Afton's slumber party

Ok, so I've been promising Afton that she could have a sleepover before school started and I finally let her have one. She had her sleepover back on July 31st. She invited her friends Emma, Paris and Sophia. Dax also got to enjoy the party as well. We had them come over around 6:30 for pizza and then they just played. They played outside for awhile, then played dress-up and then watched a movie with cheetos and m&m's for treats. They actually got to watch two movies and the older girls (Afton, Emma, and Paris) didn't go to bed until after midnight. All I can say is that I was exhausted the next day, but Afton and her friends had lots of fun and I'm sure it's something she'll always remember. I remember having slumber parties with my friends growing up and they were always so much fun. Although I don't think that I was 5. She's pretty lucky!

Having fun in the backyard. I like all of the fun poses for the picture.

Dressing up. Dax got to be the prince for all of the princesses. What a lucky guy!

All of the princesses dancing

Dax and Sophia. They had lots of fun together. Sophia is Daxon's age so they played together most of the night.

Paris, Emma, and Afton

Go Banana's

is the name of this fun place we went to a couple of weeks ago. We went on July 30th with some friends. It was kind of like one last fun place for the kiddos to go to before school started. This place is filled with a bunch of fun bounce house/slides for the kids to play on. The lady also comes out every hour and blows a bunch of bubbles for the kids. They loved that part! They charge for the kids to get in but the adults are free! That doesn't happen very much. It was lots of fun. I got to visit with some of my girlfriends while Afton and Dax ran around like crazy monkeys with their friends. And they had this little toddler area that was perfect for Logan. It was filled with a smaller bouncy play area and lots of toddler toys. He loved it all! I even took him down a couple of slides. The only bad thing, they just put in an A/C, but I don't think it was really working because it was super hot. The kids didn't mind though.

Going down the fun slides and crashing at the bottom.

Afton and Rylan at the top of a slide.

Dax and Avery climbing up the slide and playing at the toddler area. You had to be three and under to play in it.

Dax, Afton and Avery playing in the big dino bounce house.

Logan had fun gathering all the balls and then throwing them.

Afton and her friend Halle. They always get so excited to play with each other.

Avery and Logan

Mount Whitney

For those of you who don't know, Jason is the Young Men's president in our ward. And has been going on three and a half years now. Seriously, any day now for his release. Well, at least I'm hoping, but it's not looking too good. He tries to plan these fun and adventurous activities for his young men and he thought it would be fun to hike Mt. Whitney. They went the last week of July. I guess it's the highest peak in California, over 14,000 feet. And when he told me about it I kind of laughed. I thought for sure he'd make the hike but I didn't think any of his young men would. And I was right! Poor Jason. He plans this whole trip and they don't even hike the freaking mountain. They day before they were suppose to do Whitney, they did a warm-up hike up White Mountain to get the boys acclimated to the altitude and only Jason, his other leader and one boy made it to the top of that mountain. Jason said most of the boys were out of shape and got altitude sickness. And they all agreed that they didn't want to do Mt. Whitney. So Jason and his other leader, Alan, were going to do Whitney, but Jason thought he better stay behind and keep an eye on his boys. I thought that was a wise idea. Alan still hiked it and made it back in under 12 hours which Jason was saying is pretty amazing. I just feel so bad for Jason. But there was some adventure on the trip. Bears are really bad there and the forest service makes you put your food in bear containers. And one of the boys left some power bars in his pack, so they got a little visit from a bear. Jason heard it walk by his tent and then got out and saw it ripping into one of the packs. I guess his other leader was up getting ready to do Whitney and he went to get food from the container and practically ran into this bear. Jason said he was like a foot away from it. And he said, "Hey Smokey!" and then started yelling at it and it ran off. I guess they're use to humans. Still scary though. I just feel bad that Jason didn't get to hike Whitney. Oh well, he's planning on doing it next summer and I get to go with him this time.

Here are some pictures from their adventure. The picture up above is a view from the top of White mountain.

The young men that went on the trip (Bobby, Johnny, Taylor, Brice, Kyle, Alan, and Kaleb)

Jason and Taylor at the top of White Mountain.

Here's another view from the top of White mountain. It's kind of pretty for desert climate.

More water park fun

A couple Friday's ago we took our last trip to the Water park. Well, I guess I should say last trip probably for Afton. The boys and I may still try to make it one more time. We met up with Misty and Dylen there and the kids had a great time as usual. They always have fun at the water park and whenever they hang out with Dylen. They love filling up there buckets. Dax kept trying to get Misty wet and succeeded a couple of times (sorry Misty!) And they had fun pretending that they were making soup and eating it.

Dax and Dylen having fun with their buckets. I think Dax had just gotten Misty wet that's why he's smiling so big.

Making their yummy soup!

local farmer's market

We actually have a farmer's market here in town. They have it every Thursday night during the summer and I've been wanting to go since last year. So we were driving by and saw that it was going on so I made Jason pull over so we could check it out. I don't think he was too thrilled about it and I guess it probably wasn't really worth it. We didn't get anything, but there was a band playing and Logan had fun dancing to the music. Afton and Dax just covered their ears and were like "Mommy it's too loud! Can we go!" So we were there all of like 10 minutes and then we headed to Rite Aid for some Thrifty ice cream. Jason and I were remembering when a scoop of ice cream was like 25 cents! Man, those were the good days. When things were a lot cheaper. It was a $1.19 for a single scoop and as you can tell most of it ended up on Daxon's face.

First day of Kindergarten

I still can't believe that Afton is in Kindergarten and she started today. It's just too weird that I have a kid old enough to be in school. Yesterday they had a kindergarten orientation. Afton got to go to her classroom with her classmates and teacher and the parents stayed in the cafeteria for some school info. She was so excited to go to school and I think she wished that school had started when they did the orientation. But she had to wait until the next day and had to wait even longer because she has afternoon kindergarten. It starts at 12:15 and she gets out at 3:40. I know it's a crazy time and I still don't know how I feel about afternoon kindergarten, but I guess I can't do anything about it now. Plus she has a really good teacher or so everyone keeps telling me that it's worth it to have the afternoon class for the teacher. I hope so! She seems really nice and Afton likes her a lot. Her name is Mrs. Nightengale. Anyway, me and the boys took Afton to school and dropped her off and she did great. No crying or hanging onto my leg. It was more like get out of here mom. See ya! I was the one having a hard time. But I didn't cry. I thought that I might, but I was strong. Jason came home early from work so we all went and picked her up. And she couldn't stop talking about how much fun she had. She said that she made a new friend, Dylan, just like her cousin. And they got to play on the playground twice! And she played with play dough and sang some fun songs and got to roll a ball around to her classmates and they told each other their names. She was so excited! But pretty tired. She crashed at about 7:30. So her first day of school was a big hit..... for her anyway. I think it's going to take me awhile to get use to.
Here she is ready to go. She picked out her outfit herself....the night before. She would have picked different shoes (her favorite flip flops) but they have to wear close toed shoes.

More cute pics before and at Kindergarten. If you didn't notice, the bow didn't make it very long in her hair.

What the boys did to pass the time. It was very nice and quiet!

I did it! Woo hoo!

Happy Birthday Jason!

Or I should say happy birthday yesterday. Jason turned 31 yesterday and he was so excited. Yeah right! More like depressed. After he turned 30 last year he doesn't look forward to his birthdays anymore. I don't know why. He looks great for 31. Since he was feeling a little down, I thought it would be fun to surprise him. So I went down to his work around 12:30 and kidnapped him for the rest of the day. And he was totally surprised. He had no idea! I called the secretary at his work and told her to keep him there and she did a great job. She told him that the worker's comp guy had to come back to talk with him so Jason had to stick around. He told me he was getting mad because he wanted to leave for lunch. It was pretty funny. I took him to lunch and then we went and saw the new Batman movie. After the movie I took him to the mall so he could get some new basketball shoes and he didn't get any. The little stinker! He said he'd rather wait when the newer ones came out then the older ones would be cheaper. I guess he had a good point. So he just browsed through them and picked out some he liked. After shoe browsing, we went and picked up the kids. My good friend Amber watched them for me. My kids love to go to her house and play with her kids. They always have such a good time over there. Thanks Amber. I owe you. After picking up the kids we headed back to our house for cake and ice cream. I made him a Fire Engine Red Cake with German chocolate frosting (I think it's his grandma's recipe) and it was a success. Jason attempted to make one for my b-day and the frosting didn't turn out. But this time around it worked and the cake tasted really good. Very tasty! Anyway, we had a great day and I'm glad I got to spend some quality time with my husband. We don't do that very often, so thanks again Amber. Happy Birthday Jason! Thanks for all you do for me and the kids. You're a great husband and a wonderful dad. We love you so much!
Here's some pictures from his birthday.
Jason at lunch. He loves that I take so many pictures.

Picking up the kids from Amber's. They were all having fun chasing Jason around the house and hanging on to his legs.

Getting ready to open presents. Dax couldn't wait any longer.

I feel so bad. I didn't have any candles on hand so we had to use a match.

The yummy fire engine red cake!

Logan stats!

Logan had his one year check up last Monday. He weighs in at just over 20 lbs and is 29 1/2 inches tall. He has come down quite a bit in the weight department. He was in the 95 percentile when he was a few months old and now he's only in the 15 percentile. But he's still very healthy and doing well and so full of life.

Some of his favorite things right now:

The Beanbag. He loves any kind of bean bag. We have a baseball bean bag and he loves to walk over to it and just throw himself down on it and lay there. It's so funny! He'll do it with pillows too.

Trucks/Cars. He loves to take all of Daxon's trucks/cars and push them around on the floor. And he even makes little noises while he does it. His favorite is Daxon's spiderman 4-wheeler.

His toothbrush. He loves this thing. It's crazy! He goes to the bathroom and points to the mirror and makes his grunting noise. And he does it all day long. He loves to carry it with him everywhere.

Playing basketball. Dax has a little hoop and ball and the other day I looked over at Logan and he was picking up the ball and putting it into the hoop. And then he would clap for himself. He kept doing it over and over again. He loves it! And Jason loves that he loves it.

The little 4-wheeler. We got this thing for Afton when she was about Logan's age. And all of the kids have really liked it. Logan likes to climb all over it and his brother and sister like to take him for rides on it around the living room. It could entertain him for hours.

He also really likes making noises and he loves his tongue. It's constantly hanging out of his mouth, and he's always licking his lips, and pulling on it. And he already loves to tease his daddy. When Jason is watching tv or playing on the wii, Logan will walk over to the tv and turn it off and then look back at Jason and smile. Jason tells him "No", but that doesn't stop him.

Utah--the flight home!

Finally! I think that I'm done posting Utah pictures. I can't believe that I had so many. I need to stop taking so many pictures. I guess I'm addicted to my new camera. Me and the kids flew back to California on the 16th of July. And I was very nervous for this flight because this was my first time flying with all three kids by myself. I thought that it was going to be crazy, but it actually went really well. Other than our flight was delayed an hour. Poor Dax! He wanted so badly to get on our plane. Every 5 minutes or so he would ask me if our plane was there. And when I would tell him no, he would start to cry and say, "I want my plane. I want to fly on my plane." And then he would cry for Jason. "I want my daddy." And when the plane finally did arrive, he got so excited. I knew he would like the plane, but he thought it was so cool. He loved sitting in his seat and looking out the window. He loved the takeoff and the landing. I'm so glad that he liked it because this helped keep him entertained. Afton and Logan did really great on the plane too. I was very blessed that day.

A typical Dax picture in the bottom right corner. Love it!

Forgotten 4th of July pics

I can't believe I forgot to post these pics of our 4th of July. Well, we actually didn't really celebrate it until the 5th because of the wedding. After we went 4-wheeling down at the cabin we came back to Kari's house for some pizza and fireworks. The kids had a great time watching the fireworks and they were really excited for the sparklers. And of course they were super crazy that night too.
Dylen, Afton and Dax watching the fireworks.




And on the 4th of July, Afton got to go the Stadium of Fire with her G-ma Sharon. She was so excited because Miley Cyrus was performing. Afton is a huge Hannah Montana fan. I can't believe how popular she is. It's crazy! Her aunt Kari, Uncle Ben, Kya, and Kristina were also there.