July Fun

Kaliya got her late birthday present from Gramma Ball - a soft minky quilt. With that and her bear from Gramma S, she's all set.

 Bike Rides:

So excited for our bike rides now. Kaliya in a seat behind me, the boys in a trailer behind Jared. So much fun to get out and ride around. Kaliya wasn't a big fan of her helmet at first but after a few times, she's learned that putting it on means she gets to go on a ride. 

Took a bike ride to the store and just waiting for daddy to come back out.

Jared's such a trooper, pedaling around an extra 80+ pounds.

The Garden:

Beans and peas

Laken showing off how big the sunflowers are getting.
And the corn growing.

The kids enjoying the garden. Laken is ALWAYS asking to check on the garden. He loves being able to pick some of the veggies, even if he doesn't like eating them.

Random:

I wondered how hard it would be to take all the kids on a bike ride alone. HA! I learned my lesson. I barely made it around the two blocks!

On a rainy day, it's always fun to pretend to be a fireman. And it's even better when you have an audience, even if it is just your little sister.

I signed the boys up for the Summer Reading Program at the library. They were in the same age category (Pre-k and younger) so they each had to read a book, sing songs, do rhymes, etc. for 15 min every day. Since we do that anyways at night time, the boys filled up the charts pretty quickly.

Daddy likes to climb trees and is starting the kids young.

She's finally starting to walk! At 13 1/2 months, she decided walking wasn't so bad. She had taken a step or two every now and then, but one day she just started walking further. When Jared came home one day, I told him 'we have a walker!' He took K out to the living room and she took about 12 steps. That was the most she did for a while. She still preferred crawling, but just recently has decided walking is an ok way to get around. She now walks about 80% of the time.

The local (only) movie theatre had free passes to certain movies during the summer. So one day, I pawned K off to some friends, and took my boys on a date to the movie. I took them to the store to get some candies before the movie. We saw The Lego Movie. They boys were pretty excited to go to the movie. Laken had only been once (in March) and C had never been before. I was pretty impressed with how good they were. They each stayed in their seats and watched most of the movie. 

 Camping:

The Branch had a Pioneer Day Picnic here at Fort Defiance. They also sort of had a campout there as well. Unfortunately, only 2 other couples went, and one young adult with some kid friends. But we took the opportunity to camp again this summer. The kids did well. We had a good dinner with the Branch, then when it got late, went to the campsite to get a fire going and finish setting up things in the tent. The kids enjoyed staying up late by the fire. Carter and Kaliya went to bed first without much fuss (once C had his binky). We let Laken stay up a little later. They slept fairly well and weren't too fussy in the morning (which is usually their fussiest time when camping).

K enjoying her chair (before she went to take a drink of milk, and the lid wasn't on tight, so she ended up dumping her milk all over herself instead.....she was not very happy).
Carter....he really wasn't like this for long, it just happens to be the only picture I got of him this camping trip.

Laken getting ready to roast some marshmallows.
Then helping daddy 'cut' some wood for the fire.
 

Funny story before and after camping: The boys were playing outside and going in and out of the garage, like the usually do. They came running to the door and frantically tried opening it while calling for me. I helped them in and asked them what was wrong. Laken said he saw a skunk in the garage. I just laughed and went to check. I didn't see anything. So I continued getting things ready to camp and walked in and out of the garage numerous times to get all our stuff. Never saw/heard/smelled a skunk. Well, then we closed all the doors and went camping. When we came back home, we got the kids out of the car and down for naps. I figured while they were napping, it would be a good time to clean out the car and put all the camping things back in the garage. When I opened the garage door, there was a skunk on the other side...only 4 feet away from me (if that). As soon as I saw it, I ran around the van and into the house. Turns out, Laken wasn't telling stories at all. He really did see the skunk. When I went back out, the skunk was nowhere to be seen. We opened up the rest of the doors hoping it would find its way out and checked for any holes it may have come through. No holes. So at some point, we left a door open at night, it got in, and was stuck inside while we camped. Thankfully it left on it's own when we weren't watching. There have been no more sightings of him in the garage!

Random continued:

After spending the day, hour, 10 minutes in the garden, it's nice to come back in with some fresh picked veggies and eat a popsicle.

One bike ride, the boys were in an extra special loving mood and hugged a bit.

Laken showing off how big the sunflowers have gotten.
And making silly faces in the process, because why not?

We were invited to a play date with some other families from the Branch. This time we went to the splash park in Spirit Lake. They kids had a good time once they got into it.

For the Summer Reading Program finale, we went to the community center for hotdogs and the awards ceremony. The boys got an award for completing the program and got a coupon for a free milkshake. Carter also got his name picked for a 'grand prize'. He received $5 to the local movie theater.

Emmet County Fair 

We turned into true Iowans when we went to the fair mainly for the Tractor pull. We thought Laken would enjoy it. But first we checked out some of the animals (that only K liked) and then found some huge, new tractors (that the boys LOVED). 

The boys waiting for the tractor pull to start.

Watching the tractor pull contest. It was super loud. Thank goodness for ear plugs. 

 The Omaha Zoo

The day after the tractor pull, we took a trip down to Omaha to go to the zoo. 

Checking out the giraffes. 

Laken actually did a decent job taking this picture of Kaliya and I.

We bought some tickets for the train ride. It wasn't that impressive, but it was still nice to sit down and  ride around the zoo. 

After the train ride, we found a place to park it while Jared ran back to the car to get our lunches. I got to hang out with the kids and keep them happy.

Me and my boys

So I wasn't going to take pictures of the animals, but this orangutan was just too cute. It started out further in by some rocks. The boys got up on the ledge to see him better and the orangutan watched them for a while. Then when the boys weren't looking, the orangutan came to investigate the boys. It freaked Carter out when he turned back toward the glass and saw this big orangutan coming towards him. We tried calming down the boys by telling them there was a glass and all the orangutan wanted to do was get closer to be a friend, but they didn't like it so we got them down. The orangutan came right over to where the boys were, sat down, and put his hand on the glass. After a minute (probably because it got no response from our boys), he turned and walked back to his original spot. 

Here we are checking out the sea lions. The one you can see on the bottom rock was quite the active little guy. He would get in the water, swim around, then get back up on the rock, bark, and do a booty dance. He did it over and over. It was pretty funny to watch.

The boys riding a baby elephant statue.

The boys with some penguin paintings.

Can't forget to get pictures of the little miss. She spent most of her time either strapped into the stroller or in the baby carrier.
When we went through the shark tunnel at the aquarium, the boys thought it was pretty neat to see all the sharks, fish, and turtles swimming around.

Random Continued:

The boys enjoying some fresh carrots from the garden. Laken has been excited for the carrots. Almost every time we go to the garden, he wants to check the carrots to see if they are ready. So I finally pulled one to check.