Anybody else know that song from Veggie Tales (Madame Blueberry)? I couldn’t help but sing it in my head after picking blueberries today with the kids and some of our friends.
The blueberries this year were even better than last year. Yum! Amazing! But…it was HOT. I didn’t think it was so hot when we left, but somehow once we got down to the blueberry bushes, we were all sweating. Oh, but it was worth it!
Apple was thrilled that we had to ride a covered wagon (not the pioneer kind) to …

Life is never boring around here, even on a slow day. I admit, I’ve had an inkling that this was coming for quite some time now, and when the Stake Presidency called to meet with both me and PB, I knew what it was about. But I still wasn’t prepared for the roller coaster of emotions that I have faced since PB’s new calling was extended on Friday….
Peanut Butter is the new counselor in the Bishopric. On the basic level, I am thrilled with the calling. As one good friend …

This afternoon, we drove down to a State Park close to our house for a BBQ with some friends that will be moving soon. We had hot dogs and hamburgers, chips and soda, pasta salad and cookies. Apple left a bench-full of vanilla sandwich cookies stripped of their frosting middles…
After dinner, we played at a really fun park made almost exclusively out of recycled tires. The only negative….everybody was in desperate need of a bath after their play. As we were leaving the kids were begging to come back again …

One of my good friends, Safire, invited us to go to a near-by beach for the day. We had so much fun! It was really hard to pull the kids away.
Taco built mountains and moats in the sand all day long.Nerds, on the other hand, was in the water (which was surprisingly pleasant) all day long. She was the first to go under. My friend, Melissa, came along, too. Melissa found a really cool lip-shaped rock and cracked me up by wearing it! Her adorable daughter, Lexi, wanted to …

Apple woke up on Saturday and decided that he was finally ready to be a big boy (seriously, in the last month, he has argued with me that he wants to be a baby still). But something clicked with him and he potty trained just like that. I was worried that he was just having a good day, but he has continued for 4 days in a row. He still has an accident a day, but I will take it! He’s going potty all by himself!! I don’t have to …

My sister, Andrea, and her daughter, Vanessa, came up for some sisterly and cousinly bonding time. We like to pack in lots of fun when we get together! It’s pretty funny to put the two of us together…..we are snapping pictures constantly! My kids are so much more willing to pose when Andrea’s around! (Thanks, Andrea, for some of these pictures!)
Reese has a special bond with Andrea and Vanessa.In the evening, the little kids went outside to eat popsicles and play with chalk….after their bath! Haha!Vanessa really liked the car…The …

Yesterday was a perfect day for the pool. Vanessa and Andrea joined us for some splash time.It sure helps to go swimming with another adult, especially one who knows her way around with a camera!Vanessa was curious about all of the silly things her cousins were doing.She decided that the pool water tasted yummy, and so she called Apple (Baby!) over to share some! Eww! (of course, we were being bad moms and laughing while we said no!)Andrea is an awesome Aunt, and the kids adore her!But Vanessa is almost …

A group of us from church met at a kiddie pool with all of the pre-schoolers. While we were baking in the heat and trying to stay cool in the pool, we were talking about the older kids getting out of school for the summer later this week….and I realized that I was the only Mom in the bunch with older, school-aged kids. Sometime I feel so old!
I love this shot we got of (almost) all the kids (there were 3 infants and one little boy who …

When we got to Peanut Butter’s company picnic this afternoon at 4:00, the outside temperature was fluctuating between 97 and 100 degrees. It was HOT. Poor Taco had a really hard time adjusting to the heat. His head was immediately sweaty.Apple, on the other hand, had already had a full and tiring day, and so he slept, sweat and all, for the first 1 1/2 hours of the picnic (under the covered pavilion, thank goodness)Taco felt much better after the snow cone machine opened. He never complained again. Reese …

So much happens during the last couple of weeks of school! We have been super busy doing lots of fun things. On Friday, each of my kids at the Elementary School had class activities going on in the afternoon, and by some miracle, I was able to make ALL of them. Reese had a little Pre-K concert and party. Pizza and cake for lunch! Yipee! Reese had a fabulous teacher this year. I feel so lucky to have gotten her into this fabulous program at our home school.Taco’s class did …