The Power of Positive Thinking

I came across this video recently that I wanted to share. Shawn Anchor really says it well the way
positive thinking can bring happiness into our lives.... and its pretty funny too

A special welcome to LUCY JAYNE, our new little neice

We had so much fun visiting my sister JaNae yesterday.  She introduced us to her little baby girl,

Lucy Jayne 

Here's some cute pictures to celebrate her arrival.

We are so happy for JaNae and Wayne and 

can't wait til we get to see Lucy again! 

You would never know this is JaNae's first baby. She is a total natural!

Look at that adorable face!

She has such a cute smile with those huge dimples

She weighed 7 lbs 11 oz. She is soo much fun to hold!

She is one seriously adorable baby! Congratulations JaNae & Wayne!

A look at August with pictures, stories, and video

The month of August was full of funny stories and good 

times at our house. Here's a few of the highlights ...

UPDATED PICTURES...

Since we are just returning to blogging I thought it would be fun to
just include lots of pictures of the kids. They are growing SOO fast! 

 

Mason loves his little balloon (the yellow water balloon pictured above). He calls it his "baby" and he carries it around everywhere! Its pretty cute. Although its a little messy when it breaks.  Since we have gone through all our balloons he now asks me everyday "Can we go to the store and get more babies?"

 Mason hasn't quite realized that girl things are for girls so 

we just let him enjoy all the same things Ellie does.

He likes to play dress up with her too. Pretty cute.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM OUR ONE DAY TRIP TO SALT LAKE...

When we realized that school was starting in a week and we hadn't really done anything for a family vacation we decided to plan some fun stuff in Salt Lake.

Our first stop was Hill Air Force Base - it was awesome! 

And totally free

The kids couldn't hardly contain their excitement at how HUGE these planes were

Our next activity was taking the kids to the movie theater.

This was their second time.  It had been over a year since we had been all together to a movie!

 They absolutely LOVED it!

 

Finally we went to JUNGLE JIM'S in Salt Lake 

It was probably the highlight of the day!

Lots of perfect little kid carnival rides all indoors

(that was a huge plus since it was over 90 degrees outside)

 Poor Mason. He loved the bumper cars at first! He thought it was the greatest and

was laughing and everything but then he had his first big bump. That wasn't fun at all!

KIDS and WATER BOTTLES ...

There is something about having your very own water bottle. For my kids the excitement is 

pretty awesome. We try to keep some water out in the garage for when we need it and Elaina 

and Mason found it all.  This is what I found one morning when the kids were being a little 

too quiet so I decided to check up on them.

Here's a little video of the explanation I got from Ellie when asking her what she was doing...
She starts by saying "If we drink the first one all gone, then the next one, and the next one...."

ENJOYING THE BENEFITS OF THE SUPER SMALL GARDEN WE PLANTED...

We grew a small garden in pots this year and boy was
it exciting for the kids to watch things grow.  I am a true
believer in the benefits of a garden! Oscar watered it almost everyday and
then I have never seen kids so excited to eat carrots before in my entire life!
They must have been under a spell of some sort cause when I tasted one of the
carrots I thought it was absolutely awful. But by that time the kids had already eaten two or three!

Here's what Oscar had to say about the excitement...

ATTENTION ALL MOTHERS ... never put Crayola Washable Paint on your cement fence! This didn't happen in August actually but earlier in the extreme heat of summer!

BAD IDEA!!

I was overly excited perhaps when I saw this product in the store and thought of the fun the kids could have painting all over the fence.  And then I would simply wash it all away when the painting was over. Afterall, it did say WASHABLE so what could go wrong, right?

Well, worse case scenario it could turn out to not work very well on cement fences....

We scrubbed and scrubbed and finally our fence was back to normal. Despite all the hard work it did turn out to be a family bonding experience. I heard several times from the kids "This is hard work mom but we are going to keep working til we get it clean." And we did!

CELEBRATING MIKE'S BIRTHDAY!

It was pretty low key this year which is how he prefers it to be...
Mason was singing the birthday song all week ... literally.
Here is a little bit from him:

 The kids working on Daddy's Happy Birthday Banner.

Ellie is really in her element when she has a crayon and paper in hand!