Gooseberry . . . camping.

Over the weekend we packed up the trailer and traveled to Gooseberry to escape the blazing St. George sun for a time and to hang out with family. The weather up there was perfect and all the wild flowers are out in bloom. The best part about camping for me is just hanging out - you don't need to be anywhere, nobody demanding your time - and laughing your guts out over different stories being told around the campfire. The kids had a blast playing with each other all day long, my boys slept in a tent with their cousin for the very first time and loved it, we burned through 40 gallons of water, 10 gallons of fuel for the wheelers, and loved every minute of being gone. Now I just have to unpack and put things away . . . it's time to start getting ready for school. Thanks everyone for playing with us - we had a good time.

pics

I forget how much fun it is to take pictures of other people's kids until I get an opportunity to do it again. And I had lots of fun doing these two.

Monster Bash

We had a little "monster bash" last week for Weston's fourth birthday and I pretty much let Payton plan it (with my help), carry out the games, and pretty much be in charge of the kids so he could fill a requirement for scouts. And it turned out really cute. As soon as the kids got there, they got to "adopt" a monster (from the previous post). So with monsters in tow they colored a monster picture, played monster dash and the monster stomp. Then they had a monster cupcake, which I have to say turned out super cute and were way easy to put together.

Monster Bash

It's all things monsters around here as we get ready for my little Weston to turn 4. I can't believe that he is that old already. He is suppose to stay my little baby forever - where does the time go? These guys will be adopted by the kids who come to his party and I hope they have a good time. I love birthday parties.

favorites.

Home-grown garden veggies. Nothing in the grocery store compares to it and I am wondering why we never attempted a garden before. But you can bet I will definately be doing another one next year. I have absoluately LOVED being able to go out to the garden with the kids and pick things for dinner or gather ingredients for salsa.

This picture does not do this little cupcake justice. My sister and mom surprised me the other day by bringing me some of these from The Sweet Tooth Fairy Shoppe. So. Freakin'. Good. And I mean so freakin' good. This is one of my new favorite places.

Brushetta Chicken. Cooked on the grill. This is one of my new favorite recipes and I will definately be making it again. It was probably ready in less than 20 minutes, which I am a huge fan of. Because it is so dang hot these days we prepare most of our dinners out on the back porch to keep our house cooler.

Hair flowers. I just learned to make these puppies and I love them. So easy and yet, so cute. I made a whole bunch the other day while traveling to Enterprise for my niece for her birthday. And they look even better in person.

There you have it, a few of my favorite things . . . for now.

Cornsyrup Painting.

I saw this on another blog a while back and always wanted to give it a try so last weekend we finally did and it was . . . awesome! Who knew painting with corn syrup could be so therapeutic? Anyways, it is super simple and I had all of the stuff needed at home, but you take some crayons and draw your picture on glossy art paper, then you paint with the corn syrup, and give it ample time to dry when finished (hours and hours, depending on how much "paint" was applied to the paper). The crayon repels the paint so it pretty much stays inside your lines and it dries shiny which looks cool. The kids (and adults) had so much fun I will probably end up doing this with them on a regular basis.

Our weekend fun.

Saturday was one hot day and we were able to cool off for a time while we went swimming with Aunt Carylee and her family. And the kids had a blast. Westy fell in love with Kendra all over again and would never leave her side. Payton enjoyed being thrown in the air by Uncle Ross and Justin, and Colt just loved being able to jump in from the side (thanks again Carylee for inviting us). After swimming we went and celebrated my dad's birthday where my mom fed us lunch and then my sister made the yummiest german chocolate cake. Just as we were ending the birthday song and my dad was preparing himself to blow out the candles, all the grandkids ran over and blew them out for him. Needless to say, he was surprised (it was kinda funny). Hopefully it will cool down this week or we might just find ourselves at the pool everyday.

Happy Birthday Babe.

I want to wish Kyle a happy happy birthday. We celebrated on Wednesday, just a simple little gathering at home (after him and I went to dinner) with our kids. He is an extremely hard worker, a huge support, a comedian, an outdoorsman, a tender father, and a loving husband. Happy 34th birthday babe, we love you.

More Yellowstone.

This will probably be my last post on Yellowstone. Here are more pictures from Jenny Lake. Seriously, if anyone is listening to me, I urge you to travel up this way at some point in your life. It is absoluately gorgeous and you will not be disappointed. I think I speak for everyone when I say we had a blast on our trip . . . one of my children even cried because he did not want to come home. And Weston asks everyday if we can go back to Yellowstone tomorrow. Now I need to start planning where we will be next summer. Any ideas?

Yellowstone. Part three.

Here is more from Yellowstone. Since I have so many pictures, it is hard for me to decide what to share. The top three pictures are from Jenny Lake. My dad says it is the most beautiful place on earth and I tend to believe him. It is absoluately gorgeous country and when you hike to the top of the canyon you can see for miles. It is totally breathtaking. I loved going on that hike even though Kyle and Russ refused to let me buy bear spray. The ranger warned and re-warned us before we left for that hike that grizzlies had an elk carcass down in the area and they were heavily populating the area. (yeah, to say the least, I was a little freaked out). But I made it and lived to tell about it. Fortunately, we did not see any bear in the area.

The very last picture totally cracked me up. Kyle had grabbed papers from the ranger station for the kids which gave them an opportunity to earn points for the different types of animals they saw while visiting the park and then everyone added their points the day we left to see who had won (we gave away prizes to the winners). Anyways, that is the paper they have in their hand and they would search high and low for the different animals all day long. It just so happened that when they were seeing which animals they still needed to see (pronghorn included) one happened to cross the road directly behind them and they were totally oblivious to it until Russ pointed it out to them.

yellowstone. part two

One evening we signed up for a tour. We got to ride either horseback or in a covered wagon through a valley, see some gorgeous country (and even saw a bear), and ride back into a little spot that once served as a lodging spot for settlers and mountain men as they passed through the area. Once at our destination we had an all-you-can-eat steak dinner and got to listen to a gentleman doing cowboy poetry. The kids had a blast on the horse ride, but Kyle and I quite enjoyed hearing the history about the area.