August is Over?

Those summer nights are coming to a close, but what a great summer we have had. Here's some highlights that didn't make it into our other posts. 

Love these girls. And I love dressing them in matching outfits. 

 Tyler gave him self a hair cut and asked me if it looked good. You be the judge.

 How cute are these three heading into church?

 I just can't get over how handsome Caden looks in this picture. Look out ladies...but he's only 4.

 Makayla was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got wacked in the head by the drawer. Instead of consoling her I asked if I could take a picture. Check out that bump!

 The kids were playing Jake the Pirate and spying on us. Caden put his sword in his pants, and we got a good laugh out of it.

We met Auntie Em for lunch one day and snapped this gem of Brynn thinking she was in the selfie. 

 We got to see Collin Raye at the Sandy Amphitheater. Such a fun night and such a pretty sunset.

 I got to celebrate my 33 birthday with THE BEST dinner at The Melting Pot in Salt Lake. It was so good... especially the dessert.

 My actual birthday was celebrated with a family breakfast out, shopping, and a combined birthday party at Terry and Craig's. Sound like a great day? It was!

 Just reading books.

 And wearing Mommy's bra

 And being silly.

It's been a while since I have done my favorite #convoswiththekids:

Makayla thinks she is the parent around our house. She came up to me one day very upset...

Makayla: "Mom, did you give the kids Oreos? You know it's not Sunday."

Me: "Who are the kids?"
Makayla: "Caden and Brynnli"

Me: "Aren't you a kid?"

The best convos are always with Caden. Sometimes I would just love to know how his little brain works. We have been getting ready for a Relief Society party at our house and we were talking to the kids about it. Caden couldn't figure out what kind of a party it was so we were explaining that a few of our neighbors would be coming over. He wanted to know which neighbors, so we told him a few of the ones that we go to church with, so Caden responded, "Will Jesus be there?"

The Last Days of Summer

Our summer has been jammed packed with fun events. We have almost checked off all of our summer bucket list. Here's a few fun things we did in August: 

Go bowling. 

 Makayla won the first game and Caden won the second game.

 We went to a Bees game.

Looks like my selfie skills need some work, but man isn't that a great picture of me! ;)

 You may be confused but we are indeed at a baseball game, not a hockey game. It must have been mascot night because there were a ton of mascots around. Grizz stopped by to pose with Makayla.

 The kids and Daddy went for a ride on the train.

 After the game the kids got to run the bases.

 We went to the opening of the Sandy Fiiz store and they had face painting and balloon animals.

 We had Grandma and Grandpa and the Jones Family over for a bar-b-q and water games. We set out the whale pool, made a slip and slide on the hill, and had a water balloon fight. It may have been my favorite night of the summer.

I can't believe summer is almost over, but we certainly lived it up while we could!

Brynn is 23 months!

Next month she will be two? I can't believe it!

Brynnli is our little stinker. She definitely has a mind of her own and wants to do things by her self. She is probably the most independent child of all our kids. 

Brynn loves to climb: the play house, couches, tables, counters, the cubbies at dance...

She plays hard and she falls asleep hard.

Check out those eyelashes. 

Aww... I'm a lucky mommy to have her as my baby girl.

Some other things about Brynn at 23 months: 

She is starting to talk in full sentences. She still reminds us daily that, "duck bite me... duck hurt finger." 

She is starting to call Caden, "Boudy" (buddy), but still refers to him as "Boy."

Brynn doesn't think anyone else deserves a birthday but her. She says in her mad voice, "Brynnie hap bir day!"

If you ask her what her name is she says, "Brynnie"

She hasn't quite figured out emotions. If she is sad about something she folds her arms, pouts her lips and says, "Brynnie happy."

Brynn is very spoiled and thinks she can get away with anything. She is an absolute monster at church. Seriously that one hour sacrament meeting is the longest hour of our week. 

She is starting to sing songs. She still asks us to sing "spider" and "pop".

When I ask her if she is ready to go down for a nap she says, "yes and no."

She has the cutest lisp, especially when she says, "yesth"

When we drop the kids off to school she says, "where sissy go? Where boy go?"

Now that it is only the two of us while the others are at school, she is a blast to shop with! I love spending one-on-one time with her. 

Preschool is Here Again!

This handsome little stud started his second year of preschool at Little Learners Academy today. Does he look handsome or what!? Caden was so excited to start preschool. We celebrated with a photo shoot before we left. 

 Caden was so excited and jabbered the whole way to school about the magic letter and all the fun things he would do at preschool. We walked in together, found his cubby, then I bent down to give him a kiss good-bye and Caden was trying not to cry. He said to me, "Are you sure it's going to be okay?" I gave him a big hug and assured him he would be fine. The whole time I was trying not to cry. Caden is just such a sweetheart, and I knew he was so nervous. It made me feel horrible to leave him there knowing he was scared. After I got in the car I cried as I drove around for a little bit.

But guess what? When I picked him up after two hours he came running out to me and screamed, "Mommy! I had so much fun today!" He had a great day and was even chosen as the calendar helper. I'm so glad he has such a great teacher this year, Miss Aubrey, who will be extra sensitive to our little buddy. I know he will have a great year and flourish!

So what do Brynn and I do now that "Sissy" and "Boy" are in school? We go shopping at Target and eat Swedish Fish.

It's a hard life, but someone has to do it.

Lagoon

You can't spell summer without going to Lagoon, so off we went with Tyler's family (minus Tyler... he was out of town.)

We drove up to Lagoon during naptime. Why is that important you might ask? Well because it explains why our sweet Brynnli turned into monster baby. Brynn normally naps for a good 2-3 hours and that day she only got a 20 minute nap on the way up. She was still half way asleep when I got her out of the car, walked through the busy park and then proceeded to put her on some large whale contraption that went up and down in a circle, all the while telling her it was fun... I just couldn't figure out why she was screaming bloody murder and refused to stay on Bulgy. Since we didn't scar her enough yet, we decided to try to put her on at least 5 other rides while she screamed. The best one was on the car ride with Makayla where she screamed so loud and long that the other people around started feeling bad for her... talk about child abuse! After realizing we might be pushing her, we decided to back off a little bit and let her relax in the stroller. 

Good news, though... these two had a blast going on all the rides. 

We finally realized Brynn would have fun if she went on rides with me, so we went on the carousel, train, jeeps, and Odysea. She loved all those rides and was finally our happy Brynnie again!

Makayla has no fear! She was finally big enough to go on the white roller coaster and we went on it at least three times. She LOVED it!

By the end of the night it was starting to get less crowded and all the kids were literally running from one ride to another. I think Carson, Colton and Makayla went on Bombora and the Bat ride about 7 times right after the other.

We decided to end the night by going on the carousel one more time. This was Brynn right before all hell broke loose. 

They took an extra long time getting the ride started and Brynn had enough. I think she was so tired (I mean it was 10:00 at night and she had been going strong all day on a 20 minute nap) she didn't know which way was up. She didn't know what she wanted, but she did know she didn't want to be on the carousel anymore so she screamed bloody murder through the whole thing. Once we were off the ride she started to run away from me until I found her blankie and binkie. She was crying so hard she could hardly catch her breath. I told her to close her eyes and she literally fell asleep within seconds. She fell asleep so fast Craig thought she was faking, but she was OUT! Poor Brynn literally passed out from being so tired. The things you do in the name of fun, right? 

Good thing the rest of us had a great time! We love Lagoon!