I am sad to see August go. It's a fun month for us! Taylor and I celebrate our anniversary on the 7th (we shared our 7th anniversary this year), Kamryn has her birthday on the 13th (6 years old...HOLY CRAP), and then back to school always sneaks up on us (Hallelujah). Which means no more lazy days, but it also means we are on a better schedule . This August also marked the 1 year anniversary of us being back in St. George. It's been a fun, chaotic, busy, joyful, and fast year. I can't believe it has already been a year. I miss Northern Utah but I have also enjoyed being with all my good friends again and having family near us.
We have spent about 3-4 days a week at the pool this summer. We have all enjoyed swimming and tanning. Kamryn and Brynlee have worked really hard on their swimming technique and are great swimmers. They both swim without floaties, and dive to the bottom of the pool. Ryker also enjoys the pool and is a little fishy. His legs just kick and kick and kick once they hit the water. He loves it!
Ryker is such a mommas boy. If he is on the floor playing or in his jumper and I happen to walk by without picking him up he will just cry and cry until I do so. Taylor and I went out and did a little shopping and went to dinner on our anniversary and when we came home he just snuggled me for hours. It's so cute and I love his snuggles but it sure is hard to get anything done around the house.
We have found Ryker doing a lot of this lately. He is such a binky baby, but if he can't find his binky he resorts to the thumb. I have to admit it is cute, but it won't be cute when he walks into his kindergarten class sucking his thumb. I am so against thumb sucking (sorry to those I am offending). You can easily and gradually get rid of a binky but the thumb you can't get rid of. I have watched so many people struggle with getting their child to stop sucking their thumb. A few of my other kids have tried sucking their thumbs but did not succeed because I wouldn't allow it. Ryker on the other hand has been a little harder to get him to stop. But I am determined.
Tayson loves his sisters and loves to sneak out of his room at night and sneak into bed to snuggle with his sisters. He hates being left out.
Kamryn's 6th birthday. Wow! She sure is growing up right before our eyes. She is our little smarty pants and is so sweet and shy. We had to start out her birthday with the traditional birthday breakfast donut.
Then we headed over to the pool to have a party with family and friends. She had marshmallow covered cupcakes, cupcake pops, loads of candy, drinks, and homemade oreo's for all her friends.
My best bud and her kids came to celebrate and our two little nuggets just chilled and played by each other. These 2 are only 3 days apart from each other and I hope they become the best of buds.
Princess Sleeping Beauty made a special appearance at Kamryn's party. Kamryn was so excited and a little shocked. It was a complete surprise to her. She felt special and loved the attention from her. A special thanks to her aunt Kaylissa who did this for her birthday present.
My kids always want pinatas at their birthday parties but I am always to cheap to pay 20 bucks for it. So I decided to get creative and make one for Kamryns party. It was fun and the kids enjoyed watching and helping me but it was a complete disaster and way to much work. 20 bucks is definitely worth it.
Singing to the birthday girl. What a great party!
Ryker loves his baby food, but sometimes he likes the bowl even better. Silly kid.
Taylor was the guinea pig for our Stake Provident Living Fair and got dunked a bunch of times by all the primary kids. Kamryn, Brynlee, and Tayson got in on the action and dunked dad a few times as well as I thoroughly enjoyed sitting back and watching him get dunked after dunk after dunk after dunk. hehe
We went to the lake with some friends and came home with sunburns but it was totally worth it.
Kamryn started Kindergarten this year. She has been looking forward to it for a long time. I was happy and excited for her. She has been in preschool for 2 years and she was WAY ready for kindergarten. I didn't think I was gonna be real sad letting her go cause it is almost like being in preschool. But I found myself getting a little teary eyed and postponing her from walking in the school by taking a million pictures. Why do they have to grow up so fast???
I have been trying to occupy Ryker with things to do while I try to get stuff done around the house. This is his first time in the jumper. He liked it for a few seconds until he realized that I put him in there so I didn't have to hold him anymore. It took him awhile to really enjoy the jumper and to be ok with me walking away for a few minutes.
We went to Vegas with our good friends Chance and Allie and went to the Bellagio to see "O". It was such a blast and we needed the break so bad. The show was fabulous and so were our seats. We sat in box seats and got to see everything from above. It was a neat experience. We got to see behind the scenes and alot of the work that goes into the show.
It's hard to get anything done around the house with this little peanut, so I just let him join in on the fun. He enjoys doing laundry with me.
I bought Tayson some McQueen slippers and he wears these things all over the place.
Taylor came home from work one night to find us at the pool soaking up some sun. So he came over and I started cleaning up thinking that he came over to help me get the kids home. Well I turned around to pick something up and turned back around to find Taylor taking off his shoes and jumping in the pool in his work clothes. It was AWESOME! The kids thought it was the coolest thing ever and it is one of those memories that we will laugh about and smile about forever. Totally spur of the moment and priceless. This picture is of course the 2nd time he jumped in and the kids joined him. It's a pretty good re-inactment though. This is pretty much how he jumped in.
Brynlee started preschool and she was soooo excited. She has been waiting a whole year for Kamryn to start Kindergarten so that she could be in preschool. Here she is on her first day of school. It's kind of weird having 2 kids in school and only 2 kids at home.
We had a fun month and we are excited for September's festivities.