Families and friends

The family can be together forever. Our friends can come to our house a lot.  From Kelton

My life

HI! My name is McKenzie and I am 8.I  play the piano and do Gymnastics. I have two brothers and one sister. I live in Broomfield Colorado. I live across from a pool and a park. I have lived here most of my life. It is a amazing place to live. I have met so many friends here. My best friends are Aubri, Brielle, and Molly. I also have a wonderful school. All my friends go to the same school,Meridian Elementary. My dad goes to work and my mom plans trips and takes care of us like most parents do. I have gotten used to Colorado.  And I never want to move. 

Pickle Gulch

My kids definitely aren't lacking when it comes to summer activities.  However we decided to squeeze in one more thing and go up to Pickle Gulch for the ward campout.  It's the same week as girls' camp which meant that there was definitely a shortage of girls there.  But my kids are really good at finding someone to play with no matter what so it wasn't a big deal at all.  As soon as we pulled into the campground my three older kids completely disappeared as they went around exploring.  They were excited for "real camping."  I guess real camping involves trees, pine cones, and cool mornings, instead of sand and sun.  

We had a little fireside as we sang songs, watched the YM perform skits, and had a little devotional. 

 

It doesn't take long for this kid to be absolutely covered in dirt!  

A brief sighting of my girls playing with their friends. 

 Cambrie really wanted to use the hatchet to trim her bouquet, but I made her settle for a saw ;)  

The night came quickly and after doing a little monster hunt with the boys we headed to bed.  Jeremy stayed the night with them while I drove back home.  Apparently the next morning was just as great as the night before.  We had a blast and I'm glad we were around to go!

Kelton's 5th birthday

Picture this: Jeremy staying up late rigging a perfect balloon drop system for when Kelton came out of his door in the morning.  Me listening anxiously for the boys all night to make sure that the right boy came out of the room first.  Bright and early at 5:30 as I was going downstairs to workout I heard the knock saying that Kelton was awake.  I pulled out the camera to get ready...as a completely naked boy came running out of his room!  The balloons fell all around him and he laughed and said, "Thank you Daddy!"  It was all so surprising and shocking that Jeremy and I both started laughing which woke up the other three kids.  Unfortunately I had the camera out instead of the video camera so we didn't get the hilarious scene on film, just this one balloon shot before the appearance of naked Kelton.  

We tried recreating the scene, but the original is always better.  What a goofy way to start his five-year-old birthday!  

He couldn't wait to get started on his presents so he opened the gift from McKenzie, which was a portrait of a McKenzie monkey and Kelton monkey playing together, as well as some gold doubloons.  

As I was off taking the girls to their summer camps, Jeremy and Kelton went to the store to pick up one of his birthday gifts, a new bike.  He's simply grown out of his early bike and needed something bigger to keep up with his sisters.  He can't wait to take it to the bike park to really test it out.  

"Look how fast I am Mommy!"  

The real highlight of the day though was his birthday party at Monkey Bizness.  He invited all of his friends from church and couldn't wait to play.  We played there for three hours!  Whenever I saw him dash past he had a huge smile on his face.  

We took a break long enough for cake and ice-cream in the party room.  He requested an Incredibles cake, and Jeremy, once again, did an amazing job.  

All of Kelton's friends thought the fondant was play dough and they thought it was so funny that they were eating it.  

Daxton had his piece devoured before all the other kids even had theirs in front of them.

We opted to have him open his presents there with his friends and it was fun to see how excited all of the kids were to see him open their gifts.  

There may be a few more girls than boys, but look at all the great friends this kid has!  

The boys opening up their gift bags on the drive home.  I have Dash and Jack-Jack in the backseat keeping me safe.  

Playing with some of his new toys.  Kelton has been amazing sharing his new toys with his brother (who seems to think they were all his birthday presents).  

Back at home we made pizzas and opened the rest of his family gifts.  He has his very own marble works now and can't wait to open it.  

His last gift was a complete surprise, we got him a rocket.  We just don't launch enough rockets around here and decided it was time to remedy that.  

Off they go to see how well it launches!  

Happy birthday my little monkey!

Cambrie's 11th birthday

"What 11-year-old girl doesn't want to start her birthday by watching a documentary?"  That was the first question I asked Cambrie when I saw her the morning of her birthday.  She was so happy watching Planet Earth that I guess the answer was yes!  

She requested breakfast crepes for her birthday; banana, apple pie, whip cream, Nutella, bacon, deliciousness!  

After breakfast I really didn't see her much on her birthday.  She was spending the entire day up at sewing camp with her friend, Halle.  Five hours of uninterrupted creating time with a friend?  She couldn't have asked for a better way to spend her day.  

She came home just long enough to eat some dinner (a requested dinner of blue cheese, walnut, and linguine salad. What?!) and then she was off to a soccer game with her new team.  It's a low-stress summer league, which is why their team uniform includes tie-dye shirts, and it's just a fun way to play until the season starts.  She scored three goals for her team and came home in a very good mood, even though her face was bright red from the heat.  She wanted lava cakes for her birthday cake.  They were amazingly moist and gooey...so much so that the candles wouldn't even stay upright!  She blew them out before we even began singing Happy Birthday!  

Finally it was time for presents.  Kelton and McKenzie gave her their gift first.  They went around their rooms and found their own things that they thought Cambrie would like to have.  A turtle toy, dinosaur fossils, sparkling gems, and candy since she can finally have some now.  It was really sweet to see how excited everyone was.  

From Jeremy and I she received a new Kindle.  She reads so much we needed to get her a better screen than her iPod.  Her nose is going to be buried in that thing until school starts.  

She also received everything she needs to really paint: acrylic paints, canvases, brushes, and a box to store them.  

In her words, she received the perfect birthday presents.  

Apparently Jeremy was the birthday present wrapping paper swamp monster.

She's 11-years-old!  Can you believe it?  She's just one year away from Young Women's...wow, I can't believe her young childhood years have gone by so fast.  

Short Little Fourth

We were driving home from Goblin Valley on the 4th of July so we missed the picnics, parades, pool parties, and BBQ's.  It was a bit sad to be honest.  However, we did make it home early enough to unload the car and shower before fireworks started.  We went to the park by Arapahoe Ridge again to watch the neighborhood put on their firework show.

  Cambrie realized that Daxton has never seen fireworks before.  I have failed him!  He thought they were pretty stellar though once he realized what they were.  

With these fireworks being so close there isn't a bad seat in the house.  They explode right over our heads, it's perfect.  

We were able to see Broomfield's fireworks through the trees.  While I sat and admired the view, the kids used their glowsticks as spinning light sabers and had battles.  Everyone was happy.  Happy 4th of July!

Goblin Valley

Here are some of our leftover Goblin Valley pictures.  Because of the heat, we all set up our tents under the pavilion on the cement pad.  It worked great keeping our tents in the shade, but when you only have two of the four stakes keeping the tents from blowing away it gets a bit interesting.  The tents were a little contorted but none of them flew away!  However, I could build a sand pit with the amount of sand we had inside of our tent since we didn't have our rain fly on.  

The wind made it great to fly the stunt kite!  That thing was flying all over the place!

The best part about camping in Goblin Valley is that the kids can totally go climbing and exploring.  For the girls it wasn't a problem and I could see them scampering up buttes like it was no big deal.  At one point though I looked up and saw Kelton as high as the girls, and on the edge of a cliff.  I was a really inner turmoil moments trying to decided to trust them or become crazy mom and rush over to bring them down.  Ultimately I stood near their down climb to catch them if they fell, but they did great.  Next time Kelton went with Jeremy.

To escape the afternoon heat, and to give the kids a chance to nap, Mark took us on a backroad drive through the middle of nowhere.  Jeremy was loving it.  Dirt roads, a real paper map, and the hope that we could make our way back.  We stopped and saw some of the best pictographs I have ever seen.  Look how well those have been preserved.  

Then we drove just a short drive further to Dutchman Arch.  It was a great way to see some of the back areas of the San Rafael swell.  We didn't even have to walk to them.  Thanks Mark!

Since the kids had all been able to rest, I didn't feel as bad letting them stay up one more night to play in the hoodoos.  It was just so cool watching all those glowsticks running around like crazy.  I can't believe that we didn't have anyone fall, crash, or injure themselves since we were playing in the dark!  

The next morning I insisted that we go back to the hoodoos to get a picture since we'd only been there at night.  Along the way we lost Camille, Jake, Emma and my dad who had to drive back north.  But here are the rest of us.  

Family picture in all of our dirty, sandy, sunburned glory.  

I wanted the kids to get out as much energy as they could before our drive back to Colorado.  

The boys just hid in the shade, I get it.  

Look at these three rascals!

The girls played hide and seek with Jeremy.  Well, it's much harder with a smaller crew.  Jeremy finally just had to call the girls out because he couldn't find them.  I can't blame him!  Look at the area he was searching through!  

Even though it was hot and we lost some family along the way, it was such a fun camping trip.  I'm going to go as far as to say that we should do this again next year!