Summer Lovin'

June 11th-
We harvested strawberries this morning and there are so many! They are so sweet and delicious and the girls enjoy helping me find the ripe ones. Here's some great shots we got this morning:

I love those little dirty fingernails. My girls have never been afraid of getting dirty. I love that.

This picture is now hanging in her room. I love it.

Can you tell she's already eaten a few?

And this one graciously took hand outs from the girls and gobbled them up.

Two hands were needed for this one.

This week we're studying the letter "K." K is for KISSES!

Oh my goodness, I finally caught a smile. I genuine Eloise smile.

 My little three month old boy. Really wiggling around, getting closer to rolling over.

Edison is quick with his hands these days. David was eating some pie with whipped cream and didn't even see Edison's little hand come up and grab it!

(Sunday, June 17th)

Something about Sundays tends to relax this little one's bowels and he lets loose. This is the third or fourth time we've left church with him half naked after a blow-out. This time, only the tie survived.

Edison with his Dad at Gram and Papa Kevin's.

Love these two.

Vicki is beautiful!

I love how he still tucks his little legs in under his body. So tiny still.

This is what I love about blogging. There are several "moments" throughout the day when my job as a full-time mom is mundane, boring, and repetitive. But there are these other moments in between, usually the ones I run and grab my camera for, that I get to save and look at again and again. Helps me remember the reasons behind the messes that I clean up every day. 

Just busy building a family here.

An Art Party

And on the morning of the 9th, I woke up with a stomach ache because of stress. Because sometimes these birthday parties are too important to me. I had woken up at 5:30 because I wanted to get a head start on the cupcakes and cake and finish her 5th birthday dvd. But because I felt tired and stressed and wanted nothing more than to have a great day with my oldest, even if it meant cancelling the whole party, I got onto my knees on the kitchen floor. The house was quiet and the answer came clear as day, "Go back to bed."

So even though it was completely against my nature, on the morning of the party, I went back to bed. And when I woke up, I felt a WORLD of difference. And we had a lovely day. I somehow, I got everything done that I needed to, except for the dvd, but that's ok. It was a lovely party and I got to enjoy it with my daughter.

 Our theme was an "Art Party" since Hazel LOVES to craft, create, draw, and paint.

I covered her cake in Skittles. Talk about a sugar rush! She started helping me for a little bit until she realized how tedious it was and she went back to playing.

We arranged the cupcakes like paint colors on the "painter's pallet."

The girls helped me make these suckers last week out of melted life savers.

I loved pretzels dipped in chocolate and it's another treat the girls could help me with the day before. So we called them paint brushes.

We had fruit and veggies with yummy dips that Vicki brought, along with a LOT of sugar.

Here's Hazel with some of her besties: Zoe, Sophia, and Emmy.

About six months ago, David found a groupon for a company called Abrakadoodle where they come to your home and provide two different art projects for all the kids.

They started by decorating their goody bags however they wanted to with markers.

Gram was kind enough to help Charlotte while I took pictures.

Then they learned about Picasso and did some abstract art which they got to frame.

Then we came inside and they got to make little monsters out of wooden blocks.

It was SO nice to not be in charge of the activities and have someone else do them for me! I definitely enjoyed the party more and got to eat some of my treats.

Ellie got to try the treats with some supervision from Gram.

Happy 5th Birthday little Hazel Jayne!

Meeting Mitt Romney

On June 8th, we had the awesome opportunity of taking Kevin and Vicki with us to Grand America in Salt Lake to meet Mitt Romney and get a picture with him. David has joined the Utah committee that is raising money for Romney's campaign and he raised enough money for us to get a spot at this great event.

It's blurry, I know, but it's all I have.

Little Edison brought his bow tie. He slept right up until it was our turn for the photo. Then, after we shook hands with Mitt and introduced ourselves, we turned toward the camera and Edison spit up. So here's how it turned out:

This is a scanned copy of the photo so it's hard to see, but there's spit up falling out of his mouth. We thought that made a pretty great story. This was such a cool day!

First time meeting Orrin Hatch face to face.

Some other goings on:

Edison is getting some tummy time.

Activity time in the kitchen gone awry.

We have the best neighbor across the street we call "Grandma Norma." Shortly after we watched the movie A Little Princess, Grandma Norma brought this doll over for Hazel. 

I told her, "It's your Emily!"

Dressing up Rapunzel.

Sunday celebration

After we came home, we headed up to Kevin and Vicki's for Sunday dinner and I must say we are so spoiled. Vicki prepared a lovely dinner, an amazing strawberry shortcake for Hazel's birthday, and she even made special ice cubes with berries in them for our drinks! Wow, we live a charmed life. We love living close to our family.

There's the special ice cubes. The girls loved them.

Sadly, I didn't even get a picture of Hazel on this day!