Playing Catch Up: Holidays and Summer Outings Edition

The last post was getting super long, so I'm gonna put all the holidays/outings we've been doing in this post, in pictures with captions form again. We aren't doing an actual family vacation this summer, so we've decided to try to get to some of the places around here that we've been wanting to see. We're calling it our staycation summer.

First, Father's day! We made Adrian a big candy card with some gift cards thrown in. I also made him real bbq ribs and his favorite pasta salad for dinner.

The kids and I took a trip to the US Mint in Denver and it was pretty cool! Very neat to see all the coins being made and to hear some of the history from the tour guides.

Ben and I had a date to the late night premiere of Man of Steel. Can you tell he was pretty excited to see it?!

We went to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs on the 4th of July. It is a GREAT small zoo. The giraffes are right there at eye level. Very neat - they are really pretty animals! Nina got to ride a horse for the first time. I posed with the kids in front of the bears. Clara fell asleep in the Baby Bjorn for a nice afternoon nap. All of us had a great time. It really is a very charming zoo in a beautiful location. I think we'll go back again.

Of course since we were in Colorado Springs we had to stop at our favorite BBQ place for dinner, Rudy's. Yum! Just thinking about it makes me crave some Rudy's brisket! Clara could not get enough of that corn on the cob.

Happy kids on the evening of the 4th. We finished off the day by watching A Capitol Fourth on TV since all fireworks were banned in our part of CO. The kids had fun hearing Adrian and I sing along to Neil Diamond (he sang on A Capitol Fourth).

I taught a little art class for Nina and some of her friends. We did pointillism paintings (though most of the girls gave up on making little dots with q-tips and decided to just paint with brushes) and Roy Lichtenstein-esque self portraits using dotted paper and primary color papers. I think the favorite part of the whole thing was decorating sugar cookies at the end (Ben snuck into the group for the cookies). It was totally fun and reminded me of the days I was a volunteer art teacher at elementary schools (my senior year in high school).

Playing Catch Up: The Last 3 1/2 Months

I can't believe it's already summer and that in just a few weeks the older kids will be back in school. Where has the time gone? We have been keeping busy! I'm not really prepared to sit and write all about the last 3 1/2 months, so I'm just going to catch up through pictures. That's funner anyway.:)

Speaking of sweet Clara baby, in May, at 7 months, she was blessed in church. Adrian gave her a beautiful blessing. It was a very special day. Doesn't she look like a little angel in her white dress?!

Would you believe that Ben and Nina had to wear jackets on the last day of school?? Crazy. This is the last day of 3rd and 1st grade for these two and Sophie had her last day in middle school. I can't believe in a few short weeks I'm going to have a high schooler (she'll be in 9th grade)! 

Nina had a dance recital. She took both ballet and tap this last year and the recital was very cute. I think her favorite thing, which she told everyone about, was getting a medal from her dance studio after the recital. She was tickled pink about it. I really think she likens it to an Olympic medal.:) This summer she's been doing swimming lessons and has been to 2 little mini poms clinics taught by a sweet teenager in our ward. She loves poms!! She'll be taking ballet and poms lessons this fall.

Here's a couple of Clara at 8 months! She is a sweet girl and this is the month that she got 2 little teeth on the bottom. She really loved sitting and playing with her toys. Every morning she would sit on a blanket and play with toys for quite a while. She still loves her morning play time though she's a lot more mobile now.

Ben had been playing lots of soccer since last time I posted as well as doing swimming lessons. He has decided soccer is his sport and he loves playing goalie. In the swimming lesson pic he is in the right bottom corner and Nina is in the middle with the pink suit. They have both been going to a private swim school with small class sizes and they've been doing great this summer.

Here's some pictures of Sophie this summer. She is much harder to get pictures of. She has been known to quickly leave whenever I get out the camera. This summer Sophie has been doing archery (how I wish I had a picture of her with a bow - she loves archery!) as well as lots of church youth activities like youth conference, hikes, and soon girls camp. I am so grateful for the Young Women program and all the fun things Sophie gets to do with the youth in our ward. It's a wonderful thing. Have I mentioned what an amazing big sister she is?? She is always willing to play with Clara, read Nina stories, and have chats with Ben about books (they both love graphic novels).

And here's some of Clara at 9 months. Oh my cute smoochy baby! Clara is crawling now, a mixture of real crawling and army crawling and it makes her incredibly happy to be more mobile. She has just long enough hair to do a tiny pony tail on top, otherwise her hair sticks straight up. She has pretty awesome hair! She also loves real food. I cut up little pieces of what every we are eating for her now and she loves it. The picture below is her eating macaroni and cheese which has got to be her favorite food so far (I try to give her healthier food most of the time, but we do have Kraft mac and cheese every once in a while for lunch). She doesn't really enjoy picking up slimy food like pieces of banana, she'd rather have me put pieces of banana directly into her mouth, but she makes an exception for slimy mac and cheese. The most wonderful thing this month is that Clara has started sleeping through the night. She will still wake up sometime around 6am for a bottle, but then she is back to sleep till 7 or 8. It's lovely. And she takes regular morning and afternoon naps. Lots of good sleep = happy baby. Yay!

As part of Clara's new mobility we made our den into a playroom. One long trip to Ikea, and some man hours later we had this:

Our happy new playroom. The kids love it. They all love to sit and play with Clara and the baby toys. It's awesome to have a dedicated space for all the toys too. Of course toys end up all over the house, but at the end of the day everything gets put away and I feel at peace in my toy free family room. The older kids have their dedicated game-playing/older-kid-toys zone in the basement - it's not finished but we've put some rugs down, set up couches, a TV, and it's all very cozy. Big shout out to Adrian for his hours of putting together the Ikea flat pack furniture! This is by far Clara's favorite part of the new play room, an improvised ball pit:

Up next: Playing Catch Up Holiday and Summer Outings Edition

Last week was a special time for our family. We traveled to Utah for Clara's adoption finalization and temple sealing. It was a fast trip full of memories and celebration. Many of our extended family in Utah was able to come to the finalization and it was so great to have their support. My brother in law David took some great pictures!

On Friday, Clara was sealed to us in the temple. It was a very special and very spiritual experience for our family.  I am so very grateful for Clara and each member of our eternal family. We are so glad that we were able to share the experience with family and friends. My friend Cami (she is an awesome photographer!) took the beautiful pictures outside the temple. It had been cold, windy, and rainy all morning, but right before we went outside to take pictures it got warmer and sunny. So lovely. After the sealing we had a get together with our family to celebrate. My sister-in-law Dore made a Hawaiian feast of kalua pork, shoyu chicken, and miso salmon. Oh my it was delicious. It was so great to spend time with our family. It was a wonderful day in every way.

Adrian's Birthday, Easter, and 6 Month Old Clara

Happy Easter!! We've had a pretty busy and fun filled weekend. Adrian had a birthday, we had fun Easter Saturday times with Easter baskets, egg hunts, and then a lovely Easter Sunday with new Easter outfits, church, and a yummy Easter feast. Whew. How do you cram all that in 1 weekend along with a soccer game, guys game night, and datenight for Adrian and I? I'm not sure, but it happened and it was fun. And Clara turned 6 months old too!