Mae's in 1st GRADE!!!

I really can't believe this day is here...Mae is in FIRST grade!  I know they say how fast it goes, but man, this really snuck up on me!  Having her gone THE WHOLE DAY is going to be such an adjustment!  And eating at school!  I find myself worrying about little things:  what if she can't open her milk carton, or her gogurt wrapper...what if she doesn't eat her lunch and is hungry later...what if???   She is still at Davis Elementary and her teacher is Mrs. Jenkins.  She is LOVING reading and the top of her class!

Mae and her 1st grade BFF's, Riley and Reagan.  Love these cute girls :)

We love you Mae and are so proud of you and what a good, SMART girl you are!  We know you will LOVE first grade!

Just a little dancing in the rain!

Emme Joy is THREE!!!

On Emme's birthday we did the usual birthday hat morning wake up and our little baby was super excited to finally be THREE!!!  Her big present from us this year was a big girl bed (which wasn't ready yet), but we did have a few little things for our Birthday Girl to open!

She decided on a waffle birthday breakfast and of course had to add the candles!

Later, we had a little get together at the Splash Park for our little girl!  She had only one request for her birthday and that was a Sofia cake...and we delivered!  

She seems pretty excited about her Sofia cake...I love this picture of our sweet girl :)

Happy birthday to my little sunshine and favorite THREE year old!  You brighten our days and make us laugh all the time with your silly self!  We love you so much baby!  Hope you had a wonderful birthday! 

Summer days...

We really loved the lazy days of summer this year-- sleeping in and breakfast every morning on the deck.  What a blessing I have to get to spend my days with these kiddos!

Shop til you DROP!

It's that time of year again and Mae, Lu and I made yet another short trip down to Ogden to get some school shopping done with Grandma!  And boy did we hit it HARD!  Old Navy lost a rung in Mae's eyes when she walked into Justice and a Taylor Swift song was playing overhead, plus we actually found skinny jeans that looked like skinny jeans on my skinny girl.  She really only had one request the whole time: high heeled boots.  And thankfully, we finally found some and even got both little sisters a matching pair.

Lu, one the other hand, bless her soul, is not the best shopper in the world.  She doesn't care what it is, but she wants it and grabs/throws everything in the cart, or your arms as you walk through, making it a pretty chaotic experience.  Plus, she's more of a WAM, BAM shopper: get in and get out.  Regardless, Lu had one main request: Glasses.  She wanted glasses like Mae to show wear to school.  We found her the cutest pair and she was so thrilled to tell us how now she was able to see with her new glasses.  Funny girl.  Well guess what???  After all that "Wam, Bam" we talked about comes the CRASH!

While we were out and about, Emme got some special time with Daddy-- and I think she was a little happy about that :)

He took her out to breakfast, her favorite meal of the day, and she got chocolate chip pancakes and ate them ALL.

 She also got to go visit Grandma Angie and see the animals behind her house.  One of which, a donkey, named Honey.  Emme was convinced, however, that its name was actually "Syrup." Ha ha!

When we got home, the girls had to give daddy a fashion show with all their new clothes and baby sis was super excited with the little surprises that we brought home for her.  All in all, I think everyone had a great weekend!

CHEE-EE-SE!

VACATION TO SLC!

On a whim, Coby was able to get a few days off around the 24th of July and we decided to whisk the girls off to Salt Lake and have a mini vacay!  Whenever we head up that way we always end up spending so much time in Ogden that we haven't done too much in Salt Lake. We wanted to show the Temple Square and all the things around that and hit up the Thanksgiving Point Museums as well.  And things literally could not have been better!

DAY 1:

By far probably the most exciting thing on the trip for the girls was the hotel!  They were THRILLED to be there and just kept saying how nice it was ;) 

  

The immediately staked their claim on their bed and there was no budging them.

Once we got over the excitement of the hotel, the first thing we did was hit Temple Square.  We had two cute sister missionaries show us around the Visitors Center and saw a new film about families and got to visit the Christus.  I love this picture of the girls--I can't believe how big they have gotten right before our eyes!

Then the missionaries took us over to the Tabernacle and we learned about the organ pipes there and the amazing acoustics that are in that building.

After that, we walked around the grounds and the girls got so see up close how beautiful the temple is.

After we worked up a sweat walking around the heat, the girls were DYING to try out the hotel's pool.  Here are my little nerd babies all geared up and ready for a swim!  In truth, we probably could have bagged the whole trip and just stuck with the pool and they would have been HAPPY.  Had we not been actively trying to keep all three of them from drowning, I would have loved to take some pictures of them actually in the pool.  They looked so cute holding onto their little donuts and kicking their little legs...

Once we were able to pry the girls from the pool, we decided to introduce them to a little place called the Olive Garden...and it did not disappoint.  

The girls all LOVED the food and were such good girls, but Mae especially appreciated it.  She told us it was the "best dinner ever."  Amen sista!

And no shocker here, but Emme thoroughly enjoyed the chocolate cake we had for dessert and did NOT want to share.

DAY 2:

We started the day off with a bang and hit the Curiosity Museum at Thanksgiving Point.  It.Was.Fun...and VERY crowded!  They had a MILLION things to do: stage to put on plays, sound and music recording fun, dance studios, stores, a water and wind world, climbing wall, bug room, lego room and SO MUCH MORE!  There is a huge rope and slide playground and the girls were super excited to see it, but it was total chaos and the girls were only a little too relieved to leave that crazy place and spend some time in the bug room, quietly examining and drawing bugs...ha ha!

The water room was my favorite part.  All the kids got to put on rain boots and coats and play with PVC pipes and troughs and get complete soaked.

Then there was the wind tunnel to help dry them off and the girls thought that was hilarious.

After seeing all we could see and battling the crowds, we walked over to the Ancient Life Museum and spent some time there learning about dinosaurs and all that good stuff.  This museum was MUCH less crowded and that was a welcome change.

 The girls spent a loooooonnnngggg time digging in the giant sand box discovering all kinds of dinosaur bones.

After that museum, can you guess what we did next...that's right-- SWIM!!!  We couldn't hold them off any longer :)  Afterwards, it was dinner and the girls decided that for their souvenir the wanted to visit Build-A-Bear and make a friend to take home.  After the HUGE decision of what animal to get, we finally got started on making them.  Lu chose a horse, Emme a brown dog and Mae a bulldog.

Here they are making a wish on their hearts to put in their animals.

Em was taking this pretty seriously ;)

Finally, the were done, dressed and named!  Mae named her's Buster, Em's Chocolate, and Lu's Sally.

Em insisted on carrying her big box herself even on the walk back to the hotel.

The girls were thrilled with their new little friends and were so excited to snuggle with them that night!

Day 3:

We had promised the girls a trip to one of their favorite places, Chuck-E-Cheese and so on Saturday we had a lunch there before finishing off the last of the Thanksgiving Point attractions.  Living in Vernal, we don't have places like Chuck-E-Cheese's (yet) and the girls think it is just about the coolest place. Ever.

After lunch, we went back to Thanksgiving Point and went to Farm Country, probably my favorite part of the trip and the girls LOVED it too!  It was the least crowded of all and we got to wander around the farm and see animals, go on a wagon and pony ride and even milk a cow! YEE-HAW!

After that we hit and movie Planes: Fire & Rescue to COOL OFF from the heat before heading to our last event of the trip, Koo-Koo Kangaroo Concert in the Park where the girls bounced around, rolled down the hills and danced to the music!

DAY 4: HOME AGAIN, HOME AGAIN

Sunday morning, our trip had come to an end and it was time to go home!  The past few days had been absolute bliss with the girls and they had all been so good while we run them ragged and it finally caught up to little Em and she had a full blown MELT DOWN...while the rest of us laughed our faces off. Poor girl!

It truly was such a wonderful trip and we couldn't have asked for a better time with our sweet girls!  I'm so unbelievably thankful for my family it is crazy!  LIFE IS GOOD.