No Front Tooth

The other night Brayden was out jumping on the trampoline with his friends. They, of course, were wrestling and so BJ went out and told them no wrestling on the tramp. Of course they didn't listen and about 2 minutes later I see Brayden get kneed in the mouth and sit up with his hand over his mouth and blood coming down his face. I knew it was his tooth because when he got home from school he had mentioned his tooth was loose. It wasn't ready to come out, but after being kicked in the mouth it was hanging by a thread. All the blood made me a little queezy so BJ took over and pulled his tooth out. It made me a little sad because his cute little smile will never be the same, but hopefully it won't change too much! I think its cute, and that smile still makes me smile!

Western Style Birthday Celebration. Big #7!!

Brayden wanted a rodeo party for his birthday this year. When he told us this his dad's response was "Why? We're not cowboys." So for the record we are not cowboys, but we sure celebrated like them(maybe?) Anyways we had a hotdog roast, played rope the horse, barrel racing, and a boot pinata. I realized you don't have to plan too many games with 6 and 7 year olds cause they make up their own and of course there is always wrestling! Brayden's friends are all such cute, good kids. He had a way fun friend party, and then we celelbrated again on Sunday with a family party. We had Papa Murphy's pizza and it was fun to have everyone come to help us celebrate. Then Monday we let him choose his birthday dinner because he had soccer on Tuesday (his actual birthday) and he chose Olive Garden. Good choice! After dinner we decided to give him his big present. He wanted a "big" bike. I had bought it earlier that day and had to put it in Sandra's garage to hide it till it was time to give it to him. I had taken Jace and Adi with me to buy it and of course first thing Jace said to him when he saw him was "Burlow we got you a bike" Oh well, he loved his bike anyways. So after dinner we went down to the Manookin's and gave him his bike. He loved it! So Tuesday his real birthday we were just about partied out. He did get to celebrate at school and we gave him a new fishing pole, so there still was some celebrating. Happy big number 7 Bray!! You are a good kid and we love your guts!! Happy Birthday!!!

Waiting for the party to start

Roping the horse

Roasting hot dogs

Having dinner at John Ranch

Present time

And of course the amazing cake(Thanks Julianne) Yes, Adi ate the 'a' and the 'n' from his name

Yes Jace enjoyed the party!!

Family Reunion

We had a family reunion in Park City with BJ's side of the family. It was fun to see some family we rarely see and enjoy a fun day at the park. There was a great tree for climbing that the kids thought was wonderful and if there is a bat and ball, well then Jace is happy. It was catered and the food was yummy!

See, happy cause he has a bat!

Tree climbing

Playing with uncle Chris

Bear Lake...again

We headed up to Bear Lake for one last hurrah before school started. I wasn't thrilled with being gone the weekend before school started, but oh well we survived. The weather was so much cooler this time that we didn't even actually go to the beach. It was in the 70's which is great unless you want to be at the beach. We ended up going to Soda Springs on Friday. We took a wrong turn and instead of taking us oh an hour to get there it took us about 2 or so hours to get there. Anyways after a very long and boring drive we finally got there. We first went and saw the geyser the kids thought it was pretty cool, and I don't think it was there when we used to go when I was little. After the geyser we went in search of Hooper Springs. It is a park we used to always go to when I was little, we found it pretty easy. We ate a quick lunch and because it had taken us so long to actually get there we didn't stay long because we needed to get back. It turned out fine because Brayden swears he saw a snake in the playground and that was it for everyone. We don't like snakes!! So before we left we quickly made us some punch with the bubbly soda water and headed back to the house. We did go the right way this time and made it back to the house in about an hour or less.

Friday night we did more of what we did the trip before which was guitar hero, ping pong, and games. Saturday the kids were dying to go swimming so we went over to Ideal Beach and instead of going to the beach we just swam in the pool there and played miniature golf. The course is pretty horrible, but the kids had fun so it was worth it. We had a picnic lunch on the grass and let the kids play in the playground for awhile then we headed home. It was a fun trip and nice to get away one last time before school started!

Attacking poppy!

Soda Springs geyser. No one was in a very good mood after being in the car for so long

Brayden running around while the geyser is erupting

Adisyn kept calling this place little Yellowstone

Brayden getting some soda water

Making our punch

Playing on the playground

The view from our house. A storm was coming in and the water was so choppy, but still beautiful

Ping Pong Jacey style

Guitar Hero is a must at Bear Lake

We got another bow and arrow and this time we got it to stick to the beam in the ceiling

Brayden taking pictures of himself

Miniature golfing

Brayden's in 1st grade!

I can harldy believe Brayden is in 1st grade and will be in school all day!! He did great the first day, and I even did great. It did hit me about noon that he wasn't coming home for a few more hours and I got a little sad, but then I realized I had so much to do, there really was no time to get sad! He loved it, and had a really great first day! On the way home he told me he wanted to leave school when Carsen did(which meant he wanted to leave at 2:15 when the other kids got out) I told him he couldn't, but he just couldn't understand that. I tried explaining to him that they went before him so they got to go home before him, and his response was, "well then I want to go early too." So after much debate we ended up switching him to the early schedule. We've only done it the one day, but it has worked out great and I hope it continues to do so!

He said he loves being an early bird and not a later gator!

I had to get my traditional picture in front of the 'Welcome to Meadow'. He was not happy, but I had to have it!

Olympic Party

Yes, BJ's first question was"who has an olympic party?" but I like to have parties and I will take any excuse. We had an olympic party Friday night for the opening ceremonies! We ate food representing a few of the nations. We had potstickers for China, swedish fish for Sweden, Australian licorice for Australia, Italian meatballs and pizza for Italy, french bread for France, fondue for Switzerland(I read somewhere it was Swiss, but who really knows), german chocolate cake for Germany, and what's more American than apple pie! It was alot of fun to sit and visit and be with friends. The kids had a blast just playing and occassinaly stopping to watch the olympics. Thanks guys for coming we'll do it again sometime, maybe for closing ceremonies;)!!

Flags representing the nations

Boys wrestling

Enjoying the yummy food!

Park City

We had our annual girls shopping trip to Park City this week. My mom, sisters, and I (and our kids) always go up and stay in park City for a night and do the Alpine slide and shop. It has become a fun tradition and I hope we continue to do it. We left Monday morning and met at the Park City mountain. We ate lunch and then hit the slide. This year Jace and Kyla were old enough to ride, so my mom had to ride so all 4 kids could ride. They love it! Not so much the ride up the mountain on the ski lift, but the ride down is awesome! We decided after being up there we are going back next month with all the boys to do the roller coaster and zipline! After the slide the kids rode the merry go round, and then off to shop for a little bit till we could get into our hotel. After we got settled into the hotel and got the kids dinner my sisters and I went back to the outlets to shop while my brave mom took the 4 grandkids swimming at the pool. She was so impressed with Brayden and Adi and how good they were swimming, guess those swim lessons paid off! After we shopped a few stores it was time to eat dinner so we called in our order at Cafe Trang, oh my heck it was fab!!! We ended up with a bill of about $80, but it was so worth it!! We shopped more the next day and then drove up to show the kids Olympic Park and headed home. We had a great trip got lots of clothes and so now the kids can go back to school! Thanks guys for the fun trip!

Getting ready to get on the ski lift

Brayden and Shalene on the lift(Bray doesn't really care for the ski lift part of it)

Jace, me, and Adi

Walking to the slide

Adi and mommy on the slide

Nana and Jace

Bean and Brayden

Haylee and Ky

Merry go round Ol' crazy eyes, don't know why she faces me, but her eyes are looking away!

Our delicious Chinese dinner!