The OTHER Mother

Sammy LOVES to take care of Lucy and has been "practicing" carrying her around! The other day I told her that she is such a great big sister and she said "I know...I know EVERYTHING about babies because I've had 3!"
I said "Oh, you pretend you have 3 babies" (she has been SUPER into playing house with her friends)
"No" she says "I've HAD 3 babies...Ben, Nate, and Lucy"

Oh all this time I thought I had them...but no, turns out Sammy did and she knows EVERYTHING...good to know!

BUMBO!

I decided to bust out the Bumbo seat (thanks Brit) and let Lucy sit in it...she is growing so fast and looks so big sitting up! Oh and she has really been into chewing on her fists lately... I really love her!

Heaven...

We just spent a week in Pinetop and one of my FAVORITE spots in the world is at the river near my parents cabin! I seriously think it is so peaceful! My kids love to go there and throw rocks, collect rocks and flowers, have a picnic, cross the log bridge...oh, and the nice cool breeze does wonders for people that have been trapped in our house all summer long due to the extreme heat :)

Benson came up with us for the weekend then needed to go back home to work! I stayed with the kids and my mom joined us...but I didn't take any pictures...but we painted rocks and pine cones, went on walks and bike rides, played on the playground, went swimming, played with water balloons, played catch and wiffle ball, did sidewalk chalk, went to the movies (G-Force), went to McDonald's TWICE, and we went to Denny's for kids eat free night (FUNNY STORY...my kids thought it was SO cool that we had to pay for our dinner AFTER we ate it AND we didn't have to throw away our own trash we just got to leave it at the table...I guess we don't take them to sit down restaurants very much...too funny!), watched lots of movies and the kids got to stay up late every night!

We had a blast and it was so nice to spend so much time outside!

I'm so happy I could...MELT!

I FINALLY saw Wicked last Friday and I am in LOVE with it! I went with all my sisters and my mom (and neice) and we had such great seats...16th row, orchestra section right in the middle...AMAZING! I have been rocking out to the soundtrack ever since and pretty much sing the songs ALL DAY LONG! I had high expectations and it completely exceeded them! I am OBSESSED! I even rented Wizard of OZ this week and watched it with the kids! Loved it! I only took 1 picture when I was there and it wasn't flattering for anyone involved and since you can't take pics of the actual play...I figured the ones from the Internet will have to do! I can't wait to see it again!

Defyyyying Graaavvityyy!

Lucy + Nate = LOVE

One of my MAJOR worries when I was pregnant with Lucy was how Nate would react to not being the baby anymore...I am AMAZED at how much he has loved being a big brother! He absolutely LOVES Lucy! He talks to her in the sweetest voice and is always giving her loves! When she is crying he is the quickest person to get to her and loves to sing to her, play with her, and give her the doll he bought her! I don't take very many pictures of them together because I am sometimes worried he will "love" her too much and will hurt her...but the other morning they were both playing on my bed and I wanted to document how cute he is with her...before she starts moving and destroying his things and he changes his mind about her (I hope not...but I am a realist)!

When the Cat's away...

The mice will PLAY! Benson went out of town last week (to go surfing with his brothers) and since I was pretty much in SURVIVAL mode with 4 kids all day long...I pretty much just had a PARTY all day long with the kids! I didn't make them clean up the toy room all week, we went to the store and got tons of YUMMY snacks, rented a bunch of movies, went out to lunch and we even had ICE CREAM for dinner one night....

It was a fun week! But let's just say I am not cut out to be a single mom! I was very excited for Benson to come home again!

Family Night at Brimhall Pool

Ben

Nate

Garrett

Megan

Lincoln

Ben

Gramma Jones and Nate (Nate was crying that his eyes hurt..because of the chlorine...so Kacey let him wear her sunglasses and he was magically all better)

Kacey and baby Lucy!

A couple of weeks ago we went to Brimhall pool with the Jones Family (my fam) for a little Family Night! We had so much fun playing together! I think the highlight was jumping of the diving board and watching everyones tricks! I took almost 400 pics that night...so these pictures are just the highlights! So much fun!

YIKES!

I was watching KIT KITTRIDGE with the kids tonight and had this little conversation with Samantha...
S: Mom what year is it? (in the movie)
M: 1934
S: That's a long time ago
PAUSE
S: Is that when you were a little kid
M: Umm, no that is a long time before I was born
S: I bet it was like that when you were a little kid though

WOW!

Sammy is a ROCK STAR!

The last 2 weeks Sammy has been doing a Musical Theatre camp and she loved, Loved, LOVED it! Every day when I picked her up she would say she "double loved it"! The performance was so cute and I can't believe how much she learned in 2 weeks! In fact when it was over my mom said "I'm sad its over"...The theme was "School of Rock" and all the songs had the word "rock" in them! She LOVED Miss Jenee!

The sang about 10 songs including...Rockin' Robin, Rocking in the USA, We will Rock you, Rock the Boat, and Camp Rock!

She was very excited to get flowers (luckily my dad saved the day and went to get flowers...I forgot to get some in advance)

Sammy was excited to do the camp with her friends Julia and Analise... we are sad they moved away so it was fun to see them again!

Basketball Camp...AGAIN?

Just because I didn't feel like I had enough going on this week (Sammy's tumbling, dance, theatre camp, boys swim lessons, dentist appointments, play dates, etc) I decided to sign Ben up for another week of Basketball camp (I am a sucker). He LOVED it and learned so much! He told me he is a "basketball star"! I can't wait for him to play on a team in the winter (especially because basketball is INSIDE and not outside like soccer and baseball)!

Lately...

We have been super busy and I have not been great about taking pictures but...we did have a cousin sleep over and Sammy and McKinley got to wear matching dresses to church today (thanks mom) Lucy is as cute as ever...

The kids LOVE to get out the "project box" and have been crafting a bunch lately. I cut up some potatoes and apples the other day and let them use those as stamps.

Also, swimming at Nana's and Papa's...

Updates

I have been slacking on my blog! What can I say I am in survival mode over here! I hate doing a million posts at once but that is pretty much all I can manage these days...so keep scrolling down there are like 4 new posts!

Thanks!

4th of July EATING!!

I know this idea would have been MORE helpful before the 4th but my kids loved making these fruit kabobs and I think we will do this more often with different fruits for snacks all the time...the ideas are limitless..bananas, grapes, apples, pineapple...etc. I was trying to have them do a pattern but they didn't want to do that! Oh well!

Also, I LOVE this pie... I made it for the 4th but is yummy all summer long! This is an old Pampered Chef recipe so I can't take claim for it but I thought I would pass it along! My kids loved the dipped strawberries!

Red, White, and Blueberry Pie

1 pie crust (refrigerated premade) ( I actually used the Marie Callenders frozen one because it comes in a pie tin)
1 quart fresh strawberries
4 squares white chocolate for baking
1 8oz cream cheese
¾ cup cold milk
1 3.3 oz pkg white chocolate instant pudding
1 ½ cups blueberries
1 cup cool whip

Preheat oven to 425 and bake crust 10-12 minutes and cool completely. Slice Strawberries (reserve 8 for garnish). Melt white chocolate (in microcooker for 1 minute stirring every 10 seconds) until smooth. Dip strawberry halves (8 reserved) cut in half with stem still on. Place in fridge for 15 minutes.

Put remaining chocolate on pie crust. Spread evenly and put sliced strawberries on top.
Beat cream cheese, milk, and pudding until thick and spread on top of strawberries.
Arrange blueberries on top evenly. Pipe cool whip along edge and put dipped strawberries on the cool whip. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

4th of July

Since we don't have a pool and all of our family went out of town for the 4th (remind me again why we didn't go out of town...who wants to be here for the 4th...truth is we have never been here for the 4th and now I know why...next year we are OUT OF TOWN!!) Anyway, we decided to house sit for Benson's parents and keep an eye on the garden and chickens and help ourselves to their pool!!! We also BBQed (of course)! We went to the fireworks with my friend Colette and her family...who knew that Apache Junction pulled out all the stops for their fireworks show...I was pleasantly surprised...hearts, lips, X's, etc!