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.

Friends from Far Away

Last week, friends of ours from St. Louis were in town visiting family and were able to squeeze us into their schedule. This is Grace's best friend, Kenley. We lived down the street from the Broadbents in St. Louis for just a few months but it was long enough for Grace and Kenley to hit it off. They "write" each other letters and have talked on the phone a time or two. Even though the day was HOT, the kids had a blast and no one got sunburned.
Kenley has the best mom, Tera. I knew Tera for only a few months before we moved to Utah but she went out of her way to make me feel welcome and loved. Quick Tera story.
Our moving day in St. Louis was horrendous but would have been totally undoable without Tera. She watched my three kids with her three kids ALL DAY. That's six kids ages 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and an infant. I didn't even had to ask. Tera offered. I think I've thanked Tera a thousand times for all her help but thank you again. You, literally, saved us that day.
We were thrilled to hear the Broadbents will be visiting Utah again this fall. We are counting the weeks until then.

Pickle juice, pickle juice, pickle juice

A few days ago I was making tuna for lunch. Ella and Grace LOVE tuna and Joseph literally will not allow it to touch his tongue.

Anyway, Grace wanted to try the pickle juice so I gave Grace and Joe each some in a small cup. THEY LOVED IT! They drank pickle juice, little sips at a time, for the next ten minutes.

All pickles are not created equal. These are some serious good pickles. Just in case you want to buy the best pickles at the grocery store then buy Nalley's Garden Dill chips. YUM-O!

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.

Thinking of you, Moses

Ella was out of sorts this morning. Grace was going to a "Pink" birthday party and Ella was not. Very traumatic when you're five, apparently. So I suggested that she help me dress Joseph just to get her to
quit sulking.

This is the outfit she chose. Right down to the matching orange flip flops. Joe's only boy cousin, Moses, LOVES orange. So I thought of Moses several times today as my little man trotted around looking like a tangerine.


Joseph would have nothing to do with standing still for a picture so I did what any great mom would do, I bribed him with candy. This picture is of Joe chewing a mouthful of Rolo.



Once the girls saw the camera they needed pictures taken too. Miss Grace in her craft friendly pink birthday party outfit with the pink wand she crafted at the party.

And my 15 year old, I mean five year old, Ella in her rockin' American Idol dress ups. I can tell by the way she walks and acts in that outfit that she is feeling the Idol of it all. What a funny girl.














p.s. I'm having trouble placing the photos where I want them within the post. Any suggestions? And can I delete a picture once I've added it? If so, how?
This is why this lovely little post took me an hour. Uhhh!

Yeah and BOO

Yeah, I figured out how to post and yes, everyone was right. It is super easy. I also figured out how to add pics to the post but apparently our cool new hp computer can't handle it. Or is it the Vista? Boo for both. When I click "Done" the Windows Explorer restarts. Thankfully service came with our purchase. That'll have to wait for another day, hopefully tomorrow.

So here I go!

Here I've been stewing about blogging for months now and finally, officially named a blog about two weeks ago and now I'm finally posting to it. I have to remember to take baby steps and not expect my blog to be oh so gorgeous like others who have been blogging for much longer. So before I type some long and terribly important post I'm going to play with this and if I lose it I won't be too frustrated. Wish me luck!