Fourth of July - The Final Episode

The big plan for the 4th was to go up to Stadium of Fire.  I was going to take the older girls, and Bart was going to stay home with the younger girls.  Kind of sad for him, but I think he was secretly looking forward to an evening of doing whatever he wanted.

Unfortunately for us all, the twins and I all got pink eye.  (TOTAL BUMMER!)  I was still thinking about going, but my eyes hurt so bad I finally decided to stay home and let Bart go with the older girls.

So instead of spending the night with the Beach Boys and Scotty McCreery, I got to spend the night playing with the twins and then blogging about it.  :)

After Bart left to meet the older girls (they were in Provo already with my family) the twins and I headed outside.

The twins were happy for quite a while just playing in the playhouse.

Lilly is seriously obsessed with the door bell.

That and kicking Maya out of the house.  I don't think Maya minded much though...

She preferred to eat the smarties she dropped on the ground.

She wasn't very happy when I realized what she was doing and took them away from her.  She recovered though.

These pictures aren't perfect, but dang! This mama sure loves them.

After the play house, the twins decided they wanted to pick some raspberries.

Whether they were ripe or not..

Most were ripe though, and they went to bed with tummies full of raspberries, and their 2nd independence day well documented.  :)

Not your traditional way to celebrate, but I found it rather enjoyable nonetheless.

P.S. If Bart remembered to take pictures of the girls at the Stadium of Fire, I'll post them too, so check back later.

Fourth of July - Part Deux

That's "two" in french by the way.

On Tuesday we headed up the canyon for a picnic dinner and a walk up to Bridal Veil Falls.

 Normally our kids are in tennis shoes when we do this "hike" (anyone who's been to Bridal Veil Falls knows why I put the word hike in quotes), so we don't let them go in the water.  I know my kids and if we let them go in with their shoes, they'll complain the whole way back home about wet shoes, and if we let them take off their shoes, they'll complain about the sharp rocks below the water.  Solution: they don't go in.  

But this time they had sandals on, so we told them they could go in...they were very excited.

 By the way, if I ever ask Hannah to smile for me while I'm taking a picture...or even look at me for that matter, this is what she does:

 

Silly little Hannah Bun.

Maya was also excited about the water.

Until she realized we weren't going to let her go in.

Then she wasn't very happy with us.

Lilly wasn't to happy about it either.

And when it was time to go, Hannah joined in their displeasure.

But after wiping away some tears, we actually had quite a pleasant walk back to the cars.  The whole time I got to walk behind this sweetness:

I gotta say, I am really really glad these two are my grandparents.  They are seriously just some of the most wonderful people I know, and I love them so much.  Just thinking about them makes me so happy!

And here's a little picture of some of their kids, grand kids, and great grand kids on the path in front of them.

I Love you grandma and grandpa!

Fourth of July - Part One

My extended family on my dad's side is in town for the week for a mini family reunion, so we've been celebrating the 4th of July all week.  :)

We started Monday with fireworks.

Addison was terrified of the sparklers, but Hannah was all for it...

Okay, maybe all for it is a strong word.  She wasn't quite as hesitant as Addison.  She was willing to try it anyway.

In my children's defense, the sparklers we had were crazy.  They were popping and flashing and throwing sparks everywhere.  Yeah, I know, you're probably thinking, "Um...duh Rebecca, they ARE sparklers."  But These were even crazier than normal.  Hannah actually ended up getting burned.  Just a tiny bit, but we're lucky nobody else was hurt.

After sparklers, the kids were ready for the real fireworks.

Well, as real as they get when they're from Sam's Club anyway.

Sam's Club fireworks or no, a good time was had by all.  :)

The Way I View - Fatherhood

Good grief, how is it July already?  Well, I'm not going to lie, my plans for my Fatherhood posts turned out much like my plans for my Motherhood post.  Except I didn't realize I hadn't fulfilled my plans until...well...today...which was a bit too late for the month of June.

Fortunately, Bart is out of school for the summer, so we've been doing lots of stuff as a family, so I had lots of pictures of him.  There are some definite benefits to being a school teacher.   :)

We started off the month visiting the Children's Art's Festival in Springville.  And honestly, I'm pretty sure I couldn't have planned on pictures that are more illustrative of the special bond Bart has with our girls than these. THIS is their thing.  This is what they do together.  What they bond over.  Bart is an art teacher, and the girls absolutely LOVE it when he does any type of art with them.  And I KNOW that the feeling is mutual.

I was horrified when we got to the art's festival and realized I had left my camera at home.  Fortunately Bart had his iPhone, so all was not lost and I was able to capture the day with that. 

Just like Motherhood is not all fun and games, neither is Fatherhood.  This month we had to replace part of our fence that had blown down in a windstorm.  It had blown down a while ago, but Bart had absolutely no time to work on it because he was trying desperately to finish his Master's degree.  Technically at this point he wasn't done, but he had submitted it and was waiting for a response from the Dean, so he thought he'd take the day he had to put up the fence. 

In the process of digging the holes for the posts, he realized that the roots of a dead tree were right in the way, so pulling down the dead tree moved from relatively low on his to do list to first priority. 

Unfortunately, pulling out the tree wound up breaking EVERY SINGLE sprinkler connected to the sprinkler box right next  to the tree.  So fixing that was added to his to do list that day. 

It was a long (although quite productive) day.  He NEVER would have been able to do it all without the help (and positive attitude) of our good friend.  Seriously Jake, I'm pretty sure we owe you for the rest of our lives!  Thank you!

Fortunately, the good things tend to outweigh the...trying things.  Ice Cream with the girls.  AWESOME. (Don't worry, that's face paint on Hannah's face, not some sort of crazy scratch.)

And going to the older girls' performances, and seeing them dance and sing and have a great time...a total perk of fatherhood.

Even if life isn't always sunshine and roses, I sure am grateful I'm going through it with this guy.  And I'm so grateful he's my girls' dad.  They are so lucky to have a father who loves and adores them so much.  I love you babe!

Head on over to Candace's blog to see her take on fatherhood (I promise it'll make you smile). ;)