Swimming Lessons & Aurora

Our little munchkins at swimming lessons

 (and some little children who wouldn't get out of my pictures)

What a SUMMER!  We only have a month left and I feel like it just started. It has been quite the busy one.  The kids just finished with their first session of swimming lessons.  It was for 2 weeks, 4 days each at 11:10.  Right in the middle of the day.  It was tiring, but fun to have a friend there as well that I got to chat with.  Their teacher was great and really good with them.  But Quoi was funny to watch.  She would freak with water got on her face.  Looks like she's going to love water as much as Mommy.  I want to do another session, but it looks like that won't happen for a while. We just signed Lincoln up for soccer that starts mid-August.  I'm so excited! Hopefully Quoia will get to do it in the Spring with him.

Mike and are stay pretty busy with our callings.  He has scouts every Tuesday.  I've already had a friend tell me she almost cried watching Mike with her son. She really likes him as his leader. He won't like that I wrote that, but he probably won't even read it:)  I'm loving Relief Society.  I love getting to know all the sisters, do lessons, and chat.  It's been fun.

We have a list from the library, 100 books you should read before Kindergarten. It's been our summer goal to read them all. We have 5 left on our list and are getting very excited!  So of course we've been making multiple trips to the library.  The kids love books are so good to sit still and listen.  Its been one of my favorite things to do with my kids. If I'm having a grouchy day, it all goes away when we start to read.

I'm not the best at watering the garden, but it's still holding in there with all the HEAT we've had this summer.  Next summer I'll know more and will hopefully do better.  The kids love getting to see all the plants come up and keep growing, especially since they planted the seeds themselves.

We are excited to leave in a couple days and go spend some time in Utah with our families!  Just me and the kids can go, but it should be fun:)  Lots on our list of things to do!

We also decided (I hope!!) this little munchkin will be Aurora. I really like Auri, so Mike suggested Aurora.  We talked about it like 2 years ago, so I'm so glad we still like it! :)  And if you haven't noticed... car theme.  It was just a joke at first, but now we are rolling with it and we can't have an odd child out.  This baby was either going to be Aurora or Pilot.  So hopefully I will still love Pilot if we are lucky to have another boy!  And no, we aren't "car" people, please I drive a minivan, I could definitely care less.  But I do like some of the names:)

(Although side note on Aurora: Just in the past few days, there was a terrible shooting in a movie theater for a midnight premier showing of The Dark Knight Batman series. Someone stood up and went crazy shooting many people, killing and injuring. It is so sad:( The shootings happened in Aurora, CO. So... I was pretty bummed about that. It's like naming your child Columbine. But now they are calling it The Dark Knight shooting. So hopefully she won't be assosicated with this awful night.)

He wanted so bad to make cookies, I came into the kitchen to this.  What a little cutie!  They love to bake with their Mommy. 

 Besties:)

Hats for her and her soccer ball:) 

I went to my friend's house to watch her girls (4, 3, 2 & 1 yrs of age!!) at their house.  They had a tea party.  The kids just loved it, esp Linc!

This is an awesome handle Gary invented for the sliding screen door while they were here.

Lincoln is starting soccer in a couple weeks!!  He is so excited!  And if he really likes it, we'll let him do the spring session and by then Quoi will be old enough to do it too! 

Mike took Linc out shopping just the two of them and got a bunch of soccer stuff.  Linc was so happy to be with Daddy all by himself. 

Baby In My Belly

More butterflies, pink, flowers, bows,

Lalaloopsy, Barbies, purple, dragonflies,

squeals, beautiful long hair & ATTITUDE!

GIRL GIRL GIRL!! 

G& G Phister here! Custer's Battlefield Memorial

The weekend after the campout, Grandma and Grandpa Phister and Ty Ty came out to visit us at our house!  We love having visitors!  And this was the first time Ty has been out to our house.  We had a great weekend of relaxing, I had meetings, Montana,  yard work, and some yummy food.  On Friday me and the kids went up with them to Custer's Battlefield Memorial up in Montana.  It was about a 31/2 hour drive.  The drive would have been much better if Lincoln wasn't sick and puking in the van on the way there. The night before, he woke up in the middle of the night and puked in our bed.  Yeah.  But the next morning he was running around and so excited to see his grandparents we figured it was just a one time thing.  Nope.  But he was a very good traveler because he hardly said a word and was super weak to move.  Poor guy.  But I'm still glad we went with them and go to see the memorial. 

The pictures of the campsite and all the uniform stuff look just like Grandpa's backyard:)  And it reminds me of my teenage years at the Indian Wars.  Fun times.  Thanks for the fun trip Grandpa.

Saturday was fantastic!  Mike and I got so much done with the extra help here it was amazing!  We had a ton of crap, weeds, and a tree behind our fence.  It took 2 trips to the dump to get rid of everything.  Grandma helped (ok pretty much did it all) with the front flower bed.  That was full of grass and weeds in was embarrassing.  All the bushes are trimmed, weeds are gone, flowers are planted.  It was an accomplishing day.  And probably the most energy I've had in a while.  We went out to Chopsticks after we were done as a thanks.  Yummy:) 

We even got Grandpa to play games with us!  That was great!  Taboo looks like one we can play in the future.  That and Skip-Bo.  Thanks for the fun weekend and coming to visit our house:)

Phister Phamily Campout at Crystal HS

Our silly princess (pjs, bathing suit, and tutu with some crazy hair:)

Yet another Utah trip.  We came home from the wedding on Sunday, then me and the kids took off again on Friday to go to the Phister Reunion at Crystal Hot Springs.  It was actually ok going without Mike this time.  I thought it would be super crazy camping by myself, but my sister let us borrow her camper trailer and my family helped a lot with the kids.  We had a good time.  They love swimming!! It was a perfect place to be in high 90's weather and camping.  The water was wonderful. 

It was nice to get to see a lot of long lost cousins and meet their spouses/children.  We don't get together with that side of the family much.  It was fun to play games and all be together for a bit.

The kids fell a bunch of times on the concrete and scraped their knees pretty good.  Lincoln fell walking by Uncle Daniel and had some good battles wounds.  The lifeguard got him some bandaids and helped them.  After that, no more water for Linc.  I tried to convince him it was ok, but nope.  He would not get his knees wet.  So he sat in the shade for the rest of the time.  (Since the water has "natural salts" and stuff like that, I'm sure it would have burned to get back in anyway) He is such a cute kid.  I love him:)

Before he got hurt, Linc went down the big huge slide all by himself a few times!  (without my knowlegde of course) They both went down with everyone else too and loved it.  I couldn't play on the slide with baby in my belly.  Bummer. But I'm so glad the kids had a good time.  

Everyone together for a little program

I'm glad Grandma brought her swing:)

And of course the kids with their electronic devices.  No wonder camping was so easy;)

Cory & Anna (Quoia snuggled with Anna on her lap forever.  She loves her Aunt Anna.  She doesn't cuddle with me like that.)

Lara, Mark & cute Koy

Annica, Dan & Maxie:)

Grandpa relaxing

Snuggling on their bed.  I don't know why I switched them places later, becasue twice Sequoia fell off the bed in the middle of the night.  Whoops! I got to sleep with me the rest of the night:)

Back home with Daddy!  Its so funny.  Sequoia refuses to wear almost all of her clothes, unless its blue or her robot shirt.  She insists she's a boy.  But the only other things she will wear are super cute dress up clothes and tutus.  I love it.  So yes, sometimes when we go to the library she is either a boy or a beautiful princess.  At least she can dress herself:)

And this guy loves his super heros!  For Halloween he wants to be Ironman so he can have that costume as well.  I love dress up/super hero time! :)

I found this double stroller, a doll, a carseat carrier, and a princess crib for baby dolls at some yard sales.  Score!  She loves this.  And when we go on a walk, she gets to take her babies on walks with us.  I love it:)