Tuesday, July 29, 2008

ammon and the baby doll



ammon is getting to be such a big boy. he was playing with tierra's baby doll the other day and he said, "ooh, her stinks. her has stinky pants!" i was busy in the kitchen and i told him to change her pants then. next thing i know, he has the wipes out and is wiping her bum and saying things like, "oooh, she has big poops, her stinks". it was very funny and i'm glad i grabbed the camera in time. he thought he got such a good reaction out of this that when he got her diaper back on her, he took it back off and said now she has to go potty and went and sat her on the potty. i caught him right before he dropped her in the toilet. ammon has the best imagination and he is always suprising me with funny things he is doing.

bridget's birthday

bridget's birthday was on sunday and we went out for the party. jess and josh had some GREAT food and we all enjoyed dinner. it was fun to watch bridget open her presents, she was pretty good at it. she would stop and grin and clap everytime someone said, "oooh!" or "yeah!" i think she liked the books we gave her. after dinner we had some yummy cupcakes and they kids got to do a pinata. they took turns pulling strings until bridget pulled the lucky one that sent the candy falling down. the kids made quite the haul and ammon's favorites were probably the warhead sours. everyone laughed so hard at the faces he pulled but he didn't want to spit the candy out. i got the second one he ate on a video clip. he thought he was pretty funny. ammon loved the pinata so much that the next morning when he woke up he was still thinking about it. he asked if he could have a race car pinata at his birthday. we had a good time.



pioneer day in mendon

last year, when i was super pregnant with lucy, we went out to the mendon pioneer day celebration. it was a lot of fun and we wanted to do it again this year. nick was sleeping because he worked the night before so i took the kids out with my friend and her two girls. we met our other neighbors there and we had a good time. the kids liked the parade and the fire hose and activites and games later. ammon liked swinging on the swings with his friends while austin's mom britney pushed them all. lucy hung out with her britney and mike friends while i took tierra and ammon to play some games. tierra loved winning all the cool prizes in the games. it was nice to have some help since i had my hands pretty full. we didn't stay too long because it was a hot day and the kids were melting but we sure had fun!


lucy's new bike

lucy got a new bike for her birthday. it is a little grass hopper and she can cruise around all on her own. i think she likes having a bike of her own.

lucy's first birthday present

lucy got her first birthday present from her grandma rust and aunt therese, uncle nelson, and cousin kayla in the mail. it was her first birthday present ever and she had a fun time opening it. she got some cute clothes and some maracas to play. ammon and his friend austin REALLY liked the maracas and lucy was nice to share.


one last slip-n-slide




our last slip-n-slide adventure left the grass a little burnt. i think that may be the last time... we will see how long it takes for the grass to come back. the kids had a great time and lucy even tried a few runs! there are a few video clips of the kids too. we love the slip-n-slide!





lucy in the dryer

i have gotten behind a little bit with everything going on. these are things that have happened in the last week or so. lucy loves to climb on EVERYTHING. she decided the other day that she wanted to climb into the dryer. i was taking laundry out and she started working her way up on the door so i grabbed the camera. she was so proud of herself when she made it in.


Thursday, July 17, 2008

slip-n-slide fun



my neighbors and i decided to get some stuff to do a slip-n-slide on tuesday and so we took a trip to home depot. we found some plastic and used some tent stakes to set it up and had a lot of fun. crystal and i took a couple of runs and the kids had a great time. on wednesday we decided to do it again and another neighbor brought out her super-cool plastic that is 10 feet wide and a lot more durable than what we were using the day before. it was fun because we didn't have to worry so much about the kids taking turns and my sister jessica and i got a few more runs in. we had a good time and i'm super sore today.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

stocking up...


there is a lot going on in our world today and food prices (among other things) seem to be on the rise. i just wanted to share my good buys today and inspire you all to do a little stocking up of your own. i have learned about a great website: http://www.grocerysmarts.com that gives you a list of everything that is on sale at most grocery stores and lets you know if it is a good deal and tells you where to find the coupons to get the best deal possible. i have been using it for a while and rely on it before i go grocery shopping, even if i don't plan to use coupons. i have also found that i can go to walmart and buy everything on my list (from 3 different stores) and they will match the price in their store, making less work on my part.

so this is my deal today:

(3) boxes of Golden Grahams
(2) boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios
(1) box of Frosted Cheerios
(1) box of Apple Cinnamon Cheerios
(5) boxes of Betty Crocker Fruit Snacks
(4) boxes of Fruit Gushers
(1) bag of Bugles
(3) bags of Chex Mix

total: 20 items = $31 (that is $1.55 / item)

i have gotten better deals before, BUT... this is the best part... i also received 4 movie tickets to use at a theater of my choice for movies of my choice. (fandango) because nick and i were planning on seeing a couple of movies in the near future, this was a GREAT deal. if you figure movie tickets are $8/ticket, we basically paid for 4 movie tickets (which we were going to do anyway) and got a bunch of free stuff. it is a great way to stock up for food storage and save a lot of $$. my sister mandi went to pick up some things as well and her original total was over $300, after coupons she spent $120 and got 18 movie tickets.




if any of you have questions on how you can do this, you can email me and i will do my best to fill you in. just wanted to share!

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

ammon and the baseball guys

nick took ammon down to salt lake for another bees vs. raniers game last night. he was excited to go and see some more baseball guys. nick said that ammon did really well at the game and even went potty at the stadium (yeah ammon!) after the game they waited to meet the baseball guys. nick said that ammon was being really cute with them and told them how to hit a baseball. lucy and i stayed home and did girly things together, it was nice just letting her play with toys and take a bath by herself without worrying about ammon being too rough with her. we had fun too but were excited when our boys came home.



Sunday, July 6, 2008

Our 4th of July...

we skipped out on the fireworks at the stadium on the 3rd because nick was working and i didn't feel like wrangling the kids by myself WAY past their bedtimes. we picked up a few fireworks at macey's and lit them off with ammon's friends in the day-time and a few more with nick when he came home on his break from work. lucy said, "ooh-ooh" and didn't seem scared of the noise (i didn't get very noisy ones). ammon liked the snakes and the flowers with his friends, but was scared of the flowers when we lit them in the dark with nick. he also refused to hold onto the sparklers, even when i danced around with mine trying to show him how fun they were. it was nice because we got the kids in bed at a decent time... and good thing because we had a LONG day coming up.








nick got home from work and i got up at about 6:30am on the morning of the fourth. i was getting ready to make some biscuits for breakfast at mom and dad's and had a lot of stuff to get done. things got a little thrown when nick said there was some flooding outside. i made some calls and the property management guy came to check things out. turns out a farmer was irrigating in the field behind us and things got out of control. we had about 3" of standing water on our back patio and it was coming into our condo. we had about 3 feet of wet carpet in our dining room and when i opened the bathroom door, the floor was covered with about an inch of water. ARS had to come out and pull our carpet up, remove padding, and put a bunch of fans in that make an outrageously loud noise. we will find out monday how bad the damage is and what needs to be done. below are some pictures of the water outside.









we made it out to mom and dad's for breakfast just a few minutes late which was surprising given our morning. dad did not disappoint with the food and the kids had a good time playing with cousins and eating pancakes. ammon was wearing his pull-ups and had a poopy that he decided to clean up himself. that didn't work out so well and he got his new fourth of july shirt dirty. he was upset that he didn't get to wear it anymore and wanted a new one, but it was probably for the best because everyone said lucy looked like a boy in hers. i took the kids home and changed them, woke up nick, and headed to the parade in hyrum.








mom had saved us some seats the night before for the parade (thanks mom!) so nick got to sleep a bit longer before we had to head over. crystal, faye, and lydia came with us so that was super-fun! ammon was excited to see fire trucks, police cars, and horses in the parade. this really is the best parade and it is kind of a family tradition. they throw lots of candy (and cheese, icy-pops, etc) and ethan got hit in the head with a piece of candy, he didn't think that was very fun. we had a good time and ammon got lots of candy. other people that were at the parade with us: mom, aunt raylene and uncle randy, mandi and ryan and their boys, jessica and bridget, landon, and the jordans.






after the parade, nick had to go home to get ready for work and we headed over to mendon for a family bbq. we were told that there was going to be a big slip-and-slide on the hill and it sounded like fun. it ended up being the high-light of the picnic and almost everyone that stuck around ended up going down it. even grandma lewis! below are some video clips of different people heading down the slide.





























anyway, i have a few more video clips, maybe i will post some more later, so check back. we had a great time and laughed so hard when mom went down the slide that i thought i was going to pee my pants, seriously. you can't hear it as well in the video clip, but she was screaming so loud! and i think we were all surprised when grandma lewis went down the slide... twice! ammon wasn't sure about it at first and i had to throw him down it a couple of times. (he had fun going down, he just wouldn't decide to go on his own) but then later you couldn't get him off the slide. it was so much fun, mandi decided to have her birthday at a place that has a huge slip-n-slide. here are a few pictures of the rest of the kids going on the water slide.






on saturday i got up early to do a garage sale with some other people in our condos. at 6:30am i was thinking i'd rather be in bed and wasn't sure i wanted to go through the effort of pulling out all my junk just to haul it back in side. i was kind of frustrated and was just saying a prayer in my mind that things would go okay and i'd get through the day. well, things turned out better than okay and i'm so glad that i did it. i actually sold a lot of my stuff, and it was all pretty much junk so i was pretty excited about that. it was fun just hanging out with my friend crystal and having "power hour" to focus on selling a particular item. my favorite customer was an old guy that pulled up in a camero convertible with no shirt and a hankerchief tied around his neck, hairy chest, and super tan. he bought a couple of things from me and paid with a check so if anyone wants his phone number... anyway, the kids were a super-big help and priced things with the stickers, including themselves. later that day i headed out and met the family for the cache valley cruise-in. for any of you that don't know, it is one of the largest classic car shows in the country and people from all over the country come to show off their cars. ammon and lucy had a lot of fun waving at the cars. ammon also had fun rough housing with his cousins and they took turns kicking and hitting each other (all in fun of course). lucy kept wandering and started putting on a little show for the people sitting next to us. it was lots of fun and ammon really liked seeing all the "race cars". when he was saying the prayer at dinner tonight he thanked heavenly father for the "race cars" and for the "race cars at the parade". it was very cute. anyway, that is the last of our fun weekend.