Happy Father's Day!  I have a terrific Father.  He has taught me so many things.  I love him so much.  This picture is from Father's Day when Abbie was a baby, but it is so my Dad.

 And how can I say enough about the Father of my wonderful kids.  Jake does so much for us and works so hard to take of us.  I love you both...

I LOVE this man.  I am a sucker for a man in uniform, especially MY man.  He works so hard to provide for our family.  He is my best friend.  I don't know what I would do without him.

Today at family day with the guard Jake got to help the kids use the mine detector to find "mines".  He got to tell the kids a little about what he does when he is at drill.  Not that he goes around looking for mines here, but it is part of his job as a whole.  The kids came away with a couple dollars worth of "mines".

Lexie and Hannah, Hannah and Lexie

Some summers you find these two being best friends, hanging our and playing together.  Inseparable.  Others they hardly talk to each other and Lexie spends most of the time with her other cousin Justin.  This year is one of those inseparable years.

More pictures from the zoo.  When we first saw the dinosaurs, Abbie was a little afraid of them.  They are pretty realistic and they really aren't in cages.  I could see how she thought that they were real.  I told here that they were only robots and then she was okay with them.  When we got the the big cats, this guy was pacing back and forth and she was a little apprehensive of getting to close.  Then I heard her say to herself, "its just a robot, it isn't real."  It was so cute, I didn't have the heart to tell her that indeed this was the real thing.

This last weekend was Herriman Town days.  We went over Saturday night for a while with Ashton and Abbie.  We should have gone over Friday to see the car show, but we just didn't have the time then.  At least the fire department was there Saturday and let the kids climb in the fire truck.  We did buy a few tickets and let the kids ride a few of the carnival rides, but this was the only picture I got, my battery died right after I took this picture.  Guess I should have checked it before I left.

Ashton graduated from preschool tonight.  It was a cute little program.  They sang a bunch of songs that they have learned throughout the year and then got a certificate from their teacher.  I have absolutely loved Ashton's teacher, Miss Amber, this year.  She has been so patience and helped Ashton to learn so much.  I have no doubt that he is ready for kindergarten, maybe too ready :)

Last zoo picture...  This big gorilla was outside when we got to see him.  He was just sitting there in the corner when we got there.  There was a large crowd of people looking at him so it took a minute to get up to the window, but when we did he got right up and came to see Abbie.  He stared at her for a minute and them walked away.  It was really weird to have him come right up to her.  I was glad that there was a thick piece of glass between them.

Donning the jersey for the last time this year.  Today was Lexie's last soccer game.  All I can say is thank goodness!  Maybe next year we will have a better year.  At least Jake got to come to the last game!

We went to the zoo today.  They have some new dinosaur exhibits that are surprisingly realistic.  They move, even their eyes move.  This T-rex even made the ground shake when he roared.  Sadly, I think they were getting more attention then the actual animals while we were there.  I have loved having memberships to the zoo, even though it is far away, we have been more in the last year then ever before. (And Jake got to come with us!!!!  BONUS!)

My brother's family is here from Texas,  they will be here for almost a whole month.  To say my kids are in heaven would be an understatement.  Ashton is 18 months younger than Jackson, but they have totally hit it off this year.  The age difference has been too much in the past but not this year, they have had a great time getting into mischief this year.

More baseball pictures...  Ashton has had a really good year this year.  His coach was awesome and did a great job teaching the kids actual baseball skills.  We had a great year, I am sad that we aren't going to be involved with Herriman Baseball anymore.  Hopefully we can find a great baseball league in Minnesota.

Ballpark Friends

It's always nice when there is someone for your youngest to play with when your other children are involved in sports.  Abbie gets bored with baseball about halfway through the first half of the first inning.  Sometimes it's hard to keep her entertained so that I can watch Ashton play, but only if Charlie isn't there.  This little girl is Ashton's coaches little girl and they made fast friends this year.  They did a good job keeping each other entertained this year.  Ya! for ballpark friends!!

This is supposed to be a post about playing with cousins and being creative and learning through play, but no more than 5 minutes after I took this picture, world war III of the cousins broke out.  Then I had to take this picture to show the agony of fighting with your cousins.....

I was going to say that I wanted to be a kid again, but maybe I better rethink that.

Sometimes you plan and you go to tons of trouble trying to "get" the perfect picture. (Well at least I do, and sometimes it leads to tears, but that is another story) And sometimes you get lucky and the perfect picture finds you, unexpectedly, and later when you see it you think I couldn't have made that any better if I had done all that other stuff.  Those are always my favorite pictures....

This is one of those pictures.  We had been eating dinner and then we were just sitting around the table talking when the little kids started climbing up into grandpa's lap.  I tried to sneak as many pictures as I could, I wanted them to be more casual.  But when Abbie snuggled down into my grandpa I had to have her look at me for this sweet picture.

We have been trying to visit a lot of our favorite places while Lexie has been off track this time, knowing that it will probably be our last for quite a while.  One of the places that we visited was the Utah State Train Museum in Ogden.  My kids all LOVE trains so they were excited to go.  There is a museum that shows a lot of early history of trains in Utah and there are plenty of kids friendly things to see and do there.  Outside there are lots of retired engines and train cars that you can climb on.  We spent a fun couple of hours there, and then hit Farr's ice cream for a special treat.

I had nearly forgotten about this cute dress.  In preparation for moving I have been trying to dejunk my house, it is amazing how much stuff you collect that you really don't need.  One of the things that I have been doing is going through all of our baby clothes.  I don't want to move them, chances are very small that we will be needing them any time soon.  I am going to let a few of my neighbors take what they want from them, then the rest are going to DI.  Well in my searching I found two whole totes full of clothes that Abbie can wear right now!  It was almost as good as Christmas!  It is kinda funny because most of the stuff is things Lexie wore right before and during Kindergarten.  Abbie is only 3, Lexie was 4 or 5 when she wore most of these clothes.  Abbie doesn't seem that big to me, and Lexie didn't seem that small.  I do know one things though, Lexie had the longest legs  (I should say has because she sill does, they are nearly as long as mine.)  Most of the tops I found were 4T or 4/5 size, but the pants were size 5 or 6, Abbie won't be wearing those for a long time.

Reading for enjoyment is always more fun then reading for an assignment.  Lexie has always loved to read, but this year she has had so much homework and other outside activities that she hasn't had much time for reading for the fun of it.  While she has been off track, I have a had a hard time getting her nose out of a book.  She had read part of the Lightening Thief series before but for some reason got bogged down on the 3rd book and didn't really finish it.  She has collected all of the books since then and then purchased the latest one for her nook.  She decided to start over and has enjoyed then so much more this time around.  In barely two weeks she has read the first three and is part of the way through the fourth one.

One thing that I have always loved to do is take my kids to the library.  I started taking Lexie when she was still a baby. It was more for me than her then, but I think that going to the library so much has helped instill my love of reading in her. We have always gone to the library.  One of our new loves while visiting our new library is visiting the chimes.  My kids would play on them all day if I had the patience to let them (but I don't).  I love that someone came up with this idea and convinced somebody else that we needed it.  So much fun.    I also took some pictures inside the library, but sadly I must have erased them somehow, so I will need to take more.