Father's Day

The best thing I have ever done for my children, is choosing Paul to be their dad. Easily the best decision of my life.

 He is the kind of dad who learns the words to JoJo songs and finds the one store where he can buy JoJo ice cream because his daughter is obsessed with her right now.

He's the kind of dad who makes practicing soccer both helpful and super fun.

He's the kind of dad who his kids simply want to be around because they always feel good about themselves and smile when they are.

He's the kind of dad who will repeatedly and patiently wait out a gust of wind for 15 minutes because his daughter really wants to fly a kite.

He's the kind of dad who reads entire chapter books with his kids.

He's the kind of dad who learns how to decorate cakes that he knows his son will not eat, just to make a dog cake for his birthday.

He's the kind of dad who teaches his children to work hard, be someone others can rely on, always do their best, and to learn and grow from failure.

He's the kind of dad who plays with his children.

Essentially, he's the kind of dad who can change the world, one generation at a time. We love love love him!!!

Paul slept in Sunday morning, and then we had the sacrament and did family night. After that, we gave him his Father's Day presents. The All About My Dad pages were great. It was very clear that the kids know they are loved by him.

We got him a few new and different things he can use for grilling.

I also got him a mug from The Office. :)

He got to relax during the afternoon, and then he grilled up some steak and chicken for tacos.

We all enjoyed celebrating Paul and the wonderful man and father he chooses to be.

Summer Week 3

We had a Ham Fam dinner on Sunday to celebrate Al and Keith's birthdays and Father's Day for Grandpa Ham. The cousins had a great time playing basketball, jumping on the trampoline, playing games with Kyle and Paige, and they all played hands up stands up together. I love how well all the cousins get along. They have so much fun together. The adults got a lot of time to visit and relax.

Kyle and Paige did funny faces, but Damon and Hallee apparently didn't get the memo. :)

On Monday I cleaned our windows and screens. The kids didn't want to help, until Rockwell saw that he could spray stuff with the hose. Then he wanted to help. :) It really was helpful to have him spray everything for me.

Tessa and Damon made faces at us out the window. Luckily I cleaned the inside of the windows after the outside, because I had to wipe off handprints and smooshed face prints after this. :)

Damon has been doing Upstart preschool online, and completed that this week. His graduation materials were mailed to us. He is thrilled to be finished with that!

Ray Loosle was so impressed with their lawn after Rockwell and Paul mowed it. He said that it has never looked better, and asked if he could hire Rockwell to mow it a couple times a month. Rockwell is thrilled!! We talked with him about the reason Ray wanted to hire him and pay him a generous amount to do it. If he had done a sloppy job on it last week, Ray would not have asked him to continue doing it. But because he made sure to do his best and not cut any corners, he earned himself his first paying job.

We know that Rockwell still needs more practice before he takes on lawns on his own, so Paul helped him again this week. Rockwell did all the mowing, and Paul did the edging. This will be an awesome opportunity for Rockwell to learn what he needs to learn in order to be able to start a lawn care business like he wants to in the future.

We were outside riding bikes one day, and Maddy Best came over with a book for each of the kids. Every time we're outside when she gets home, the kids run over there and visit with her. She said she bought some books for her nieces and nephews, and wanted to get one for our kids too. It was so thoughtful of her! Tessa sat down and read them all. 

Paul had a bunch of real estate appointments one day this week. One of them was with Daniel and Mallory. They had made cotton candy for their son's birthday party, and brought some for Paul to take home for our kids. They loved that!

Tessa was playing with this bunny one day and wanted me to take a bunch of pictures of it.

She wanted this one to look like she was floating in the hot tub. :)

She sure loves every one of her stuffed animals!

Hallee and Wyatt came over to play on Friday.

When I went downstairs to check on the girls they were cleaning the downstairs bathroom. They said it was so much fun and they want to do it again next time they play. I sent Al a picture and told her I promise I didn't make her daughter clean my bathrooms, she wanted to! :) Rockwell was sure glad they had done it so he didn't have to for his chores Saturday morning.

Summer Week 2

It got pretty chilly the beginning of this week, so as soon as the kids were in bed Sunday night, Paul and I made some pina coladas and got in the hot tub. 

I took Damon to his appointment with Dr Machen Monday morning. They cut his cast off and took some x-rays. 

Luckily they covered up his pin with a cloth during the x-rays and waiting for the results, because it was gross-looking! I think Damon would have freaked out if he had seen that sticking out of his arm. The bone is looking good, but still needs some more time to heal. They took the pin out and then put another cast on for 3 more weeks. They told Damon that it feels like pressure having the pin taken out, but he definitely felt pain. Poor little thing. :(  He is excited to have a smaller cast on now, and be able to straighten his elbow.

Mel and Amarie were over at Al's house that day, so after Damon's appointment the kids and I went over to hang out with everyone. Tessa and Hallee found a butterfly that couldn't fly, and so they were trying to help it. They set it down to see if it could fly away, and then a big gust of wind came and blew the butterfly right off the deck. Luckily they found it again, and said that it did fly away on its own after a couple minutes. They were happy about that.

Tessa, Damon, and I were playing lawn darts one day while Paul and Rockwell were practicing soccer. They each had such great game faces. :)

Lyle Loosle got married this weekend, and so Roxanne was really busy with family in town and the wedding. Paul and Rockwell mowed her lawn so she didn't have to worry about that. 

Her yard is so big, and they did an amazing job on it, and so it took the whole morning. It's a great yard for Rockwell to get practice on, with how wide open it is. He wants to start a little yard care business when he's a little older and more practiced.

He stuck with it from start to finish, and learned a lot. He's such a stud!

I went to The Scarlet Pimpernel at the Scera Outdoor Theatre with Al, Mel, Caitlyn, Amarie, and Ataiya on Thursday night. We were all so excited to see a play again, and do a fun activity together. Even though they measured all the chairs with a 6-foot pool noodle to make sure everyone was social distancing, it still felt like a normal event. :) The play was awesome, and the weather was beautiful. It was a fun night!

Tessa wanted a bird feeder for the backyard, so we made one out of a milk carton. Sadly we haven't seen any birds using it yet, but hopefully one day.

Leatherby's opened in Orem, and so we went to lunch there on Saturday. We're all so excited to have one so close to us. It's definitely a family favorite.

Rockwell's root beer float was so big that he had to be creative in how he went about eating it. :)

Damon and Tessa both loved their play dough ice cream.

And I quite enjoyed my Traci's Peanut Butter Cup. 

It seemed pretty windy that afternoon, so Paul and Tessa flew our kite. It wasn't consistent wind, so there was a lot of waiting. But the few times that the wind did carry the kite, it was sure exciting!

Summer Week 1

Now that we're finished with the online school year, I'm going to start calling my posts Summer Weeks instead of Quarantine Weeks. Utah is in the yellow phase where we can have gatherings of up to 50 people. We're strongly encouraged to wear masks in public and continue to social distance. At this point, I'm pretty okay with the way things are. I have always preferred strangers not to be close to me in public. :) And I feel comfortable getting together with family and close friends. I feel like things will feel weird out in public for quite a while still, but I'm just so glad to be able to be around family and friends again. It has been really nice for all of us!
We went to Elijah's graduation party Sunday evening.

I printed out a few Schrute Bucks and put them in the card we gave him. It took him a second to realize what they were, but got a good laugh when he did. :) I love that we can quote The Office with him and he always gets it.



I took Rockwell and Tessa swimming at Katie's again on Monday. Al and Audrey went too, and it was another great afternoon. I took so many pictures the last time we went, and I only took one this time. It's a cute one though. :)


Our new trampoline pad came this week, and Paul and Tessa got that put on. Then they fixed the nails and screws that we discovered were sticking out right next to the tramp. We feel like it's a little safer for jumping now.

I'll still be nervous about the kids jumping on it. It's so hard seeing what can happen if there's a bad bounce, but also seeing how much fun they have on it. I figure we all jumped without injury for 5 years before Damon's broken wrist, so hopefully we'll be okay for a long time again.




Audrey showed me some adorable pictures she did of her kids with sidewalk chalk drawings, and so I copied her. :)



It was cloudy when we started but the sun came out right in time for pictures, so it was bright in their eyes. I still think they're so cute though! Rockwell had the idea to put them all in one picture with the balloons. It cracks me up.


Tessa wanted to add clouds, the sun, and the sky onto the balloon scene after I took the pictures. Sadly we ran out of blue before we could color it all in though.



I really needed to get out of the house by the end of the week, so Rockwell, Tessa, and I hiked to the poppy fields in Alpine Friday morning. It is beautiful up there!



The kids did have a hard time with how many bees were flying around and in the poppies. You can see a couple of the bees in the picture below.

It's a very kid-friendly hike, so I'm sure we'll go again next year. But we'll go a week or two earlier, because I could tell that a lot of them had already bloomed and fallen off. It was a really fun morning with Rock and Tess though.


Paul hung up Tessa's red swing, and she is loving it.