Stepping it up a level

The kids like to "help" when I dust, and today while we were dusting, I turned and saw Joel up on the table, trying to hang from this light fixture. His new climbing abilities are scary, and he's so quick! The Kosrows warned me about this stage of little boy climbing. What do you do? Put away all your chairs?

HUGE Day for the Little Guy

(I forgot how difficult it is to get a good photo when they're this age and won't hold still!)

Joel actually stayed in the nursery at church for the entire service today!!!

Since he was about 6 months old, he's never lasted an entire service without Mom/Dad or Grandpa/Grandma in there with him. Every week we take him in, and every week he screams so much they come get us after 15-20 minutes (or less). Today, however, the crying only lasted 5-10 minutes they said, and the wonderful nursery volunteers (thanks, Jen and co.!) kept him entertained. Maybe this is the end of Joel hating the nursery? We'll see what happens next week...

Brother and sis drinking their night-time milk on the couch together.

(had to get Kari in on the post, too)

Return to the Park

We went to Meinig Park with the Wilsons this morning and came away injury-free! (Last time we were there, we ended up in the ER with Joel and his hurt leg.) This time was a fun and successful outing for all.

Brave Kari

I finally got a picture of Kari going down the big slide by herself. You can see Grandma treading water in the middle while waiting to "catch" her. The water wings are enough to hold her up when she hits the water, but she likes the assurance of someone there anyway.

More Yard Work

The kids played outside this morning while we worked on getting some overgrown hedges out of our front yard.

running down the driveway-yikes!

juniper that needed to go

Juniper gone!

I have to add I'm missing a key photo for this post. My dad and Blake came over with the '52 Willys Jeep and yanked out the hedges in 5 minutes, thus saving us hours of chopping and digging. I was busy watching on the sidewalk with the kids and didn't think about the camera. Oh well. Thanks for your help, Dad and Peep!

Morning at the Zoo

We took a family outing to the zoo on Saturday morning, and it was great!

in Lorakeet Landing (one decided to perch on Greg's hat, but I had already helped Kari escape the birds, so I didn't get a picture)

waiting for the "birds of prey show" that they now call something like "Wild Hee." The second bird, Sonora, decided not to cooperate, and the show was stalled for quite some time while they pulled out all their tricks to get her down from her perch high above the stage. We left early.

You may remember that on our last trip to the zoo, Joel really wanted to pet the goats, and I didn't let him. This time, since we had a better parent-child ratio (2:2), Joel got to pet a goat. He stood there petting that goat until the goats had to go take a break, and we made him leave.

Another Scorcher

Had some fun "pool sliding" in the backyard last night.

100 + degrees

I took the kids to G&G A's house this morning (crazy that it was already hot at 10:30am) for a much anticipated time of playing in the octopus sprinkler and blue pool.

'Tis "The Garden of Good and Evil" No More

Greg's witty name for my half-weeded garden no longer applies because...

... I finally finished weeding!

4th of July

Our July 4th festivities started in the morning with a walk with Aunt Michelle and girls to the park near G&G Moffat's (the dads were playing "backyard") The kids fed the ducks, and themselves, bits of bread at the pond, and then we walked back to G&G's to cool off in the pool. Kari is now going down both the little and big slides by herself, her head going under and everything. We got Joel to go in for a while, but once again, he prefered to walk along the perimeter. Can you tell he's become rather attached to his blue hat?

After naps at home, we headed out to the Wilson's for a BBQ and to watch fireworks. They live near Sandy High School, where the city of Sandy has their 4th of July celebration each year, so we watched the show from their backyard. That is definitely the way to enjoy fireworks when you have little kids--from the comfort of "home." The kids had a blast playing in the water while we waited for it to get dark (double click on the photos and check out Maggie's diaper--top row, middle. They forgot to bring swim diapers, and as her regular one soaked with water, it gave her quite the interesting figure! The angle here doesn't do it justice. It looked like she had a huge bustle in her swimsuit). Joel, Sam, and Maggie went to sleep at a later-than-usual-but-fairly-decent hour, but the other 7 kids stayed up. We had a great time. We're sort of paying for our fun today, July 5th. Our kids don't sleep in, no matter what time they go to bed. :) It was worth it, though. Thanks, Andy and Jen, for hosting us all!