Sum Sum Summertime

 Does anyone else have a love/hate relationship with summer like I do? I LOVE having the kids around all the time....but......the kids are around all the time. Sometimes they even say the dreaded "b" word. Not that one! "Bored" That's the one. I hate that word because they know EVERY time they say that to me I suggest cleaning something. You'd think they'd entertain themselves.  Luckily we haven't had too many of those incidents yet. 

But the first week of summer was a hit! Thank goodness for old Nexus signs so we can have a big slip-n-slide!

 

 The bum shot....

 They did have so much fun slipin' and slidin'. But of course to dry off you have to jump on the tramp. Okay, tramp pictures are some of my favorite. A lot of the time they turn out totally blurry, but when they DO turn out I think they are so funny. Everyone is in the most awkward positions and I think it's hilarious. I took a lot of pictures.

 This is probably my favorite....

 And he had to do a somersault.

 Show us your abs!!

 Then when daddy gets on, it gets really fun and everyone has to join in!

 Minor meltdown mode....

 

I really love this picture for some reason. It looks like they are flying right out of the picture.

It was a fun summery afternoon!

Josh's baptism

Today has been an awesome day. Josh got baptized!! He has been really excited  about getting baptized. He got a new spiffy suit for his birthday, along with some scriptures. He was warned that I was going to be camera happy today and he totally went with it.

 Thanks buddy, you look good.

Here's some pre-baptism pictures.

 AHHHHH, he looks so grown up!

 This was daddy's scripture case that he had on his mission. We cleaned it all up and passed the torch on.

 He still has room to grow....

 We totally lucked out because he was the only baptism that day so we got to do everything ourselves. The room only had people we knew and loved, Rachel and Kate said the prayers, Grandma Shirlene and I did the talks, Aunt Aimee led the music. It was fun to let everyone have a part.

 I can't even express how much I love this boy. He really is the best of the best in every single way. I'm so proud of him and so glad that he has the gift of the Holy Ghost with him now to help him. What a wonderful day!!!

 We headed back to our house for ice cream sundaes.

 The teenagers were hanging out in the forest.

I am so happy that we can be a forever family. Just look at this group and see how blessed I am! 

Way to go Josh, I love you!!!

It all goes south from here...

By the last 2 weeks of school...all bets are off. The kids are done...I'm done...we all start to get a little crazy, if you know what I mean? But we do have some fun. Rachel had her 4th grade rendezvous (is that really how you spell it?....probably not) She reminded me the night before that she needed to dress up for this blessed day. Well, we don't have any mountain man costumes, so we pooled our resources and called Aunt Cindy. She's usually the best one to call in situations like these. Of course she not only had a mountain man costume, but she had a cowgirl costume and a pioneer costume too. All in the right size! Rach opted for the pioneer costume which I think was a good bet. She was adorable.

 I'm pretty sure the pioneers had pink sneakers too. Rendezvous (and all of the other million things we had going on those last blasted 2 weeks) were really fun! I totally remember my 4th grade rendez.... so I hope Rach will too.

 Here's Rach and Brad. Seriously? So cute! I insisted we get this picture taken....for umm...no reason at all......moving on!

 

Rach and Josh also had their last soccer games of the season. I'm sad about this but it will be nice to have our Saturday's back. Rachel's coach has a swimming pool and has a swim party every year after the last game. They invite families but we're usually the only family that shows up and Trav has always been the only parent that swims. We have fun though and the kids absolutely love it!

 Josh was brave enough to try the slide but I totally missed it and didn't get a picture.

 Will got really brave and would jump right in to daddy.

 We had hot dogs, lots of chips and the best part was the ice cream. Here's all those cute soccer girls.

 This is what Kate and Will did most of the time.

Will helped daddy in the garden.

 Love those spidey jammies.

 We also inherited a lot of dirt so they had to help dad with that too.

 The last day of school Kate, Will and I got an early start on summer laziness. I had a fun little scare with arthritis which I am now feeling much better for, but this is one of the first times in a couple weeks I've just hung out and played with the kids. It was really, really, really nice! We built a fort....played trains...

 Will found a hole in his sock.....

 Then Kate went and found her horse and a New Years hat and things started going south from there. At first it started out innocently enough....

 William even got in on the posing with the horsies....

 Then Kate had a brilliant idea of getting a picture of her jumping and the hat flying off her head. Sounds easier than it actually is! So this is where things got really kookie.

 This is my favorite picture....

 Kate's famous "potty dance" she does 8,000 times a day.

 Then Kate wanted to try taking some pictures.

 This is my new favorite picture ever.....

 This picture is called, "Kate with the giant nose"

 Somehow we recovered from all that craziness....or at least we've learned to live with it.

Okay. I know this post is getting long but we have to have a few words about Josh's baseball game last night. He was first baseman again, which was totally awesome because he loves that. He likes being where the action is! He's totally in the zone!

 Rachel is in her own little zone too. It takes a lot of convincing to get her to go to these games.

 Sometimes you just gotta stop and smell the flowers....

 Okay, back to Josh.....as he was on 1st base, the batter hit the ball right to him. A hard one, right at chest height. Josh reaches out and makes an amazing catch!! He totally caught it!! Then the runner on 2nd didn't run, so the runner on 1st had nowhere to go. Josh dropped the ball but then picked it up, touched the base and got a double play. AHHHH!!! The crowd (mostly me) went WILD!!! It was amazing!!! Definitely the play of the game.

Then he got up to bat, hit a double!!!! then eventually made it all the way home, which he's never done before because they always get 3 outs so fast. I really can't tell you (even though I keep saying it) how awesome it really was. He was on FIRE!!!

 William was also in his own little zone. He LOVES Bradley. Our super cute neighbor that's Rachel's buddy. He just adores Bradley so Will and Brad played football most of the time the game was going on. It was super cute.

 I did have to bring him back after he attempted an escape to the playground.

 And who doesn't love a good pile of dirt?

 Get a good look folks.....this boy is going somewhere!!!