Children's Garden

I have been wanting to see the Children's Garden at Thanksgiving Point and since we had nothing planned yesterday we decided to go. Sadly, the Noah's Ark that everyone has been telling me about wasn't working (it squirts water at the kids and is always a big hit?).
But we did enjoy the rest of the garden. Some of the highlights were The bear cave


The one little fountain that was running.
The coy pond. Both the kids love fish and the viewing windows in the wall were a big favorite of theirs.
And the hedge maze. Kaitlyn had a great time leading us around all the paths. We will definitely have to put a corn maze on our lists of fun family activities this fall.

We had a great lunch - one of the most relaxing lunches at a restaurant we have ever had with the kids. This was due to Tyler being so tired he slept laying on the bench of the booth most of the time, and the fact that we finally found a place that has food our picky Kaitlyn will happily eat.

Back at home we visited/played with neighbors. Then, per Kaitlyn's request to roast marshmallows we built a fire and did hot dogs and smores. It was a fun day for all of us - and as all days like that, we were completed wiped out by the end of it.

I am so NOT Princess material

Tyler doesn't always like Kaitlyn's ideas. This is obviously one of those cases. Sorry Kaitlyn, Tyler will play dress up but he draws the line at a skirt.

A day out with Friends

Yup, this is another post about the Discovery Gateway. Camille and I keep missing the $2 Tuesdays at Thanksgiving Point so we went with Plan B and introduced them to the children's museum. We all had a great time. And no one was bored because the always have new things there. We all thought the little TV news station (above photo) was fun.

We also got to do a little origami workshop. Photo is of Kaitlyn (the back of her head), Tyler, and Camille helping Braedon. Baby Blake is in the stroller in the background. It's good I snapped this pic at the beginning of the activity because the boys soon lost interst and went off to play with some toys in the corner. Kaitlyn however liked it a lot and was very good about following the directions and making the dog, cat, and hat all by herself.
Braedon modeling the origami hat - he was the only one that would wear one, and it came off as soon as the photo was taken.After a quick lunch we let the kids play in the fountain. They were really brave this time and had tons of fun running through and around the fountain and neither one of us moms had to get in there and get wet :)

Just like my sister

The older Tyler gets, the more fun I have watching my two kids together. Kaitlyn takes care of him and he thinks she's the best. He has been copying what Kaitlyn does a lot lately and I think it's so cute (except of course when she shows him something dangerous - as if he needs any help with that!).

High School Tag

I was Tagged by Cheri, and also by Beau. Gee thanks girls! :)

1. Did you date someone from your school? Sure did, but only like the last 2 weeks of senior year. I ended up marrying him though :)
2. What kind of car did you drive? Lincoln Continental
3. Did you pass your driver's license test on the first try? yep
4. Were you a party animal? hahaha no
5. Were you considered a flirt? Nope
6. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir? Choir, and is our school that was actually a cool thing to be in, or at least it wasn't uncool
7. Were you a nerd? hmm...I don't think anyone called me that, but I was in the brainy category
8. Were you on any varsity teams? Drill Team
9. Did you get suspended/expelled? No
10. Can you still sing the fight song? LOL no! I got the first half of it, thanks to the reminder on Beau's blog with the first line but I can't get the end. That's gonna bother me all week then at some point I'll wake up in the middle of the night going "oh yeah! THAT'S how it went!"
11. Who were your favorite teachers? Mr. Draper and Mrs. Sylvester
12. Where did you sit during lunch? We would run grab something then eat in the car. And when we got back to school if we had a few minutes we'd all sit in the hall in front of our lockers.
13. What was your school's full name? South Summit High School
14. School mascot and colors? Wildcats and our colors were kelly green and white.
15. Did you go to Homecoming and who with? Hmm...would you believe I can't remember if I did or not? It's possible, but if so I didn't take a date.
16. If you could go back and do it again, would you? Nope, uh uh, dont' think so! I had a lot of fun, especially JR year but it was also my "akward" time and I wouldn't want to live through it again. Besides, I'm pretty happy with my life right now and I wouldn't change that.
17. What do you remember most about graduation? Sr party I guess - not that I had very much fun. I developed a giant headache and left by 3 AM.
18. Where did you go senior skip day? No idea - probably just stayed home because I was sick of Lagoon by that point.
19. Were you in any clubs? FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America), FHA (Future Homemakers of America) and um...I think there were a couple others. By senior year I was keeping pretty busy.
20. Have you gained some weight since then? sadly yes. Kids do that to you I guess. But I haven't given up hope of getting rid of at least some of it.
21. Who was your prom date? Junior Prom was um....Shane...somebody. Oh that's sad! This mommy brain thing had totally messed up my memory!
22. Are you planning on going to your 10 year reunion? Yeah I went
23. Did you have a job while in high school? Babysitting (for a service), worked for my neighbor's small graphic design business, and at the ticket window at the Park City Ski Resort

I tag Audrey and Christina - but only if you are bored, as I was :)

Mommy Musing: Messes

So, today is Monday and in my life that usually means a full day of laundry, straightening up the house and trying to get myself organized for the week. It also means a lot of time on the computer since I need something to break up the monotony so I have been blog hopping today and have become blog happy - thus the reason for 2 posts in one day. Anyway...

I was surveying my domain this morning and was once again struck with the realization that This is My Life. See that mess? That is what my house constantly looks like - though usually even worse! I am continually cleaning up one mess after another or getting the kids set up with something (food, toys, etc) that will be yeat another mess to clean up when they are done. I'm trying to come to terms with the fact that this is how it is going to be for at least the next 4 years or so. Bleck!

But on the bright side, it does give the kids plenty of opportunity to "help" mommy and clean up after themselves. And I'm glad that for the most part they think that helping is fun. Tyler and I love the little hand vac. Though if I had known it would get this much use I would have sprung for the higher-powered Kone :)
And look at that face. Being able to stay home with those little monkey is well worth all the little frustrations and inconveniences.

Sweet Big Sister

This is all I have to blog about from the weekend since Sam decided to work Sat (mostly helping Czar weld - guess they had fun) and Sunday was a quick trip to PC for Sam and myself for lunch and errands while the kids hung out with my parents. BUT, I thought this little story from Sat night was adorable.Saturday evening Kaitlyn announced that she was going to make Tyler dinner. Fine with me - I didn't want to cook! :) So she pulled out the bread, spread on the jam, cut it into 4 pieces, put it on a plate and told Tyler to eat. And he gobbled it up! (If I knew it were that easy to get him to eat I would have had Katy doing the cooking long ago!) When he was finished, my little girl took his plate, rinsed it in the sink, and proceeded to scrub Ty down. Then they went back to his room to play, Kaitlyn requesting on the way that I get her dance shoes out of the closet for them. She put her tap shoes on Ty, put her ballet shoes on and set up her little tape player with the tape Mom made all the dancers for Christmas of the songs they do in class. They outfitted themselves with crown and fairy wands and proceeded to dance around. Surprisingly, Kaitlyn remembered at least some of the steps to each dance. Halfway through the tape the dances change to Tap, so Katy switched shoes with Tyler and they danced some more. That was about the time they decided Mommy was distracting them or something and they kicked me out of the room so they could be alone. But I did manage to grab this photo of them dancing to "Me and My Teddy Bear" before Ty shut the door in my face.
And a short video of the moment - silly memory card was in the video camera and the internal memory on the camera gets filled up fast.