We had so much fun this summer. Many of our nights and days were spent in the pool. The kids couldn't wait for Daddy to come home to throw them and do floppies in the pool.
Rylynn mastered her front flip by the end of the summer which was something she worked on a lot. She often gets very frustrated that her little brother can do all sorts of flips and tricks with very little effort. She often complains that it is because she is too tall but I reassure her that she will be so thankful for that throughout her life. She is skeptical:)
Our Fourth was a great day. We started the morning off with a bike parade and flag pancakes. The kids decorated their bikes and rode in the parade and got lots of treats. Then we had my cousin Sarah and her family and some friends, the Vandermydes come for a bbq and swimming. That night we set off some small fireworks of our own and then we went to the golf course and watched the real ones.
Garrett always has to light off some kind of fireworks on the 4th. He decided to attach a smoke bomb to these helium balloons and we all watched as they floated away trailing a cloud of colored smoke. Rylynn is scared of fireworks since she got burned by a spark a few years ago so she didn't participate too much. Our neighbors put on a great show in our cup-de-sac and Carter, being the mini Garrett and therefore pyro that he is, loved it! Rylynn and Beckett went inside to escape the noise. They take after me and are my little worriers.
One of my favorite summer memories was doing cooking lessons with Rylynn. She loves helping me in the kitchen so we had lots of lessons. This one was our breading stations lesson. We made chicken parmesan and she loved doing all the steps. She is quite the chopper too!
After a year of protesting, Rylynn finally let me give her a little trim for the summer. This is her summer haircut!
We had some wonderful friends come and visit us this summer. Our old neighbors on Wolf Penn Ct, the Fuhrimans came for a day. Beckett couldn't stop talking about his friend Tan man. They had so much fun swimming and playing together.
Here is Rylynn with Kylynn. These two girls had the best time together! It made me sad that Rylynn has so many great friends from Liberty Lake that she still misses. They spent 7 hours in the pool and came out only to eat. They just played and talked the whole day. They hugged and were so sad to leave each other that night.
I had a great time catching up with Brenda. We miss so many great people from Liberty Lake!
There were lots of summer baths too! As you can tell, the kids got plenty of sun this summer.
Dallas discovered the musical instrument bin and loved banging the maracas together pretty much every day! As you can see in the background, there were also A LOT of lego/block creations going on in our house this summer.
Summer is my favorite because I just get to snuggle and hang out with these cuties all day long. Granted, I don't love taking all four of them to costco with me, but I love the flexibility of summer schedules. We would always get up late, stay in our pjs and eat a big breakfast, and then get on with our summer charts and the rest of the day. I hate being rushed in the morning and so do my kids. We are just summer bums and we love it!
We also let them stay up a bit later in the summer and one night Rylynn and I were just chatting in my bed and she fell asleep. I couldn't resist snapping a pic of her peaceful face. What a little beauty she is!
The kids all had to read everyday as part of our summer chore charts but Rylynn and Carter were also working toward the 1000 minutes of summer reading for their school. Rylynn logged over 2000 and Carter did just over 1000. I loved seeing Rylynn get so into a book that she couldn't put it down. There were many days that she read the day away. We took a lot of trips to the library too!
Beckett and I became milkshake buddies this summer. We both love my banana, greek yogurt, and nutmeg shakes. Every afternoon he would come up to me and say, "Mama, I think it's time for an afternoon shake!" I love that boy!!!
This little one spent a lot of time on my hip this summer. He was teething for a lot of the summer which means he wanted me to hold him all the time. Luckily I love squeezing and holding my teeny tinys (as I like to call them).
Rylynn loved drawing with chalk this summer and when it would cool down in the evenings she would come out to the back porch and draw while I read or talked on the phone on the back swing. We loved being outside in the evenings!!
Beckett was always a big fan of Sissy's work!
Garrett introduced the kids to Uno this summer so we had many uno parties on the back porch too. They always involved snacks and were a lot of fun. The funniest part about our uno games was that Beckett would lay all his cards down face up so that we could help him play. We would always let him pick which card to play but we would tell him which color or number to look for or when to pick a card from the stack. Even with all his cards face up, the kid beat us so many times!! It was hilarious. The draw 2 or 4 cards were lovingly named "booyah cards" or "how dare you cards" by Carter.
More night swimming. Beckett liked fishing in the pool with his stick pole after we came home from the cabin.
Our hot summer days often wore out this little one and there were a lot of afternoon naps on the couch.
We loved riding the carousel by the library after our weekly trip to get books.
These crazy kids love playing together. Here we have 2 lovely little girls and a big brother:)
These are the delicious peaches from the back trees. I couldn't believe how many we got! I canned 11 bottles and froze 2 gallon bags plus I made a peach pie and two crisps just from the two little trees. It wouldn't be summer without canning!
We also had our good friends the Atwoods come for a visit. Lily and Rylynn were friends when they were infants at BYU. We had such a great day catching up with them and Rylynn and Lily were so sad to part at the end of the day.
One of the kids favorite activities when Daddy would get home was to wash cars. We were outside washing one afternoon when we saw this beautiful rainbow!
At the end of August, Daddy had a mission reunion with some friends. We got to spend the day with them and then We went to their cabin in Pine Valley for a couple of days. We had a bonfire, rode 4 wheelers and played.
There were tons of kids and there was never a dull moment!
Rylynn found this tiny lizard on one of the nature walks.
Here's the whole gang
All the kiddos!
It was so fun to hear Daddy and his old companions reminisce about their mission and all the people they knew. It was a great way to end our wonderful summer!
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