Lemonade & Sunshine

What better way to kick off summer than to have a pool party the day after school gets out?

You invite all your besties, take over your inlaws big ol' pool,

and spend WAY too much time making it all look cute...cause 1st and 2nd graders and their little siblings totally care about all that stuff, right?:)

I'd wanted to do a lemonade party for awhile, cause that's what I do, and this was the perfect opportunity!

It was SUPER fun to come up with tons of yummy lemon-y treats. Allie helped me find a few new recipes too. Luckily, since these were all recipes I hadn't tried before, everything turned out delicious!

There were boxed for the kids to take home with some treats inside. Most of them ended up soaking wet by the pool though, the kids just needed that treat NOW!:)

Everything was pink and yellow, and the lemon sugar cookies were so very yummy, like a lemon snickerdoodle, I should make those again soon I think.

There were lemon cupcakes (the small ones), and pink lemonade cupcakes, (the big ones). The pink lemonade cupcakes were so incredibly good! The recipe can be found here, and I give it 5 stars! In fact, I'm using the same recipe, minus the pink lemonade, for Lexie's birthday party this weekend.

There were super cute mason jar cups for all the moms

and cute personalized plastic cups for all the kids.

And when you have a lemonade party, you musn't forget the lemonade.

or the pink lemonade.

We had about 21 kids there that day, and all these little fish were in heaven!

I mean, what's better than jumping into the pool with all your buddies?

suprisingly, no one was hurt that day...at least not seriously.:)

JJ had his buddy Lauren there to keep him company.

and Blake somehow found time to meditate among the madness. Apparently Halli, Maddie and him were doing it earlier and I missed it, but saw him doing this alone on top of the wall and thought it was hilarious!

JJ pretending he's a big boy, thank goodness for Lauren!

These four waterbugs are the floatie crew. Doesn't Mr. Cole look so excited to be grouped with all the girls. Well, he's probably used to that by now considering he has three older sisters. Someday Cole and JJ will have lots to talk about.

We had SOO much fun, and I am so incredibly blessed to have such amazing friends and women in my life. They are all such wonderful examples to me in so many ways, and they all have awesome kids. I mean, when can you get 21 kids together and have them all get along?

Summer is off to a good start, and with all the kids birthdays coming up soon, I'm just starting party mode at my house, so this was good practice!

11 months

Yesterday, our sweet little man turned 11 months. I can't say it enough, but where does the time go?

Our "little" JJ is such a handsome guy.

He's got an infectious smile, an adorable laugh, and I happen to think he's pretty smart.

I love it when he gets mad cause I'm busy and I don't pick him up, he starts stomping as he crawls. It's pretty funny actually.

He's got the softest bright blond hair, and he gets comments on it all the time when we're out.

He absolutely loves to cross his feet. When he's sitting, they're almost always crossed, so dang cute!

He's a "hoss" or a "bruiser" or a "brute" depending on who it is you're talking to. He's a big boy, but so soft and huggable.

Oh man, who would't just wanna squeeze and kiss those baby cheeks!!!

We are super duper in love with our JJ, and this is by far my favorite age....so I hope it doesn't go by too fast, and I can soak it all in, cause it'll be over before I know it!

Swim meet ~ May 2011

Our saturdays are super full lately. Waking up early to get to the pool, swimming, sweating in this awful heat, trying to put a 10 month old down for a nap at the pool, swimming, coloring, eating and even  more swimming. 

The heat has been awful this year, either that or carrying JJ just makes it feel like it is.

Peyton is getting good at swimming, and made it all the way across the pool without touching anything. She's still pretty slow, because she basically doggy paddles across the pool, but she still did it. Watching the little kids learn to swim, and dive is so fun! Their dives usually involve more jumping than diving.

Thank heavens for lane lines, that give the little kids something to grab onto when they're tired.

Some of our best friends are on the swim team with us, this sure makes saturdays go by quicker, and makes everyone a little more excited to go. Who wouldn't love to go hang out with their friends all day?

Lexie is always fun to entertain at the meets, but she is actually alot better than she was last year, so I can't really complain! We may start her on swim team a little early and get her in the pool next year, who knows!

Halli's an old pro by now, and knows how everything goes. She's just been busy learning her new strokes this year. Her best event is still the freestyle, but she's catching on to the butterfly.

After the meets, everyone is pretty beat, and ready for a little downtime.

swim team is always a little exhausting, and alot time consuming, but the kids love it, and we've grown to love it too. I'm sure you'll be able to find us at the pool every year cheering on the kids for quite a few years to come!

Lets go back to Mothers Day

We're going back in time a little bit, cause I LOVE my kiddos, and my awesome husband, and they spoiled me a little bit on mothers day.:)

I am so lucky to have the most amazing kids EVER! Not to mention my wonderful hubby, and the great man he is. I couldn't ask for a better father to our kids.

I got to sleep in till 8! That is pure Heaven in my book, and would have made my day even if they didn't do another thing. But they did, and I had a delish breakfast waiting for me when I woke up.

There were cards, and pictures from the girls, and a new panini maker from Kevin. I love me some paninis, so that was pretty great!

Then after church I made my kids all get together and take a picture with me.  This was definitely harder than it should have been, but they eventually pulled it together for a picture, and for once I was actually in there with them!:)

After church we headed over to grandma & grandpas for dinner. We had fun hanging out with cousins,a nd eating some yummy food. I had fun taking a few pictures of my nieces and nephews, I'm pretty bad about bringing my camera to our family get togethers, so I'm glad I remembered it finally!

My nieces Olivia and Adelyn, there are some gorgeous girls in this family!

Little Colt, he is such a cutie patootie!

We also got a picture of all the grandkids (13) with grandma. They are so lucky to have all these cousins so close!

Then we had to get one of all the goofy dads with their mom. Seriously, we couldn't get them to act normal at all, this was the best one, not to bad, but you should see the other pictures!:) 

I had a wonderful mothers day, and am so grateful that I get to be a mom. Even when it's hard and I'm begging for a  break from it all, my heart is incredibly full of love for these beautiful little kids I get to call mine!

Ten on Wednesday

I've been quite the slacker lately with the good ol' blog, so here's a little catch-up on our lives!

1. SCHOOL'S OUT!! Yes, I'm a litte bit excited, mostly because I hate the whole morning routine during school, and am excited to have a break from it. Well, sort of, we still have to be at the pool at 8 am every morning for swim practice.

2. Schools out...and that means one more kid at home all day. You wouldn't think that would change things much, but either it has, or I've just been super grumpy these last few days. I took all four kids to target the other day...holy cow! First of all, it was busy there, because of all the extra kids cause of summer, and second, my kids were slightly hyper making it a kind of exhausting trip to the store.

3. JJ has been teething like crazy! I thought he just had his two top teeth coming in, and come to find out, he had both of them, two more bottom teeth and a molar coming in all at once! He still has another molar and two more top teeth coming in, but he's much happier now than he has been, thats for sure.

4. Summer of Seals officially started this week. I've got myself lined up on a pretty stringent workout schedule, and on mondays, wednesdays and fridays I'm doing two a day workouts. Hey, I have to catch up to all the girls that did it last year and are in great shape still. I've got a long ways to go and I don't want to let my team down. Plus, I REALLY hope I look different by the end of the summer!

5. We had a super fun pool party last friday to celebrate school ending. It was a sunshine & lemonade party, and it was SOOO fun! I'll have more on that soon, but can I just tell you all how lucky I am to have the amazing friends I have? They're awesome women, and they all have the most amazing kids, and we all had a blast playing at the pool!

6. We spent memorial weekend up at the lakehouse, more on that as well, but we had so much fun relaxing and enjoying some time together without any interruptions. Halli got up on the wakeboard with me and Kevin, and she LOVED it! We may have to get a kids wakeboard soon. We cooked yummy food, ate yummy food and enjoyed playing with cousins...couldn't ask for a better weekend than that!

7. I am in the process of planning my sisters baby shower, and a birthday party for Lexie, both within a week of each other. I may need to institutionalized after this...so much to do, and so little time! AHHH! But I am super excited about both of them!

8.  Kevin is busy, busy, busy as usual. He's got a campout this weekend and high adventure is coming up in a couple weeks. Luckily he LOVES those boys and is really excited about going with them. I however and dreading that very long week.

9. Swim team is keeping us busy as usual also. Halli is doing great, and is learning two new strokes this year. She's doing pretty well with them although there's a lot of fine tuning to do still. The freestyle is still her best stroke though, and she's having a ball with it. I have a hard time knowing just how much to interfere with her coaching. There is a fine line there between coaching and pushing too hard, and I tend be the type to sit back more and let the coaches do all the work. Even when I've had something I think she should work on, I am sometime hesitant to say anything because I don't want her to think I only care about her winning. But it's sometimes hard to just watch without wanting to give pointers every step of the way. She's a great swimmer and I love seeing her do well, and she really does love to get those blue ribbons, so hopefully I'm not doing her too big of a disservice by not saying much. Ahh, the joys of parenting!:) 

10. Peyton is really enjoying her first year of swim team, and this past week she swam across the whole pool without touching the wall, the rope or the floor at all! We are so proud of her, and how well she's improved already this year!

It's swim season

First of, I have to say thanks for the kind words on the last post. I was just having an off day, one where I'd had three little ones all day, Kevin had left out of town and I was dreading the thought of doing a swim meet without him the next day.

The great news is, I'm not pregnant this year, the weather was perfect, the baby actually took a little nap at the meet, Lexie is now old enough that she doesn't run away from me...YAY! So, all in all, the meet went much, much better than anticipated. Kevin also made it back for the end of the meet. I had a MUCH better day that I had thought I would, not only that, but Kevin and I got to go out with some friends that night....without kids. Just what I needed!

So, swim team is now in full gear, and we had our first "meet". This was actually just a time trial to see where the kids where at, but it's pretty much a preview of our saturdays for the next couple months.

goggles and swim suits are taking over! I'm so excited that Peyton got to join the team this year. She's still young, and isn't the greates swimmer, but she's trying, and is having so much fun doing it!

Our team is about half mormon...so there are ALOT of little ones running around at the meets. Sometimes it's fun, and other times it's just insane. But it is alot of fun for everyone to be surrounded by friends, can't get much better than that.

Miss Peyton did fairly well. Since this was just time trials they had some older swimmers in the water to help the little kids. Thank goodness for that, that pool can seem really big to these little kids.

Halli is finally in the older age group and gets to learn two new strokes this year. I think she's really loving the butterfly, which seems weird cause I just have no idea how to even do that!

and three years later, that girl still has red rings around her eyes from the goggles. Maybe it'll never stop!:)

Peyton was able to do the freestyle and the backstroke. Her backstroke time wasn't too bad, thanks to the helper that carried her across the pool!:) The little kids are the funniest to watch as they sit up in the water and try to do that backstroke,...love it!

There are a few babies in attendance at these things. This little girl is just a week younger that JJ, and I love her little pacifier...so cute!

Swim team can be such a huge commitment for a family. We've hired a babysitter to stay home with JJ so he can actually take a nap since practice is right when he's usually sleeping. But it's all totally worth it for us, the girls love it, and I have SO much fun watching them.

Peyton had never practiced diving into the pool, so it was funny to watch her just jump right in, feet first to do her freestyle. The funniest thing was that right before her race, she was crying and told one of the volunteers that "Mom won't let me play on her phone." That's what she was worried about right before her first race ever...such a funny girl.

Then right after she finished, when I pulled her out of the water, she instantly asked if she could play on my phone. She's such a funny little thing!

We love our team, and I really, really like the new coach this year and how she's pushing the kids, it's so great for them! I can't wait to see what they accomplish this year!

I really do love them....really

I feel like I owe an apology to all the moms that saw me today at field day for halli, and at swim practice. I'm starting to lose my patience, and I was probably not the best example of what a mother should be. Or maybe I just owe an apology to the little people sleeping upstairs.:)

I chose to be a stay at home mom, and most days I really do love it. I love spending time with my kids, I love being able to be there for drop off and pick up, I don't really love the house cleaning, but there's really no way around that, stay at home mom or not. I love that we can make the day whatever we want to make it.

It just seems that lately, I've been making it not so special for the little ones that are home all day. Because as much as I really do love them, I kinda need a little time away. It's been a few weeks since I've had even a meal without at least two children. I'm up with them first thing in the morning, I'm with at least two children all day, every day. I'm with them all for dinner. I don't run any errands, or go to any practices, or meetings, or events, or anything really, without at least two children, usually three, and usually without help. I do bath time and bed time every night, and half of those are probably by myself. (This is really all for Kevin, or you mom, if ya wanna move on out here!:) Not to mention, the constant crying, fighting, whining, and just destructiveness is all getting a little old.

So today, at swim practice, I wasn't so patient or kind with little ones wanting to sit on my lap while I was sweating from the already humid weather. I wasn't too helpful when they asked for something to eat....at least 3 times after I had already given them their snacks. I wasn't as interested in everything they were telling me about, whatever it was, as I should have been. So, sorry to all the moms who must've looked at me and thought I was a crappy mom. Let's face it, some days I am.

So, to all the moms that must have thought that, just know that I really do love them...really, I do. I love that JJ smiles whenever he sees me, and his little eyes sparkle. I love Lexies laugh, and how she talks really fast and her voice fluxuates so much when she's excited, I love when Peyton just wants to sit down and cuddle up with me, and I wish I had more arms to do it more often, she gets the short end of the stick on that one, and I feel bad about that. I am loving watching Halli learn and grow up into an amazing young girl. She caught 4 roly poly's the other day, and after 3 died overnight, she got on google and learned all she could about caring for that last one that she wanted to keep alive. It died later that day, but it was fun to watch her take the initiative to learn about it.

Basically, I just wish I could take a small break from mommy-hood, so that maybe I would cherish it a little bit more than I have been lately. I know these times will go by too fast, but from where I'm at right now in the thick of it all, it kinda feels like it's all standing still.