The rest of July

I can't believe how fast time is flying. It's speeding along at a ridiculous pace! July is done, and we're starting school again in 2 weeks. Crazy.

Some days we just stay home and work on our Kiwi crates. (A monthly subscription for science activities. Worth every penny.) We even found one at Savers the other day! The one pictured here was all about symmetry. They built a kaleidoscope among other things.


We went with our homeschool group to the Food Bank to help sort food. It was a traffic filled drive up, and back, but I think the hour we spent there was worthwhile.


Another Thanksgiving Point day with friends. Can't believe I didn't snap more picture of them at Farm country!


We took advantage of the discounted bowling the lanes here in Riverton do during the summer. I invited a ton of people, but only 1 other family showed up. I was grateful they were there though because I spend the majority of my time chasing Benson, and I knew that another adult was near my other children. I tried so hard to have a laid-back happy attitude about this experience, but it just wasn't going to happen. Benson, and the age he is, makes most things difficult. He doesn't want to participate properly, and has no fear and not much stranger danger. So bolting out the front door is always an option for him. By the end I was sweating, and in such a huff, I fear my poor attitude put a damper on the activity.


Gwen's little edit of this "Friend" story had me cracking up.


Pioneer Day! This holiday always seems to sneak up on me. The night before I realize what tomorrow is, and I think of lots of fun pioneer things we could do, but that require forethought and planning...and then we end up not doing much. I made the kids watch "Legacy" and counted that as our official Pioneer recognition. :) Then later that day we went kayaking with Ben and Becca! It's always a fun activity. We brought picnic dinners with us, and then floated the scenic Jordan river, ending at suicide bridge of course. Love being able to spend time with our family! As we drove home, Miles asked, "Aren't we going to celebrate Pioneer Day?" I said, "We just did!" And he said, "No, like, do something Pioneer-ish?" I told him next year I'd try and be more on top of things and we'd make honey candy, or make our own butter, or something cool. We'll see!


Lindy is about done with her little tumbling class for the summer. She has loved it and she's so good at it! This day the theme was Super-heros. We didn't have any Super-hero attire, so we painted her face and I think she felt pretty cool.


After class, we went to a new splash pad in Riverton. I think it's my favorite one yet! The park and splash pad are right next to each other, so you can always see your kids from anywhere you're at. It's small enough that the kids are contained, but big enough that it's still exciting. It kept them busy for 2 hours with no whining! That's a win!


I got to take some baptism pictures for my nephew Ethan. I had to share a few pictures because he's just so handsome! It was a fun outlet for me. One day, I would love to be a fantastic photographer. Until then, I'll keep pretending. :)


Grandma and Grandpa Garner have a couple of Korean ladies staying with them on an exchange program for a month or so. They have done it before, and they are always sweet and bring presents for the kids. Miles and Gwen got matching jammies, and Lindy got a pretty bracelet.


One day, Richie took the two oldest to help him build sets for the play, "Swing!" he's been working on. I'll write more about that later. But that left me with the 2 littles to help me make some apricot jam! I'm always so pleased and grateful that Heavenly Father helps us find food to put up. We've never had an apricot tree, but Dad Garner knew someone with one, and went and picked me a couple boxes! It was enough to freeze 3 bags, make about 15 1/2 pints of jam, and make 2 pies. YUM! Plus more for eating and snacking on. Lindy was actually extremely helpful. On her own, she would go stir the jam, come back to pit more apricots, sort them accordingly, and then go stir the jam again. She was in her own little element. Until I whipped out the play-doh for Benson, then she was more into that. And she spent an hour making play-doh cakes. She was so proud of each one and made sure I had bites of every cake. Usually when I try and involve the kids in kitchen chores, I just get frustrated. And then I'm guilty that I got frustrated, because I wanted to create a warm, cozy memory with my kids, and didn't. This time however, it was a wonderful, mostly stress free morning, putting up apricots with the kids. I'm going to tuck that memory away and pull it out every so often. It makes me happy.


Oh, and my kitchen looked like this by the end of the day. 1 batch of crackers, 5 loaves of bread, 3 bags of frozen apricots, many 1/2 pints of jam, and 2 pies. Yeah. It was a disaster zone.


Grandma and Grandpa Crosby randomly sent the kids $10 to go get a treat. They chose sodalicious, and were so excited! It came on the perfect, boring summer day when we were all wondering what we should do. G&G to the rescue!