friday {day 40 of Summer} + the best of our weekend.

Last week Savannah ended up working quite a few days with Paul. I think it was fun for her, because of my lack of planning last week. So Friday Kendahl invited us to the Wasatch Front Farmer's Market for lunch, and so Devin, Bina, and my self headed to meet her.

Devin bugged us the entire time about going to the Dinosaur Museum, and just when I was about to go...Paul called and said Savannah needed to be picked up from a location. It turned out okay, because by the time we got home Bina had a case of the blow-outs...and needed a bath in the worst of ways.

Savannah invited a friend over to have a water fight in the front yard, and everyone was content to play outside for the rest of the day.

 ***

Like I have said before I take weekends off from our Summer fun schedule, and Paul plans our Saturday and Sunday. It has worked out so well, and I love feeling like I don't have to think of anything...just go along for the ride.

We had a few errands, and then we headed to Este Pizzeria in Sugarhouse. We both decided it was a bit dramatic to say this is the best pizza we have ever tasted, but it was the best pizza I have ever tasted. LOL. It was the perfect amount of sauce, cheese, and excellent crust. The atmosphere is a little quirky, and we really didn't feel like we fit in to the vibe...but it won't stop me from going again.

Paul planned to go and feed the ducks, and I have asked people for a few parks/places that were good on Facebook. Everyone suggested Fairmont Park, but in the end it was Paul's day to plan...and he took us to Fox Point in Old Farm to feed the ducks there. This apartment complex was in Paul's area when he was on a mission, so it has sentimental value to us. It has a pond hidden in the middle, and feeding the ducks there is the best!

The ducks clearly don't get fed a lot here, and it made for ducks swarming us! They followed us across the street to our car, hoping we had more food. I laughed so hard, and the kids loooved it. In other feeding ducks experiences we have had, the ducks aren't interested, because they get fed so often. That will not be the case here. 

I normally would complain right here about how awful Sunday was, but it was lovely. It was relaxing, and just what we all needed. I have loved the Summer rain storms, and cooler temperatures the past couple of days.

Today was all work in the morning, all relaxing in the afternoon, and my soul is needing a Target run. 

Tomorrow is our play group at Seven Peaks in SLC if you are interested in meeting up with us {you do have to have the Pass of All Passes}. We will be there at 9:30 until Noon or so. Email me if you need any information... sellpartyof at gmail

a week recap - Summer {days 36-40}

I always plan our week on Sunday night. The kids {mostly Savannah} go to the calendar every day to see what we are doing. The thing is, this week I only planned 2 days. We have been winging it almost every day, and I am not totally in love with how it turned out. If you would have told me at the beginning of the Summer I would live by a schedule/calendar, I would not have believed you. This doesn't mean we are overly busy, it just means that I like to have a game plan now. 

Monday was one of those days I didn't plan a darn thing. We ended up going to lunch with Paul, getting cupcakes at The Sweet Tooth Fairy, and heading to Barnes and Noble to read. It wasn't thrilling, but it was something to do. When we got home, I let them have a water fight while I talked to my neighbor.

We had a picnic and Mountain View Park splash pad with friends on the agenda for Tuesday. You would think my kids were really deprived or something, because I have never seen them so excited over a lunch from home. I let them pick out all of the messy food I hate buying, because I knew they would be eating it outside...then swimming. Devin was most excited about his powder donuts, and Sabrina was double fisting the Cheeto's Puffs.

This splash pad was super busy, but honestly it doesn't make me want to stay away. My kids loved it, and Savannah especially loved the play structure attached to it. We were there for over 3 hours, and the kids still weren't ready to go...soooo, I totally bribed them with Hokulia Shave Ice to smooth things over.

Wednesday Paul made plans with the kids to go to Despicable Me 2. Yes, it is a shame we are just getting around to seeing this movie. We loved it, kids did fabulous, and by the time we got home it was naps. 

You know what the highlight {if you can even call it that} of Thursday was!? Dr. Cooper the kitty is sick. So, every time the kids went to play in the toy room, Devin would come back to tell me I had more throw up to clean up. Argggh. 

Today...well...I had zero plans, but luckily my friend Kendahl must have known to email and invite us to the farmer's market!

Next week I am not going to let this kind of lamesauce happen again. I will go back to scheduling something every day, because it is what makes this Mommy happy.

PS July 30th...we are having our play group at Seven Peaks for all ya'll who have the Pass of All Passes! We will be there at 9:30 AM, and staying until the babies need naps. We will love to see you there.

we made it.

Paul went to Idaho this weekend, and late Friday night he decided to keep Savannah home with me. I was really tired from our stand on Friday, but by Saturday morning I was ready to have fun with the kids again.

As much as I love to plan our week out, it is nice to be spur of the moment...that way the kids aren't asking about said event all day long. So, when Paul left for the morning, so did we.

We stopped for breakfast at Mickey D's, made a quick stop at the post office, and headed to a new splash pad.

My friend Arianne has talked about the Foxboro splash pad in North Salt Lake, and I thought it would be fun to try a new one out. This year has definitely been the year of splash pads for us. Even though we have our Pass of All Passes, it is so much easier for me to take all 3 kids to a splash pad by myself verses Seven Peaks.

I liked this splash pad a lot, and even the kids liked it just as much as their favorite Highland splash pad. Bonus points for the huge play structure close by! I love going early to these places, because not only is it not as crowded...there is zero shade at this place. I thought I may melt at one point, and then I heard in the car on the way home it was over 100 degrees. No wonder.

On the way home we picked up pizza, and had naps.

I tried to not go crazy the rest of the afternoon without Paul, but I don't know how successful I was. We had to do a late afternoon run to the gas station for sugar to help cure me.

We all miss Paul when he is away, but we made it through another Idaho trip. Phew.

Crayola's Summer Products + Giveaway

Savannah is the child that has always colored inside the lines, only on paper, and asked for permission to use our craft supplies. Devin is the kid that thinks his art work is better on his skin, walls, and coloring inside the lines is boring. Almost 18 months ago we were introduced to Crayola's Color Wonder line, and our world has forever been changed.   

We have used the Color Wonder Tiny Tube with Paper & Markers for our Idaho trips, and loved it. We were blown away by the 3D Sidewalk Chalk, and have spent endless hours making our art come to life. Oh, and I am still madly in love with the toddler grip Stampers, I have even caught Savannah using those.

We were excited to try a few different products from Crayola's Summer products this time around.

Our package did not disappoint, and came with these fun things...

Color Wonder Mini Stow and Go:

• Mess-free fun hits the road with Crayola Wonder Mini Stow and Go! 
• The Color Wonder Mini Stow & Go gives you a portable writing surface and storage for your creations and markers. 
• Markers color only on special paper and not on skin, furniture or carpets! 
• Each pack includes a 15-page mini Color Wonder Coloring Pad and 3 Color Wonder Markers  
  

Color Wonder Mess-Free Glitter Paper and Markers: 

• Crayola’s new Color Wonder Glitter Paper is full of glittery fun but without the mess, since the glitter effects are in the paper.
• Kids can create dazzling, sparkly masterpieces with their favorite Disney Princesses and Fairies. 
• With Crayola’s Color Wonder system, parents can rest easy since the mess-free Color Wonder markers will only appear on the special Color Wonder paper – not on skin, clothing, walls or furniture.
• Kids can color and watch in awe as hidden images magically appear on the glittery paper. 
  

Washable Sidewalk Chalk:

• A standout from the crowd -- it’s the first sidewalk chalk featuring 48 classic Crayola crayon colors! And that’s not all - the chalk is also bolder and more vibrant than ever. 
• With so many colors to choose from, kids can let their imaginations run wild to create beautiful masterpieces that may include “carnation pink” flowers, “sepia” colored tree trunks, “granny smith apple” turtles or “scarlet” colored lady bugs. 
• A new anti-roll shape prevents chalk from rolling away and the wide sides allow kids to draw thick lines. 
• Parents will appreciate that the chalk is washable from sidewalks and driveways - simply spray away with water! 

Here is the fun part! 

Crayola wants to give one of my fabulous readers the same gift pack. Enter to win with the Rafflecopter widget below. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway  

Good luck!

Disclosure: The Crayola product, information, and additional gift pack have been provided by Crayola. All opinions belong to us. 

Our {Non} Lemonade Stand.

When Savannah asked to have a lemonade stand, I knew I had to recruit someone to do it with us. I was not looking forward to it at first, but then Cathy said she would play along...and the planning started...and then my excitement escalated.

I started out wanting to get in on the chalkboard sign craze. It was one of our projects we did a couple of weeks ago. These were so easy, and made our stand look extra spiffy. Next time I think I might use a real board, instead of the heavy card stock. We live in a windy area, and we had to chase down our signs a couple of times. If I used board it would stay put, and I would be able to use it again. 

Lemonade always seems like so much work, call me lazy. I waited for Lynda to tell me when the deal was on for soda, and I scored my 12 packs. I realize this is not traditional, but it made it so Devin could even help customers. 

Cathy and I both chose a couple of things to bake. Lemon brownies and cupcakes from Cathy, and two kind of cookies from me. It was nice to have a little variety for our customers. 

my favorite is seeing Devin and Sabrina in the pack and play together!

Paul even contributed some toys from his vending supply in case people didn't want sweets. I wasn't sure how these would do, but it was cute on our table...so we went with it.  We ended up almost emptying one whole vase, except 2 toys. Not bad success, if I do say so myself.

I am so thankful that people came to support our little people. We had people come from Utah County, and a friend I haven't seen since Savannah was a baby stopped by. These kids were busy little worker bees. Devin and Savannah had problems fighting over the cash register, but other than that...it went smoothly. We had a system of Savannah taking money, Devin and Cate getting drinks. When we had down time, we ate cupcakes, of course!

After sitting for 4 hours, I called it quits. Savannah would have sat until every single water bottle was gone...I had dinner to eat, babies to get to bed, and such. Life sometimes gets in the way of having fun, ya know.

eating our profits...

I actually had so much fun, I can actually see doing it again this Summer. Am I crazy for saying that, maybe a little!? Definitely learned a little about what to do next time, and what not to do.

Plans for the weekend? I might just have to sit on the couch for a loooong while to recover from today.

Summer: Days 33 + 34

I planned a lot of bigger things this week, and most of it with friends. Paul had glanced at my calendar earlier this week, and joked about when his play date was going to be with us. Luckily I had Wednesday totally free, and told him we wanted a play date with Daddy!

I am glad that Paul wants to spend time with us, and will make adventure plans for us. We went to Trolley Square with the kids, and ate on the patio at Old Spaghetti Factory. It was perfect, because no one else wanted to sit on the patio in the heat...but us. We window shopped, and it was such a nice evening the 5 of us. 

This morning we planned a play date with the Geocaching Queen, Jennifer and her kids. Savannah has wanted to go geocaching since she helped place one with her Girl Scout troop. Since Jennifer knows so much, we enlisted her help to teach us. 

Devin fell in love in Jennifer, and didn't want to let go of her hand.

We left Sabrina home with Paul to nap, and went exploring. Jennifer taught us about travel bugs, all the different lingo, and most of all how much fun this stuff can be. 

I am not disclosing the location of this cache, but wanted to show you what one can look like. That little black thing w/the green lid is a cache. This one you don't trade anything at, just sign the log. It is called a LPC, I believe.

We went to 4 locations, and were successful at 3 of them. Jennifer came prepared with things to trade, and gave me some great ideas for things to bring to put in the bigger caches. I was so glad that we did this activity. We will definitely be doing this again.

I love that this is a simple activity that you can just add to your errands. There is a cache at Wheeler Farm, and at different parks. It could make going to play some where just that much more fun.

What is the name of your favorite cache? They took us to their favorite, which was called the Defibrillator. We will be going back to this one too with new friends.

 Such a fun couple of days. Tomorrow is our Drink/Treat stand. I have been doing little prep work all week, and we are hoping to have raging success!!

Bridal Veil Falls + Hokulia Shave Ice

Do you ever look at someone's Instagram feed, and think I so wanna do that? Well, it happens to me a lot. When I saw a few pictures of things that Cathy had done recently, I decided to make her go with me to repeat them. How nice is she to make my Bridal Veil Falls dreams come true!?

I have lived in Utah my entire life, and still have yet to explore most of it. I would love to spend day after day doing just this, but I sometimes have to do adult things like...clean. Paul keeps telling me I need to figure out a way to get paid to spend nights in hotels, eat awesome food, and play. I still haven't figured out how to make this happen, one day. {wink! wink!}

Anyways, Bridal Veil Falls is one of those things I have never done, and wanted to. It has a paved path to the falls, beautiful, shaded, and a perfect adventure for my little family.

I loved that it was easy enough for the kids to climb up the falls by themselves. The cold water on our feet was perfect. I can't say enough good things. They even have a fish pond that you can buy food for a quarter to feed them. Oh, and I did see a snack shack, and lots of other things to do there...like tubing. How fun would that be? 

Anyways, we played for awhile, and then decided to head back down the path. We were ready for the next stop on my "need to do, because of Instagram" list.

Cathy {among other friends, uhem, Stephanie!} have been talking about Hokuli Shave Ice, and I wanted to go and see what the talk was all about. Even if I definitely don't feel hipster enough to hang out with most of the people that go there, I loved this little place.

I think Cathy described it best, something like...fluffy, flavored snow. So good. Huge portions, reasonable price, and you know what my favorite thing was? They have little circles cut out of the table that fit your cup perfectly. You know how your cup always is top heavy, and tips over when you go to get a bite? Never again will this happen at Hokuli Shave Ice. 

Highly recommend doing both of these activities, and I will most definitely be doing them again. Aaaaand I didn't get paid to say any of this, even though I kind of sounded like a salesperson. 

What fun activity have you seen on Instagram that you now need to try?

PS I would like to thank my personal photographer, Cathy, who has helped me with my "Get in the Picture Challenge"! 

our weekend + Summer: day 31

I really don't want to mention who had the stupid idea of going to Trafalga on Saturday {it was mine}. I realize it is free to go with the Pass of All Passes, so I really shouldn't complain. Seriously though, I am pretty sure they could afford to hire a few more employees, and update that place. Disneyland type lines for that run down join...dude, it was bad. I wouldn't mind even paying so that it could be even a slightly better experience. 

After it bombed, and I told Paul I was not waiting in another line for the kids to play Rollerball. We headed straight to Scheel's for the kids to play Rollerball there. No lines, cleaner atmosphere, and the kids always love to see the animals. We totally recovered from Trafalga, thank goodness.

Sunday is probably the hardest day of the week for us. It is a guarantee that Sabrina will be a poop stain at church, and about a month ago Devin decided he doesn't like his class anymore. We are just glad we survive.

these two are 2 months apart, and take note of Bina's awesome hair.  photo cred - Vanessa

We had fun plans this morning with the Brown girls. We decided to go play at the park first thing to beat the heat, and Vanessa brought donuts to eat breakfast there. I love that our kids can all play nicely together. It makes it nice for Vanessa and I, because we can sit back and chat while they all explore.

photo cred - Vanessa

This week we have so many fun things planned. I am really excited. Bridal Veil Falls, the non-lemonade stand, geocaching with our friends, and it is an Idaho weekend. Should be pretty action packed.

What do you have planned?

Summer: Day 29 & 30 too.

We had a play date planned to the splash pad yesterday. When we woke up it was overcast, and I wasn't sure that was going to happen. I decided to make "flubber" for the kids to play with in the morning, just in case I had to break the bad news later on.

I have never made "flubber", and it was definitely an adventure. My end result was really good, but just didn't have the same matte looking finish as the pictures I had seen. The kids didn't know how it was suppose to turn out, all was well. It made enough for the 2 of them to have plenty, and then some. We even have played with it today. With the school supplies being so cheap right now, I would definitely stock up on glue to make some other types of "flubber" in the Winter months. {Click here for the recipe + pictures!}

I had forgotten that it was 7/11 yesterday. Thankfully all of my friends don't forget, and start posting pictures to remind me to go and get my free slurpee. Bina even got her very own, which she didn't ever want to give up. 

We decided that rain or shine, we wanted to go and get wet. So, we headed to Highland. It ended up being the perfect overcast day, and the kids didn't even notice when it started to sprinkle. "Cafee" saved the day with her cool half-tent thingy, treats, and drinks. We laughed, got to know Jamie better {she is great, BTW.}, took silly pictures, and did I mention laugh?  I am so glad that we didn't let a little rain stand in our way of going.

Just so everyone knows that things are not always perfect around here, I will tell you about today...day 30. It was mostly just sitting around, playing pretend, laughing at the cats, and watching movies. We danced in the rain this morning, and I cooked some bacon with our breakfast. Which is our kind of fancy. 

I wanted to do this little science project, and was just waiting for Sabrina to go down for her afternoon nap. We prepped everything, and in the time it took me to take Sabrina up the stairs, put her in the crib, and walk down the stairs...Devin had dumped all of our stuff on the ground. To say I was a little mad would be an understatement. Instead of getting to do something fun, we cleaned. 

So, there ya go...things aren't always smooth sailin'. Things happen that make me get mean. Good thing Paul came home, loaded us in the car, and went to find me a treat to help with my grumpiness.

Tomorrow is our family day of fun. We have gone over some ideas, and we may just end up going mini golfing. It has been awhile. We shall see.

a first for everything.

Still almost 9 years later I am still experiencing "firsts" in parenting. If Savannah never did it, Devin most definitely has tried it. With Savannah getting a haircut this week, I should have seen it comin'. You know what I am going to say, right? Devin gave himself a haircut.

I actually couldn't find where he had cut, because he was pointing to the front-side section of his head. He was really proud that he had used the scissors on his hair.

I hurried down to Casey {twice in one week!} to have her cut his hair. As soon as she started to comb, it was really obvious where he had done it. It was bad. It was on the crown of his head, where it already has a problem laying flat.

It wasn't a huge deal, because he is a boy...not that I want him to do it all of the time or anything.

The best part of this experience...

Devin totally fell asleep getting his hair done. We aren't talkin' just a little relaxed, he was doing the head bob. Casey at one point even had to catch him from falling out of the chair. It was definitely entertaining. She had to wake him up when she was done.

He likes to keep me on my toes, good thing he is so darn cute.