Summertime fun

Happy fifth, Chloe! We had so much fun celebrating you this week! Chloe is so fun. She's smart as a whip, loves unicorns and cats and rainbows and legos and putting vast quantities of bows in her hair. She loves to wear dresses and wears them nearly every day. We recently realized her hair is QUITE curly. She's not actually thrilled about it, but Bill and I are in love. Chloe is always willing to give something to one of her siblings to make them happy. She likes to make others happy. She's also quite spicy. She has the best stink eye and shares it quite liberally with her siblings and parents, hahaha! She is pretty quiet in public but if you listen to her soft voice, she has a lot to say. She's a petite little thing so she's often mistaken for being younger, but it doesn't take much time with her to realize she is not a tiny girl anymore. She was all about the chocolate cake. She's also my kids that adores all the fruits and veggies. And pasta with olive oil and salt and pepper. She's got quite the refined palate. 

 We went to the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point for Chloe's birthday activity. It was so fun. We all really enjoyed it. 

Pedicures! We got Natasha a pedicure for her birthday and me and her and our sister-in-law Jessica went together. It was heavenly. 

We got a new workout bench on Amazon Prime Day, among a few other things. The kids are all really enjoying using it. It has multiple uses, haha! Chloe was happy to watch a show using it to sit on the other day. 

Chloe's curls! She absolutely hated them when I used some mousse and diffused them, but man oh man, they are adorable. She'll have to get used to her curly hair. 

I did this with Genevieve's hair for church. She has the most amazing hair. 

And this was an effort to diffuse hers. Turns out she has more beach waves and maybe about half a can too much mousse in it, hahaha. She came downstairs and told me she'd put five handfuls of mousse in it and could I diffuse it. We'll try again another time, but it looks promising! 

I've been wanting to make something with rhubarb for a while. We have some in the backyard garden. I made this tart and some rhubarb muffins yesterday and they are both fantastic. 

And last but not least, tonight we went and supported some of our friends in a fundraiser for their trip to Kenya in the fall. Ate some hot dogs, snow cones, cotton candy, rode ponies, or actually horses for three of my kids, spun themselves dizzy on a swing, and generally had a lovely time supporting our friends. We're hoping the best for their trip to Kenya and all the service they are planning. 

Birthday, Camping, This is the Place, Father's Day.

 Spencer's FNAF art is coming right along. He found a roll of paper and has decided to draw a FNAF mural. These are the first three. If you don't know what FNAF is (Five Nights at Freddie's), be happy. Hahah! But it's currently Spencer's favorite video game. 

We went to a Stake Campout outside of Kamas, UT Friday night and it was just delightful. We decided to bring dinner instead of hauling stuff up there to cook, so we grabbed some Panda Express and ate it on the way. We had a lovely time. Roasted some marshmallows, swung on their swings, met some new people, camped without the rain fly so we could see the stars. It was lovely. Granted, it did start raining just a bit at 5:15AM so Bill and I had to get up and put the rainfly on, but still worth it. I really love camping and since the stake made us breakfast, it was the easiest camping trip ever. 

We took advantage of already being up Parley's Canyon and stopped by This is the Place Monument Saturday morning after the campout. It's one of the places we have tickets to with our Salt Lake Connect Pass. It was way more fun than I expected. I don't know what I did expect, but I was so pleasantly surprised how much fun the kids had. They liked everything there. Nobody complained about anything. It was delightful. Highlights were riding the train, pony rides, panning for gold, and of course ice cream and donuts at the end. 

Chloe glammed herself up with a bunch of hair stuff. 

One of the delightful things about living in Utah is we have tons of my family here. We did a June family birthday party last Monday and it was so fun. My sister, my niece, and Chloe all have birthdays a week apart and we celebrated them all. 

Genevieve is a reading maniac this summer. It makes me so happy. And she reads in the funniest positions. I caught this one on camera. 

And last but not least, we had a lovely Father's Day. It was a pretty laid back day. Good food, lots of chatting, plenty of laughing. Just about perfect. I got Bill this lava lamp to replace the one that he's had for years that broke somewhere between South Carolina and Washington and Utah. I can't remember when it bit the dust but it's been a while, and this purple one is his favorite color, so it was perfect. It's really cool looking. The wax inside has metallic silver mixed in with the purple.