Mckinley is in Kindergarten!

This sweet little thing started Kindergarten. She goes to Vineyard Elementary, right by our house. We carpool with her friend Savannah so they come and pick her up in the mornings and I get the girls from school at noon. Her teacher is Mrs. Brown and we have heard a lot of great things about her.

Saying goodbye to my house. My parents built this house when I was a baby, and 33 years later it is up for sale and they have moved to a newer house by the Timpanogos Temple. I'm sad that they won't be as close to me but I'm so happy they will have less house and yard to maintain.

Tyler and Kallie, while still proving to be quite the challenging children, are playing together a lot. Like all the time. They are always together. It's so cute. Except when they are fighting. Or crying or whining. Which seems to be most of the time.

Mckinley and Brynlee randomly wearing the same outfit. This has happened quite a few times throughout their lives. Cute cousins!

Last Friday after school we went to the Manila pond and we had the whole place to ourselves. We absolutely love it there!

Tyler and Kallie keep falling asleep and taking late naps, which makes for late nights that are so exhausting mentally and physically for all of us. This was supposed to be our golden summer with kids that are old enough to be somewhat independent, no babies or pregnancies to deal with. But Tyler and Kallie have still been so challenging and it is flat out wearing us out! Mostly me. Brandon is our rock.

Life is good. It's hard to blog a lot, but for some reason I haven't even been taking very many pictures lately so it's not like there is a lot to blog anyway. But we are excited to see Mckinley learn and grow in school this year and we continue to have hope that the twins will get easier one day.

Summer Fun

Mckinley's teacher asked her to come back for the last day of summer school, even though she didn't go to summer school. And of course she had a blast being back there again.

This is Tyler and Kallie when they should have been napping. They have been soooooo hard to get down for naps so I decided to give up on naps and I was actually quite happy about the freedom it gave me to be able to do whatever we wanted the whole day but now it is backfiring and they end up crashing for a late nap every single day. Which ruins bedtime every single day. As if it wasn't already awful before. It is just such a mess right now.

We had a lot of fun while Brandon's sister Tara was in town, including a fun swimming day at Scera Pool.

I made a summer bucket list awhile ago and then pretty much forgot about it. I decided I wanted to do a few things on it. This was supposed to be our really fun awesome summer since our kids are getting older and our babies that should have been born in February/June weren't ever born. But then we moved and that was chaotic and the twins are still the biggest handful ever so it wasn't as glorious as I thought. But we still decided to at least check a few things off the bucket list, one of which was hiking the Y.

Brandon invited his family and it was so much fun with a lot of people.

Tyler and Kallie were pretty much carried the whole way up and down, which was annoying, but we all eventually made it.

Mckinley whined quite a bit about the hiking, which I expected. It felt good to touch the Y though and the kids think it is cool to see it on the mountain and know that they climbed up and touched it.

We have the best neighborhood ever! We absolutely love it here. Every year on the 24th of July some of our neighbors host a cul-de-sac of fire and it's super fun. Lots of food and fun and fireworks. We love it!

My brother Todd was in town for 2 days and we had a lot of fun with them while they were here. We went swimming at the Lehi pool because it was super windy that day so we needed to swim indoors.

Then we had a really fun picnic dinner at Bonneville Park. The twins were just getting the hang of their little scooters we opened a few days before.

Since I haven't done an ounce of decorating in our new house, this spot works great for time out. Lol.

We have been to the Manila Pond a few times this year. The kids always love it.

I never put the kids down for naps anymore and this is usually where they crash.

All ready for Church one Sunday.

Mckinley loves playing with her cute friend Kenzey. These girls have been friends since birth. I can't believe they are about to start Kindergarten in a few weeks! It's so weird watching your kids grow up.

Cabin Trip

Right after the 4th of July Brandon's entire extended family went to Canada for a big reunion. We backed out last minute because the twins are so hard to handle and we just didn't think the trip made sense for our family. I'm so sad we missed it and I really would have loved to see his grandparents, but we will just add it to the very long list of sacrifices we have made since we had twins.

The week after we were supposed to go to Canada we went on a short trip to the cabin. It was so fun. The kids loved it. My mom rented two 4-wheelers and we had a blast riding around on them.

Tyler wanted to hold the fish one of his cousins caught.

We were able to go out on the lake for the first time in a paddle boat. It was pretty windy that day so it was hard to get around out on the water but it was fun anyway.

I love that my kids are making memories just like I did when I was their age.

4th of July

After we rode up in a balloon the kids had a morning nap and so we were able to go swimming in a pond for the afternoon with some of my family. The kids had such a great time and were so well behaved. It was wonderful!

Mckinley once again was quick to make friends with a perfect stranger, her second cousin. They were so cute swimming out holding onto this paddle.

That night we went to Pizza Factory with all of the Salmons. This is all of the Salmon grand kids except Hadlee who lives in Seattle now.

The morning of the fourth we got to go to the parade. We had so much fun. Ross saved us great seats.

I was thinking my kids didn't have anything patriotic to wear but I forgot about this cute dress my neighbor Amber made for Mckinley two years ago. And my other amazing neighbor Andrea had just given me some hand me downs for Tyler and I found this among them. Score!

Mckinley on the other hand doesn't own anything red. Oops. I want to do better next year.

Mckinley loves her adorable cousin Abby. I love watching them together.

Shellee's family provided face painting for the kids which was super fun.

Our group.

I love watching the kids standing up. They all loved the parade. The weather was perfect too.

Later that night we went to Blake and Kim's and did some fireworks with them. We had a really great 4th. What a fun time of year!

Hot Air Balloons!

The 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays and my very favorite tradition of all is waking up to see the hot air balloons. Me and Brandon have done this every year since we have been married.

Tyler didn't like the loud noise from the fire.

Two years ago Brandon and I had tickets from his Dad (love NuSkin hookups!!) to ride up in a balloon but the weather was bad that day and none of the balloons could fly. We were so sad. Brandon had been up in a balloon before but I never had and I was dying to go. Well this year we got tickets again and we had such a great time riding up in a balloon!

Pictures from taking off...

Up in the air.

See the other hot air balloons down on the field?

It was so peaceful and so much fun. We had one small hiccup where we crashed into a tree, but we survived! And had a great time.

Our pilot with his crazy flag hair.