Twin Falls Temple

On Monday, we packed up the car and drove to Twin Falls to see the temple. We got there earlier than our scheduled time, so we first went to see the Shoshone Falls. The falls were amazing! Then we went to the temple and we absolutely LOVED everything about it! It is so beautiful and I loved being able to be there with our kids!! When we were in the temple and saw the mural of the Shoshone falls, the kids thought that was really cool! They also loved that in the mural was "spike", our lizard. We appreciated our guide pointing that out to our kids. During the tour, Spencer said to Nathan, "Jesus' house, so beautiful."

After seeing the temple, we drove to Nathan's old house on Kenyon Rd. and visited with his neighbor's. They were so kind to share some of their sugar snap peas with us!
Then, we drove to Wendell to have dinner and Family Home Evening with Great-Grandma Smith and Aunt Nip. We were fed well (dutch oven beans and cherry crisp - yum, yum!!), enjoyed seeing their garden and loved being able to visit with them! It was a wonderful day!!

Yee-haw

Saturday, was our Stake Celebration Pioneer Day complete with breakfast and a children's parade. It was yummy, short and fun - just the way we like them!!!
(Isn't my friend Dawna amazing...she took the picture and sent it to me to look like we are real pioneers!!)

Ratatouille

Our Cinderella themed day worked so well, I decided that the days we take care of Anne and Natalie (our fun, cute friends) we would have a theme for that day. On Thursday, our theme was based around the movie Ratatouille and we did activities that had to do with cooking. We made whole wheat bread (we even ground the flour), they made their own neon color of play dough (they played with the play dough for a LONG time - which I loved) and then they made their own Panini sandwiches for lunch. After lunch, we all needed a little down time so we watched the movie, Ratatouille and then we went swimming to wash off all the "sweat" from cooking so much. We also made our tie-dyed cookies again, but we decided to wait and bake them the next day since we would have Anne and Natalie for half-day. On Friday, we baked the tie-dyed cookies and then did an art project that my friend, Dawna suggested. Dawna let us borrow her kid friendly stamp pads and her book Ed Emberley's Complete FunPrint Drawing Book . I had the kids make a card, a door hanger (thanks, Auntie Jayna) and a tag to go with a cookie that they would give to a friend. All in all, it was very fun and it made both days go by very quickly!!

Something New

Benjamin usually puts himself to sleep by reading books and talking to himself. Today, he did something new to put himself to sleep. He threw all of his books and blankets out of the crib (yes, even his special blue blankie), took off his shorts (this is new), and fell asleep sitting up holding his pacifier. I just had to take a picture and even with the flash and me moving him...he didn't wake up. Zzzzzz

Rainy Day

What do you in the summer when it rains all day?? Well, the girls decided to pretend to be maids and do chores so they could get out of the prize box. Which led to us watching Cinderella because she is a maid - sort of! I wonder what will be our next activity on this very rainy day. Maybe we'll have a "Ball".
Update: Instead of having a ball, we made super balls from a kit I bought at Wal-mart for $4.84. We've made them before, but they were still a hit with the kids.

Tie-Dyed Cookies

I found this recipe online and decided that our family had to try them. It's an easy recipe and the kids LOVED making and eating them!! Give them a try!! We thought the name should be changed to tie-dyed cookies because that's what we thought they looked like. (Ours don't look exactly like the originals, but hey, our cute kids made them!)

Smith Family Reunion

This past weekend, was our Smith Family Reunion at Ball Manor. It's always so fun to get together with Nathan's Dad's Family. We had so much fun swimming in the pool, playing games, eating yummy food and playing with cousins!!! Nathan, Sarah and Andrew camped out in our tent in the Ball's backyard. I'm not sure we could pick a "favorite" activity, but we sure loved the Luau, talent show and swimming!! Thank you Uncle Laurence, Aunt Debbie and the Ball's for a fabulous weekend!!! (For our family talent we did speed cup stacking...and we tried to teach our cousins, James and Ryker!:))

Put me in the Zoo

As you can see, I think we had more fun dressing up as animals and sitting on carousel animals than we did actually looking at the animals at the Zoo. It was a fun, warm morning amongst the animals!! (Sarah took the picture of the tiger.)

Funny story about why Benjamin got to ride in the jeep at the zoo. I took all the kids to HP on Tuesday to have lunch with Anne and Natalie's mom, April. It was pretty hectic getting them all in the car and Benj had to be changed. I realized the next day that I had left our stroller in the parking lot at HP. I called April and sure enough the stroller is still in the parking lot. We laughed and I just have to be grateful that it was only the stroller that I left and not any kids!!! :)
UPDATE: Well, everyone April asked at HP saw the stroller, but no one knows where it is. I've checked Craigslist and it's not there either. I'm hoping someone will turn it in soon!!! Big Bummer!!!!
Second funny story of the day was after all the kids had tried on all the costumes of the animals I heard a lady with a little girl walk by say, "Oh, don't try on any of those costumes...it's a sure way to get lice." Oh, well.

Bowling with Six Cute Kids

So, I've known about a program that kids can bowl for free for quite sometime. I finally was brave enough to take them bowling today. It actually wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be...it just took forever and we didn't even get to finish our game. I didn't schedule enough time and definitely I will next time...yes, there will be a next time because everyone had such a fun time!! If you want to let your kids bowl for free the web site is www.kidsbowlfree.com and find 20th Century Bowling on the list. It's on State St., they were very friendly and kind to my cute kids. (Our friends, Anne and Natalie came with us and Benjamin would have nothing to do with having his picture taken.) Happy Bowling!!

...zucchini, tomatoes and squash... oh my!!

If you scroll down and take a look at how our garden looked the end of May, you can see just how much our garden is growing!! We are so excited that we are already harvesting vegetables from our garden. We try to go at least once a week to weed (and of course, check on the chickens) and water several times a week. We are having problems with earwigs eating the roots of our zucchinis so if anyone has any suggestions, we would welcome some advice. We have plenty of sunflowers, watermelons and pumpkins that will be fun to harvest this fall!!

It's Great to be Eight!!

Nathan and I wanted Sarah to know happy we are that she had made the decision to get baptized, so we decided that for the eight days leading up to her baptism, she would wake up to find something special that would happen to her for that day. These are Sarah's "It's Great to be Eight" days. 1st-Sarah and Mom went out on a date. It began with getting her hair done, then to Deseret Book where she got to pick out a CTR ring, lunch at Red Robin and finally shopping at the Mall. 2nd-Sarah got new scriptures and a case. 3rd-We had a special FHE planned, but with thunderstorms we had to change our plans. 4th-Sarah had a pajama birthday party with all her friends - we had pizza, played Prize Bingo, and watched the old Parent Trap. 5th-Sarah and Dad went out on a date. They went to the Cheesecake Factory and then shopped 'til Sarah wore out Dad. 6th-Sarah and grandma went on a date. They went and had their nails done together. 7th-Nonnie sent Sarah a pink and green comforter to remind her of the comfort that the Holy Ghost gives us. 8th-Sarah got a beautiful white dress and shoes for her special day.

A boy with braces

On our last visit to the dentist, it was suggested that Sarah and Andrew see an orthodontist. Sarah got a good report that perhaps she will need them later, but Andrew needs then now. Last Wednesday, Andrew got braces on his front two teeth and a retainer on his bottom teeth. I think it makes him look more grown-up now!! (He's also sporting a new haircut - I cut it, then he cut it, then he got a buzz.)

Spike

One day while visiting the garden, we found a lizard. Andrew quickly named him Spike and asked if he could be his pet. Sister Whiting and I had a fun time catching him and then we brought him home with the promise that we would return him in two days. The first night went fine but after escaping twice the next day, we all decided that one day was enough. We've seen Spike a few times since and we are all happy that he is loose in a field and not somewhere in our house.