Scary!!!

I just read a story online about a woman who was mauled by a black bear right by my parents house, about 4 miles away actually!!! It happened earlier this week. If you don't know, they live in Arizona and you have probably heard they have had a particularly dry year... total rain fall this year is less than 1/2 inches!!! Causing the dangerous wildfires that I have lost count of more that 7. It also causes the wild life to move closer to people searching for food.

My dad sent me this picture today...
Sky-Hi Retreat is the housing community where I grew up, where my parents live. And apparently now... it is also a "bear frequenting area." I am so glad I am not there right now... but I will be in 4 weeks!!! Yikes!!--Stay safe mom and dad and Zak.

Tired

I guess we need to go swimming more often... but I think the fact that she woke up before 5 am on accident this morning has something to do with it:)

No, we didn't let her stay up or get out of bed when she woke up that early. But I don't know that she ever really went back to sleep.

Fathers Day

We tried to spoil Riley on Fathers day. The present I was most excited about was the matching ties I made for the boys. I attempted using "fancy" silky material instead of cotton. They turned out great! He loves them, I think I can make more like that.

Rhylan and I woke up early and made him a southwest omelet that he requested with a side of fresh raspberries. Then we let him open presents and he really liked the painting Rhylan made for him. I printed up a bunch of poison dart frogs and Rhylan looked at their pictures in a book and painted them exactly the same way. We put it in a frame and he thought it was so special.

Then at church, Rhylan sang for the first time with the primary!! We were so proud, she was so smiley and waved to us several times. It was so cute!!

Then after church, we let Riley play his new computer game and relax. Then for dinner I made pork adobo from his Philippines cook book.

He had been in Utah for 4 days before Fathers Day so we were all really excited to see him and spend time with him (and of course he was excited to see us as well.)

Copy cat

Rhylan wanted to make that same pancake stack that was on the box. I think her stack is a perfect match:)

Oh that cheesy smile!!

links

I love blog hopping and finding link parties!! SHE has the best parities around. I wanted to remember some of my favorite ideas from my search today. Hopefully we will get to all of these this summer.

Bubble bee foot prints

Nature People

Hand print crab

4th of July cookies

Canada Day stuff

Easy raspberry sorbet

Lemon Sugar Hand scrub

Glue fire work craft for kids

Summer Dress

80 things to do with kids this summer

Painting

I figured out the best paint holder last week... ice cube trays! These were collecting dust in the cupboard and now they are used for paint!!

I was really impressed with Rhylan's picture. She painted Rainbow Dash--her favorite pony. Check out the hair! This is probably the best painting she had ever done. She is really starting to stay in the lines. Also she only had one paint brush but never mixed the colors.

I was also impressed with Gracin, I don't think he tried to eat the paint more than one time. And, he experimented with mixing colors all on his own. Also I read about a cool trick for younger kids. I used painters tape to hold Gracin's paper still while he was painting.

Blackberries

It's easy, Gracin even knew just what to do:
Step 1: Find an all black berry.
Step 2: Pull it until it comes off. Have your mouth ready for the next step.
Step 3: Put in right in your mouth and enjoy!--Who cares about dirt and bugs it's all good.



Love these shades on her-

Gracin was so red, dirty, sticky, and hot when we were finished.

Last Saturday, Riley wanted to plan a family outing. He wanted to go picking berries. There are several places around here, we chose one down in Hernando. The weather was hot after a while, but we all had fun! We picked 4 baskets of berries. Our baskets never seemed to fill up when Gracin was holding it for us, he was eating them faster than we could pick them. We rode a hay ride out to the berry patch and just picked to our hearts content. Rhylan was so good at picking berries. She would carefully inspect each berry before she picked, to make sure it was ripe: "nope this one still has red on it." For dinner that night we had french toast with fresh blackberries on top--yum!

Water and bubbles...

This is going to be a theme for my posts this summer it seems. I guess that is all we do and I love to take pictures outside. So naturally, I am taking pictures of my kids playing with water and popping bubbles, get used to it:)

So... our bubble machine got some new batteries and extra special bubble solution and.... well... its CRAZY!! It makes 100's of bubbles at a time!

"I'm open Rhylan, throw me that ball already!!"

When you play with water long enough... you make puddles. Gracin has learned this. In case you forgot, Gracin LOVES puddles.



Rhylan was figuring out how to make mega bubbles!

Botainc Garden run

There was a storm that came through yesterday so today (Tuesday) was not too hot! I woke up and went outside for our daily bike ride and found the weather rather pleasant. So we ditched the bike and loaded up in the car instead. We went straight for the Botanic Garden. The kids and I had a GREAT time. It stayed in the 80's and we just missed 7 buses of kids as we were leaving.

Gracin had fun collecting leaves, he kept coming back with a bigger leaf each time! Then he would count them: "ba, ba, ba!" Yeah that's 1,2, 3 in Gracin's own language.
There is a sand box that we spent half our morning digging in. Its fun to be a kid again sometimes. Even I was having a good time getting dirty.
The other half of our time was spent here. Rhylan got in and out several times but not Gracin. He was very happy for me to push him while he kicked back.

Ready set go!!

Here is a play by play of Gracin... He came up with this idea by himself:)





Yeah he belly flopped over and over and over! He even taught Rhylan his new trick.

Chalk

You know the rest...

Hair cut

We thought his little dirt mustache was too funny.

His hair was past his eyes, Riley was attached to it and didn't want me to cut it. I finally l talked him into letting me. His hair always looks like a mess even when I did fix it so... buzz cut! He didn't like getting his hair cut this time at all!!!!! I think he looks so cute.