Summer Vacation Week #2

We have had another fun week this week. We started out the week doing an art class. We found these little ceramic ponies at Wal-Mart. The girls (especially M) is always begging to paint something whenever I am making a painted craft. I thought these would be fun for the girls to do.

They had a great time, and surprisingly didn't get paint all over the place. I made these little grocery bag art smocks for them to wear so they wouldn't get paint on their clothes.

You just cut off the bottom of the bag and it makes the perfect protective covering. Here are the finished ponies.
On Tuesday I took the girls to the dentist. M got sealants on her molars, and A had to have two teeth pulled out. We were lucky it wasn't 4!
Poor little A has the tiniest mouth. Her two bottom permanent teeth were already up behind her baby teeth. That is why it doesn't look like she has lost any in this picture. There is not enough room for them to come in where they belong. We are praying she has a growth spurt before her next set of teeth start coming. Those teeth are also overlapped into where her next teeth are. The dentist told us that once she gets her 6 year old molars we will probably have to take her to the orthodontist to have them spread things out in there so all her teeth will fit. (That is when I will start regretting that I didn't become an orthodontist!). She was super good when they pulled her teeth. She didn't even flinch. I have never seen a person more excited to lose their teeth. I had just finished making a cute tooth fairy pillow (I will blog about that later), and she was so excited to get to use it first. She was super thrilled the next morning when the tooth fairy had left her $2!!!

We also headed off to the park for a picnic after our dentist visit. I told the girls we would go to a different park every week during the summer. They had lots of fun playing.

Little H has some serious arm muscles. She loves to hang on things. (Check out that little girls cute hair next to her! Her mom was sure ambitious that morning.)

Have you seen enough of my girls' bellies yet? Sheesh! I think we need bigger clothes at our house.

We were going to have water day on Wednesday, but it was raining (hey! I guess it really was WATER day!). So we went to the library instead. We happened to go at the same time as storytime. I wasn't too excited about that. I kind of like having the library all to myself. They were doing some fun father's day books and had some cute paper ties for the girls to decorate for their dad. They really enjoyed it.

On Thursday we went to the Children's Museum. The girls had so much fun. We are usually pretty cramped for time when we go, but this time we just wandered around taking our time. We got to play with almost everything. We were there for 4 hours! The girls had a great time though, and I only lost my baby once, and only had the director tell my kid to get off of something once too. He he. I should know better than to let my kid climb on something they shouldn't.

Friday we spent the day playing around the house and getting things ready for Father's Day. That will be the topic of my next blog post though.

Off to enjoy another week of summer. Two down 9 more to go....

Summer Vacation Week #1

We have had a busy week this week. I have been trying to keep the kids busy doing fun activities and classes. We started out the week with a cooking class. We made sugar cookies. I tried a new recipe. The were very light and fluffy. I have never found the "perfect" sugar cookie recipe for us. While this one was good, it was not quite what we are looking for.

We frosted them to look like watermelons. I found the idea somewhere on the internet (I never can remember where I find ideas!). I thought they would be so cute for the first of summer. The girls had lots of fun frosting them. We did it while the baby was napping, or it could have turned into a HUGE mess!

They turned out so cute. We took some to a few other families and they thought they were adorable. DH even had some of his fellow employees comment on them at work when he took them in his lunch.

We have also been doing "Summer Cleaning" as opposed to "Spring Cleaning". I thought I might as well put the girls to work. They have actually had fun doing it. This week we cleaned the living room from top to bottom. It is so nice and clean. We also cleaned out the coat closet.

The girls had fun trying on all of their winter stuff to see if it still fits. It took us a little while to get everything cleaned out, but it looks so nice now.

My oldest wanted to donate her hair to Locks of Love. She was going to wait until school started again, but we thought it would be better to do it at the first of summer instead so she didn't have all that hot hair on her all summer long. Here she is before:

She donated 12 inches of hair. The stylist was surprised at how thick her hair is. M said her head felt much lighter after the cut. She has such pretty hair. We get comments on it all the time. It is the most beautiful auburn color. Women pay a LOT of money to try to get their hair that color. Here she is after:

I think the cut makes her look older, but she will always be my little girl.

It has been raining here almost all week. The girls haven't minded one bit since that meant we couldn't go out and do all the weeding I had planned. We did finally make it out to weed all the flower beds in the backyard last night and dead head some flowers. All this rain will surely bring out more weeds next week though.

We have had to be inventive with activities to keep the kids busy while it was raining. One day we made a fort out of sheets and furniture.

The girls played in their little hut for 3 hours straight! They love playing "house". They also had fun reading in there.

The girls have been doing tons of reading. Probably because I am bribing them! They get to earn a little Twillerbaby and a Twillerbee doll. A has to read 500 minutes to get her Twillerbaby, and M has to read 1000. To get their Twillerbee doll A has to read 1500 minutes and M has to read 3000. They are already well on their way. A has read over 180 minutes this week alone.

We have done other fun activities as well. We went shopping and got Dad's presents for Father's Day. We had a girls night last night while Daddy was at scout camp and watched Beverly Hills Chihuahua. We were going to paint nails too, but decided to wait and do that today since Dad will be gone all day. Poor Dad will be taking the scouts on a 20 mile hike today....in the rain. I am sure he is going to be really happy when he comes home!

We have had a great week. I hope I have the energy and ambition to keep up on all the activities and fun things I have planned. I want the girls to make lots of fun memories this summer.

One week down Ten to go.......

Living a Fairy Tale

We surprised the girls and took them to a Fairy Tale Ball. They were a little dissappointed at first because they thought we were just going to the Children's Museum like we usually do. They didn't know that it was a SPECIAL event. We got to see magic shows, have yummy treats, make masks, see a vantrilaquist, watch a performance of Beauty and The Beast, and do a little dancing. The girls had a great time.

Ice Skating...

We had a ward party at an ice skating rink. We started out with a yummy dinner and then we hit the ice. It was the first time the girls had ever been ice skating and it had been about 8 years since DH and I had gone. It was a lot of fun. It was a little hard for the girls to get the hang of it at first, but then they caught on. Little K was a little to small to be able to do it, so M ended up pushing her around in a chair most of the time. The guy DH works with in Young Men's took little H. She was so good and just sat with him the whole time. We had a great time. The girls keep begging to go back. I told them we can go back in August when we are dying of the heat!

Playing catch up: Rollerskating...

The girls elementary school had a roller skating night. We had such a great time. I broke out my old rollerblades that I haven't worn for 12 years. I forgot how much fun it was to roller blade. I can still go backwards, but my jumping skills need much improvement.

This was the girls first time roller skating. They all did really well. I didn't know they had rollerskates K's size so we just took a scooter for her to ride around. She was totally sad because she wanted the skates like her bigger sisters. A friend of ours told us about the little skates and we picked a pair up for her. She had so much fun! ALL of the girls keep begging us to go back.

Enjoying the last bits of fall...

We went and visited my in-laws this last week. They are home from their mission. It is great to have them back. We didn't have one fun pinata party the whole time they were gone! We had a lot of fun on our visit.

We got to make apple cider. This is always a fun event. The more hands the better, so we all pitch in and help.

Some helpers just eat the apples! At least that is one less we have to squeeze.

Apple cider is so yummy. I think my girls had it for almost every meal the entire time we were there.

We also had a fun time having a picnic up the mountain.

The weird things you find in the woods huh!?! I think this might really creep you out if you came across it in the dark with a flashlight.
And of course, the pinata!

And any visit to Grandma and Grandpa's house wouldn't be complete if M didn't get to pick on Grandpa a little bit.