Swim Lessons 2013

We just finished our 2 weeks worth of swimming lessons.  My kids are seriously little fish! They love the water and I can't get them out once they get in.  Where we do lessons they get to stay in the pool for free after their lesson so we stayed every day the 1st week (Oakley's request because she had girls camp the next week) and several days the 2nd week.

 Laiklie - I didn't get any pictures of it, just videos, but she can dive in the 10 feet with her life jacket on.  She is a pretty good little diver! She loves to swim but scares me a little.  She thinks she is better than she really is. :)

 Rhett goes all over the pool.  He has become a great little swimmer.

This is Dallin diving.  I told him to dive, but he went before I was ready and this is all I got.  I LOVE this picture of his feet! :)  I decided part way through lessons that paying for Dallin's lessons this year was a waste of my money.  He is a GREAT swimmer and even taught himself how to dive, so he is definitely NOT taking lessons again next year!  He even earned his aquanaut in scouts while we were there this week.

 2nd attempt at a diving picture.  Much better!

 Rhett's flip off the diving board.  Rhett is INCREDIBLE! He has no idea how amazed I am at him!!

And here is my little sun bather! She would swim then sun, then swim then sun.  She is sure growing up too fast! 

I am so proud of all my kids for working hard to become good at swimming.  It is so fun to watch them become better each year!

Fourth of July

We LOVE celebrating the fourth of July! From the...

 Nails! To the...

 Hair! (It makes a star if you look closely!) To the...

 Parade! To the...

 BBQ and Boating at the ranch! (Sage and Rhett)

 Oakley and Ciara's head

 Rhett chicken fighting his Aunt Yvonne on the kayaks.  He LOVED this!! What a fun aunt!

 Dallin and Violet

Laikle and Sage

We also LOVE the fireworks!  We went with cousins to those this year too.  Plus we had a Hawkins FHE where we roasted hotdogs, played some volleyball....which was a BLAST! Especially with those crazy uncles my kids have!! And we did some fireworks that night too.  So much fun!! We are so blessed to live in this free country and we are grateful everyday for those that fight for our freedom!

WE ARE PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!!

Loving Having Neighbors!

The family that moved into our rental house has 4 kids all the same ages as our 4 kids.  We are ABSOLUTELY LOVING having them next door!! My kids have never had next door neighbors that weren't "really old" so they think this is great!

 Rhett and Kylie at the lake

 This is my FAVORITE picture! These two are pretty good buddies!

 Laiklie and Kaiya

 Kaiya is actually almost a full year older than Laiklie, but from their size you would never know that.  They are pretty tight little friends and get along great!

 Oakley and Kadence

Oakley and Kadence are two years apart in age (She is Dallin's age), but Oakley loves having someone to ride bikes with or hang-out with when we go places. 

Their son Kaleb is two years older than Dallin (Oakley's age) and he wasn't with them that day, so I didn't get any pictures of him and Dallin. They have so much fun tagging along together.  I LOVE that Dallin has someone besides his mom to play ball with.  I am sure he loves that too!

This past week we also had a trampoline slumber party with them.  SO FUN!!

Kadence and Oakley

 We put 3 of there kids, plus our 4, plus me on the trampoline!! Squishy!  We put our feet in the middle and our heads on the outside and we ended up in a big pile in the middle of the tramp by morning.  It was a very interesting night for sure! I think they all slept better than me with my long legs all bent up! It was their first night sleeping on the tramp and they are already planning night #2. :)

 If you look close you can see two little heads.  Rhett's little red sweatshirt head on the white pillow and Kylie's on the orange pillow.

There are two heads in this one too.  Kaiya on the brown pillow pet and Laiklie on the purple.

What a blessing good friends and good renters are!! We are so grateful Heavenly Father had His hand in putting them next door!

Bike Rodeo

We had the bike rodeo for pack meeting this past week.  The boys always LOVE the bike rodeo.

 (Dallin in orange and Rhett by him in black)

  Yes.....I forgot their scout shirts as I was trying to shove both bikes in the back of my suburban.  This mom can only remember one thing at a time!

One funny story about this night:  I told Dallin just before we left he needed to go put on some clean clothes.  He came down in this orange shirt and blue shorts and I said, "bud those don't match." He told me that they did and when I asked "how they match?" he replied with "well....they look great together!" :) We are going to have to have some MAJOR lessons in wardrobe before this boy hits jr. high!

These are the only 2 pictures I got of them, but after pack meeting was over they begged to ride their bikes home.  Oakley thought it was HORRIBLE to have to drive 5 mph behind them with our flashers on all the way home, but it was the highlight of their day.  I sure love these two big guys!

Sleepy Head

One of the nights I was up with sick kids I found Rhett sleeping like this! 

He started out on the couch. Ha, ha! I absolutely LOVE his little belly hanging out! Also the combo of Halloween/camo pj's is priceless! :)

The Third Victim

Our 3rd victim to the stomach flu was this cute little girl!

Laiklie

It unfortunately hit her hardest.  She threw-up Monday night once......then again Tuesday night once....then again AT SOCCER PICTURES Wednesday night.  By then I was so worried! She hadn't eaten anything since the few bites she had of Monday's lunch.  So after throwing-up at pictures I swooped her up and headed to the doctor. 

 The doctor said she was borderline dehydrated, but that if we did an IV they could put medicine in it to help the nausea and help her hold food down.  She also had done nothing but sleep seriously for 2 days and they said this would help her find her energy again. 

They left the port in that night incase we needed to get more fluid in her the next morning.  She was a WHOLE NEW KID though within just a couple hours so we were able to pull the port out the next morning.  She was SO BRAVE! You can see she tried to smile in the pictures. (Smiling is kinda hard right now missing 4 of her 6 front teeth, ha! ha!)  She is such an amazing little girl and it was nice to see her back to her normal self! 

Oakley ended up getting this yucky flu too and so 4 kids throwing-up within 4 days! SOOOO GROSS!! Luckily we were able to keep Oakley hydrated and out of the doctors! We are glad to have all of the sick bugs out of the house and hope we don't have to deal with that again for A LONG TIME!!

4-H Camp 2013

Dallin is the only one I signed up to go to 4-H camp this year.  We have followed Oakley around from camp to camp all summer and I thought it would be good for her to be home for those few days and I knew Rhett would do great during the days at 4-H camp, but didn't think he would like the nights without mom yet. 

Dallin got up Monday morning ready to go.  He said his belly hurt a little bit and I wasn't sure if it was nerves or the stomach flu Rhett had had a couple days before.  He ate a little breakfast and headed out to the car.  Just minutes later he was back in the kitchen telling me he threw-up in the drive-way.  YUCK!!! So off to the couch he went.  I really thought if he could just sleep for a few hours we would be good to go that afternoon.  NOPE! He got it almost as bad as Rhett and threw-up ALL DAY LONG! After a good nights sleep though Tuesday morning he was ready to head to camp.

 I knew they were hiking first thing Tuesday morning and didn't know how well stomach flu and a hike would mix so I decided to hike too.  I LOVE the 4-H hike!  Dallin was a little queasy when we got to the top and took a little break for a minute, but was off and ready to hike back down in no time.  Dallin's friend Nate went with him this year and they seriously had a BLAST!!

Dallin's cousin JD was up there waiting for him to get there too.  These three boys had a great year and even danced with a few girls at the dance. :) Well......JD and Nate did anyway.  Dallin is 1/2 Jacobson and may not be interested in girls until after his mission.  We are DEFINITELY not complaining about that!! :)