Things I find my kids doing

So last week one night we had the kids put to bed at 8 o'clock. At 10:15 Ben went back to our bedroom and Ben found Prairie in there doing this.




This is her doing "her work". That is a toy typewriter. Then she insisted on putting things away before she went to bed.




Then one afternoon the girls had been really quiet so I found them in my sewing room and they had set up an obstacle course, jumping off the chest of drawers onto the futon with the cushions from the crib and Prairie's bed. Autumn dragged all the cushions to the room all by herself.

Prairie getting in on the bouncing action, luckily she isn't brave enough to jump from the chest of drawers

Prairie's cute grumpy face

Nienie balloon launch

I read Nienie dialogues and if you don't, Stephanie Nielson writes about being a stay-at-home-mom with her 4 young kids. I am always excited when she has updated her blog because it is such a sunny, fun, inspiring blog to read. Anyway, her and her husband were in an small airplane accident last week and have really severe burns, if you are interested you can read more about it at her sister's blog.

Stephanie and Christian Nielson

Anyway, even though Nienie lives in Arizona, lots of her family are from Provo so they did a balloon launch in honor of Stephanie and her husband as they have a long recovery in the hospital. I wanted to participate and the girls love anything with balloons, so we made it a family event. It was incredible to see all the people that turned out at our neighborhood park (her parents live just a few blocks away from us). So they let off tons of balloons around 6pm, because that is what Stephanie and Christian do at special events (birthdays, anniversaries) for their family.

So this is our family enjoying a Nielson family tradition.

Autumn excited about her balloon

Autumn and my balloon shadows (Prairie is walking behind my legs)

Prairie playing with her balloon before the launch

Prairie, Autumn and me all looking up at all the balloons as they lift off into the air

Autumn said they look like skittles that are going to float down into our mouths

Me and the girls decided that we could see the balloons better when we were laying on the ground

bye-bye balloons let Nienie know we care

Hiking

Two weeks ago I decided that me and the girls needed to get away so we decided to go hiking. I did some searches looking for easy hikes, because Autumn would have to hike and I would be carrying Prairie. I found a hike to Stewarts Cascades that is like a little over 2 miles round trip, and you hike up to waterfalls. I thought the girls would love it.

Well we drove to where I thought the trail head was, but we never found it, but found the trail head for the trail to hike all the way up mount timp, so we just hiked on that trail for a while and then turned around and went back. It was so lush on that side of the mountain, and it felt so nice to get away from the city. I couldn't believe how much the girls loved it. Both of them brought it up multiple times that week Prairie would say, "Prairie go hiking, go hiking again!!!"

Anyway so hopefully we can find the trail head for the waterfalls, because Autumn was really excited about seeing the waterfalls. We did get a couple of pictures taken, but I couldn't figure out how to do a timer on my camera, so Autumn so obligingly took the picture of me and Prairie together.

Prairie in the kid pack and Autumn with on the trail with Mount Timpanogos in the background.

Close up of Prairie and Autumn (Autumn with a nice hiking stick we found)

Prairie and Emily together

Thanksgiving Point Gardens

Last year when Ben attended a professional conference he won 4 tickets to the Thanksgiving Point Gardens. I was soooo excited that he won them. We never used them last year and decided it was about time we used them. So a week ago on saturday (July 26th) we decided to do a family activity there.

I had such a good time. Little known fact about me is that one of my top favortie 3 classes at college was my botany class, I LOVED learning about flowers and identifying them. We did a field trip to the Missouri Botantical center, I could hardly sleep the night before because I was sooo excited to see all the flowers. Anyway it was been a little over 3 years since I took the class, and since I don't identify flowers all the time, I actually can't identify many flowers anymore, but I still enjoy seeing gardens like that.

Anyways I thought it was a really fun activity, and we timed it perfectly because right when we were leaving the last garden it started to sprinkle and then rained pretty good.

Ben and the girls

Me and the girls at the Koi pond

Autumn and Prairie dancing together

Autumn and Prairie checking out the man made waterfall at Thanksgiving Point

Prairie having a tantrum on papi's lap

some flowers Ben really liked

Prairie on my shoulders at the Italian Garden

Weinheimer Family Reunion

My Dad's family has a reunion almost every year. I am 2nd oldest living cousin by 8 days, so basically the oldest. I am the only one of my cousins that has started having kids, so my kids get a lot of attention because they are the only greats. The really fun thing is that the Weinheimer grandchilren range from 25 to 4, so Autumn is actually a little older than the youngest grandchild. It is really fun, because my girls just fit right in the with the kids, and just played and played. It has been about a month since the reunion and Autumn is still talking about my cousins and wondering when we will get to play with them again. She is already talking about the reunion that will be next summer when she is 5. Anyway it was a lot of fun.

My Grandma arranged to get some condos up in Eden Utah which is up the Ogden canyon. It was fun because their was a clubhouse we had most of our meals, a pool, miniature golf course, a playground, tennis courts. It was a pretty good setup and just super fun to hang out with all of my extended family members, and especially to get to know my younger cousins. Almost all the cousins my age didn't come this year, so I got to know my cousins that are about 10 years younger than me a lot better this year.

Caleb the youngest grandchild, and Autumn the oldest great-grandchild (they are both 4) playing together in the pool

Prairie in the pool (wtih her scraped her nose)

Autumn swimming with my Aunt Jackie

Prairie running around shoeless, I couldn't get her to keep her shoes on, even though she kept tripping on the cement

Prairie doing a grumpy face for the camera

My Dad, my Grandma and my Grandpa

Me and my dad wearing the 1990 Weinheimer reunion t-shirts

Prairie swimming with my cousin Elise

Camping Trip

Since Ben has his fabulous new job he actually had the 4th of July off as a paid holiday and we were so happy. Since it was a friday we decided to go on a mini vacation and go camping for 3 nights and get back in time on sunday to make it to 1 o'clock church. Ben was supposed to work extra hours so that he could leave work early on Thursday and we could get to our campground in time to set up our tent and make dinner before it was dark.

Well we didn't get to leave early in the afternoon like I wanted, but we did get our tent up and dinner made before 10pm, so not so bad, right?

Great Things about the Camping trip:
(1) The girls loved sleeping in the tent
(2) We camped right by a lake with a wonderful path around the lake, the girls loved playing down by the lake
(3) Autumn did a bunch of hiking and did a great job
(4) Ben loved making tons of fires and it was cold enough at night that they were really needed
(5) I loved being up in the mountains with our family
(6) Ben does the dishes when we go camping :)
(7) The girls loved the mound of snow that hadn't melted that was on our campsite, it provided tons of enertainment (Autumn pretending to ski down it)
(8) My dad drove up and met us for the last night -- I got to go on a hike with my dad, just the two of us.


Bad things about the camping trip:
(1) the mosquitoes -- and I forgot to pack any bug repellent (luckily my dad brought some and it really made a difference)
(2) Ben complaining about hiking
(3) Ben complaining about sleeping in a tent
Bascially the big down side of the camping trip was Ben complaining soooo much. I was really glad when my dad got there because Ben didn't complain as much around my dad, and my dad helped take care of the girls so that Ben could relax more, take a nap, read a book, not go hiking with me.

Ben and the girls just enjoying the very pleasant weather in the mountains (can you see the double stuff mint cookie creme on Prairie's face?)

Autumn

Ben snuggling with Prairie watching his fire (Ben didn't complain when he was building or staring at the fire, he LOVES campfires)

Prairie enjoying her oreo cookies (she asked me to open her cookie and this is what she did once I handed the cookies back to her)

Autumn then followed suit

Autumn enjoying the snow pile at our campsite

Me and the girls enjoying our hike (Ben and I took turns carrying Prairie)

Me and the girls at the smaller lake that we hiked to. Autumn's favorite part about going for hikes is the special snacks you get.

Ben and Autumn enjoying the fire they built together. Autumn really really like learning how to build a fire from her Papi.

Pioneer Day & catch up

So I really didn't blog much in July. We were pretty busy the whole month. Ben's mom came out to Utah for 3 weeks at the end of June and stayed off and on with us. Our family took a 3 day camping trip, my dad came to Utah and we had the Weinheimer family reunion for 5 days. Then at the end of the month we did swimming lessons for two weeks. So I haven't posted tons, so now that swimming lessons are over and we don't have something to be to everyday I will probably find time to post again.

Autumn in her pioneer outfit

Pioneer Day is the 24th of July and it is a state holiday in Utah. We celebrate the Mormon pioneers relocating to Utah. Also really exciting for our family is that Ben works for the state government so he gets state holidays off too, YAY! We love Ben having a full time job that actually has paid holidays.

Autumn had a primary activity with the other children from church. They had the kids dress up in pioneer clothes and "trek" up the street to an outdoor pavilion and do pioneer activities. Autumn's favorite activity was learning how pioneers washed their clothes and using a washboard to wash rags.

the french braids I did in Autumn's hair. I was really really pleased with them, since this was the first time I have done french braids in her hair.

Autumn making butter at the activity

Prairie and Autumn eating snacks after the activity

During the activity I went home to get Prairie because Ben and Prairie had both been asleep when Autumn and I left. Prairie was happy to come and loved eating some of the snacks afterwards. She was really proud of the butter that Autumn made.

Autumn and her neighbor friend walking home from the activity