Labor Day Camping

As the summer came to a close, the girls reminded us that we had not gone camping the WHOLE summer!  Eric had gone camping a million times with the scouts, he and I had done or backpacking trip, and we had done SO many other fun things, but we definitely needed to camp as a family at least ONCE!  Even Owen talked about camping a lot because of Eric going on lots of "tamp-out"s with the scouts.  And so, even though all the good campsites were already reserved, and we're not brave enough to take our kids camping somewhere without bathrooms, we decided to go.

I found a place and it ended up being not great at all, but we still managed to have fun.

 Whitney made friends with our campsite neighbor's dog and played fetch with it for over and hour!  It was super cute.

 meanwhile Katelyn read of course

and Owen was all over the place and VERY dirty!  He was in heaven!

We went on a little hike, and the most fun part was probably when we came over a ridge and cound see really far and discovered it was a great spot for yodelling! :)

The next day we drove the Nebo Loop, which was alright but would have been more fun on a motorcycle :)  This is us at the Utah Valley Overlook.

And last but not least, here is a random picture of how I found Katelyn reading the other day.  FOR REAL!  It was hilarious and she stayed like that for a while. :)

The Crazy Sleeper Owen

Alright so this post has been in the works for a while!  

It came about because my girls both had a favorite sleeping position when they were babies.  

Katelyn's was on her tummy with her knees up under her and her bum in the air.  For YEARS she slept like that!  And Whitney's was on her back with her hands behind her (big ol') head, at least until she was close to 2 years old.

Owen, however, has not chosen a favorite position.  

I know this because he is in a different position every time I check on him, 

and also because we finally broke down and got a (hand-me-down) pack-n-play so he could have somewhere to sleep when we camp or vacation, since he CANNOT go to sleep unless he is confined in some way!!

So for the last few weeks I have been taking pictures of him while he sleeps whevever I see him in a totally different position than I already have recorded.

So we have:

bum up on blankets

 The one leg tuck

 the back sprawl

 side curl

 twisted!

 the tummy sprawl

scrunched up in the corner

And I saved my 2 favorites for last:

the back bend

and the feet-through-the bars!

 He's adorable.  And he's going to be in that crib for a while- he would fall right out of a regular bed every five minutes!

I couldn't do a sleeping post without showing my girls.  They are so sweet when they're sleeping.

Whit hardly ever sleeps with blankets, and she sometimes ends up sideways on the bed.  She still sleeps with her piggy sometimes.

 And Katelyn sleeps like this now, ALWAYS.  On her back, with the blanket pulled up to her chin, even when it's hot!  

I love my cute kids, especially when they're sleeping haha!

Maui Tacos

I can't believe I forgot to post about one of our favorite things we discovered in Hawaii- 

It was our last night there, like we were leaving for the airport in about 2 hours.  The kids stayed with the grandparents while Eric and I went out to eat real quick in Kihei.  We found this semi-dumpy looking place and decided to try it after the Thai place around the corner smelled gross.  

We went in and decided to try fish tacos, which neither of us had ever had before, and it was the 

BEST DECISION EVER.

These tacos were the BEST I've ever had, by far!  And I lived in Mexico people, I have had some great tacos!  But the tortillas were amazing, the fish with the sauce and lettuce and the salsa- mmmmmmm!  They had a salsa bar with 12 different delicious salsas to try, my favorites were the pineapple (SO good on the fish!) and the tomatillo.  I wish I had taken a picture of us enjoying one of the most delicious things we've ever eaten in our lives, but we were too busy stuffing our faces!  Seriously after the first bite we looked at each other and were like "WOW!" and after each succeeding bite we just kept exclaiming "Holy cow" "Oh my GOSH" and so on.  

 So anyway, if you're ever in Maui, they have several stores and you have GOT to go.  You will not be disappointed!  Anybody know where to get good fish tacos on the mainland?? :)

School!

My blog is such a photo dump, sorry!  One day I will post meaningful monologues, but for now, mostly pictures.  Here are the girls on Meet-your-teacher night a couple of days before school started.  They got to wear whatever they wanted, which was fun since usually it's just boring uniforms. :)

Whitney looking adorable in clothes I bought her on clearance from Downeast!

 She's been counting down to the start of school for months!

 Katelyn also looking adorable in clearance Downeast attire, and fun poses!

1. They love school! 

 sisters :)

 Kate on her first day of SECOND GRADE!

 I made her turn sideways so she didn't look bald. :)  She loves ponytails, so I've been experimenting with fun ones.

 and here you can see that her front teeth are finally starting to grow in!

Katelyn has an AWESOME teacher this year who was her math teacher last year and Katelyn loved her- Mrs. Dodge.  She is funny, which is perfect for Katelyn, and she is a GOOD teacher.  She explains things in understandable and fun ways to the kids, she is organized and creative, and she has Science and History lessons that have CAPTIVATED my child!  Katelyn comes home almost every day saying "Mom!  Did you know xyz thing that I learned in history/science???" (said with much more enthusiasm than I've heard from her about school in the last 2 years!) She told me this whole long story in great detail about Horatius, a Roman soldier (Captain?General?) and she kept saying "and the BEST part was..." It is so cute and I'm SO thrilled she finally has a great teacher!  Her kindergarten teacher lacked an ounce of creativity and her 1st Grade teacher was decent, but now I can finally say I LOVE her teacher. Yay!

And a week later, kindergarten finally began for Whitney!  Silly-head.

 She really wanted this Rapunzel hairdo I found on my new fave website cutegirlshairstyles.com, but her hair is obviously not long enough!  So I did my best and we even found enough fresh flowers in our yard to put in it! :)  Then here she is in the car, refusing to take off her backpack for the ride there!

 At the school entrance, carrying classroom supplies we donated

 And at her seat!

 And another picture for day 2, when she said "School is like having 12 playdates every day!!" She is a party girl, so getting to play with friends EVERY DAY is awesome!  Sadly her teacher (who was new to the school but seemed great) resigned after the first 4 days, citing personal and family illness??  and she has had subs for the last week :(  She's still having fun but she isn't learning anything (I know, she won't learn much for the first couple of months anyway because my children are way overprepared for kindergarten!) and I'm just praying they find someone good!  

Last Summer Post (*sniff*sniff)

Well actually I still have to post about our Labor Day Camping trip, which is kind of summer-y.  But since my NEXT post will be a Back-to-School one,  and it is now SEPTEMBER.... yeah. 

Anyway.  We went to Lagoon for an evening with Eric's family, good times!!  

 But we discovered Katelyn doesn't like big roller coasters, not surprisingly.  This drop ride with Kurtis was about all she could handle.

 So she happily went on all the little kid rides with Owen and Whitney!

 Owen loved this boat ride!  and he cried at the end of every ride he went on when he had to get off!

Whitney went on every roller coaster she was tall enough for. :)  And Eric and I got to go on Wicked- it was awesome!  I mean it's no Six Flags, but it was a good one!  I LOVE roller coasters and I hadn't been on one in a couple of years.

 I love this picture I took of Owen and Cleo while we were waiting one time, it looks like they are caged haha.

And I wanted to finish my summer posts with these swimming pics- 

We officially have 2 little swimmers in our family!

Katelyn's motto seems to be "slow and steady", so she often doesn't kick or stroke fast enough to keep from sinking!  But I'm confident that if she fell in a pool she wouldn't drown- she could get out. I just need to find a way to bribe her to try swimming all the way across the pool to increase her speed and stamina.

 Whitney has suddenly jumped ahead in her swimming ability- a week in Hawaii helped!  She's afraid to go deep (she wanted to stay by the steps), but she can swim at least as fast as Katelyn, even if her form isn't as correct!

 I'm really proud of how far she's come this summer.

 still going...

 She made it across the step area :) and there goes Kate in the background.

Yay for swimming!

Summer Dance

Katelyn and Whitney did the city dance class again this summer and LOVED it.  For once I also loved it, because they got a new teacher and she is AWESOME.  She is strict, but that meant the rowdy girls were whipped into shape so my obedient girls (okay, relatively obedient!) could actually learn something.  The old teacher was a good dancer and super nice and cute with the girls, but this teacher actually knows how to TEACH real dance techniques and moves and whatever.  And when she would tell them at the end of rehearsal that she was proud of them and that they did a good job, you could see the girls straighten up proudly like "yes, I am pretty good at this." It was cute and I wish I was that kind of a teacher!

Anyway the only thing that was bad about the whole experience for me was at their performance we couldn't see Whitney! A couple of older girls stood in the wrong spot (they were supposed to be in the back, obviously!) and the teacher was trying to get them to move but the music started and so our little girl wasn't always visible.  So annoying.  But I decided to post this video anyway of their dance- Whit is towards the left and Kate is towards the middle, visibly chewing gum. :)

And here are the pictures I took of them before we left for the show.