August Events

August, like all other months this year, has been very busy. Here are some smaller events!

-We hit up Jurassic Jungle on the 6th. We found out they added a new mission, so we decided to use our membership on a night we had some free time. We spent a couple hours there letting the kids loose and we all had a lot of fun. I really love going through with the kids and playing wtih them. Pierce was obsessed with the slides (which I still get nervous to try since my bum injury)

-I decided to take the kids out to get a Heaven in a Cup on the last Friday before school started (the 8th) at the Chevron up the street. I had been talking about it for weeks with the kids, but unfortunately when we got there we found out that they don't do them anymore. While we were bummed, I let the kids pick between Frazils or ice cream from the freezer. Pierce and Lucy chose frazils (blue and mango) and Me, Gwen, and Cara chose ice cream (I got snickers ice cream bar and they each got a Spongebob one). I was bugged when we were driving home and I realized we probably should've gone to the snow cone shack instead, but oh well. We enjoyed it!

-We spent the weekend of the 9th going up to City Creek, hitting up Cheesecake Factory, and getting our cars cleaned out! I had been wanting to do Cheesecake Factory for lunch (hopefully with a lesser crowd) ever since we attempted to go after Wicked, so this was the first time we could make it work. I tried their new Oreo cheesecake and, as usual, the food was really good! After lunch we walked the mall looking for clothes for family pictures coming up. The mall was really nice, there were lots of places to explore. The kids loved the fountains and checking out the toy store (which was only okay). I also let them pick out bath bombs from Lush (which also had some fun activities for the kids to try out). On the way home we hit up the car wash (I had washed the black car earlier in the week and realized the van needed to be cleaned too). It was nice to have a family weekend right before the chaos of school started.

-Soccer officially started on the 16th. We took the kids out to buy new cleats on the 4th. We went to Dick's where we learned their shoes get ALL sorts of mixed up and we ended up having to order Gwen's online (we also found they have EVERY flavor of Big League Chew so we had to grab some of those haha). Luckily, Lucy could reuse ones we used last time AND we already had shin guards that worked for all girls, so didn't need those. The first game was a bit unexpected (I thought the season was going to start on the 17th, we got last minute texts from the coaches to do quick practices before the game and it got pretty chaotic). Adjusting to adding soccer in our mix has been....interesting. Hopefully once gymnastics ends (next week) it'll get a little easier.

Not really activities or events, but things I am celebrating this month:

-I have new cleaning and organizing plans, a little different than the ones I posted about back in March. After that post and doing the activity closet, I got sick of organizing and stopped (that ADD hit again! I'm telling you, it's a huge problem). Then I realized I needed to get the house under control (when the motivation hits I love it, but it's keeping the motivation that seems to be a problem) and started up on Sundays again (instead of doing our usual cleaning). But, of course, it means our normal house areas (bathrooms, floors, etc.) would get super messy.

 So, I got an idea back in July: I'd gather boxes to pack it up like we're moving and then we'd bring stuff out as we needed/used it. Then that evolved into lots of different ideas (why pack everything if there are things we know we'll use - like the dishes or our books). So now the plan is to clean like normal on Sundays and wake up early Mondays and Fridays to just clean out ANY area, doesn't matter where. I make sure to touch/go through every item/piece to make sure we actually need it, it has all pieces, it's in the right area, etc. I make sure to have a box for the "I'm not sure if we're keeping" it stuff and another for the "for sure giveaway" stuff (the "I don't know" stuff is being added to giveaway if we don't use it within a year-ish). Our giveaway pile is growing BIG (especially after I went through the kitchen). I'm really digging through stuff to get it cleaned out this time because I'm officially sick of keeping ALL the crap. At one point I attempted to do the kids' rooms and that almost knocked me off course (SO demotivating), but I forced myself get back into it. We've already done a few Saver's runs and it's nice to get the stuff out of our house! So far we've finished the two front rooms, part of Cara's room, and the kitchen! Decluttering feels SO good, but now I cant wait to get rid of the boxes haha. 

-I have created a new workout routine. I used to do workouts on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. At first I'd do nights on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but then one day (way before my surgery) I decided to get up early on those days and do it in the mornings, which was a nice game changer! But Sundays was starting to fill up with things, so now I get up early Tuesdays and Thursdays to do a basement workout (like I used to) and then on Mondays and Wednesdays I do a workout on my walking pad, in the office, right at the end of work. I do different "strength" things between the two and I end up looking forward to doing them. Because I'm getting up Early Mondays and Fridays AND Tuesdays and Thursdays, I make sure to sleep in a bit on Wednesdays (usually just an extra hour, but it's VERY nice). Now Sundays can be for grocery shopping, cleaning, and (soon) Football :) It's been such a nice change for me! 

-And, of course, my favorite pics of the kids:

Gwen gave Cucumber an award for being 
So cute and fluffy!

Beginning of a New School Year

Well, we've reached the end of Summer Break and are officially in our Back to School time! I've been looking forward to taking the kids out for shopping and scheduling haircuts, especially for Pierce because we had just been letting his grow all Summer and it is quite long!

We did our shopping with Mom back on the 3rd, which was fun. They didn't really need  anything, but we still found some good stuff (we did Wal Mart, which was new for us, but I love their deals and their clothes are really nice quality lately). I even ended up finding things for me (including an outfit for family pictures I'd like to have scheduled at the end of October). The girls were all obsessed with getting Minecraft backpacks. Lucy didn't need one so I got her a Minecraft lunch box. Gwen ended up settling for a cute pink sparkle backpack, and Cara's we had to order online because every store was out of them already (no real surprise though).

Cara's new backpack

Gwen's new backpack

I scheduled their haircuts for the 12th, at Sharkey's, of course. Although I told Larry I may not do that anymore. The girls just get trims, Pierce gets a full shaved head (usually with a cute style, but we don't NEED to do that) and it ends up being over $100. Granted, the girls get cute style stuff put in their hair and a mini manicure with a ring, and they get to pick out balloons and suckers at the end, but it just seems so pricey for simple things. 

The girls just got trims, so this is the most 
Dramatic before and after to show off

We had the back to school night on the 11th (for the older girls). We got to sit and listen to Cara's new A.L.L. teacher talk about how his class will be different than what Cara was previously used to. He mentioned he wants them to read 40 books this year (which is about 1 a week) and when I told Cara that she looked a little worried/nervous so I was trying to reassure her she could do that so easily when she said "Forty? I can do more though right?" haha. The girl LOVES to read! Larry had to go meet Gwen's teacher while I stayed at that since they were about at the same times, but I hear her teacher is really nice. 

Cara and Gwen started school on the 13th, Lucy had to do her Kindergarten testing that week (she didn't start until the 19th) so I took her to do that. We found out that week that she got the same Kindergarten teacher that Cara had! Because she started later, her back to school night was on the 18th and it was so sweet when the teacher saw Cara and immediately recognized her. She said Cara would constantly stop by and say hi to her whenever she could. Cara was happy she remembered her.

No idea why I put 2nd grade on her board
She definitely started 3rd grade!

We definitely made sure to go out on the 13th for a family treat to celebrate. we picked froyo, of course! That's a family favorite for us. 

We also decided, completely last minute, to sign Pierce up for Preschool. We registered him late so instead of starting on the 21st, like all other Preschoolers, he started today. He did NOT love the idea of going when we first signed him up and I was SO nervous how drop off would go. I assumed he'd be excited, but he wanted NOTHING to do with it. I even thought he'd like to drive by it to see the playground he'd get to play on, but the night we planned to do that, it he fought so hard just getting in the car (I assume he thought we were taking him right then). We decided the day of we'd call it the play place instead of school, he still said he didn't want to go, but he wasn't fighting AS bad. He ended up being okay with going the day of. He actually walked out of the house on his own and climbed into the car without any issues. He also kept asking if there was going to be a play kitchen for him. When I took him in to check the room out (it's in a relocatable) and he saw they did have a play kitchen, he ran right to it and didn't care about me one bit. He even did great at Pick Up for Larry and the teachers said he did so good and had fun. He was even excited when we drove past the school later that night (on our way to soccer practice) and we pointed out "Bubba's School", he got a little smile! I'm just so glad he's transitioned so well so far!

We've found doing drop offs and pick ups at 3 different schools is a bit chaotic, but we've got a good rhythm to it so far. We also know that Lucy doesn't like school lunches. She says they are yummy, but she can't eat it all in the time she has and she doesn't like throwing it away (if she doesn't finish a home lunch she can just bring it back home to finish). We still make her do pizza Fridays so she can get used to eating quicker and maybe she'll want more later. 

After all the changes we've had the last couple weeks, I'm so glad I'm able to take the first week off of work to make sure we figure things out and I can take care of the last minute things we didn't know would come up. It's been SUPER helpful! I'm also glad the the kids are taking to the change of going to school so well, all seem to like going so far. Lets hope that continues throughout the school year.

Another Baseball Game

So, as you'll recall, we went to a Bees game back in June, which was a bit of a dud since it was too cold and windy and the drone show was cancelled. When I got the email to reschedule the make up, I picked the next drone night I saw, which was in late July. The night of that game I went to go look up the tickets as we were getting ready to leave so I knew we'd be ready for them. I could NOT find them anywhere, no matter how much I dug around. I finally figured out I had accidentally picked the night of the 5th, instead of the 26th. I'm not sure how that happened since I know I wouldn't have even looked at the 5th (since we had our Monster Trucks that night). I was so bummed, I had to hurry and text Mom to not go yet because we didn't actually have tickets. 

I did look for tickets for that night, but they didn't have any good seats for how many we needed. I was so bummed! Larry convinced me I should reach out to the Bees Team and see if they'd be willing to get me tickets to a different game. I didn't see any drone shows, at first, but then Larry noticed there was one set for this night, I just saw originally that it was Princess Night so I didn't realize it was also a drone one too. I was hesitant, but then figured it couldn't hurt. 

The Bees Win!!

They ended up being SO incredibly great to work with. I emailed them to find out if I could get a refund to use for another game or if they could get it rescheduled. Within an hour they had it all set up with new tickets at tonight's game and even better seats! He even got us all 8 tickets in the same row!

This game ended up being SO good! The weather was perfect (it never even got chilly!), the Bees won, we got the kids some Dippin' Dots as a treat (which made them more excited), and the drone show was really cool! The sad part was we got the Dippin' Dots in the mini baseball hats, but we accidentally left the hats behind when we left. The kids wanted to go back and get them, but I didn't really care to by that point.

Maui's Hook (in Drone form)

The only unfortunate part was when Gwen was having some tummy issues on the way there and ended up blowing out both ends in the car. We had to do our best with cleaning up the car, but her clothes were pretty bad! My mom was so sweet and ended up getting her (and the other kids) new shirts that were so cute! Luckily I had the girls dress in dresses and bring pants along just in case it got cold, so we could change Gwen and she was squeaky clean (we did throw her underwear away and then just wrapped up her dress so the mess was contained). Luckily, as the game went on she was feeling much better (at least good enough for ice cream haha). I'm so glad we could go and the kids ended up having quite a bit of fun. Hopefully we can make more games happen next year. I think the kids would actually like them more!

Memory Maker: Imaginaria (Again)

Well we decided to hit up Imaginaria one last time before school started and it closed down for good (it's only open through the 23rd and we still had some punches to use up). We thought it would be fun to do the slide again and let the kids use up the punches on whatever they wanted. 

One of the times we went previously, Gwen had wanted to do this water balloon war, so when we got there and the slide wasn't up (they were taking a mini break) we decided to head that way. I had gotten a text that Lucy's first soccer practice was going on tonight so I kind of was rushing the kids so we could do as much as possible in the time we had with her and me there. 

The water balloon war place was SUCH a hit! The kids did it a few times and used up quite a bit of punches. We also let them get some ice cream again. While we waited for that we let them do the blow up obstacle course a couple times, which they loved.

We thought after ice cream we could hit up the slide, but as we were eating I realized we had to leave like right then! So Larry stayed back with the other kids while I took Lucy to her first soccer practice. From what I heard, they did do the slide a bunch of times and had fun doing the rest of the free stuff. I'm glad we got another chance to go, I really hope they do this again in future years!

Memory maker: Harry Potter Exhibit

Confession: I have a spreadsheet that has a timeline on it for things we can look forward to over the next couple of decades, or so (for real). One of the things on this list is getting our kids into Harry Potter. I wasn't planning on it until Cara was 10 because that's about the age Larry and I were when we started the books, but imagine my excitement when Cara, who LOVES reading, decided to give the books we own a shot AND she loves them! She loves to say she's a Gryffindor and that she wants to be just like Harry Potter (not Hermoine, Harry!). We are also starting to watch the movies on her choice of Family Movie Night and all the kids seem to have fun watching those. Gwen and Lucy also really like the Harry Potter world, but they haven't read the books yet.

So when I heard that a Harry Potter Exhibit had come to Utah I knew I had to use one of my Memory Maker Days on this one. I got tickets for the girls and me and we checked it out today. I assumed this was a temporary pop-up sort of thing at South Town Mall (they always have these little pop up things), but I was surprised to see they had taken over the old Buy Buy Baby building (which totally tugged at my heartstrings, since I used to go there for all our baby needs each time we were pregnant).

This place was SO much more fun that I thought it would be. There are a ton of spots to get pictures and they make it so fun. You get to pick out your House, Petronus, Wand, and I think a couple other things to create a profile. The girls all chose Gryffindor, I chose Hufflepuff. I don't remember what else we chose, but there were lots of interactive areas you used this information for.

Lucy didn't want to do pics...it was too
Scary for her, haha

There was a walking Quidditch game area, which was fun. Since we went on a weekday, it wasn't too busy and I could let the girls play as long as they wanted, instead of feeling like I should rush them to let others play. I will say the exhibit is definitely more about the movies, than the books, but that did make it better for Gwen and Lucy. There were things that spoiled future things so I had to make sure the girls didn't see those parts haha. They even had real props from the movies, which is always pretty cool for me. 

When we finished up, I told the girls they could each have $20 to spend in the gift shop. Cara wanted a robe and, even though I told her there's no way that is in the budget, she still wanted to look. We found them, but they didn't have her size AND they were $95! So that didn't happen. She ended up picking a stuffed Phoenix, Gwen got a stuffed chocolate frog that smelled like chocolate (seriously), and Lucy got a pen and notebook.

It was nice to be able to spend our time checking things out and getting fun pictures. Even with taking our time, we still only spent about an hour there, which I felt like it had been much more time (in a good way), so that was kind of nice. It's such a fun event, but it's only here until sometime in September, so if you like the movies, I highly recommend checking it out!

Sundance Scenic Lift

My Mother-In-Law, Marie, always has such fun ideas to spend time together. She loves to find things that don't cost a lot of money, but she gets pretty creative with her ideas on what we can do. Well, a little while ago (because she also likes to plan things super ahead of time) she text me that her and her husband would be down for the weekend and she'd like to get together with us at some point. I text her a bunch of ideas of things we could do and one of the things I mentioned was a scenic lift up at Sundance. I didn't think she'd go for it because it can get pretty pricey, but I was surprised when she said she'd like to. She also mentioned we could also meet up at a splash pad and do a picnic lunch, which I thought would be fun for the kids.

We first met up at a splash pad down in Provo. It was really busy and not very big, but the kids really liked it. We ended up having to do a real picnic and eat on the grass since the tables were all taken up. The shade was taken up too, so we ended up on this hill, which wasn't the most comfortable, but we made it work. Marie always brings a trove of food with her when we plan these things so we were definitely well fed, haha. We found out that Pierce is back to loving string cheese again (he ate like 4 or 5) and that the kids REALLY love getting wet (especially Gwen...she just loves an excuse to get soaking wet).

Once we finished lunch, we drove up to Sundance; I love driving through Provo Canyon! This resort, though...wow! It is SO beautiful! We saw part of a wedding going on and man do I wish I had found that place when planning my wedding. I joked with the kids that if they choose to get married I hope one of them will get married up there because it's such a pretty backdrop for pictures. Lucy said she'll marry me there, as long as we don't go on a hike she'll fall on, but she is okay with doing the zipline, haha!

Doing the scenic lift was so cool, way more exciting than I expected. It had really beautiful views. I really enjoyed that part of the day. Part of the Connect Pass has the Snowbird lift & lunch that we plan to do later this year (originally we planned for December, but October might be more fun to see the changing leaves...maybe?) so now I'm really excited to see that one and how it compares.

If you are thinking of doing this, I highly recommend it. The views are beautiful and there's a restaurant at the top to do lunch or dinner at. I wish I had known, I might have planned that, but it's all good (we ended up there as they were trying to close things down so we didn't really have a lot of time to stop anyways).