rad kids

 The kids did rad kids again this year. It is a awesome program which is ran by police officers. They teach the kids how to protect themselves from kidnappers and just people wanting to do bad things to them. I feel a little better knowing that they know how to protect themselves. Bethany and Hannah weren't thrilled about doing it again, but I thought it would be good for them. Rylan was excited, he loves it! Dallen was very nervous about it. He was a little intimated by the police officers and it was a new situation for him. But after the first day he loved it and enjoyed the rest of the week. 

 On the last day they get suited up and get to practice the new skills they've learned on one of the police officers who wears a padded suit. They pretend to kid nap the kids and they get to defend themselves. Its fun to watch them!

 They do three different scenarios. First, he calls out to them, and before he gets to them they run off. The 2nd one he approaches and grabs their arm. They have to fit him off, and then run to their safe place.

 

The 3rd one, they stand in the circle and wait for the kidnapper to approach them. He picks them up from behind, and they have to use head thrusts and shin kicks to break free. Then he will usually still have a hand on them, and they have to continue to break free and then run to their safe place. 

It's fun to see them defend themselves. 

 At the end they get awards.  Bryleigh can't wait until she's old enough to participate!

 It's fun to see the kids interacting with police officers. I think it's a good way to build trust with them, so if they ever are in trouble they won't be as intimated by the police. 

The crew. 

more cousins

We had a couple more weeks to hang out with cousins, before they head back to Oregon. My mom was able to take Bethany and Drew to the temple to do baptisms. I'm so glad that they got all go together. Great memories they are making!

Cute people!

Playing chess.

 Playing at the park by our house. That was a lot of kids in our house, so it was good to get outside where they could run around and be crazy!

Silly kids! Bethany's missing the fun, she's at softball practice.

These two can be so goofy! We celebrated their birthday's before they left. They opened presents and had cookies with candles!

She seriously adores Drew, and would love to spend more time with him!

july 2016

We took the kids to get frozen yogurt at menchies. They love it!

Ella actually sleeping in her bed, in the corner of our room! She's too cute!

The kids with some cousins, for 4th of July picnic.

Hannah and Dallen started a tumbling class at a neighbor's house. They love it!

Swimming in the backyard. One of our pools has a hole, so we used it has a overflow. They are all getting too big for the pools, except for Dallen and Bryleigh!

Dallen trying to warm up in the sun. He reminds me of Olaf, he loves the sun!

Ella having fun playing with the plastic from painting. 

Bethany and Hannah wanted to play restaurant, but for reals. So they made menu's for the kids, gave then chips and salsa and drinks. Then they took their orders. They all loved it, and they did this throughout the summer. It was a win for me too. Lunch was taken care of and they were outside! No work or mess for me! Awesome!

The kids and I needed to do something fun, so we tried out bahama bucks. Everyone loved it! Kyle was sad he missed out! Maybe next summer. 

On our way to bed one night, I peeked in on Bryleigh since her door was open. She was not in her bed! I started to freak out a little, until I found her in Bethany's bed. I guess Bethany told her she could come into her bed if she was scared. Which is super cute of her, but I told them no more! Stay in your bed!

Dallen got to say the prayer in primary. He was a little nervous. Cute boy!

Rylan has been having fun making some books. Here is a page from his book. It made me laugh. He has such an imagination! 

Ella hanging out on the princess vanity. She sure thinks she's a princess sometimes!

basement remodel

We love our new house! We love that the upstairs is already updated. The kitchen and bathrooms are awesome! The basement kitchen, which is my mom's kitchen was not good! So after we moved in and got mostly settled, we started working on her kitchen. She moved in the end of July, so we were working with a tight schedule. Most of our extra time was spent downstairs for about a month while we got it all fixed up for her! 

The before picture. It was so dark and dingey!

We started by gutting the whole kitchen. The cabinets, counters and carpet had to go!

Picking out the new stuff at the store. This step was pretty fun!

Once we got everything out and the floor scraped and cleaned, we laid the tile. We had never done tile before, so it was a little overwhelming going into it. But it ended up being pretty simple and went fairly fast. 

Then we got to scrub and grout the tile. Not so fast and easy. I hated this step, grouting is not fun! But it was nice that it was finally done!

The cabinets got delivered and then we started that fun. Again, it was very overwhelming just because we had never done it before. Making sure we had them lined up right and hoping everything was going to fit like we planned it. 

The top ones were pretty hard, and I was glad that Adam was here to help hold the cabinets while they got screwed into the wall. They were pretty heavy. Most of them fit, but we had to reorder one of the top cabinets. 

Then it was the countertops. This I think made me the most nervous. We had to cut out the sink, and I was so worried that we were going to measure and cut wrong and mess up the whole piece. But I have a smart husband who is very good with numbers. He made it all work perfectly!

Then it was onto the back splash. We originally had 12 x 12 tile pieces made up of smaller tiles we were going to put up. Then we decided that would be too much work to cut around all the outlets. So we opted for a 4 x 4 tile, it seemed a little bit more manageable. We got some fun decorative ones to make a pattern with. It went up pretty easy, and I actually enjoyed doing the pattern. Again, the grouting was a different story! Do not like grouting!

We got the sink in, the knobs on and the newly ordered cabinet. Got it cleaned and we were good to go. We were happy with how it turned out. Not bad for our first kitchen remodel.

We were so glad when we were done with it and could move on with our life. That's how it felt, like our life was kind of on hold. The kids were super glad also, they were tired of our Saturdays and all our extra time with us working on the basement. They were good sports though!

My mom was hoping to get all of her walls painted before she moved in too. She got her bedroom done, but was running out of time for the rest. So I was nice and spent my nights after the kids were in bed painting for her. I painted her 2nd bedroom, hallway, bathroom, kitchen and family room. It was a lot of work, but it did look so much better! 

Anyways, it was a fun project, but glad it's done. Now to do some things with our part of the house, like paint some bedrooms, update our fireplace! One of these days!