A few weeks ago I rented Newsies to watch with the kids. I hadn't seen it since it came out in '92 and I thought Faith and Christian would enjoy the fun music and dance numbers. They watched about halfway through, but I'm the main one who enjoyed it! (Make sure you pause the music at right before playing the clip!)

End of school & party in Park City

Faith had been bugging me to teach her how to sew with a needle and thread for the last few months, so I finally broke down and did. She practiced making stitches (and made a heart shape!) with embroidery floss on felt with a dull tapestry needle and did really well. A few days later, she asked if she could mend her stuffed snake (which was coming apart at the seam in a few places) and I told her to go for it. She did such a great job sewing it up all by herself!
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On June 3rd, we released the rest of the butterflies. Faith was torn between wanting to keep them and wanting them to have a good life, so they were sent on their way by one sad little girl.



But she did put on a pretty brave face for the camera! Christian wanted to hold one, but just couldn't get over his fear of bugs to do it. .

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He sure was interested in them, though!

Here he is getting brave enough to hold the paper full of empty chrysalises (even this took a lot of encouragement!).

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June 5th was Faith's last day of first grade! Here she is all dolled up for end of school fun and yearbook signing, lock of pink hair and all!
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She made these as a farewell gift to her great teacher.

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This one has a self portrait inside of strawberry hand soap (which she drew on paper and then I copied onto transparency paper at Kinkos),

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and this one is her with her teacher, Mrs. Sweat, inside hand sanitizer. It reads, "I will miss you very much! Love, Faith."

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That afternoon was her friend Hunter's birthday party! She had an adorable snorkeler cake and goody bags which looked like goldfish from the pet store, but were actually soap. I forgot to get a picture, but check out Natalie's blog to see how cute they were!

That night Faith made this cute koala with movable arms and legs. It was inspired by a shirt from Justice given to her by grandma Peterson.

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I had been looking for fun, free activities to do with the kids and came across the workshops for kids at Home Depot. Our first one was June 6th and we got there promptly at 9 am. They give the kids orange aprons and then a pin for each project they complete, and the three boys in line in front of us had a bunch of them. Faith was miffed with me for not bringing her to these before now, but having a girl first, I just hadn't thought of it before. Being a bit of a tomboy myself, I'm surprised I didn't!

Christian did so well hammering the nails in. He couldn't reach his project on the table very well, so he set up shop on the floor.

Faith did hers almost completely on her own. She did a great job of reading and following the instruction sheet.

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Faith made a tool box and Christian did a sorter with a clear acrylic sliding top. They both had so much fun that we will now be regulars!

After they finished their projects, we met up with Tony (who had been at the gym) and went over to Joy & Jordans to watch the Air Show from their back yard.

Some planes zoomed right over us and we got a really good look at them.

While waiting for the thunderbirds (which we didn't know would be performing so late) the kids played with Sierra and Lily.

Jordan even got out his PVC waterfall for them!

Finally, after almost giving up, the Thunderbirds started! They did some really neat formations and fancy flying. We had a pretty good side view, but someday soon I would like to watch the show from on base. It was great fun hanging out with Joy's family all day!

On June 8th, the kids and I headed up to Park City to stay at the condo. Tony didn't have time off and had been working extra late, so he didn't come up this time.

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For some reason, Christian thinks that the storage ottomans there are his personal hidey-holes.

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Sarah & Brad got there late that evening and my kids were so excited to play with their cousins! Christian took my camera and got this pic of them playing dangerously on the bunk beds.

I love this one he got of Celeste and Brendon!
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On Tuesday we went shopping at the outlet mall. My mom very generously bought clothes for the kids (and denim capris for me the night before at TJ Maxx!). We hit OshKosh, Children's Place, Old Navy and a few others, but spent most of our time at Gymboree. They were having a huge clearance sale and we got a ton of shirts and shorts/pants/skirts for under $6. Faith even got a sundress, regular price $32, for $9!

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After shopping, we got in a couple of hours of swimming and then went to eat at Ruby Tuesday's.

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Wednesday we went back for more shopping with Joy, who had gotten there too late the day before. Even I like shopping as long as it's not for my own clothes! This time we had the kids with us (instead of ditching them with Brad or grandpa like the days before) and they were good little troopers.

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After shopping, we waited out a few hours of heavy rain inside the condo while a guy was there cleaning the carpets. We had hoped to be out at the pool when he was scheduled! It never totally cleared up, but the kids were just dying to swim again, so when the rain lightened up a bit I took them to the pool. It sprinkled on us most of the hour and a half that we were there, but the water in the kiddie pool was well heated and the kids had a blast.

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Side note--it's so pretty that all three pools are surrounded by pine trees. Park City isn't known so much as a destination for swimming, but that's our favorite activity there!


Christian learned to trust the floating power of his water wings and loved bringing his toes up out in front of him.

My sitting on the sidelines getting rained on was totally worth it for their utter joy!

After I finally was able to drag them out of the water, it was time to go. While I packed up the car, Buddy was peeking at me through the railing :)

We had a great time, but Christian was ready to get home to his own bed.
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It was a great, if also short, trip. I'm excited that we get to go back again this summer!

lds themed cards

These cards are total freaking awesomeness (or maybe they're even the new nerdy slang phrase I just learned: "the bomb dot com")!! To get them, go to Line upon Line. (click on them to see a larger version)

First, I have to comment on the unusual amount of rain we've gotten around here lately. What's up with all of it? I actually like rain, but this spring it's made it hard to work and play outside, especially on the weekends! I think my poster here sums it up pretty well . . .

Back on the 17th, the kids mashed the strawberries, measured the sugar and help mix strawberry freezer jam.

(Sorry for the stock photos, I forgot to get my camera out.) If you've never had freezer jam, you really need to try it. But don't try it on a toasted english muffin with lots of butter melting into it, trust me on this--it's as addictive as heroin.
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I was putting something on top of the entertainment center, looked up, and found someone spying on me.

There he is up in one of his favorite napping spots (next to the plant).

Christian loves to play with his aunt Tam on Sundays. Here he's made her a gigantic pop-bead necklace.






By the 26th, all of our caterpillars had made their chrysalises so it was time to move them to the mesh pop up cage (sorry mom, I mean "butterfly pavillion").

Here's a close up look at five of the little guys.

And here's their new home.
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On May 25th Joy called and asked if we wanted to go with her to the Aerospace Museum because she was having "A" week at their house (she's working on teaching Sierra the letters). We were all for it, but she called later from the ER because Sierra had climbed the shelves of her linen closet and had gotten a hold of the Imodium A-D and was unwrapping the pills and putting them in play teacups of water! Joy didn't think they had eaten any, but since she wasn't sure the poison control center had strongly encouraged her to take them to the hospital. Luckily, they hadn't eaten any and were fine except for the huge blow to Joy's wallet.

On the 27th, we decided to try again. It's just in Roy and it's free, but I had never been there before.

Joy was nice enough to wait until just after four so that Faith could go, but what we didn't know is that it closes at 4:30 and they like to lock up a few minutes early. Still, we raced through and saw lots of planes and these cool antique flying duds.

After they kicked us out, we looked at the huge planes outside and the kids even touched some.

I don't know what this face is, but it sure is cute!

After walking a ways out there, we noticed a sign that said that even the outside grounds close at 4:30 and they lock the gates and tow cars after that, so we hoofed it back to the parking lot! Even though it was a short visit, it was fun and fit the little ones' attention spans quite well. We did make a trip to the dollar store afterward, so that rounded out our fun afternoon. We'll definately be heading back there later on this summer.

I just had to take a picture of Faith when she got ready for school the next day. She had on a new purple shirt (courtesy of her grandma Peterson), purple shoes (courtesy of being $3 clearance priced at WalMart), and

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a purple glittery hair streak! Faith picked up a set of them at the dollar store :D

On the 29th we had a water party playdate at Ann's and on the way home I picked up some fresh asparagus from Day Farm. Yummy!

I hope that Crumpet isn't getting her feelings hurt that Dusty has been getting so many pics in the blog lately. He's just the baby of the family and somewhat of a camera magnet. And he's always looking so crazy!

Saturday the 30th was a busy day. Tony went to the gym that morning while I took the kids to the Safe Kids Fair in Kaysville. They had a bunch of booths with free stuff for the kids. I'm not sure what business had this pirate, but it sure was cool!

Then we had to be to Faith's last soccer game at noon. Buddy's just chillin'.

Here's Faith getting to do a corner kick. She's so sad that soccer is over and can't wait to start up again in the fall.

We hadn't gotten to all the booths and activities at the fair, so we headed back after the game.

Faith did the inflatable slide, but Buddy chickened out at the last minute after waiting in line. We got free snow cones, balloons, backpack bags, balls, magnets, crayons, cookies, temporary tatoos, candy, drinks, and a whole bunch of other stuff in addition to getting the kids fingerprinted and watching a really neat poice dog demonstration. At the end as we were leaving, we got to see the news chopper take off.

At home, Christian colored some of his coloring pages and was so proud of it. Great job, little guy! You can't quite see in this picture the skull and crossbones tatoo that he got that said something about the danger of abandoned mines. He loved that thing!

When we got home from church on the 31st, we saw that two of our butterflies had emerged!

Here is a close up of one of them.

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The neatest thing was that a few minutes later, Faith grabbed me and said that another one was coming out, and I got it on video!

(click on the triangle below to play)

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Dusty kept knocking the cage off the stereo in the living room, so we moved it to hang on a fan blade in the family room. Look at that stinker watch them fly around, he wants one for a tasty treat!

Later that afternoon at Braegger's I got these cute shots of the kids,

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and Faith got this hilarious one of Christian,

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and Buddy took these. He likes to be right in his subjects' faces!