ariah's keys). UUUUGHHGHGH.

Ariah is potty training herself. I will find her with no diaper and some little princess underwear on. She will totally go to the bathroom. Everyonce in a while she will have an accident. This is mostly when she is downstairs and totally involved in some activity with the kids. I forget she is in underwear and then oops accident. I have started setting the timer so that I can ask her every 30 minutes or so.

Well timer goes off and I ask Ariah if she has to go potty.

"no mom"

30 seconds later she is peeing all over herself and the floor.

"Ariah! I just asked you. You told me you didn't have to go."

Huge smile on her face, she sings "TRICKED YOU!!!!!"

THAT LITTLE TURKEY!

Pumpkin Patch

Pack's pumpkin patch made a fun free family home evening. Thanks Mich for a great idea. We gave the kids rides through the patch in these wheel barrows.

Theres the cute little crew.

Of course Ariah's blurry. Does that girl ever stop?

Summer can't be over yet!!!

I know, I know, the kids are back in school, and its over, but I am not happy about it. I love summer time. I love fall too, but then its winter - uuugh. Here are a few summer time photos I never got around to posting.

Camping at Bear Lake. Is the water ever NOT choppy because of the wind. It was a blast, but windy. And why is it that it is only windy on the beach. Not at our campsite - only on the beach.




Miss Ariah was content to play WITH EVERYONE ELSE'S TOYS. We must not have had cool enough stuff.

Dirt and Uno. Need I say more.

OK I admit it. We are terrible at starting fires. It takes forever, then dinner takes forever and the whole food thing is hard when your camping. I always tease Adam about how long it takes him to start a fire. He was an Eagle Scout for heaven sake. Shouldn't these things be second nature? We always get a good one in the end. I love you honey :)

We did Minnetonka Caves while we were there. It was rough taking turns carrying a toddler that kept saying hold me hold me up 888 stairs. Good workout, and neat caves. The kids thought is was way cool. Last time I was there, I was with the YW and we went through the cave with Carmen Rasmussen from American Idol. That is my only claim to fame.

We sold our tent trailer and bought this spring bar tent. It does the job and takes less space to store. I miss the trailer, but for only going camping twice a year, I finally decided it wasn't worth keeping it around. We enjoyed ourselves...... until midnight the second night and Cole was coughing so badly that he couldn't breathe. It was awful. We had to pack up in the pitch black and make the 2.5 hour trek back home so we could have meds, and humidfiers, and warm beds. We got home at 3am. Note to self - Cole is a scrawny little kid, if he has any signs of illness - DONT GO CAMPING!

THe kids did a carwash this summer for some extra money. They were so cute. One of thier little signs that they held on the road said, " Stop for a wash, kids will make your car so shiny." NO ONE STOPPED. THey were heart broken. They were only charging .50 too. So I got on the phone and called good friends over to have thier cars washed. THey felt rich by the end of day. $6.00 each. I have generous neighbors and friends. They thought this was the best ever.

Back in School

My sweet little Cole on his first day of preschool. This poor kid misses the Kindergarten deadline by hours. All his little friends are in "big kid school", and he isn't. This is his second year of preschool.
He has informed me that he doesn't eat snack at preschool because he is practicing for kindergarten next year. They don't get snack so neither should he.



My big girl Ambra on her first day of first grade. I didn't think I would break down like I did last year, but I did. All day school - sob! My little girl is lost to the world - no longer in my home all day every day.

Her cute little friend Bailey. They are the best of friends. We carpool with this cute little family.

Her new teacher Mrs. Farris.

Second day.

My hubby on his first day of school. He is teaching seminary in Centerville. He has two classes for the year. This has been fun, but very challenging for him. I'm sure he is doing wonderful. He always does.

Too Busy!!

I am too busy. It is taking me forever to update my blog and for that I'm sorry. I am just trying to fit in lots of play before school starts (that is tomorrow). So sad. Summer needs to be longer and that's all there is to it. We have done lots of fun things this summer, camping, pineview lake trips, Idaho and St. George trips, Lagoon, oodles of swimming, Cherry Hill, bike rides, picnics, river floats - probably wont' get to posting it all, but who knows. I am giving couponing a try and I swear it is taking over my life. Any blog time I had now is taken with this couponing thing. Whoa - it's like a part time job. I committed to a five month trial and am on month two, so we shall see. I am logging my time and keeping track of savings and overall spending so I will keep you posted. I do have tons of free toothpaste, brushes, floss, shampoo and cond (well it was $1 or less - the good kind), like 60 boxes of cereal I got for .25 and .50, fruit snacks, dressing, and the like - it's pretty exciting only paying tax on certain items. Fun. Anyway, that is my excuse.



This is our fourth of July trip to my moms in Idaho. We had a blast.
Miss Ambra at the splash pad.


We went to Grandpa's friends horse to do 4 wheelers and horse riding.

Grandma was content to watch.

Ariah wanted nothing to do with the horses. Only the doggies. She was in heaven.

Riding horses for the first time.

More splash pad. We need one of these in Layton!!

Parade. Whoa, Adam is a dork. I didn't see this awful face till just now. What a geek :) I guess thats his way of rebelling all these silly pictures.

My mom does the cutest tables. That is a cookie flag. So yummy.

Happy Fourth (like two months ago).

Remember all that rain we had in June? Well it created a lake effect in the field at the park by our house. I took the kids in their grubbies there one day and let them run wild. THey thought is was great fun.


Does this little poser remind you of anyone??

There were a lot of worms in here. The kids kept picking them up and flinging them across the field. EWWW! It seems I should care that my kids would enjoy doing that, but I don't. Must be the three kids thing - some things just don't matter like they used to.

Look how deep it got. Wow, that is alot of rain.

That's about as far as little Miss Ariah would venture. This is only the last 5 minutes of our stay too. She mostly just sat by me and my book and was content to watch the two other monkeys having a blast.

Swim Lessons

There is a great swim teacher in our ward that does my kids swim lessons. They have blossomed so much in the water. I can say that my kids are swimming now. I don't worry about Ambra without floaties - she does great, and Cole can swim across the pool too. Wow. Good job kiddos.



The first day we went to watch, I couldn't keep Ariah out of the water. I finally put her in her swimsuit, and she was just fine to sit here on the stair for two weeks and watch.

The last fifteen minutes of our time is free time. The kids get to play and wear floaties if they want to. Her slide and diving board are the best. Sometimes I even got in that last fifteen minutes. That blue water is hard to pass up.

Whoa!! Look at that hurkey. Cheerleader anyone?? Ya right, she wants nothing to do with that stuff. She's my little sporty chick.

Aww cute. Autumn and Bailey had lessons with us. They loooove to play together.