Playgrounds and Neighbors

Spencer has been in school all week.  While he's gone Tessa keeps hanging on me constantly wanting me to do something with her.  While I love spending time with her, I have other things that need to get done as well.  But I feel so bad when she gets that "look" on her face when I tell her I'm busy.  So I've spent a lot of time playing princesses, baby dolls, dress up, Wii, coloring, and reading.  We also went to the puppet show at the library then spent one hour reading books and then ran into my mother-in-law and nephews and spent some time visiting with them.  We went shopping together at Kohl's and Costco (she actually likes shopping, unlike myself--or Spencer).  As a result I haven't gotten much done around the house this week.

Thursday afternoon I briefly thought about what we'd do on Friday for our Friday Fun Day.  It's Spencer's early day from school so we still have time to do something.  I considered the Reservoir, Seven Peaks, or a splashpad.  But then we had this crazy burst of lightning, thunder, and rain.  The weather Thursday night said to expect the same kind of sudden storm for the next few days.  I could see us getting everyone in swimming suits and sunblock, packing towels and water and snacks, driving 30 minutes to get somewhere, and then having the storm hit.  So I tried thinking of something that didn't involve water.

Friday morning I woke up in a grouchy mood.  Maybe cuz I had a crappy night's sleep or maybe just because I'm me, but I didn't really get out of it.  So I didn't want to go sit outside in the 90+ degree weather nor did I want to go and spend a lot of money.  And Clara was pretty ornery and I wanted her to get a nap in the afternoon.  And I really wanted to catch up on laundry, dishes, and cleaning up the house.  So I decided after Spencer's school we'd come home, put Clara down for a nap, let the kids watch half an hour of TV while I started on changing sheets & laundry, then do homework with the kids, then have the kids help me pick up toys in all the rooms of the house.  Then after dinner we'd go to a park when it's a little cooler.  The kids weren't too happy so I told them we'd go to a park they haven't been to and get ice cream after.  That worked.

Sadly my kids have never been to Murray Park so that's where we went.  We went in the main entrance off of State Street and the kids just wanted to play at the playground, not explore the stream or anything else.  So we pushed the girls on the swings and watched the kids play around the very crowded playground.  It was pretty windy, but they had a lot of fun!

 

Then we cleaned their hands with baby wipes and hand sanitizer and drove to Cold Stone.  I had bought one of the City Deals certificates a while ago and I really like Cold Stone.  Brodie actually prefers his favorite kind from the grocery store, which is why we rarely go there.  But I enjoyed the Founders' Favorite (sweet cream ice cream with brownies, caramel, fudge, and pecans) and Tessa got pink ice cream (strawberry) with sprinkles while Spencer got banana ice cream with gummy bears.  Clara shared mine with me.  Well, she screamed every time I took a bite and really thought the whole thing was hers.

Saturday morning I was up with the kids at 7 so I could get everyone fed, dressed & ready to head out to the Out of Darkness Walk at Sugarhouse Park.  Earlier this year our neighbor's 13 year old son committed suicide.  This walk was to raise money and awareness for suicide prevention.  His favorite color was red, so we all wore red.  Some of our neighbor's family members came in from California and a few other families from the neighborhood also came down to support them.  I'm so grateful I live in such a great neighborhood!  I thought the turnout for the walk was great!  There were so many people there.  It's sad to think of how many people lost someone they loved to suicide, but great that the families have so much support and are spreading awareness that will hopefully help others considering suicide.

The first thing Spencer noticed as I was applying sunblock to the kids was a bird nest in the corner of the pavilion.  Turns out there was one in each of the 4 corners.  The mommy birds were busy flying back and forth to feed the hungry little mouths.  They were really cute.

We brought the old double Graco stroller to push both girls in.  Not fun to push both girls up those hills.  Especially after borrowing my sister's Phil & Ted stroller earlier this summer and now having something to compare it to.  Thankfully Brodie pushed it most of the time.  Really if it were 15 degrees cooler and Tessa could walk the whole way by herself I really think I would have enjoyed it.  It's a beautiful park and I had some great neighbors to talk with as we walked.  But after we completed one rotation of the park and started on the second, the kids were really whining and I was really sweaty so the kids and I cut out to a playground while Brodie finished the second lap with the group.  Spencer had a great time at the playground but after 5 minutes Tessa just kept complaining of how hot all the playground equipment was.  And it was only 11:00 in the morning!  I was hot and sweaty and Clara's face was red so we stayed on the grass under a tree.  Clara was mad about this and kept crying and trying to go play with her siblings.

We then headed back over to the main area to wait for Brodie and the group to finish the second lap.  While waiting Spencer had his face painted.  He wanted to be a black puppy dog.

Then we came home, had lunch, and sent Spencer to his best friend's house for a playdate.  I took a second shower and filled 100 mini-tarts to bring to our neighbor's house for a BBQ.  We hung out on the grass (everyone else sat at tables but with Clara I decided the grass would be easier for us) eating hamburgers and hotdogs and some yummy salads and stuff.  Spencer and Tessa had a blast playing with a few of the older neighborhood kids who were there and Brodie enjoyed visiting with the adults.  I was able to do a little visiting, while mainly taking care of the baby.

Spencer's first day of 1st grade

My boy is officially in 1st grade.  He and I both survived the first day of him being away all day long.

Last night for Family Home Evening we went over how to behave in class (being quiet and listening to teachers, doing what the teachers ask, raising hands, etc), how to treat classmates (being nice, playing with everyone, sharing, not calling people mean names, etc.), and about stranger danger (not talking to strangers, not going anywhere with strangers even if they say they are someone of authority, etc.).  We also talked about the Priesthood and how Daddy could give them a blessing to help them not be afraid, make new friends, learn the Chinese language quickly, and anything else they are worried about.  We then asked them each what they would want Daddy to bless them for and then Brodie gave them each a Father's Blessing.

Spencer is a lot like me in that he does better with routine, knowing what to expect.  So I typed up a schedule for him so he wouldn't get all upset and cry when I told him he couldn't play on the computer or watch a show when he wanted to.  This morning I had my alarm set for 6:40 so I could hit snooze a couple times.  As I was hitting snooze the first time, I heard the downstairs toilet flush and knew he was up.  The second time my alarm went off I turned it off and came downstairs to see him sitting on his bed staring at his alarm clock.  He used to get up and turn on the TV when he woke up but once a couple years ago I woke up at 4 am and heard the TV on.  We then bought him a digital clock and told him he had to stay in his bed until 7:00.  This morning I told him he could come out even though it wasn't quite 7.  I sent him up to take a shower while I started cooking the Monkey Bread Rolls he had requested for breakfast.  After he was showered and dressed Spencer ate a yogurt while I finished the rolls, scrambled eggs, sliced bananas, and orange juice.  Then I had to wake up the girls who usually sleep in until closer to 8.  After breakfast I helped Tessa get ready for her school.  Brodie had to be to work early this morning so I left with all 3 kids at 8:15.  After waiting in the long line for drop offs I drove away and said a prayer as I left my little boy in the midst of a bunch of people I didn't know 3 minutes before the teachers were supposed to come and let the kids in.

I hurried to from Cottonwood Heights out to Draper and had Tessa to school 15 minutes past her drop off window.  That's what happens when I enroll my kids in schools 25 minutes away from each other that have the same drop off time windows.  By the time I got home I had less than 2 hours before I needed to go and pick Tessa up.  After lunch Tessa, Clara and I played baby dolls in Tessa's room.  Then we played fixing each others' hair.  Then we played dress up.

When I put Clara down for a nap Tessa wanted me to play Wii with her.  So we played a few rounds of Just Dance Kids.  She was so excited to have the number 1 remote and choose the dances.  Usually Spencer takes control whenever they play anything.  I love my girls and it's fun to play with them.  I'm also glad Tessa got to play what she wanted, how she wanted.  But I'm not used to so much girly play so I finally put a TV show on and had a half an hour break.

Picking up Spencer was even more difficult than dropping him off.  It would probably be quicker to park down the street and walk all the kids up to the school and walk back to the car than to sit in the line.  He had a lot of fun.  He couldn't tell me much other than that his English teacher read them a book and had them write from 0-9.  He learned the Mandarin word for zero, but forgot it.  He said he sat by a girl from his class at luch, but didn't know her name and didn't talk to her because he was too hungry.  I don't understand why 1st grade has the LAST lunch of the day???  He said a teacher told the kids they had to be done with lunch and go out to recess.  He did tell me a lot about how much fun recess was.  So as I was unpacking his lunchbox I was certain it would be empty.  I had asked him what he wanted for lunch and he said "A Healthy Lunchable".  So I had put some Wheatable crackers, lunch meat, and cheddar cheese that I cut into cute little shapes in his box.  I also sent a bag of grapes, a Go-gurt, and water in his thermos.  When I opened his lunch his Go-gurt and 4 out of the 8 little cheese shapes were gone.  He said he also ate a couple of the crackers.  That was it.  His water was also still full.  He told me he was starving so I gave him the rest of his lunch and he scarfed it down.  I've been trying to figure out why he didn't eat much when he was so starving.  He claims he didn't talk with people during lunch, didn't wait in the cafeteria food line, and said he was starving.  So I've packed him a PB&J, some chips, and some carrots for tomorrow.  I told him to eat the sandwich first, the chips last, and that if he doesn't have time for the chips to bring them home and he can eat them after school.  We'll see how it goes.  In any case, he had fun and is excited for school tomorrow.

After having a rice krispy snack and telling me about school I told him he could have a 1/2 hour break to do whatever he wanted.  He wanted to watch a TV show.  Then I told him it was homework time.  But he didn't have any.  Ha, ha he knows what that means.  So I handed him a prepared packet of worksheets I tore out of a Scholastic workbook and stapled together.  Then I had him read for 15 minutes.  Tessa also wanted to do homework so we worked on letters P-T.  I think it was too much for her so next time maybe I'll just do one paper with her.

cousins, water, dinosaurs, and the Zoo

I meant to put this post up last weekend, but so goes life.  Brodie was out of town last week for work and since it was the last week of the summer I knew we needed some fun, summery things to do.  Wednesday I headed up to my sister's place in Tremonton to spend the day with her.  However, as I was in the shower Tessa came running up saying there was an emergency and that Clara was spitting up and it was too stinky.  I jumped out of the shower and came running downstairs in a towel to find Spencer hiding on the fireplace so he wouldn't get any throw up on him and poor little Clara was more scared than anything and screaming so hard.  I tore off her pukey clothes and held her to calm her down.  And of course I had fed her a bowl full of blueberries for breakfast.  So I cleaned her up and then stuck her in her high chair while I proceeded to clean the carpet and get her clothes and the rags in the washing machine immediately.  I then brought her up to my bathroom while I finished getting ready.  She was acting just fine, holding down soda crackers, and didn't have a fever so I decided to proceed with my plans for Tremonton. 

After packing up the van, setting up the DVD players, and stopping for bathrooms and McDonald's we finally made it to Tremonton around 1:00.  The kids headed up immediately to Aliya's room where they had so much fun.  Especially Tessa as she had another girl to play with.  A typical day in our playroom has Tessa playing princesses in her castle and then Spencer crashes a monster truck in it killing the princesses.  Then some screaming and yelling occurs and so on.  Here's Tessa having fun with Aliya in her beautiful, girly room:

A little later the kids got on their swimming suits and headed out to go swimming in the hot tub.  My sister has it turned down during the day for the kids to play in and then turns it up in the evening.  Aliya is a little water baby and kept doing sommersaults and all sorts of fun stuff.  Tessa kept sticking her head in the water.  Spencer was fine with his feet on the ground and water not being squirted onto his face.  Clara even spent a little time in the water with either Tiffany or me holding onto her from outside the hot tub.

We stayed for dinner and ended up getting home around 9:30.  Spencer and Tessa both fell asleep on the way home but Clara didn't.  I enjoyed a yummy late night snack of crackers with cream cheese and the habanero jelly my sister sent home with me.  It was better than ice cream.  Then around midnight Clara woke up crying and when I went to get her she had thrown up again.  I cleaned her up again and put her bedding and pajamas into the wash.  Then I had to make sure I stayed up long enough to get them in the dryer in case I needed to change them back.  The next morning she threw up in her crib again.  So we stayed in on Thursday, other than driving Tessa to preschool.  Since we weren't going anywhere fun and the front yard needed some extra water, I sent the kids out front with the sprinklers.

Clara didn't throw up again so Friday we headed to Hogle Zoo with my other sister, Janelle.  Spencer went earlier this year with his kindergarten class but the girls and I haven't seen the robotic dinosaurs yet so I was excited.  I thought of our trips to Red Butte and Thanksgiving Point Gardens earlier this week and decided to pull out the old Graco double stroller for the zoo.  I haven't used it since last summer and didn't think pushing that heavy stroller with both kids around the zoo was too much fun.  We went to the bird show that was a lot of fun and informative.  The kids liked the talking parrots, dancing cockatoo, and the flying birds of prey.  After that we had some lunch that we had packed up for the kids.  We watched the monkeys and elephants and had fun watching the cool, realistic robotic dinosaurs.  We dug for dinosaur bones in the sand and played in the water from the squirting dinosaur and from the cooling fans.  The kids favorite thing seemed to be locating the dinosaurs we were looking at in their guide book and reading about them.  Tessa didn't want to get out of the stroller.  If you haven't been to the zoo while they have their Zoorassic Park exhibit, you should really get out there before August 31 and see these cool dinosaurs.

But pushing the double stroller, the 90 degree weather, and the fact that I have been to the zoo so many times (I have had a pass 4 out of the last 6 years) that I feel I have seen and done it all made the 3 hours we had been at the zoo feel like long enough.  So instead of seeing the rest of the zoo we rode the train and then played at the playground for quite a while and then we left.  Spencer was sad we didn't go in the stinky, but cool, reptile building and I told him we'd come again when the weather drops about 20 degrees.  He seemed fine with that.  I think the kids had more fun playing with their cousins than looking at the animals anyway.

Tessa's first day of preschool and Thanksgiving Point Gardens

I can't believe my little (size wise) girl started preschool today!  She was sooooo excited.  I stayed up much too late creating the last couple of blog posts, doing laundry, cutting my husband's hair, and sorting through clothes Tessa has outgrown.  I finally got to bed around 1:30 in the morning.  My alarm clock woke me up at 6:45 and I noticed there was an extra little body in my bed.  Guess I was too tired to notice Tessa sneak in.  It's been a super long time since that's happened so I'm guessing she was too excited to sleep well herself.  She's usually not a morning person but was bouncing on top of me when my alarm went of (even though I set it with enough time to hit snooze a couple times).  At least I didn't need to worry about running late like I usually do.

I let Tessa choose her breakfast for her first day of school and she chose pancakes.  Then she went upstairs to get dressed.  If I want Spencer to wear a certain outfit I just set it out and he'll wear it.  That rarely happens as he's 6 and can choose his own clothes.  Plus they're easy to match.  In the winter he has jeans or khaki cargo pants.  In summer he has the same choices of shorts plus a couple plaids--usually a blue-ish one and a brown-ish one.  His shirts pretty much match any choice of bottoms he has.  Except when he tries a plaid shirt with plaid shorts.  Girls are different.  Holy cow there are a million different combinations Tessa can choose that don't go together compared to the few that do.  Why do I buy such cute coordinating outfits?  If she doesn't learn to match I may have to only buy her jeans and khakis as well.  But that wouldn't be as much fun.  The bigger problem with Tessa is that she wants to choose herself and half the time I tell her she doesn't match she says "okay" and changes but the other half the time turns into a major meltdown.  So last night before bed I had her choose what she wanted to wear to school this morning and set it out so we wouldn't have a meltdown before school.  She chose her new Hello Kitty ballerina shirt, tulle skirt, and new twinkle toe Sketcher shoes.  As smoothly as that went, doing her hair didn't go so smoothly.  She wouldn't let me do anything other than comb it.  Not even put some mousse to make her curls more defined.  I did manage a cute Snuggle Luv headband with the pink lace designer blossom and pink feather puff.  I'm so sad these aren't on their website anymore as I was hoping to get a matching one for Clara.

Tessa had an absolute blast at preschool.  She doesn't remember her teacher's name and only 2 of the kids' names, but that's a start.  She played with playdough, water toys, a dollhouse, paints, basketball, the slide, a ladder, sang songs, heard a story, and had crackers for a snack.  She hasn't stopped talking about how much fun it was all day!  She even made her big brother jealous.

Straight from picking Tessa up from preschool I headed to Thanksgiving Point as it's still 2 Buck Tuesdays.  I figured since we went to Red Butte Garden last night I should go see Thanksgiving Point Gardens so I could decide which I liked better.  I already knew I'd like the price at Thanksgiving Point better with it only costing a total of $6.00 today.  I brought about a gallon of water, some towels, a change of clothes for each kid, and some food for lunch.  We entered right by the funnest looking water play area ever--Noah's Ark.  However, with the popularity of 2 Buck Tuesdays the venues are all very crowded and Thanksgiving Point prepares as best as possible for such.  In this case they were giving wristbands out with a 20-minute time window to use the Noah's Ark.  It was fenced off and there was a lady standing there who would empty out the area every 20 minutes and let the next color of wristband in.  We got there around noon and our time slot wasn't until 2:40.  We were given purple wristbands but because the time slots were so far out, they were allowing purple wristbands in at 12:40 and then again at 2:40.  So they wrote the time on the wristband.  But the lady didn't have time to check that, just the color.  So I heard from many, many mothers who just let their kids go in the first slot with their color.  And if they were still going to be around 2 hours later they'd let them in again.  I decided to play within the system they had set up so we went about for a couple of hours and I told the kids we'd play there at the end.

The Children's Garden was soooo much fun for the kids.  They ran through the mazes made by the bushes, in the bear caves, played in the stream and the pool of dirty water at the end of the stream, and played in some of the few little alcoves of play.  We also ate lunch in a nice little shaded area.  Then we went through the gate into the main gardens.  We first went to the waterfall area.  I've been here before for a concert--I'm thinking it was a Colors concert back in my pre-married college days.  The kids really enoyed seeing all the big waterfalls and running up and down the hills.  I let Clara crawl around for a while.  The breeze coming off the water helped a little with the 90+ degree weather.  Then we headed over to see some beautiful flowers.  Red Butte Garden was definitely more educational/informative.  It was also more compact--more plants and less grass.  However, Thanksgiving Point was more picturesque.  So many beautiful flowers, ponds, streams, bridges, and structures.  The kids had fun looking for frogs and fish and crossing the bridges.

However, I only brought the single stroller and it is hard carrying Tessa while pushing Clara in the stroller.  And we had done so much walking that I knew Tessa needed a break.  Then it was almost 2:00 and I had no idea where we were as I wasn't given a map when we entered and the occasional sign post wasn't much help.  I asked a few people who also didn't know where they were or where to go to get back.  I assumed eventually the trails would wrap back around to the waterfalls but after a lot of walking/pushing/carrying in the heat with a whining little girl who had fallen and scratched herself (I didn't have the diaper bag with the Band-Aids) I gave up and cut across the lawns (which are even harder to push the stroller on but less distance from point A to point B) back in the direction we had originally came from.  After what seemed like forever we finally made it back to the Ark just before our time slot.  I changed Clara into a swim diaper, but left all the kids in their regular clothes.  Oh, except I had Tessa remove her skirt back when they were playing in the dirty pool at the bottom of the stream earlier so she was just in her little shorts.

The kids had so much fun in the Noah's Ark area.  A couple goats or lamas or something were spitting water and on the other side the elephant was squirting water down.  Along the boat were lots of little "holes" leaking water out.  And all surrounding the ark was a shallow little pool.  Tessa was putting her face in the water like at swimming lessons and standing in all the squirting water.  Spencer kept trying to "plug" up the leaking holes and just had fun helping Clara play in the water.  Clara loved trying to grab the dripping water, sitting waist deep and splashing, and walking around holding my hand.  Speaking of walking she can take a good 7 or 8 steps on her own if nobody's making a big deal out of it.  Anyway there were only about 30 kids in the Noah's Ark area and it was so un-crowded.  I would have expected them to have twice as many on 2 Buck Tuesday.  Maybe some people didn't wait around 2 1/2 hours until their turn.

 

After our water play I changed all the kids clothes and we came home, very exhausted.  We drank almost the whole gallon of water I brought.  Even then we only visited the restrooms twice in over 3 hours.  I think I may take my kids back to the Children's Discovery Garden once on a non-2 Buck Tuesday so they can spend more time at each thing.  And next August on a 2 Buck Tuesday take them through the main gardens.  Regular admission price is $6 for an adult and $4 for a child just to the Children's Discovery Garden.  If you want to visit the beautiful, expansive regular garden it is $10 for an adult and $6 for a child (includes admission to both gardens).

Red Butte Garden--flowers, plants, water, and fun

Tonight we went to Red Butte Garden as a family.  I've heard great things but we've never been there before.  Earlier this year I  bought a Groupon but it was only good for the adults, so we had to pay full price for the kids.  Even though it's the heat of the summer, there were still quite a few lovely flowers growing!

Brodie and I enjoyed walking through the "Herb Gardens" and seeing (and smelling) all the different herbs and produce they had growing in there.  We also loved the way they were growing the pear and apple trees!  They had them growing up and over some archways, pruning and tying them to have them grow on the arches.  They were beautiful, provided nice shade, and didn't take up so much space as they were growing up and over an arch as opposed to growing out all over the place.  And they had quite a bit of fruit on them!

There were some fun little trails leading to little alcoves, nice quiet spots for reading or just thinking, and lovely overlooks.  The children's discovery garden also had a couple cute little alcoves just right for kids.  And there were benches all over the place to stop and enjoy the beauty.

Spencer kept track of all the creatures we saw.  First we picked up Subway sandwiches (don't ask me why as there are so many better sandwich shops for the same price--or less--but that's where we went) and ate them just past the visitor's center.  The kids had a hard time eating as they were so enthralled by a chubby little squirrel hanging around.  Then there were obviously plenty of bees and the sort.  The kids were quite frightened by these, especially when they surprised one of the kids as they were smelling something.  Spencer loved smelling everything he possibly could.  We also saw plenty of fun, beautiful butterflies and dragonflies.  Near the little waterfall Spencer pointed out a snake making its way towards the water and in the herb garden the kids spent a good deal of time watching a snail try to cross the walkway.  There was also a little pond with some duck and fish swimming around.  Oh, and Spencer pointed out a spider in the restroom.  When we got home Spencer wanted to draw all of these creatures and make himself a book of them, but it was bedtime so he told me to remind him tomorrow.

Tessa walked most of the way, but kept asking to be carried.  She said she was too tired to walk, until we came to the Children's Discovery Garden.  Then she somehow was overflowing with energy.  It was a lot of fun for the kids.  There were little tunnels with vines and bushes all over them.  There was also a sandbox that we didn't play in but looked like a lot of fun.  The kids climbed all over some lizard figures on the lawn, and found some cute little flower displays like a birthday cake and a bed.  Of course their favorite part was the water.  I had read about this so I came prepared with towels and a change of clothes, which was good as they were literally dripping by the end of it.  Clara played in it a little bit.

As you can see Tessa loved putting her head into the large fountain.  Spencer was on a kung-fu kick (literally) and kept kicking and karate chopping the water in the fountain and from the snakes.  Clara liked grabbing the water with her hands, but didn't like it splashing on her face.  The water was really cold.  When the kids were finally shaking and dripping I took them to the nearby restrooms to have them dry off and change.  Then they explored some more of the children's garden before we came home.  We were there for about 2 1/2 hours (including eating time).  It was a lot of fun, but not worth the price for us.  I know it costs a lot of money to keep this beautiful, informative garden running, but $8 for an adult and $6 per kid was more than what we got out of it.  If I lived closer I would consider a season pass, but for now I think I'll watch for discounts and maybe add this to a once a year rotation.  Maybe I'll try to hit it in spring next year to see all the flowers in bloom.

Hot Air Balloons up close!

Why has it taken me so long to getting around to attending Sandy's Annual Hot Air Balloon Festival?  It was so much fun!  The getting up at 6:30 in the morning wasn't so much fun--but the rest was!  I went to bed too late (I really need to rectify this before the kids start school--wait that's tomorrow.  Maybe before Spencer starts school next week) and 6:30 came much too early.  After simply pulling back my hair, putting in my contacts, and getting dressed I woke up Brodie.  As he showered (sometimes I wish I was a guy who could shower and get ready in less than 5 minutes) I came downstairs to Spencer's room.  Simply opening his door woke him up and he all but leaped out of bed with excitement to go see the hot air balloons.  Disgusted at his morning energy, I stumbled upstairs to Tessa's room.  I was much more pleased to see someone I could relate to in this area.  I laid next to her and whispered, "Tessa it's time to get up."  Nothing.  Then I gently shook her and spoke in a regular voice, "Tessa wake up so we can go see the hot air balloons."  Nothing.  So I picked her up, not too gently, slightly shook her and spoke quite loudly, "Tessa it's time to wake up."  She was still a limp noodle in my arms, snoring away.  I carried her to the bathroom to have her pee in her sleep.  Finally between the noise of the flushing toilet and her overly excited brother bounding up the stairs, she woke up.  I set her down and went to get Clara.  I decided the kids could wear their pajamas, but the older kids grabbed their bathrobes to keep them warm.

By the time we found a place to park along 11400 South and walked up to Storm Mountain Park, they were already starting to blow up the balloons.  We walked right up to them and got a first hand view of the process from blowing the air into them, feeling the heat as they turned on the torches, watching them guide the balloon upright and tip the basket, and then heading up into the sky.  It was really cool to be so close to these amazing balloons!  And it was a lot of fun to watch them go right above our heads.  There were quite a few in the morning.  Here are some fun pictures.

After all the hot air balloons took off we headed back to the car.  Because I didn't want to get up earlier than 6:30 I hadn't given my kids breakfast yet.  Thankfully they were too excited to notice my neglect.  As we were leaving the park Brodie mentioned stopping at McDonald's for breakfast.  Typically I think spending money on a meal that is so easy to make is a waste, but I know Brodie likes McD breakfasts and I realized our kids have never had such the opportunity.  All about experiences for the kids (and my eagerness for some much needed caffeine into my system) we went through the drive-thru on our way home.

Later in the day we headed up to Tremonton for my cute little nephew's 2nd birthday.  We all fell asleep on the way there (except thankfully Brodie) for about half an hour.  I was surprised the kids didn't sleep longer.  Then they played and played at their cousins' house.  I was also surprised at how much they played outside despite the heat.  They had bright red faces and were dripping with sweat each time they came in the house.  We left the party in time to make it to the balloon glow at the South Towne Promenade.

There were only 4 hot air balloons this time, but one was shaped like a pig and that made the kids very excited.  We once again stood up close to watch them fill the balloons with air, turn on the heat that we could feel, raise the balloons and the baskets.  It was fun to see the balloons glowing from the fire inside them.  And of course there was the pig balloon that the kids had fun running underneath.  Tessa got a little frightened every time the propane (guessing that's what they were using) would kick the fire on.  I had to remind her that's why the air was "hot" in the hot air balloon.  I didn't bring my camera, but had Brodie take a few pictures on his iPhone.  Maybe one of these days he'll send them to me and I can post one or two here...

We came home before finding out if the balloons were going to go in the sky (I'm guessing they'd stay tethered down but go up a little bit) to get the kids some much needed sleep.  And I still needed to work on my primary lesson and Tessa's talk.  I remembered all week she was supposed to give a talk, and I occasionally thought about it, but I hadn't done anything.  Same with my lesson.  But I had ideas.  After getting the kids to bed I ran to the store for toothpicks and posterboard.  Then I simplified my idea I had for Tessa's talk.  I drew a temple on one side of the posterboard and printed off a picture of Tessa's head that I glued on the other side and then drew the rest of her body underneath it.  I then cut a hold Tessa's stomach (the middle of the temple on the other side) and covered it with packaging tape.  I also covered the hold on the other side so the sticky sides of the packaging tape stuck to each other.  Then I printed off some pictures and glued them back to back and covered them in contact paper.  Her talk was on "My body is a temple" so I had her hold up the temple side of the picture and say the Temple is a House of God.  Then she turned it over and said her body was a temple for her spirit.  Then she taped a picture of a little girl all sticky with cotton candy on the hold in the temple and said we wouldn't go in the temple all sticky with cotton candy.  When I turned the picture around it showed the other side of the picture (which I had glued on a picture of a bunch of candy) in Tessa's belly and she said we also shouldn't fill our bodies with so much candy to make us feel sick or get cavities.  Instead we should eat healthy food like fruits and vegetables and she put a picture on her belly of that.  I took the other picture off the back and when I flipped it around you could see scriptures through the hole in the temple.  She said in the temple we should fill our minds with the words and stories of the scriptures.  She continued on with a picture of muddy shoes for the temple and the other side was beer in her belly, a girl jumproping for exercise on the side with her body and the other side was a kid in church clothes reverently folding arms, and a kid screaming with loud music coming from headphones (on both sides) and a piano representing soft, quiet, happy music (same picture on both sides).  Tessa enjoyed putting the pictures on and didn't get nervous about talking in the microphone at all. 

My Sunbeam lesson was on Being thankful for our houses and I used a large tablecloth to build a tent with the chairs.  As the kids sat in it eating Cookie Crisp I told them the story of Lehi and how his family left their nice house and lived in a tent in the wilderness, and then a boat as they crossed the ocean.  Then I told them about the Pioneers who left their homes in Nauvoo and had to pack what they could in a covered wagon and sleep on the ground as they crossed to Utah.  Then we talked about their houses and what they could do to take care of their houses.  At the end I gave them a bunch of marshmallows and toothpicks and they all built a house.  Then they wanted to build the tent again and play in it until their parents came to get them.  I'm going to miss teaching Sunbeams.