Singin' and Dancin'

Believe it or not we are taking a break from ballet this year. Brittany would have advanced to three times a week and neither one of us wanted to do it that often. I figured this was good time to try something else and maybe we will come back to ballet next year. She had so much fun doing the little production of Alice that we decided to try Show Stoppers. They spend time each week working on singing, dancing and acting. The first production is Mary Poppins. They send each kid home with a CD of the music. As you can see Brittany is practicing hard. Josh might make a good chimney sweep too.

Green Bowl

I am trying desperately to get back to crafting now that the kids are back in school. Failing miserably though. Would you believe I have had three sick kids this week? Yeah, love school. I did manage to paint this bowl I found at the thrift store a few week ago. It was just an ugly brown wood bowl before but of course I forgot to take a picture. Had to post it so my sister could see it. Then I found a bunch of wooden Tai Pan Trading apples at the thrift store, half of them were still nice. I like them because no one eats my centerpiece this way.

What do you think, do you like the real ones better?

Breakfast treat

I made this for breakfast yesterday morning. This is all that was left when I realized we loved it and I would need to record the recipe. It is sort of a cheap version of the "monkey bread" my mom used to make. I have no idea why is was called that by the way. This one is made with those cheap pop-out biscuits. The original recipe was tripled from what I list here and put into a 9x13 pan. I just put mine in a bread pan and it was perfect for my three kids.

1 can refrigerator biscuits
1/3 c brown sugar
3 T butter
1 T water
Cut the biscuits into quarters and put into a greased bread pan. Heat the remaining ingredients, I just put mine all in a glass measuring cup in the microwave for about a minute. Pour over biscuits. Bake at 375 for about 15 minutes. The recipe says to drizzle frosting over the top but we liked ours without. Flip out of pan onto a plate while still warm. Best served warm.

Back to School!

Sixth, third and a preschooler. I cannot believe my kids are this big! They were so excited this morning.

Good-looking kids aren't they? Backpacks too.

Hope your kids all have a great first day!

It's What Fun Is

This picture Brittany drew last night says it all. Yep, we went to Lagoon yesterday. William's work party was there so to the delight of my children off we went on one of the hottest days of the Summer.

This is the face your four year old makes on every ride of the morning after you are foolish enough to start the day on the roller coaster he is barely tall enough to ride. I completely lost all credibility after that and he wouldn't believe me that things wouldn't go too fast.

Luckily his love for cars helped us overcome the fear.

Yep, Josh was kicking back in his boat while his older siblings were off conquering roller coasters with their dad. No pictures of that because lets face it, those would not be cute pictures.

I loved this about this year's visit. Matthew still wanted to do some of the kiddie rides with Josh even though he is almost too tall. I had to take pictures, it was his last year in kiddie-land!

This is why we came. I love the sibling bonding that happens when they are planning what ride to ride together next.

Brittany was all about finding the cutest animal to ride on the merry go round. The girl is starting to develop attitude, can you tell?

Course, Josh has a little too.

Wow, an actual picture of me on the blog! Proof that even though if you had asked me the day before why were going to Lagoon when I had just about had it with all of my kids I couldn't have told you, I really did have fun too.

So that it is it. The end of our Summer. Tomorrow school starts. Yippppeeee!

Wall Quilt

I like to read Jo's blog, the cart before the horse . She and her husband are amazing artists. They just moved to a new house and she made a "wall quilt" to add some more color to a wall. I loved it so much I wanted to try it. So when I found this framed painting at the thrift store on sale for half off of five bucks I figured I would try it. I took the canvas out of the frame and painted it with gesso so it looked like a new canvas again. I swear I took a picture of this step but I can't find it. Then I painted the canvas black in case little spaces showed through. Let that dry and then glued 1 1/2" squares of my favorite fabrics all over it with Modge Podge.

I also primed and painted the frame red. I was going for as much color as possible here.

Here it is on my little ledge with the painting of our family. It is such a happy, bright spot. If I were to it again though I think I would space my fabric a little further apart and I think I would paint the background white instead of black. I just might have to try it again! Wouldn't it be cute for a babies room or maybe for Christmas?

How embarrassing! Brittany just caught the huge mess I made of the name of Jo's blog; The horse before the cart. Sorry Jo, it is right now!

Discovery Gateway

The fun continues! Man we are finishing this Summer strong! Yesterday it was The Discovery Gateway. The second time in a week in fact. It was a free day and we just couldn't resist we had so much fun the first time with neighborhood friends. This was probably the most popular attraction, the building site. Giant block, a crane and a chute to send the blocks down. What more could a kid want?

Brittany and Maddie practicing their newscaster skills.

If you need a magnetic tube to send balls done constructed these two are up for the job.

This is Joshua's friend Gage. Josh LOVES Gage. Almost as much as he loved this water display.

The rock wall wasn't really that tall, honest. I just tried to make it look really high when I took the picture. Very fun.

We even hit the balloon-making man on the way out the last day. Josh wanted to love on his puppy and Matthew is ready to take someone out with his balloon sword and holster. Do swords have holsters?

Such great adventures! Only four more days though. I think I am going to have them so worn out they will be glad to go back to school!

Brittany's Fashion Show

Every year, right before school starts, Brittany stages her own little fashion show. It consists of taking all of the clothes we have bought for going back to school and combining them in as many outfits as she can. This year she wanted me to photograph it. Keep in mind she did utilize some old items too. I can't believe how big my little girl is getting. I think I may have liked the fashion show before kindergarten better.

PIneview

So continuing the trend of avoiding any and all work in favor of celebrating the last days of Summer, yesterday we took off with some friends to spend the day at the beach. Pineview Reservoir to be exact. I did bring inflatable rafts but these girls preferred life jackets and an old log as their floating device.

There was big construciton. They recreated their own reservoir. If the little door covering the lens of my camera hadn't jammed I would show you the finished product. Despite obnoxious wind it was a great day.

I love how all kids need to be happy is some sand, water and a shovel.

Another Salt Lake Field Trip

Yesterday was another trip to Salt Lake. Just in case you are wondering, I am recording these field trips so that when I look around my messy house I can remember the fun memories we are creating. The kids only have a week and a half until school starts and apparently we are going to send Summer out big. We stopped at our state capitol. It is an amazing building I wanted my kids to see, that and the Pioneer museum across the street was closed for renovations.

Brittany of course loved this monument to the Arts and Education. That's my girl.

Gorgeous murals.

This is why this building is truly amazing. The rotunda. We had our prom under that ceiling. William and I went to a dance in college here too. Can't say I have been back since so it was fun to see it with my kids.

We went to the Natural Science Museum at the U too. Interesting, easily done in an hour so that was good for the attention spans involved. Yes, I think Matthew is attempting a politically incorrect Indian feather sign on his own head. Sigh.

Little tee pee, big boy.

Anther fun day!

Park City 2010

We have just come back from our annual trip to Park City. We like to go up every year around this time of year for a little school shopping, a little fishing and the Arts Festival.

The Arts Festival was actually the last thing we did and this was toward the end when Josh got tired. Going to the Park City Arts Festival was actually William and my second date long ago. It isn't quite as peaceful with three kids but we still love it. I guess because we do a lot of crafts around here my kids are usually pretty well behaved and interested in the different methods and types of art there.

Pretty, pretty Park City. This is my favorite part, the old part above Main Street.

There are still a few remnants of the Olympics around. I have to admit to hoping that actually driving one of these things is not a skill any of my kids develop. Scary!

We made friends with a little art on the streets.

Off to the Uintas for some fishing! I love this picture, William looks like the Pied Piper of the forest.

Our spot, we had to move from our usual spot. The water was really low this year.

Brittany went on a flower hunt with my camera and Josh. This is our spot from the trail she was on.

This is what we were after. We love this little lake because if we can get there early enough (8 a.m.) we are almost guaranteed success. This was our first fish.

Lovely little lake.

Everybody caught at least two and sometimes three.

Brittany found lots of flowers too. There were tiny mushrooms and giant ones. That one in the top right hand corner was at least 6-8 inches across.

It was a great trip, I guess now we are that much closer to being ready for school to start.

Playin'

I swear we are still here. We are just playin'. My sister and her girls came up this week. There was swimming, shopping, playing and eating. But I only took these two pictures. This is what the theater looks like on a weekday morning if you go see the movie that is available in 3-D in regular 2-D. Had the theater to ourselves. We enjoyed Despicable Me but not nearly as much as we all enjoyed watching and listening to Josh yell things at the screen. I think he really liked having the theater to ourselves.

Josh and Abby making houses under the chairs in Grandma's bedroom. Look at that face, could he possibly be having more fun? So that is why I have been absent. It is also why I have dirty floors and lots of dirty laundry. But there is plenty of time for that sort of thing when they all go back to school right?

Bad Craft

In the interest of full disclosure I feel the need to post this craft. It was a miserable failure. See those kids? They look happy don't they? They think they are having fun carving soap like my scouts has done earlier in the morning. (Did I mention I am now a Den mother?) Well let's just say I now feel really bad that I didn't stay and help my fellow Den mother clean up her garage when we were done. The kids played out there stabbing and carving their creations for about 20 minutes. Then I spent at least 30 scrubbing the smashed soap off of my patio. Not fun. Bad craft.

Brittany did carve a heart that said "I love Mom" so that did help. Course she gave it to me before I grumbled about the cleaning for half an hour.