4th of July

We filled our fourth of July with a lot of family, friends, and a whole lot of celebrating. We started the day by going to a Breakfast held in Richard and Marissa ward, which is also my Grandma's ward and many people from the ward Max and I grew up in. (ward=church group or congregation) At the breakfast they had a bike parade and a pancake breakfast. Miles quickly realized that he like William's bike more than the one he brought so he kept them both safe. We started with decorating bikes and then parked them and got in line for our food. 

Waiting in line for food, something must have been funny!

After a pancake breakfast the kids wildly rode around on their bikes

 When the breakfast was over, we decided to go visit green grandma who lives just a couple blocks up the street. Charlie rode his bike with Max while I drove Miles and his bike.

We had a nice visit, and the boys always love playing with the most excellent toys that Uncle Gary has invented. We then went home to get the kids some lunch and get Miles a nap. While Miles was napping, Charlie and I went to the store to pick up a couple things for our BBQ later and so Charlie could pick out the candy he wanted to throw in the parade.
When Miles woke up we made our way to Red Grandma's house to celebrate some more and to participate in the Middle of Millen Drive Parade. We attend this parade every year, and it's a lot of fun, but we (mostly me) were super excited to find out that Charlie's taekwondo class would be participating in the parade. Charlie hasn't decided how he feels about taekwondo yet. His very first class, he was having a blast but then in the last 30 seconds of class, they were playing a running game and he and a girl in his class were running full speed and collided into each other and Charlie's glasses cut his face. He left that class grumpy and has not been excited to go back even though he does enjoy it once he starts class. Anyway, for the parade he kept saying he didn't want to wear his uniform and he didn't want to be in a parade but he DID want to throw candy. But I made him try the parade, and told him that he could stop when we passed Grandma's house if he wanted which was only a block in.

 

Charlie's face looked like this in all the photos...

 But, I seriously love his taekwondo class and his teacher (in the center with sunglasses) is so great with the little ones. So here is their information. I would totally recommend them and you can do month long trials for such a cheap price!

He started passing out candy before the parade started.

Once the parade started, he realized he liked to go up to people individually and hand them a candy. For some people he even put the candy directly into the candy bag. It didn't take long before he was far behind his taekwondo group. He kept going after we passed Grandma's house because he still had more candy and he saw more people he wanted to share it with. 

 
Once his candy was gone, I told him he could run up to find the rest of his group or run back to daddy and Miles to watch the rest of the parade. He decided to watch the rest of the parade and gather his own candy.

 As the parade was ending, Richard and Marissa came to meet up with us and BBQ at my grandma's house. We found out that one of the fire trucks from the parade was parked a couple houses down and they were letting kids climb on and explore it. So we went down the street to check that out.

And there are a bunch of second cousins... Evan, Lexi, Miles, Chloe, and Charlie. 

and Mr. William!

 

Charlie was really into checking out his candy. Althought there seemed to be very few he actually liked. He kept tasting pieces of candy and then spitting them out because they were gross. All except the smarties.

 

We played at my grandma's house for hours, and BBQ'd dinner. Around 8pm we walked over to the high school to pick out a spot to watch the firework show. Max and Richard took Lacey and Charlie to go participate in the sack races, while William and Miles got themselves comfortable. 

 

We read books (thanks for taking these photos Marissa) 

 we colored and ran around, played soccer and waited for it to get dark.

 We only lost the kids briefly a couple times in the huge crowds. We're not bad parents, they just run really fast and think we can see them.

While waiting for the fireworks, they start playing music through the stadium speakers and everyone gets up and dances. Here is Max doing his Gangham style...

Charlie's understanding of dancing involves running laps!

 
But Lacey's dance moves were the best and she would not stop dancing as long as music was playing!

At last the firework show started. All the kids loved it and liked yelling BOOM after each explosion! 

Charlie likes this picture because he says it looks like a person.  So there's that.

 After the firework show, we walked back to my grandma's house and Richard set off a couple fountain fireworks that they brought, then they went home and we went inside grandma's house to get the boys in pajamas and brush their teeth in hopes they would fall asleep on the way home. It didn't work but they did fall asleep quickly once they got to their beds. It was a great and fun filled day, celebrating our country!

Balloon Festival!

I guess I've not been updating my blog recently. We've been staying plenty busy this summer and I just haven't taken many photos. (I have some from the 4th of July but I'll get to that later.) We did make it to the annual Festival of Balloons. This is a tradition in our home town that takes place right by our high school. They have a balloon launch early in the morning (we didn't go to that part.) And in the evening they have carnival rides, booths, snacks, live music, and the balloon night glow. I didn't take any pictures here either until a couple at the very end with our phones.

We met with Richard and Marissa and family for a picnic at first. Marissa provided the wonderful dinner and our kids just ran around like maniacs in the park. We then made our way to walk through the festival. We saw all the carnival rides but it was about $4 for one short ride and Charlie had just been to Oaks park a week before (which is way cheaper!) so we just didn't let him go on any rides. We then went to check out the booths. Right away we saw a booth for a taekwondo class, it was a company I had already been researching for Charlie. It turned out that they were having an amazing special for a month trial. I immediately signed him up since it was exactly what I had been looking for, and cheaper than I was hoping to pay.  (I'll have more on his taekwondo class later too, sometimes he loves it, sometimes he doesn't, but I think it's awesome!) After walking around a bit and running into some familiar faces. we got some kettle corn and sat down to watch them fill up a hot air balloon. 

Charlie LOVED this part. He watched with wide eyes gasping and cheering and making any other excited loud noise he could think of. There were a couple times we thought the balloon was going to roll on top of us. I think I have a video of it but I'm not even sure how to get that on here right now so I'm not going to worry about it.  

It got late and the boys got tired, but we stayed until the sun was setting and we could see the balloons glow.

When it got even later we walked back up to my grandma's house where we parked. We took the boys in to go to the bathroom and then decided to stay and visit a bit even though it was pretty late. Oh well, it's summertime. I guess we can just have late nights.!

Family Night

After dinnertime we realized we needed to get out of the house and move around so that led us to our favorite park for some playtime, a hike, and rock throwing. I just love summer! And I of course took a million pictures!

The boys were off and climbing in no time.

Max wanted to show Charlie how he could climb up without using his feet. I think he also wanted to see if he could actually do it.

This Miles kid has been into accessorizing these days. He's worn sunglasses (and a hat or hood) to the grocery store the last couple of times we went and kept them on the whole time. They didn't last long at the park though.

 After some playground time we set off on our hike.

 I was loving the sunlight as it was setting!

Charlie found a feather, Miles wanted the feather....thus the grump face.

We ended our evening throwing rocks into the creek. 

Charlie actually likes to throw boulders.

 And that was it, a simple night and a perfect memory for all.

Father's Day 2016

I didn't end up with a lot of pictures this Father's Day but we did a lot to celebrate that wonderful husband and Father.

We actually gave Max some gifts this year, we're usually not big on gifts unless it's something practical that we've been wanting to get anyway. So this year the boys and I got Max a man-purse/bag/satchel??? It's a nice leather one that he can use for work and for his responsibilities in church. We also got him a 6th grade geography workbook, and a phone armband for when he goes running. Perfect for him!

The week before hand, I had the boys do some crafts which we also incorporated into our preschool lesson. They made these candy ties for Max and grandpas.

Charlie had been looking forward to making these for weeks and kept the secret so well. I also had them fill out Dad surveys because I always think it's so fun to see what they say.

This one is Charlie's he was being a little stinker about writing his name...

And here is Miles' survey.  

 

and then there was this card that Charlie made at church...

So on the morning of Father's day, Charlie and I made some puff pancakes. This seems to be our go-to "special" breakfast these days when we are short on time.  We scarfed down our breakfast and still managed to be a pretty late for church.

Church was great, I spent my time with 3-year olds and Max got pie so that is great.

After church we got lunch and naptime, another win!
 Dinner was something boring but then afterwards, we made lemon butter cookies which were pretty amazing.  We ate cookies and Max read his cards and it was a special evening. 

We are all so lucky to have Max, I've said it many times before but, I'm still constantly impressed with his love for me and his children and his devotion to our family. I am forever grateful that I get to raise my children with him and be his wifey.

And just to keep the husband brag going...(hey, it's my blog, I can do what I want) I started a post not so long ago about how incredible Max was while I was away in Armenia, and then I never posted it...so here is that...

So in all my Armenia posts I seemed to neglect some of the most important details of the going-ons back at my home, and I just can't stop thinking about how wonderful my husband took care of our children and our home and many other responsibilities. I started getting mad at myself for not including these details in the blog posts and decided that I need to add them even if it was months ago. While I was away Max jumped into full-time dad mode, he kept the house clean (much cleaner than I keep it) He organized multiple closets and all of our clothes drawers (mine included) He also moved Charlie into Miles room and transitioned them into sharing a room while he made an office for himself in Charlie's old room. He organized play dates for the boys so he could attempt to get some work done and so the boys could have some entertainment. He did preschool drop off and pick up and even taught one of my piano students. He took the boys to parks and played outside with them. He gave them jobs to help him the yard.

When I came home, after midnight, the house was clean, the clutter was gone and all the dishes were washed, of course I made a huge mess throwing my luggage in the middle of the room...and when I finally got to climb into my own bed after two weeks away, the sheets were clean, and he had put lavender on my pillow to help me sleep. He confessed that he was a little stressed that he didn't get much work done for our business but he had told himself that he was going to be an involved dad and make sure the kids were always put first, and he just can't help but clean!

What a man, right? Anyway, we hope Max knows how incredibly loved he is!