This is what camping with two year olds looks like:

At our ward camp out a couple months ago, I went up with the family but I took Finley home when it was dark.  The rest of the kids stayed and camped with Rob in the tent.  But while we were there, Finley played with her best friend Rosie in the DIRT!!!  Those two got SO dirty, but they had so much fun.

 It was kind of hard for me to watch her just sit in the dirt and throw it all over herself, but I mean, look at that face.  She was in heaven!!!  Nothing a nice warm bath can't fix!

 First, you pick up the dirt with your hands...

 Then you drop the dirt back on the ground. And repeat those two steps over and over again.

 It's really fun.  You should try it sometime!

These kids have beautiful voices. Also they are so brave to go up there and sing primary songs in front of everyone by the campfire. This was completely their idea too.  I think a few more joined them by the time they were singing their last song.  Cute girls!     

Peaches and Puppies

 Back in September, we had the chance to watch my friend's mom's dog.  She's not a puppy, but she was so tiny that we called her a puppy.  Her name was Lilly.  Finley was going through a phase where she didn't love dogs.  She was pretty nervous about the dog being there.  She would say "Go Away" all the time to Lilly.  The good thing was that Lilly was so tiny that Finley knew that she couldn't jump up onto the couches. So for the first day and a half that we had her, Finley just stayed on the couch most of the time.  It was pretty cute.  The kids all LOVED having the dog in our house. 

After the first 2 days, Finley got brave and started to love Lilly.  She loved her a little too much.  Ha ha.  Lilly then learned to hang out by me for protection. 

 Finley would just stare at her.  She loved that dog by the time we had to give her back!

This video is super short but I thought it was really cute.

Rob and I were pretty worried about our peach tree this year.  It had a TON of peaches on it, and we thinned it multiple times.  But as August came, they were still pretty small.  We were worried that we didn't thin it enough.  But by the beginning of September, those peaches were big and beautiful.  Why did we ever doubt?

 The tree was just loaded.  We canned like 20 jars of them and ate a ton, and then we just gave a ton away.  So many peaches.

 We had some of the kids friends over when we picked all the peaches.  It was a little painful watching them drop peaches on the ground, but they all had fun.  This doesn't look like a lot of peaches, but it was so many.  And this wasn't even half of the tree.

This was the size of our bigger peaches.  Almost as big as Riley's head.

We love our peach tree!!

Birthdays- Riley is 5 and Finley is 2

I don't think I ever posted about Riley's birthday (back in July!!) on here.  Riley is such a joy to have around.  She gets so excited about everything. When we do or get something fun, the first thing she wants to do is wait until the kids get home from school to show them.  It is so sweet.  She is the best at giving compliments.  The other day, Emery was wearing plastic purple glasses (just the frames) at breakfast and Zac said something like "those look funny." Right away Riley came to the rescue and said "Emery don't listen to him!  Those look SO good."  What a cute girl.  She loves taking care of Finley. 

On her birthday we just hung out and played in the water outside.  I think we also went to the orthodontist for Sadie's appointment.  The picture above shows the kids at the fountain outside the office.  Riley is sporting her new sunglasses from grandma. 

Enjoying the freezing cold water on a hot day.

I bought Riley's cake this year and it was so yummy! I love that whipped cream frosting. I was feeling guilty about not baking one myself, but I really liked this one.  :)

Here is Riley with her best friend Levi.  He is moving out of our neighborhood in a couple weeks.  That's going to be a little bit sad, but they won't be too far away.  These two have so much fun together.  They can play for hours and I don't think I've ever heard them have an argument! 

Happy 5th birthday to Riley.  We sure love having her in our family!

On September 16th it was Finley's 2nd birthday.  Zac had taught her to say 2 when someone asked her how old she was months before her birthday.  So she was ready on her actual birthday.  Although now that she is 2, when people ask her how old she is, she says 3.  Ha ha.  Oh well. 

These kids all love Finley.  They will pretty much do anything for her...even if they aren't supposed to.  Sometimes I see her sucking on a sucker right before dinner and I ask where she got it and the older kids will answer "well, she asked me and I couldn't say no!".  ha ha.

Finley got some books and a bunny in a purse for her birthday.  She was so happy and has been reading those books constantly ever since.  Since it was a busy day on her actual birthday, we decided to wait a few days until grandma and grandpa were here to make her cake. 

Here she is showing me how old she is.  It's kinda hard to just hold up 2 fingers.

She didn't really know what to do while we were singing to her.  

Then she blew out her candles.  

Finley loves Zac.  I took a picture of him in his suit before church.  She wanted to be right next to him. He is such a good big brother to her.  And just look how handsome he is!

Also, Riley showed me the makeup she put on right before we walked out the door for church on Sunday.  Ha ha.  And yes, we let her go to church like that.  :)

And this is one of Finley's favorite people.  Junie!  She loves when Junie comes over. 

Funtopia

We used our Get Out passes to take the kids to Funtopia.  It's a rock climbing gym for kids.  The walls are all cute and colorful and have different challenges on them.  At the very end we found a hidden wall that was glowing with black lights.  We got to go for an hour.  I really like this place because they only allow a certain number of people in at a time (you have to reserve a spot in advance) so it's never too crowded.  So nice!

The wall that Sadie is climbing is really tricky because all of those gears spin as you are climbing.  Zac is climbing the fun buildings in the middle of the room.  That was Riley's favorite thing.

Owls and tetris.  The blacklight room was behind the tetris wall, so we didn't see it until the end.

Riley mostly stayed on these two things the entire time.  Either the fun wall or the buildings in the middle. 

Sadie made it to the tallest one. 

So did Zac.  I would love to come back to this place with Rob someday.  I think he would love it!

Splash Pad fun

 We went with some friends to a bakery in Lehi and got donuts and went to the splash pad.  I really liked the splash pad because it was big enough for the kids to have fun, but small enough for me to keep my eyes on them.  Also, there was a little playground close by with SHADE!!  It was amazing.  I want to go back, but it takes about 30 minutes to get there...maybe someday. 

Here are the kids with their donut selections.  Emery was mad about something, but managed to sit still for a picture.  Finley just licked the frosting off of hers and then stole Riley's that was left unattended and got some of her frosting too.  ha ha.

 This particular bakery is known for their square donuts.  So I got one of those for myself.  It was pretty tasty.

 Sadie and Zac enjoyed blocking the water and then letting it go.  

 Here is Finley chilling in the shade at the park.

 Emery, Riley, Faxon and Stella.  We love our friends!

 Then on the way home we stopped at Smith's because earlier that day I saw an advertisement saying the Wienermobile was going to be there.  We stopped by and the lady gave me some coupons and gave all the kids a wiener whistle.  

 Here are the kids enjoying another splash pad with our friends Lucy and Maggie.  

 We found the best day to go...there was like nobody there.

 Zac one day decided to be a good big brother and he bought all his sisters an icee at Target.  What a nice brother.

 And here are some random pictures from the time we got to watch Juniper while her parents went out on a birthday date for Crys.  

This cute snuggling didn't last long, but they are so cute!!!

Lagoon and Cowabunga Bay

 I got a good deal on something called the "Get Out Pass" last December or so, and we have been using it a ton.  The main reason we got it was because we could use it to go to Cowabunga Bay and Lagoon once this summer.  If we did that, it would definitely pay for itself.  So we put those two things on our calendar and went.  I didn't take very many pictures at Cowabunga bay because I was swimming and wet the whole time we were there.  It was so crowded.  We actually had to wait in lines to go on the slides this time.  So we went on 2 or 3 of the big slides and then the kids spent the rest of the time in the lazy river and the kiddie area.  Riley didn't want to go down any of the slides which surprised me because last time she kept going on slide after slide.  She would somehow work her way to the front of the line and they would just let her go over and over.  This time she didn't go on any slides.  But she had a blast anyway. 

 I took this picture right as we were leaving.  It really is a fun water park...There were just so many people there.  I also went on that far right red slide in the picture.  I went with Emery.  She went first and waited for me at the bottom.  The slide went so fast!  I was not prepared for how fast it went so at the bottom when it dropped me into the end of the slide, my tankini top flew up.  I could feel something was weird but it took me a minute to realize my entire stomach was showing (fortunately, just my stomach...not my chest...thank goodness!).  I quickly pulled my top down.  I don't know if anyone was looking my direction but if they were, they would have been blinded by my white stomach.  It has never seen the sunlight!  ha ha!  It was a very fun and exhausting day.

The next week, we took the kids to Lagoon.  I was a little bit worried thinking back to our Disneyland trip, but Lagoon was very doable.  The kids loved it.  Riley was a little daredevil and loved all the fast rides.  A favorite was a ladybug drop ride that just takes them up high and drops them down.  She literally ran from ride to ride in the little ride section the entire time we were there.  We had to tear her away to eat lunch.  ha ha.

Emery and Riley on the airplane ride.  Finley almost went on this ride, but she would have had to sit in the front seat all by herself which she didn't like.  We tried it a couple of times, but she would just cry when we got out there, so we would just exit the ride.  Then she would scream because she thought she actually DID want to ride it.  

Here is a blur of Sadie and Zac on the airplane ride too.

I think this was the very first ride they went on...See the pure (blurry) joy on Riley's face.  She was in heaven!

This is the ladybug drop ride that I was talking about before.  They probably rode that ride about 10 times that day.

This was Finley's favorite ride.  She liked it because she could sit right next to Rob.

There is a ride called Cannibal at Lagoon.  Sadie told me she wanted to ride it.  I was terrified but I told her I would ride it one time.  So I told her we better do it at the beginning so I didn't chicken out.  I also looked online the night before we left to make sure it was safe for me to ride on roller coasters after having brain surgery.  Google told me it was...darn.  I was kinda hoping that google would say I couldn't.  Ha ha.  So we went and stood in line for the big Cannibal.  Check out the ride here.  I just watched the video in the link and my heart is racing...ha ha.  Such a scary but fun ride.

I think I took this picture before we went on it.  The scariest thing for me was that there wasn't any shoulder harness.  Just across your legs.  It pretty much hugged your legs so you can't fall out, but still it scared me.  I held on so tight and my leg muscles were so tense that I was sore for a few days after.  But I survived.  When I asked the kids afterward how they liked it, they said it wasn't that scary.  What??!!  I was screaming the whole time.  How did they think it wasn't scary?  They told me they closed their eyes the whole time.  

After that ride I needed a break.  My hands were numb and tingly either from holding on so tight, or I don't know, so I sat the next ride out.  But Sadie and Zac were brave and when on this one.  

They did awesome on this ride.  It looked pretty scary to me.

We took a break for lunch and they spent a little time at the splash pad.

Rob and the kids went on this octopus ride.  They all got wet because it squirts out water.  It was nice though because it was pretty hot that day.

I got to ride on the fun truck ride with Finley.  Note: they didn't ever check our seatbelt to make sure it was done right and they didn't check to make sure the door was closed.  It wasn't.  So it flipped open on one of the turns.  Not a big deal because the ride isn't crazy, so I just held the door closed so it wouldn't whip opened.  But this incident comes up a little later...so keep on reading.

Emery's friend had told her about a ride called wicked that she just HAD to go on.  So when our time at the park was nearing an end, and I could feel my hands again, we left Rob and the two littles and went to find this Wicked ride.  Here is a link to see the ride.

We stood in line for about 20 minutes and right when we got to the front I could tell Emery was starting to freak out.  But she did get on the ride and we pushed her harness down (again...not shoulder harness!!) so she was stuck.  Ok...now back to the previous story where the worker forgot to check our seat belts on the kiddie ride...Zac was having trouble pulling his harness down.  I had already pulled mine down so I couldn't help because I couldn't reach him.  A girl had walked past and checked mine and Emery's harness and I saw the guy on the other side that was supposed to check Sadie and Zac's just walk right by after glancing their way.  I started to freak out because he just left.  I waved my arms and yelled "his isn't down yet!!!" thinking they were going to start the ride and Zac was going to fly out.  I was getting frantic but the guy looked at me and kinda nodded his head.  This didn't reassure me because he still was walking away without helping.  Sadie at this point is trying to pull the thing down and Zac is getting scared.  Apparently the guy was just going to get a single rider to ride in the empty seat in front of us and then he came back and helped.  Oh man...my heart was racing before we even started the ride.  I was so nervous because in the kiddie ride they had forgotten to check our seat belt and the door flew opened, but on this ride, Zac would surely fly out of the coaster if his thing wasn't down.  I'm sure that worker thought I was crazy, but at least Zac survived the ride.  ha ha.  Emery at this point was strapped in and she started crying because she didn't want to do it anymore. I told her it was too late and we are going to do this together.  Then a teenage boy from the row in front of us turned around and told her it would be ok.  She would be fine.  I thought it was so nice of that guy, whoever he was, to take the time to try to put Emery's mind at ease.  And we took off and went on the ride and had a great time.  I was holding (more like squeezing) Emery's arm the whole time to help her through the ride.  That was my last ride of the day.  We went and met up with Rob and headed home after one last stop at the splash pad.

Finley was so tired that she just sat there in the shade.  :)

It was a really fun day.  The kids all had a blast and I think Rob and I had a lot of fun too.  Just seeing my kids having so much fun brings joy to my heart.  

And here is a random video from when Finley and I were waiting for the others to go on a roller coaster.