Grandma and Grandpa's

Emily, Megan and Tyler were able to spend two weeks in June at my parents' house. My parents were gracious enough to watch them while I took a class to count toward recertifying for my teaching certificate one week and then went to Girls Camp the second week.  I went up to visit on the weekend between the two weeks and here is what we did.

The kids took swimming lessons at the Y for 2 weeks.  They LOVED them.  Megan was even sad on Saturday that they didn't have swimming lessons that day.  Emily is a little fish and "mastered" floating on her back.

Tyler swimming towards his teacher (all you can see is his head)



Emily and Megan (You can't beat a 1 to 1 teacher/student ratio that they had some days.)







Jumping in  (Tyler, Emily, Megan)

 

 

We went down to Greg and Brooke's sno shack where we enjoyed sno cones and soft serve ice cream.

 

 

Checking out the train tracks by the sno shack. 



Megan had to "pose."



I was in charge of a craft at Girls Camp so Kimberly and I tried out a few of the sock bunnies beforehand.



Cousin time on the trampoline



We took the kids' bikes to Grandma and Grandpa's.



The glider swing was a favorite. (Emily and Megan)



Story time with Grandma at the sleepover.



Emily was too busy tucking her sock bunny in to bed.



On Saturday we went up in the mountains to go picnicking, 4-wheeling and fishing.

Heading up the steep, rocky road.



Picnic in the bed of the truck.





Emily, Grandma and Megan



Hiking up to the rocks



We made it



Tyler joined us after his 4-wheel ride.



Olivia, Aubrey, Megan, Emily, me and Tyler



Aubrey, Olivia, Emily, Megan



The view from the rock



Getting ready to go 4-wheeling.  The girls loved it.



There was a tiny little stream that had some good fishing

Tyler and Kimberly









My dad helped the kids "catch" fish.  They would stand by him while he cast his fly pole into the little stream and then they got to hold their fish.

Tyler, Megan, Emily  (Emily kept saying, "This is so disgusting!" even though she has a smile on her face here.)

 

Getting ready to head back down the mountain.  The kids loved being in the mountains--going in the pick-up truck, picnicking, hiking the mountain, fishing, etc.  I'm so glad they had a whole new world of experiences opened up to them.



One of the things we did while I was home is we went through all of the girls' clothes and shoes that they have outgrown.  We've been storing the clothes in my parents' attic "just in case" Derek and Tansy were to have girl/girl twins.  Well, since they're having boy/girl twins, it was time to divide up the clothes.  Kimberly helped me and we had a good little journey down memory lane.  Since there were two of every shirt, pants, dress, etc., we gave Tansy and Derek half of all the clothes.  Then we took the duplicates and split them up to give to my cousin Nicole and my "cousin-in-laws" Taylor and Krisde who all have little girls.

All of the boxes are Derek and Tansy's half of the clothes.  All of the bags are the ones we gave away.  I'm so grateful we can share.



Now THAT's a lot of shoes.  Unfortunately, even though Megan's feet have always been bigger than Emily's, she was never able to pass down her shoes to Emily because Emily's feet would "catch up" into the next size before Megan completely outgrew hers.  So, yes, there two sets of every size of shoe here.



Thank you, Mom and Dad, for watching the kids.  They had such a great time.  (They didn't even really want to talk to us when we called each night.)  I'm also grateful they get to know their cousins and aunts and uncles, since we don't get to see them very often.

This is the Place State Park

One day in June we met my friend and her son at This is the Place State Park.  It was free admission that day, and we like free.

The kids by the Brigham Young and Joseph Smith statue.



The train ride was a hit.



Apparently lots of others like free days too, because there was a LONG line to get free pony rides.  The kids hung out on the fence during part of the wait.



Emily



Megan



Tyler

 

 

 

 

 The splash park felt good on a hot day.

 

 

 We each got a free ice-cream cone too. (Emily, Tyler, Megan)

 

 

 

 Playing at the little kids' village (Tyler, Megan, Emily)



A picnic lunch.



It was fun day.  I love that I have "big" kids now that can do so many things.

Happy 4th Birthday Emily and Megan!

The girls' birthday was June 4.  They were SO excited for it, and the weeks leading up to it seemed to take FOR.EV.ER!

Presents up and out of the way before the big day



The girls took turns opening presents--one would open one and then the other one would.

 

Megan







Emily





Donuts for breakfast

Megan



Emily

 

 

 

 

Each girl wanted a different cake, which was fine, because if they were born on different days, I would have made 2 different cakes.  It turns out it was a bigger pain than I thought.  Emily wanted a cow cake and Megan wanted a bounce house.  (It was really a castle in our cake book, but she thought it looked like the castle bounce house from their preschool party.)  The bounce house cake required three 9" by 9" cakes, so I had to make up 3 cake mixes.

After all the cakes were baked and cooling, we headed to Smith's to get items to decorate the cake.  We went back to the bakery where they hand out free cookies to the kids (on any day of the year.)  One of the girls mentioned it was their birthday.  All of a sudden a baker was on the intercom calling for any available associates to come back and sing to the girls.  They sang to the girls AND gave them each a HUGE cupcake, as well as a 6-pack of patriotic cupcakes to share with us.  (We had no idea they did such things for birthdays, and while I was very grateful, I couldn't help but think of the 3 cakes waiting for us back at home.)







The cow cake turned out really cute.



The bounce house would be considered a "Pinterest Fail," if I had found the idea on Pinterest.  Instead it was just a "Cake Book Fail."  This is what is was supposed to look like.



This is what it turned out like.  (The tallest towers were four levels of cake high, plus they were supposed to have decorated cones on top.  Um, yeah....not happening.)



But Megan was as happy as can be, so yay for little kids not really caring what things look like.  She even put most of the decorations on herself.

 

 The girls chose to eat at McDonald's.



Then we came home for cake.

Emily






Megan

 

 

 

 

 

 Megan and Emily had a great birthday.  Both of them told me, "This is the BEST birthday ever!"

Megan



Emily



A little bit about each girl.

Emily is very observant, and not much gets by her.  She is smart.  She picks up new words easily and tries them out, even if she doesn't exactly know when to use them or how to pronounce them.  (For example she says, "That is fusterating.")  She is quite the little fish when it comes to swimming and has no fear about getting her head under water or trying to float.  She is my sleeper and many days will take a nap while watching TV.  She has been a daddy's girl from the get go and that's still true.

Megan loves to sing, dance and be a princess.  She loves to dress up in her Rapunzel dress and luckily for her, she got new Rapunzel "glass slippers" for her birthday.  Megan loves to rhyme and will make up silly rhymes off the top of her head.  She loves to do puzzles and she loves to draw and color.  She is quite the artist.  Below is a drawing she did with her new markers on her birthday.  Megan is outgoing.

 

 

 

 We sure do love both of these girls.  They have such fun personalities and make our family complete.