July 4th

We had a great July 4th!  We loved having Papa home for a day in the middle of the week!  We played the whole day.  We started out the day with our family tradition of collecting trash in our neighborhood.  We do this as a birthday present for America. 

Claire and Lily looking for trash

Ollie checking to see how much trash he had collected

Ollie found a penny...  what kid doesn't love to find a penny???

For lunch we got together with friends at the Hubbard's house.  They have a tradition to have lunch and a parade every year.  We have enjoyed being part of the festivities the last few years.  The kids LOVE the parade and remember it and talk about it all year long.  :)

Waiting in line for the parade to begin

Ollie and Lily played their harmonicas

Claire played her maraca

We finished off the day by getting together with some church friends.  We had dinner and played water games and had fireworks when it got dark.  Our kids especially liked all the water toys!!

Lily loved crawling down the slip and slide

The girls playing together and taking over the slip and slide

Claire is a crazy woman when it comes to water.  She has no fear!  Papa was taking her and sliding her down the slide and she loved it!

Ollie had lots of young boys to play with.  He was totally and completely happy.  The boys would run and do the slip and slide and then jump into this pool and splash like crazy then they would run over to the water slide and do that a few times and then start the whole thing over again.  He was moving so much that I didn't get many pictures of him!

So there you have it.  Our busy and fun July 4th.

Funny Kid Quotes

Kids always say the funniest things.  Sometimes (often really) I forget to record them!  Here's a few from the weekend.

The kids were using some pictures to tell us the story of the 2000 Stripling Warriors.  Ollie was doing the reading and Lily was holding the pictures.  Lily held us a picture of the mother's and started waving it around and said, "She's flying away on a magic carpet."  Ollie also kept calling them violent warriors instead of valiant warriors.  It sure made for an interesting story!

Ollie came in one morning while I was saying my morning prayers.  He came up to me and said, "Mom, I know you are pretending."  I started laughing and said, "I'm not pretending to sleep kneeling down, I'm praying."

New Church Building Groundbreaking

Our stake split a while back and we are the new Waco Stake which means we get a new church in our area.  We are super excited because the new church will be about 5 minutes away (our current church takes about 17 minutes to get there)!  We hope they build it fast.  :)  We went to the groundbreaking ceremony one hot Saturday morning.  The kids were not too interested in the talks but the primary did get to sing, "I am a Child of God".  They also got to turn over a shovel full of dirt which they liked (of course, my kids like dirt).

More Summer Fun

Here's some more pictures of what we have been up to this summer.

One of Claire's summer activities was to make a bubble bottle.  What we did was take some water, purple paint, and dish soap and put it all in a bottle.  When she shook the bottle it made pretty colored bubbles.  We super glued the top on.  She liked it for a few days but then lost interest.

Claire has taken to the light sabers.  She chases us all around the house and hits us with them (sometimes really hard).  Santa will be bringing foam swords to our house this year!  Also, I discovered that if I take a light saber with me into the kitchen and she comes in, I can whip it out and she runs away screaming.  It buys me a few minutes...  :)

One of Lily's summer activities was to do a scribble drawing.  What you do is scribble on a piece of paper and then color in the areas between the scribbles.  Lily enjoyed it but Ollie (pic. below) really enjoyed it and said it was one of his favorite art activities.

One of our field trips was to Cameron Park.  We waited until Saturday when Papa could come with us.  We stopped by Shipley's doughnuts and got doughnut holes on the way (thanks library for the free coupons!).  The kids especially loved the water area.

You're never too old to swing!

A tired baby after the park.   She was soaking wet after playing in the water so no clothes...

Summer Fun

We have been having a lot of fun this summer!  I've been trying to do fun activities with the kids and let me just say keeping up with three kids in very different stages and trying to get some extra chores done has been exhausting!  The lists that we are making every week have been taking us more than a week to get through so now we are just drawing things out of our summer fun bag as we have time (and energy).    Here's the cute kids eating ice cream cones after playing in the sandbox. 

One of our summer activities was to paint with our feet.  We put black butcher paper on our back patio and paper plates with paint on them.  This was a HUGE hit!  The kids all loved this!  It was super messy (and I knew it would be) so we did it one night after dinner when Papa was home to help contain the mess.  We saved the paper and are going to use it as wrapping paper.

Papa adding more blue paint

Very dirty baby!

A small section of the finished product

I tried to get a picture of all three kids' feet...  this was the best one I got.  :)

We've been to the museum in Waco several times this summer.  The kids ALWAYS love it and it's air conditioned.  :)  The first time we went this summer they have a fun day outside with activities from the olden days.  The top picture is the girls grinding spices.  Ollie was especially good at grinding but I didn't get a picture of him.  There was also a photographer from the Waco Newspaper at the special event and Lily and I got our picture taken and it was in the newspaper!  Lily loved seeing her picture in the paper and now has it hanging on her bedroom door.

Ollie pumping water.  I'm so glad we don't have to do it this way anymore!!

Another day at the museum.  Playing in the music room.

Playing in the water/bubbles room.

Claire figured out that she could climb into the center of this seat.  She is the most active kid!  She never stops running, climbing, and playing. 

Waco now has a 7-11.  Hooray for slurpee's for the first time!  Ollie liked his.

Lily said that her's was better than chocolate ice cream.

Claire mostly liked being outside and playing on the sidewalk but she did eat some and enjoyed it.  More summer fun and adventures to follow!