1st half of summer

Since I'm so behind, here are my random events captured on camera from June and July.

This sunset was incredible.

Pictures of our rappelling trip from Eric's phone:

We did some high ones!  So fun!

My friends wanted to all pitch in and rent this for a day, and they convinced me to put it in my yard. :)

It was WAY fun and may need to become a tradition!

Over the summer I did "Mom classes" for the kids a couple of times a week.  I offered several choices and they got to pick. Sadly no one picked my Hairstyles 101 class. :( 

This was one of the projects in Sewing 101: potholders for the girls and a button bookmark for Owen.

We had Little Kids Art Class (with Maris in the morning) and Big Kid Art Class (while Maris slept in the afternoon). Most of the time the girls joined the little kid class for fun and Owen tried the big kid stuff.  It was so fun and actually not stressful for me. I even got to do a little art therapy and was surprised by how calming it is for me to paint! 

Celery stamping fish.

This was one of the best: bubble hydrangeas.

4th of July art classes.  Little kid: fireworks with cut toilet paper tubes. Big Kid: Glue-salt-watercolor painting. More Mom Class stuff in the other summer post to come!

One of our once-a-week swimming outings was with the MacKays!  Super fun.

I straightened Maris' hair for the first time, it is adorable!

But she is also just generally adorable.

We also went to Colonial Days with the MacKays.

4th of July coming in a separate post!

Big Kid Owen

Over the summer, and especially the last 2 months since school started, Owen has really turned into a big kid!!  He still has an occasional toddler tantrum moment and he can be super emotional when he is tired/hungry/around Whitney, but let's be real, aren't we all? All of those things? lol.  

A few of the signs he is really growing up: 

1. Overcoming fears.  Or at least starting to!  

He is getting more comfortable in the water!  He will voluntarily put his face in, and loves to swim with floaties on.  He even went off the diving board at Oakridge!

 He is not afraid of little kid rides any more, or of doing things by himself ( like going on rides)

 He is enjoying fireworks more!

 He finally agreed to ride on the tube when we went boating!  ( I did bribe him with money the first time haha, but then he went a bunch of times and loved it and asked to go faster!)

2. Another big indicator that he is growing up is HE STOPPED SUCKING HIS THUMB!!!!! All by himself!!!  We had been talking to him in the Spring about how big kids don't suck their thumbs, and he agreed to let us remind him to stop if we ever saw him sucking his thumb while watching TV, playing, driving, just randomly, etc.  We would say "Owen, thumb." and he would pull it out.  We weren't strict about it, and I never said anything about it if he was upset or crying and started sucking.  And it never had an official "beginning"; us reminding him was kind of sporatic.  Then suddenly one day I noticed him start to put his thumb in his mouth and then suddenly take it out, and I realized I hadn't seen him sucking his thumb in a few days!  I mentioned that to him and told him I was impressed, and he said "yeah I've been really trying not to suck it anymore." So awesome! I told him I was SO proud of him and that was a really big accomplishment to break that habit!  I was excited to see him want something and go for it!  It's super cool I don't even see him sucking him thumb in his sleep when I check on him at night anymore.  Such a relief that we didn't have to try to force him to stop when he's older, whew!!

3. He has been SO helpful to me the last 2 months with my morning sickness!!  But I'm planning a Morning Sickness Survival post, so I will go into more detail there.  Suffice it to say, Owen is growing up and I am super proud of him.

Swimming lessons

Oh how I love swimming lessons.  The kids all did great!  Maris became a pro at jumping in to me:

Owen got braver:

Whitney started learning strokes and had her lessons all in the deep end for the first time:

And Katelyn improved as well!  I love this picture of her "standing" on the water!

Zion Narrows Super Awesome Trip!

Well it's been so long now I will probably just let the pictures tell the story.  But we had an AWESOME time on our Narrows trip with Allison, Kent, Katrina, and Phillip.  I have amazing sisters and I am so grateful for the men they married.  It was great to have this bonding time with them.  The water was WAY deeper than when Eric and I went a few years ago, which made it super fun and also more challenging!

Eric and Phillip were always trying silly adventurous things!

a heart!

one of the deeper spots we went through.

stretching at our camp!  It looked super cool with the hammocks!!  Although I froze in mine!

hanging gardens, one of my favorite parts!

done!

The next day Eric and I went rappelling, it was really fun.