Mess!

If you remember, a couple of weeks ago we went to messy day at the gardens (next Monday will be a giant slip and slide, hooray!). So here are the pictures from that day. As you can see my lil' sis Hillary was a huge help with the boys. She works at the gardens and seemed to quite enjoy the JELLO mess as well. Carter liked the finger painting but missed the Jello fight due to a messy diaper situation. He joined Davis for the sprinklers coming on though and though they don't really like getting water on their heads, I think the peer pressure of everyone screaming and laughing got them into it. Actually since their swim lessons they have done much better with water. Who knew swim lessons would make bath time more manageable?

On the topic of messy children, I thought these pictures would fit in quite well. When we moved Davis into what was the playroom, Lowell didn't realize there were markers in the drawers that were left in his new room. So apparently he woke up early, found the markers, and did what comes naturally to 2 year olds! The first time was the bottom picture, note the variety of color and extent of coloring on his body, quite the artist. The top picture happened after we realized though the box of markers had been put away, a sneaky brown marker remained in the drawer. I didn't even realize he had written all over his chest as well until I got him undressed. Not sure the inspiration for coloring himself like this, but he seemed to think he looked pretty good!
Anyway, now you are updated a little and Hillary has some pictures of her posted ;). This week we have been taking requests (demands) for activities, it is fun that the boys are finally verbal enough to tell us what they would like to do, what they'd like to eat, etc. Of course this means us saying no more often, but we try to accomodate as much as possible. So Wednesday we fulfilled on of their requests and went swimming. This was the first time since swim lessons and they did so good. They loved being able to actually play and not just have class. We were at the Lehi Legacy Center and if you haven't been there, the pool is awesome. It is warm and mostly indoors to begin with, then there is a toddler play area and swings, slides, and very shallow water, they also have a bigger kid play area with different water toys, slides, and gears plus a giant bucket that dumps every few minutes. The bigger kid area is also shallow so the munchkins were all over that. When I took them to the same pool last year, they didn't last an hour and wouldn't get near the bigger play structure. This week I dragged them out after an hour and a half of them being on everything. I forgot they also have a lazy river and an outdoor splash pad. So fun! It was a bonus that we had free passes from when our classes were cancelled. Last night we did "firebooms" another frequent request. My family came over this time and we had a BBQ and some Wii time before the pyros took over. I can't believe how much the boys love fire. They had to be right there to light all the firebooms and then would run laughing back to my sisters to watch. We had to limit some of our larger (more fun) fireworks due to dry conditions and police monitoring but it was still fun. I of course have pictures of everyone, but I haven't uploaded them yet so you'll have to wait :).
I have had the nice opportunity in the past little while to catch up with some friends online. It has been so nice, cool how facebook can work to get people together sometimes. It just reminds me of some of the really fun times in my life, like my freshman year of college, and how it's kind of a bummer that you have to grow up. It's just a fact, you grow up and move on and it's hard to even keep in contact with people you considered to be your best friends. Our lives have just changed so much now, mostly by jobs, locations, and children. But it is still nice to catch up once in a while and reflect on good times. I have been lucky to keep in fairly regular contact with my oldest friend, Kristina who I've known since we were 4 and we shared the chicken pox. She now has 3 boys and lives in Denver, so I don't see her near as much as I'd like but through the wonder of the internet it is nice we can still keep in touch and I can check in on my honorary nephews. I think I may need to branch out and make some new friends who actually live in the same state as me.
This weekend we hope to tie up some of the bubs' other requests, going to the children's garden and the aquarium. Then I really need to get planning for our Yellowstone trip which looks like a go and we'll be leaving in one week! Aaah! Camping just takes so much more packing, so I better get planning. Anyone been to Yellowstone with small children? And suggestions? Have a good one!