Tub Time and Trains

The last day in June was a very busy day for us! First I decided that my dirty boys needed a bath. They were being so silly that I had to take some pictures of them with their hair all soaped up.

Notice that Ephraim did not seem to want to have his picture taken.

I only got one or two pictures of him where he isn't sticking his tongue out at me! Silly boy!

After we got all cleaned up, Jacob went to the Miller's house for preschool. Ephraim and I picked Jacob up a bit early because we were headed to Orem. One of my coworkers from the UVU Library was retiring, so I took the boys to her reception. It was fun to see all my friends and show them how big the boys are now. We also got to see Daddy. He stopped by the reception and got a bite to eat as well.

We had a fun time in Orem but before long we had to go home for naptime. On our way home I spotted a parked train with graffiti on it, so I had to stop and take some pictures. Then I noticed the pretty purple thistles in front of the train. As I went to take a picture of the thistles an enormous bumblebee put himself in my photo.  Great job, bee!

Popsicles because the Pool is too Cool

I guess you can tell from my posts recently that the boys spend a lot of time in their swimming suits! At least they are having fun, right?

We spent the evening outside playing in the pool again. The wind kicked up a bit and the boys decided it was a bit chilly. So the boys got out of the water and sat on our porch swing in our towels.

I thought the two of them were so cute sitting there, so of course I took some photos of my cute blonde boys.

Of course since they were too cold to be in the water, the boys wanted to eat popsicles. I know, the logic of it all is beyond me too! Sillies!

So we got some of the yummy fruit Popsicles from our big freezer.

This time it was Daddy that took pictures of the boys with their Popsicles and towels. Ephraim picked grape and Jacob picked strawberry-yum!

I even sat on the swing with the boys and ate my popsicle. Of course Joe had to take a picture of all of us. In case you can't tell, I just got my hair cut short for the summer. This is how it looks when I just let it dry curly.

Joe likes it better curly, but I think I like it better straight. I'll have to post another picture of my hair when it is straight later.

So what do you think? Is my tongue orange? Is Ephraim's tongue purple? How about Jacob's? Actually, we weren't checking out our tongues... we were just sticking them out at Daddy! :o)

My Tricycle Boys

This evening the boys were playing outside in the water and on their bikes.

The boys love to ride their trikes! Ephraim has finally figured out how to pedal, and they love to ride around our driveway and sidewalks. They have figured out that Jacob's trike has a platform on the back so they can try to give each other rides.

Jacob likes to pretend that he is the bus. So Ephraim will go over to the Webster's steps and wait for Jacob to come pick him up. Then Jacob gives Ephraim a ride back over to our driveway. It is so cute!

Of course sometimes Jacob pretends that he is going to give Ephraim a ride and then pedals away just before Ephraim can get on. What a character! So we have been trying to help him understand that riding away like that is not very nice!

In general they play pretty nicely together. Ephraim tries to give Jacob a ride, but he can't always get the trike going. Especially when they are on the grass!

So Jacob has to lend a hand. What a great helper!

I am so glad that Jacob and Ephraim are getting to be good friends. They are good brothers and I love them so!

Markered Up and Bubble Cups

Apparently the new rule is that Mommy can't take a shower unless Ephraim is asleep or otherwise stuck in his room. After aerobics today I hopped in the shower so we could get ready to go to storytime at the library.

When I got out of the shower Jacob came and told me, "Mommy! Ephraim colored on the table with a pen from the drawer!"

Oh no!

I ran out to see what had happened. Ephraim didn't just color of the coffee table with a pen, he got a permanent marker out of the kitchen drawer and used that.

Needless to say, Mommy was NOT happy about that. I think Ephraim could tell that he was in trouble. He kept making this face so much that I just had to take a picture of him.

Doesn't he do a great job of sticking out that bottom lip? It is Ephraim's specialty!

Luckily I managed to look online and find out that you can get permanent marker off wood using toothpaste (that's what's on top of the marker in the picture above). So I cleaned the marker off and saved the coffee table (phew!).

We managed to make it to the library, which was a good thing because I needed a break at that point. The boys had fun listening to the stories, and got to make some fun bubble cups at the end. Check these out!

Don't they look like fun? They were so easy to make and the boys LOVED them.

We are having a great time at the library this summer. The boys love to go and I get to talk with my friend Karyn, which is fun for me too!

Park Hopping

This morning we went to the park to play with Melinda and her girls. We got there a little while before they did but that's ok... there are plenty of things to do in the park, right?

You would think the boys would just go play on the play equipment or run around on the grass... but oh, no! Jacob and Ephraim found something to do that they thought was tons of fun. I was not so sure about that!

Geronimo!

The surprising thing for me was that Jacob jumped first. He is not usually my daredevil boy. I didn't know whether to be proud of him, or freak out about it. So I did the most natural thing... I got out my camera.

Nailed the landing!

Monkey see, monkey do, right? So of course Ephraim had to give it a try as well!

Look out below!

Naturally Ephraim didn't have the sense to wait until Jonah was out of the way, but luckily there were no collisions.

Jump, jump!

I asked the boys to stop before too long because I am a wet blanket (and a safety conscious mom). I really didn't want to end up at the hospital with any broken arms or legs!

What is it with boys and the need to climb up on everything and them leap off? Sheesh!

The boys had a great time with Melinda's girls at Evergreen park. We love to go there because the kids like to play on the play equipment and there is also a field for thems to run around in. They like to run to the top of the big hill and roll or run down.

Go kids, go! I thought it was cute how Jacob and Laura were fast and got so far ahead of Ephraim and Sara, but the little kids kept on going.

Jacob is my little runner. He LOVES to run. He got everyone to run up the hill with him a couple of times, but he was ready to keep going when everyone else was tired of running.

Melinda and I had a great time chatting and playing with Eliza. Occasionally we had to run over to the swings to give some little people a push or two.

I love how well our kids get along when they are playing it makes it easy for us to have fun at the park too. Here is a picture I caught of the kids all sitting on the play equipment.

What a bunch of cuties!

While at the park the kids also collected pine cones for us. So we started stacking them up. We ended up with quite the pile!

I love spending summer days at the park! It is so much fun. Especially when you have such cute company.

Sleepy Boys and Tub Posers

We had another busy Saturday. Jacob seemed overly tired, so I talked him into laying down on his bed for "20 minutes". Sure enough, he fell asleep.

When I came back to check on him I thought he looked so cute.

He must have been out cold for me to be able to get this close and snap pictures. My camera isn't loud, but it definitely has a shutter sound. I love this next picture because you can see how LONG Jacob's eyelashes are.

Gorgeous, right? The kind of eyelashes every girl dreams of having. Ephraim's eyelashes are just as long, if not longer. I really do have some handsome boys!

I love how peaceful the boys look when they are asleep.

After a busy Saturday, inevitably the boys are dirty. So to get ready for Sunday we try to take our bath in the evening. Something about being in the bathtub makes my boys turn into such posers! I can't get a smile other times, but they are always ready to cheese it up in the tub!

Ephraim is such a cutie! I just love those dimples!

Here he is, just kicking back in the tub!

More often that not I end up bathing the boys separately because they are getting so big. Here is a cute picture of Jacob in the tub. I am sure one day he will be embarrassed by pictures like this, but I think he is adorable!

Just look at that sweet smile! What a cute boy.

I don't know why he smiles so easily in the tub. Maybe I'll get lucky and this will transfer to our next family photo session.

Since I caught Ephraim with his feet up, I decided to try to take one of Jacob like that too. For some reason he thought that was absolutely hilarious.

What a silly pair of boys I have. It's fun to watch them play in the tub. I love their wrinkled little fingers and toes when they get out. I love how good they smell. Now if only it wasn't so much work, maybe I would bathe them every single day!

Huck Finn Day

As part of Strawberry Days for the past few years we have gone to Huck Finn Day. The crowds are usually a bit crazy, so we get there as soon as it starts. This year I got there just before 9 a.m. and still ended up parking out on the street instead of in the parking lot at the park. So we walked across the street and immediately got in line to ride the ponies.

It was crazy to me how many people were already waiting before the ponies even got there! We only waited about 1/2 hour or so, and both the boys got to take a ride.

Even more insane was how long the line was by the time we finished! The next thing Jacob wanted to do was head for the bounce houses. Ephraim and Jacob had a great time climbing up...

and sliding down! I wasn't sure if Ephraim would be able to climb up by himself, but I should have known that he would do just fine. He is a climber, after all!

I finally convinced Jacob to go down on his rear end instead of on his tummy! So fun!

Next we went to the bounce house, since we already had our shoes off. The boys had a great time jumping around in there and laughing!

I had to bribe them with the donut walk to get them out of the bounce house!

By the time we finished these activities the lines for all the other kiddie games (like tic tac toe, ring toss, face painting, etc) were INSANELY long. So we headed down to the water.

The boys had fun walking around, looking for fish in the pond created especially for this occasion.

They both got a little wet of course, but I was excited that this year no one fell in!

We headed back up the hill and I asked Jacob if he wanted to wait in line for some more games or just go home. I was pleasantly surprised when he said that we could go home. Wahoo! We did manage to score a couple of prizes and candy, but I sure didn't want to wait in line for a few more hours.

I am glad we got there early so the boys had a good time.

Strawberry Days Carnival

Strawberry Days started this week. It is a pretty big deal for the city of Pleasant Grove. They have contests, concerts, parades and a rodeo. There is even a carnival with rides and booths in the middle of town. As we drove by this week I could see my boys' eyes get big and full of excitement.

The whole atmosphere reminded me of my childhood growing up in Wyoming. Every summer we waited and waited for the county fair. It was so fun to go on the rides, see who got suckered into playing the carnival games, and check out all the food booths.

Can't you just smell the popcorn and cotton candy?

As soon as they saw the carnival, my boys begged me to go on the rides. They were so excited that I just couldn't say no.

So Wednesday night when the carnival started I drove down and picked up my set number of tickets. That way when we went the next day I would only have so many tickets for the boys to use.

It also gave me a chance to take some fun pictures while the carnival wasn't crowded (and while I wasn't herding around two excited little boys!).

So Thursday we went to the carnival after story time at the library. I even managed to turn our adventure into a lesson of sorts. Jacob really wanted to ride on the Ferris Wheel, but it cost 4 tickets each. I told him that if we went on the Ferris Wheel then we would only have enough tickets to go on one other ride. So he could go on four different rides or just go on the Ferris Wheel and one other ride.

It didn't take him too long to figure out what he wanted to do.

First Jacob and Ephraim rode on the Jeeps. They thought it was fun to "drive" their cars around the track. Next they decided that rather than go on the Merry-go-round with the horses, they would go on the one that had race cars on it.

Check out the boys in their hot rod!

They also rode on a little train, and then they picked a ride where the animal cars went up and down. They ended up on a dragon and thought it was great!

Look, Mommy! We're flying!

Four is definitely better than two... so the boys got to enjoy their four rides instead of going on the Ferris Wheel. What a smart boy Jacob is!

When we got home we had some Creamies to cool down. Luckily I decided to take off Ephraim's shirt because I knew he would get messy.

When I turned around a minute later he had his shorts off too! I guess it's just as well that he did. What a cute, messy boy!