August Activities

-We did more swimming lessons. This time it was Cara and Lucy. Cara made the sweetest friend in her class, it was pretty sweet. Lucy was her teachers absolute favorite (she kept telling us she looked forward to her class with Lucy because she was her favorite). We are so happy they learned more skills to practice in the pool

-We enjoyed ALL the popsicles we could this summer. The kids were always excited when I was nice and let them have some. Lucy kept saying "but it's sunny day, that means we get popsicles!" (except it was sunny EVERY day haha)

-We learned a new card game that (most of) the kids could play. It's called Trash and it's a very fun one!

-Cara made me some "Go Packers" signs for the start of football season

-We tried a new treat before back to school time: Heaven in a Cup. It's like a slurpee with soft serve ice cream in it.  It's delicious!

-Pierce became OBSESSED with playing Hungry Hungry Hippos. He asks to play all the time and always asks to get "the golden one" (yellow marble)

-We, of course, did all the fun workshops this month. Lowe's was a fun tree house. Home Depot was a white board sign. Bonus was walking through their Halloween stuff and pushing the buttons on the animatronic things.

-We got A LOT of Summer storms this month. It was SO fun playing in the crazy rain. I LOVE Summer rain storms most of all.

-We did more family walks around our block. The girls would ride their bikes and Pierce....walked a scooter haha. I absolutely love nights we get to do that.

-We visited the Halloween Spirit Store! Lucy doesn't love going, but I do! We found lots of fun costumes for the kids. Pierce became obsessed with "The Scary Clown" animatronic they had.

-One more Malad run for us! Larry had to turn in some lottery tickets he won a little on. I thought it was our last for the year, but he got some more so we may have to make one more trip. Maybe we'll go in October when the leaves are really changing. I didn't bring bikes this time and the park had a huge family reunion thing going on (and the stage was taken down) so it wasn't AS much fun as last time, but I think the kids still enjoyed it. 

I was feeling like a mini photog...look how
Pretty the plants were

LOVED this sign haha

-Silly kiddo pictures:

-Silly kitty pictures since it was National Cat Day this month:

Summer Goals Recap

 So now that school is back in session I'm calling it the end of our Summer Goals. Here is how we did:

-Garden and Walls "glow up": Done! I realized we could have bought more for our front garden, but the front is definitely cleaned up. Larry even had time to do the side of the garage and the back yard rock areas. I'm so happy with how it turned out and I'm excited to do even more next year. We also hung up some wall décor. I still have to get pictures printed, but we have stuff up on our walls now (not EVERYTHING I wanted to hang, but 90% of it)

-Swimming for all kids: Mostly done. Cara was able to pass off the first level of swimming. The second level she had to do twice and she passed some things, needed to work on others, but both times had different things marked as a pass so I feel she does well enough. Gwen passed the first level of the preschool class and is now obsessed with jumping in, on her own, without floaties. She loves putting her head under water and is so confident. I LOVE how much she progressed this Summer. Lucy passed off the first level of the preschool class as well. She loved doing the bobs, but I don't think they practiced jumping in enough. She now is confident in swimming on her own with her floaties, but she's too nervous to be in the pool without them. She isn't AS nervous to put her face in the water either, so that's a plus, but I wish she had learned more. Pierce just loves being in the water and will swim on his own with floaties ALL the time. I think he'll love doing lessons next year. We didn't get around to going to Cowabunga Bay (mostly because of my injury though). 

-Wheels goals: Done (mostly)! Cara is a rock star on her bike without training wheels. She caught onto it so quickly and has loved riding her bike any chance she can. She loved picking out her new bike. Gwen is definitely comfortable on the bike with training wheels now. She was too nervous to try without training wheels, but I completely understand and maybe next year we can try. Neither Lucy or Pierce ever had any interest in the balance bike and we didn't even attempt roller skating (that got moved to next year). I am happy with how this one ended.

-Cara's tying shoes and reading challenges: DONE! The reading 500 pages was almost too easy, she ended up doing this twice (so she read 1,000 pages). She had NO issue with that all. I told her maybe next summer we'll make it a 1,200 or 1,500 goal. The tying shoes one I wasn't sure we were going to accomplish, I kept working with her on the jump rope (I read that was easier to train on first because it's bigger and then once that was done you can move on to shoes). We tried over and over, she'd almost fully get it, but need help on little bits so I wasn't sure she was ready for shoes. One day I mentioned to Larry how we really needed to work on that one still so he grabbed the jump ropes and sat down with her. She figured it out after about 2 tries with him. So I congratulated her and made a comment about doing it on shoes. One day she brought shoes down and said "mom! I tied them all by myself!" So I had her untie them and try again, and she got it! She was so proud of herself and I was proud of her for trying it on all on her own.

-Gwen pumping on the swing: Done! She did this all on her own as well. Larry mentioned to me that he was out doing yard work and saw her doing it so the next time I went out I told her to show me and, yeah, she just had it down. No practice, nothing. She just knew.

-Lucy's bug phobia: Mostly done! She still gets a little nervous around bugs, but it's LIGHTYEARS better than how she used to be. I think Larry having the couple months off and being in the yard and showing them bugs really helped. We never got any books from the library or went to a museum, but it's good she didn't NEED those to help and she's feeling much better.

-My playground once a week goal: Kind of done. I didn't do this EVERY week. Turns out when it's REALLY hot the playground is the last place you want to go. I did take them to the splash pad a couple times. We did check out our new playground once that was done as well. August I couldn't do this at all with my injury, so I feel bad this one didn't work out as well, but the kids were happy the couple times we did go out and I felt I got some good time with the kids this Summer.

Overall, I'm glad we made these goals. Seasonal goals seem to be the way to go. When I find something I wish we did more of, I add it to the list and plan it for the next season it can be done and we crossed off SO much this year. I highly recommend doing this!

That Time I Broke My Butt

So back on the first (Larry's first day of his new job too, funny enough), I made one of the dumbest decisions ever! Larry went out to feed the birds and Gwen came in wanting me to play with her. I figured I could play for a minute and she pretended to turn me into a robot.

**Backstory here: for Christmas we got the kids some slides to put on the stairs for a fun little indoor play idea. The kids play with them here and there, not too often, but when they do, they love them. This time around they put 2 slides on one second of stairs, to make one long slide**

As we were playing robot, she told me I had to go down the slide they set up. I thought it would be funny to go down the slide and instead of letting my feet stop me, I'd keep going. This is dumb already since the bottom is our laminate flooring (so nothing soft is there). The worst part is that I didn't realize they set up the bottom of the slide on the bottom stair, so NOT on the floor. So that means as I soared down about 8-10 stairs, I dropped the 6-8 inches straight down onto the floor from the bottom stair (instead of just a smooth transition, it was a D.R.O.P!). I felt immediate pain and then just laid down laughing at how stupid I was.

That was when Larry came back in and saw me just laying there laughing a little. Then I decided to move to get up and realized "oh no! I have done some actual damage!" and I started to cry. Like real, actual crying. I stayed down so the kids didn't see me. Larry kept asking me questions  (he didn't witness what I did, he just went out to feed the birds and came back to me on the ground so he didn't realize how bad it was). I kept telling him to leave me alone for a bit. 

As the day went on I found that EVERYTHING now hurt. Walking, bending over, sitting, standing, twisting, even pouring drinks from a full carton REALLY hurt. Like, everything! I realized I had done some damage and did some "Googling" to see if there was a way to know if I had broken my tail bone or just bruised it. Basically everything said it was just painful either way and there's nothing a doctor could do either way (just xray it to confirm and maybe give a prescription on pain medicine). I decided I wasn't going to pay for a dr visit just for a confirmation and, luckily, Larry found we had some Ibuprofen 800 left over from something, so I just decided to stick to that. 

I tell you, the last 3 weeks have been absolute misery. I've found going to the bathroom has been EXTREMELY hard. Finding a good way to sit and stand as I work has been hard. Driving around has been REALLY hard (the day it happened I had to take the kids to swimming lessons. Which was only in Lehi, about 20 minutes away, but that drive was absolute torture. Not to mention getting in and out of the car!). Oh my gosh, I've decided time travel must not exist, because if I could travel back to a time I'd have come back to this moment and stopped myself from doing this. 

I haven't been able to work out, clean the house, pick up the kids if they need it. Bathing the kids that first night was a definite no, so Larry graciously offered to do all of it. I cannot accurately portray how bad this injury has been.

I'm lucky that at this point I can finally work out and clean the house again (I did for the first time today and it felt great to get back at it. Plus it's nice to have a half clean house again). Bathroom stuff is much easier (still painful, but much more doable). Driving, standing, and walking are totally fine. I am still working on sitting though, that I still have to do leaned over. I can lay down on my back though (which is SO nice), but when I go to read, I have to be to the side or it ends up hurting too bad. The pain also gets worse as the day goes on, so by bedtime I'm done. But I can tell I'm improving and that's the best part.

So the moral: please protect your butt! It's linked to more things than you realize! Also, this has me really worried about my surgery in January and how that will effect bathroom stuff as well...eesh!

Back to School Time

I remember when I was growing up, seeing a commercial (it was for Wal Mart or Staples or something) with a dad dancing down the aisles to the song "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" with his kids dragging their feet behind him and it was shown during the back to school time. As a kid, I sympathized with the kids (I absolutely hated and dreaded the start of a school year). As a parent, I'm much more like the dad now. I absolutely love an excuse to get the kids a couple new outfits and backpacks and crayons!

This year, we started back to school time with some hair cuts. With 3 girls and 1 boy we really don't go to hair places much. The girls we just let their hair grow and Pierce, we just tend to shave it ourselves. But I thought it would be fun to get everyone's trimmed up and looking nice and fresh. Cara decided she wanted to shave some of her hair. It was really hard for me to get on board with at first, but after a while I realized it's just hair and let her have some fun with it (and really hope she didn't regret it after). Lucy and Gwen just got cute trims (Gwen wants to grow her bangs out so we had to leave those alone). And Pierce got a cute cut.

Before haircuts

After haircuts

We went back to school shopping with Mom the weekend of the 10th and it was so fun to look at everything. It WASN'T fun, however, when every single cute outfit I found, the girls responded with "no, that's ugly!" (I thought having daughters would make shopping fun haha). We only had to stop at a couple stores, but we found lots of cute things. I had Larry cover new backpacks and water bottles, but I got clothes and umbrellas (they really didn't need crayons or any other typical supplies). 

Some of the cute outfits that were veto'd

It was a little hard to walk around (from my injury, I'll post on later) after a while, but it was still fun. Afterwards, we went to Mom's and chatted with her and Will for a bit, while the girls played in the yard.

This year, Cara goes into 2nd grade. She started on the 15th and has loved going. She doesn't have as many friends from her 1st grade class in this one, but she doesn't seem to mind. 

Gwen goes into Kindergarten (also on the 15th), but this year they have switched to all day Kindergarten. I think it's better for them (I've read it gives the teachers more 1:1 time with the kids). She doesn't get excited to go to school, but when she comes home she says she had fun.

Lucy started Preschool today. Hers is only the half day (we do PM so she's gone during nap time, it's much easier for us). She had a rough end to her 1st day, but she does seem to like it. I think the teacher has a soft spot for her since she's so teeny and cute (I'm not being biased here, the teacher was even saying how cute she was during her PEEP testing).

For the older girls' first day, I took them to school (I took the 15th off so I could take my time with it) and walked them to their doors so they knew where to go. I showed Gwen where to put her backpack and lunch box down and she ran off to play on the playground immediately. I then took Cara to her area and asked her if she wanted to go play or have me stay with her. She asked me to stay and we hung out (which was SO nice). After their first day I took all the girls out to Swig to get some fun first day sodas. They all just wanted a gummy shark, they didn't care about the actual soda (I got a sprite with some watermelon flavor and strawberry popping pearls, Cara got a sprite with a shark, Lucy got a lemonade with strawberry flavoring and a shark, Gwen got a root beer with coconut and a shark), but they did say it was good.

Today, after Lucy's first day we went out, as a family, for Froyo (our absolute favorite family treat). So that was fun.

Overall, I think it'll be a good school year. So far, everyone seems to like their teachers and classes and are making friends. Lucy only goes Tuesday through Friday, so she'll have long weekends, which I'm sure will be nice for her. I'm just so excited for them!

July Activities

-Swim lessons and swimming. Cara  loves swimming as close to the deep end as she can get and going down to get things from the bottom. Gwen is all about doing cannon balls. Lucy has just started swimming lessons and loves going each day. She even puts her face underwater (a HUGE improvement from before). Pierce jumps into Larry's arms and then swims to the edge to get out and jump back in.

-Kids workshops: I was able to take the kids by myself to the Home Depot one. AND I discovered how early you have to go to actually get a kit (they have some fun ones). We also hit up the Lowe's one to build a fun sand box. I still love going to these things!

-We came back from Malad to discover our a/c had gone out upstairs. Unfortunately, it took 5 days to get it replaced (temps got up to the mid 90s...our bedrooms were MISERABLE at night). I got a little acclimated, but sleeping got difficult (especially when it took until 4 AM to get below 80 degrees). I'm just glad it got fixed BEFORE the temps got to 100 and that our main level still had a/c. I'm sure our power bill will be insane!

-7/11 slurpee run...always a fun summer day! I decided to let the girls ride their bikes/scooters up there and back. However, I forgot it's 100 degrees out AND I would have to hold all of them for the ride back. But it's worth it to let them get more comfortable on the bikes (they've ridden them more this summer than all other summers combined, I'd bed). 

-More yard work got done! It's really been nice having Larry off work to get this all done (our whole front is as done as it can be for this year. He got the side of the back yard that needed to be done finished and then, a project we didn't think would get done, he was able to put the weed blocker under the play ground area as well. Now we can let the kids walk around barefoot in the sand!

This after is AMAZING!

-We walked through Ikea one night to just have some fun and now I have a renovation bug biting so hard! I have such fun ideas for our closet and the laundry room (which I've had for a while), but now I want to redo the kitchen and bathrooms! Haha

This is close to the idea I have for our closet

I found a "Friend's Couch" that wasn't uncomfortable!
If I could have a Friend's room, I would have bought this!

-Larry got a new job! His last contract ended at the end of May and he was working with recruiters and applying to other jobs constantly. He was just keeping busy doing yard work and fixing things up, taking the kids to their swimming lessons, anything and everything around the house while he waited to hear back from anyone. It was a bit frustrating (especially with the a/c going out and everything). But luckily, one of the recruiters ended up finding him a really good job that would be an 18 month contract (the longest he's had) for the most he's earned so far, which is really nice! He starts tomorrow.

-We went to a family wedding at one point. I got a decent family pic (even though it was VERY hot):

-Cara got a new bike! Since she learned to ride without training wheels, we went and got her, her own bike. Now Gwen practices on the training wheel bike and loves it (I never thought we'd get her away from the scooter, that was always her favorite).

-Silly kiddos this month: