2012 Blue Jeans Week 25

Welcome to Blue Jeans Momma.  We had a quiet week at our house.  My oldest 2 girls were at church girls' camp from M-F, so it was just the youngest two.  It was a very quiet and relaxing week.  We missed the oldest, but they had a lot of fun.

Sunday:  Happy Father's Day!  Ben is just amazing.  My kids are so lucky and blessed to have him for a dad, and I am even more blessed to be married to the cute guy!  Sure love you!  His awesome card was created by Miss O.  She is our resident master card maker.

Monday: The girls before they headed to camp

Tuesday:  With her older sisters gone, Miss E kept herself busy this week.  She took a kids cooking class offered through the library.  Today they made whole wheat quick bread and fruit smoothies.  She has dinner planned for next week which I am happy about because she is cooking!

Wednesday:  Bedtime routines---Ben always reads to the kids, and he and Mr J are reading a book together--just the boys.  They are reading A Nest for Celeste by Henry Cole.   

Thursday:  Miss E also kept busy this week with swimming lessons.  She is a very strong swimmer and really developed her diving this week.  Way to go Miss E!

Friday:  Mr J wanted to learn how to roller skate.  Miss E was a big help because he couldn't quite get the hang of it yet :)  Love her look.

Saturday:  For the past 2 weeks Miss E has been participating in a children's summer theater workshop.  The workshop culminates in the kids performing a play for their parents on Saturday morning.   Miss E is 2nd from the right and is a pony.  Her play was about Rainbow and her little ponies that eat magic oats and come to life and like to disco.  They enter an animal dance contest to win the prize money to buy medicine to help their owner recover from a rare disease.  It was a fun play, and the kids did a great job!  The play was written by the staff of the workshop.

2012 Blue Jeans Week 24

Summer is in full swing, and there are lots of activities, but I think my kids enjoy summer because of the actual 'play time.'  There is unstructured down time to just play, and my kids love that.

Sunday:  Mr J loves trains, always has, but during the school year there just isn't a lot of play time.  He has loved playing trains this summer.

Monday:  It is also nice to have the kids home to help clean more :)  Not that they really enjoy that aspect of summer, but mom does

Tuesday:  Went to a soda fountain with my mom and 2 of my girls.  Those are fun places and yummy too!

Wednesday:  Enjoying the tree swing--classic summer

Thursday:  They have such cool programs at our library.   We love our library.  Today they had a program about night time animals, and we got to feel all their pelts and see their skulls--cool stuff!

Friday:  Summer is a time for projects, and today my girls were helping their grandpa build shelves in his shed.  They are very lucky to have their grandparents close.

Saturday:  Miss E has started to work on a quilt with my mom.  My mom is a huge quilter, and I am grateful my kids can learn skills from my parents.

Hope summer is going well in your neck of the woods!  Thanks for stopping by!  Have a great week!

2012 Blue Jeans Week 23

So welcome to Blue Jeans Momma.  I am a huge Project Life fan and am doing my 4th year of a picture-a-day scrapbooking to document my family's life.  Technology is a wonderful thing, when it works, but ours hasn't been working for a while.  Our old computer died, and we had to get a new one, and with the end of school, vacation, and just life in general I have been absent for a while.  Previous posts show pictures of our National Parks vacation which was wonderful!   But after 8 weeks I am ready and somewhat back to normal (whatever that means, maybe that the laundry is caught up for a minute?) to start posting my weekly shots again, so welcome!  Here is what we have been up to the past week. . .

Sunday:  For summer reading Miss O and Miss E decided to re-read Harry Potter.  What great summer reading!  Both of them can always be found with a HP book in their hands now.  They are both currently on #5.  Love it!

Monday:  Monday nights are family nights at our house.  My sister and her husband where in town and joined us tonight.  We were playing some clapping games--Big Buddha to be precise--lots of laughing and fun!

Tuesday:  Found someone with a really big telescope so we could watch Venus travel in front of the sun today.  It was really neat to see especially with that cool telescope.

Wednesday:  Mr J decided he wanted a buzz for the summer and asked Grandpa to do it for him.  Love his expression :)  

Thursday:  Miss O has the best expressions, and she just loves it when her mom takes her picture (ha, ha).  My sister brought her amazing bead collection for the girls to make necklaces and bracelets to their hearts content today.  Super fun!

Friday:  Mr J's birthday party!  We only have friend parties every other year on odd numbered birthdays, so Mr J was due this year.  They had pizza and got really wet with water balloons, water guns, and dumping buckets of water on each other's heads--summer fun! (this picture is obviously the "before and dry" picture.  I neglected to get an "after and wet" one)

Saturday:  Ben and I had the wonderful opportunity to attend our church's  new temple.  Previously our closest temple had been about 4-5 hours away.  This one is only 2!  Yeah!  What a blessing!  It is beautiful!

Thanks for visiting!  Have a wonderful week!

Capitol Reef National Park

Our last and final National Park on this trip was Capitol Reef NP

It is thus named because of the rocks resembling the capitol building.  We were blessed these 3 days of our trip to have Ben's parents come down and join us.  The girls with their Grandma.

The beautiful park at sunset

One of the many cool rock places to explore

Ben, his mom, and Ella take a break during a hike.

Cool places

Cool spaces

The kids and their grandparents at a bridge which is different than an arch.  A bridge is formed by water.

We went on lots of fun hikes

Beautiful views

We loved Capital Reef NP!  Our national parks are wonderful!

Canyonlands National Park

So after our days at Arches NP we went to Canyonlands National Park.  It is about 40 miles away from Arches.

I didn't know much about Canyonlands NP, and I was amazed when I got there.  It reminded me a lot of the Grand Canyon.  This arch looking out over a vast canyon was beautiful.

Aren't bunny ears over a sibling's head mandatory in vacation photos?

The girls looking out over another canyon.

Beautiful overlooks, and Miss O is getting tired ;)

This area was called the upheaval dome.  The changes in color of the rock were awesome.

Looking out over the canyon with the Green River in the background.  Amazing to think what water can create over the centuries.  We loved Canyonlands National Park!

Arches National Park

So our first National Park we visited on this trip was Arches National Park.

The kids loved the rocks.  This area was the "rock pile" making area.  We made some cool rock towers here.

The kids by balanced rock.

One of the many, jaw-droppingly amazing arches at the park.  Our world is so full of beautiful things.  We are so blessed that the Lord loves us and gave us this beautiful earth!

This is double arch.

While we were there they had the solar eclipse.  The rangers had the special black sun viewing glasses so you could watch the eclipse.  It was really neat.

We did lots of hiking.  

Lots of hiking to see amazing places like Delicate arch

And landscape arch which is the longest arch of its kind in the world.

This is sandstone arch, and it was really completely surrounded by sand--a very fine, red sand that got everywhere, and the kids loved to play in.  I am still shaking out sand from our shoes.

We loved Arches National Park!