Hot summer days . . .

Hillary and her boyfriend Jay
Tess, Jarom (AKA Ammoron), my sis Cyndel (her eyes are closed on purpose by the way, she is such a funny girl, check her out at dodenbier.blogspot.com), and Carter

More sparklers, such a great toy for a 2 year old (note the sarcasm, Carter burned his shirt!)

So I have uploaded new pics already, hooray! The above are from the 24th of July party we had at our house. I took a bunch of pics of my family just to post them here :). They have found my blog and all seem tickled when their picture is on here, so there you guys go! Anyway . . .we have been busy running around since the last post. Lowell has taken some time off because most of his work for the summer is done, he has to use his days or he will lose them, and he thought he could find some projects to do at home. I don't think husbands always think time off through that well. A day off used to mean sleeping in and lazing about, that was before kids! Lowell has been quite busy getting the cars fixed up, a flat tire and oil change on our Civic and then he cleaned out and detailed the Odyssey and got it an oil change and its balance fixed. He has also weeded the whole yard (1/2 acre landscaped plus a large garden) and last I talked to him he was finishing cleaning the bathrooms and vacuuming the upstairs. He likes to come home to a clean house, so he is getting a head start before we leave. Have I said it enough times on here yet, I have the greatest husband!!! Yep, I know you're jealous!

I have also taken advantage of having Lowell home to do some fun stuff with the munchkins. Monday we did the giant slip and slide at the gardens. Here is Carter going down:

They seemed to like it, but we got there late and only got to go down one time. So we went home and turned the sprinklers on in our backyard for them and then put water down the slide on their swingset so they could have a water slide. Here they are with that one:
Carter
Davis
I don't know how you could tell in those pics though, I just know what they were wearing. Anyway . . .yesterday we went to the zoo with Lowell and had a good time there. Cyndel came too, thus fulfilling one of the things on her 100 things to do this summer list. The bubs did pretty well even though it was rather hot (did I mention it is going to 101 here in Utah on Saturday, but only 74 degrees in Yellowstone, oh yes, I chose wisely! :)). Here are the boys on the tigers, I have one of these from every year somewhere. They are the only ones on it because they were bossing all the other kids around and telling them they couldn't play. Not sure what to do about that, they do it everywhere we go. Anybody have any ideas? We just tell them, no, you need to share and be a friend, yadda yadda. They actually share better with each other than other people, which isn't saying a whole lot.

Then after nap yesterday we went and played at the children's garden. The last time we went we got there too late so it was nice this time to play a little longer. Davis got drenched by the elephant which squirts water, very fun! Of course they wouldn't share there either, but the other parents were pretty cool.

Today we just went to the gym and tomorrow we will be setting up the tent to test it out and getting packed. Yellowstone here we come, hooray! Last night was funny, the boys both pulled on their pull ups over their PJs and ran around laughing and talking about what big boys they are. Such funny kids. Davey has been having problems with being scared at night, not sure how to help him, enlisting help for that too. I think he either had some bad dreams or the shadows in his new room are bugging him. Either way he'll scream bloody murder unless you sit with him until he's asleep and then he'll wake up crying a few times at night. I hope this too will pass soon. Well, that all folks, TTFN!