Bear Lake

We came back from Park City on Sunday night made a pit stop at home to spend the night and drop off Mark, who sadly could not miss any more work, left the car packed up, slept in our beds and were off to Bear Lake in the morning to spend some time with my family. It's always great to get up there and be at the beach. My kids adore their cousins (despite the love/hate relationship between Knox and Kenya :)), it was a fun time but I was completely exhausted by the time we got home, doing it all without Mark was a lot of work but it was worth it.

The little triplets Kenya, Knox, and Greta, had a ball on the beach.

My dad with some of his grand kids.

My brother Colby and his son Knox.

Scuba Stella!

Erianne, me, Cami, and Amy. Isn't that the cutest prego belly? She is due in October.

4th of July

We had a fun fourth of July up in Park City with Mark's sister Maurena her husband Nate and their little boy Sam. We love going up to Park City for the fourth, we do miss the centerville parade though, Park City's parade just isn't the same. We stayed right by the resort so we got to watch the fireworks that night, a lot of swimming, and we took the kids down the Alpine Slide too. Kenya had a death grip on the handle so we went pretty slow but Charlie loved it. Thanks Nate and Maurena for inviting us up!







They had a couple bounce houses up there that the kids loved of course, couldn't get enough of the slide and check out Kenya's climbing skills! She is a 2 year old pro!
Of course once she was at the top she didn't want to go down the slide, she wanted to climb on the middle and bounce. Well right after this picture she bounced herself right off and tumbled down the slide. :)

Airplane Museum

A couple weeks ago Mark took the morning off from work and we went out to the airplane museum at Hill Airforce. The kids loved it. Mark and I had never been either and thought it was pretty neat to see too. It was free so if you haven't been go check it out!

They loved how big this tire and plane was.

At the end we let Charlie pick out a souvenir, he picked a space shuttle. Kenya on the other hand was perfectly happy with a rock outside. We'll get away with it while we can! :)

Happy Anniversary

This year for our Anniversary Mark was at Camp Helaman again for the 5th year in a row and I was watching my sisters 3 kids. Could it get any better? :) Cami and Rich got to go sail around the Greek isles with my mom and her husband Rick the sailor and I really was happy to help out and take her kids for a few days. I figured I might as well pick the dates when Mark was gone, what else am I going to do? We've kept very busy the past two days, that's the only way to survive with 5 kids in my book. Discovery Gateway, playing in the fountains, parks, bike rides, hair cuts, playing outside, and of course dress ups! We don't have any princess dress ups here at our home yet so the girls dressed Kenya up in Charlie's costumes...

The pirate and the knight.

I asked Sailor and Kaia if they wanted to do Kenya's hair for me and they jumped at the chance! After a while she came down with an interesting looking ponytail. I was surprised because I didn't think her hair would fit in a pony but it does! I had to make a few adjustments to it but I was very appreciative of their help. They were so helpful the whole time. It was great. They loved Kenya's bows and wore one every day they were here.
Watching a show before bed...right after our bike ride adventure! I decided to take them for a bike ride tonight, well me on my bike with Kenya and Luke in the trailor, Charlie on his bike and Sailor and Kaia on their scooters. We were going to do a loop down to Legacy trail ride it for a bit and loop back around to my house. As we went outside I saw the dark clouds but they looked pretty far away still, I thought we could beat them. We got about half way done when on the trail Charlie says "mom my bike won't work!" I stopped to look and his chain had fallen off. I couldn't get to it because it's a lightening Mcqueen bike of course and his chain is covered up with a protective plastic thing with Lightening on it. So I left the older three at the trail head and told them I'd go pick up the car, gave them my cell phone and rode home as fast as I could, put Luke and Kenya in the car as it started thundering, pulled up to a scared crying Charlie sitting in between Kaia and Sailor just as the first drops started falling, put the last scooter in as the down pour started! I couldn't believe how hard it was raining. If Charlie's chain didn't come off and we just were trying to get home at our slow pace we would have totally been caught in the middle of it! Talk about a blessing in disguise. The timing was unreal. Charlie said he said a prayer to help him not be scared. So sweet.

All in all 5 kids...not as hard as I thought! Maybe I can have more! :) Of course Charlie is no Sailor, Sailor is such a great helper and peacemaker. She was great. They kept my kids entertained which really was nice. I even managed to keep the house tidy, dishes done, do a couple loads of laundry, and organize the garage a little bit! This was mainly due to the fact that Mark was gone and I can't watch any recorded shows since Kaia is sleeping in the bonus room so don't get any ideas Cam! :)

Oh, and our Anniversary was yesterday-now I will always remember the day Michael, Farrah, and even Ed died. :)

Dentist and Swim Lessons!

Kenya had her first check up at the dentist last week. She did great. She was mad that Charlie got to go first! For the first visit they don't do much other than get them use to it by letting them take a ride in the chair and counting their teeth. The only time she was unhappy was when she wasn't in the chair, according to Mark...I was in the other room getting my teeth cleaned. :)

Waiting for Charlie.

My turn!

Charlie took swim lessons at the Farmington Pool this year. I was able to take a parent tot class with Kenya because what else would I do with her while Charlie was swimming? There was no way I was going to keep her out of that water! It was fun though, not very warm but we somehow dodged the rain every lesson! They both passed their classes and did great. Charlie was pretty excited the other day when I told him he could take off his life jacket in the shallow part of the pool and practice swimming. Nervous at first but he was doing great. Kenya just wants to jump off the edge, she's a good kicker though too. Completely fearless with her floaties, it's great!

Look at that grin, it kills me!

After their lessons with their pass cards.

We Did It...again!

My sister Cami and I ran the Bear Lake Half Marathon over the weekend. We were bummed that our sister in law Amy got injured and wasn't able to run it but her husband, my bro Jared stepped in and took her place. I know, not fair that he can just decide two weeks before that he can run a half...and beat us! He's in good shape training for triathlons but still! He did awesome for his first. I was hoping to get 2 hours but ran it in 2:06, it was another tough race day for me, maybe one of these races I'll feel good on race day! It was raining a little for most of it, not bad. It's a beautiful run by the lake and it was still a fun race and a fun weekend.

Charlie and his cousins ran with me right before the finish, he almost beat me I had nothing left!
Charlie really wanted my medal, I told him he could have it and it is definitely his now, "mom, where's my trophy" He keeps asking me. I guess he did cross the finish line. :)

Jared 1:53, Cami 1:59, Nikki 2:06

They all wanted goggles, notice Kenya and Greta, so cute!

Oh Kenya...

I was not happy when I walked up the stairs today to find black crayon scribbles all over, I mean all over the wall and the table in the playroom and Kenya's kitchen, and the bench, everywhere! This is not her first offense but somehow she finds a crayon and does it again and again but this time was definitely the worst. I got pretty mad at her, she's always so hard to get mad at because she starts to cry when I do. Charlie never really did that. I put her to bed without any books or songs, let's hope she gets it this time. (Yeah right :)) Thank goodness for magic eraser sponges. I tried scrubbing without it and even though it is a washable crayon it was not coming off. The magic eraser did the trick though.

Table

The wall, I couldn't get it all in the picture, it was much bigger than this!

Another Kenya story- On Saturday Kenya was having a hard time falling asleep for her nap. I kept checking on her to make sure she didn't need her diaper changed. Well I should've checked on her one last time because when I went to go wake her up this is what I found...


I love that she tried to put her little bloomers back on. She had both legs in the same hole so she couldn't get it all the the way up. The story gets worse though. As I walked in I realized it smelled like poop at the same time I stepped in some that she threw out of her crib!! Luckily it was in the solid terd form but there were a few pebbles on her floor, so gross.

Love this innocent look when she woke up, "What, what did I do?"

These are a couple pictures of our second little worker. We were spreading soil pep in the back while she was playing in the huge pile that needed to be spread. She was so so dirty, in her mouth, hair and everything. These pictures don't do the dirt justice it was everywhere.

I'm glad I have a blog because I think it helps me see the lighter side of things, I post these types of things so I can look back and hopefully laugh one day. :)