Summer Vacation to UT part 1

"Dat kitty, he wuves me!"

That's a cute slip 'n slide Fail by cousin D

Mmmm pie!

Ahh, the perils of walking around barefoot.

4th of July

...and the weekend before at the splash park

Family 5k

Parade

BBQ (complete with homemade rootbeer!)

Sprinklers

Sadly, our day did not end in fireworks, they were cancelled this year due to the extreme fire danger. :(

However, Mother Nature did her best to make up for it the very next evening.

Cake Pops...

...are a lot harder to make than they look.

They're simple. I mean, it's a box mix and store-bought frosting-- how hard could it be?  Mix those together and roll into balls and refrigerate, (or even freeze -which I eventually ended up doing). Then melt some almond bark or candy coating, dip your stick into it and poke it into the  balls, and then dip the balls --or maybe I should have dipped the balls and then poked them with the stick.  Either way, it was really hard to keep the balls on the sticks.  They kept poking all the way through and sliding down the sticks.  It was a mess.  Oh yeah, and don't overheat your coating, it will dry out and be useless.  Well a tasty kind of useless anyway. :)

And although they're super yummy, I don't know that I'll try making them again.

5

I can't believe my first child is five years old already!

My Father-in-law made this lovely dinosaur cake to celebrate his birthday the weekend before.

On the day of his birthday, he woke up to this dinosaur balloon (which he calls a kabloon) and a pancake breakfast (which I didn't get pictures of because the battery died on the camera).  About the balloon, he said, "That balloon is so amazin'.  I've been waiting for one like that for years!"
His 3 yr old brother commented about one of the dinosaurs on the balloon saying, "See that dinosaur right there?  That's a chomposaurus!"

After it got warmer, (and after I recharged the battery on our camera) I brought out one of his surprises. A block of ice!  You should have seen his face when I handed him a hammer.

Inside were some tiny dinosaur figurines!  I added some dirt to make it more like an archeological dig, but I don't think I'll do that again.

 We only had one hammer, so they took turns using a flathead screwdriver and a rock like a chisel as well.

Other activities included super forts, (notice how the baby wants so bad to keep up with his brothers)

And a family water fight.

Moving his barricade?

It was almost too cold in the shade (this is Jackson after all), and I'm afraid I added to my summer collection of freckles.

Happy 5th Birthday Little Man!

High Volume Play Pen

Filled it with toys... had a picnic lunch...

It was amazing how much I was able to get accomplished.
It kept them busy (and safely contained) for at least 2 hours.

Stuff

You know, stuff happens. 

It may be of our own causing, it may be someone else's fault.  Sometimes it's not anyone's fault at all.

With the very best of intentions, we try to fix it --attempting to put things right;  

yet often, despite our greatest efforts, the results are just not good enough.

C'mon though, we're all just doing the best we know how.  

Let's give each other a break.

Critters...

Look what I saw on the way to the grocery store...

Only in Jackson.

Don't you love how the bush in the forefront is so in focus?

We've also had a few more encounters of the furry kind.

At least this one was alive.
It was stuck down there so I had to use a leather glove to pick it up and put it back in the tall grass.

 You may recognize this guy from a previous post.

Our little friends finally flew the nest.

 And  of course there were some encounters of the creepy crawly kind...

A Giant Water Bug we found in the parking lot.  Yikes!

Speaking of crawling, this little critter is just about to start walking.  In the meantime he is content getting into whatever mischief he can.

Looks a little confused doesn't he?

DIY PVC Pipe Play Sprinkler

This is another Pinterest find, although I didn't have instructions, just a picture to go by.  I've also seen even more elaborate constructions, but I was going for thrift and storability.  It cost me about 9 bucks at Ace Hardware.  It took 2 10-foot sections of 3/4" PVC pipe, two T shaped connectors, two elbows, 3 end caps, and one hose connector.  I made it 5 feet tall, 4 feet across, and each base is 3 feet across with two sections of 1 1/2 feet of pipe on either side of the T connectors. 

I used a very small bit to drill holes so we wouldn't lose pressure too easily.

It came in handy after the kids had already left the hose on earlier and I found them doing this:

I like the versatility of it too.  I think it would be fun some kind of plastic underneath like a slip'n'slide, plus it would save your grass.  We had to keep moving it around, since our yard doesn't drain very well, and our grass is doing pretty poorly.

Water Slide

It worked even better on the pavement.

"Car" Wash

You can even twist the top bar so the spray doesn't go straight down, but rather in a nice arc.

Happy kids = Success!