Friday Night Fun

The girls still put on little "performances" for us all the time, but lately they've gotten pretty elaborate. They need to have refreshments, bathroom passes, drink tickets, you name it, to make it more thrilling I guess. So Friday night we broke out the strawberries and melted some chocolate chips for dipping. It's messy, and it's really not a kid treat, but my new friend in teh ward said something that I thought was cool. She was talking about how we as parents sometimes give our kids the lame stuff and save the best for ourselves. (when we were having a bbq at their house, her husband wanted to give the kids the store bought ice cream so that he didn't have to waste the homemade vanilla ice cream on people who wouldn't really appreciate it-- which I must say, ice cream made with real vanilla beans is INCREDIBLE!!!) She said that her parents never did that to her as a kid and she didn't like doing it to her kids. Nate and I are always so quick to save the best for us for after the kids are in bed. So lately I've been trying to share the cool adult treats with the kids every once in a while (not all the time, and not everything....some stuff they just wouldn't like anyway!). This was one of those times. So we all ate and watched the show.



Noah's funny because he only uses one strawberry and just keeps double and triple dipping it in the chocolate and then half of the chocolate ends up all over his face!

Kelly and Charity have been letting Brad and Luke get in on the action. They let them come up to be volunteers and stuff during the "show". It's nice, and cute to watch them all having fun together.

Another Tooth!

Charity's two front teeth (on top) have been wiggly for a while. I had been trying to talk her into letting me pull the more wiggly one. She's not so fond of letting me pull her teeth, so she just kept working on them. But back at Back To School night, we noticed a chart in her classroom where you get to put your name when you lose a tooth. Well, this just brought out the competition in all of us, and when Charity came home Friday talking about a boy in her class that has a REALLY loose tooth, we decided that we just had to beat him so that she could have her name on the chart first! (it was hurting a lot too) Well, all Friday afternoon, she worked on this tooth. It was really starting to look funny in her mouth, lower than the one next to it and scooted way over leaving a gap where there hadn't been one before. She really looked like a hillbilly in my opinion and that just motivated me more to get it out of there. Well, we finally sat down to pull the tooth. I reached in with a paper towel over it and tried to just pull it out. No luck. I pulled harder. Nothing. It was REALLY attached to her gums! Which was just strange considering how it looked. And pulling on it was really just stretching out her gums I think. So anyway. It took a lot of pep talking, restraining, and one of those little plastic flossers to finally pry the thing out. And actually when I finally got it out, it pretty much sling shotted out and across the room. It took us a minute to find it afterward! But it was out! Much to our surprise it didn't have much root left on it (which I had figured it must since it was hanging on so tightly). It really looked like it had been ready to come out. It was a fun little experience. I know this isn't like her first tooth that we've pulled or anything, but she's the oldest and I don't have a lot of record of all the little things she did when she was younger, so I like to make a big deal about the things she's doing now. Just to be fair! In our family the whole pictures and journals thing is kind of backwards.... the more I have the more I do, so Charity has very few pictures of herself from babyhood, unlike most older children. (Mainly because of digital cameras of course) I'm obviously still not over the guilt, so I'm trying to make up for it :) Anyway. The tooth fairy came and she was happy :) And hopefully today she is telling her teacher that she lost her tooth so that she can be the first one to have her name on the chart :)

Friday's Fabulous Five

1. On Saturday, thanks to Brent, Sarah, and Heidi (yes, it took 3 adults- Steve was there too- to watch our kids. LOL, jk. Charity and Kelly keep bringing up how they had 3 babysitters :) ) Nate and I got to go to the temple and do laundry! I don't know why but I love these opportunities. This is something they are trying out at the Bountiful temple to alleviate some cost. They sent around a sign up sheet in church and we got to go help out. It was such a nice experience. I basically folded the same thing the entire 3 hours I was there. They have to fold them a special way to make more fit on the shelves, so it was different than doing my own laundry here at home, so I just loved it :) Lately when I've had the opportunity to go to the temple I have really felt my Grandma Mottishaw's presence there, and this time was no exception. There was about a half hour where I was kind of alone, and I seriously almost started bawling because I just felt her there so strongly. It was neat. I love her so much. I know that she is busy and I can totally see her just spending a lot of her time at the temple, so it makes sense to me that I would feel her presence there- besides the obvious fact that it's the temple! But anyway. It was a special thing for me.
There was a funny lady there that couldn't get over the fact that I have 5 kids and one on the way. She kept telling everyone that would come in the laundry room, and ask them how old they thought I was.... it was a little embarrassing and I know I was blushing, but flattering nonetheless. She kept saying that she thought I was 19. Then she asked Nate if he married me when I was 10 and another lady told us that when she saw us walk in she thought we were newlyweds and Nate had just gotten off his mission :) Is that not the coolest thing ever :) I was definitely flattered. Whether they were just saying it or not, it was nice to hear :) And I"m taking it all as a compliment :)



2. After the temple Heidi stayed and hung out with us and watched a movie and talked. It's been a while since we did that, I enjoyed it thoroughly.



3. Sunday night, father's blessings! I love this part about the school starting. Our kids love it too. I'm so grateful to have the Priesthood in our home and be able to enjoy the blessings it brings. I love hearing all of the things the Lord has to bless our kids with as well. Noah was adorable, he climbed up in the chair when he knew it was his turn, sat there all by himself with his arms folded and just looked around :) SO CUTE!! I have the greatest family!



4. On Wednesday I was at the school filling out some more of those endless forms! And one of them required the names of all of the girls' siblings. Well, if we had already had our baby, there would not have been room for her! I made a joke to the lady that was helping me with the forms that we almost didn't fit, and she laughed. At first I started to pull myself inside, gearing up for a "too many kids" comment, but was surprised when the woman announced that she knew exactly how that felt, she was a mother of 10! I immediately felt relieved and we had a fun little conversation about having a lot of kids. I've been through many comebacks when it comes to the comments from people about "all of our kids", 'yeah, they are a handful', 'yep, we are crazy', 'not brave, crazy', 'we love them', 'they're good kids, so it's not so bad', you name it, I've tried it. Most of the time I'm just annoyed :) sorry, but I am. (not the nice comments by the way!! I loved how in Alaska more often than not we got smiles and sweet comments about what blessings children were, etc. That was really nice) It's the not so nice comments, the ones where you know the person wasn't trying to be rude, they just didn't think their comment out before saying it. Or they didn't realize they were talking to the most sensitive mom ever :). Anyway, I digress, the fabulous thing here was that she said something really sweet, that I loved. And I hope to be able to use it too someday. She said, after announcing that she loved having 10 kids, "it was the best hobby I ever had!". That just about sums it all up for me too. I love being a mom. No matter how hard it is, or how little thanks you get, I love it. It's crazy at times with mine being so young, but honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way. I love learning new ways to persuade them, and learning new ways to show them my love. They are blessings and they are handfuls, but this is how I always wanted it, and it is starting to become a "hobby" :) if I may say so myself :)


5. Thursday night as I was surfing through channels for something to watch on tv (the insomnia is not so bad now, I just have to let my mind wind down a little more), I came across the BYU channel. I have to admit it's not the first channel I will watch usually, and I have to really be in the right mood for it (or recognize a speaker or something), but last night I caught a glimpse of Brother Christensen (one of my old Institute teachers), and had to go back and listen to it. It turned out to be a really awesome talk about teaching our children and making the Gospel the center of our homes. It was so amazing. It kind of hit me how much I wasn't doing. And all of these ideas came flooding into my mind of what we can do to improve. But it also showed me that we are at least on the right track. It feels good to know that Heavenly Father has given us so many resources, and gives us so much insight through the Spirit that if we just stay close to the Spirit we really can't go wrong. I got really excited hearing it and all pumped to work harder. (I know I did this last week, and I have been doing better this week compared to last week, but apparently Heavenly Father wanted one more pep rally for me) I really enjoyed the motivation. Such a great feeling to know that we can improve.

Dinosaur Museum

It was the last Two-dollar Tuesday, and I had really wanted to take the boys, but the car did not want to let me. Luckily Nate was able to get the car fixed during the day though, and we actually got to go as a family that night. I was happy :) It was pretty packed, I was glad I didn't try to go earlier in the day by myself with only a few hours to spare.... but it was really fun nonetheless. In fact, I was in one of the best moods I think I've been in for a very long time! I just felt happy. Strange. Strange that that is strange. Anyway. We decided to not take our stroller in there, and what a great thing that turned out to be. I guess Nate did end up carrying Noah 99% of the time, and I'm not sure how he felt about that, but it was so much easier to maneuver around the place. Apologies for the crappy pictures. That place is not lit for pictures. But I have to have something to trigger the memories. My kids love the sand and water part, and the digging for dino bones part. That's where we spent most of our time. It was fun to watch Noah get all into it this time. We were glad to have Daddy there with us since last year when we went he was in OK. I just really had a good time.

Brad reminds me that this is where he fell last time we went there.

First Day of School (AKA complete chaos.... not how I planned)

Today was Charity's first day of 2nd grade and Kelly's first day of 1st grade!! We had an interesting day today but I will go into too much detail about that in a minute. The important part is that they had an awesome time. They told me that Kelly got to sit with Charity at lunch and even played a little together at recess (course I guess Kelly cried when Charity's bell rang to go in). Kelly hasn't said a whole lot about the day except that they brought home the lame little coupon books to sell, and she's convinced she can sell 25 of them and get a pretend hamster..... can someone please tell me why they have to make those things seem so exciting to my kids who will probably never sell any of them. It really just makes me out to be the bad guy. I honestly don't know anyone who both has the money for it and would want one. And I hate selling things to my friends and family members. But anyway.....

steve was so nice to take these pictures since I couldn't be there....

they might be strange pictures, but I'm just glad to have some!

I love how they're holding hands!!! I am so glad they have each other at least. Especially since I wasn't there. Sisters.

Charity's favorite thing at her first day was: "'someone who?'..... it's a game."

Kelly's favorite thing at her first day was: "going on a whole bunch of field trips around the school."

I'm still trying to hold back the tears of having them gone. Well, and from my crazy annoying day. Whether you want the details or not.... here's how it went this morning.

We got everyone up at 6:30 took Nate to work, everything fine here. As soon as we got home we (Bradley and I- he was so cute flipping pancakes for me) made breakfast while I did the dishes. I should preface this all with saying that I had my morning SO MAPPED OUT the night before. Like minute by minute because I wanted it to be nice and smooth and comfortable for the girls on their first day. I mean I was PREPARED!!! (I thought) So as soon as we were done with breakfast and everyone had had their pancakes I glanced up at the clock and could NOT believe my eyes!! It had been a whole hour since we started!!! That was only supposed to take a half hour at the most..... okay, so this was where I kind of started to get panicky. It was already 8:15 and I hadn't done the girls hair, showered, or dressed Luke and Noah. (I had a doctor appointment at 10:00 and needed to drop the boys off at my moms right after school, and I REALLY needed a shower, so this was somewhat of a setback also) Okay, so I hurried and threw on some clothes, put on some makeup, did the girls hair (quickly but it still looked good), and then rushed everyone out to the car (grabbed a bag of clothes for luke and noah to change into at my moms). As we were flying out the door the thought occurred to me that we didn't have our morning prayer! I thought "we can do it in the car" and ran out the door. (this is where I went wrong I think. Should have just stopped and said our prayer. That's one thing I like about having kids in school, I'm way good at getting the routine and prayers always fit in and are remembered that way) We got everyone buckled, stuck the key in the ignition, turned it and...... nothing. Turned it again..... nothing. It totally wouldn't start!!!! My immediate reaction was just "WHAT THE CRAP!!! WHY RIGHT NOW!?!!!" And then I just ran inside without much thought and woke up Steve. I didn't want the girls to be late on their first day! As much as it pained me to think about not being there to wave goodbye as they walked in the doors and taking pictures bla bla bla, I'm going to start crying just thinking about it. But Steve so generously drove them AND took pictures for me, the sweetheart! Meanwhile I called my mom because I was needing to get up to South Jordan for my dr. appt. She offered to let me take her car to the doctor. While we waited I started playing with the car, trying to get some thigns to work, and the thing just started rolling backward (it was my fault, not something wrong with the car). It was hard, but I was able to turn enough to stop the car before it was in the middle of the road, but it ended up stopping right in front of the neighbors' driveway. How annoying. Finally my mom showed up, Steve came back, and we all tried jumping the car. Didn't work. It was getting later, I had started drinking my glucose drink for my blood test, and I was already starting to shake from that. The emotions were starting to get heavy. I hate car problems. I decided I needed to just go, but that we needed to figure out a way to get the car out of the neighbors' driveway. We have a huge SUV and live on a hill, so getting the car in a different spot was next to impossible with just us, but my smart little brother went down the street and rounded up all the construction guys that were working there and all five of them came down and helped push the thing up about 10 feet and out of the way. It was awesome. Crazy that it took so many, but it was nice. It was actually really nice because in the process of trying to push it before I had rolled backwards more and my mom had opened the car door so my car door was then lined up perfectly to be ripped off by the neighbors' mailbox if it were to roll back any further. Kinda crazy. So anyway. We loaded the boys' seats into Steve's car and I was off to the doc. I'm sure you've all been there, but as soon as I pulled out the tears just came pouring. And my immediate reaction was just anger! I couldn't believe I had missed out on my girls first day and that they hadn't had their mom there to say goodbye to at the last minute for that extra little bit of comfort. I couldn't believe the car was not working again.... bla bla bla.... pitty party for myself for a few seconds there..... and then SMACK!!! It seriously hit me like really hard that I was having a really bratty attitude. I had to immediate apologize to my Heavenly Father for being such a baby and then all of the things I had been blessed with just poured into my mind. I was so blessed to have Steve there. And he had gotten out of bed in his jammies just for me, no complaints. I was so blessed to have my Mom right there with the cables, and with the car, and with the offer to take the kids (she had totally forgotten that she was babysitting them). The girls were on time, and I even got a few pictures of them. I was right in my own driveway when it happened. REALLY it could have been a LOT worse. It was nice that Heavenly Father didn't let me feel that pitty party for too long. I feel very grateful to have been so blessed with what I was. It was an awful morning. Not one I would ever want to repeat. The hormones don't help and the lack of sleep didn't help, but really it could have been a lot worse. So yeah, taht was my big whiny story of what happened. I did make it to the doctor okay, I was ten minutes late, but the glucose test wasn't messed up or anything, and everything looked good... again another blessing. We had help getting the boys home and the girls home from school as well, and I"m assuming Steve will help us tomorrow too :) LOL guess I should tell him that. But yeah, the car is probably just needing a new battery, so that too is better than what it could be. So all in all, just an interesting experience.

As a side note: what is up with all the papers and different schedules and things that all the different teachers have!!! I am so overwhelmed with all the information from just TWO classes that I have crammed into my head that I'm supposedly supposed to remember. Does anyone have a good system for keeping track of everything in multiple kids' classes?? I could use some advice. I'm seriously doomed when I've got all five of my kids in Elementary at the same time!! All the different rules for homework and folders and homework!! It's nuts! And what's with Kelly having an hour of homework on the first day of school?!!!! it's FIRST GRADE!!!! (it's just coloring and fun stuff, but COME ON!!) K- I'm really done now :) I survived the first day, and now it's on with the school year!

Day of REST

Sunday was awesome. I can't say that I want to miss out on church every week (in fact, I don't think I'd survive long without that recharge), but having a day off from church (thanks to the temple dedication) was actually really nice. We spent the entire day.... resting. Ahhhhhh. It was so nice. I actually slept in until 11:00 (which, in my defense, I didn't get to bed until 5 am so.....) and then took another nap around noon and slept for another couple of hours. It was AWESOME!! I think that may be part of the reason why I am still up at 2:30 tonight..... my sweet husband needs to stop letting me sleep, no matter how enjoyable it is for him :) HA! jk. He loves me. We got to have Heidi over for dinner which was very nice, and then finished off the evening with our traditional Father's Blessings to start of the new school year. It was a great day.

Nate helped the kids make this tent. Charity gave me the official tour.... there were 4 doors, several rooms (sleeping room, sitting room, etc.), it was very intense. They played in it for quite a while..... fun Daddy.



you'll have to excuse the mess and the bad lighting.... it's life, but here's what it looked like on the inside, kind of.




On Saturday Nate took the kids to pick out some fish (I had promised the girls a while ago that we would get some fish and after fulfilling my every desire that afternoon, they earned the privilege) They were just going to get some gold fish, but these were just as good and will last longer, but since Luke went with an "orange fish" in mind, he insisted that he have an orange one. So for the time being, the red fish on the right..... it's orange (if anyone asks). Meet the newest members of the Maynes family.......


That's Swimmy Swimmer Maynes (the blue one, he's the girls') and Water Nathan Maynes (the "orange" one, he's the boys') I love how they gave them middle names :)

We're very prepared for them to die and the kids will tell you (almost first thing when they show them to you) "when they die, we're going to get some gold fish!" For some reason they find this thrilling :) And Kelly asks if they are dead almost every hour. Love the fish :) Hopefully they feel the love.

Primary Splash Party

Charity, Kelly and Brad got to go swimming at their Primary Splash Party on Saturday. Nate is a teacher in the primary so he got to go too, I stayed home with Luke and Noah. They all had so much fun. Nate told me that Kelly just jumped right into the pool, no floaty or anything, thinking it was shallower.... Nate jumped in, clothes and all, and saved her. I'm so glad he was there!! I guess she was right next to Brad and kept tugging on him while she was submerged and he was kind of annoyed with her and was swatting her away (he had no idea obviously, what was going on). Sounds funny. Anyway- looks like they had a good time, glad Nate got some pics.

Me and the boys played in our little pool, and basically just wore Noah out :) He came inside and just crashed on the bean bag.... if only I'd gotten a picture of Nate when he did the exact same thing a little later on in the day :) Good times.

water

We got Noah in!!!



Brad likes to fill his pockets with water




Couldn't get him to smile for a picture, but he was in the pool with all the kids!

maybe the bucket has something to do with the disinterest.....

water fight!

Friday's Fabulous Five

1. Friday I got to spend some good quality time with my girls. We went shopping for some crafting supplies and then came home and made some cute little decorations for their room. They were super hyper, but we had good time together. It's always nice to get some time with just them. When they don't have to help me round up the boys. I'm sure they enjoy the break as well. We all got really excited to pick out somethings for the baby as well. It's fun to have them to get excited with. They keep planning out funny things for her, and asking if they will be able to hold her in the hospital "RIGHT AFTER she's born?" So cute. This is one loved little sister. I love my girls.



2. Sunday at church I was reminded how excited Bradley gets to hold the Sacrament tray and pass it on to the next person. He actually got really ambitious and moved down the pew to pass it to everyone within his reach :). I love that he likes that and looks forward to being able to being a deacon and passing the Sacrament.




3. Flowers. My sweet husband brought me home some beautiful roses on Tuesday. He left them on the bed so I didn't get them until I was getting ready for bed, but what a sweetheart! It's funny how just when I think he can't possibly love me now, he surprises me. Not only were there flowers, but each one had a special little love note with it. What guys goes to such great lengths? and just because too, it wasn't a holiday or anniversary or anything. He's just so intune, he knows when I need that kind of stuff. And I did need it. It's been a really crappy week(ish). It totally reminded me of how I felt when he sent me flowers after our first date. It just really brightened my day. I love Nate. What would I do without him! And he lets me cry.



4. Wednesday night I taught myself how to do the crocheted edges around the baby blanket thing. I've always known how to crochet, but I've never tried this, and it wasn't until the second time around that I thought it was going to look presentable. (I was planning how I was going to just cut the whole thing off) But I am just WAY happy for myself and quite pleased with how it is turning out. I probably sound stupid to all you Molly Homemakers out there, but this was a new one for me!! My grandma would be proud of me, and so am I :).


5. This week it was hard to come up with a fifth thing. I think it is clearly because I am so negative lately and not because there aren't fabulous things happening. But unfortunately, I have had a pretty crappy week. (don't worry, I will turn this into something good, I promise) Life feels really unorganized lately, and I feel really scatterbrained. I feel like it's impossible to get myself up and going every morning, and even harder to get myself to do all of the housework and "fun stuff" for the kids. I think it's even been hard for me to just smile. But through all of this, with all of the crying and hurting and lack of sleep, my kids have been fabulous. They are kids and have their moments, but this week of all weeks, when I have been a slacker, and grumpy, and not the best mom in the world, they have managed to make me feel otherwise. Charity constantly giving me hugs, constantly telling me "did you know you're the best mom in the galaxy!" (possibly trying to convince herself, but meaningful nonetheless) Kelly gives me hugs and wipes my tears, and constantly asks what she can do to help. Bradley keeps coming over for cuddles, rubbing my arm, laying his head on my shoulder, telling me that he loves me. Luke's smiling, happy fun attitude, just bouncing around making us all laugh constantly, and actually telling me that he loves me too, on his own! Noah is an angel, he is so aware of how I feel, and that is hard for me, but at the same time he is right here, wrapping my arm around him, sitting on my lap, and giving me the cute little looks that everything will be okay. And honestly, as much as I hate how my bad attitude can affect my unborn baby, I know that she is here, helping me along as well. I have not stopped feeling her move and that has been so comforting. What would I do without these 6 little blessings in my life. And without their sweet dad who manages to everything bearable. I love my family. I love that we have each other, and no matter where we live, how messy it is, how chaotic it is, I hope they know how much I love them and how much I appreciate their love and their support. I am hoping for a better week this coming week, and I am going to do better at reading my scriptures, praying, getting to bed sooner, and wearing myself out more so that I can sleep, so that I have some better happy things to share :) I want to do that for my family. I want things to be better. The new schedule should be helpful....
I'm sure we all have these times, and I'm sure I'm not the only one with kids that love them. It's just nice to be able to recognize it when everything else feels so out of place. Life is interesting.

petting sharks, fish nibbling on our toes, a picnic in the mountains, a hike to a beautiful waterfall..... what a great way to spend a day

Be advised.... LOTS of pictures ahead.

Our friends Chris and Stephanie took us out to Bonneville Seabase (out by Grantsville). It was such a neat experience. When we first got there we watched the Jacks (in the Tuna family) swim around... they were HUGE!!



Charity and Kelly made friends with the welcoming party/poodle



(this was somewhat nerve racking considering this tank is like 30 or 40 feet deep (can't remember how deep)




But then the guy came out and started feeding everything. He fed the little tiny fish first- that was pretty exciting, they just attack the food and fight over it. Then he fed the Reef Sharks. They have 2 male Reef Sharks and this is one of them. I got to pet them first (nobody else was brave enough!).

But Kelly and Charity braved up quickly and took a turn

Bradley wanted to at first, but then chickened out. Course if you ask me, he was just using his best judgement. Which Bradley is really good at when it comes to new things :)

It took a while to get them to come back up for some reason.

Nate finally got his turn.

The sharks were amazing to look at. They had really rough skin too. Like wet sandpaper. They made a weird snorting noise when they would suck their food into their mouths so it made you kind of jump when you were petting them. What a cool thing though.... I loved it :)

Charity, Kelly and I took a few more turns...

Then we went over to the Jack tank again and watched him feed them! This was AMAZING!!! They looked more like sharks attacking their food, flipping their tailfins all over the place, we totally got splashed a bunch of times while they were eating and they were way out there. It was really cool.

After that we got to take off our shoes and stick our feet in the water with the little fish. They come up and nibble on your feet- it's really tickly, Charity was laughing her head off.

Noah really couldn't get enough of this part. He wanted SO badly to go out in the water. It was kind of scary though because the spot where we were was really shallow, but really slippery. And then only about 5 feet out was the drop off to the huge tank.... I just couldn't imagine what would happen if one of my kids fell in..... I didn't want to have to jump in with the humongous Jacks to get anyone.

here you can see the little fish eating Nate's foot.

Bradley actually slipped and fell at one point and got all wet :) (and that was all! phew!)

Then the kids got to help Chris get all ready for his dive. Carrying all of his gear over to the water. It was fun watching him dive down. I can't wait to learn how to Scuba dive.... Chris is going to teach us someday.

poor Noah was so bugged at us for not letting him swim in the water.

The Seabase was incredible. We all loved it. It's so nice of Chris and Stephanie to think of us when they find cool things like this. We had an awesome time.

Since Nate had the whole day off and it was only 11:00 am when we were done there, we made some crazy last minute plans to drive up the canyon and have a little picnic. We went up to our old spot in Big Cottonwood Canyon at Moss Ledge and played in the little creek there and ate some lunch. The kids have fun making a dam with Nate and Chris.

The kids couldn't get enough of the water and climbing all over the rocks.... it was so fun!! I dont' know how we missed out on this last year.... I think this was one of our first times up there since we moved back from AK. Bradley talked about how much he loved driving on the mountain all the way up there, and Luke kept asking Nate if we were lost :). It was a fun thing for them.

After our picnic we thought it would be fun to hike up to Donut Falls. Chris is from Montana and had never been there before, so we figured we couldn't be right up there by it and not see it. It was a little crazy considering we hadn't planned much for it and weren't completely prepared (I was wearing flip flops), but it's such an easy hike, we figured we could give it a shot.

This was so funny. I don't know if you can see the flowers in Noah's hand, but I turned around and could see him holding on to the two little white wild flowers that Kelly had picked for him and I just had to laugh. I can't believe how much Nate carried him!! He's such a good Daddy.

It was really fun to watch the boys just run up the trail. Bradley was ALL boy on this hike!! He was WAY ahead of us most of the time, we had to keep telling him to wait up. But he was finding all kinds of sticks and stuff, and just totally got into it... It was nice. I love it when he is all boyish. It's not easy too, having two big sisters to watch. He and Luke had a lot of fun. I loved it.

Here's Donut Fall. I was a little disappointed to see that the place was so different than I remember it. The boulders in front of the cave. I don't know when they did that or if it was just something that happened up there- does anyone know? It was still fun though. I'm glad that Chris got to go hike right up by the waterfall at least (the rest of us stayed back and watched.... not all that flipflop and kid friendly). But the kids had plenty of fun in the river!

Kelly was the queen of picking flowers and leaves. She had made herself a little "duster broom" with some leaves and then shortly after that we noticed she had a rash on her hand. I'm not sure what caused it (just an allergic reaction I'm guessing), but some wipes and cold water cleared it up pretty quickly. I think she kind of mellowed out on the picking things after that :)

Luke had a hard time refraining from throwing rocks in the river, but there were several near misses with people's heads that made us take away all the fun. He still managed to enjoy himself.

Noah could not get enough of the water. I was so worried about his feet, the water was freezing and he just stood there in it forever! But he was playing in his own little waterfall, washing off rocks and just letting the water run through his fingers, it was adorable. He kept sitting down in the water though, and was completely covered in mud by the time he had to get back on Daddy's shoulders for the walk back down.... poor Nate. Now, can anyone tell me why this kid is so anxious to climb in the tank with the huge Jack tunas, and so eager and fearless to play in the river, but will not for the life of me sit in the little kiddie wading pool in the back yard???? Does that make ANY sense??? It's weird to me.

Kelly collected rocks "for Grandpa" and went around asking us all which ones we thought were prettier :) I'm pretty sure she left them in the car and I will probably find all the pretty rocks next time I clean out the car.... but that's Kelly for ya :)

Brad had so much fun in the river. Like I said, he was a total boy on this hike.... what a cutie.

It's nice when you have kids old enough to work a camera :) Charity took this for me- I love being able to get pictures of me and my honey every once and a while. Even if I am chubby.

Poor Charity slipped and fell on a really sharp rock, right on the side of her hip, just as we got up to the waterfall. She had a hard time enjoying herself at first, and didn't really get into the river, but she cheered up later. That fall is really going to leave a mark, it was nasty! She sure was talkative on the way down. She gave us all the run down on the movie Caroline. She wanted Chris and Stephanie to know how scary and creepy it was. But I couldn't believe how fast her little mouth can move :) She's got a good memory.

This was supposed to be a picture of Lukey's sixpack. He pulls up his shirt when he's bored and sometimes it looks like he has a six pack. It's funny. Instead we got ribs.... he's so skinny! He was a fun little boy on the hike. He's so bouncy. We had to turn getting down the mountain into a competition to get him to hurry up because he was doddling, but the minute you mention that someone might beat him, he's all gungho and takes off to beat them instead. He's pretty competitive these days.... it's fun.

I had to take this picture of Nate climbing up the rocks with Noah on his shoulders.... I was amazed!!! (and he was doing it with Chris prodding him from the rear)

It was a really good day. I loved the sharks, the hike, the picnic. It was nice to be out and about. I think this was a good way to top off our summer break since the girls will be starting school on Monday. In fact we had to hurry home and change to get over to the Back to School night at the school. The girls were SO EXCITED to meet their new teachers. They have been so thrilled to start back up. They both have really nice teachers! I'm really looking forward to this school year and have made a new resolve to do better at getting homework done right away, and to keep better track of their reading minutes because I am pretty sure that Charity got gipped last year thanks to my slackiness..... We're going to do better this year. I am also looking forward to NOT having a kindergartener. We will have the whole day to play before needing to pick up the girls now. I like that. And driving to the school only 2 times a day will be great. But overall, I am not happy that school is starting back up. I am really going to miss my girls.

So anyway. That was our day. I slept so well that night!!! Couldn't be better than that!