Edible Art

Sleepers

This has all happend this week. Pic 1: The girls camping out RIGHT in front of our bedroom door. Pic 2 & 3: Tarl set up Tyce's new big boy bed. He has LOVED it and it's so adorable to see him in his tiny little bed. He does fall out of it but luckily it's a very short drop.

Cookie Dough

The kids and I went up to my parents house for a few days to play. The kids always have a blast hanging out with more family. The kids got a huge kick out of helping grandma make some cookies.

I told the kids about eating cookie dough (although you can clearly see I didn't stop them) so Kalyana and Makayla thought they'd make up a song. Enjoy.

Picnic

The kids and I went to the park to have a little play date. I met up with two old friends from highschool, Rachel and Amber and their kids. It was so great to get to catch up with these girls and our kids had a great time together too. We were a bit early so I got some pictures but sadly forgot after everyone got there.

Lots of Fathers

We had a fun Fathers Day. Tarl got to sleep in VERY late while the kids and I picked up a little and drew him pictures. The girls are getting so good at making cards! Since Tarl works at home it's not terribly often that he gets time to himself so the kids and I went to my folks house for dinner to give him several hours. (Don't worry I left Tarl with a T-bone steak, mashed potatoes and a homemade cheesecake.)

My family all gathered at my parents house where we enjoyed a yummy meal of chicken, baked potatoes, fruit, rolls, corn, peas, and ice cream, cookies or cheesecake for dessert. Also in attendance was my grandpa (my dads dad) and my dads two sisters Duey and Luey.

I love this picture! I haven't seen these guys all together for so long it was so much fun to catch up with everyone.

I was mostly visiting the whole the time (which was so fun) while my kids ran around with their cousin and aunt Heather. I think the biggest hit of the night was when the pulled out the stickers. Tyce had a good time sticking them all over everyone, but generally stuck to my dad and grandpa. Which actually really surprised me because he's generally kind of shy around people he hasn't seen in a while.

These pictures are dear to me. My little Tyce man looks so much like a Duffin through and through. To me, I really see it in the eyebrows, forhead area. If you've ever seen him in person you'll know what I'm talking about. He's got these looks he can give ya that are just killer cute. (He totally looks like Tarl too so it's weird but when you see Tyce with these two guys you can see a solid resemblance!)

I am so grateful for the amazing men in my life. Men who love their families dearly, love the gospel and work hard. I am blessed! Happy Fathers Day!

Heathers Belated Bash & Disneyland Preperation

Now that Heather is back in town we wanted to throw her a belated birthday party. My moms parents also got to come over so it was a nice fun party. Kalyana drew cute little pictures all over the presents and had a good time getting to wrap them all by herself. Heather got some fun stuff and we're so glad she's back in town-we've missed her so badly!


My whole family (my parents, my sisters and families and my family) are planning a huge trip to Disneyland late this year. This will be the first time most of the grandkids have gone (we took Kaly about 3 years ago) and we're so excited to take them!

To gear up for our big trip, Heidi had the great idea to watch the movies that coincide with the rides and snack on some of our favorite Disneyland treats.

We met at her house and had a hotdog bbq while the kids made little cars for our drive in movie 'Cars'. (I helped Tyce make his Lightning McQueen.) My mom got a ton of little treats all set up for our concessions stand and Kalyana got to be the cashier. The kids all got a HUGE kick out of this and ended up playing with this more than wanting to watch the movie. Heidi even got some furniture stands to put their couch up on so we could have stadium seating.

(You can click on the pictures to make them larger.)

Reward 1: Fun Swim

We have one less pull-up wearer in the family. (She's been so ready for so long but I think we were just waiting for the planets to align.) Hooray. I've been housebound all week making sure Makayla was near a toilet at all times and she's been doing amazing. We had a few big bribes prizes she could have if she stayed dry for a week and we cashed in on the first one. Today's big adventure was swimming at the fun swim park. Tarl also promised her a microphone to sing on the xbox with and I promised her a Buzz Lightyear to go along with her Woody doll. We are so proud!


My sisters, Heather and Heidi and Heidi's son Austin and me and all the kids went to the 'fun swim place'. There is a huge pool with tons of kid toys near Heidi's house. We caught a few pictures with Heidi's phone. It was such a fun day! I was so impressed with my kids-such little dolphins they are! Definitely my kids, those little swimmers.

Professional Portraits

Sorry for the double post (if you happen to check my other blog) but I wanted to post our family pictures here for those that didn't already see these.

I saved up all my christmas money and my birthday money and we hired Jessica Kettle to take our pictures. Here is her post about us.

I couldn't be happier. I love these pictures SO much and have them plastered all over my house now. Our huge one is still at the framers and I am dieing to get it back and hang it up.


(Bear with me, I'm redo-ing my title so I'm playing around with a few things.)

Swim Lessons

I forgot to post this last week. June 1-June 11 the kids and I all took swim lessons again. Kalyana and Makayla each got to be in their own classes and Tyce and I took a Mommy and me class. We went every day for 1/2 an hour. The kids couldn't get enough of it and were so eager to play and learn. I had a lot of fun with Tyce but I gotta admit by the end of the two weeks I was so tired of driving out there, getting in the pool for only 30 minutes and then having to truck everyone home and wash all the towels, suits and coveralls.

The girls both were amazing and even got to jump of the diving board a few times. Tyce was even loving it and would have this huge wide open mouth smile the whole time. Which did cause for a bit of a problem when he'd go under water and get a mouth full of it, poor kid, but he'd just smile and hack it all up. Haha.


(So even though summer supposedly started on June 1st it didn't really feel like it to me since my whole day was taken up with these swim lessons right in the middle of it. It'd take me 20 minutes to get the kids ready and our stuff gathered, 15 minuntes to drive there, 30 minutes for swim, 5 minutes to shower/change/or just get ready, 15 minutes to drive home which would put us home at lunch. So I had to rally the troops to change into dry clothes and get ready for lunch. Ahhh I'm glad it's all over.) :)

Crazy up and down weekend

You know when you're totally excited just for the anticipation of something? It's almost as much fun as whatever it is your anticipating? Totally riding that wave last weekend. I had some awesome plans all set for a busy Fri/Sat (see last post). But instead of riding the wave like a pro surfer I crashed hard and broke my board in two.

We had our Relief Society Retreat and I drove a car full of friends (in a caravan with 4 other cars) up to Park City. We stopped in a parking lot to meet up with another and my car started smoking. Ugh. I shut off my car and a sweet friend jumped out of her car and fixed me all up. I took it all in stride, which I was pretty proud of myself for. We left my car there to settle down and think about what it had done while we went up to the cabin to have a fun girls night out (which of course we all got extremely little sleep--read 3 hrs or less).

The next morning I took my car in and found out it wasn't just a $60ish dollar repair to a hose I originally thought, but more than 10x that to replace the entire radiator. Ugh. Tired+Emotional. Ugh again. Totally hate having to pay for car repairs. I left my car in PC and had my dad come pick me up (Tarl was home with the kids and I needed to head to Sandy for lunch).

I had a great time at lunch with so many fun blog friends. I sat next to my friend Rachel (who I went to HS with and how I found out about this fun little community) and Jill and across from Alyssa and Kristina (who threw the bash together. So glad that I was able to make it after all the stress of the morning and the torrential downpour of the afternoon.

I had planned to run over (well not literally) to Kings English for Shannon Hales book release but decided that it would be in my best interest (considering I had no transportation and I most likely would have had to literally run) to skip out and catch a ride back home with my sister. (Still SO sad I didnt get to go, I heard it was a blast and her and her hubby even sang karaoke, plus a handful of friends ended up going and I missed out on hanging out. Boo!)

I finally got home around 5 ate dinner and visited with my sister Heather who has moved back to Utah from Virgina. Around 6 I sat down on the couch to catch up with Tarl and tell him about my super crazy weekend (while my sister was the awesome aunt and entertained the chitlins). I closed my eyes for a few seconds and what do you know but I fell asleep. So exhausted I didnt even wake up until 10am (sadly with a sore throat). Love that husband of mine to let me sleep.

Spent all of today back in PC picking up our car. I tried to make a sour situation slightly easier. Hubby took me to Squatters where we had a yummy lunch and he decided to try Calamari. I couldn't quite stomach the idea of tasting it though, especially since it basically looked exactly like what it was, tiny little squids all coated and fried in batter. On the way home we stopped to watch a movie, probably deserving of it' poor rating but at least I got to laugh today.

What an end to a crazy coupla days, huh?

How was your weekend?

My favorite summer toy so far!

Our neighbors (whom we miss dearly) moved out a few weeks ago and weren't able to fit a few final pieces into their van. I've been on the search for one of these bad boys for a couple of months and when I heard they might not be able to take it with them I jumped at the chance of taking it off their hands. I was so excited I even offered to pay them but she sweetly let me have it for free. YAHOO!

The girls got the first official ride in our new toy a few days ago. Tyce wasn't too keen on wearing his helmet very long (or perhaps it was that he had just woken up from his nap and didnt like me strapping something to his head).

Today he donned it without a problem. In fact he went and got it and asked me to put it on.

The girls now think this is their little hideout. Not so my little friends. I took the kids on a bike ride again today when the rain let up. All three wanted to go so I had to squeeze them in. I didn't even grab my camera (shame on me).

A special place

For FHE tonight I took the kids up to the temple (one of the pictures I took on our last outing) to have a picnic. They were so excited to get to have FHE at the temple. Makayla and Tyce led our songs (LOVE watching little Tyce lead the music, just can't get over how much he's growing up), Kalyana and I gave a lesson about temples and reverence (one sorta morphed into the other) and we all enjoyed a fabulous evening together.

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Later this evening as the kids and I were doing our last minute clean up of the living room before bed I heard the front door open. I turned around to ask Makayla (my most likely culprit) to shut it and there stood my knight in shining armor! He was scheduled to come back late Tuesday night but surprised me by showing up early. Sure do love that sweet dear hubby of mine! You'd never guess how much the kids missed him. They climbed and jumped all over him for 30 minutes or more and only stopped because it was so past their bed time.

Moms pulling out all the stops to keep us happy.

Makayla has had an awful cough yesterday and today and since I'm solo-ing it I knew I couldn't take the kids to church since I'm trying to abide by the nursury rules of no sick kids. That didn't stop the kids from waking up at 6:30 am though. We got a head start on those crafts. Makayla made a chicken little puppet and Kalyana made mommy and daddy puppets, while Tyce tried to eat the glitter glue but only succeeded in eating a googly eye--ok I'm pretty sure he spit it out.

Then since we had the bags out I told the kids to go on a scavenger hunt. They were supposed to find 1 thing in each room. I think Makayla heard something else, her loot is in that yellow truck. Afterwards we played school. We're gearing up to start 'school' (I'll post more about this next week) so I printed off a few of my materials and we made family and animal puppets. Even little Tyce got in on the action and colored paper (I think he learned that at nursery cause he's usually never interested in doing that at home) and then said, "teacher, teacher" and came to show me. This little boys vocabulary has exploded in the last few days!

Sadly I rad out of great ideas by 11am. :)