And....she's off!

Megan's officially off to school! It seems like our district starts later than most, but that's fine with me. Boy did the day drag on without my big helper around the house. When I asked her what her favorite part of the day was, she said, "When we got to play cops and robbers!". Recess will forever be the best part of a school day, won't it?? :)

When I picked her up after school she was all smiles, and excitedly said, "We're the last ones to eat lunch!". Wondering how in the world that could be a good thing, she tells me that now all the kids in her class are allowed to bring a snack from home to eat at 1st recess!!! Yeah!!!! One more thing to think of in the morning!!! :) Isn't that funny?! She assured me it could be something easy like an apple or a granola bar. :) Shows you that she's not the one packing the lunch (and now the snack) before 8:30am.

At Back to School Night her teacher sent each parent/child home with a letter. The letter told us a little about her, & closed with her asking each student to write her a letter in return. Megan worked so hard on it last night, and I couldn't believe how sweet the ending was to her letter...


Happy Back to School everyone!

I had to add THIS to the happy list...

Brad and I woke up early this morning and picked our beans, and he FINALLY decided his beloved beet was ready to pick. He planted a row of beets in between our two different varieties of peas, but why he chose beets I've had no idea. All along I've told him that they are his, because I'm not going to eat them. This gave us such a good laugh this morning!!! Obviously, we know how to grow them, just not when to pick them!

Brad comparing the beet to a softball:



By request of my sister, here are some photos of our recent Park City vacation with my family, and some photos of the carpet. A highlight was when we took a drive up near Brighton Ski Resort, and when we stopped and walked until we saw this beautiful hidden lake by Guardsman's Pass.

Here's the carpet...it seems to look a lot lighter in the photo then it actually is. We're loving it:



Now onto Park City...

The wildflowers were so beautiful up on this hike we went on. My mom loved the flowers, and Megan and Paige both picked a bouquet.






Thanks Brooke for telling me about this fun splash pad! There was a tiny breeze blowing, so the kids didn't last long, but we'll have to try it again.

Things to celebrate!

I have no photos, but I thought I'd pass on what's been making us happy around here...

1. We got new carpet on Tuesday. It is soooooooo soft and beautiful, and it's given me the chance to re-decorate a bit. Love it!

2. Ashlie's slept in a toddler bed since Tuesday, and has never yet crawled out and opened up her door. She talks to herself in her bed in the morning (and after a nap) like she's waiting for me to go in and get her. I guess she doesn't know that she could just walk over to the door, and walk out of her room herself! She's very good lately at opening doors. That's something that has been AWESOME!!!

3. This is big. OUR TOWN GOT A WALMART!!!! It opened up a few days ago. We've been driving 45 minutes for the last 5 years to shop at Walmart. Unless you've had to do this yourself, you may not know how exciting this is. Brad and I no longer have to keep a running "Walmart List" on the fridge.Yeah!!!

Summer Photo Shoots!

We had a lot of fun this weekend taking photos of the girls. Ashlie turned out to be nearly impossible to photograph because she's so fast & so wiggly, but I guess we'll forgive her since she's two, and wiggling is what they do! A couple of years ago I watched a segment on TV (studio5) where they challenged the viewers to keep their eyes open for great photo backdrops around town. Ever since then I have looked around for fun places I can take photographs. It really is fun. If you notice some of the backgrounds in the photos, that's what I tried to do. We live right by "Heber Old Town" which has lots of chipped paint walls, and rustic benches. We went up to the Homestead, by the river, by the train, and my favorite was a huge wood wall that was literally a one minute walk from my house! I hope you enjoy!

Here are the ones we printed / enlarged:




Choosing a photo of Ashlie was easy, because we were LUCKY to get the one you just saw above! :) These are some of the other photos that we loved...
Don't you love this wall?! I've lived in my house for nearly 5 years, and just realized this is a one minutes walk away! It's tucked behind some businesses that are near my home.






We loved this one!

My New Toy!

I remember when my mom got her new front loading washer, and I couldn't believe how excited she was over a washing machine! Well, here I am, my third post of the day, writing about my new washer & dryer! After lots of debating in my head, I decided to make the unpopular choice of not getting a front loader. I chose this GE washer that has a clear lid, and it is so fun! Yesterday and this morning, I just stare and watch it do my laundry for me (I do walk away at some point...don't worry). Brad says it's not saving me much time! :) I couldn't believe I fit a sleeping bag, 3 towels, and about 5 other items of clothes in one load. We'll see how it works for us - I just used it yesterday for the first time, but as for now, laundry is fun again!

Megan's Disneyland Re-Creation

The majority of Megan's day today has been spent doing this: Re-creating lots of the rides from Disneyland with toys she has in the toy room. She is one creative child I tell you! Last night we looked up the new Ariel ride online, and also found out that they're making a ride for cars (Radiator Springs), which is why she added those. I can't think of a moment that she's been bored all summer. She creates her own fun!

This is the Winnie the Pooh ride:

This is Fairy Land:

This is the Teacup Ride:

The Tower of Terror! Notice the elevator doors she added with paper!

The Heimlich Caterpillar ride:

Minnie's House:

Mickey's House:

The Princess Faire:

Rapunzel from Tangled (I added a photo I took while we were at Disneyland. It explains the way Megan stuck her hair out the window!):


Cars:

And Space Mountain (She strung foam star beads, hung them, and then made a paper rocket below):

Campfire Fun!

Brad had Monday off because of Pioneer Day, so we decided to have a little fun. He took Megan and Paige fishing at 8:30am up to the local fishing pond. The girls were so excited about this, that they laid out their "fishing clothes" the night before. Around 10:30 they came back, saying they'd had no luck. :( Surprisingly, he wanted to take them out again, and this time he also offered to bring Ashlie along. I guess he's crazy! :) So, with the three girls in tow they headed down for the other kid pond down in Provo canyon. Around 12:30 they were home again - with nothing. He said they still managed to have a good time. Dinner time came around and we headed for the mountains, up Strawberry Reservoir way. We found the spot we wanted, and Megan said, "This isn't in the mountains enough!". We headed back to the car just as an entire family reunion pulled into the parking lot. Needless to say, we headed for a new spot. We continued driving further and further when it hit me - I FORGOT THE HOT DOGS! Oh, dear. I did pretty well - I remembered the corn on the cob, the hot dog buns, the chips, the water cooler, and the s'mores. I just forgot the main part of the meal was all. One thing I love about Brad is he just smiled and did a u-turn and we headed back to town. He ran in and bought some hot dogs and we drove up Midway Canyon instead. We drove quite a ways up, and found a perfect spot where it was just our family. I had to close my eyes, because I was sure the road was going to kill our van, and that the trees were going to scratch it to pieces, but we fared really well. Here are some photos of our fun night...P.S. I just realized that my camera lens was smudged, so that's why every photo for the last 3 posts has been blurry. Oops!