Summer at the Splash Pad

While looking for fun things to do this summer, I came upon a list of all the splash pads in Utah. Since they are free I figured it was worth checking them out.

Thursday I thought we were going to go to story time at the library, but when we got there we found out that there was no story time because we missed the opening party that was held earlier in the week. Drat! The boys were so disappointed!

So after lunch we headed out to the Highland City splash pad.

Looks like fun, huh?
We were probably there at the busiest time of the day, so there were plenty of other kids for the boys to play with. They had so much fun!

It was a little harder to convince Amelia that she wanted to get near the fountains of water spraying out of the ground. So instead I took her to the "river" area.

She started out by just getting her feet wet. Before long she was all wet. Then she decided she could go check out the splash pad after all.

It was so fun to watch her touch the water to see what it would do.

Some of the water spouts were short and some were tall. She mostly stayed towards the outer ring of the splash pad where the spouts were a little shorter and sprayed less. But she sure had fun playing in the water!

Jacob and Ephraim had a blast! They ran around together and checked in with me now and then. That way I could watch Amelia and help her out.

The boys loved playing on the splash pad and playing on the rocks in the river.

We stayed at the splash pad for nearly two hours and the boys did not get tired of it. They were sad when it was time to leave.

There is another splash pad in Alpine that we will have to check out. I have a feeling we may be visiting one of these locations once a week or so this summer!

Next week we start swimming lessons, which should be fun. I may even do a Mom and tot class with Amelia for one of the sessions. I think she would really like it, even if I don't really want to get in my swimsuit every day for two weeks!

Cherries and Children

So I think I forgot to mention that over the weekend we picked a TON of cherries from the cherry tree in our back yard. We have lived in our house for nearly 7 years and this is the first time that we have ever really had enough cherries to consider it a "harvest".

The funny thing is that since I was little I have NOT liked cherries. I had a bad food experience and swore them off. Since we had so many cherries I decided to give them a try again. Guess what? I like cherries.

At least I like the ones on our tree. They are somewhat tart, which I like. So I found some recipes online and made a cherry crumble. It turned out pretty well. This weekend am planning on a cherry cobber- yum!

This morning the boys got out the dress-ups and were playing construction worker and mailman. They were cute and my camera was handy- so you get pictures!

Of course Amelia wanted to try on the hats.

She makes a pretty cute construction worker, don't you think? (even if she is sawing my coffee table!)

Here is Jacob, the Lego-Darth Vader Mailman.

We are so glad that Grandma Devereaux finds us all these fun clothes to dress up in! We have a blast playing with them.

Utah Lake is Yucky.

I have a friend who regularly posts beautiful pictures of her children playing on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. It always looks so enticing with the sand and sun... just like going to the beach! So I thought it would be fun to take the kids down to Utah Lake and play in the water.

Turns out this was not such a good idea after all. The water at the edge of the lake was murky, and muddy. The boys kept getting their flip flops stuck. So they tried to take them off. They told me the lake bottom was all slimy and gross- yuck! Plus there was all sorts of sticks and debris

Poor Miss Amelia fell on her bum, and I had to rinse her off in the lake water. She was NOT happy about that. In the end, the boys probably played in the water for less than 5 minutes.

Then we gave up and decided to go to Sonic and get ice cream cones instead. On the drive home the van smelled all swampy and gross. So we had ice cream cones and then baths! Oh what fun.

Looks like we will have to find our water fun elsewhere this summer.

Picnic with Daddy and the Ducks

Today we went to Orem and had lunch with Daddy. Hooray!

I decided that it would be fun to go have lunch with Joe once a week at a park near the school. So as long as he is not busy, we are going to enjoy lunch together once a week all summer. The kids will love it, and so will I!

Today on our way to pick up Daddy, I had to stop and take a picture of this cool rainbow cloud. Isn't it pretty? I thought it was pretty cool since it wasn't raining or anything!

Miss Amelia got all dressed up for her lunch date with Daddy. Isn't she adorable?

Unlike me, Joe can actually get her to smile at him while he takes pictures. I guess she just likes her Daddy!

As you can see from the picture above, the park we went to has a nice pond, which was full of ducks. They were actually waddling around all over the place. We even spotted some cute ducklings!

We had a fun time watching the ducks and feeding them some extra bread.

When it was almost time to go, the boys spotted the fountain. So we let them run over there. For some reason, I really like this picture of the boys staring at the fountain.

Soon we had to take Daddy back to work. We are looking forward to our lunch date next week!

In the afternoon the kids played in the sandbox. It was fun to watch the three of them in there together.

Sometimes the boys don't want Amelia to play with them because she tends to wreck their game/toys. But they seem to do alright in the sandbox.

Jacob and Ephraim absolutely adore their baby sister. I guess I will have to try to find something fun they can all play together this summer.

Devereaux Kiddos

I have been absolutely DYING to get new family pictures taken. Our photo shoot got cancelled due to bad weather over Memorial Day weekend, so now I have to wait until the end of the month to get our pictures taken.

I decided that in the meantime I could try to see if I could get any decent pictures of the kids myself. So I took them to the amphitheater by the temple and took some pictures.

I got some decent ones. I especially like some of the pictures I got of the boys. They are easy to take pictures of. You just sit and talk to them until you get a picture that you like. The hardest part was Amelia. She is working on molars, so she has been a bit cranky. Plus whenever I have my camera out, she refuses to look at me! The little stinker.

Here are some of my favorites:

Isn't Jacob handsome? I can't believe he is already 6.

Ephraim is actually pretty easy to photograph now. I just talk to him and tease him and get out his infectious smile.

This is my favorite picture of Jacob. Probably because he was actually relaxed when I took the picture. Jacob tends to try to hard to give me a nice smile, so I end up with forced-looking smiles. This one is a bit more natural.

Plus I like the line of the railing in the picture (and yes, I was straddling the railing to get that picture!). These two of Ephraim are nice too.

Photographing the three kids together was a whole other story. When I try to get the kids to "act natural", this is about what I get:

Nice. Jacob has uber-cheese face, Amelia is sticking out her tongue, and Ephraim is giving me the tight-lipped smile. Great!

I did manage to get one nice picture that did not need to be edited a ton. I just wish I had changed the f-stop on my camera to be a little higher. When you blow the picture up, you see that Ephraim is not quite in focus.

Ah well, I will probably get this one printed anyway.

This next one is not too bad. You can't even really tell which kid's face comes from another picture.

I like the pictures with the greenery better than the rocks. But here are my favorite "rock" pictures.

This is the best one of this pose. I sure wish I could have gotten Amelia to smile at me though!

Instead she looks confused... "Mommy, why are you doing that? I know you are trying to be funny, but I just think you are weird."

Not too bad. I guess the best part is that we can try again in a week or so and see if I get any that I like better. What do you think of their clothes? I have the black and red shirt in Ephraim's size, but I wasn't sure if that would make the boys too "matchy".

Of course I tried for a cute shot from Amelia, and this is the best I got.

She sure is a cutie, even if she doesn't love having her picture taken.

I love this little dress (thanks, Melinda!). I think next time I will see what it looks like with a white undershirt. After all, I have all summer to torture my children by practicing my picture-taking skills on them! (don't feel too bad, they got ice cream out of the deal).

Silly Amelia

Oh Amelia!

How I love you, silly girl.

It is funny to me just how much you LOVE accessories. Every morning when I get you dressed, the thing that you want to put on the most is SHOES! You wear shoes all day, every day. When I put you down for naps, of course I take off your shoes. When I get you out of bed after your naps, the first thing you want is to put on your shoes. What a silly.

We also discovered recently that you like hats. If I put a sunbonnet on you, chances are you will actually leave it on. If you find a hat laying around, you will put it right on your head. Even if sometimes you can't quite figure out how to get it off.

While we were at Aunt Jeanette's house for Little Red Riding Hood, you discovered some more wonderful girly accessories- necklaces!

Aunt Jeanette was kind enough to send some home with us, and you love to wear them. As many as you can get your hands on! Guess I should pick up a couple more for you.

Sometimes the combination of accessories you choose really gets me laughing. You are such a cutie pie!

Oh how different little girls are from little boys! I am so glad that you joined our family to add a little bit of style to our house.

Little Red 2012

Hooray! I finished my first 100 mile bike ride of the year! Little Red Riding Hood is the name of the ride, and it was held over the weekend in Logan, UT. Can you believe that about 3000 ladies showed up for the ride?

It is a popular cycling event, and I was lucky to get in. I have done this ride twice in the past, but this is the first time I had friends to ride with. Melanie and Andrea both did 100 miles with me. Hooray!

There we are, looking fresh and excited at the beginning of the ride.Of course I had to wear my Little Red jersey from my first century a few years ago.

We had a great ride! One of the reasons the ride is so popular is that the course is awesome! It is very scenic and does not have a ton of hills. It was supposed to be in the upper 80s Saturday, so we were pleasantly surprised to have a cloudy morning. So instead of worrying about the heat, we had on our arm warmers!

I loved having friends to ride and chat with this time! I also enjoyed having Joe along as our SAG vehicle and personal photographer. He is the one who took all of these nice photos.

The first 50 miles went pretty smoothly and were making good time. We skipped the second rest stop, and were going so fast that I missed seeing the kids when Joe tried to bring them out to find me! The rest stops were well stocked and had fun, friendly volunteers and were having a great time. Then we stopped for lunch, which tasted pretty darn good after working so hard. My only complaint was the line to use the bathroom.

Seriously, with 3000 women doing a bike ride, you think they would realize we need MORE bathrooms!

It was nice to take a lunch break and get to sit and stretch for a minute. It was also nice to see Joe and hang out with him for a minute. Here is a picture of the three of us at lunchtime. We still look pretty good, don't you think?

After lunch we hit the road again.The sun came out, and for a while it was pretty hot outside! The heat got to me a little bit, but we were all still doing pretty well. These are my favorite pictures of the day, thanks Honey!

It really was a scenic and fun ride!

There were so many women out riding that we were constantly riding past and with other riders. You can kind of tell that in this picture:



There was a nice, friendly atmosphere, and I talked to quite a few other cyclists. We actually picked up a fourth rider for most of the ride, just because she didn't have anyone to ride with.

The hardest part of doing a century ride is after you hit mile 70 or so. By then we were pretty worn out, and quitting is pretty tempting. But we persevered and luckily the sun went back behind the clouds. That helped a lot. It also helped to have my hubby along the course and at the rest stops, cheering me on.

We finished a little later in the day than we wanted to, but we made pretty good time on the bike. We finished the 100 miles in under 6 hours of riding time. Pretty darn good! I can tell you that by the end of the ride I had sweat so much that I had salt crusted into my hair. Yuck!

What a great ride. I am so proud of us. We did it! I can't wait to sign up for next year's ride! In the meantime, I guess I need to find some other rides to do this summer.

Amelia the Monkey

Guess what Amelia has figured out how to do?

The other morning Ephraim told me that Amelia was on his bed. What?! He told me that he showed her how to climb up on the bottom bunk in the boys room. Oh brother!