Art Town!

This year we have made it to a few artown events. We love artown! The first event we went to was music in Idlewild park on Food Truck Fridays. It was so fun and the kids had a blast dancing in the park. I love this photos I took of them.

 Then, one Monday we went with the cousins to get the fantastic artown face paint and balloon animals. This facepainting is above and beyond and even though it's free, I had to get the tickets back in May. It was WELL worth it. Addy had her mind made up she wanted a rainbow butterfly and Liam settled on a shark that had just had dinner. He made sure to tell them he wanted the blood on his nose too. I started to protest, but it's artown and they are all about the kids getting what they dream up so... Peyton was a ninja turtle and Izzy settled on a rainbow butterfly as well. A great time was had by all!

Last but not least, my favorite artown activity is dancing in the park. I convinced Liam to get with us this year. :) He was more interested in the fact that the lights were changing colors, but he still had fun although he reports he only likes the all guy dances because those are cooler.  It's just such a fun activity to sit down by the river and enjoy the evening of dancing.

Summertime Shenanigans

Summer always seems to fly by. I always have grand plans of taking the kids to the pool and the park every day, and then real life reminds me I have tons of stuff to do at home too. However, we've sill managed to squeeze in some really fun stuff. We have gone to the splash pad and then we took a trip to Sand Harbor with friends. The kids have had a blast with all of the activities. Last year Addy was pretty apprehensive about water, but this year she is a new girl. She's a total fish and was swimming like a crazy woman in Lake Tahoe. So here are some fun photos of some of our summer activities. Even though we haven't done as much as I originally wanted, we have still had a pretty great summer.
Liam with Brian Bodily and Matt Giles
 
Addy with Ivy and Sophie Perry
 

9 months!

Oh this sweet boy!  9 months has treated our Finny boy quite well. He is a crawling MACHINE and is loving being able to slightly keep up with the big kids and play with toys now. He also learned how to clap which is beyond ADORABLE.  He's sort of clumsy but super enthusiastic.  I LOVE it.  He's 19 1/2 lbs of pure cuteness. He's sleeping great (he'll go to bed around 7, wake up at 4, eat, sleep until 7). Still no teeth but puts everything in his mouth! He's an eating crazy man now. He loves real food and cheerios and gnawing on apples. He loves to be chased and tickled. I can't believe he's been out of the womb longer than he was in now. So bittersweet. It's hard to be sad about the growing when I swear he's cuter and more fun each and every day.

8 years!

Wes and I celebrated 8 years of marital bliss on July 2. I can't believe we've been married for eight years! I'm so thankful for my sweetheart and am so proud of the life we've created together. I feel so blessed to have this life and eternity with him. I love you, schatz!

Crafts!

Between working full time now and having three children, I don't get as much time to craft as I'd like these days. However, I still try to make time for it on occasion because I enjoy it so much and it recharges me a bit. :) A month or two ago, we helped an older sister in our ward move and she gave us these giant old framed pictures that she didn't want anymore. I was THRILLED because I had some projects in mind. I sprayed the frames and then stapled chicken wire to the back of one. I am using this to display the endless supply of children's art that I find myself in possesion of. The other one I make into a chalkboard and framed one of my favorite pieces of art that my mom gave me for mother's day. I added in some amateur doodles and some washi tape and fell in love with my creations!

60 Years!!

My grandparents celebrated 60 years of marriage in June. What an amazing accomplishment. We had a little celebration for them and my sister made this beautiful cake for them. They still had their original cake topper, which was pretty neat!  We are so thankful to them and for the example they set for us. We love you!  Here's to 60 more!

Happy Fourth!

I actually had to work on the fourth of July (and a LOT of babies decided to come that day), so we kind of celebrated early. We decided to go up to the temple with the kids and celebrate America by reflecting on our religious freedoms. We are SO thankful for that. And, of course, I had to take some cute pics of the kiddos.
 

Girls' Day

At the end of June, I got the biggest treat and was able to have a fun girls' day to Sacramento with my friends Emilee and Natalie. I've gotten to really know these awesome women in my ward and they have become dear friends to me. I'm so thankful for them and to know they are always there if I need anything at all. They are such fun ladies and we've had fun doing different activities with our kids and having craft days. Anyway, we have a lot of similar interests and we decided to do some fun shopping at Hobby Lobby, Anthropologie, H&M, IKEA, and we also enjoyed some delicious meals at Rigos and Cheesecake Factory. Even though it was 110* (literally), we had a blast. We ended the day with a stroll around the Sacramento temple. It was a fabulous and fun day! I was quite impressed with Natalie and I getting these giant boxes (a huge bookshelf and bunkbeds) into her minivan by ourselves. Girl power!

Phone Randoms

Here are a few fun photos I've taken recently from my phone. It's hard because I use my phone so much more lately than my big camera, it's just so much easier. And I get some really cute photos but I often forget to upload them to my blog. I'm going to try to do a better job of that.

Wes sent me this photo of my pitiful tired boy one day while I was working. He was trying so hard to stay awake! So cute. Just some cute pics of my Addy-roo. One day I was in the nursery at work and there was nothing going on, so I decided to make some baby girl hats for the new babies. :) My adorable, happy boy I didn't anticipate such an awesome sunburn line from my sparkle headband I wore during the color run. And my cute kids decided they were going to have a 'sleepover' one night in Liam's bed. Addy hates when Liam isn't in there sleeping with her. He is such a good big brother and she loves him so much.

Father's Day Weekend

We headed out to Yerington for Father's day weekend. It was nice to get out of town and relax. We went to the Lyon County Museum open house. My dad is part of the board and he and his friend David made a homemade Pizen Switch to serve refreshments. It was pretty impressive!  Addy kept calling it Papa's house and loved sitting in it with him eating cookies. Liam got to pan for gold, which was really neat as well.  Of course, the trains were a huge success with both kids.


















That evening we celebrated Nana's birthday and I made her a yummy strawberry cream cake from my friend Natalie's blog. It was fun to bake something new. It was also so nice to relax and let the kids play and enjoy the slower pace of the small town. I really miss that. My mom got all of our old barbie stuff down and Addy had a BLAST playing with it. Sunday, the dads decided that they wanted to go fishing, so we went out to some ponds. Unfortunately the fish weren't biting, but we had a great time. Addy was so much more in to it that I was anticipating. And Liam decided that he LOVES casting with an adult fishing pole and he just wanted to practice constant casting. After fishing, we did some target shooting. It was a very fun day!
Unfortunately I didn't take any 'formal' pictures of the dads with the kids. :( However, my kids and myself are SO lucky to have such a wonderful daddy and papa. So, so lucky.