Virginia Beach -- the beginning

Every year we get together with my family for an epic summer vacation. We rotate between two of my favorite places in the entire world: a beach house at Sandbridge Beach, Virginia and my Grandma's house in Blackfoot Idaho. Last year was our trip to Heaven on Earth, so this year was the next best place -- THE BEACH!!!

In all my brilliant planning, I wanted to get to Virginia as early in the day as possible. Between layovers and a 3 hour time difference, most flights put you in pretty late at night. When all was said and done we found a flight that got there at 2:30. Yippee! It also left AZ at 6 am. Boo! What was I thinking?

So at 4am, we hauled out of bed and loaded up the kids. We were all moving pretty slowly so we didn't even get out of here until after 4:30. By the time we got to the airport, parked, caught the bus and got checked in (where our luggage was all tagged with the dreaded neon LATE CHECK-IN tag), passed security, we literally walked straight onto the plane. We may have cut it a little close and all the kids had to pee and were starving, but they did great on the flight anyway.

Ellie took Luke up and down the moving sidewalk as entertainment in the Chicago airport. And yes, we did leash him and he loved it.

We spent the first few days with our old neighbors, the Tylers. They moved to Virginia Beach 2 years ago and we love to see them whenever we can.

Sadie, Sadie, Brody, Ellie, Nate & Ronan

We played games, went to the park, swam, went on walks, caught fireflies (and Dustin caught a frog). . . just generally hung out. One night we got a babysitter and went to dinner on the boardwalk and stayed up late playing games. Jill also gave the girls haircuts and Sadie had a few crashes on the scooter. This led to a scab right over her lip that looked like a Charlie Chaplin mustache all week.

She also tore open her toe a few times and has 4 scabs on her knees. She put it best when she said, "I am not having very good luck with scooters today."

Saturday it was time to say good bye and meet up with most of the crew for lunch. We were going to try out some hot dog joint but my kids informed me they would *not* eat hot dogs. We opted for Kelly's Tavern instead where my kids ALL ordered corn dog bites. Fire probably shot out of my eyes at that moment. Luckily we had our own room, but that was one wild lunch!

Allie, Matt, Nate, Zach, Luke, Ellie & Sadie down in front

After lunch my dad and my brother took the big kids and headed for the beach house, while we ended up with blondes in the back and headed to Costco.Costco was an adventure and everyone kept commenting on how cute my twins were. They were pretty adorable singing and hugging each other. Sadie is so lucky to have her very own built in cousin/best friend.

When all was said and done we spent $460. This is what $460 gets you at Costco:
And this is what you car looks like when you pack it all in:
And with that we were off for a week at the beach!!

Bizzarr-o World

One time I placed fish tacos, loaded with avocados, peppers, tomatoes and spinach in front of Sadie and she yelled, "EWW! There's not even any vegetables on this plate and that's my favorite part." Sadie has *never* liked much more than fruits and veggies.

The kids start school a week from today so I thought I would be a nice mom and make them hot nutritionally unbalanced lunches all week. OK, maybe that thought came into my head after I went to the gym and ran 6 miles, took 4 kids to the library, Target (back to school shopping), Costco, Sprout and Fry's all before 12 noon.

I hurried to make the kids a pot of Macaroni and Cheese. You would have thought I was trying to poison Sadie. She *refuses* to eat it. "I"m allergic to it." "I never even eat it unless Mommy feeds it to me." This could honestly be said about 75% of the food Sadie eats. We get Sadie up to the bar and promise her as soon as she's done she can eat a peach.
A few minutes later, I notice how quiet it is. HOORAY! Sadie has finally stopped her tantrum. Then I hear Ellie open her bedroom door and gasp. "Mooooooom! Sadie's sneaking fruit."

4th of July

Despite the lack of pictures, we had a really fabulous 4th of July. In the morning, we went to the gym, then I spent two hours trying to pack (OK, that part was not fun), Dustin took the kids to see Cars 2 while Luke and I napped and then we met up with some friends to swim and BBQ.

Most of our friends were out of town (and who wouldn't be when it's 118 outside) and another family got hit with the flu bug, so it was just us along with Mark and Michelle and their two girls.With just two families, we still managed to have ribs, hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad, corn on the cob, fruit, chips and sugar cookies. We're pigs because there weren't really any leftovers. We also mooched off the Bryner's who were out of town and used their grill and pool. Thanks Mike and Rickie!!

Luke had the best time of all once he discovered how much fun it was to jump/fall into the pool. This was actually a welcome change from throwing rocks into the pool (which poor Nate would then dive for), but now I'm a little panicked because he officially has no fear of the water.

After we swam for a good 3 hours, everyone came back to our house to change into clothes for fireworks. The thought of keeping Luke contained in a parking lot when it was in the 100's didn't sound fun, so I decided to stay home and put Luke down. Turns out I totally missed out.

On the way to the parking lot they had planned on going to, they drove by our High Councilman's home. I guess they were having a little family party so Dustin asked if they could put their chairs up on his lawn since he's right next to the Church that was doing the fireworks. There were tons of kids, swings, a trampoline, homemade ice cream, root beer floats, cookies. . . I'm glad it ended on a high note for them. Happy Independence Day!!

Summer time and the Livin' is Easy!!

June is almost over and I feel like we're just starting to get to my major summer goal: Don't overschedule. We had so much going on with getting out of school, camp, Father's Day, Dustin's parents coming that we haven't been able to just pick up and go. This week has been much more laid back and we've been loving it.

This week we:
* Spent too much time catching up on laundry & cleaning the house.
* Went to 10 tennis lessons where Sadie made a new friend.
* Shopped at Costco & Sprouts (twice) to refill my house with food.
* Saw a Junie B Jones play.
* Tried not to think about how much we ate out this week.
* Celebrated when Luke sat through an entire summer movie: How to Train Your Dragon.
* Slacked off & bought a cake to bring to a swim party.
* Admitted it was too hot to run outside & spent some time at the gym.
* Stayed up way too late watching movies (finally saw HP 7).
* Hosted Ellie's book club.
* Reunited with my UT Road trip buddies with lunch & temple date.
* Picked Ellie up early from a sleep over because she missed me.
* Enjoyed lots and lots of spontaneous play dates.
* Cooled off swimming for playgroup with 20 other kids.
* Gorged ourselves on lunch with friends.* Cut the boys hair and finally dragged my butt to the salon after 4 months of blah!
* Tried not to rant and rave as we cleaned out the kids' rooms.
* Partied it up at the SAP summer event at Dave and Busters.* Ate a lot of ice cream.
* Crafted over at Karen's.
* Caught up on my blog!!

Sadie Love

Sometime over the course of dinner, both these random quotes popped out of Sadie's mouth:

"I'm so disappointed we aren't going to the mall tonight. I'm really craving an Orange Julius."
and my personal favorite:
"I don't love Justin Bieber. I'm just his biggest fan."
What 4 year old talks like this???

Tennis Camp

Ellie and her girlfriends have been taking tennis for a year now and they're really quite cute. I can't wait until they can play matches against each other. This week we decided to put them all in tennis camp for the week.

Nate decided that maybe he would give tennis a try too. He was so nervous before camp this morning. You could tell because he couldn't eat breakfast and started freaking out when he couldn't get his socks on. Finally I asked him what he was so scared about. "I'm scared a ball is going to hit me in my face and I'll bleed."
Well good news: No balls hit him the face. Bad news: He did bleed. He tripped and skinned his knee. When I asked him how it was he said, "AWESOME!" At first I was a little nervous because he kept wanting to swing the racket like a baseball bat, but he settled in and started getting the ball over the net.

Nate's lesson started a little later than the girls and ended 15 minutes after it. I thought they were doing a lovely job entertaining Luke. And I guess they were. Sadie came over, sopping wet, and told me she wanted to change clothes. I informed her that I had no extra clothes. She then pulled out the backpack she had brought and guess what was in it? Extra clothes. I asked Sadie why she had a backpack full of extra clothes and she said, "You know. In case I wanted to get wet." She is always prepared.

Happy Father's Day

What do you say about the Dad so amazing that he made his own Father's Day Dinner because he knew I was exhausted from Girl's Camp??We are so lucky!!

I took the kids to Target a week ahead of time to pick out gifts. I really believe in letting them pick out their own stuff so he ended up with a water bottle, a pink tie, sticky note pads, new dry erase markers for the white board in his office at Church (the kids like to play on it), peanut butter oreos and gum. They all picked out singing cards except for poor Nate who really wanted a "My Dad Rocks" card, but in the mix up, I misunderstood him and bought another card. He was completely devastated on Saturday when the card was not in the bag. He did a great job making his very own My Dad Rocks card complete with a Superdad picture on the inside.

I did manage to make him a chocolate cake (I was missing just one ingredient from all his favorite desserts) and my kids made me proud by actually eating an entire cake in less than 24 hours. The are mine after all!!!

This is how we Wiggle-Oh

In case you have been living under a rock: I don't camp. So when I was called to be the Ward Camp Director, I think we were all a little skeptical of how everything would come off. I probably had the least faith in myself, but it worked out surpringly well.

The girls are AMAZING! We had no drama, we surpassed every goal we set for ourselves and all came back loving each other and the Gospel a little more.The theme for this year was: Values are always in Fashion at the Chandler Values Mall. We ended up being assigned the value Divine Nature and the Optical Store. I think the girls were kind of bummed about the optical store because it wasn't as exciting as some of the other (shoe store, jewelry store, clothes store. . .) But we made it work. I decided we should be a sunglass store, so we went with Aloha Optical and went tropical.This meant we spent our days lazing around by the palm trees in a hammock. OK, if only! I did have to laugh that poor Sadie fell out of the hammock *multiple* times a day.

It was also fun that my sister was my "assistant camp director." My poor sweet sister always gets dragged into all of my fun plans. I am grateful that she shares her talent so willingly with me. She made me gobs of cute tags to put on all of our scripture study gifts. Like this:and this:and this:And she spent hours on the phone with me trying to come up with clever sayings to go with each scripture. At first I was worried the girls wouldn't appreciate all the time and effort but they totally got it!!

Along with the tags, she also made me a tidy tent award that all the girls were dying to win.There was also lots of hair washing, braiding, games, laughing, hiking, screaming, cheering and general Girl's Camp-ness.

Lows:
* The elbow song. If I never hear that again, I will be a happy girl.

* Too much candy. I am so sick.* Forgetting the foam pad for my cot. My sweet husband texted every Priesthood holder that he knew up there and they all jumped to my rescue. I slept amazingly well and stayed warm. All thanks to the Priesthood! Our Stake Presidency is really the best.

* Dustin lost my pillow on the drive home. After flying off the trailer, it is laying somewhere on the highway. I hope some desert animal gave it a good home.

And that's it. Even being dirty wasn't that bad. Although I did look at my leg at one point and I had dirt up to my knees.

Highs:
* The Wiggle-O
I've brought it home and the kids love doing it too

* Dustin getting to come up for Bishop's NightYou should have seen me staring down the road when I expecting him to appear. He brought the girls ice cream cake which was delicious and we even won the "Name That Bishop" game.

* Spending time with the girls.We have the most amazing YW in our Ward. I know some of them from back when I was Primary President, but I was so grateful for the opportunity to really get to know all their quirks. They made me laugh and I really love them so much more now.

* Big Booty(this is actually my favorite picture of the entire week)

Kaycee taught it to us and had to leave for a family reunion right as we were getting good at it. We ran out of chairs, and I came back from a meeting to find sweet Brother Stewart sitting on top of the ladder.

*Pranking
Christy and I may have had a little rivalry going. I think it all started over her killing me off repeatedly during Mafia and involved some "alloy" lotion. I'm not even sure if we've called a truce yet since I woke up to a "We love the Utes" sign on my garage this morning.

* Solo Time
Isn't it gorgeous? It was so nice to get out of the heat and be in nature for a few days. You could really feel the love and power of our Heavenly Father out there. I hope the girls felt the peace the gospel brings.

* Testimony meeting. Our girls had such sweet & simple, yet powerful testimonies. I am in awe of the things they shared and the spirit they felt. I am so touched that I was able to be there and share in this experience.

After a week up there I totally get why people love going, although I don't know if I could ever go with anyone other than *my* girls!!!

Hooray for Grandma & Papa!!

While I was camp, Dustin's parents sweetly responded to all my begging and pleading and came and watched the kids for a week. Cheryl is Super Woman! If you don't know, Dustin's dad has Parkinson's, so she takes care of him all day (and takes him to the bathroom every few hours each night). Then to take on all 4 of my kids on top of it?? We are so lucky!!

Below are a few of the pictures Ellie took while I was gone.
Sadie was of course wonderful at buttering up her Papa. He is a very good cuddler and we all know that is Sadie's specialty. The kids were also really lucky to have their cousins, Jake and Cody, come out and spend the night for a few days.While I was gone, Luke started pulling the kitchen chairs around so he could climb up to get any food or games/crafts/things put out of his reach for a reason that he wanted. I am so sorry Cheryl. He also turned the garage into his playroom, which resulted in beautiful feet:The kids made sun catchers, painted shirts, paper airplanes, bead crafts, played games (Ellie got a double Yahtzee!), took a few trips to Dairy Queen for ice cream (one opened up a quarter mile from our house -- come visit and we'll take you for blizzards every night!!), had a water fight and made pie.
Cheryl remembered how much my kids love making pies with her and brought them all their own mini-rolling pins and pie tins. Sadie and I were really excellent at eating the pies.I know my kids had a wonderful time and I'm so grateful to Cheryl for giving up a week of her life to come spend time with all of us. It was so nice to be at camp and not worry about my kids because I knew they were being spoiled rotten by Grandma and Papa. I just hope we didn't wear them out so much they won't come back! WE LOVE YOU!!!

Soaring

I am a wimp. I'm pretty sure this is a well known fact, but I am surprisingly unadventerous. I am perfectly content to watch my husband jump off the waterfall or send my sister parasailing right after the rope snapped while I stay warm and dry taking pictures. I am also scared of a ridiculous amount of things -- rubber bands, popping balloons, being cold, being the only one not doing it and letting go.

Once when Dustin and I were newly married we went with a bunch of friends to Seven Peaks Waterpark in Provo (whoop whoop). They had one of those Tarzan ropes that you could swing out to the middle of a pool and then when you let go, you would drop into the middle of the pool. Everyone was doing it, so I climbed up, grabbed on, swung out and then realized that while I may not be afraid of heights, I am afraid of dropping from high places. And so I didn't let go. Do you know what happens when you don't let go of the rope? Eventually you swing BACK into the faux rock wall you jumped off, slam your head and cut up the back side of your body. Most embarrassing moment of my life.

OK, so back to the story. My girlfriend, Karen, has been obsessed with this trapeze place that is about a mile from my house. Earlier in the year, there was a groupon for half off Trapeze lessons. I called her and told her that she and her husband should go do it for her birthday. Fast forward half and hour and somehow she has talked 2 other of our really good friends into doing it and won't I be buying a groupon too?? Well we all know I buckle under peer pressure so I signed up.I may look happy in this picture but I was crying before I had to go up the first time and literally shaking each time I was done with my turn. The place was amazing and they really did a fantastic job -- I am just a scaredy cat. We had to climb up, jump off, grab the the bar, hook our legs, hang upside down, let go and reach back, then grab back on, pull our legs down, swing 3 times and then do a back flip and land. All in about a minute. Believe it or not, they got even me to do it and not hate it.

The hardest part for me was letting go while flying through the air.But I did. I wouldn't say I conquered a fear, but I definitely confronted it. Of course now I'm trying to figure out what horrible thing I should make all of them do for my birthday.

The Terrible Twos

Luke turned 2! And trust me, the terrible twos have hit. Will he survive this year? Will *I* survive this year? We are in full force tantrum mode and he's climbing onto and breaking everything in the house. Despite that, we all still love him to pieces! He still loves trains, balls, saying prayers, talking on the phone and making animal sounds. He still hates eating, sitting in Church and going to time out.

I will have to grab a picture of him pouting because it's hilarious. He will stick his ginormous bottom lip, shrug his shoulders and make this sad puppy dog whimpering noise. SO pathetic.

To celebrate his birthday we. . . went to the lake. Adults only. Am I terrible mother? We did celebrate it with his favorite non-Mac & Cheese dinner (spaghetti) and a cake he didn't eat (anyone surprised??). I knew he wouldn't eat it, so rather than spend hours making something I sent Dustin and Sadie out to pick up a cake. I was hoping they'd picked up something yummy, but Sadie had an idea in her head of what kind of cake she wanted and she wasn't stopping until she found it. She even told me, "I worked really hard on picking out that cake Mom." She loved the present and party hat decorations and I think the pink and purple frosting probably won her over too.

He loved his presents that the kids picked out: a giant Chuggington coloring book, the Little People Airport. My parents enrolled him in the Train of the Month Club. Did you ever think one even existed? So Luke is officially the first person in our house to be in a Month Club. HAPPY BIRTHDAY LUKE!!

Schools out for SUMMER!

Is there any more glorious day of the year than the last day of the school year? No more homework, no waking kids up, no projects. . . I love it with a passion that cannot be described unless you are also a mother of school aged kids and then you know what I mean. Luckily, mother all over the internet understand the need to celebrate this holiday and helped me throw some stuff together the weekend before, which we all know is "last minute" in Maddy-land.

I had to drag the kids out of bed, but they perked up a little when they remembered it was FREE DRESS DAY! Possibly the second most glorious day of the year to all children in uniform schools. Excuse my pride for a moment while I gush over how handsome/gorgeous my children are!! I used to teach 4th grade, how could I ever *have* a 4th grader?? Those moms were so OLD! And Nate is going into 1st grade? He can READ!

I put together a bunch of Minute-to-Win-It party games for Nate's class which they all played adorably well. Nothing could be cuter than kids shaking cotton balls off their noses, cheering while they stack a giant cup tower or screaming over the idea of trying to keep balloons in the air with chopsticks. Luckily I share their enthusiasm for the small things in life, so I was just as entertained. I have loved working with Nate's class this year. There is something so sweet and loving about those Kindergarteners. They try SO hard to be good and do the right thing.

After the party I hopped over to Ellie's class party which was board games and ice cream sundaes. They handed out some awards and Ellie won "Most Likely to Be a Famous Athlete" and "Most Caring." Awww, make a mom proud (and possibly confused at the athlete one). It was such a fun party and the girls were so cute. . . until they handed out the report cards. The report cards that had their teachers for next year listed. Suddenly there was lots of crying. Ellie and her best friends are all in 4 different classes next year. Curse you report cards for ruining my third favorite day of the year (#1 Christmas, #2 the day after Thanksgiving). After that the kids came home and cried (I can't even remember why Nate was crying), but I tried to cheer them up with some Cafe Rio for dinner.

And now our summer plans look like this: