I think we succeeded in squeezing as much summer fun into July as possible.  

there were pond visits


Ruby has proved to be an amazing puddle jumper swimmer and makes it so I can’t sit in my chair quite as much as I prefer.  


And the baby ducklings get us every time.  

The pool.


We’ve got our pool routine down and it always involves leaving the 2 year olds with a babysitter.  


we did swim lessons with the Rensinks this month and all the kids did awesome.  Ruby can’t wait until next summer when she is old enough.  I can’t wait either.  25 uninterrupted minutes…heaven. 


We’ve also made a few visits to the Riverwoods Splash Pad. 


but, kids were more concerned with catching Pokemon than playing in the water.  

So, we’ve also been very busy catching Pokemon.


This is Miles talking with the Daily Universe reporters at BYU.  

Ellie’s nephews were in town for a few weeks, so there were many pokemon outings with all the boys and Macey.  


And Paul I even spent some of our babysitter time catching them. :) 

been on mountain adventures.


Enjoyed Nana and Opa’s visit.




And any downtime we could find was spent outside with all our friends.


 Pokemon cards have regained their popularity, due to Pokemon Go.  

And many afternoons have been spent in the shade of trees negotiating trades.  


Ruby has mastered her scooter and can keep up with the rest of the kids now.  


She requests every day to “ride scooter. ride fast”.  She is also a sucker for attention and often looks and smiles anytime she passes a neighbor sitting on their porch.  It has resulted in some pretty epic falls. :)  


Other days she just runs laps to get all that energy out.  

One of my favorite things about living here is getting to watch these kids figure out how to entertain themselves. 


Ron got a new Jazzy Scooter and he has been known to challenge the kids (or adults) to races now and then.  

There is always lots of star wars and other fighting games happening.  

tree climbing, 


And every once in awhile, the few girls actually get to do things together, like play barbies, without the boys trying to shoot and kidnap them.  


Best form of entertainment this summer was a pile of ice though.  

These kids waited in line to see who could stand on the ice the longest.  They played until it all melted.  I believe Macey and Abby killed the competition by 2 minutes at least.  

I actually think they would be very content to just stay home and play with the neighbors all day, but I seem to be the one that needs to get out and have a break from neighbor kids for a few hours each day.    

We tend to hideout in the afternoons with our AC blasting.  


Miles has even attempted a few cooking experiments. We try to spend the least about of time inside though when Ruby is awake, because she leaves a wake of destruction.

She is always looking for something to dump (pitchers of juice, legos, sodalicious cups, clean laundry, cereal…you name it, she will dump it).  

With all the craziness of the 3 little kids, Macey has saved me this summer.  So, when she requested to get her ears pierced, I could not say no. 


She didn’t even flinch.  

I also introduced her to the wonderfulness of pedicures while we left the other 3 with a babysitter. 


She’s hooked.

We also got the stomach flu together.


We locked ourselves in the office and watched lots of movies and took lots of naps.  It was actually kind of fun having someone to hang out with while being sick.  BFF’s.  

Since my days tend to be crazy with 4+ kids around ALL day, EVERY day. I still make sure I get to yoga every week and do a few girls nights to keep me sane and smiling.  


And sometimes I get lucky and get to hang out with some of my old laurels, who are some of my favorite people ever.  

Only a few more days until school starts.  I actually think I MIGHT be ready to send them back this year. :)