Project: Marshmallow and Straws

We've been doing a lot of this lately:
Because I (and my little helper Isaac) have been doing a lot of this lately:
(and laundry and scrubbing and dishes and organizing and gardening)
And since I can't expect these 3 boys to play nicely by themselves or read all day, I pulled out one of our quick projects. Marshmallow and straw building.
At first they were very intent on building (okay I admit I was too) and then Isaac discovered that the mallows tasted good and spent most of the rest of the time eating the mallows on the table and the mallows in the bag and the mallows attached to his own buildings and then everyone else's too and that caused a few problems. What can you expect from a 2 year old who like to tease?
Miles missed out on the project but he spent a lot of time doing this. He's still not quite sure why he'd want to get up on his knees and now even up on all fours, but he can, so he does. And then he gets really mad like someone else MADE him do this and he hates it. I'm still refusing to teach him how to crawl so he'll just have to figure it out on his own.

Hiking Y Mountain

I come from a family of avid hikers so when Necia asked Jim what he'd like to do for his birthday, he said "hike Y mountain". We agreed to come along although Taylor only agreed as long as he was allowed to sing the U of U fight song the whole way and wear U of U red from head to toe. He also dressed Ethan and Isaac up in their U of U red football jerseys (which I quickly changed them out of). In the end though he wore a neutral white t-shirt and kept saying "I'm no dummy, those BYU fans are crazy!" Miles and Ethan ended up still wearing U of U baseball caps though since that's all we had that fit them and in the end we did get several comments from other hikers annoyed that we'd dare bring THAT attire on their mountain. I'm a proud BYU grad but come on. Get over it.
Looks easy on the first switch-back right?
And then it starts to look a little more like this.
We woke up at 6:30 on Saturday and had all the kids in the cars by 7 to drive down with breakfast on the way. We started about 8:30 which was perfect because the east side of the mountain was completely shaded until almost 10:00 by which time we'd made it all the way up and partway down. It's 1.2 miles up to the Y and steep most of the way.
There's a great view from the top even if you feel like you're sitting on marshmallow rocks.
We made it! Cheesy grins, snacks, and all.
After just 2 minutes of sitting Isaac decided he needed to throw rocks, of course he couldn't just throw the pebbles so we decided we had to keep moving up to the top.
Miles got to ride the whole way and Taylor was a good sport for carrying him and the pack and our water and all the snacks.
The whole group minus Jeff who is taking the picture.
Happy Valley below.
The other fun reason for hiking the Y was that Jeff and his new fiance Jessica could come along. They're both seniors at BYU and were so helpful carrying/dragging the 2, 2-year-olds up the mountain. Aren't they cute?
And to celebrate Jim's birthday and our triumphant hike we went to Los Hermanos afterwards. Good food, good hiking, good views, good family=a good day. And everyone taking good naps afterwards didn't hurt either.
Post naps, post swimming. Don't they look worn out?

If you give an engineer a cookie...

... he will eat it.
But if you give an engineer... a house built in the 60's, he will get slap-happy planning all the fun projects he can tackle.
Since we only have a few extra hours in the weekend, we picked the most pressing project and let him enjoy himself. The thing we most need in this house is a workable baby gate at the stairs. Miles isn't crawling yet but just give him a few weeks and we'll be in big trouble. The problem with our stairs is that on one side there's a railing we don't want to drill screws into and the other side is a very short wall.
Luckily Jim's an engineer and has also retrofitted his stairs in NY to fit a similar baby gate so this was a piece of cake for him. He zip-tied a 2x4 to the railing and then drilled the gate into the wall and the board. We ended up making it a short gate since the wall is short anyways and so it's easier for Ethan and Isaac to open it. Also by the time Miles is old enough to climb over it, we won't need it anymore.
And look how well it works. It's already saving Joseph! I do need to stain the 2x4 to match but other than that I think it's perfect. I'll take an engineer in my home anytime he'd like to visit!!!

The New York Kitchens Come to Visit

Every other year my sister-in-laws family has a huge family reunion here in Utah so that means we get to have them visit every other year. Yeah! So that no further introductions are needed here they are: Madeline (6), Robert in stroller (2), Necia, Nathan (4 3/4), Jim, Joseph (12mo.)
What we love about these guys is that all 3 of our boys line up with all 3 of their boys. Poor Madeline put up with a LOT of little boys for the weekend.
Isaac and Robert are just 4 months apart. Miles and Joseph are also 4 months apart and Ethan and Nathan are just 5 months apart.
Friday morning Madeline was kind enough to read books to them all.
Then we headed off to the Church History museum.
The favorite game was the bean bag toss which turned into a game of who can throw the beanbags in or out the fastest. This lasted literally an hour. Maybe I need to make something like this for our house?
Afterwards we walked across the street to see the temple and an amazing miniature replica of the temple with it's side cut off. Actually really cool to see where all the rooms are and how everything is laid out since I'm always so turned around when I'm inside.
Much of the weekend was also spent in the pool.
Ethan and Nathan were inseparable buddies and even convinced Isaac it would be cool to jump off the side (a HUGE leap forward for him). After he jumped in solo several times and almost drowned because I wasn't paying enough attention to him, we made him wear a swimsuit with floaties built in.
Miles and Joseph were really cute together. They ate each other's food.
Ate each others toys.
And were just cuties in general. I admit I can't resist that toothless smile!
My brother Jim turned 30 the day after they left so we had to have cake and ice cream. The fresh raspberries were a last delicious addition thanks to my mother-in-law's raspberry bushes (tragically she was out of town so we HAD to help eat them).
In general the weekend was a bit of chaos and a lot of fun. 4 adults and 7 kids under the age of 7 will do that to a home. But we loved it and miss them already!

Our July 4th weekend

Taylor's grandpa lives just down the street from us so his aunts and cousins usually visit several times a year. We love getting to see them and Ethan and Isaac are particularly in heaven because the cousins are so nice and play with them non-stop.
We spent most of Thursday in the pool. I didn't even have to get in since there were so many kids "helping" Ethan and Isaac. And since I didn't get in, neither did Miles- good thing he can't really move his walker or he'd have steered himself right in with all the other kids.
These particular cousins are from California where fireworks are illegal so they go a little crazy when they come here. We did fireworks at Grandpa's house literally 4 nights in a row. Ethan was very excited to be included on the fun but obedient enough to keep his distance. Isaac was fine watching but way too scared to get close at all and Miles hated every pop so he spent most of the time inside.
Besides doing fireworks at home every night, we saw big firework displays Friday, Saturday and Sunday. (We're a little fireworked out right now). Friday night Taylor's mom got tickets for everyone to go to the REAL Salt Lake soccer game. They stomped the New England Revolution 4-0 so it was a really fun game for us to watch.
I tried to get the whole group in the shot but with 11 people that didn't work. Ethan and Isaac spent most of the game down the row with the cousins and coming back to us for food. Grandpa played the gate keeper and happily tickled and teased them the whole time. This is one of his favorite games and makes them say "please let me go" before he'll let them loose of his legs. Isaac has the phrase down pat now although it sounds more like "pees wet me go" and he laughs his head off every time.
The fireworks afterwards were great although we couldn't see some of them because the wind blew them above the canopy we were sitting under.
Saturday we tried to escape the heat by going up to Park City which is always at least 10 degrees cooler. We walked through a great street fair and then spent a while in the bounce houses at the kiddy area.
We let them play almost an hour there and still had to drag them away.
Luckily these things are so expensive or I might get talked into having one in my backyard and they're HUGE!
Couldn't resist a little hula hooping.
Saturday night again we did fireworks down at Grandpa's house and then came back to ours where we watched the local fireworks from our living room. The trees blocked the lower ones but we caught most of the show and really can you beat sitting on couches watching fireworks? Plus no traffic between the living room and their beds!
And Sunday we joined the whole family for dinner and fireworks at the Salt Lake Country Club. Sunday dinners are very important to Taylor's mom and she goes out of her way the entire year to make dinners at home so we can all be together (they used to always eat out but when we said we wouldn't come she switched to dinners at home without a single complaint ever). So every 7 years when the 4th happens to be on a Sunday we go with them partly so we can still have the family dinner together and mostly to show her how much we appreciate that she respects our beliefs and that we're willing to respect her belief in the importance of Sunday family dinners.
The fabulous buffet, grass for the kids to play on, and fireworks make it a fabulous evening. Ethan, Isaac, and the 3 cousins ate dinner and then kicked around a soccer ball while we made pigs of ourselves. We broke out the glow sticks when it got too dark for soccer. You think Miles likes his? Yes he's wearing a hat- it only got up to 72 that day so the evening was chilly and we had to run home for sweatshirts, hats, and blankets.
Isabella, Sophia, Ethan, Isaac, and Russell playing with their glowsticks. They were good enough to look at the camera and say cheese- my kids were too entranced by the glow sticks to even look up.
It's so nice to live so close to Taylor's parents so that my kids get to really know them well. We really love them! Taylor's mom even watched all 3 of them Saturday afternoon while his dad took us and the cousins to see Eclipse. Ethan and Isaac didn't mind, she took all 3 boys to McDonald's with a playarea and got them happy meals and Ice cream- even I'm not that nice!
Yes that's a kilt on Isaac. Taylor dressed them up in them this year and last. They don't seem to mind except Isaac kept holding his up around his waist so he could run better- he's just not used to skirts hitting his legs.
During the fireworks, every time Miles would cry (which was a lot) Taylor's dad would lean over and dangle the glow stick in his face to distract him. It worked every time and he calmed down enough so everyone could enjoy the show and I didn't have to take him inside to avoid the loud pops.
It was an amazing show although the wind blew huge chunks of ash into our faces.
All in all it was a great weekend filled with good food, good family-friends, good fireworks, and good entertainment. I was really happy that the 4th fell on fast Sunday and there were so many testimonies shared about the price of our freedom. We taught our Sunday School kids about Gideon in the Bible who followed the Lord with exactness and had the faith to take only 300 Israelites into battle against 3 other nations. We're trying to do that in our own lives- follow the Lord with exactness and faith and to always remember the amazing miracles he had performed that have blessed and preserved this amazing nation and allowed us to have so many of the freedoms we do have.
Happy Independence Day everyone!

To Mrs. Fields we go

A few weeks back one of our great friends invited us along to go on a tour of the Mrs. Field's Cookie Factory. Who knew they gave tours? With scrumdiddlyumptious cookies at the end too?
So off we went. We donned the required hair nets- even the babies!
Watched a food network documentary of them, and then toured the factory- the ovens, freezers, assembly line, packaging line, etc. It doesn't sound that cool here but it was actually fascinating to see how it all worked- and to smell cookies for a half hour.
One fact I learned- the Mrs. Field's cookies you buy in the mall have 100% butter in them. The factory ones have 60% (so they last longer in the mail), and the ones in the stores (including the frozen ones at Costco) have 0% butter which means all that butter is replaced by oil so the shelf life of the cookies is longer. So the mall cookies really do taste better for a reason!
A fun morning and hilarious to see the kids in their hairnets- Miles especially!

These brothers love each other

After spending all morning outside playing together, they came in to get a snack and sat down to rest. It melted my heart to see them climb into the same chair so they could sit together. What sweet boys!