24th of July Weekend

Our first Days of 47 Parade began the night before... we stayed at my parents' apartment Thursday night and had some Chinese food. Well, most of us stayed in the apartment. We walked down around the corner to the parade route and saw all of the parkstrip was almost filled up with people staking their claim. People had coolers, tarps, air mattresses, and even tables that they were playing games at or eating dinner-- really making an event out of it! We saw an empty spot, got our blankets, and came back to stake our own spot. Thanks to Kevin and Dad spending the night on that grassy slanted spot, we had front row seats right at the beginning of the parade. We were lucky to have them there! I'm not sure the girls would have been so interested in so much of the parade without such great spots.

My friend Kenzee told me there was even a shot of Kevin and the girls on one of the Utah morning shows yesterday. I know Cora got filmed at least once, but she wouldn't smile. I think we were in the background of a lot of parade shots too, the main stage was across the street from us.

We had so much fun! It was hot, next time I think we'd go out a little earlier and find a spot that would stay shadier longer. But the girls were troopers and loved being there for the whole thing, I was so surprised. We slathered on the sunscreen, and although we all got flushed, no one got burned.

Before the parade started

The beginning of the parade

President Eyring and his wife

Near the end, Cora wanted to sit in our only shade--under our chairs! She still wanted to see the parade though!

Cora's favorites were the marching bands. Violet's favorites were the horses. Everytime she saw a horse, so got so excited, pointing and oohing (there's a video at the end of the post). Lucky for us, there were LOTS of horses and marching bands throughout the whole parade. They also liked the police motorcycles, and the floats were pretty amazing too. Violet made all the animal sounds for the ones that had animals on them as they went by. It was really fun-- seeing the girls enjoy it so much made it especially all worth it.

Friday afternoon we took a dip in the pool-- refreshing! Our boating plans on Saturday got cancelled due to the weather forecasts, but we still had a nice time running some errands, going to Cafe Rio, and visiting the Thanksgiving Point Farm for the first time. It's so close to us, we got a family pass and I'm sure we'll go there often-- a pony ride is included in each visit, and the girls can't get enough of pony rides!
We fed the goats, petted cows and horses, saw a few calves, colts, and chickes, Violet said hello to every animal we encountered, and the girls did the pony rides-- twice, because Kevin and I didn't think we needed to use our pony ride tickets :).

Violet loved seeing the ponies and kept patting their manes saying 'soft, soft'.

Oreo Face

Violet likes to open her Oreos and lick the filling out, discarding the cookie. Evidently, Cora likes to spread hers around her mouth!

A Few Fun Things

Design Star started last Sunday on HGTV. I'm not a fan of reality television, but I think this one is really fun.


The Children's Place is doing even deeper discounts on their Monster Sale-- all clearance stuff is now 40% off online. I've been following the sale as they've done their progressive markdowns and bought some things, but yesterday I went into a store (I had a kickback coupon that can't be used online, but usually paying the $5 shipping is a good trade-off for not dragging along two kids while I shop, plus they have a better selection online) and clearance items were 50% off, plus I had a 15% off coupon (you can easily find these coupon codes with a simple online search) too. I now have all of Cora's clothes for next summer, a few fun things for Violet to supplement Cora's hand-me-downs, and got some great deals. Of course, the bigger the discount, the less the selection, but they still had some great stuff.


I took a little break last night and saw The Proposal. It was silly and cute. Keep in mind, I go to the movie theater 1-2 times a year, and watch only a handful of movies at home a year, so maybe I'm not the best judge, but I enjoyed it.


And best of all, I found the best pillow EVER. Our old ones just haven't been the same since I had to wash them after a kiddie incident. But I love my new one! It is a memory foam pillow and came in a two-pack at Costco. I really have been sleeping better.


Our other fun summer things have been--

~ homemade popsicles

~ Costco's big "super premium" vanilla ice cream bar hand dipped in chocolate and covered with lots of crunchy roasted almonds (for $1.50! and it can feed our whole family)

~ our new kiddie pool

~ the little lake we found near our house that has a sandy beach area and a wading area

~ The splash pad so close to our house. We've been a bunch of times, and went yesterday with some friends. My girls were super grouchy, but it was still fairly fun. Better luck next time!



What fun summer things have you been doing?

Due to a clean house and multiple requests.....

.... here are the pictures of our house. We picked it really because it was the only one in our price range that had 4 bedrooms and a 3 car garage close to Kevin's work and available when we wanted it. Mostly there are a lot of short sales in this area, and more expensive for sale by owners. But this spec house was done at the perfect time, we didn't have to pick anything out except the carpet, and we love it!

Laundry room -- I love that it's a little wider than my last one, and especially love the full cabinets across the top-- so handy.
Master closet--
Master bath-- the shower is in the corner with the toilet room opposite.
Master bedroom-- I love that we have room for a chair in the corner
More master bedroom---
Entry/Dining-- We're still looking for a dining room table that we like. Meanwhile, the folding table works fine.
Kitchen-- The double ovens will come in handy... I'd still like to add some under-counter lights and a pantry light. Someday.
Kitchen-- I had to do a close-up of these barstools. They are hand-me-downs from my parents from forever ago, but they are still nice and sturdy. I spent hours and hours on these last month stripping the stain and re-staining them to match our cabinets. If anyone decides to do a similar project, let me know. I learned a lot and it could have gone faster.
Great Room--I know the big wall makes our tv look small, but oh well! We're not getting a new one anytime soon.
Powder bath--
Office-- I love that we have an office on the main floor-- I get to do so much more while still keeping an eye on what the girls are doing most anywhere in the house.
Entry / Kitchen--
Upstairs bathroom-- It's nice how it is divided, and I'm really happy there's just one sink-- much more counter space for these girls! A very practical space.
Cora's room-- This is a really big room. Sometime next year Violet will move in here too. The girls spend quite a bit of time up here playing by themselves, since most of their toys are in here.
More of Cora's room--
Guest /Sewing Room-- At least for now. It'll probably be a kids room someday. We'll see how sharing rooms goes.

Violet's room is pretty cute, but she's asleep, so I'll have to get a picture later.

Patio--

Backyard--

You can see three temples from our house (Draper, Jordan River, Oquirrh Mountain) but they didn't really show up in the pictures I took, so I guess you'll just have to come and see them for yourselves!

Family Reunion

We had a terrific weekend at the annual Ellis family reunion. We had to miss last year because of other exciting family events, but we were so glad to be able to go this year!

My mom, the girls, and I left Thursday to go to Blackfoot, met up with my aunt and two of her kids, and made a stop at Lava Hot Springs. It was hot and crowded, but lots of fun. We stayed for almost four hours and the girls loved it! Cora started out a little scared, but got so comfortable in the water later... a great prep for swimming lessons that start next week. She loved bouncing in the water with her Dora floaties. Violet was a little sleepy at first, but had a great time too.... she especially liked trying out water wings for the first time. I thought she might be too little, but she loved it! The girls were exhausted and fell asleep within minutes of being in the car.

Friday was the duck race down the canal, swimming in the kiddie pool, and playing with all the toys in Grandpa's backyard. Kevin and Dad came in the afternoon, and we had our big family dinner that night. Friday was also the day I wore 5 changes of clothes-- due to Violet throwing up on me 4 times and blowing out on me one time. I was so glad to see Kevin when he got there! She had some little stomach bug that didn't last long, but made her pretty miserable for about 6 hours. Grandma said there was a bug going around even before we got there, but Cora had something similar a few days before we left, so we probably brought our bugs with us. We're just glad we're all done with it! Friday night was the family meeting where everyone tells their news-- there are two cousins having babies in September, and three (including me) expecting babies in January! So everyone will have lots of cousins their age to play with at future reunions :).The releasing of the ducks

Waiting and watching... my duck actually won!

One of the favorites-- Grandpa's homemade ferris wheel.
Saturday was a yummy breakfast, and the first round of the candy rockets on Friday-- air pressure pop bottles flying in the air and making candy rain everywhere. Cora got the hang of running for candy pretty fast and had so much fun! Then we left for a few hours to visit my dad's family picnic nearby. Cora and Violet had a great time throwing rocks in the water, looking at frogs the other cousins caught, and watching Kevin play horseshoes. They were so tired though, we left before lunch, and again, they fell asleep within minutes of being in the car.

Saturday lunch was the traditional 'chicken in a barrel', more playtime, and goodbyes. Cora loved all the activities, playing with cousins, seeing the cows next door, and everything else. We feel so blessed to live close enough to family to make it easy to go to these reunions! About 75 people were there for 2-4 days... it was quite the crowd but o-so-fun. Thanks to everyone for all you did to make it happen!

As always, I didn't take nearly enough pictures. You can see more family reunion pics at my cousin's blog or my mom's blog.

You know you're a sleep deprived mom.....

.... if you go to Arby's to order the Wednesday free sandwich....

and it's only Tuesday!

Birthday Dresses

Cora and Violet opened more birthday presents on Friday! They were pretty excited to have another present to open, Violet even did hers all by herself. They wore their beautiful yellow dresses to church yesterday, and we got a few photos.
Cora was doing such cheesy smiles, we told her to laugh like someone was tickling her. So Violet lifted up her dress to show her belly button so she could be tickled.
I can only imagine how tricky it will be to get a good photo when there are three kids to to entice to smile at the same time!
Thankyou Keyton, Liz, Emeline, and Jarom!

Backpack, Backpack

We stopped by a sale for some shoes before heading to the toy store so Cora could pick out a birthday present from GG. Cora has been talking about taking her money to the toy store for over a week! But we didn't quite make it.... she saw this backpack at the Children's Place and no toy could take its place.
Thanks GG! Cora loves it and wears it all the time. Now she's even more excited... if that's possible... about going to preschool in the fall!

Cousin Time

Notice I couldn't get all of them to look at the same time! They all had a lot of fun together yesterday afternoon. And, of course, they didn't stay on the couch for long.

Puddle-Jumping

Cora was having a hard time concentrating on dinner... so I told her she could go outside and jump in puddles if she finished. Wow, she ate fast! It was her first puddle-jumping experience, I'm sure it won't be her last!
Maybe next time we'll have bigger puddles... these were just from a quick afternoon thunderstorm.
Violet felt too left out, so she joined in, even without boots. She certainly is a little water baby! Cora instructing Violet on the ins and outs of puddle-jumping...