wheels

This girl never ceases to amaze me. She had decided a week ago that she wanted her training wheels off. They were out riding bikes with a neighbor who didn't have training wheels and she didn't like being the one who did. So I took them off for her, and I helped her up the street once. That is all it took...and she took off by herself!

I showed her once how to start the bike by herself...and then she insisted, "I don't need help, I can do it by myself!" And she did.

She followed Bethany around and practiced turning...and yep she could do that too.

It make me laugh when I watch her riding..you would think she has been riding her two wheeler for months. It is so her personality to just get things and take off.

Now we need to get her a bigger bike...taking off the training wheels has made me realize that she has outgrown her little bike.

We finally got Rylan riding his big bike. He loves his little pink tricycle. I finally gave him no choice and told him if he wanted to ride a bike he had to ride his big one. (I know, mean mom.) But I knew he could if he would just try. And now he is cruising around!

This girl loves riding her bike!

D has fun riding and pushing his little airplane around.

We have been going over to a track on the weekends and run while the kids ride their bikes. It is nice getting to run together, and the kids love getting to ride their bikes!

white sands

Last week Ky had to go down to White Sands Missile Range for work...and since we have still have a few weeks of freedom left we tagged along with him. We went a day before he had to work so we could go to white sands and play!

You would think from the whiteness that it was snow. And it was very weird driving there on white roads that weren't slick.

We had so much fun sledding!

Dallen wasn't too sure of the sand on his feet at first, but got used to it!

And this little boy thought that the sleds were over rated. He preferred going down on his bum. Who needs a sled anyways!

He had sand everywhere!!!

We had more fun that I thought we would at white sands and will definitely be going back!

Swim

On the last day of swim lessons they have a party day where everyone brings treats and you get to go play in the water. The kids loved it!


The girls had fun going down the water slides.

Dallen had fun in the water until he fell down and got his face wet. Then whenever we put him in the water he would walk out of it.

new skills

Dallen has finally decided that walking isn't so bad! He has been taking steps since his birthday...but hasn't had a lot of interest in it. He has been our best crawler out of the kids...and that is what he liked to do. He could go a lot faster on all 4's!

The last couple weeks he has started to realize the benefits of walking. He will walk more than he crawls.

Yes, he has a barbie toothbrush in his mouth...he loves chewing on them. I'm guessing it feels good on his toothless gums...still no teeth. I'm starting to worry about him!

I have gotten comments on how talented my 8 month old is! People are so surprised when I tell them that he is 14 months old. It's fun watching their reactions. Here he is sporting his new shirt that is 6-9 month size, and some shorts that are 3 month size. The shorts are obviously a big 3 month size...but still.

We love him just the way he is!

He gets so proud of himself and will look at you for approval when he gets to his goal!

As much as he is enjoying his new skills, he hasn't given up crawling all together yet.

D upset because I took away his barbie toothbrush. What a sad day!

Stinky Feet

We love when Stinky Feet comes to Albuquerque. We see him every summer at the libraries. We usually see him at least twice. The highlight for the kids is getting to play in their band.

They love it!

We also love to listen to his music in the car...he is pretty entertaining!

tooth #2

Bethany lost her 2nd tooth this last week. She was very determined to pull it out by herself this time. It ended up falling out while she was in time out, and she was biting her mattress. She got scared because she knew it fell out, but she couldn't find it. I had her go clean up while I looked for it and found it laying on her mattress.

She was excited that the tooth fairy was going to visit again. I told her I didn't know if the tooth fairy was going to come since she was being naughty and lost her tooth during a time out. Of course the tooth fairy proved me wrong and came anyways! She was one happy girl!

swim lessons

Last week the kids started swim lessons. The all love it and are doing such a great job!Hannah and Rylan swimming on their backs. I was really surprised that Rylan is being so adventurous! He has been pretty cautious when we have gone swimming with him. But he is trying everything his teacher asks him to do, including putting his head under water and opening his eyes.
Bethany's fear of swimming and water have gone out the door. She loves going under water and has learned a ton of different floats. She is also starting to swim on her own and loves it!

Hannah posing for me! She has surprised me too. She does everything the teacher asks and more! She is always the one who goes first in her class...and the teacher uses her to show the other kids what to do. She has also learned some different floats and will swim to her teacher by herself.

This guy has been a pretty good sport with supporting his siblings. He keeps himself entertained during most of swim lessons...but the last 10 minutes he gets tired of it. He will be happy on the last day of lessons when he can play in the water too.

Bethany bobbing up and down in the water.

Hannah and Rylan swimming on their tummies!

We have had such a better experience this year with swim lessons. I'm glad the kids are enjoying it and are learning so much! We will have to continue lessons in the fall, so they can continue to learn how to swim!

finally...

...we said good bye to our van. We really enjoyed our van, most of the time. But lately it has been giving us more problems than it's worth.

The air conditioner has been the latest. We just spent a lot of money getting it fixed last month. And it still randomly stops working. One of these times was on Saturday.

Being in Utah we thought it would be a good opportunity to trade it in before more things go wrong. There are a whole lot more vans going though car lots there than there are in Albuqerque. Plus my mom knew of a guy who worked at a Toyota dealership...extra plus.

So we stayed an extra day in Utah to find us a new van. We were going to be bad and go look on Sunday so we could still go home the next day...but we had no such luck...they were all closed.

We got lucky and found this...

2009 Toyota Sienna....exactly what I was wanting!

We all love it!

And as much as I have been wanting a new van..it was kind of hard saying good bye to our old one. I wasn't expecting that!

Utah

We spent the 4th of July weekend in Utah. It was nice to get away and get to visit with family.

The first day we went up to Park City with Ky's mom. We did a little bit of shopping at the outlets and then headed over to the alpine slide...our favorite! When you get off the ski lift you have to walk a little ways with your sled to the slides. Hannah wanted a ride over.

Ky's mom watched the other two while me and Ky went up together with Bethany and Rylan. There are two slides next to each other and so we went down at the same time and "raced", even though your not suppose to. Me and Bethany won...but only by a little bit. After we got down we asked Rylan if he liked the slide and he said no, it was scary. But then I asked him if he wanted to go again...and he said yes.
The only bad part of Park City was I had given my keys to Dallen to play with...and well we never saw them again.

On Saturday morning we went to a parade with Ky's mom and sister's. The kids really enjoyed being with their cousins and collecting all the candy that was thrown at them...they filled up their bags.

Sunday after church we went to temple square with my mom and garry. I love going there! It is fun to show the kids were we got married. We had fun walking around and taking some pictures.

On our way home we decided to stop at the famous arch. We said while passing it numerous times...we should stop there sometime. So we decided that this was the day. We hiked up to the top. The kids did really good. Bethany was the most scared of the kids. Now we can say that we did it!