Holy July!

I forgot how jam packed July really was until I went back and looked at the pictures. Good thing I documented things or else I would never remember. 

Living in Utah we get parades and parties for Pioneer day (It's July 24th in case you, like me before moving here, didn't know). We enjoyed a breakfast sponsored by our stake in the morning with Bryant before he left for work and then we headed to North Park for the festivities there. 

We got to hop on the fire truck before it actually started because we were there early in hopes of beating the lines, it was great!

This year spiderman and this "not storm" trooper (I know someone in my family know what he is. I just don't rememeber, something like a speeder. I don't remember but he had a gun strapped to his leg) were taking pictures for free so  my kids were happy to have a picture with them

We enjoyed looking at the native american art and tents!

We went over to the pioneer village to see the cabins from when Utah was first settled. Many of them were moved from their original location so they could all be brought together. We watched the blacksmith work on a horseshoe that he was turning into a heart with two horse heads kissing at the top. After hoping on this carriage (which was the wrong one to climb in and take a picture in, oops) we headed back out to the park festivities that were about to begin. 

Last year as we were leaving Hunter was really sad that he didn't get an opportunity to saw a log, so this year we went there first and still had to wait behind a few people who beat us in line. Tucker and Hunter did a fairly decent job sawing their two pieces off to have "branded". Of course Brylee and Gunnar also wanted to participate and receive a wooden disk so I attempted to help them by standing on the same side as Gunnar and directing Brylee how to pull. THANK GOODNESS someone from our old ward was there with his family and saw us and came over to see if I could use some assistance. It is a lot of work to saw the disk off, especially when using a two man saw with only one person! I was so thankful to him coming and helping and making it happen for Brylee and Gunnar. 

Next we waited in the forever long line to ride on the ponies!!! The children went in the petting zoo set up next to it a couple of times, but ultimately they dug in the dirt around the trees that we were waiting next to. We rode the ponies last year so I was hoping to bypass them this year but everyone wanted to wait. We saw all the animals as they were setting up before the start of the activities and I tried to convince them to move along to no avail. When we finally made it to the beginning of the line the lady running it made the comment of "You kind of wish you had just sat and waited here earlier don't you?" And she was half right. It was getting hot by the time we had our turn and I was ready to leave but the children wanted to do some games and crafts. 

Hunter had another picture with the trooper while we were waiting in line.

When we finally got there, Tucker and Hunter had their turn first

And then Brylee and Gunnar. This year Gunnar did not freak out in the middle of the ride when his horse snorted so it was a win overall I guess. 

In the beginning of July we participated in Chick-fil-A's free food day if you dress up as a cow. This was our first experience with free day and with Chick-fil-A. The children loved it! We showed up early for lunch to beat the crowed that they were still serving breakfast. So we played on their little playground for a little bit and then went to get our food before the huge rush. They were super efficient. By the time we were done eating the line for the food was out the door and they had trapped our van in the parking lot because they were marking out the area for the long lunch line. We just arrived so early and stuck around so long that our van was the only car in the row and they had to move their cones and caution tape so we could leave but they were very pleasant about it. 

Connor's favorite place to play this month has been the gutter. As long as he is next to our car I don't stress but when he goes elsewhere I have to worry that he will wander out into the street. 

My children really wanted to have some spending money. They had been talking about various things they wanted to buy for a long time and wishing they had money with which to purchase them. So we decided to have a bake sale. Well I wanted their efforts to be profitable so I posted on our ward relief society page what my children were doing and took "pre-orders" That was both genius and crazy I realized as the orders came in. I made what I thought was a ton of cookies based on the orders coming in but ended up having to make a second batch of chocolate chip cookies and snickerdoodles. Thankfully, our ward is not a big fan of oatmeal cookies because I over cooked one tray by just a little but had enough from the one batch I made of those. I had the children help make some of the goodies as part of their effort. I also told them that they would be paying for the butter and eggs used in the cookies because it was an easy number to quantify. During the whole bake sale process I didn't let the kids know how much they were making until the end because I didn't want them to decide they were done mid way through. We had lots of conversations about how much tithing would be owed on $5, $7, $10, etc. We also learned that giving change doesn't mean we are losing money, but that we are giving back the extra that someone initially gave us. We also had a live table out in front of our house where the children worked on their people skills. They even went to the houses of two of our neighbors and asked them if they would like to buy anything from their table. I made Tucker and Hunter walk together to deliver the cookies and cinnamon rolls that were pre-ordered. They certainly earned their money. Ultimately, the 4 children each earned $20, paid me $10 for "supplies" and even had a couple dollars more that we gave to Connor rather than try to split up. 

Tucker and Hunter each bought a minion lego set. Brylee and Gunnar each bought remote control cars and rechargeable batteries to go inside them. I'm glad I made them buy the rechargeables because they wore the batteries out each of the first few days they had them. 

Gunnar turned 3 in the month of July! 

He has become super expressive and talkative. He is a super sweet guy and great listener and helper. 

He also took this short video (among a bunch of 2 second ones) for your view.

Tucker loves to be creative, he built things out of the cardboard that held Connor's baby food jars together. 

Tucker also built this lego creation.

Connor has learned to walk this month, although if you ask him to walk he will crawl, instead you have to tell him to dance and then he will stand up and start walking towards you. This started because the kids decided to have a dance party in the livingroom one evening. Connor thought it looked like so much fun that he stood up and started dancing too, not even thinking about what he was doing. He certainly still crawls everywhere but it is only a matter of time!