Ashley Lake Trip #2

So... we had so much fun the first week, we decided we needed to go back for another week!  But so as not to hog all of my parent's time at the cabin, we had to choose a week where no one was going to be there!  It worked out well though, because we wanted to go to the Annual BBQ and Talent show that we hadn't got to go to last year!  It's a great time to see all my cousins and friends from growing up, and usually some good laughs!  Our contribution to the talent show was a number from Mason and Dakota, singing the "I'm bringing home my baby Bumblebee song", but I changed the words from baby bumblebee to "Daddy-long-legs", and they each had a real Daddy-long-legs spider that they had found in their hands.  At the end of it, they actually really ate the spider!  Something they both have done quite frequently at our house (why they do it, I have no idea, but I think they both like the shock value!!)  It was a great, and everyone was pretty surprised! So proud of my brave bug eating children!!

The kids were also happy to have a day to play with their cousins - Skyler, Ethan and Ryley.  It didn't last long because they had to go home, but they had a good time!  Ash and Jeff also overlapped with us for a day, but unfortunately the slept in and didn't make any of the pictures (:

The rest of the week, we had a few days to ourselves, and a few days with our friends, the Irvines, visiting us!  It was a blast! We had so much fun showing them all of the fun things to do around there, and it was fun to watch them do things behind the boat they had never done before.  And it was nice for the kids to have playmates too.  They actually got along really well with the Irvine kids! And wouldn't Griffin and Mila make such a cute couple?! Parents can hope, can't they??

The kids REALLY improved their skiing the second week at the lake, it was fun to see them improve!  One day Griffin even got up the courage to try skiing, which totally shocked me because at the beginning of the Summer, he was too scared to even go in the deep water with his life jacket on!  But surprisingly, he skiied quite a ways - although he was sitting on his skis the whole time and couldn't seem to stand up!  It was pretty funny actually, I have it on video!  He tried a few more times, but then lost his nerve and went back to the EZ ski!  We were still proud of him though for even trying!!

The kids also loved to wake surf with Lee!  Cute!

Anyway, such a fun Summer, the weather was amazing, boating was a blast, and having time together and with family and friends was wonderful!  It was sad, (and a lot of work!!) to pack up and clean up the place to be perfect for my parents! 

Can't wait till next Summer!

Ashley Lake Trip #1

I've kind of been on vacation mode for the past 3 weeks, and haven't gotten a chance to catch up on my Summer blogging!  We spent one week with my parents at the cabin on Ashley Lake in July, and it was a ton of fun!!  As the kids get older, it is just more and more fun to watch them learning to do more things on the lake!  Dakota and Mason really took to water-skiing this year, we were really impressed!  Dakota has always been brave enough to try it, in fact, she first did it when she was only 4!  So she was more than willing and wanting to ski each day, and she did awesome!  She started out with skis and rope attached, and once she mastered that, we moved her to the other skis where the rope was not attached, and now she's mastered that too!  She says waterskiing is her favorite thing to do, and she looks darn cute doing it too!  Mason on the other hand always talks big, and thinks he can do better than Dakota, but as soon as he got his feet into the skis and into the water, he would freak out and decide he didn't want to try.  We knew he would like it if he would just give it a shot, so we pretty much forced him to try (using bribery and punishments!)  Sounds kind of mean, but just as we predicted, he ended up being able to do it and started loving it too!  By the end of our trips, he mastered the skis with unattached rope as well, and started "cutting" back and forth within the wake quite well actually!  I have no idea why Dakota is so brave and our boys are scared of everything, but at least she can be the example for them!!  Griffin enjoyed the EZ ski, and of course all of the kids loved tubing!

Scarlett was a bit of a challenge this year, since she still just wants you to walk her all over the place, and is miserable if you try to sit her down on her own!!  But luckily Grandma was a wonderful help, and we definitely took advantage of her 2 daily naps to get out on the boat!  She did enjoy the water though, and always just wanted to walk right on in!!  He he, notice the picture of her cute little bum cheeks on Lee's foot in the water?!  He was too lazy to get a swim diaper, so he just let her play in the water bare!! Gotta love it!

Lee and I both skiied hard this Summer, usually 3 times a day, or as many times as our sore muscles could handle!  The lake was absolutely gorgeous and warm this year, it was amazing!  We spent many hours in the boat and on the lake, hopefully we didn't wear out my parents too much, but we sure loved it!  It was also fun to just relax a bit, hot tub, waterslide at the Wallace's, play Mexican horseshoes, some Rook (even though no one seems to like Lee's "aggressive" Rook style!), some quadding, a little shopping in town, and surprisingly, one of Lee and the kids' favorite activities this year was chopping and hauling firewood!!  There were some fallen trees by the creek that needed taking care of, so Lee chopped them all up (he is, for the record, a very amazing wood chopper! I think he should enter the Lumberjack Tournament or something!), and the kids did hundreds of laps back and forth carrying as much wood to the pile as their little arms could carry.  Mason, especially, loves to work hard and try to impress!  It was a great activity for them.

 We randomly decided to get a family picture taken on Sunday, just since we didn't have a very recent one with Scarlett, and it actually turned out pretty good, I think!  Thanks to my Dad for even making Scarlett look happy!! And some cute ones of the kids on their own too.  Sometimes I find it hard to believe that I have 4 kids and they are all growing up so fast!

Dakota = Brave?!

Maybe it's just me, but does my daughter not look EXACTLY like the new Disney princess, Brave?!  Lee thinks we should send in her picture to Disney and see if they want to use her for something... maybe get a free trip?!  Not counting on it, but I do think it's cool that she looks so much like her!

Scarlett is 1!

This week my last little baby turned 1! I can't believe I'm done having a baby that is "zero", according to the kids!  Such a big milestone, hooray!!  I am excited to at least have one child that has a birthday in the Summer so we can have fun "outside" parties!  So we kind of went all out and rented a bouncy castle for the party this year!  Obviously more for the other kids to have a fun play day this Summer, but actually Scarlett did enjoy it as well!  We had a bunch of neighbor kids over earlier in the day to play on it, and then all of my family came to celebrate in the evening with dinner and stuff too.  Scarlett was taking a lot of steps walking today - she is so close to just doing it on her own, but unfortunately still seems angry everytime we make her do it!

I made some simple cupcakes and ordered cute little personalized edible toppings to put on them! And of course, I had to get all the usual baby birthday photos with the baby smooshing cupcakes all over their face!  Scarlett started out pretty careful and wasn't sure she wanted to eat it, but thankfully she sure warmed up to the idea and ended up smooshing it right into her eyes! Love it!  So did she, until she realized the icing kind of stung the eyes! Ooops!  

She opened a few presents too, with a lot of help from her siblings of course!  Her favorite gift was by far the baby doll from Grandma & Grandpa!  She kept kissing it's face and looking carefully at it, it was very cute.  Anyway, fun day for us all, and hopefully my baby girl had a good first birthday!  We all love her to pieces!

   

Funny and Cool!

I thought it was pretty funny to see Griffin sleeping with these glasses on his head before I went to bed last night!  Can't be comfortable! And of course surrounded by books and toys on his bed.... can you tell he goes right to sleep at night?! Ya right! Funny kid!

I also thought these pictures were kind of cool! I was trying out a new App on my Iphone called "Instagram" and you can put different filters and things on the photos.  I love how these ones look kind of old fashioned!  They are at the Cranston Splash Park that we went to this week with my Mom and Jocelyn and her girls!  The kids had a great time - it was a really hot day!  I put Scarlett's swimsuit on her for the first time, and thought she looked pretty cute - she absolutely loved walking around the splash park touching and walking through water.  So fun!  It's been a beautiful hot week and the kids have sure enjoyed playing outside.

 I also failed to mention last week that Lee and I celebrated our 11th year anniversary! (July 6).  That sounds so long, it's crazy.  Ash and Jeff were kind enough to babysit for us while we went out for dinner and to a Fireworks show at Heritage Park.  It was a beautiful night, and a great show!  Couldn't think of another way to celebrate my marriage to my wonderful husband!  We were talking about how our life has evolved over the past 11 years and how different our life will be in 11 more years!  Our youngest child will be 12 and Mason will be on a mission!  Life sure flies by - I hope we take the time to enjoy all the little moments now, and all along the way!

Whoa BABY!!

We were trying to get Scarlett to walk on her own last night, and we got her to take like 20 steps all by herself!  A couple times actually.  Wow!  She looks so tiny to walk, it's adorable!  She is still scared to do it, so we kind of have to trick her into it, but hopefully we can get her confidence up and get this baby walking! Normally I wouldn't be so anxious to get a baby to walk, but she drives us crazy because all she wants to do is hold our hand and do laps - so it would be wonderful if she could do laps on her own!!
On a side note, do you see Scarlett's little ponytail in the picture?  Griffin calls it a "candle", and I just think that's the funniest little name for it!

LOVIN' SUMMER!!

This past week has felt awesome, to finally have some nice weather, and a chance to play outside with the kids!  Lee had the long weekend off so we had lots of fun at the beach and hanging out with friends and riding bikes, skateboards, etc outside!  I am missing my little sweet Dakota though - she is at the cabin with my parents and Jocelyn and Jeff - she came along as a playmate for Holli and Alise!  9 days without her though seems quite long and I'm starting to miss her!!  She sounds like she's having a lot of fun though, and she calls me every day!  Big news for Griffin this week too - he learned to ride a two-wheeler!  We borrowed a "Strider" bike off of our friends (that's a bike with no pedals) and wow, was I ever impressed with the results!  Within a few weeks that kid gained amazing balance on that thing, so just yesterday I tried him on a real bike and he could totally do it!  What an easy way to teach your child to ride!  Way faster and way easier on the back than the traditional method!!  Pretty cool invention, I'd say.
Mason's been practicing on a skateboard a lot too, and is getting pretty confident!  Now he wants to buy a new long board like his friend has!  Maybe one day!

Thought I'd post some cute pictures from today that show the kids having some Summer Fun!  Scarlett sure loves the baby swings and I love her face expressions!