4th of July

For the Fourth of July, we decided to get up early and head up to the parade in Provo. I'm glad we ended up going. It was worth the hassle of getting everyone out of the house early. It was fun to see the parade and the weather was perfect - just overcast enough that it wasn't too hot. I always wonder if it is dumb to take pictures of the parade, because it just doesn't seem as fun to look at pictures as it was to see them in the actual parade. But then I think of the photos my Grandma Bell has shown me of all the old parades from when my dad was a kid and they are SO cool to look at and see how things were back in that day. I hope my kids and grandkids will enjoy seeing the photos I take and seeing how things were in this day and age.

Quinn and I getting ready to walk over to the parade.

Grandma & Grandpa Bell's Boss (as Isaac & Parker call Smokey) LOL!

They seemed to have a 60's Cartoon theme going on with the balloons:

Scooby Doo

Isaac loved the Star Wars Troopers:

And Darth Vader:

After the parade we used a gift card and a coupon that we had and went to Chili's for lunch, then we headed back home. For dinner that night, Josh fired up the fire pit and we roasted some hot dogs.






For dessert I made some red, white, and blue layered Jell-O cups. They were fun! the blue layer had fresh blueberries and the red layer had fresh strawberries. Yum! Josh has been on a special health diet recently and can't eat sugar for now, so he made his own layered cup. He used flax meal instead of Jello. It turned out pretty yummy too!

Josh's treat:

After it got a little dark, we went out to the driveway to light some fireworks. This year the state of Utah had some new allowances with fireworks. We didn't buy any of the aerial fireworks, but neighbors on all sides of us had them going, and I have to say, there were some pretty cool ones! We had fun watching them go off. It was a great day and we had a lot of fun spending the day together as a family and celebrating the birthday of our great nation! :)

...Oh, and one more of baby Quinn. Three months old now!

Oops.. a little more June

Okay, I missed a few pictures from June and I completely forgot about Father's Day! Quinn grew into the cute little outfit above just as it was getting too hot for him to wear it. So one day when it was cool and stormy I put it on him so he could at least wear it once! :) He did end up wearing it one more time a few weeks later when we were up in the mountains.

This year for Father's Day Josh woke up and opened a few gifts. Then we went to church. For Josh's Father's Day dinner, he chose to have cilantro lime fish, brussels sprouts, and chinese cabbage salad. It all turned out really yummy! I didn't get many pictures of Father's Day, but I did manage to get one blurry one of Josh (oops) and one of the dinner. Oh well!

The rest of June

This summer we got a good deal, and decided to splurge on season passes to Cowabunga Bay (the waterpark). It has been so much fun so far! It's a little challenging with Bryce and Quinn, but Josh and I just take turns with the two of them (one takes Bryce and one takes Quinn) and it's worked out pretty well. The boys are all loving it, and I'm loving that it's giving them more exposure to the water. Hopefully they'll keep practicing what they've learned in swimming lessons this month and be able to progress next year. We've been twice this month. The first time it wasn't the hottest day, so we mostly hung out in the lazy river and the pool part (it was really cold to go on the slides!). That day, Quinn loved the water. I took him in for a little bit and he was just smiling and talking to me the whole time. The second time we went it was nice and hot outside, so when you went into the water, it felt cold at first compared to being out in the sun. Quinn was not into the water that day! LOL He wasn't having that at all. :) We're hoping to make it back at least a few more times this summer.

One day this month we were needing to get out of the house, so we decided to take a drive up the canyon and have a picnic in the park. The first thing Bryce did when he got out of the van was take off running down the road! Typical Bryce. :) He came back though, and then found a sprinkler running on one of the lawns and decided to run through it. We sat down on one of the picnic tables and ate our dinner. We had plans to go on a hike afterward, but it ended up being a little chilly, so we decided to do it another day. On the way back we discovered our new favorite treat: build-you-own frozen yogurt! We stopped at the local frozen yogurt shop and got some. Bryce has been doing a lot better with dairy products lately. Yogurt doesn't seem to bother him, so its fun to be able to have something that he can eat too. His eating has improved so much this past year as well. He's eating enough calories most days that we can drop one of his tube-feeds! Yay! Anyway, he ate an entire frozen yogurt!

Bryce taking off down the road:

Eating our picnic dinner:

Parker had fun walking through the really tall grass:

Josh's Grandpa Poole and his wife were up here for a couple of days,

so they stopped by to see the baby:

Quinn loves snuggles with brothers:

This month, Josh's friend has been teaching him a new hobby: long boarding. They've been going to Provo Canyon and riding on the bike trails up their. Josh borrowed a long board from his friend to practice at home and one night he taught Parker how to do it:

Isaac and Parker love reading books to their little brothers. :) Quinn just gets so excited looking at all those bright pictures and hearing the words.

One day I caught Quinn sucking his thumb during his tummy time. :) He's usually a binky boy. :) He never seems to get a whole lot of exercise in during tummy time because he actually likes being on his tummy and ends up falling asleep. LOL

He is the happiest, smiliest baby!

2.5 months old:

I have been so happy with our garden this year! Most everything has been doing really well! This month we've been enjoying peas, all kinds of lettuces & spinaches, turnips and yellow beets. Our red beets didn't do as well. We've also got TONS of tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, squash, corn and beans growing and doing well. This year we also planted blueberry plants, strawberries, black and red raspberries, rhubarb, and asparagus. We planted some grapes as well, but they don't seem to be doing anything. :(

On the last day of June, we had a huge wind storm and our trampoline ended up being blown into our garden. Luckily it didn't do more than smoosh a few lettuce plants, but after I took this picture it got blown again and totally got smashed. It's pretty bent up, so I hope we can find a way to fix it! It's brand new, so we'd be so sad if it was ruined already.

The last week in June Isaac and Parker took swimming lessons. They both did really well. Parker loves the water and Isaac is typically a little more scared of it. I was so proud of Isaac though this year. He really tried his best and tried to not be scared and do the things his teacher taught him. Josh ended up taking them the last day on diving board/slide day. He got a couple of pictures:

Fathers & Kids Campout

In our church ward, instead of just Fathers & Sons, they have Fathers & Kids so the daughters can go too (not that it matters in my family! haha). Josh and the boys went and Josh's two nephews also went with them. I wasn't there, obviously, so I can't go into detail, but from what I heard when they came back: Instead of at a campground, they held it on someone's property here in town (on the outskirts) which was kind of different, but they said it was a really nice place and they had a lot of fun. They had burgers & dogs, a campfire, took little boats out on the pond, and played football. There was even some swings and a slide to play on.

All the boys:

Summer Fun

The first week in June, my mom, sisters and I got together for a few days. We went to the zoo one day. We hadn't been for awhile so it was fun. I can only handle going to the zoo so often. :) The boys had fun hanging out with their cousins.

My niece, Parker, Isaac, & Bryce trying out the wooden horses:

I had to get a picture of the baby elephant, Zuri.

She was too cute:

...and the giraffe, one of my favorites. :)

I love the teeny monkeys too, but didn't get a pic this time.

All of the cousins. Six boys and one girl!

Isaac had so much fun taking pictures

of the animals with his camera.

My mom, sisters, and I:

Isaac & Parker peeking out of the prairie dog holes:

And there's Bryce!

The every-popular water ball:

After the zoo we went to Sweet Tomatoes for lunch (one of our favorites). Then on the way home we stopped at Thanksgiving Point and went to Farm Land. We hadn't been there for awhile either, so it was fun to see the new animals. We saw baby horses and even some teeny baby bunnies. So fun! The kids all rode the ponies and we went on a wagon ride. My pony ride pictures didn't turn out.

Bryce loved this cow bench:

I just love baby horses. Aww!

On another day, we took all the kids to the splash pad. That was fun, and it was the perfect day for playing in the water. It was so fun to watch Bryce. He would go up to a hole and wait for the water to spout out. Then he'd go to the next hole and wait, until he'd gone around the whole splash pad. :) He also had fun leaping over each water spout like leapfrog. He had so much fun, and I couldn't believe it kept him occupied! Alas, eventually he did get bored and kept taking off to the restroom. Of course he had to keep going in the mens' room where I couldn't get him, little turkey. :)

Parker, Bryce, & Isaac:

Bryce waiting for the water to spout out:

Grandma brought water guns! Isaac and my nephews

playing with them:

Attack!!

Grandma trying to get my neice in the water.

She wasn't having it!

She though the water guns were pretty fun though!