Hot Summer Days

I found myself in a nearly rotten mood this morning so instead of staying home and wallowing in it we got out of the house. I took the kids to one of the water features downtown for some cooling off. Ella got soaked to the bone, Grace refused to get in all together and it took Joe a good 20 minutes to get used to the idea of getting wet. Everyone was happy in the end.

Grace looks a thousand times cute in my sunglasses, wouldn't you say? No outing is complete without fruit snacks. I don't keep them visible around the house b/c when I do the kids ask for them CONSTANTLY. I save them for fun outings like this one.

And in case you're wondering, I've tried every fruit snack on the shelf and the Wal-mart smiley face ones are the best, hands down. In the purple box, not the tropical ones.

When Joseph finally decided he liked the water he had a blast. Apparently he's thirsty and the bottled water I brought is boring. Adam will die when he sees I let Joe "drink" the water. I actually have pictures of all my kids "drinking" the water but since Joe thought of it I used him.

Near the water feature is a stage where, while we were there, a dancing/singing group of teen something girls was having a recital. Ella was mesmerized (sorry, no cute pics). We stayed and listened to some really awful singing and embarassing dancing for 30 long minutes. Ella talked about the pretty singing and beautiful dancing all the way home. She is just dying to take a dance class. I want to settle into full day first grade then see how the schedule looks. You never know, you all may be able to say, "I knew her when. . . . "

Pioneer Day

In case you live outside Utah and don't know, today is Pioneer Day. The entire Hutchinson family was off work except for Adam. The NYSE, NASDAQ etc don't recognize Pioneer Day. Blasphemy!

We had the family over to our place for Pioneer Day brunch. It was fabulous. We, then, headed out to the pool to enjoy the warm weather.

Above: Joseph thinks splashing is just so fun. It is, unless your face is right where his feet are. Joe loves the pool. He mostly loves throwing every rock in site into the pool but at least he's happy. Good thing Ella LOVES to dive for rocks.
Just this week Grace has started jumping into the pool without us having to "catch" her. She is finally getting totally comfortable with the pool. Thank heaven!

(Does this child look like a Boston or what?)

Ella is our resident mermaid, not fish, mermaid! Here she is showing Grandma that she can dunk herself over and over and over. She got to 40 this time. I would pass out but she loves it. I love having help at the pool. Its usually just me with the three kids and there is nothing relaxing about it. I actually got to swim a bit then relax is the warm sun today. It was a good day all around.

Floats, Floats and more floats

Monday at the Southtowne Expo Center there was a "Preview Party" for the 24th of July parade floats. Since I will not be venturing out to take my kids to the parade alone (Adam is working) we went with the fam to the preview party. The girls had tons of fun and, oddly enough, Joe was content to stay in the stroller, the WHOLE TIME. Amazing!
Above: Some float displays even had extras as part of their display. I don't remember the float this sand play thing went with but Ella and Grace loved digging. Look closely, there are little plastic bugs in the sand to dig for. Loved it!
Look at all these Hutchinson men. Adam's dad, Steve, hanging out with Adam and Joseph while the girls played in the sand.
Loved this "Preview Party" especially b/c there was face painting and clowns making balloon figures for FREE. For just the cost of tips we got two faces painted and three balloon figures. The girls and cousins all got butterflies and flowers. Couldn't have guessed that one! Notice that Joe is already chewing on his little blue dog.
And before too long the little blue dog was no more. Joe wasn't at all concerned that he popped the dog but freaked out when Adam took the dead balloon from him. Sorry little man, no eating balloons. We are such mean parents.
After the party we all went to grandma and grandpa's house for rootbeer floats and to let the kids play with cousins. (not a single good pic of the after party at grandma's house, sorry). The kids got disgustingly dirty riding bikes, jumping on the trampoline and playing hide-n-seek. They loved every minute of it!

The Great Bike Adventure!

Getting all our kids onto bikes has been a fiasco. Its a very long story the spans two years, two moves, three sets of training wheels, two tire repair kits and countless trips to many, many stores. Let me just say it has been frustrating. But HALLELUJAH they are finally all on bikes!

Adam has been so good to assemble bikes, put on training wheels and fix flats. Hopefully this will be the last "fix" of the summer. Notice the line of chairs, blankets and pillows off to the left. Everyone was "watching" daddy fix Grace's bike. Who knew flat tire repair was a spectator sport?
Miss Grace on her purple bike with her new training wheels. She ended up getting super frustrated saying, "It keeps stopping."
Joseph wanted to go but didn't want me to touch him or his "bi". Since he can't pedal it yet he ended up screaming ALOT.
Ella has finally gotten the hang of it. I'm thinking we'll be able to take off her training wheels by the end of the summer. She's loving it and I am too.

Then

I forgot the "Then" pictures. We last took the girls to Wheeler Farm in April 2006. I was pregnant with Joseph, Ella was 3 1/2 and Grace was 1 1/2. I can hardly believe that my big, grown up girls were this small and look at those baby faces. Oh, my sweet girls!

Wheeler Farm Now and Then

Yesterday we took the kids to Wheeler Farm. It was a really nice day out and the last day of Adam's long weekend. I love that he works four 10 hour shifts. I thought they'd like seeing the farm animals. Not so much! Joe called the cow a "goggy" and was semi-interested in this horse but that was it.
We had a picnic lunch then let the girls play in the creek. Here is Adam helping Joseph not fall into the little creek. It was cold and he would have hated it. Believe me. I know from recent experience. Joe does not like cold water on this feet or anywhere else. I love this picture of my boys!

Snow in July

We took the kids up to Silver Lake yesterday. Its up Big Cottonwood Canyon at the Brighton Ski Resort. Its a super easy and kid friendly "hike" around the lake.

The kids were REALLY excited to find a big patch of snow that hasn't melted yet. Ella and Grace were so pleased with themselves that they were sneeky enough to peg Adam with a few snowballs.

The scenary around the lake was beatiful. I miss all the green of home but this will do for now. I'm continually amazed at how blue the sky is here. Adam has been making an effort to take more of the pictures when we are out. He got some of me with the kids from the front but not any I'm willing to share. I love this one best. It reminds me that my kids are at such cute and fun ages. They frustrate the fire out of me sometimes but they are also my greatest joy.
I LOVE being up in the mountains. They are a wonderful escape from the dust, people, noise and traffic of the valley.

We are taking the kids camping this weekend. Adam and I are more excited than the kids.

I am looking forward to spending a couple of days in these gorgeous mountains with the people I love most and have the most fun with. I'll take loads for pictures.

Weekend Trip to the Homer Cabin

This past weekend we went to the Homer family cabin in Woodland (near Kamas). We always have a wonderful time there with family. We were the first to arrive. Adam got the fire started, Joseph played in the dirt, Grace did her own Grace thing (which is usually a ridiculously cute game of make believe) and Ella talked on the phone to my dad, Pappaw. Everyone did what they love to do! Everyone else arrived shortly after. We got settled, cooked our foil dinners and then made smores. Looks like a happy bunch to me.
Gracie's foil dinner sat nearly untouched but she sure loved the smores. Who wants carrots and potatoes when there are marshmallows and chocolate?
We put the four older girl to bed all together in the king size bed so the adults could have a game night. Ella and Grace were excited for Uncle Randy to tell stories. They are seriously into bedtime stories. Notice three of the four are sleeping in big shirts. Not because we forgot to bring pajamas but because its the cool thing to sleep in a "cabin shirt".
The next morning after breakfast Randy took some of the kids fishing in a nearby pond then we played on the golf cars. Randy sells golf cars for Intermountain Golf Car. If anyone wants a golf car anything, Randy is your guy. Randy always brings a car or two to family outings and they are always a huge hit.

Stephanie, Abigail and Grace were loving it.

Then it was off to the creek to cool off. This is all run off water so it is COLD. Ella got brave enough to stick her bum in but that was it. Ella was wearing her Disney Princess shirt but it is way too special to get wet in the creek so off it came.
This is as close as Joe would get. He sat and threw rocks into the creek for the longest time while Grandpa kept a watchful eye on him. Joseph isn't much for shirts lately. If I say anything about water or swimming to him, the shirt and shoes come off immediately. I have managed to get him to keep his pants on. That's something. Right?
Here is the manliest, man of all. Adam was the first to get "all the way" into the the cold water. He loves it. I think I'll have this picture blown up and framed for our home.
We had, and always have, such a fun time at the Homer cabin. Thank you Homers everywhere for sharing with us. We were only there 24 hours but our kids will talk about that 24 hours for weeks to come.

I've got about a million more pics from this weekend. I'll see if I can figure out how to make a slide show and put them all on. But that will have to wait for tomorrow.

Feeling beautiful

As promised, here are a little better pictures of the girls' face paintings. Grace's got smudged, of course, before I could get a really good face shot.
You can't see Isabelle's painting but it is of a red and black spider, totally not shocking for Isabelle. Why get a butterfly or a flower when you can get a spider? Duh!

I did, however, got a great picture of Ella's butterfly.
You could just tell Ella thought she looked beautiful with it on. Every little girl, and big girl too, should feel beautiful as often as possible.

Radio Disney Party at the Gallivan Center

Thank you, Grandma Vickie, for suggesting we go to the Radio Disney Party at the Gallivan Center today. Everyone minus the working men went and we had a HOT time. The kids were thrilled from start to finish.

We rode TRAX downtown which is always a treat for the older girls. Thankfully I had extra hands to keep everyone sitting down and to listen to all the excited chatter.

This is Aunt Stephanie, Adam's youngest sister, with Ella and cousins Abby (Steph's lap) and Isabelle (peeking from behind).

We love that Stephanie is out of school and wants to hang out with us during her time off school and work. Thanks Aunt Stephie!

We got there just before everything opened so we got a great place in line for face painting. Ella chose a butterfly and Grace chose a flower. They both look so ridiculously cute. (I'll post better pics of the face art soon.) Joseph won't even think about sitting still long enough for a face painting. Oh well, the snake one would have been so cute.
Next we were off to the Moon Bounce. Then to make some "slime". What kid doesn't love slime? If you look closely you'll see that Joe is DONE with the crowds and being herded by this time.



So Ella and Grace stayed with Angie and her two older girls to play some games while I took Joe out to run. There was a field set up with sprinklers and a real fire truck spraying the kids (gently) with a fire hose. Joe spend most of the time moving the sprinklers around.
What a funny boy!



Finally the girls had also had enough of the crowds and the sun. We found a shady spot to eat our lunch and let the kids run around.
For once, I remembered to have someone take a picture of me with my kidlets.

Thank you aunts and Grandma for all the extra hands and help it takes to take three small children into such a huge crowd and still have fun.

Happy Birthday America

Happy America's Birthday to all and to all a good night!

The plan today was to totally exhaust my kids so they would go to bed on time and sleep soundly.

Back-fired!

Ella and now Grace, call the 4th of July "America's Birthday" and all the fun stuff we do is a big birthday party for America. Close enough! We started the day with the parade in Provo. Much to the dismay of my girls, there wasn't much candy throwing. What good is a parade without having candy thrown at you? Heidi shared one of her suckers with Joe.

Notice the drool just ready to drop from his chin. Teething rocks!

The whole Hutch bunch made it;

that's ten adults and seven children.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to get family backlash for posting this picture.

Love y'all!

After the parade was over, the menfolk went to get the cars while the women and children gathered everything up and waited and waited. (traffic)

I soon found Joe sitting comfortably in the dirt digging with a stick.

Shocker!
When he tired of that he began throwing the dirt.

Another shocker!

We planned lunch after the parade. Emily and Sean so kindly reserved us a "multipurpose building" at Wymount for lunch. It was air conditioned and Provo was nearly 100 degrees.
A few days ago I bought a little propane grill to go on our tiny patio. I've been craving grilled corn-on-the-cob something terrible.
I had no idea how much assembly those things require. This is my husband, Adam, trying not to be totally annoyed at me for not assembling it while he was at work. Thank you for putting to all together.
And not to worry, we moved the grill outside before we lit it and grilled some seriously tasty burgers.



So to explain the total backfire comment above; we did such a great job of exhausting our kids, they fell asleep in the car driving home from Provo. So, all three took a 30 minute nap in the late afternoon.
Not good for a 7 -8 pm bedtime. So I decided to take the kids swimming to wear them out.

They swam for 1 1/2 hours and weren't showing the slightest signs of tiring. We came home anyway, ate dinner, took baths and they are still not tired. I should insist they go to bed but they are all playing so nicely I hate to interrupt them.

I hope y'all had a wonderful "America's Birthday". I'm off to put my kids to bed.