School Days!

Zack loves to be in pictures

Cutie Kate

I love Zack's face

The kids are back to school.  Pure craziness.  Zack and Kate are now at school all day and poor Sage is stuck with her mama.  We are planning some major play dates to keep her from going crazy.  I never realized that its kind of hard to be the youngest and the last one left at home.  Anyway, Zack and Kate...They had great days at school.  They both have great teachers with friends in their classes.  They wore pants the first day and today they both had shorts on because they remembered how hot it is.  Poor kids and poor teachers.  Zack is in fourth grade and Kate's in second.  It appears that fourth grade is a whole new world as far as homework is concerned.  Way more homework.  Way more.  Good thing Zack's smart or I might be hyperventilating.  Even though he's smart, I'm still a little worried.  Kate's a social butterfly and just happy to play with her friends again.  They're happy, so I'm happy.  Bring on another year!

One Last Birthday

This is what Sage looks like hiking - love it!

Our little fairy princess

We celebrated Sage's birthday last week.  The last of the summer birthdays.  Now I can die of exhaustion.  Ok, not really.  Let's face it, I'm not a crazy birthday person.  At all.  I mean, we do fun things, but certainly a lot less than most people.  My poor kids don't have birthday parties.  Because I'm a bad mom.  I'm so not good at parties, and the parties my kids go to seem to get more extravagant every time.  So I try to take them someplace cool instead.  They seem fine with it.  I'm sure when they have kids they'll throw huge birthday parties for them to make up for their party deprivation.  Just add it to the list of things I've done wrong as a mom.  Speaking of things I've done wrong...  Usually my kids ask me to decorate a cake for their birthday (castle, pirate ship, race car, etc).  This year the heavens smiled down on me because none of them wanted that kind of cake.  I don't mind making them cakes like that, but because their birthdays are so close together by the last cake I kind of want to poke my eyes out.  This year Zack wanted cupcakes with fruit, Kate wanted strawberry shortcake, and Sage wanted cupcakes with Oreos on them.  So I made her cupcakes and placed Oreos on them, just like she asked.  Well, she didn't like them.  Apparently I chose to make frosting that she didn't like, so she was unable to enjoy her birthday cupcakes.  Yes, I'm awesome.  So I bought her a fancy cupcake at the store to make up for it.  My poor, poor kids.  My talents are more towards the biking and running side of things.  I missed out on the important mom skills (cooking, sewing, crafting, etc, etc, etc).  Someday my kids will be so excited to run and bike with me, right?  And maybe someday I'll figure out some of those mom skills (probably not, but there's always hope right?).

Anyway, I digress, a lot.  Sage had a fun birthday.  We went camping, again.  We had a campfire, and Sage made up songs for us to sing.  Future songwriter here.  She's awesome.  She got dress-ups for her birthday, along with a stroller for her doll.  She walks around outside dressed like a princess pushing her stroller.  Yesterday she rode her bike dressed like a fairy.  Awesome.

PS - This weekend we are staying home.  We have hit vacation overload and decided all we wanted to do this weekend is stay home.  Home Sweet Home

Crazy July Happenings

I haven't posted for a while.  A long while.  Why?  Because I haven't had two seconds to breathe.  We have been soooo busy this summer.  Fun busy, but busy.  We've literally been running from one thing to the next.  And when I have a couple of days in between events I have to run myself to death trying to keep up on things around the house.  Its been pure craziness.  And pure fun.  Jake said we've never been this busy before.  And its true.  My sister Melanie has been here from Rhode Island, so we've been trying to cram a year's worth of fun into one month.  I think we've been quite successful actually.

I know you're dying to know what we've been up to.  So here goes...We went to Greg's cabin in Wyoming the first week of July.  There was some major four-wheeling done.  My kids now want a four-wheeler, among other things.  Apparently we're made of money.  The next week we were at my dad's for Farmington Festival Days.  Love this tradition.  We ran races, ate lots of food, and went to the parade.  Zack wore a sign that said "it's my birthday, throw me candy", and boy did they throw him candy.  He was in heaven.  Then we headed to a friend's cabin in Idaho for a few days. Best cabin ever.  Best weekend ever.  All of my siblings were actually there (too bad we didn't get a picture to document it).  There were pirate adventures, slip 'n slides, obstacle courses, and of course lots of food.  It was really hot so there was also more sitting around than normal (really I think we're just getting old).  From that party we went on a family camping trip with Tiny to the Uintas.  So great.  So beautiful.  When I die, bury me there.  This weekend we hit the Olympic Park in Park City, did the alpine slide, had a BBQ, celebrated birthdays, and went to the Heber rodeo.  This might sound like a lot, but there are a lot of things I didn't even include.  Thought I'd spare you endless details.  You can thank me later.

I feel bad that I didn't keep up with my posts because now there aren't any details on here.  Oh well.  I'm just happy I survived the last month.  Here are some pics of what we've been up to...

At the parade (the only pic of Zack on his b-day because I'm awesome)

sandcastles at the cabin

Pirate Sage

Camping fun

hiking Bald Mountain (no we didn't get to the top)

pirate adventures with Grandpa

All of the cousins

How many kids can you fit in a bobsled?

Happy Birthday Kate!

rodeo fun!