A very good month

July is one of my favorite months of the year.  The weather is always warm and there are so many fun things to celebrate. 

Our anniversary is on July 8th.  This was our 5 year anniversary.  Wow, how 5 years has flown by!  It has been a wonderful 5 years!  I loved Patrick so much the day we got married, but our love is much richer, much deeper.  I love our life together!  I feel so incredibly blessed to have him as my husband forever.  Often we comment on how blessed we feel.  Life is so good and we are so happy.  We wanted to get away for a night or two like we usually do, but leaving our babies just didn’t work out this year- and that was just fine with us!  Instead, our good  friend offered to watch the kids during the day and we went to Tucanos for lunch- yum!  It is the same restaurant where we had our wedding luncheon.  That night we headed up to Sundance for a concert at their open air amphitheater.  It was incredible! 

Patrick’s birthday is July 14 and mine is July 18. Cal and Ellie “helped” me make birthday breakfast. One of Patrick’s gifts was a slip and slide (smile). We had lots of fun and Cal was an instant fan!  Stroganoff for dinner and pineapple upside down cake for dessert.  A very relaxing and fun day all together as a family!

 

On the 18th we went up to my brother’s house for a BBQ.  Lynell and her family came down to help celebrate.  Boy do they know how to party! In their basement they have a karaoke stage that includes disco ball and a fog machine- how cool is that?  My favorite chocolate cake for dessert and we were all in heaven!

 

Being with family is always the best way to celebrate!

I must be rich…

Calan loves to “drive” my car.  Several times a day he will ask me, “Vroom vroom mama?” Which means he’s asking if he can go out to the garage and play in my car.  He’s ok playing out there for a little while alone, but most of the time he wants me out there with him.  He has me sit in the passenger seat while he pretends to drive us here or there.  I will say to him, “Calan, can you please drive me to the store?” and he will giggle and then vroom vroom like a race car.  He even asks me to put on my seat belt.  Such a safe driver!

I thought only rich people had a personal chauffeur… 

I must be rich!

The 4th of July

The 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays. 

From start to finish it is a perfect day!  We always start off with the Provo Parade.  This year Cal was quite interested in what was going on and spent most of the parade up on Patrick’s shoulders watching intently.  Ellie on the other hand was just happy to be there- as always.  I love when the Veterans go by.  There is always a lump in my throat and I feel so proud to be an American!  I love our country so much!

After the parade we went home for some lunch and some much needed nap time.  We had a fun, long evening ahead of us and we wanted to give the kids as much nap time as possible.

We headed up to Blythe’s house for our annual BBQ, swim and fireworks. We love this tradition and every year just keeps getting better! Our first time going together was in 2006 just 4 days before our wedding and now we are a family of 4- love it! AND now that Dave’s family has moved to Utah they too could join in this fun tradition.

 

Both Cal and Ellie are little fish! They love the water as much as we do! Cal was so brave this year and (with Loni’s help) went down the slide several times. He is getting so big!

We planned to have Cal stay up for the fireworks and put Ellie down to sleep, but to our surprise Cal crashed and Ellie was wide awake.  I tried to keep her ears covered during the show.  She didn’t mind the noise one bit and seemed memorized by the pretty colors.

Yes, it was a perfect day! 

The Sandbox

Last month Patrick fixed up the sandbox that was under the swing set.  It was a lot of work.  There were hefty weeds, but he got them all out, filled it up with new sand and made it quite nice. 

Calan has always been my little shadow.  He follows me around or asks me to come with him everywhere all day long.  The other day, Ellie was sleeping and I got busy doing this and that when I realized my little shadow was missing.  His independent play is a new thing so I set out to find out what he was up to.  I found him in his sandbox.  He was playing with his dump truck and having a great time. 

I stood by the window and watched him for more than 5 minutes before he saw me and came running for me to join him.  I couldn’t believe how grown up he looked.  His little imagination hard at work brought tears to my eyes.  He is so incredibly cute. 

The sandbox became an immediate hit.  Ellie loves to stretch out her toes in the sand.  She filled up her fist one time and got a good taste of it to know she never wants to do that again.  Smart girl!

Calan has played so hard he has warn out the knees in his jeans.  I love it!

So many wonderful memories being made outside in the sunshine. 

Ahhh, how we love summer!