August 2014

I forgot to add this picture to last months post.  This was taken right after Haylee had her dental work done.  Aaron and I both had to be there because I had to ride next to her on the way home to because she was so drowsy, I had to be sure she stayed upright and breathing.

Carter man turned EIGHT!  All he wanted to do for his birthday was go see the "Lemur movie" at the Museum Center.  He loved it.

Aaron and I gave him a tether ball set and he really likes it!

After Aaron took he and Olivia to the "Island of Lemurs: Madagascar," we met up at Smashburger for some fried pickles.

Carter requested mint sandwich cookies instead of cake this year.  Yum!

A week after Carter's birthday, comes Aaron's!  Carter decided to build Aaron something and so he got busy with nails, pliers, hammers and wood.  He started small, but....

decided to gift something much bigger!  Carter "built" this and even put four nails through the paper sign on it!

Olivia decided to gift Aaron one of his favorite treats...Salt and Vinegar chips.

Aaron found this caterpillar on our crab apple tree.

With all of our mileage taking Haylee to and from school now, we decided to try and save money by purchasing a more fuel efficient car.  2005 Toyota Prius.

We love seeing this kind of gas mileage!

Haylee loves being outside in our back yard and I love that it's fenced in so I don't have to worry about her escaping.  One day it was starting to rain and so I tried to get her to come in, but she wanted to stay outside in it!  It was a down pour!

One highlight of Olivia's summer was her playing Gretl in the Sound of Music at our local Art's Center!

It was SO FUN to watch all her hard work on stage!  So proud of this girl!

She had lots of friends that came out to support her!  Vanessa is our neighbor and Kasey is (Vanessa's niece) our babysitter.

Activity Days leaders/Primary teachers and her best friend, Connor, and neighbors were all there!

Carter even liked the play so much that he wanted to see it a second time.  It was that fun!

no cameras were allowed, but I snuck a few.

very end - getting ready to go over the mountain!

Olivia is standing to the left of Captain Von Trapp (tall suited boy in the middle).  The whole cast was hard to fit in the picture.  Also, the set was amazing.  We tore all of those huge walls down set Strike and they mostly went to the trash.  It was crazy.

Carter made the decision to be baptized!

It was a great day that he got to share with Jared Prince.  

Grammy and Papa came up for the special occasion and the morning of his baptism, we received a knock on the door.  Surprise!  Jason, Savannah, Braden and Lincoln drove from Georgia to be at his baptism too!  We were all excited for that surprise!

With not much room to sleep inside, we moved most of the kids to the backyard in the tent!

After Carter's baptism, Aaron flew to Utah for his Uncle Mark's funeral.  While there, he got to see some of the Johnson clan.  Just before heading home, he met up with Kelton to see him fly his RC plane.  

All the cousins at Uncle Mark's graveside service.  It was a sad occasion, but also fun to see so much family.  I'm so glad that Aaron was able to go.

Before.  This picture was taken nearly seven years ago!
We finally redid our bathroom!

It was not a glamorous job at all!

But when it starts to come together, you start to do a happy dance.

Now the shower is done, the floor is next.

Love that we went with a different layout on the floor.

FINISHED FLOOR!

FINISHED SINK AND CABINET!  (a pic of our old one is here) 

Here it is!  D.O.N.E!  I didn't get a good picture of the shower, but Aaron did such an awesome job on the tile job.  It was so fun to pick it all out too.  All fresh and new makes a girl happy!

We had a few things left on our summer list to cross off before school started...geocaching was one of them.  We still aren't very good at it, but the kids enjoy it and it's fun to finally find one.

Haylee will occasionally drag me to the door wanting to go somewhere in the van.  Especially on her days off of school.  She loves to ride in the van.  So on this day when she drug me to the door and said, "Go!"  We went to get Bee's donuts.  Fun surprise.  Thanks Haylee.

One of the very last things on our summer list was to drive the van.  The kids didn't seem excited about this and I couldn't understand why.  I think it was because they honestly didn't think I would let them and for Olivia...she was quite nervous.

They LOVED it though and Carter has asked to drive it again several times.  We just went to an empty parking lot and had fun.

This little girl LOVES to swim.  She won't show me her excited face anymore, but it's in there.  Somewhere.

She also loves when Aaron plays with her.

Daddy's are fun for LOTS of splashing!

I tried to clean up my garden a bit and came in with lots of green tomatoes, so we tried fried green tomatoes for dinner one night.  They were pretty tasty.

I took the kids to Jump and Jack's one day before school started too.  Ryan was all smiles after the BIG slide.

Carter and Olivia had fun with friends there too.

When Haylee is outside, she loves to poke, touch and play with all the things along the fence.  Our neighbors have lots of ornaments and decor in their yard and Haylee enjoys it while she waits for their dogs to come out and bark at her.

Carter has joined Cub Scouts!  He loves it!  One of his first activities was building boats for the rain gutter rigata (sp?).

He didn't win, but loved the fun!  

Carter drew this self portrait of himself.  

Ryan has become obsessed with letters and can identify most of them himself.

I've tried to get Ryan to eat corn on the cob a few times, but when we finally ate some at a party, he picked it right up and loved it.

We had our end of summer party with friends.  The kids always love the squirt guns and water slide.

The adults enjoyed a few games of tether ball.  Kevin and Luke.

Scott and Jordan.

The little ones enjoy hanging by the kiddy pool.

First Day of 5th Grade!  

It was Olivia's first day at Fairfield Intermediate school.  She seems to really enjoy it.  She has several different teachers, but her home room teacher is Mrs. Ling (social studies).  Mr. Reed (science), Mrs. Martinkovic (math), Mrs. Hawkins (language arts) are the others.

First day of THIRD grade!

Mrs. Biondo and Mrs. Trimble better watch out!

In preparing for our vacation, Olivia and Carter spent time looking at our vacation home and getting excited about what room they would want to share with Caily and Grayson.