Backyard

We were hoping to get grass this past spring, but the backyard landscaping turned out to be a much bigger project than we thought. However, it has been so much fun to create things out of our giant dirt mud pit in the backyard. Nate has worked very very hard all summer getting our backyard put together. After having a landscaping company come out to quote us, we decided we could save a whole lot of money by doing it all ourselves. Nate's tractor would come in handy, and he was excited for a project to use his "toys" on. We ordered large stones and Nate maneuvered them with his tractor and tools and created stone steps to connect our upper patio to the lower patio. That was a huge project, but it turned out sooo neat! He even built a retaining wall and outlined our flowerbeds all the way around the house!! I never knew he could do things like that!! A talented man!

These are the stone steps that connect the upper patio to the lower patio.

This is the retaining wall in our flowerbeds.

Here's the full picture of the stone step & flowerbed project:

Then, we found a Rainbow swingset on Craigslist. We had been shopping around a little bit and found this one which is about 5 years old. It is made out of California redwood and is super sturdy, more than any other swingsets we've seen. Nate and some friends got it home in 3 giant pieces and they put it back together for the kids. We plan to stain it to brighten it up some since its pretty faded from the sun. We got mulch underneath it, and a rectangular outline around it. The next step: SOD!! We plan to do sod in the backyard between the patio and the swingset so that our yard is lush, thick, green grass to enjoy!! The rest of our land will just have grass seed and hopefully next spring we will have grass all around the house!! Can't wait!!

Movie Night

We like to have a family movie night almost every week, usually on a Thursday evening. Often, we invite friends, but this particular movie night was just us. We found a new movie called "The Iron Giant, an oldmovie cartoon which the boys happened to absolutely love!! They were way into the movie while Kaylee was crawling around playing on the carpet. Well, she got interested in the movie too, so she crawled over to her brothers "nest" of bean bags and blankets and she just got cozy there with them all by herself. We hardly watch TV in our house so the movie drew her attention too, but it was so cute to see her scoot over to her brothers and get cozy there with them. :-)

Science Central

We spent a day at Science Central, the childrens' museum in Fort Wayne. The boy's loved it because it had so many hands on activities for them to experience. Everything was kid friendly, even computers and electronics, which they are usually told NOT to touch. So they loved being allowed to touch all the buttons and do all the fun activities all geared for them! And yes, these TV screens portray our latest weather boys: above is Jaxton giving us a weather update for the USA. And below, Cooper came on board to tell us about the upcoming thunderstorm heading toward America. A couple of great looking weather men!

This was a fun activity that felt more like being out on a playground than inside a science museum. Of course Jaxton loved it. It had to do with something about momentum...

Kaylee didn't get to touch a whole lot, my fears of the many germs that covered the entire place from thousands of kids touching everything and hardly ever being cleaned. So she stayed put in the stroller most of the time, but still enjoyed herself! Look at those bright blue eyes!!

Cooper even got his exercise at the museum. They had an exercise bike. Next to Cooper, there is a skeleton riding a bike the other direction, if you can tell. This station talked about the body and bones, and ability to exercise. Cooper thought it was fun to ride one of the exercise bikes!

They had skateboards too. They were blocked in so they couldn't move far, but Cooper pretended to ride one. He thought that was pretty neat too!

There is always the favorite, the water station. Jax went over and got a smock by himself and loved playing in the water, making boats float, trapping them, and splashing a bit too!

Another favorite was the "sideways room," a room that was all slanted in every way. So the boys tried to climb up the floor and then slid down again. A very awkward room! All in all it was a fun trip. We all enjoyed ourselves. Science Central is a fun place to visit at least once every summer!!

Summer Splashin'

We finally got a pool! After enjoying one this size at Grandma's in Utah, then at some friends houses, and then at one of Nate's customer's houses, the boys were begging to have one. So I found a deal online and had it delivered. Everyday, the boys watched for the mailman to bring an extra large package with our pool inside. It took about a week, and then one glorious day, it came!! Oh were we excited!! So we got it all situated outside on our concrete patio (we still have no grass) and started to fill it up!! Well, I had forgotten that the water spickets outside are hard water straight from the well. So the pool filled up with pee colored yellowish water. The boys didn't seem to care that they were swimming in pee-like water. Regardless, I had to dump it and we refilled it with a long hose coming all the way around the house from the garage sink (soft water!!). The boys had a blast playing in it. They wore their goggles and practiced looking under the water. They even showed off by swimming across the pool with their faces in the water. We should have had a pool like this months ago to help with their confidence in swim lessons! We have had a lot of fun with our new fun pool!!

Kaylee Joy - 7 Months Old

Our Beauty Queen is 7 months old!! I can hardly believe how fast time is flying and how big she is getting. Kaylee is the most beautiful little lady in the whole wide world (I may be a little bit biased). Here are a few highlights of her at 7 months old:

1. She is so easy going and just takes whatever comes without complaint. She never seems to question anything, and most always feels safe and secure.

2. She puts herself to sleep in her crib for naps and for bedtime. Just like Jaxton (who I recall reminded me of Becky when she was a little tiny girl because she did the same thing), Kaylee will get a tiny corner of her little blanket and put it up by her eyes and nose. I think she smells it and feels it on her face and it comforts her as she tries to go to sleep. It is very sweet!

3. Kaylee is crawling all over the place!! She scoots, rolls, rocks, and army crawls. Still hasn't picked up on the hands and knees thing quite yet!

4. She gives big, wide, open mouthed kisses, that are wet, but adorable. I will take them anytime!!

5. She loves her bath. When she gets stripped naked, she starts to kick around and get all excited. I sign "bathtime" for her in sign language on her tummy and she seems to know whats about to happen. She loves it!! She sits in the big bathtub now and feels the water as it fills up the tub about 1 inch high. Then she will splash and splash. I lay her down on her back to wash her up and she is so impatient waiting to flip over onto her tummy. She loves being on her tummy. In the bath she will "swim" by army crawling through the water to reach a toy on the other end of the tub! It's pretty cute! Sometimes she will dunk her face in the water and it never seems to bother her much! Maybe she'll be a swimmer someday!

6. She is learning how to say "more" in sign language. I do the sign for her every time she eats, in the morning and the evening and she has kind of responded. She pulls both hands together and then straight up to her mouth. I'll take that as a sign!!

7. She loves to eat food. Her most favorite is baby cereal mixed with yogurt. Who wouldn't love that, compared to green beans and squash! It's like dessert! When she ate that, was when she first signed "more" for the first time.

8. She can say 1 word, "Dadaddadadadadddaaadddaaddaaa." She says it over and over and over and of course Nate is thrilled!! What a daddy's girl!

Daniel & the Lion's Den

Tonight Cooper was saying his nighttime prayer with me and it was just the sweetest prayer coming from a 3 year old that I had to record it. Yesterday for our family scripture story we talked about Daniel in the Lion's den. Cooper was really into the story. Sometimes though, it is hard to know how much they are understanding. Cooper's personal prayers are like mini autobiogrophies each night. He always has sooo much to say. Tonight, he basically retold the whole Daniel story. It went something like this:

"......And thank you for Daniel and the lions. I really don't like the king. He put him down in there, way down down with the lions and I really don't like him. Then he said a prayer so the lions would not eat him and they were nice. The king came and said 'are you alive' and looked down into the lions. And Daniel was still alive and the lions didn't eat him. Thank you that we try to be like Daniel and like Jesus and like Heavenly Father......and thank you for Grandma to send a package......"

What a sweet boy, who truly understands so much! He is like a little sponge just soaking up everything he can, and his little memory is phenomenal. I'm so grateful for my little Coo!

Cooper T-Ball

Cooper also got to play T-Ball. He was on the "Three-Year-Old Team." This was his first ever experience playing a sport with a team or organized group. We practiced T-Ball a little this summer before hand using our basketball hoop which we took off the basket part, the bottom half was just about the right size for a T. Then we would bat an old plastic ball with a mini Louisville Slugger's souvenier bat that Nate got when he lived in Louisville. We would run around bases made of old carpet scraps from when they put carpet in our house. That was our makeshift baseball! Cooper loved it!! Then, in Utah, Grandma & Grandpa Hutchinson had a real T-Ball set complete with bases and all. So we got to play real T-Ball there. Cooper just couldn't get enough of the game. He loved to bat and throw and run around the 3 bases to Home Plate. Needless to say, when his first real T-Ball team met for practice, he could hardly contain himself. I was surprised to see that his shyness disappeared and he was in his element!

Cooper wasn't there to socialize. He was there to work. He got that alligator move down pat and wouldn't stop practicing catching the ball until he caught it so many times. The kids rotated from one skill to the next, and when they told Cooper's group to stop catching, Cooper refused to stop playing catch until he had caught it another 3 times or so. He said "I gotta catch it first, I gotta catch it first!' You can see his passion!!

Cooper signed up for T-Ball with his good friend Joey. They had a blast together! They got to be real good friends by doing T-Ball together.

Here's our All Star Rookie Player, so proud to have been able to be on his first T-Ball team. As far as he could tell, he was a WINNER!

Jaxton & T-Ball

Jaxton chose to play T-Ball this summer with Fort Wayne Parks & Recreation. He absolutely loved it!! He was on the "Four-Year-Old Team" and got to wear a burgandy team T-shirt. At T-Ball, rather than playing actual games, this team focused on techniques and drills having to do with baseball, like throwing, catching, running, and batting. They taught them to catch the ball like an alligator. Their arms would be open wide like an alligator's mouth, with the mit on the bottom hand, and when the ball comes, they close the alligator mouth on the ball.

To throw, they taught the kids to reach up high with one hand, ball in hand, and pretend to "pick an apple," and show their muscles with that apple picking arm. That is the motion that pitchers use to pitch a ball. So they got to learn the techniques they'd need to be a pitcher.

The coaches were great; super good with the kiddos. They were patient and fun and helped the kids learn and have fun at the same time! Jaxton was out there on the team to have a great time. He just smiled and enjoyed himself every practice. He loved wearing his BYU baseball cap backwards, just for the fun of it and he loved to be around his peers and had a ton of fun with his coaches. He signed up for the team with Gabe, one of his best buddies, so they had a ton of fun together!! Jax is such a social butterfly! He wasn't all that interested in catching the ball or throwing it hard or batting as far as he could, rather, he just was there to have fun!!! What a great sport!! When it was all over, he asked me when T-Ball would start again. I told him not till next summer, and he was bummed. He loved every minute of it!

At the end of each practice, the team would do a cheer in a huddle and shout "WE LOVE T-BALL!!" Here is our baseball star, all sweaty from the 97 degree weather he played in most days and after eating a red juice pop! What a fun time!!!