Recycling Week at Camp KJ!

After taking a blissful week off, thanks Honey, that was therapy for me!!!---we had so much fun with all our recycling endeavors!! We made some fun recycled crafts and learned---hopefully---a lot! Thursday we made a village with refridgerator boxes. SO FUN!!!! I had three more things prepared to do that day, but the kids had so much fun just creating their houses that we let those slide! It was amazing! I was grateful all the parents were such good sports about taking them all home to their various destinations. :) Pretty fun!!

Mormon Lake Lodge Day!!!

Brandon had the brilliant idea to take the kids horseback riding and found that the Mormon Lake Lodge offered this at a very reasonable rate. Not only that, but they have a petting ares for little and very cute animals, real Bison with a 1-month-old baby, a stagecoach you can play on and a little playground. It was AMAZING!!!! The day was beautiful, the animals were SO sweet and friendly and very funny! The bison were HUGE!! We had the best time! It was wonderful! The horses were fun and very gentle---gentle, not broken beyond caring---the trail was beautiful and we had a blast!!! Have I said that yet? We paid for an hour trail ride, but they took us out for an hour and twenty minutes. I went with Bethany and Lindsay on the trail ride. Rebekah and Jeremy had a lovely pony ride in the arena. Then we had a fun picnic under a big tree. SO FUN!! Did you catch the face on Rebekah in that last shot? Can we say EXHAUSTED? They had so much fun also!!

Blessed Sunday Stations!

OK, So this Idea was apparently in the Friend Magazine, but I missed it. Dina, my dear and wonderful friend told me about it as I was venting my frustrations about the fight fright that our Sunday mornings had become, despite all my efforts to achieve the exact opposite. Anyway, the idea is that you set up "stations" to have the kids rotate to for a set amount of time. I made up tickets that have the numbers 1-6 on them to punch like the Conductor on the PBS show DinoTrain, which my kids LOVE, even Bethany. SO, we tried it, and with VERY little effort on my part, we have had 3 Sundays squabble free and the kids LOVE it! When they fill up all their numbers with punches, they get to choose a Liken movie to eat their lunch with. SO FUN!!!!! Seriously, the stations have been things like painting a picture, playing with Legos, writing a letter or postcard, playing games on the Friend Website---Rebekah LOVES the part where you can listen to stories read with the pictures flowing to the words, it's under the "For Little Friends" tab, going outside and playing---which because it's one kid per station, there's no loudness or craziness outside. I LOVE IT!!!!!!!! YAY Sunday Stations!!!!!

Our Nation's Birthday

I have never been able to sit idly by and watch a 4th of July Parade. Actually I never even went to one until we had kids and were living up here, but since then we have nearly always been there. I forgot my camera, which stinks, but oh well. I still felt all the gratitude and appreciation for this great nation that I always do. I have been reminded of those feelings much more often this year than I usually am, and I'm grateful for that too. Brandon's Uncle Andy was on Glenn Beck talking about George Washington earlier in April, I think, and I have since started reading his book, The Real George Washington. Couple that with the part of the Book of Mormon I'm reading right now, and my thankfulness for the men and women who helped protect my beloved land in this chosen neck of the woods, plus the wonderful talks we got to hear on the 4th....well, my heart has just about burst with the feeling of it! I couldn't even get through Longfellow's poem about Paul Revere without getting choked up! My preschoolers must have thought I was nuts! but I loved the chance to tell them why I was choked up. I am SO thankful to be an American, a citizen of the United States of America. I love this country. I hope someday I can hug all those men and women who have given their lives in defense of it's greatness. I pray that I can use my voice to defend it in my small way now. I will be eternally grateful for George Washington, John Adams, all those founding fathers who risked so much, were so brave and stood tall in their determination. REAL heroes!

Pretty Summer Yards

I LOVE the way our yard looks right now, and the fun part is it's only going to get better! We saw California poppy varieties at Warner's this spring and I was SO dying to do something that involved dirt then and those kinds of flowers are supposed to be planted in the cold weather. :) LOVE IT!!! They have turned out to be even more fun than I ever imagined! And the Phlox hasn't even started yet! I LOVE DIRT!!!!!! Yes, I'm a dork and I realize this, it's ok, I am at peace with my inner dork! DIRT RULES!!!

Happy Birthday Bethany!!!!

Our Bethany is 10! How in the world did that happen? She is growing up so fast, but so beautifully! I love hearing her prayers and the mature and beautiful things, as well as the lovely childhood that is remaining to her. We had the "talk" the week before her birthday. I was terrified, not of the topic, but that I would present it in a way that would slant her perspective, or diminish the beauty and sacredness of the whole thing. There was MUCH fasting and prayer involved on my part. the younger kids had a day class at the Arboretum, very convenient, no? Bethany and I went to Target and got face wash, a washcloth, mouthwash and cool teeth stuff, deodorant---grown-up stuff. Then we got treats at Wildflower Bread Co. and went and sat in the back yard and ate and dove into it----well, she ate.It was amazing. The Spirit was there. She asked amazing and thoughtful questions. She said she was so happy to know how it all worked. !!! Wow! She is amazing! I love this beautiful daughter of God so much! She is so wise, but so perfectly innocent and having such a blast with her wonderful imagination. She throws herself into her passions--drawing, reading, discovering new things, writing and illustrating her books, practicing her trumpet. I am truly honored to get to be her mother!!!Just WOW!