Visit with some amazing cousins

My sister and her kids came to visit this summer. We had so much fun and I loved every minute of it. I haven't seen my niece and nephew in 14 years and they hadn't met their cousins (my kids) so it was just so much fun.

 Kate loved Rachel! Kate was the one that was upset the most when they left because Kate has a personality of wanting to do something all the time and doesn't sit still in one place very well. To our surprise Rachel is the same way. Rachel always wanted to make sure we were doing something everyday and Kate absolutely loved her for it.

 Brooke is her own person and isn't really to clinging except with a few people and one of those people happen to be my sister. It was amazing because I got a break!! yay

 My sister and her daughter....love them and they are so beautiful!

 Can't have a vacation without smores!

 I took the kids to the indoor trampoline park and had a blast. Once you got over the feet smell it was pretty entertaining.

 Rachel was doing flips like a pro and Kate wanted to follow in her footsteps so bad but just couldn't quite get it.

 Jayson and Natalie spent most of the time in the dodgeball area. There were so many kids but they were having so much fun.

We did other things like the 4th of July, playing in the river, pizza and arcade, shopping oh the shopping, but those pictures are on my phone and I will download them another time. I was so glad I got to spend time with Rachel and Jayson and really get to know them all over again. I think next time we will go down to Texas and visit them and they can show us how to have fun down there.

Summer fun

My goal this summer was to do fun things with the kids. Adult life doesn't really stop just because it is summer and some years have gone by and I think that we didn't do enough. So this year I started with the last day of school. Oh my gosh to hear the girls read the sign and the excitement they had....it was some much fun to overhear!

 Mine and Brooke's stash....

 We had to have popsicles after all that hard playing.

 This is us staring gazing. It was something Natalie wanted to do and we downloaded the apps for our phones so they could find the different constellations.

We also have done some camping and we are going to Silverwood in August. So I would say overall we have pulled off a pretty fun summer!

Random again.....

Just some random photos that make me smile. Natalie is hitting the stage where she doesn't really want me to take her photo. Even when I get their photos taken, there are at least a couple photos of Natalie rolling her eyes. The photographer has even made comments....hahaha! Kate is a little better but slowly moving in that directions too. So thank goodness I still have Brooke.

 We had pudding for a snack and that means it should go every where right? Kate and Nat didn't want to be too close to her even for a photo! Can't blame them.

 Lunch with Lotso!

 She loves her little people. Best toys ever in this little girl's mind!

 Sawyer and Brooke at graduation. The best part of the picture below is that it actually looks like we cage our kids!

 Yep this is happening! This is all she wears when she picks out her outfit. Love it!

 Brooke would throw fits when I would do her hair. Then Kate started playing with her hair and using the toy hair stuff and now I can brush her hair and put it up without too much of a fight. Best thing ever!

Moving rooms

We have moved rooms! This was something that needed to happen for so many reasons.

 Brooke is still not talking as much as she should be so we moved her into the room with Kate in hopes that that would help. Being in a room by herself she played a lot by herself but putting her with Kate has done wonders. Brooke and Kate play together so much more and her talking is starting to improve so I am considering it a success!

 Kate really needed to learn what it is like to be an older sister. Kate has always relied on Natalie to do things for her and Nat would just do things to get them done rather then fight with Kate. Which meant Kate didn't really do a lot of the cleaning of the room and if anything was hard for her she would just whine at Nat until she did it for her. Well now with Brooke in the room with her, Kate has to do the majority of the cleaning and she is really learning to do things for herself. She helps Brooke get to bed and I think she is really enjoying some parts of it....not so much the cleaning part though. hahaha. When we first decided to move Nat into her own room Kate said "but I am not ready to be by myself". So having Brooke with her has seemed to make everyone happy and is really working out for the best.

 Natalie doesn't cry a lot and really tries to keep her emotions in check. So when she came to me crying saying "mom I really need my own room" I figured she really did need it. Nat and Kate had been fighting a lot lately and I know it comes with the age but it just seemed to be more then any of us could handle. The day we switched rooms I hadn't seen Natalie that happy in a while. We didn't have a bed yet for her but she was willing to sleep on an air mattress until she got one. Also (I don't have a picture) for her walls she wanted to decorate it with math and science equations. Oh man......so I found some and they ended up being calculus and geometry type stuff. I told her that she won't understand them and she said "that is ok, I will look them up on the internet to figure them out". Love her! A plus to all of this is that Nat and Kate are getting along so much better. The fighting is dramatically less and they actually want to do things with each other again.

Easter 2014

 I know it has been awhile so it is time to catch up. I will be posting a lot of pictures and not a whole lot of words to go with those pictures. (but we all know everyone is checking out the pictures)

 Easter is one of my worst holidays as far as planning goes. I do absolutely every thing last min. We decorate the eggs that morning and shop for it the night before but it always seems to work out so I will probably continue to do so.

 Just looking at these pictures makes me realize how big my kids are getting. I am so glad they are still willing to do the Easter egg hunt but I have a feeling that I only have a couple of years left. We have also moved onto money in some of the plastic eggs rather then just candy. This in my mind is a milestone that came all to quickly. (sad face)

 After the egg hunt we set up the bubble machine and Brooke was happy for at least an hour. That girl and her bubbles and water!!!