Playing catch up--Vegas!

I've got to finish blogging about our vacation in June so here we go!

After spending a week in Cedar City at my parents' house we all headed to Las Vegas for a week. All of us, my parents, Thayne, Kailee, Harper, Spencer, Missy, Charisse, and Cory we all there. The only one of us missing was Elder Brett who had just entered into the MTC to prepare for his mission to Bucharest, Romania.

First on the agenda was to take out Carli's 2 stitches from her forehead. My sister-in-law, Kailee, was happy to help out and she did a beautiful job!

Here is Ben about to take off the band-aid with my Dad holding Carli

She didn't appreciate that at allHere is Kailee explaining to Carli what she is going to doThe cutting :) They came out very easily and quickly! Thanks Kailee! she is good as new. She still has a small red line on her forehead that you can see, but it is fading.

The water show at the Bellagio was the highlight of the trip for the kids. They loved watching the water spray and dance. I have to admit, it is one of my favorite things to do in Vegas, too. Our hotel was just a block off the strip just south of the Bellagio hotel so we could just walk down to see the show. We had to get creative getting the kids over there, though, so we wouldn't subject them to all the nastiness that is on the strip. There was a mall just across the street that we could walk through and come out right across from the lake where the show was and it worked out quite well.

Here is the group one of the nights we went to see the show. Mom, Megan, Charisse, Harper, Brandon, Ben, Carli, and Brooke in the stroller. Kate waiting for the show to start and Harper in the foreground.
Grandma and KateCharisse, Harper, Kate, and BrandonHarper, Thayne, and Kailee--what a darling family! They now have sweet little Beck in their family as well. Here is part of the show. It was so neat!Here's my handsome Brandon. What a cutie!Another view of the show.After the show ended we headed into the hotel to see the gardens which are so neat!
Charisse, Kate, Carli, Kailee, Thayne, Harper (in stroller), Ben, me (shocking--I'm in a picture!), Megan, Brandon, and Brooke (again, in the stroller)Carli, Brandon, and Ben having fun with the shooting water in the garden.Carli was fascinated with this awesome fountain of chocolate in the hotel--that's my girl! You can also see Kate in the background with her hands up on the glass. LOL!One day we went to a new outdoor mall that had this fun water fountain park, a playground, and little hedge maze. It was crazy hot so the kids enjoyed the water. Here's Carli enjoying the fountains.Harper wasn't so sure about the water in the beginning. What a cutie!Megan in the playhouse.

Kate and Carli

Brandon in his shades and Carli on the left. He wasn't into running through the water. I guess he's growing up?

We had fun in Vegas, but we won't be going back there anytime soon for vacation. It was hard to find things for the kids to do. We really enjoyed just being with family and hanging out together. We watched a lot of moves and played games and ate yummy food. Ben and I got to go see Blue Man Group and we really enjoyed the show! It was pretty funny and there were a lot of fun stunts.

After Vegas we headed back to Cedar City for a couple days and then started our trek home. We headed to the Phoenix area to see some good friends and Ben's brother, James, and his family. James and Lybi were expecting a baby girl any day and we were hoping she would be there by the time we got there, but no luck. Oh well--we were so happy to see you anyway!

We finally arrived home in TX and were happy that Ben got to stay home from work for another 2 weeks (awesome 4 week paid paternity leave!!!) so we got to hang out as a family, swim, and just enjoyed being together.

Random

We haven't been on any great adventures lately or taken any fabulous pictures so I haven't thought about blogging much. I need to do better about just putting down thoughts and such since this is basically serving as my journal/scrapbook right now. We have just been enjoying the rest of this summer, but I think we are about over the "summer" thing. I'm sick of TV, messy rooms, computer games...all of it. This week it is all going off and this house is going to get cleaned and organized. I will be going through a ton of stuff and trying to purge as much as I can. We just have too much and I'm so done looking at it all over the floor. I am excited!!!



I can't wait to find out what this baby is going to be so I can get rid of the boxes and boxes of baby clothes I still have. That will help tremendously with storage space! I am 15 weeks along and all is going pretty well. I have been nauseous since the beginning and it hasn't let up yet, but I didn't expect any different since it's been the same with all my pregnancies. The only difference that I can tell so far is with the girls I didn't feel pregnant one bit when it was time to take that test. With this one and with Brandon I felt it from the beginning...hey, I gotta have some hope this is a boy, right? :) LOL. I'll try to post a pic of my belly (definitely there now!) soon.



I am almost finished with school supplies shopping--woohoo! The kids are so excited to go meet their new teachers for this year next week. I am looking forward to it, too. Brandon is going to have the same teacher he did last year and that is truly a blessing for him and me. She helped us through a lot with the ADHD diagnosis and just helping him along any way she could (like noticing him squinting at the board--hence, the new glasses last spring. :) I also look forward to a new school year and being able to go help the teachers during the day. I really love doing that and getting to know the people around the school. I will only have Carli home during the day this year until Jan/Feb so that will be nice, too!



I never blogged about the kids' last day of school last spring. They did awesome and got some great awards! Here are a few pictures:

Brandon and buddies at their little pajama party.

Megan and her great friend, Syndey standing in front of the mural they helped paint with the art teacher and showing off their little trophies.Kate with her buddies (Megan and Sydney are in there, too) before leaving class.

Kate and her awesome teacher, Mr. Garner. She adored him!

We have been spending time at the pool and enjoying the cool (sort of) water in spite of the hot weather we have been having! It has been crazy how hot and horrible it has been. I am so looking forward to cool weather!


I guess the big news is that I have a new calling. I was the Activity Days leader, but am now the new Primary President. EEK! I am excited, but a bit overwhelmed and nervous about making sure everything gets done and done right. Any helpful websites, suggestions, advice--I'll take it! :)

First Day of Summer Fun!

After piano lessons yesterday afternoon we spent a couple hours at our neighborhood pool. We had a blast! All the kids swam and had fun and hardly complained that they wre hungry. They always want to eat snacks when I bring them to the pool instead of swimming so I told them yesterday that there would be no food at the pool. It was totally great! They played the entire time and when it was time to go home for dinner they still were going strong, but the lure of pizza is too strong for my kids...LOL! Here are some pics from the evening.

Carli kept grabbing our fingers and walking us through the little pool. She would walk us up the step and out and then right back in and across and back again. It was too cute. She had so much fun!

Here's Brandon trying to paddle around with the squirter stick. Doesn't work very well without a paddle. ;)

Little toes all wrinkled! Too cute!

Wrapped up and ready to go.

Summer Days

Yesterday was such a fun day. We spent the morning visiting teaching and then headed to a friend's neighborhood pool. There was tons of kids to play with and I had lots of friends to chat with. It was finally a great pool day, although a bit on the hot side. We headed home from that pool and went to our neighborhood pool to meet some friends there for a couple more hours. The kids had a blast and we also got a little sun. Then as soon as Ben got home from work I was off for a girls' night out at the Cheesecake Factory for some dessert and girl time. It was a great summer day!