Summer Stuff Without Pictures

Guys, I have lost my camera.  I keep thinking it is going to turn up, but it has been a few weeks and there has been no sign of it.  No pictures makes for boring blog posts, so I apologize.  (Have you seen my camera?  My phone takes crappy pictures!)

The kids have been out of school for a couple of weeks now.  We have done swimming lessons, seen Monsters University, gone to the pool, played on the Slip n' Slide, eaten lots of Popsicles and shaved ice, run through the sprinklers, had sleepovers in the living room, and made a return trip to Antelope island.  The ONLY visual evidence I have of any of these things a couple of not-so-good phone pictures of the kids at Buffalo Point:

Buffalo Point is beautiful, by the way.  The water was so blue last Friday as we were climbing up there, it almost felt like we were on an island in the ocean instead of the stinky lake.  My dad was nice enough to come with us, and having Grandpa around always makes things much more fun for the kids than just hanging out with mean old mom.  The kids had lots of fun scrambling over all the rocks up there and it was a beautiful, not-too-hot day.  Dax kept yelling "I am the king of the world!" every time he got on top of a rock.  I have no idea where he got that line, I am pretty sure the kid has never seen Titanic. 

Besides the hike, we ate lunch at the Buffalo Grill (where you can eat actual Buffalo Burgers made from buffalos), drove over to the ranch and petted some horses, and visited the beach (I won't tell you about how many brine flies there were down by the beach...but I will tell you that Dax and me discovered a new phenomenon known as a "bug wave," which is created by running down the beach and scaring all the bugs which in turn scare the bugs in front of them so that the wave of scared bugs continues on down the beach even after you stop running.  Fascinating and pretty gross.)

Well, without pictures that is about all I got.  Oh, I did find Arden's scary stories from our campout.  They are too wrinkled up to scan, unfortunately.  Here are a couple of them (see if you can decipher the Arden-speak):

"Onts ther was a dark dark cave.  Ther were three kids in the cave but ther was a bair!  The bair ate the kids, and for THES DAY if you go into the woods you get eten!"  (this story was accompanied by a picture of three kids next to a great big bear with sharp teeth.  The bear is saying, "I am going to eat you."  One of the kids is saying, "I am scard."

Another one went like this:  "Onts ther was a gost who came to the town.  The gost said were is Cora and Dax?  The velegers said At that big hause.  Thank you the gost said and the gost ate Cora and Dax!"  This one has a picture of a big house with four windows, and right outside is a ghost with a big smile on its face.  Awesome.

This morning Arden and Cora surprised me by bringing me breakfast in bed (it was a bowl of slightly soggy Special K and a piece of taffy).  Next to my bowl was a picture Arden drew of her and me, and a note that says:

"Dear Mom
I hope you had a good sleep.  I made this for you.  You been geving us brecfus for a long time.  So here is my gift to you.  I Love You!" 

Say it with me.  Awwwwwww.

Arden and Cora decided to bring some soggy Special K up for Preston, Dax and themselves so EVERYONE could have breakfast in bed...my bed.  I was so warm and fuzzy from the note that I was only the teeny tiniest bit annoyed when inevitably someone (Cora) spilled their cereal all over my bed. 

Its the thought that counts. :-)

Can you believe June has almost flown by?  Slow down, summer!

First Camping Trip of Summer

We went camping last weekend!  I can't find my camera!  This results in a camping post that is a little short on pictures, the only ones I had being the ones where I stole Preston's phone. 

Anyhoo, my first mistake was telling the kids in advance that we were going camping on Friday.  They asked all week if it was Friday yet.  When it was finally Friday, the kids assumed that we were going to be camping right after breakfast.  The sad truth was that Preston had to work all day and camping was oh-so-far-away from breakfast.  We went to swimming lessons, but that only got us to 10:30 a.m.  After that, I told them all they had to pack a little bag, which the rushed off to their rooms to do.  I tried to drag it out as long as I could, but we were only going overnight so that got us to.....11:00 a.m.  Needless to say, it was a VeRy LoNg afternoon.

Preston thankfully got off an hour or so early so we were on the road around 4.  We went to a campground by Mantua, which cute small town is apparently pronounced "Man-a-way."  I have no idea why.  If you know why, leave me a comment, because it baffles me.

We found our cute little campsite next to a cute little stream.  Preston, started a manly fire and I took the kids for a little walk while he cooked our manly hobo dinners and set up the tent in a manly way.  While we were on our walk we stumbled across a little bit of heaven:

A whole  meadow covered in bright vermilion poppies. I made the kids run out in the meadow so I could take their pictures.  Arden and Dax are doing their cute "cheese!" pictures, but Cora is throwing out her killer supermodel pose.  Um...this is not exactly the runway, sweetie.  Try again!

 Ah, that is better!

 After the hike, we ate our tin foil dinners, which are always a favorite with my carnivorous kids since they are mostly made of meat.  Sure, they will eat some of the potatoes and carrots that we shove in there, but they are mainly in there for the protein.  I am only in there so that I can get through the dinner part and on to the more important stuff.  You know what I am talking about.

Smores. 

After the smores, we told scary stories.  Arden was so excited about the scary stories that she wrote hers down, with illustrations.  I saved them and I was going to scan them in and post them up here, but I seem to have lost them somewhere.  There was a story about a ghost and a story about a bear, and both of the stories ended with Dax and Cora getting eaten by the bear or the ghost.  They.  Were.  Awesome.

We told lots of stories and sang some songs and stayed up so late we could show the kids the big dipper.  We eventually piled into the tent, and snuggled down in our sleeping bags.  Right after we got all snuggled Arden announced she had to take a trip to the bathroom.  Preston was a little slow and wasn't quite in his bag yet, so he was elected to escort her over the stream and through the woods to the bathroom.  I told Cora and Dax that we didn't have to wait for them to get back to go to sleep.  Amazingly, they listened and both of them (even CORA) didn't say another word and quickly skipped off to dreamland.  I was STUNNED!  Happy, but stunned.  I told Preston and Arden to shhhhhhhh! when they got back, terrified that they would wake up Cora and she would start her usual camping routine of keeping everyone up for an extra hour or two.  She slept through it all.  I happily plugged in my earplugs (Preston was too far away to kick if he started snoring) and was quickly sleeping too.  Best night of sleep while camping ever!

The next morning we had breakfast, went on another little hike:

And then the kids wanted to throw some rocks in the creek.  Somehow, this led to each kid soaked up to their knees, shoes and socks completely muddy.  Oh well.  After the kids were good and wet we brought them back to camp and roasted some hot dogs for lunch (and had s'more smores, of course).  After that we had to pack up (while the kids got wet one more time) and headed home. 

The kids were mad we only stayed one night.  Dax said, "Next time, make sure we can stay at least five nights!"  Um...sorry dude.  Mom needs a shower.

Hopefully I can find my camera before the next camping trip.

Daxton's Fifth

Dax has been anticipating turning five for quite a while.  Especially since Cora turned four though.  Dax and Cora were both four for about a month and a half, and Dax kind of resented being on such even ground with his little sister.  She was always reminding him, "Dax!  You are four, and now I am four!  We are da same!" she would excitedly tell him.  Dax would quickly remind her, "Yeah, but I am ALMOST five, Cora.  I am stiw older dan you!" 

Birthday boy was very excited about his party too.  I don't know what the deal is, but around here each kid starts planning their birthday party about 4 months in advance.  Dax has always had (shocker) a dinosaur party since he was two years old.  This year I asked him if he should maybe change things up a little.  He thought about it really hard and decided it would be okay if he had a superhero party.  He informed me that I had to make him a Spiderman cake.  Um...okay!  I know that any attempt by me to make a cake look like Spiderman would surely result in failure and tears (mine, not Dax's), so I took my usual cop-out and bought a very small spiderman to put on top of a regular cake instead.  I even got him a couple of friends.  Dax was happy so I was happy. 

Last year at Dax's birthday party as I struggled mightily to get a houseful of little boys to play party games instead of tearing my house down brick by brick, I decided that this year Dax would have an outside party.  I found a Groupon for a bouncy house and ta-da!  It's a party!  We tried to reserve a Spiderman bouncy house, but it was already busy so we ended up with Angry Birds.  Dax was happy, so I was happy.

 And the boys were happy.  Those guys were really working hard and burning a tons of calories bouncing and climbing and sliding.

 After a bit of bouncing, we stopped for a pizza break.  Dax, as usual, put away 4 pieces all by himself.

 After we all were full of pizza, we got to the part that Dax had been eagerly anticipating since the party started.  Presents!  His friends were all excited to help him open the packages and then to help him play with whatever was in the package.  Dax was excited to share and I actually had to stop him from giving some of his presents away. 

Next was cake!  Dax actually did end up giving little Iron Man and the Hulk from the top of the cake away to his friends since I wouldn't let him give away his actual presents.  He is a generous little man.

After the presents we did a lot more bouncing.  We did have one minor bounce-related injury.  I should have known that if I put 10 little boys in a bouncy house, there was bound to be a little blood.  After that I posted Preston inside the bounce house to make sure that it didn't get to WWF in there and there were no other incidents.  After the kids went home, I made Dax head upstairs and take the obligatory birthday-bear picture. 

He is pretty big!  He is over 90% on height and weight according to his last doctor's visit.  Here are some of Dax's favorite things at age five:

Favorite TV shows:  Wild Kratts, Teen Titans Go
Favorite Movies:  Wreck-It Ralph, any Ice Age movie but especially the dinosaur one
Favorite Food:  Corn dogs, corn on the cob, cereal
Favorite restaurant:  McDonalds (where he made us go for his birthday dinner.  I tried to offer him any other place, including a steak place, but he really wanted a hamburger with a pickle.  And to play on the play land.)
Favorite color:  Green, but now he likes blue and orange as his "second favorite colors"
Favorite superhero:  Spiderman
Favorite dinosaur:  Allosaurus (as a result of the TV documentary "Walking With Dinosaurs:  Big Al"
Favorite activity:  Making Cora scream (or at least it seems that way to me).

Happy Birthday Dax!

Preschool Graduation (One for the Summer, One FOREVER)

So, I know you think I am a great big slacker on the blog as of late.  And you would be correct.  I do have an excuse...my hard drive imploded, exploded, did a somersault and then laid down and died.  I just got my new hard drive installed and all my programs reloaded, but it took a week or two.  But I am back now and I will try my bestest to get back to my old, diligently blogging whether you want me to or not self.

Anyhoo...first up is preschool graduation!  Cora graduated from 3-year-old preschool to 4-year-old preschool, and my little Dax graduated from 4-year-old preschool and never again to preschool will he return :-( 

Here is my no-longer-a-preschooler boy, happy in his green graduation hat.  (Sorry, he has a disease.  He can either be smiling, or looking at the camera, but not both.  This one you get a smile).

And here is my bee-you-tee-ful Cora, looking so grown up. 

*sniff* *sniff* 

(Have I mentioned how I kind of dread this time of year?  All my kids have their birthdays in the spring and then there are all these graduations and there is just reminder after reminder that my kids are growing up way way way way way way way too fast)

The kids put on a little program, singing a bunch of the songs they have learned throughout the year.  We took video, but I am far too lazy to find the cable so you will just have to imagine the cuteness.  I am not sure which song they were singing when I took this picture, but they were super excited about it (Cora is front and center, Dax is top right):

After the singing, we got to learn a little bit about each kid as they were presented with their diplomas.  Here were Dax and Cora's little blurbs:

Dax:  Daxton loves pepperoni and cheese pizza, bacon, apples, hamburgers, juice and milk.  His favorite colors are green, blue and orange.  At school he loves to play with all the boys AND Keira and Mira.  He loves treasure time and snack time.  He wants to be a policeman when he grows up.  (I asked him about the policeman thing because I have never heard that one before.  He has told me he wants to be a paleontologist, a pilot, a fireman, and an astronomer, but never a policeman.  He told me he said that because that is what his friend Eli said.  Oh.)

Cora:  Cora loves steak, jelly beans, bananas, pepperoni pizza, gum, milk and Sprite.  Her favorite colors are pink, blue and purple.  At school she loves to be the helper on the helper chart, and also loves coloring and treasure time.  When she grows up she wants to be a mom with 4 kids.  She also wants to be princess Ariel. 

After the program, we snuck in a picture with Miss Sue.  Dax is sure going to miss seeing her so often.  She has taught him so much and will always hold a special place in his heart.  They graduated next week and he has already asked if he can go to Sue's house "just for a playdate, not for preschool."  He makes me laugh.   

(in this pictue, you will notice, Dax is looking at the camera, but whatever that thing is on his face, I am pretty sure I wouldn't call it a smile).

I am glad the kids had such a fun year this year in preschool.  I can't believe I have only one more year of preschool left in my mommy-life!  Booooo! 

I am so proud of my little preschool graduates.  They have grown up and learned so much this year.  Thanks Miss Sue!