Summer madness!

 Be prepared for picture overload!!! Our summer started out with a little bit of eclipse watching! Thanks to my awesome MIL who was a science teacher for many many years, we were all taken care of for this epic event! Not only did we get to watch everything happen being reflected on the white board, we also had some awesome welding shields that we could look directly at the sun with and see first hand the eclipse! It was a lot of fun and the kids had a blast!

Don't you love my mask? I kept thinking Randy and his brother looked like Freddy Crougar with the mask on!

This was about as complete as we got to see it from our location. Apparently we weren't in the prime spot to see the eclipse straight on but it was pretty cool anyway.

The next journey on our summer agenda was Little Red! I rode with my mom and sis in Logan for about 65 miles!!! It was craziness, especially since the longest I had ever been before was about 30 miles and it was 2 months ago. Yeah, I didn't do so great on the training when it came to this ride but oh well. Maybe next year I'll get my act in gear! So the first 50 miles were great! I felt awesome and we only had to do a few little hills. We were quick at each rest stop and we were popping peanut butter topped oreos and red vines in our mouths like crazy!! My only regret is that I didn't grab a few extra gu's at the first rest stop because by the time we got to the other rest stops, all the gu's were gone. I really could've used a gu after lunch. So we stopped for lunch at about 50 miles and we didn't eat too much for fear of getting sick. I was feeling great so we hopped on our bikes and were going to try for 30 more miles. As soon as I started pedaling, I kid you not, I was so exhausted! My legs did not want to push another inch, let alone 30 miles!!!! Mom decided to stay behind at the lunch stop and wait for Randy and Hanna to come pick her up in the van. Sarah and I went on ahead. Well, it wasn't long before I realized I should've just quit at lunch. I was lagging behind so bad and it was still 7 miles to the next rest stop. Then, the horror of it all, I realized that the 7 miles until the next stop was nothing but climbing hills!!! And, the sun decided to come out from behind the clouds, and the wind decided to stop. It was sheer TORTURE!!! But, I'll have you know, I did not stop once on those 7 miles of dread. I thought about it with every single push of the pedal but I just knew if I stopped I was not going to start again. The only thing that helped me keep going was knowing that at the top of the hill I would get to go down the other side. That was pure freedom!!! Riding so fast down that hill, knowing at the bottom I could finally rest!
So, I get to the bottom and I'm totally wanting to kill my sis for not warning me about the hills after lunch (after all, she rode the ride last year). I got to the bottom and I had to wait forever for my sis because she stopped along the way and was waiting for me because she thought I was behind her. We finally reunited and I was totally planning on stopping and having Randy drive me back close to the finish line. Then they said it was only 9 miles to the finish line so I thought, what the heck, I've come this far I can 9 more. WRONG!!!!!! As soon as I started riding again I knew I was done for. Those last 9 miles might have been worse than the 7 miles of uphill!!! But, I did it!!!! I went a little slow, but I did it!!! Thanks sis for pushing me along!!! It was great!!!

And at the end, my amazing hubby and kids were cheering me on! Oh, and try not to get too grossed out with my bulging gut!!!! I had guzzled so much water that day that I felt like I was going to explode!!! I promise, it really isn't that nasty!

Our next adventure was on to the cabin at Bear Lake!!! Let's just say the weather was soooo much nicer this trip than it was a month ago!!! The water at the pool was so great!! For the first time ever, the water was the perfect temperature!!!

This little girl and I stayed behind one day and she was loving the ticorice (ryker's word for licorice)!

On the afternoon that called for cooler weather, we headed out to the Minnetonka cave! I haven't been there in years! I have to say, it wasn't quite as cool as I remembered it being when I was a little girl. After going to the Shenandoah cave back east a few years ago, these formations weren't near as cool. It was a whole lot of climbing stairs and not very many formations. But, the boys loved it! Braylee, not so much. She cried the whole time. She had just woken up from her nap and was famished. Next time I will fee her first!

Crazy faces in the car. We spent a lot of time in the car!!!! After Bear Lake we headed to Seven Peaks for a day. Then, we headed back to Richfield to sleep for a night and unpack the car, just to repack the car to leave the next morning!

Our last stop on our marathon vacation was Las Vegas!!! Randy took the kids to go see the new dam at Lake Mead. I chose to stay at the Condo because I was so tired from being in the car all day.

This was the amazing pool at the condo!! It was so much fun!! We just spent all day hanging by the pool, or should I say pools. There was one main pool, two big baby pools, a large hot tub and another smaller hot tub. They had some really fun cabanas all around the pool and a couple covered areas with couches and tables. The best part was, we were practically the only people there all day!

There were little fountains that shot out the side and Braylee kept trying to drink from them! There were these perfect little shallow outlets around the pool that made it so nice for Braylee to just play in. I couldn't ask for a better pool. It was even one of those cool salt water pools. We LOVED it!!! After swimming all day, we headed to Randy's cousins wedding. It was such a beautiful reception! Lots of great food, family, and even dancing! We were lucky enough to find a babysitter within a mile of the reception to watch the kids. A girl who went to school with Randy and his brother lived there and had a 12 yr. old daughter who was kind enough to take our circus for a few hours! It was a great vacation but I have to be honest, I was really looking forward to being back home and sleeping in my own room!

Back in Richfield, we celebrated Ryker's 4th birthday!!! I just can't believe this little fireball of energy is 4 already!

Here's a random picture of Braylee. She is into climbing on everything!

Back to the birthday boy, he really wanted garbage truck pancakes for his birthday. So I did my best to create it and make his wish come true!

He was one happy boy with his garbage truck pancake, with chocolate chips no doubt!

Then, we come to his cake. This boy just LOVES anything construction! This cake (compliments of pinterest) was the easiest cake I've done so far and it turned out just great! Perfect for my little construction man!

He didn't look very happy, but let me tell you, he really was! He just gets really shy, especially when I have the camera in his face and everyone is staring at him singing. He is the craziest kid I know and so wild all the time. However, anytime we try to get him to go on a ride at the carnival, or ride a bike, or sit with kids at story time, or go to primary, the kid is sooooo scared and shy.

The best part of the cake was the inside! It turned out even better than I hoped! And it tasted delicious too! A little too good, I couldn't stop eating it!!!

So that has been our summer so far. We had all our fun at the beginning and now we are moving on to the boring part of summer. The endless days of fighting children and ornery momma. Ryker is such a little fireball. He just teases Rayden all day long and runs around crazy all day long! Braylee is into everything and has developed a little attitude. She has discovered how to open cupboards and the E.T. cabinet. She likes to push on and off the Xbox all day long. I found a way to childproof the cabinet and she gets sooooo frustrated when she can't open it! It's quite comical to watch. She is also starting to stand on her own and maybe even will be walking in a few weeks. I'm a little sad about that. She has pretty much figured out how to go down stairs, but I'm still a little nervous to just leave the gate off. She is just growing up way too fast. Rayden is just a little know it all and growing up so fast too. I can't believe he is getting baptized in a month and a half! CRAZY! Anyway, this is our crazy life for now. Our garden has been struggling a little bit but so far we've gotten some peas, lettuce and broccoli. Oh, and our garlic we planted last fall is almost ready. Randy picked some the other day just to see how it was going and they looked good! I'm glad my hubby is a gardener because I love to eat the stuff, but I'm horrible at knowing how or what to plant! Maybe one day I'll be an expert gardener, ha ha! 

Graduation!

Finally! Randy is finished and all graduated with his Master's degree!!! What a long road it has been but we are finally done! I couldn't be more pleased with my husband and his hard work! He truly is one of the hardest workers I ever met in my life! Not only does he go to work everyday and work so hard but he's always willing to help me out around the house with the kids. He is so amazing!

I wish I could say that life has calmed down a bit, but it seems like it has gotten a million times busier! So we had a fun trip up to Logan for his graduation. It was such a long ceremony! There were over 1,000 graduate students and they read the names soooo slowly! Let's just say the kids got really restless. I finally texted Randy and told him to just get up and leave, but it was practically over so we just waited. Luckily they fed us a pretty yummy meal just before the ceremony or else we would've been starving sitting there so long!

Here is what Ryker did through half of the ceremony. I wish I could've been snoozing! Instead, I was walking around with the baby because of course she wouldn't sleep or sit still with all the commotion! Anyway, it's all done and I couldn't be happier! A special thanks goes out to all our family members who have supported us through all of this! We couldn't have done it without you!

I'm realizing now that I didn't do a very good job taking pictures on our special day. It was just so crazy with the kids! Oh well! Afterwards we headed up to our cabin in Bear Lake and enjoyed a day or so relaxing! Of course we woke up to snow the first morning, but luckily it melted pretty quick. Randy and my parents enjoyed a nice game of golf in the frigged morning. My mom and I waited until the evening for temperatures to warm up before heading out around the lake on our bikes! We went about 20 miles and called it quits. Other than the strong head wind, it was a very beautiful ride! It was such a great weekend just relaxing and enjoying time with family. I'm so looking forward to some more of that this summer!!!

I Love my Job!

Wow things have been crazy lately! But a good kind of crazy :). We are on the home stretch people!!! Randy has 7 hrs. left to do on his internship and 1 test to take in two weeks and then we are FINISHED with graduate school!!!!! Time to PARTY!!!! I honestly thought this point in our lives would never come. It has been such a long road for both of us, and he has worked so incredibly hard. He has sacrificed and given up so many things over the past 8 or 9 years (you'd think he'd be a doctor by now, sheesh!) and I am just so grateful for all he has done for our little family!!! I couldn't as for a better guy! I keep asking myself what we're going to do now that he's done with school and I think the time will just get filled up so quickly with gardening, sports and activities with the kids, and family outings, that it won't even seem like anything will have changed. But oh, I just can't wait! Two Weeks!
Okay, I got that off my chest now I can brag about my three amazing children and how much I LOVE being their mom! It really is the best job in the entire world! While I loved working outside the home, working in the home is so much more rewarding! I'll be honest, there are many days when it doesn't seem that rewarding. The countless loads of laundry and sinks full of dishes day in and day out. The dirty diapers, vacuuming, sweeping, cleaning bathrooms, picking up toys again and again and again. The fighting and tattling and crying that goes on is sometimes just relentless! Not to mention the late nights and early mornings and interrupted sleep! It's very exhausting! But, I wouldn't trade it for any other job out there, no matter how high the pay, not in a million years!
I just love those three smiling faces I get to see each and everyday! The countless kisses and hugs I get plastered with all day long. The laughter and screams of joy I hear in the background while I'm doing each sink full of dishes. The little helpers who think it's so fun to scrub the toilet and the tub with mom! The amazing lego creations I find all over the house remind me of how creative those little minds can be! The fun trips to the park on warm afternoons, the play dates with friends and neighbors, the interaction with my son's classmates when I go each week to help. Each and every activity I do with my kids is such a blessing! These are the days I want to remember and treasure always! These are days when I wish I could freeze time and make them last as long as possible! Really, who couldn't love these sweet little faces?

Another thing I love about my job is being home all day to work on projects. I've been having so much fun sewing for this little sweet girl of mine! This was the first project I attempted. The dress turned out a little too wide and the shoes a little too big, but I didn't want to unpick so I'm just going to have to make do with it. She'll grow into it, right?

This little outfit was project #3. I had so much fun with this project. The dress came together really quickly and the shoes were just so cute. Then I threw together a matching bow and now I just love it!



This was project #2. It is actually a re-purposed t-shirt of mine. It was supposed to be a dress but it ended up being a little too short, so it's a cute little top!


She loves sticking out her tongue!

This kid just melts my heart! He is such a little ball of energy!

She loves to climb and crawl and get into everything!

Another tongue shot!


This girl is definitely a Riddle! She loves to eat! I was a little worried at first because she did not like when I started trying to introduce food. I even waited a little bit longer with her than I did with my boys and she still wasn't too sure about food. It took a good month for her to really start to like solids and eat good. Now, I can't get her to stop eating! I make most of my own baby food and she just loves it! She also really likes to eat what the rest of us are eating. Her absolute favorite is Swedish pancakes! Big surprise - all my kids prefer Swedish pancakes over any other breakfast food out there!
He's such a great helper! He loves playing with sister! He loves it so much that he is constantly going into her room and waking her up from nap to play with her!

So, our Elementary school has an amazing program for students/teachers that teaches them about our country and how to be better citizens. It is called Liberty Kids. This amazing woman in our community, Molly Foster, came up with the program last year and it has been a huge hit! Rayden had fun doing service, memorizing quotes and songs, and learning fun facts about America. He earned his Kindergarten badge last year and his 1st grade badge this year. One special thing that happened this year is that his dad was presented with an Honorary Liberty Kid badge for providing service and being involved with the kids and the community. That's Randy for ya, he's always looking to serve!

What a happy little boy!

This kid is soooo loving the warm weather and playing outside. He is always right by daddy's side helping him garden!

And here is the master gardener! This is him planting the garden at his mom's house. Hopefully her garden turns out better than ours has so far. We've had a little bit of bad luck and may have to re-plant quite a few things.
This is the garden at our house. In the very back of the picture you can see our garlic is doing really well, but that is about it. We planted that last fall and it is just doing great. Our asparagus is doing pretty good too, but our cabbage, broccoli and onions aren't faring so well. We have a bit of a bug problem that needs to be taken care of ASAP!

And one more shot of my little truck guy. Oh he was in heaven this day playing with his truck in the dirt! Oh what cute kids I have!