Summer Fun...

It is amazing how the weeks seem to blur together. The summer is slipping by far too fast. And we are trying to make the most of it. This week we...

Fed the ducks at First dam, this is a great place to dispose of stale bread, but the key is to go earlier in the day. By the time we got there for our KFC picnic at 8 pm (yes a normal time for summer dinners for our family) those ducks were mighty full! Apparently lots of other families had stale bread too!

Our friend Luke came along with us.

We went to the aquatic center one evening for my parents ward party. Somehow Shane and I got away without even getting in with them. They had a great time, and Kenna even went on the slide alone for her first time.

Kids and pools go together - this pool in our backyard is a complete hit. It looks squishy to me with all those kids,... but they love it, and use it almost everyday!

The 24th of July started out with a breakfast at the park - delicious! After, we headed off for our city's parade. For the second year in a row our girls along with their friends Kaylee and Kelsee were asked to ride on the city float (Shane got to pull it). The "royalty" was in Wyoming with our stake participating in the Pioneer trek so they needed some "cute" replacements. We think they got just that! The girls were proud to say that they were the only "princess float" that threw candy. My sweet little Kenna obviously hasn't mastered the "keep-your-knees-together-when-you-have-a-dress-on" concept, because when they passed by I was doing the crazy sign language thing to try to get her to "readjust" her cute dress. She finally got it but was back to the old way before she passed me by... We'll keep working on that!

Jadyn was not all that excited to watch the parade, but she was excited for the candy... Although her candy eating consisted of taking one bite out of each taffy and throwing the rest on the ground. (apparently she threw some on my chair, because a nice lady stopped me after walking a block away to let me know I had a piece of taffy stuck to my rump.... Lovely!)


Later that evening we planned on having a bbq at our house in honor of Jadyn's 2nd birthday the next day. But we opted for a dinner at Firehouse instead - I'd call that a good trade-off.

Jadyn REALLY likes babies, her poor little cousin Skye was getting a little mauled by her!

(Skye comes from a strong family though... I'm sure she will hold her own very soon :))

After dinner the Carlsens, and Andy and Missy came over to watch the fireworks from our house. A great view, and fun too!

The 25th was Jadyn's 2nd birthday. She woke up like a bear... or maybe just a two year old! She is SOOO mellow, but this morning she was not happy and I actually sent her to her room for the first time in her life! It was nothing that a 4 hour nap didn't cure though! We had my parents over to open presents and have some cake that night. What a fun little thing she has been in our family. She is quite possible one of the most over-mothered children around with all her big sisters. She is used to full time attention and will miss her sisters almost as much as I will when school starts.

All a 2-year-old really needs is a Poppa to play "this little Piggy" and a $3 ball from WalMart. We shouldn't have given her anything else because she was quite content.

We visited the zoo this evening. Jadyn was so excited to see the monkeys and kept repeating her favorite phrase... "Look", "Look". There is something so magical about watching little ones get so excited about the simple things. It reminds me of how as parents we try so hard to do things for them that they will "remember", when it is usually the simple things that they will remember most. Shane and I will never forget one of the weeks that we spent with Tayler and Saige in Orlando. They were about 5 and 3 and we had spent several days at the Disney parks, Busch Gardens, Sea World etc. So on the flight home we asked them what their very favorite thing was that we had done... The answer... the McDonald's playland slide...