More Things You Do In the Summer

Buy pink shorts and a pink TMNT.  Then wear them while out on a date and get complimented for being such a cute matchy couple.

(p.s. Can you see the braces I'd just gotten a few days prior to this pic?  They're Invisalign, but if you look closely you can see a weird bump coming off of one of my top teeth.  Blake says they're like Bowser's teeth.  This does not make me smile or want to smile.)

Go to the library and check out this many books.  And then read all of them in about 2.7 days.  We seriously couldn't keep up with Kayli and Bryce this summer!  It might've had something to do with the reading rewards chart Blake made for them...

Pull out last year's suit and don't be ashamed that it really shows off your adorable chubbiness.

Go on a double date with friends to celebrate finishing your first semester back at school (with a 4.0!) and then forget to take a commemorative photo until you get home.

Buy your budding author/artist a desk and fix it up real nice.  But, be so excited that you forget to take the "before" picture.

Find a really flattering outfit and draw on your arm with a sharpie.

Oh, and take 2nd place for overall female in a triathlon (and share in the race with your hubby and several other family members).

Tip:  If you want to take 1st place, don't let your bike chain pop off while shifting gears.  And be faster at putting it back on, just in case.  And don't get let the cocky guys intimidate you--you're totally a faster swimmer than they are.

KFR 2015: Part II

With this many people, there are only so many things you can do as a group.  Most of them need to be outside.

So we went for a hike in the beautiful Uintas!  But we ate lunch on this very convenient large rock/table first.

And then we just enjoyed each other's company.

These two girls are kind of two peas in a pod.  And they both adore their grandpa!

I love that these four all get along and love each other so much!

These two actually love each other about as much as two people can love.  This picture just makes me smile

I can't remember why, but my mom gave all the kids sleeping masks.  Maybe in a hopeless effort to help them sleep in so the rest of us could sleep?  At any rate, this cutie wore it everywhere.  Even over his eyes while trying to hike.  That was especially interesting.

Love these cute people and the beautiful mountains!

Daddies come in pretty handy when your legs get tired.

Uncles do too.

Have I mentioned how much I love these people?  The little one may or may not have decided to drop her drawers to show off her princess panties (recently potty trained) to the random man who was letting her pet his dog while on this hike.

Bryce and his boy cousins were on this hike too, but we didn't see much of them.  I'm pretty sure they were off having a fabulous time together.

The perks of constantly carrying your sleeping mask with you--actually having it when you need to fall asleep in a full car.

When you get home from a hike it's customary to have a dance party--complete with a conga line--right?

Mostly, I took video.  So, this is the only pic of the fun!

This picture looks more suspicious than it really was.  He was just having a moment of a hard time.

Thankfully, he came around and took his turn on the slip n' slide.

Umm... I love this photo.

 She did this a few times.  But never really got up the courage to go down.  I think her brother pushed her down, but that didn't really help.

KFR 2015: Part I

My family reunion this summer was pretty awesome.

It started with almost everyone running in a 5 or 10k race being held where we were staying.  It is seriously so much fun running a race when you know a ton of people in it!

This isn't all of us who participated.  Everyone said, "Yeah, Cheryl, of course I'll give you a copy of the photo they're taking with my camera."  But no one did.  I had to steal this from my sister-in-law's Facebook page.  Thanks, guys. :(

Then we made blankets for babies in the NICU.

My sister-in-law's sister organized this and I love that she came up with something everyone could help with.

Although the two little ones in this picture mostly just helped by being cute.

Four of our 5 youngest.  Normally, I don't find anything cute about screen time, but I love how snuggled in they are.

Being adorable and having so much fun is exhausting though.

This seems like a really cute pose with her hands clasped like that.  But she's actually holding her hands like that because there was a little mishap at the beginning of the fireworks fun and a few people got burned.  Including her on her cute little hands.  She held them like this for the rest of the night.

But the burns were minor and everyone had a pretty good time.  That's super reassuring, right?  Along with Kayli's smile.

But check out these smiles!

And these two take their sparkler-ing very seriously.

Love this pic.  This is the kids' honorary aunt.  She held Lanaya while Lanaya held her hands and enjoyed the pyrotechnics from a healthy distance.

 More of my attempts at artistic photography.  I'm actually pretty happy with how this one turned out.

Paint Nite

We had a super fun double date night with some good friends.

The ladies!  See the screen in the background?  That's what we were painting.

And the gentlemen.

Our finished products!  I think these paintings illustrate (pun totally intended) the differences in our personalities really well.  See how Blake's background trees are pretty straight and his purple tree is nicely rounded?  See how my background trees are kinda crooked and my purple tree is not so neatly groomed?

That's us!

I love how four people looking at the same picture can produce such different results.  One girl at a table near us actually painted her tree with a swing hanging from its branches.  With a creepy red octopus swinging in it.

But it was a super fun night hanging out with friends and expressing our creative side!

Office Party

 Blake's office had a summer party.  A fun excuse to get to know his coworkers.

There was a food truck.  Not the most amazing food truck, but still pretty yummy.  And there's just something fun about food cooked in a truck, right?  They also had this Italian ice.  Naturally, Lanaya chose a "poopow" (grape) and then proceeded to spill it all over that cute shirt she was wearing.  Fortunately, it somehow washed out.

They had some fun inflatable games.  I tired to be a good mom, but ended up giving Bryce a little beat down.

We waited hours for the face painter.  She was pretty amazing.

He went off book and just asked to be made a "purple monster".  I think she did pretty fantastic.

And Kayli and I tried our hand at this game.  You can see that it was pretty graceful.

Swim Lessons

"Know what I like even better than my sheet?  Swim lessons."--Trey

If you know what his sheet is, you know what a strong sentiment that is for swimming.

This swimsuit is size 3T.  He is 5.  And hopelessly skinny.

He and Lanaya were in the same class.  I love how cute they are.

Bryce and Kayli took lessons too, but apparently, I only took video of them.  They are pretty cute swimmers too.

Super fun game that involved splashing their swim teacher.

Oh. My. Goodness.  Chubby face and goggles.

She really wanted to be brave and jump off the diving board like her big brothers and sister.  But this is what happened every time.  She'd stand there, too scared to jump, until her teacher came and pulled her off.  Every time.

6 months later and she still asks if she can have a play date with "Miss Abby".

He loved his goggles.

And insisted on wearing them over his ears exactly like this.  Every time.