Saturday, July 28, 2012

The Sweetest 5 Year Old in the WORLD!!

Day 12, Grace turned 5.  Such a special birthday, and Grace was so excited.  She had been asking me every morning, "Mom, am I five today?"...Well she came in this morning, and said "Mom, am I five today?" and I said "YES, Grace, today you are five!"  She peeked out in the kitchen and got so excited that there was "even more than there was yesterday".  Sue and the girls spent the night and had decorated birthday bags for her. 


Since we didn't have any 'Birthday Cake for Breakfast' this year, we opted for whipped cream topped french toast...with a candle...



She opened her presents and played with them...
She played on the slip and slide in the afternoon, and then we got ready for the REAL fun!
I don't have any pictures of the Build A Bear, it was a little crazy!  Jake has some, maybe I'll snag some later.  It was too cute though, Grace and Carson both picked cats, London picked Hello Kitty and Sweden picked a sweet brown bear with pink hearts on her ears.  They stuffed them, added the heart (with wishes), bathed them, dressed them, and named them.  Super cute!  London's name was Paris, Sweden's name was Peaches, Carson's name was Cat Sparrow (he dressed him as Jack Sparrow...clever!), and Grace's name was Kitty Kan.  LOVE! 

After Build A Bear, we had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory.  It was getting LATE, so we were all super tired, but HAD to have the Happy Birthday song with dessert.  How cute is that!?!



Grace is such a sweet girl!  She loves her brothers and is a wonderful example of how to treat others.  She is smart, silly, imaginative and a HUGE helper.  She loves to dance, she sings her sentences in the cutest voice, she is beautiful inside and out.  I love her with all my heart!!!




Holy Crap, Look at Those Teeth!!

This has nothing to do with summer, or 25 days...I just can't believe how cute Carters teeth are!! 


Days 9, 10 and 11

Day 9 - I don't know if I've mentioned it, but this year I got a great deal on the Pass of All Passes (thanks Lisa A)!  It gets us unlimited entrance to Seven Peaks, Trafalga and various sporting games. We have only used them to get into Seven Peaks and it has totally been worth it!  So Monday, we headed for the water park.  Abby, Brynn, Ivy, Lisa, Lisa's sister Amy and her kids were all there.  We had fun at the kiddie pool, wave pool, and a big wide slide. My kids were still a little iffy about the big slides, so we'll save that for another day (or not).  Carter has a very short window in the mornings, so we couldn't stay long.  But this is ok, because we can go back EVERY DAY (if we wanted to) :)

At noon, we headed to Aunt Sue's! London and Sweden were here visiting for the week, and this was our first chance to see them!  We visited for a while and then headed home for some much deserved REST!

Day 10 - I packed up the kids and headed downtown to meet Sue, London and Sweden at City Creek.  We had some lunch, the kids played in the play area (awesome, by the way), did a little shopping (J&M has awesome deals on kids clothes that are 'different' than Old Navy or Children's Place), played in the little fountains, and then headed home. 

Day 11 - We all packed in my car and headed up to the Alpine slide! I was a little nervous to send the kids up the ski lift, but Sue promised she wouldn't let them fall!! Carson rode all by himself! Grace rode with Sue. Sue told me she squealed the whole way down :) They both had a blast and want to do it again!! We stopped off for some treats at Rocky Mountain chocolates before we headed back down the mountain.

Day 8 - Grace's Birthday Celebration at Rachels

Jake's family has a Sunday dinner get together every other Sunday.  This week, we celebrated Grace's birthday!  When we got there, Sadie had written a BDay greeting in chalk at the gate entrance.  I have a picture, but it's on my phone...I'll edit and post it later.  Grace felt so special!

She told me she wanted purple cupcakes with butterflies.  I couldn't find butterfly toppers, so sprinkles will have to do...I think they worked just fine!

Grandma Anderson handmade her the cutest caterpillar card.  I'll have to get a picture of that one also...so cute.  She also got a bunch of gifts and cards from her Aunts, Uncles and Cousins.  She felt like a princess!  More on her birthday in the upcoming week!

6th and 7th Days of Summer

Our neighborhood decided to have a huge garage sale on the 7th.  Perfect time to clear out some junk in the basement and closets.  Our activity for Friday was to pick out toys to sell.  Carson liked the idea of getting money, but hated the idea of parting from ANY of his precious toys (which he NEVER plays with).  Whatever.  He gathered a few things, but kept resisting so I just dropped it.  We'll just 'take care of them' after school starts ;)

Saturday was the sale.  Jake made a bunch of silly signs to get attention (Justin Beiber was the biggest hit), and they totally worked!  We were soooo busy all morning.  A bunch of cheapies, but we sold a bunch of crap and felt like it was a success!  The kids made some cash selling Otter Pops for 25 cents...what a deal!

Not really a 'fun summer activity', but definately a traditional one, so I'm counting it  :)

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Under doing it on the fifth!

Today's activity is to hang around the house, play the compunter, watch tv, listen to the rain (yes, horay for rain!!), and do nothing of any real significance :)...it IS summer, after all! We may gather stuff up for the garage sale, but only if we feel like it.

Overdoing it on the fourth?

The fourth day of summer was a freebie...the Fourth of July! We started out at the annual Anderson Family Water Party. This year, grandma rented a bounce house! She also had a slip n slide, wading pool, water balloons and, of course, a yummy breakfast of biscuits and gravy! The kids had a blast! I took Carter home for a nap before the evening festivities at the Overbys. Grandma Overby turned 80 this year and all she wanted was a big party. This is their first year in the new house and the first opportunity for a party in the yard. It was a perfect day and Sue did not disappoint. The pom poms hanging from the tree and the table centerpieces were perfect. The frozen lemonade was DELISH as was the food. Sue broke out some water guns to cool everyone off. When we came home, there was a sign coming in to our neighborhood that said ther would be fireworks at 9...perfect. Happy Independence Day!!!

On the 3rd Day of Summer...

At first, I thought today was another "cheat" day. I needed to return some things to Old Navy and Gap so we were headed to the mall. At the last minute, we grabbed a towel and headed to the Gateway mall downtown to play in the fountains and then grab some Ben & Jerry's. I think it was a successful outing :) I'm on my iPad and can't figure out how to add pics, so I'll do that later...

Monday, July 2, 2012

2nd Day of Summer

As Carson and I were sitting on the front steps drawing 'green moss' with tree leaves and bark chips on the sidewalk, we decided that it would be fun to paint a big, huge flag in the driveway for the Fourth of July.  We have some chalk...how hard could it be?

First thing in the morning, still in our pajamas, we got started.  It was supposed to be around 100 degrees today, but we get nice morning shade until about noon in the front.  No time to waste!!

We mapped out the stripes with chalk and got to work.  One small stripe took 2 big pieces of chalk...and the red was very pink.  We needed to get some paint...quickly, while the driveway is still shaded!

We recruited some very helpful neighbors (also still in pajamas!).
Carter got tired of the jumparoo and decided to help by scooting around.  Aren't those chubby thighs even more delicious covered in BLUE?!?!

He started to get cranky so I decided to put him down for a nap before we hit Hobby Lobby for paint.  There goes the shade. Oh well.



3 bottles of red, 3 bottles of white, ONE bottle of blue?  Ugh!  One more trip to Hobby Lobby...after the baby's afternoon nap! 









  So we had a little break with snow cones.


Finally, we finished!  Nevermind the tire tracks from the 2nd paint run!

I thought about cutting a sponge in a star shape, but since I couldn't find a sponge, we decided all the helping hands could fill in as stars.  I thought it turned out super cute!


Happy Fourth of July!!  I hope the rest of our Summer Days can be as fun and fulfilling as this one!

25 Days of Summer

Carson's last day of Kindergarten was last Thursday.  He and Grace start their new adventure at Welby Elementary on July 25th.  As I was thinking about this last night, it hit me...today is July 1st.  That gives us 25 days of summer...just like at Christmas we have 25 days of Christmas!  I looked around for summer ideas and came across the cutest idea using tongue depressers, scrapbook paper and mod poge to make little sticks with activities on them (I would post a link, but I just spend 1 1/2 hours looking for the blog and gave up!!).  Knowing myself and my tendancy to over do and not follow through, I decided to forego the sticks and just tell the kids each day what our "25 Days of Summer" activity will be.

Since I thought of this at 11pm and I didn't have much time to plan...and it's Sunday, and we generally just go to church and relax on Sunday, our activity for the day was to meet Sweden, Lisa, London, Shawna, Samantha and Jordan, with Aunt Sue for breakfast.  They just happened to be passing through on their way to Colorado and wanted to meet for breakfast so it worked out perfect!

I realize I cheated a bit on this first day...I usually cheat at least a few times during the countdown, so I don't really care! :)

Tomorrow we'll be painting a flag on our driveway, which I'm actually pretty excited about.

Happy Summer!!!!!