Our weekend really started Thursday night. We got to attend Christine’s (a former young woman from our ward I got to know when I was secretary a few years back) wedding! It had been quite a long time since we have been to a wedding and I have to say it was a lot of fun. We got to dine with some good friends from church and witness a glorious event. I LOVE weddings there is so much love and joy. Its hard to believe it’s almost been 10 yrs since ours. (scary). Christine is seriously one of the happiest girls I have ever met. She lights up a room.

The gorgeous bride and her new man!

Marc and I

Summer and I

The Wights, Gutierrez, Marshalls, Thackers, & us

mmmm delicious
Friday night was a pirate party at the Thurmans. Marc and I last minute dug through our halloween bin lucky to find some asian wear and we become oriental trading pirates which surprisingly worked out nicely! We probably went a bit to over the top with the makeup etc because there were a lot of people not dressed up! (come on guys this is your annual pirate party is it not) O’well it’s an excuse to get dressed up anway! We got to chat with friends take fun pictures, feast on finger foods, and watch the 2nd Pirates movie. Fun times!

Marc and John pose in front of the display

Wade and Sara

Brad and Jenny

Candy “wenches” Christy and Jessica tempting us!

What good looking pirates! Nice…. Summer & Bryan

Um yeah we are supposed to be pirates!

The guys

Double pirates. Whomp checking out his photo on his phone.

Saturday we went to the  beach for our church activity corn roast put on by Brian and the activities commitee but mostly Brian! Vaughn even got his little feet wet. The kids could all go out into the little waves pretty far because of the sand bar.  It was awesome! Maren did some boogie boarding with her friend Grace and all the kids played in the ocean for hours.  The corn was delicious and then we had smores!  I had been craving smores the entire summer.  We all had a great time with our friends and got to know some more people from church.  

  Heres Bryan cooking away the afternoon!

  Maren catches a great wave

  The next one was a little rough

  Vaughn likes the water too

Kaili and Haven got pretty brave in the ocean

  Kai sure loves her daddy.  She wants me to work instead!

Marc and I together (no kids??)

The “I love you picture” (Summer says)

Vaughns asleep yipee!

Maren Cate Claire Kate and Keri

yum yum

Packing up (now Marc knows what I do)

I am so thankful for the summer free movies because we have been to 4 and they really help break up the long week and the wallet! We are nearing the end of Summer break and I am totally running out of things to do to keep the girls entertained and funds to do them with. Over the past couple weeks while reading Breaking Dawn and just plain being lazy the girls have watched way too much television so I was glad for a change of pace today which turned out to be quite eventful. Marc even met us for lunch and took the girls on the BIG ferris wheel. I feel like most of our time out is spent in the bathrooms! Everywhere we go even if I tell Kaili to use the bathroom before we leave she has to go. During the movie twice and then another 2 times while walking around spectrum and 1 more as we stopped at a store on the way home to exchange a birthday gift of Maren’s. That girl has a literal pea size bladder. (unfortunately so does her mother, but a little less frequent). Only 2 and a half weeks left until school begins!

Marc’s a bit jealous, no sugar for you

one of the MANY bathroom visits

Yesterday was a wonderful day for our not so little Maren who turned 7 years old (say what, I have a 7 yr old). We introduced a new concept called the”family birthday” this year. We told the girls we will do a friends birthday every other year. So far there has been no complaint especially because I let her have a friend later over last week. The girls played in their jamies had fun snacks, watched the teen choice awards, danced, sang, and stayed up until 10:30.

Maren planned her birthday breakfast and dinner menu and activities for the day! She also helped me pick out some balloons and decorations but wanted me to do the decorating. I stayed up late Friday night making her double chocolate birthday cake, fruit dip, and hot fudge. Saturday was a success. I brought her breakfast in bed, we rode bikes to the park, went to her favorite beach, then had family over for her birthday dinner celebration. Maren LOVES her family and had a blast eating her favorite foods, playing games, dancing to her new music, opening gifts, and devouring her cake hot fudge and ice cream! Thank you everyone who made her birthday a spectacular day!  She scored on the $ and presents.

7 things I absolutelyLOVE about Maren

1. Her inability to keep from dancing when she hears music (it’s pretty funny while we grocery shop)

2. Her love and concern for people (she talks to everyone)

3. Her laugh

4. Her singing

5. Her strong willed fun personality (she sure does keep life interesting)

6. Her confidence and energy

7. Her sensitivity to the Spirit (she calls it “crying tears of joy” when she feels the holy ghost!)

banana pancakes and breakfast smoothie in bed

catching big waves with dad

a little too big!

theVaughnster chillin in his bumbo seat

and stretching out under the umbrella

sweet Kai

The Hemeon family

Grandma Jo agrees to dine with Kaili

make a wish

trying a “sexy” pose with her new guitar earings

presents

the highlight was this singing card!

Troy& Gabriella barbies

I need to give Maren some more credit! She is absolutely wonderful and very helpful to me, most of the time. Honestly though I don’t know what I’d do without her. Vaughn was fully engaged in the story! I love it.

So, for her reward I took her on a date.  I can not remember the last time I spent some alone time just Maren and I.  We had a great night. I asked her what she wanted to do.  Her favorite dessert is cheesecake  and it just so happened to be the 30th anniversary for the Cheesecake Factory and in celebration they were offering $1.50 a piece for their cheesecakes.  So we put our name on the list then Maren wanted to have someone do her makeup.  She really felt special.  But when the lady was finished she was shocked at how light it was and with a huge smile asked why it doesn’t show up?  So she got some extra silver eye shadow and was quite satisfied.  I was glad she didn’t cake on dark lipstick and blush!  Then we went to the pet store, and Claires to look at earings etc.  We made our way back to the Cheesecake Factory and shared dinner.  Maren couldn’t get enough of the bread.  She was in heaven devouring the bread and butter.   I had picked Chicken Marsala for us and was thrilled Maren liked it.  While we waited patiently for our dinner and desert Maren kept doing the robot and got out of her seat and danced around!  She cracks me up.  She kept laughing and smiling!  She is so full of pizazz and energy.  I enjoyed getting to know my oldest child.  We had such a special bond together when she was a baby.  I used to dance with her, give massages, sing, read her tons of books even before she was born, and cuddle a lot.  It makes me sad sometimes that I do not get to spend quality alone time with each of my children.  But I am so blessed to stay home with them.

more makeup please!!

Thanks for the invite Zimmerman’s we really had a great time at your cabin! So this is how it all went down: We arrived about 10pm Friday night to meet up with our friends the Zimmerman’s and the Barbers. We were all excited to get out of the car after the twisty turning roads on the way up the mountains. Both Marc and I got queezy but luckily the girls were plugged into their movie and didn’t notice! We unloaded the kids ran around and played while the guys went to get some groceries. Then war broke out between Logan and Owen! At least it looked that way as they wresled and hit each other. Before I knew it the time was past midnight Maren, and Jayne were still awake in their sleeping bags. Kaili fell asleep around 11:30 and Vaughn was passed out so we played a few rounds of Blokus staying up past 1am. The next morning the kids were up early we had pancakes and went on a nature hike/walk to the wilderness discovery center. The kids got to pet some donkeys and feel a ton of animal furs. Then we went to the alpine slide and drove the race cars. The kids LOVED it. Kaili screamed the whole way down the mountain on my lap. I took her down pretty fast too!

Only half the day was gone and we had already done so much so we went back to the cabin to chill and make lunch. John (”the cookie monster”) broke out the cookie dough I had made for the trip and cooked a couple batches. They went fast! When Brad and Marc woke from their naps in the living room they asked for cookies but —-you snooze you lose! Right? I snuck 1 even though I am supposed to be dairy free for Vaughn still. We decided to pack the day with 1 last outing to the bowling barn. But this proved to be too much at least for Kaili and some of the younger kids. We bailed out early and took Kaili home for a nap. She was a wreck. The girl gets exhausted by 7 everyday. She really needs her sleep! All the parents agreed the kids needed to go to bed earlier so we ate an early dinner and cleaned up for bed then Haley found the Hannah Montana concert on the Disney channel which proved challenging getting the girls away from the TV and into bed. I think it was after 9 and I was feeling the exhaustion from lack of sleep the day before etc. But we finally got the kids to bed and spent some adult time playing card games and the name game– We haven’t laughed that hard in a long time. The guys regressed back to their pre-teen years and laughed till they fell over and cried!

Sunday we took it easy and played at the park then cleaned up and loaded up our cars! The kids all loved swinging on the bench outside, riding bikes, playing makeover etc. Even though I get irritated with the mess and the noise I really did enjoy watching the kids have so much fun together….. I learned my lesson this weekend that I need my sleep or I turn into mean mom and I just can not function well. I must have passed out just a few minutes after getting into the car to drive home. We had planned to walk around the Village but Maren and I were pooped. Marc told me we slept the whole way home. He had some great bonding time with Kaili as she talked the whole way home!

All of us at the Discovery Center

Jayne, Maren, Haley, Paige, Owen, & Kaili

The lazy kids, Reagan doesn’t count of course.

Owen with the donkey! The kids loved these “mini horses”

The kids touching the animal fur and listening to the bizarre wilderness dude

Marc tried putting this on Maren. Haley didn’t mind it at all.

This is all too fitting. LOOSE THOSE HANDLE BARS PLEASE!!

Kai finds a soft place to rest!

The kids discover

Paige and Maren find butterflies

Paige and little Brock

Kaili pretty much always complain of being tired so here’s the soulution

Logan’s an undercover bear, ROAR!

Vaughn is the cutest!!

Owen, Logan, Jayne, Kai, Haley, Maren, and Paige (when our babies grow up they’ll have to muscle their way on the swing)

Maren loved going fast with her dad

Brad & Logan. The Zimm’s behind

Kaili and I in our attempt to race Marc and Maren (the only bummer was “no racing aloud”)

Maren awaits her victory!

I wish you could see his Chopper hat…. he fit the stereotype.

Brad doesn’t know his own strength!

Laughing till we cry. Some fun adult game time.

Jessica joins in the kids circus!

yippeee!