"FUN!"

Anaya is continuing to say so many words! One of her favorites is..."FUN!" And that is how she says it too, with gusto! I even heard her say "wat dis MOM!" after hearing her brother say "Watch this mom." I tried to get her to do it on cue for a video, but to no avail! She says "say?" if we are looking at a book, and she doesn't know what that animal says. She has a cute~little annoying habit of taking her hand, grabbing your face, and turning it to hers if she feels you are not paying attention to her! She pulls the piano bench over to the curio cabinet and points to all of our family members and says each one of their names. When she wakes up in the morning the first word out of her mouth is usually "bow" as she shoves the hair out of her face! I love it! She sure is a ton of FUN!

waterpark!

My brother in law (Robb) and sister in law (Lisa) were camping this week at Sandy Pines, and they invited us down for the day to swim and play at the waterpark. We started out with a bit of cloudy rainy weather, then the sun would peek through and be beautiful, only to start getting cloudy again, and then it sprinkled some more. It didn't matter though, we were wet anyway, and we had lots of fun!

Jayden and Mady getting eachother wet!

Spencer, Brylynn, and Dylan waiting for the water to drop on their heads! That water was FREEZING COLD!! I don't know how they could stand it! Must be young age!
Spencer coming down the slide.

Even Anaya went down the water slide with Uncle Robb! She liked it ~ a little! She went down twice and then...she was done!

She nearly fell asleep in that chair, all the excitment wore her out!

Easton followed Aunt Lisa around like a little puppy! He is so funny that way, when he likes ya, he really likes ya!(He went with her everywhere...except the slide, she tried talking him into it, but he just wasn't about to do that!)

Thanks guys for a fun day!

Getting ready for school to start...

NOT!!! Look at all those books...UGH...

But I am getting organized! Something I'm not that good at, but it is somewhat necessary when homeschooling! One of my pet peeves is how disorganized everything gets about a week into the school year. So, I am trying to get a better handle on the situation. I bought this old locker at a garage sale, repainted it and I am hoping it helps coral all of our unruly books, paper and other stuff.

I love that it has a door, hopefully it keeps little Anaya out of it as well! One of her missions in life is to pull everything off the shelves in our schoolroom and while it is getting better~through much...uh hum...discipline, we are not there yet!

I bought a few extra baskets to hopefully help our bookshelves from being ransacked by her as well!

Now, hopefully I will be motivated to start school when the time comes!...HOPEFULLY?!....

Shodeo...

We got Jayden back tonight!! (Big YAY!) We had dinner at the camp and then they did a "shodeo!" It was so cute to see what the kids learned to do on their horse, and to hear what they learned throughout the week from the Bible as well. What a neat program they have, I was very impressed. Jayden had a great time, made friends and LOVED his horse Grace!!

The other kids got to take a horse ride tonight, Easton didn't want to(of course) and Anaya would have loved too, but, she was too young!

The big event of the night turned out to be when we got home and somehow...(with 5 kids we have resigned ourselves to the fact that sometimes these things happen, no need to place blame...) Anaya got herself locked in the van. I didn't panic at first, "we have a spare key...don't we?" Well let's just say...we will get one tomorrow!!! I turned the house over trying to find that thing to no avail... while Ryan worked on it with a hanger! Poor baby thought it was funny...at first, then she started getting mad, crying, HOT and super sweaty!! She kept pushing the lock button down! Normally I can stay somewhat calm in these situations, but she was lookin' pretty pathetic with those big brown eyes and I started to panic... I told Ryan "Break the stupid window, it's broken anyways!" (it won't go down!) But he was calm (usually is when I am not and vice-versa) and kept trying. I was just standing there giving her my saddest most sympathetic look trying to calm her down,(while thinking and watching Ryan try the hanger thing that...this is never going to work, and how/when do I step in and just break the stupid window)...when, I heard the door unlock! WOW! Ryan is (and has been) MY HERO!!! I grabbed her and sat on the porch swing rocking her with the sippy of ice water the boys had gotten ready for her! She pounded that thing down and was ready to go on with her night!! Whew! Praise God for a calm husband and for letting that hanger thing work, we were praying, but it looked impossible to me!

a picture from camp...

We have not heard anything from Jayden~which is good, but, we did see this picture up on the website. It looks like he is having a good time, but with Jayden it is hard to say, that boy ALWAYS has a smile on his face! Looking forward to having him home, I feel like I'm missing a limb with him gone~but happy he is having this experience! I also found out a friend from church said her daughter is at camp there this week too! That helps because I know Abigail will be a friend to Jayden, she is a sweetheart!

another fun relaxing weekend...

A trip to the new skate park in town...

fishing(of course)...

playing in the sand...
playing in the water...


and just hanging out with the family! That is our favorite thing to do, we love spending time with each other!! Jayden just left for his first time ever away at camp, and we are all pretty sad to see him go! He will only be gone till Wed. but we miss him already! He is going to Cowpokes camp at Grace Adventures(which is less than 1 mile from our house)and he is excited to ride the horses and spend time at the barn with the animals, but, he is nervous, he doesn't know anyone there~that we are aware of!! So if you could pray for Jayden to be brave and have fun, I would appreciate it!!! I made Ryan drop him off, I knew if he cried....I'd just take him right back home with me!! We think it will be a good experience for him, but boy is that hard!

Anaya was not too sure about going into the lake! You can always tell when Anaya is nervous, she starts tapping her lip! I love that she still does this, when we were in Guatemala, she sucked her thumb and tapped her lip. Now she only taps her lip, and I think it is so cute! Sometimes I find myself doing it when I am thinking about something or get nervous!!

My parents came up this weekend to take Easton and Anaya on their date! My Mom has been taking the grandkids out on "dates" for many years now, they get to start in on the date rotation at the age of 2! Sometimes they get to chose a cousin and do a "double date!" They go out to breakfast, go shopping for some little toy or fun craft to do and then go bowling, or to Craig's Cruisers or the movies, or just take a bike ride or go to the park together then they go back to Grama's house and hang out till Grampa gets home, have dinner with him and call it a day around bedtime!! Since we moved, it can get harder to get the kids and days together, but they still fit them in. This time, they came up here and took them to a movie and out to lunch and they spent the night up here with us! They had too much fun, Anaya cried when they left. The kids always know whose turn it is and who is next...they keep close track, it is so cute! Mom says she needs a day to recuperate after the date day because she usually spends so much time laughing, it gets exhausting! Then at Christmas she gives each kid a book with pictures and highlights of their dates for the year!!! Great memories! Thanks Mom and Dad!

a boy and his toy...

Look at the joy on his face...

He runs all over the place with it...

What is it you may ask...

We have no idea!! We were at a garage sale, and Jayden spotted this thing and started running around with it saying he wanted it! We had to laugh, it is so like Jayden to pick out something so random and useless!!! Even the guy selling it had no clue what it was, but when he saw the joy it brought Jayden, he told him he could just keep it! We laugh every time we see him playing with it! My father in law says it is a golf ball retriever, whatever it is, it makes him smile and the rest of us too!

a relaxing weekend...

We enjoyed our first weekend of being home with nothing on the calendar since summer began! We had a campfire cookout, we even tried corn on the cob cooked on the campfire, it was very good!

~notice the bench the boys made us is still holding up! To see more of our amazing bench, click here!

Anaya enjoyed it too!

Then of course no weekend is complete without a fishing trip! Ryan caught this huge walleye, and then we ate it for dinner a few hours later. This was one fish I actually ate a piece of! Despite being ugly, it tasted very good!! Ryan ALWAYS prepares any and all animals he kills (I am NOT a fan of cooking wild game, or any meat for that matter!) and I always try a bite, to be nice, but this was actually good! He GRILLED it! Since we have been married(almost 15 years)He has not grilled as much as he has this summer! YAY! I HATE cooking, so it works for me!

And since hunting season is only, hmm let's see...LESS THAN 2 months away!!!! The boys are practicing their shooting skills! I can't bear the thought of fall!!! Even though I love fall...

Summer is waaaay too short, but we really enjoyed our weekend with nothing to do!